#only the first half is this interesting though the rest is a lot about how it became capitalist which is less fun to me

[iscariotapologist]

[rafeandonlyrafe]

bruised knees

words: 2.1k

warnings: mentions of blowjobs, losing virginity, virgin!reader (but fic is not smut), jealous! and overprotective!rafe, childhood friends to lovers, fluffy

rafe has been beyond overprotective of you his whole life. ever since you met in first grade and you let him borrow your brand new crayon box, only for a bully to come up and tug on your pigtails, causing rafe to pause his coloring to shove him away and tell him not to touch you ever again.

you smiled at rafe, the same smile you look at him with now, and he knew he would take care of you no matter what. you hugged him tightly and from that day on always shared your crayons, and everything else you had, with your new best friend.

“ready?” rafe slings his arm around your shoulder, pulling you towards the boat.

“yes!” you squeal, trying to navigate holding your tote bag and backpack at once, when suddenly both are out of your hands as rafe takes them and carries them down the pier.

“rafe, i can carry my own stuff.” you roll your eyes. it's a losing battle, your best friend will always lessen your load, hating seeing you do any sort of physical labor, feeling like that's his job.

“yeah, whatever.” rafe just ignores your argument, it's one he's heard so many times before, yet you make no attempt to take the bags back. “who all did you invite again?” rafe asks as you enter onto the boat, quickly beginning preparations for the day at sea, having gone through the motions so many times, knowing the boat like the back of your hand even though it's the cameron familys.

“uhh, topper, tina, kelce, steph, tiffy and hayden.” you go through the list of names in your head of friends that will be joining you and rafe on the yacht.

“how is tiffy since the break up?” rafe asks, knowing you like to talk while you work, pulling various lines while you straighten up the boat to make it more presentable, going through the motions together, always together.

rafes question launches you into a gossip session with rafe, spilling all the secrets your friends told you at your last hang out, but they know you don't keep anything from rafe, so it's no surprise when he knows as well, not that any of the girls would complain, rafe often takes over the role of protector to your friends as well, caring about who you care about.

“there's hayden!” you call to rafe, pointing down the dock to the parking lot where haydens truck just pulled in, a few minutes earlier than you expected anyone to start arriving.

“great.” rafe mumbles under his breath, making sure you don't hear his upset tone. he liked hayden at first, sharing some common interests (mostly golf), but then hayden got far too touchy with you, his gaze heating when it turned to you in a way that infuriated rafe, and he made sure to show hayden when you weren't around how much it pissed him off.

rafe is probably to credit for you never having a boyfriend for an extended period of time, but he can't help it, you're so perfect and no guy can possibly deserve you, so he has to scare them off before you get too invested and give them all of your attention instead of him.

“hey, heyds.” you greet him with a hug after he makes his way down the pier, making rafe grunts as haydens hand rests a little too low on your back for his liking, making rafes mind reel at the possibility of something going on between the two of you.

your other friends slowly begin to pile onto the boat, steph being the last one to get there as she is notorious for being late, which is why you told her to show up half an hour before everyone else, and somehow still managed to get there last.

“ready for takeoff?” you ask rafe, stepping away to join him at the wheel while your group of friends find places to sit while rafe navigates the boat towards the ocean.

“i am.” rafe nods, having disconnected the last line. no matter what is happening, you always sit next to rafe on the bench as he directs the boat, ready to be his second in command at any moment, even if its just fetching him a drink or checking the water depth.

“i can’t wait to swim.” you say with a sigh, having not gotten out into the water all week, which is rare with how much peace you find in the ocean.

“how about that one sandbar we took wheezie to?” rafe questions, wanting you to decide where he anchors the boat.

“ooh, yes.” you nod.

“she complained to me last night that you weren’t over.” rafe smiles at you when you let out a laugh.

“i don’t spend one friday night and she complains! ugh, i love that girl.” you grin thinking about wheezie, treating her like she’s your own little sister, having known her since she was born.

“you’ll stay tonight, right?” rafe asks, missing you sharing his bed like you do every weekend. 

“mhm, i’m not driving home after being out on the boat all day, gonna be so exhausted.” you roll your eyes.

rafe smiles at you, wrapping one arm around his shoulder, leaving him to drive with one hand, but wanting you close to him, secretly hoping hayden would look through the windows from the lower deck and see you all cuddled up into his side.

neither of you have ever broached the topic of taking things beyond just friendship, despite rafe desperately wanting to take things further, he doesn’t want to mess up the one good thing he has in his life. you’re such a source of brightness that when you’re around him he forgets all about his fights with his dad, or issues with barry.

“here.” rafe nods to you, immediately going to drop the anchor, planning to stay in one spot all day.

you help him make sure its secure before moving to the main deck with everyone else. “alright, who is ready to swim?” you shout with glee.

“you know i am.” hayden smirks at you, pulling his shirt off over his head.

“mhm, that’s why i like you, not afraid to get wet.” you say, rafe carefully watching the interaction, unsure if you meant the innuendo or not.

you take your tshirt off as well, tossing it onto the pile that everyone is making on the sofa, revealing swimsuits underneath their clothes. rafe also undresses, but slowly and quietly.

you tug your yoga pants down next, having kicked your shoes off upon entering the boat. you turn towards rafe, always checking in with him, seeking him out amongst the crowd.

rafe smiles at you, his eyes dropping subtly down your body, quickly checking out your pale lilac swimsuit before he sees a different shade of purple, this time blossoming around your knees.

hayden seems to notice too, a smirk growing on his face when he sees the localized bruises.

“what the fuck did you do?” rafe grunts out before he can stop himself and use the calming methods you so carefully taught him.

“what?” hayden turns to look at rafe, but he’s already charging at him. rafe shoves hayden backwards, making him stumble but he manages to maintain his footing.

“rafe, chill!” you shout, grabbing at his arm.

“did he-did you fucking blow him?” rafe questions, pointing to your knees. “how did you get those bruises?” “jesus, rafe!” you take a step back, but don’t drop your grip on his arm, not sure if he would try to pull away. “you seriously ask me that in front of all our friends? for your information i was working out in the garden yesterday and bruised my knees kneeling on the pavers. but thanks for embarrassing me.”

you drop his arm when you feel tears welling in your eyes, quickly turning and sprinting into the interior of the boat.

you throw yourself onto the bed in one of the two bedrooms, hiding your face in the white pillow as you cry. 

“y/n…” rafe says softly. you don’t jump at his voice, you expected him to follow you, but you don’t feel like talking to him.

“please, y/n.” rafe pleads, and you feel his weight dip the bed down as he climbs onto the mattress.

“stop it.” you whine when rafe pulls you into him, but you don’t struggle as he cuddles into you, pressing a kiss against your hair. you’ve cuddled rafe before, of course since you’ve been friends for so long, but never with this little clothing on, and you are very aware of how much of his bare skin is touching yours.

“i didn’t mean to embarrass you, y/n. i just… i just got so angry thinking about you possibly doing anything with hayden. i don’t like him. he’s not good enough for you.”

“why would you even think i would do that though? you know im a virgin.”

the words shock rafe, and you can physically feel him tense up. you pick up your head to look at him, brows furrowed together.

“i-i didn’t know that.” rafe just assumed you lost it to one of your short term boyfriends.

“no… no i would have told you, rafey. you’re my best friend, i… you told me when you lost yours.” you remind rafe of when he was 16 years old and had sex for the first time, calling you only an hour after to confide in you, partly hoping you would get jealous.

“i thought you knew that i wouldn’t want to hear about you sleeping with someone. i guess i just figured you kept it to yourself for my sake.” rafe doesn’t realize the implication of his words as they flow from between his lips.

“why would i?- wait… you like me?” you blink up at him.

rafe pauses. now is as good as time as any, especially with the growing threat of hayden and other guys who aren’t scared of rafe potentially taking you away from him. “yes. i love you. i think i’ve loved you since first grade.” “holy shit, you asshole!” you shout, and it’s not the reaction rafe was expecting as he tenses, waiting for you to run off, or get mad, but instead your shout turns into a laugh, “i can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner!” and then your lips are on his, finally feeling the perfect meld of your mouths together as rafe quickly snaps into action, his lips moving against yours as he cups your face.

“i love you too, in case it wasn’t obvious.” you whisper against his mouth before resuming the kiss.

“thank fuck, i was ready to murder hayden just because i thought you liked him.” rafe laughs, tugging on your waist to bring your bodies even closer together, leaving his large hand resting against your bare back.

“pshht.” you shake your head. “he’s not even half the man you are.” 

“holy shit, i love you.” rafe repeats, taking you in for another kiss.

“my friends are never gonna believe that we finally got together.” you giggle. “i think they’ve all placed bets.”

“your friends?” rafe shakes his head. “baby, i think even our parents have.”

“i… i’m really happy we admitted are feelings.” you say shyly, a blush covering your cheeks as you look down, breaking eye contact. “everyone told me that you liked me too but i was too nervous to ruin what we had.”

“hey, it’s okay.” rafe says softly. “we have forever this way.”

you feel tears well up in your eyes again as you wrap your arms around rafe, pressing your head into his bare chest.

“gosh, i can’t wait to go tell everyone.” you admit with a giggle.

“yeah? wanna go get in the water too?” rafe asks, unsure if your friends waiting for your argument to be over to swim.

“hell yeah.” you slide off the bed, rafe taking a minute to check out your body, not hiding his heated gaze as you catch him.

“holy shit, you are checking me out!” 

“duh, you’re my girl now.” rafe smirks, also getting off the bed, placing an arm around your shoulder. “gonna give you bruised knees for a different reason, baby.”

“wait, rafe-” you begin, suddenly not feeling like swimming anymore, but he pulls you out onto the deck, seeing all your friends sitting awkwardly on the sofas, waiting for whatever argument to be over with.

“don’t worry baby.” rafe drops his mouth to your ear, making sure your friends can’t hear. “we can talk about that virginity of yours later.” rafe doesn’t give you a second to respond, placing his fingers on your chin and tilting your head towards him to press a kiss to your lips to the chorus of all of your friends letting out woops and claps, along with shouts of “finally!”

“i told you!” tiffy shouts, holding her hand out towards stephanie. “you owe me 20 bucks!”

taglist: @winterrrnight @bejeweledreverie @drewstarkeyslut @forstarkey @f4ll-for-you @dilvcv @drudyslut @jjmaybankswifes-blog @rafescokenostril @jjsmarijuana @jjmaybankisbae @seeingstarks @angelofcigs @cece45450 @babygorewhore @vanessa-rafesgirl @michelleisheres-blog @outerbankspov @drewstarkeyswifehoe @cutielando @kamninaries @buckyswhxre @rafeinterlude @bellbottombaby @deeaardiary @rubixgsworld @emma77645 @wearemadeofstardust0 @leighbronk @starkeysheart

[wileys-russo]

https://www.tumblr.com/wileys-russo/753695268809162752/its-giving-alba-and-fresa?source=share

could we pleaseeee get a litle fic about this 😭

the void masterlist

the roadtrip (before the void blurb) II a.putellas

if there was anything your mami was a sucker for, it was family traditions, especially after your papi passed away, believing they would make the four of you closer together.

so every boxing day when you were all exhausted and still bloated full of copious amounts of food you'd pile into the car together and drive six hours to your tio's house to spend a couple of days before you'd return to barcelona for new years.

the drive had always been, interesting, to say the least with the four of you cooped up in a car together for so many hours and as little breaks or stops as eli could manage.

alexia and alba had both begged to take a plane, offering to even pay for the tickets which would shorten the trip to only fifty five minutes and give the luxury of being able to stretch your legs and use the bathroom at will.

but though they'd asked for years, they'd been shot down each time with a firm shake of the head and a warning look from eli when they tried to argue their point further, giving up with defeated groans and going back to packing.

you however loved the journey, you loved the view, the snacks, the talking, story telling. but as your sisters grew up they became less interested in these things and more in their headphones, naps or books which left you normally bored and restless since eli had to focus on the road.

you always sat in the back, on the right behind eli while alexia always rode up front, alba sat behind her begrudgingly as every year she'd lose the battle for the coveted front seat.

"maybe next year hermana." alexia would smirk after easily yanking alba out of the seat she'd just camped out in for a half hour before you were due to leave in hopes this might clench it for her, eli dismissing the argument with a wave of her hand.

the first few hours were normally civil, with everyone in a halfway decent mood still riding out the high of the holidays there was lots to discuss, mostly whatever scraps of family drama and gossip alba managed to find out as she moved from seat to seat around the table during christmas dinner.

then you'd all stop briefly, just to use the bathroom and be bribed with snacks at a rest stop.

"aquí pequeña." alexia mumbled with a mouthful of food, tossing you whatever candy or snack you'd requested, often a couple of extra than you'd normally be allowed which you knew well enough to hide before eli got back to the car as your eldest sister gave you a wink and motioned to zip her lips before she did her seat belt back up.

though after the rest stop was usually when the cracks started to show.

"oh for me? gracias fres!" alba gasped sarcastically, swiping the packet of sweets from your hand as you frowned and reached for them back, held off easily with her hand against your forehead.

"give it!" you huffed, only seven years old so regrettably with arms not long enough to snatch back whatever snack the seventeen year old had snaked from you.

"what? you don't know how to share with your hermana?" your sister teased, tipping half the packet into her mouth as you gasped and pushed harder against her hand much to her amusement. "you didn't ask!" you fiddled around with your own seat belt before it finally clicked undone.

letting out a cry you lunged at her, scratching and clawing, alexia having tuned you both out cluelessly with her earphones shoved in and sunglasses dropped over her eyes.

"give it!" you grunted, stood up on the seats and trying your best to get the much taller girl into a choke hold. "just take it then." alba grinned, still easily holding them out of your reach as you jumped on top of her right as eli slid inside.

"oye! basta ya!" the older woman warned, reaching over to smack both of you on the leg right as you sunk your teeth into alba's hand and she yelled, shoving you back into your seat as your back thumped into the door.

"don't push her!" alexia finally decided to pull one of her earphones out as alba kicked her seat, her own head whipping around as she leaned over to punch your other older sister in the thigh.

"all of you! stop!" eli yelled right as alba leaned forward to retaliate and your leg shot out to kick into her ribs, causing her to drop your candy which you scrambled to snatch back, groaning when most of it had now been eaten or dropped on the floor.

"mami she bit me!" "mami she took my candy!" "then she punched me!" "mami she pushed the baby!" "i am not a baby!" "you are too!"

after a stern warning and another disagreement between your sisters about taking turns in the front seat, alexia winning out with the 'i'm older, taller and i need the leg room' argument, you were back on the road and all in a significantly worse mood.

"fresa if a single part of you crosses this line, i will snap it in half." alba warned drawing an invisible line through the middle of the seat in between you as both you and alexia rolled your eyes in sync.

"alba." eli sighed tiredly with a shake of her head, your sister ignoring the warning and crossing her arms, looking out the window as your mami just turned up the radio to try and drown you all out.

of course though with nothing to do but think, it didn't take you long to come up with a loop hole.

for christmas you'd been gifted a clever hand made wooden puzzle from your albuelo, it was linked together with elastics and could be manipulated into almost any shape without breaking or coming apart.

to everyones surprise it was your favourite thing you'd gotten all day, spending the entire afternoon messing about with it, so naturally eli had packed it for you to amuse yourself with on the journey.

grabbing the puzzle out of your bag with a few moves you'd managed to make it into a straight line, around thirty or so centimeters long with all of the pieces locked together like that.

you glanced to the side and smiled noticing alba's eyes had closed as she rested her head on her hand, leaning against the window clearly dozing off. so with the puzzle in hand you crossed the line, poking her a few times with it and quickly pulling it back as her hand tried to snatch it.

"fresa if you touch me again, you die." alba mumbled, eyes still closed as her nostrils flared and your smile widened, waiting a few minutes until she settled again.

*poke, poke, poke*

"what did i say!" your sister shot upright, eyes snapping open as again you yanked the puzzle just out of her grip. "not to cross the line with any part of me or you'll snap it." you parroted.

"sí. so give me your hand i'm gonna break it!" alba growled as you shook your head. "no. my hand didn't cross the line, this did!" you grinned wiggling your puzzle happily.

"well if that crosses the line one more time...its going out the window." your sister warned quietly with a glare before settling herself again.

but of course, growing bored again after a few minutes you didn't listen.

*poke poke poke*

this time you were quick to pull the puzzle away and drop it to the floor where your sister couldn't reach, and without it to follow through on her threat alba hit you instead.

"no no no i'm sorry i'm sorry!" she whispered frantically seeing the tears well up in your eyes and your bottom lip start to wobble. "no no pequeña don't cry!" alba practically begged but by then it was too late as you audibly sobbed first capturing alexia's attention and then eli's.

"fres? nena what's wrong?" alexia turned around right away with a frown, reaching her hand out toward you as you linked your fingers with hers. "alba hit me! it really hurt." you sniffled wiping your nose with your free hand as alexia's eyes flickered to alba whose were wide in fear.

"ale i-" "i am going to kill you."

"alexia!" eli sighed as your eldest sister dropped your hand and lunged, alba curling up into a ball as best she could to avoid the hands lashing out at her as your mami did her best to tug alexia back into her seat.

"stop it! all three of you sit still, no talking, no touching, no moving. dios mío you are giving me a headache and we are barely halfway there!" eli raised her voice silencing all of you as alexia reluctantly settled but not before sending alba another deathly glare of warning and sneaking you a chocolate bar as your eyes lit up.

though as alba caught your gaze to apologize again her own eyes widened as you smiled smugly, tear tracks dried on your face as you happily munched away on your snack and your sisters features hardened and she shook her head.

"diablillo."

around the four hour mark you'd grown bored again, and so had alexia whose music was failing to entertain her anymore as her arm snuck back and tapped your knee.

catching your gaze in the reflection she made a gesture and your face lit up knowing exactly what it meant, another favorite way to pass the time during these trips.

"alba." you kicked her lightly as she hummed and rubbed her eyes, awoken from a nap as she raised an eyebrow in your direction. you began to make gagging noises as she suddenly woke right up and clutched her stomach.

"stop, right now." your sister warned through gritted teeth, alexia catching your eye with a grin and an encouraging nod as you fake retched louder and began to gag.

"stop or i swear-" alba started to warn but as you made a particularly realistic retching noise her face paled and she covered her mouth and blocked her nose, shaking her head.

"fresa." eli warned seriously catching onto what was happening but it was too late as you gagged again and alba cracked. "mami por favor pull over. pull over!" the girl could barely get the words out as eli swore under her breath and quickly pulled to the side, stopping the car.

right as the car stopped moving your sisters door was open and she was rushing to the nature strip, emptying the contents of her stomach as both you and alexia tried to hide your laughter behind your hands.

"they do this every time! voy a mataros a los dos." alba grunted out before alexia gagged this time and she was doubled over again as the pair of you made no move to hide your laughter.

"why are such a bad influence on your hermana? grow up ale!" your eldest sister whined as eli's hand slapped against the back of her head with a loud smack.

"get in the back ya mismo, alba gets the front." eli pointed as alexia sighed but didn't argue, wincing again as eli's hand collected with her back as she did, mumbling under her breath about making it there in time for lunch.

"one more argument and the three of you can sleep in the backyard in a tent, together."

much paler than normal but seemingly steady again alba dragged herself into the front seat as alexia clipped in and patted the middle seat right beside her, both of you ignoring the death threats muttered under the breath of your middle sister.

"vamos fresita, nap time." alexia wrapped an arm around you as you settled into the middle seat and leaned into her, shaking your head.

"i'm not tired." you mumbled, but your sisters fingers threading through your hair and scratching at your scalp had the words sounding much less sure than you'd intended, eyes already starting to close, and within a couple of minutes you were out like a light.

[fabled-fiction]

Maybe a Hobie Brown x Mabel-Pines-Type!Reader? Older obviously, with just like, her personality and fashion sense? A Chaotic Sunshine meets Chaotic Rebel type thing.

If not interested, just ignore. But I look forward to whatever you write!

Starstruck (Hobie Brown x Fem!Sunshine!Reader)

Summary: You’re Jess Drew’s gal in the chair (in training), and when you have to make a quick trip the spider society you happen to catch a certain punk’s eye.

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: MINOR SPIDERMAN ACROSS THE SPIDERVERSE SPOILERS, use of (Y/N)

A/N: I hope this meets your expectations!! I had alot of fun writing this!

EARTH-1618

KINGS, NEW YORK CITY

Your desk was more glitter than wood at this point.

It was hard to tell where the stickers stopped and where the wood of your desk started.

Especially now, as you squeezed glue on top of whatever artpiece you were currently working on. An array of different paint tubes and what looked like glitter bombs were spread about your work area, dangerously close to what looked like very expensive monitors and pcs. Though it was kind of hard to tell based on all the string worms and star stickers pasted on any surface that wasn’t a screen.

The project, which could only be identified as an oversized button pin upon closer inspection, was coming together nicely. Atleast in your eyes.

It read “BEST SPIDER” with a cute doddle of a spider surrounded by loads of blue, yellow, and red glitter. Currently you were putting your finishing touches on it by attaching color coordinated ribbons to the bottom ruffles.

The craftsmanship alone of it was indeed impressive, you just needed to look past the blinding reflectiveness of it.

It was for your mentor, Spiderwoman.

Who had taken you under her wing for the past two years, “training” you to be the best. Well, best in the sense of “gal in the chair”. At first it didn't make a whole lot of sense to you, but neither did the world you were thrown into. She apparently saw something in you from all the way across the multiverse.

The rest was history.

“(Y-)..(Y/N)...(Y/N)!”

The glue bottle currently in your hands spun in the air, a chaotically beautiful cascade of glue spewing in the air and (thankfully) somehow none of it landed on you. Slowly turning your head, you gave a small wave as you saw said mentor on the screen staring down at you.

“Jess! Hey…did you..did you try calling my watch?”

“What do you think?”

Spinning your chair across the room, you snatched your multiversal watch and flicked the screen on.

You did in fact have about five missed calls from her. You could feel her iced stare from across the room, hell from across dimensions.

“But it was getting in the way of my creative liberties!”

“I don’t care! As the second half of a spider person you need to be available 24/7! Your future spider will need to be able to rely on you.”

Slipping the watch onto your wrist, you shot yourself back over to your desk and smiled widely at her. She knew that whatever scolding she gave you would only have about a few moments effect. Sure the message would stick but she always had that nagging feeling in the back of her mind of how long it truly stuck.

“Well, You have me on the horn now! What's up? Who do I need to aid with my technological wonders? My sleuthing skills? I'm ready to Sherlock it up!”

After a few more long blank faced seconds, Jess reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“We actually need you here. Our resident Spider who usually deals with all of our technological deals is having some connectivity issues.”

Your heart stopped for a moment, but only for a moment before you were shooting out of your seat and whooping. Jumping around your room, you threw your fist in the air before a sudden realization dawned upon you mid air.

It was almost comical how you seemed to pause mid jump.

“Oh my god…I have to change. I can't show up to Spider Society looking like this!”

“(Y/N) there's no time! Grab your bag and get here now.”

Standing in shock, you huffed as you watched your computer screen clip off.

She was crazy if she thought you weren’t at least gonna put on some body glitter.

-

“Jess said to meet her here…do you think she got lost?”

Hobie shrugged, shoving his hands into his vest pockets. His fingers found themselves fiddling with whatever computer chip or part he had nabbed as he leaned against what could be considered a front desk.

“You know ‘er best. She usually punctual?”

Gwen looked up from her watch with an exasperated look. That told Hobie all he needed to know as he leaned his head back with a sigh.

“Listen! I've never met her in person! She’s one of Jess’s other trainees! I just know she's not a spider, and that despite having worked with Jess for two plus years she's never stepped foot in Spider Society!”

“She’s a chair?”

Pinching her nose, Gwen nodded. “Yea. A pretty good one too. She is a bit…eccentric though. And loud…I think she blew my eardrum out one time. I had tinnitus for like a week...”

“So she’s got some vocals on ‘er aye?”

“Thats all you picked up on? C’mon Hobie help me look for anyone who looks lost we’re supposed to chaperon h-”

Usually the portals that opened here were the usual semi-chaotic reality altering ones. But for some reason the one that just opened in front of them was nothing of the sort. No..this one opened with a loud tear; Everything and everyone in the vicinity was enveloped in a neon pink hue.

It was hard to tell who came stumbling out of the portal, as Hobie feared that if he moved his hand he would temporarily blind himself. But as the portal closed, and everything returned to its normal color palette, he finally dared to move his hand.

Maybe he shouldn’t have moved his hand.

Cause he was only met with a very different, blinding sight.

You had just fully stood from what he could only assume was a clumsy entrance. You wore what could only be described as almost every color of the rainbow but someone you pulled it off. There was absolutely no way you could move silently, as you were adorned in a plethora of kandi bracelets, pastel chains and pins. Your hair was adorned in a multitude of clips that matched the ones on your bag. 

Was your smile an accessory too? Hobie was sure it was, cause it was blinding him just as much as the body glitter that was spread over your legs and arms were.

His hand slowly reached up to clutch the chest of his jacket, in hopes that it would remind his heart to beat.

It wasn’t until Gwen had elbowed him in the side (hard enough to bruise might he add) that he remembered to breathe.

“Don’t stare, it's rude.”

He didn’t want to look away.

“Hi! Im Gwen…Stacy! We’ve talked a few times over coms?”

You smiled even wider as you grabbed Gwen’s hand and shook it rather violently (or enthusiastically it could have been confused for either). When she removed her hands from your drip it was left brighter than before for only a moment.

“Hi! Its nice to finally put a non-masked face to the name! Im (Y/N). And you are?”

Your sneakers squeaked as you took a sharp turn to face Hobie fully.

“Im Hobie Brown. Quiet the entrance you made.”

He holds his hand out, and is relieved when you shake it for just as long as you did Gwen’s. He watches as it glowed then returned to its normal saturation.

“Yeaaaa. Apparently my Earth is like WAY brighter than most. I would’ve brought sunglasses if I had known that would happen. Anyways…can you show me to the computer lab..hub…wherever this Spider-Byte normally operates?”

Gwen had taken it upon herself to lead the charge, and include a quick run over tour of whatever facility you all happened to pass on the way to the lab. 

Everything was so bright, but what amazed you more were the amount of Spider people that were just casually walking about. Either they were coming back from patrol, returning from break or coming for the first time.

You were sure your neck was gonna hurt or have a permanent crook in it from how much you were whipping your head around and turning to take everything in. You weren’t sure when the next time you would be here would be, so you wanted to take it all in.

“And here is where all the computer magic happens! You uh…know what you’ve gotta do from here right?” Gwen awkwardly raised her hands as if to present the lab.

“Yup! Im TECHNICALLY supposed to monitor your guys software and stuff and blah blah blah but I actually connected with Layla on the way here-who is super sweet by the way-and Im actually just gonna fix Spider-Byte’s connectivity issues here so she can get back to it. Y’know since she’s more knowledgeable with everything here. I would probably just mess something up.”

Despite the fact that you spoke about a mile a minute, and it was obvious Gwen was struggling to keep up, Hobie hung onto every word.

You moved like you had been here before despite this being your first time even stepping foot on the premises. You just moved with this sense of self confidence that had the aura of the room commanded by your presence alone. If you hadn’t told them your Earth just naturally saturated Hobie would have just assumed your essence was just too potent that it leaked off you and onto whatever you touched.

You were leagues above him when it came to the coolness factor.

Watching as you moved around the consoles via spinny chair (when did that get there?), each screen popped up and immediately began to run code. Hobie liked to pride himself on being a tech wiz, but this was levels beyond what he knew how to do. Maybe he could learn a thing or two from you.

But as he watched your hands, he noticed…were you TAKING code off the computers too?

Oh, that just brought a smile to his face.

As Gwen wandered over to the other side of the console to watch the miles of code run across the screen, Hobie took the opportunity to have a moment with you on the opposite side of the room.

Right when you went to shoot across him (and might he add it was almost like you had spider like reflexes with how you moved around on this thing), his hand went to grab the back of your chair.

Pulling the chair back, he watched as you rubber banded back into the seat and stood straight up. He leaned over your shoulder to look at the screen in front of you both. His hand reached over to tap a few keys and pull up the results onto just this screen.

Ignoring how his spider senses were shooting down his spine at an all time high with how close he was to you, he looked at you with a smirk.

“Did you just ‘alf inch some of our code?”

“Im sorry?”

Leaning in closer, he pulled the thumb drive out of only this terminal and held it up. Your cheeks turned a dark red in realization to being caught, and you crossed your arm as you started at him.

“You know wha’ I said”

Turning quickly, you pulled ANOTHER flash drive out from your pocket and stuck it into the port. The downloading resumed, and much to Hobie’s surprise you stood and snatched the thumb drive from him.

“First of all, I am part of the ‘’our’’ and second of all…it's none of your business.”

Suddenly multiple of the screens, well practically all of the screens in the room flashed green. With a pat of his shoulder, you rolled over to every computer and pulled out each flashdrive. Hobie counted…12!

He covered his mouth, trying to keep his cool disposition as he watched you quickly shove each one in your bag. You little grifter you…he would definitely have to find out what Earth you were from…

With the push of a button, you turned to them with a smile as you placed your hands on your hips.

“Alrighty! My work here is done…wait..,”

Turning around, you pressed the enter key on the computer behind you only to whip right back around smile as all the screens returned to normal.

You had been here all but twenty minutes and you managed to do solve all of their problems and then some.

“Now Im done! Gwen, you have my contact coordinate. Call me if you need me at all.”

Your eyes raked over Hobie, and you couldn’t help but feel a flutter in your chest as he watched you carefully. The hair on your arms stood when he had leaned over you earlier. You could tell from his punk aesthetic and impressive hair that he was definitely anarchy incarnate…

He intrigued you. You were sure the data files you had picked up from the archives would barely answer every question you had about him.

You would have to push off your paper mache project for tonight…

“It was nice meeting you Hobie! Hope we can meet again sometime. Im like, basically free all the time…Later!”

Signing off with a peace sign, your neon portal opened again and closed in an instant as you fell into it.

“See what I mean, eccentric.”

“I thought she was pretty cool.”

Walking over to where you just stood, Hobie ran his fingers over where you had last touched hoping to catch some of the light leftover.

It was then he noticed you had left behind one of your thumb drives. It was definitely yours, a bright neon yellow covered in white glitter that fell off as he picked it up. His other hand came down to pick up the tag on the string connected to it.

‘Oops! Guess I left behind this VERY important thumb drive. Mind returning it to me? I like really need it for super duper important chair stuff…Earth 1618, Kings, New York City things y'know.

– (Y/N)’

[yanderecrazysie]

Quality Mountain Time (Yandere Jade Leech)

Vignette: Quality Mountain Time

Pairings: Jade Leech x Reader

WARNINGS: yandere themes

“Are you the only applicant to the Mountain Lovers Club this year?” the man in front of you looks you over with sharp, mismatched eyes until you feel bare under his searching gaze.

“Um, yeah, I think so…” you squirm a little, uncomfortable with the way he stared so intently at you, “Sorry…”

The man smiles and you’re met with a row of needle-sharp teeth and a soft laugh. You’re beginning to regret your choice to join when the older student says, “You’re the first applicant to my club.”

“Really?” you were surprised. A club about hiking in the mountains would’ve been a hit where you came from. It was hard to believe that, in such a big school, you were the only other person to show interest.

“I’m Jade Leech, and you must be…” the man took a moment to look over your club application, his gloved hand resting on his bottom lip as he read your information, “...(Y/n)? Is that how you say it?” you nodded and he continued, “That's quite a beautiful name.”

“Thanks,” you replied bashfully.

Jade’s smile widened as he folded your application into a small square and tucked it away in his pocket. He held out his hand to you and you shook it, surprised by the firm gentleness of his grip. There was something about him, something unsettling yet oddly magnetic…

“If I may ask, what attracted you to my club?” Jade asked, his polite tone barely containing his excitement.

You laughed nervously, “I’ve always loved hiking and being in nature. It helps me clear my mind and relax.”

“Is that so?” Jade’s mismatched eyes narrowed slightly, “The mountains can indeed be very… relaxing. But they can also be very dangerous.”

You nodded, feeling a little uneasy, but you quickly brushed that feeling away, “I’m sure I’ll be in good hands with you as my guide.”

The words came out more flirtatious than you meant it to and Jade’s grin turned positively predatory, “Oh, you certainly will be. I’ll make sure of it.”

Before you could think to respond, he stepped closer to you. His presence seemed to take over the entire empty classroom. His hand moved to your shoulder and squeezed it lightly in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture. 

“I must admit,” Jade’s voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned in to speak into the shell of your ear, “I’m glad you’re the only applicant. It gives me the opportunity to pour my sole focus into you… to ensure you receive the best experience possible, of course.”

The way he said experience sent a chill down your spine. You couldn’t help but feel like there was more meaning to his words than he led on. Before you could worry about it too much, Jade stepped back, suddenly smiling calmly and casually at you, as though the moment of intensity had never happened.

“I will see you tomorrow on our first hike of the school year,” the smile on his face did not reach his eyes this time, “Make sure to dress warmly. The mountains can be… unpredictable.”

—-----------------------------------------------------------

Maybe you were crazy to stay in the club. Problem was, you weren’t the type of person to give up, and this was really the only club you had any interest in. Still, you recognized that there was potentially something wrong with your club leader and made sure to pack a can of pepper spray just in case.

When you arrived at the foot of the mountain, pack on your back filled with everything you thought you might need and more, you were surprised to find Jade waiting for you with just a small blue gym bag.

“You didn’t bring a lot of stuff,” you noted, pointing at the half-empty bag the older student held.

“I brought everything I need,” Jade said with a razor-edged smile. 

His words hung in the air and you looked at your stuffed backpack. Maybe you had overprepared, but it was strange… Jade kind of struck you as the type of person that would also overprepare.

“Shall we depart?” Jade asked, gesturing to the winding path that disappeared into the dense foliage that grew alongside the mountain trail.

“Y-yeah, let’s go,” you replied, adjusting your backpack and following him onto the path. The trail started off easy, not too steep and very smooth. The forest was quiet, except for the occasional bird song. 

Jade led the way, his strides long so that you had to pick up the pace to catch up, and purposeful, as though he had walked the path a million times before. As the hike continued, Jade began adding commentary to the nature that surrounded you both.

“That bird species is usually not around the mountain this time of year, aren’t we lucky to hear it now, (Y/n)?”

“That species of mushroom isn’t poisonous, but it’s becoming rarer, so we shouldn’t pick any of it.”

“That tree is probably at least a century old. And that’s young compared to the oldest trees recorded.”

After a while, the trail grew steeper and the trees became denser. The air was thicker and cooler, making it a little harder to breathe than before. You began to feel the strain in your legs and lungs, but Jade showed no signs of stopping. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying himself even more.

“Are you alright?” Jade asked, finally coming to a sudden halt and glancing over his shoulder at you with an almost mocking smile. You braced yourself against a tree and panted heavily. His sharp gaze seemed to be waiting for you to do something.

“I’m fine,” you said between small gasps, “I just need a moment.”

Jade nodded, his expression going blank and unreadable. He leaned against the nearest tree and watched you closely, his golden eye seeming to glow in the dim light. 

You couldn’t tell if he was concerned or if he enjoyed watching you struggle to breathe.

“You know,” Jade’s voice was so soft you had to strain your ears to hear it, “There’s something special about being up here, don’t you think? The isolation. The quiet. A world free of distractions.”

You nodded uncertainly, “Yeah, it’s pretty peaceful.”

“Peaceful… Yes…” Jade’s smile returned, much too wide and sharp to be normal, “It’s the perfect place to truly get to know someone.”

The way he said that made a shiver shoot down your spine. You shifted uncomfortably against the tree, painfully aware of how far away civilization was at this point.

“Let’s continue,” Jade said, pushing off the tree with languid grace. He held out his hand to you, that wide smile still on his face and his eyes lidded.

You didn’t take his hand and just nodded in response, avoiding his gaze as pushed off the tree on wobbly legs. The two of you continued the hike, but this time, you felt uneasy. Jade no longer offered narration on your surroundings, even when you passed more interesting-looking mushrooms. Realization hit you much further on.

He was leading you somewhere.

“Jade, are we still on the right trail?” you asked, forcing your nervousness down and out of your voice.

“Of course,” he replied smoothly, not looking back at you, “I know this mountain like the back of my hand. You’re safe with me.”

You felt anything but safe anymore. The trees around you felt suffocating and the shadows seemed to close in on you. You gripped the straps of your backpack tighter and mentally noted where the can of pepper spray was hiding.

“I think I’ve had enough hiking for today,” you said, forcing a weak smile to your lips.

Jade turned back to stare at you, a flicker of something- disappointment or annoyance, you couldn’t tell- in his eyes. He tilted his head, looking you up and down for a moment, before he placed a hand over his heart and smiled convincingly at you.

“Are you sure? It would be a shame to turn back when we’ve come this far.”

You swallowed, “Yes, I’m sure. Maybe another time.”

That was a lie. You were never going on another hike with this creep ever again. He scared you way too much.

Jade’s smile dimmed for a moment, but he nodded and said in an ice-cold voice, “Very well, let’s head back.”

Relief washed over you, but it was short-lived. As you turned to head back down the mountain, you could tell something had shifted in the atmosphere between you and him. He was behind you now and you could feel his mismatched eyes boring into the back of your skull.

And then, you felt it. A gloved hand wrapped around your wrist in a crushing grip. You froze, heart pounding as you slowly turned to face Jade.

His smile was gone, replaced by an expression of pure malice. His grip tightened even more and you let out a squeak of protest.

“I was hoping you would stay,” Jade murmured, looking almost hurt by your decision to leave early, “It’s rare for me to find a place in my heart for someone else.”

“Let go,” you demanded, reaching your hand back towards your backpack and feeling blindly for the pepper spray.

“Looking for this?” a lazy smile etched its way across Jade’s face as he held up the missing can, tilting it so that the nozzle faced your right eye. You froze in place, waiting for him to spray it directly into your eye.

Jade gave you a push backwards and you winced as your back hit a tree. He was quick to cage you in with his long arms.

“Don’t fight it,” Jade whispered, “We’re just getting started on our little hike. And there’s no one around to hear you scream.”

[disneyprincemuke]

i forgot that you existed * sv5

you didn't expect to run into your ex ever again, yet here you are and you find yourself pretending like you'd never met him before.

pairings: sebastian vettel x fem!reader

trope: fake amnesia

wc: 1.4k

(f1 masterlist) | (falling in reverse)

you hide behind a display in the middle of the supermarket, stacked boxes keeping you somewhat hidden from the man you’ve stalked the moment you got out of your car in the parking lot. you keep your head down to avoid getting recognised back.

an uncanny lookalike of the man you swore was the love of your life stepped out of the car parked next to yours and it’s like you’ve been in a trance ever since. you can’t tear your eyes away from the man now sauntering within the supermarket with a basket hanging from his arms loosely.

because you know that you packed everything up and moved halfway across the world when you thought you’d go crazy from the reality that he’d left you at the altar — on your wedding day.

it’s been 5 years since he watched you walk down the aisles of a church with your shared friends and families covered in a white dress that took you 2 months to choose. an entire lifetime ago since you had taken one last step up to the altar before he had run in the direction you came from and never be seen again.

in the back of your mind, you remember the way it felt like life had lost all its meaning after that day. life started to grey itself out as the living soul was sucked out of your body.

all for him to relay a message through his parents, thoroughly embarrassed to tell you that all the man could muster up was a pathetic and humiliating apology: ‘i’m sorry’.

he’s sorry? that’s all he could say to you after spending — wasting — 6 years of your life with him, planning your future and ending it abruptly on the day you were supposed to vow that you’d spend the rest of your lives together.

you’d daydreamed several times about the things you would say to him if you’d ever chanced upon running into him again. it went several different ways: sometimes you thought about throwing punches for making you question everything or falling to your knees in tears asking him how and why he could do this to you, and sometimes the scenario goes in a way that he’s the one begging you for an apology at your feet and saying that he regrets it.

the days seemed to pass by slowly and painfully after he’d left you. but you just remembered waking up one morning and hating the way your reflection stared at you in the mirror.

you were a mess.

so you packed your things and left everything behind — you moved halfway across the world and started anew. you haven’t regretted that decision.

and what are the chances that you’d run into sebastian in an obscure supermarket on the other side of the globe half a decade later? you had left your hometown for this very possibility only for it to happen much later in life at a time you would never have expected.

now that you’re stalking him (unstealthily), everything you’d sworn that you would say to him is thrown out of the window.

you follow him into an aisle and linger at the edge of the aisle, feigning interest in the baking goods displayed neatly on the shelves. you pick up an item and drop your head to look at it, though your eyes can’t help but trail up to the man standing on the other end of the aisle.

it really is him. no matter how much reasoning you do with yourself, there’s no denying that sebastian vettel is standing in the very same property as you for the first time since the unfortunate demise of your relationship.

you seriously consider walking up to him and clocking him in the face then bolting away. because you know — used to — him and he wouldn’t hesitate to throw back a punch.

sebastian turns his head in your direction abruptly, making you whirl back around to the shelf in front of you. and then it happens.

you hear your name being called out by a voice you’d longed to hear after all these years.

you start to panic. you consider all of the possible options to escape the situation. maybe you still have time to start running? it’s just a supermarket; there’s several others everywhere else. you can just start doing your grocery shopping elsewhere.

ah, but this is the biggest supermarket closest to you and it’s got everything you need.

but as sebastian slowly approaches you, you find your mouth speaking faster than your head could process. “do i know you?”

do i know you? where the hell did that come from?

sebastian stops a a distance from you, jaw hung as he tilts his head at your words. “what?”

you swallow the formed lump in your throat as you look at him, wide eyed and hands balled into fists by your side. perhaps you should just pretend that he’s got the wrong person.

yet it seems that your mouth will continue to run without your brain. “yeah, i got into an accident a couple of years ago. it affected my memory.” you smile slightly. “did i know you?”

you watch as he tries to find a response to what you’ve just said. and he’s better than you, you think, because he still managed to find something to say. “accident? i’m so sorry.” you wave off his concerns with a hand in the air and a shake of your head. “we, uh,” he sucks in a breath, “used to be really good friends.”

good friends. men really are liars.

“oh, what a shame,” you say with a grimace, as if you mean it. as if you don’t actually remember the way he’d made you feel small. “how nice that i run into a familiar — well, unfamiliar — face. i haven’t seen you in any photo albums.”

you start to think that your mouth has a mind of its own. you swear that you’ve seen a movie with this exact plot: feigning memory loss to avoid the real consequences of running into someone from your past life. or it could just be a result of all your panic.

because he is in every single photo album you’d brought along with you. there’s holes in those albums, photos with sebastian now sitting in a box in the store room of your little apartment, in the deepest corner where it cannot be acquired without hardwork.

you lie again with a soft laugh. “when i was told my memory was completely wiped from my accident, i took off in an attempt to start again. but how nice that i run into a familiar — well, unfamiliar — face again.”

sebastian stands there in silence for a moment. “i’d really love to catch up some time,” sebastian offers with a small smile. “find out about this new life you have and everything.”

you feel an insurmountable rage fill your chest. your chest feels heavy and your head starts to pound.

you should really just start running back to your car now.

“that would be a great idea!” what the hell. that’s literally not what you had meant to say. you were considering laying it on him and screaming at him in the middle of the supermarket. it’s just so unfair that he stands here acting like he hadn’t driven you to the brink of insanity in your 20s.

“fantastic!” sebastian grins fishing for his phone in the pocket of his jacket. “let me get your number so we can find a day we’re both free? i have to head back to finish unpacking my boxes — i just relocated here for work recently.”

“what are the chances,” you joke through gritted teeth, typing your number into the contact sheet he’d pulled up for you. you should just run now with his phone and throw it into the lake nearby. “well, it’s nice running into you. i’ll hopefully see you soon!” you perk up and turn around. “sorry, i didn’t catch your name earlier.”

he grins, “it’s sebastian.”

gen taglist: @33-81 @darleneslane @nikfigueiredo @happy-nico @localwhoore @namgification

series taglist: @vicurious28 @c-losur3 @lozzamez3 @haikyuu-carat @bicchaan @cinnamongirlontv

[fushisagi]

miya atsumu and the chronic lovesick disease

୨୧ ━━ ❛ what am i to you, atsumu? ❜

word count ⋆ 12.6k (12,607) genre ⋆ fluff, slight angst, friends to lovers, college au ━ gn!reader

the question comes to him one autumn night, surrounded by his friends and the chilly november breeze, asked by, who he assumes to be, just another nobody looking for money: what is it that you desire most, boy? the psychic asks, her saccharine smile forgotten when he looks into the crystal ball and all he ends up seeing is you. alternatively: miya atsumu is not in love. what the hell? who would ever suggest something like that?

warnings ⋆ alcohol consumption, mutual pining, denial of feelings!!! lots of it!! and with this denial comes some stupid decisions!!! author’s note ⋆ ive actually like never been to the psychic before so if its inaccurate im so sorry ..... it’s not really a big part of the plot though so hopefully u can overlook it 😭

o. Desire

This is a scam, is Atsumu’s first thought when he takes a seat inside the tent and finds himself face-to-face with a crystal ball.

People like this are dangerous — his twin brother never lets anyone forget it. They take advantage of an individual’s fear of the unknown and they make money off it. It’s genius, because even the strongest people can become weak to something as mundane as self-proclaimed clairvoyants setting base near a college campus.

Atsumu supposes he’s no exception. Even if Bokuto was the one who forced him to do this in the first place.

“Hello,” the woman greets, her hair pinned into a tight bun. “You’re here for a reading?”

“Sure,” Atsumu huffs, shivering when the cold breeze sneaks into the tent. He really should’ve worn a thicker jacket.

When he looks up from the table, the woman gives him a smile. It’s analytical, as if all he needed to do was sit down for her to know everything about him. He fidgets in his seat, growing more uncomfortable under her gaze.

“So,” she says, clasping her hands together and resting them on the table. “What is it that you desire most, boy?”

 “I’m sorry?”

“Your greatest desire,” she repeats patiently.

Atsumu blinks before tilting his head. “Um, I’m not—”

“I’m sure you know,” she says. “Is it strength? Power? Love?”

All colour drains from Atsumu’s face. The psychic smiles wickedly.

Atsumu thinks this may be the end of him. He never liked it when people acted like they knew more about his intentions than he did, and it only took mere minutes before the woman figured him out.

His hand twitches. He would feel a lot better if you were here—

“Ah,” she clicks her tongue, “bingo.”

i. Strength

After a borderline homicidal game of rock, paper, scissors, Sakusa lands himself a new roommate.

Move-in day comes two weeks later and Atsumu sits in the lobby of the building, waiting for your car to pull into the parking lot.

He notes the time — it’s five minutes past 8:30, making you more than half an hour late — before grumbling under his breath and continuing to scroll through his feed. When Instagram notifies him that he’s all caught up, he exits the app and opens Twitter in hopes that something will be able to entertain him until you show up. He likes some tweets, retweets a few more, and terrorizes Suna before he grows bored at the lack of anything interesting on his timeline.

Another glance at the time. He scowls. It’s only been two minutes.

Atsumu debates asking Sakusa if he knows what’s happened to you. When he opens their message thread, he raises an eyebrow at how unbelievably one-sided their conversations are, but he decides that’s a problem for another day. Your absence is more important to Atsumu than Sakusa’s terrible conversational skills ever will be.

(He’ll bother Sakusa about it later).

He’s about to send a long string of emojis when an incredulous voice reaches his ears.

“Tsumu?”

He looks up and immediately pockets his phone with a grin. “You’re late.”

You adjust the box of donuts in your hands and squint at him as if his smile is as blinding as the sun. “I slept through my alarm. What the hell are you doing here?”

Atsumu gestures to his outfit. “What does it look like?”

You stare blankly.

“Seriously?” he scoffs. “I told you last night I’d help you move in. How’d you forget? Am I that forgettable? You wound me, I—”

“Shut up,” you say, shifting your weight. Atsumu’s eyes flicker to the sticker on the box, and he tries his best not to frown when he notices you’ve written Sakusa’s name in calligraphy with a heart at the end. “Of course I remember you offering to help because I spent my entire night telling you it was fine.”

“You expect me to believe that you can bring all your shit in by yourself? You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“Thank you, Tsumu, I can always count on you to make me feel like I’ve been shot by Cupid’s arrow,” you quip, brushing past him to get to the elevator, and as if it’s second nature, he follows. “I can’t believe people walk around campus calling you sweet.”

“I never said you looked bad,” he says. “I think the dried drool on your chin is pretty cute, actually.”

“Whatever,” you hurriedly wipe your face. “Speaking of bad, what on Earth are you wearing?”

Atsumu knows full well you’re not complimenting him, but he decides to treat your comment as if you have. He beams, picking at the sweatpants you eye with disgust before walking into the elevator with you.

“It’s my mover outfit!”

“Your mover outfit,” you deadpan. “Disregarding whatever that means — those sweatpants are baggier than Kenma’s eyebags. And they do nothing for your ass.”

He smirks. “You were checking out my ass?”

You avoid eye contact, feigning indifference, but Atsumu’s known you for too long and immediately recognizes your fluster by the way you tug at the hem of your clothing.

“No,” you deny curtly, straightening your posture when the elevator doors open to show Sakusa’s floor. “It’s just hard not to notice when those sweats are ridiculously baggy. Seriously, are you trying to put something in there? I could fit a month’s worth of groceries in those.”

You’re walking swiftly, eager to get to your new apartment and end the conversation. The both of you are well aware that Atsumu’s more than capable of catching up with you, but he hangs back, preferring to watch you babble while he trails behind.

You clutch the donuts closer to your body as words tumble out of your mouth — a list of things that could fit in his sweats, including two jugs of milk and a family size pack of chips — and Atsumu can’t stop the lopsided smile from appearing on his face.

“Maybe a carton of eggs, too,” he suggests.

“Oh, I wouldn’t trust you with eggs,” you say sharply.

“Why not?”

“Are you really asking me that? Last month I lent you my blanket and you gave it back to me with a hole in it.”

“For the last time,” Atsumu begins, quickening so he’s side-by-side with you, “that was Samu’s fault, not mine.”

“…Alright.”

“Y/N,” he whines. “I’m serious! None of that was on me — I even bought you a new blanket! Would Samu have done that? I don’t think so—”

“Actually—”

“The point is,” Atsumu interrupts, throwing you a glare before continuing, “blame Samu. Whenever something bad happens, blame him. That’s what I always do.”

“Spoken like a true, responsible individual.”

“Hey!” he protests. “I’m responsible!”

You open your mouth to deny his claims, but the pout he plasters over his face is enough for you to give in. Too tired to give him something as golden as a verbal agreement, you opt for changing the subject. “Do you think Sakusa will like the donuts?”

Atsumu frowns. “Why does it matter? They’re donuts.”

You grow annoyed at his impertinence. “I want him to like me, you moron.”

His expression sours further. “He’s your friend.”

“And I won a game of rock, paper, scissors, so now I’m his roommate,” you remark. “There’s a difference between being friends with someone and living with them. I mean, would you want to live with Bokuto?”

Atsumu’s answer is swift. “Hell no.”

“Exactly,” you say, “I need us to get along.”

You stop in front of a door and begin searching your pockets for your key. There’s a pinch between your eyebrows, the box trembles as you struggle to balance it with one hand, and your clothes are a mess, but underneath the fluorescent light of the hallway, Atsumu can’t help but think you almost look angelic.

He shakes the thought away, squashes it beneath his foot until the remnants of it have been absorbed by the carpet.

“The last time I saw you this nervous was when you asked out that barista,” he muses.

You dig your hand into the breast pocket of your shirt and huff when you find nothing. “What are you implying?”

Atsumu stares pointedly at the sticker on the box. Your face morphs into one of horror.

“Are you dense?”

“Calligraphy, Y/N. I’ve never seen you write calligraphy in my entire life.”

“I was trying something out!”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

You smack him on the shoulder. “I was being thoughtful,” you grunt, softening when Atsumu winces and rubs the spot where you hit him. “He’s my friend, and that’s all he ever will be.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Your eyes leave him for a millisecond, flickering to somewhere else on his face before returning his gaze once more. “Of course,” you say softly, “Besides, I—”

The door swings open.

“You’re loud,” Sakusa deadpans in the doorway. His eyes travel down to the donuts. “Are those for me?”

You hand them over to him. “Yeah, I didn’t know what you liked, so they’re all assorted.”

Sakusa hums in thanks before tilting his head at Atsumu. “Why’re you here?”

“To help them move in,” Atsumu grins, placing a hand on your shoulder and squeezing it. “I know you’re going to the drycleaners, and I couldn’t let Y/N do this all by themselves.”

Sakusa shrugs and turns to go further into the apartment. “Sounds good to me. I’d rather not have to press those nasty elevator buttons multiple times just so I can come down and get your stuff,” he gives you the best apologetic look he can muster. “Have fun, though.”

Before you can go on a tangent about how Sakusa should be more welcoming, Atsumu pipes up, “Yeah, don’t worry! ‘S all in good hands,” he nudges you with his elbow. “Right? Your stuff can’t be that heavy.”

Atsumu, not for the first time and certainly not the last, stands corrected.

Not only is your stuff heavy, but there’s much more than he expected.

With each trip down to the parking lot, his muscles grow strained, and he feels the fatigue threaten to droop his eyelids shut. But, in the corner of his eyes, he sees your persistence to get this over and done with, and Atsumu decides it won’t hurt to push through.

His complaining and wailing can wait until later.

After you place the last box into your new bedroom, you turn to him while wiping the sweat from your forehead. “Thank you,” you say breathlessly.

He goes to tease you, to say that you owe him now, that you’ll be indebted to him for life.

But what comes out of his mouth instead is: “‘Course. Call me whenever you want, and I’ll be there.”

Atsumu calls it a housewarming gift. Sakusa says there is hardly anything warming about it.

It referring to the group of boys gathered in the living room — your friends on good days, the bane of your existence on all the others — with their limbs strewn about and their soda cans sitting too close to the edge of the coffee table. It’s an odd sight for Sakusa to have this many people over on a Thursday night, but Atsumu insisted, and he caught Sakusa on a good day when he asked if he could hold a movie night at the apartment to celebrate your new accommodations.

You’re sure Sakusa regrets it now. He sits in his armchair with a permanent scowl, swatting Hinata away when the boy reaches to fix the crease between Sakusa’s brows. If looks could kill, Atsumu would’ve been dropped dead ten minutes ago.

He covers his fear with a grin, but out of the corner of his mouth, he says to you, “Help me.”

You snicker. “You’re on your own, dude.”

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

“What? But Bokuto calls you that, too!”

“Yeah, but it’s Bokuto.”

“I have no idea what you mean by that.”

Atsumu only tsks, forcibly ending the conversation by suggesting to the room that they should all play a game to decide who’ll prepare all the popcorn. A chorus of agreements is what he gets in response, along with someone complaining about how he should be spared due to his gruelling volleyball practice, and another person expressing his sympathies for the future loser.

Atsumu prepares the ladder game, and after he’s done, he looks at everyone with fiery hot intensity, an expression similar to one he wears during a match. “Remember,” he declares, “whoever loses can’t complain.”

Luck isn’t on his side tonight.

“What the hell!” he screeches once the reality of his defeat settles in.

Osamu, far too smug for Atsumu’s liking, quips, “I thought you said no complaining.”

The noise that leaves Atsumu’s mouth is something akin to a pathetic but animalistic growl. He goes to protest, even raising his hand to list off reasons why he’s been wronged — someone must’ve cheated, or maybe everyone in this room has a ruthless vendetta against him — but just as the words are about to leave his lips, his eyes land on you.

You challenge him to complain with a look, and he suddenly gets a much better idea.

“Y/N,” he says sweetly, growing pleased at your uneasiness. “As the host of this housewarming party, it’s only fair that you help me, too.”

“What?” you squawk, leaning forward as if you’ve misheard him. “But you were the one who suggested doing all of this! How is it now on me to help—”

“Well, he wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for you,” Sakusa muses.

You stare at him in disbelief. “Are you taking his side? What happened to roommate solidarity?”

“You just made that up,” Sakusa replies. “Besides, this thing will go by faster if two people prepare the popcorn, and I don’t think Miya wants anyone else other than you.”

Atsumu shifts uncomfortably at the implication, and he involuntarily commits your surprised expression to memory.

(When he goes to sleep later that night, your surprise is all he sees against the darkness of his eyelids).

“Other than me—?”

“To make the popcorn,” Sakusa drawls matter-of-factly.

You blink. “Right.” You look at Atsumu, and he shrugs dumbly, unsure of how else to react to your sudden change in behaviour.

To him, you have always been easy to read, but right now, he’s not entirely sure if there’s a word for the expression on your face. He yearns to press a hand to your cheek to melt the malaise away, to be rid of it forever so he can see you smiling again.

Something in his chest twists.

“Right!” you repeat, more loudly this time, and startling the rest of your friends. You slap your hands on your lap before standing and grabbing Atsumu’s wrist to pull him away. “I guess I’m helping you make popcorn. You owe me one, Miya.”

Your skin is warmer than usual, threatening to burn him until your fingerprints are marked onto his skin.

(Behind him, Suna stage-whispers, “You are so whipped, Y/N.”)

Your touch disappears the moment you’ve both crossed the threshold into the kitchenette. Atsumu flexes his hand, trying to get rid of an urge in his veins he can’t quite explain.

“Hey,” you say casually, back turned to him as you dig through the cabinets for the popcorn packets. “Did you finish that essay for literature class?”

Atsumu awkwardly clears his throat and begins playing with the settings on the microwave. “The paper?”

“Yes, the paper,” you say. “The one I told you to start two weeks ago so you wouldn’t end up sending a half-assed essay two minutes before the deadline?”

“Why are you talking like you think I didn’t start it yet?”

“Because I know you, Tsumu,” you reply, shutting the cabinet with your elbow and ungracefully dropping the packets onto the counter beside him. “And I lost faith in your ability to listen to me a long time ago.”

“How rude. I always listen to you,” he sticks his nose in the air like a scorned, evil, cartoon antagonist, “I just don’t take all your suggestions. There’s a difference.”

“You make my life so much harder,” you huff, inputting a minute-thirty into the microwave. “I honestly think I lose ten years of my lifespan whenever you tell me you’ve gotten yourself into another dilemma.”

“Don’t be dramatic. I’m sure you only lose, like, three at most.”

“No, it’s definitely ten,” you say. “You worry me too much, Miya.”

The smile on Atsumu’s face, previously smug and confident, softens.

“Seriously, though,” you continue, jabbing a finger into his sternum. “The paper? It’s due tonight.”

He flicks your nose, snorting when you pull a face. “I sent it in this morning.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey! Don’t act so shocked!”

“Well, this is, like, the first time you’ve ever done something even remotely responsible, so—”

“I thought we both agreed I’m a generally responsible person.”

Your silence is enough of a response.

Atsumu gasps just as the microwave beeps, allowing you to ignore his stunned expression in order to begin preparing another bag of kernels.

“Give me one reason—”

“The blanket—”

“—that isn’t the blanket,” he says sourly. “That doesn’t count. I told you that was Samu’s fault, not mine.”

“Do you want a list? Because I have one.”

“Are you serious or are you just fucking with me?”

“Osamu and I have a Google Doc.”

Another gasp. You roll your eyes.

“Now you’re in kahoots with my brother? What’s next? Planning my downfall with Suna?”

“I’m sure he’s fine doing that himself without my help.”

He whines, stomping his foot when you only stare back in amusement. “Don’t be so unrepentant, Y/N!”

You dump the contents of the hot popcorn bags into a large bowl for everyone to share. “Unrepentant? Was that the word on your word-of-the-day calendar?”

“Shut up. You know only Kuroo has lame stuff like that,” Atsumu grumbles, throwing the last popcorn packet into the faulty brick of power you and Sakusa call a microwave. “I used it in my essay. Thesauruses are a godsend. It really came in handy when I was writing about the flower symbolism in the book. Y’know what’s even better, though? SparkNotes.”

You tilt your head, studying Atsumu with furrowed eyebrows. “Huh.”

“What d’you mean huh?”

“Nothing,” you say innocently. “I just didn’t think you’d choose that essay topic, that’s all.”

“It was the easiest one,” he states. You hum in agreement, but he can sense you falling into a state of pondering before it even happens, so he lightly pokes your shoulder in hopes it’ll be enough to keep you from drifting too far from his reach. “Why, what did you think I picked?”

He can tell you’re debating what to tell him, letting a few seconds pass before you give in. “I thought you’d do the one that centred more around…” you trail off, clenching and unclenching your jaw, “the love aspect of it all.”

He blinks. “Why?”

Childishly, you retort, “Why not?”

Atsumu licks his lips. “Well, you’re always telling me to write what I know. And I may not know a whole lot about flowers, but I know more about those than, y’know, love.”

Something passes over your face, the same thing he saw when Sakusa said something — implied something — in the living room. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “I’ve had relationships, sure, but none that made me feel anything like— like that.”

You drum your fingers against the bowl. “None at all?”

“None at all.”

You click your tongue and stare at the microwave. Its buzz has become more prominent in your silence, a mocking hum hanging over the air as you contemplate and Atsumu stares, waiting impatiently for a word to slip past your lips.

But there’s nothing. Instead, the microwave beeps again, indicating that the last of the popcorn is ready.

“That’s good to know,” you say lightly. At least, that’s what you attempt, but you sound different, like a parasite has found solace in your vocal cords and fiddled with everything Atsumu’s familiar with.

“It is?”

“Yeah,” you nod, handing the bowl over to him. Popcorn threatens to spill but Atsumu can’t bring himself to care. “Hey, be careful. What, is it too heavy? Are you too weak to carry it?”

“It’s popcorn,” Atsumu rasps.

You eye him oddly, as if he’s the one whose behaviour should be examined under a microscope. “Don’t spill it everywhere. Sakusa’ll get pissed, and we’re already pushing it with this movie night thing.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Of course,” you agree. “But if you need me—”

“I know,” he interjects.

Simple promises are often uttered during private moments between you and Atsumu — an oath to be there for the other, to stand by their side no matter what. The words soothe him when they’re said aloud; he knows, underneath all the teasing and the bickering and the irritated eyerolls, is your pinky and his, intertwined.

And despite the voice in his head taunting him about a secret he’s unaware of, he allows the promise to enchant him.

I’ll be there for you.

“Do you need help?”

Atsumu grunts, adjusting your arm around his neck as he opens the car door. “No, I’m fine.”

“Thanks for picking them up,” Aran says, voice loud above the frat house’s music, “I know you were tired from practice, but—”

“It’s fine. I probably would’ve killed you if you didn’t call me, anyway.”

“Osamu said you’d say that.”

Atsumu expertly brushes off the statement, gently ushering you into the passenger’s seat and putting your seatbelt on with gentle fingers. Behind him, Aran watches the movements with thoughtful eyes and a quirk of his eyebrows.

“The last time they got this drunk was at the fall festival last year,” he muses. “For your sake, I hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“What does that mean?”

“Hm?”

“For your sake,” Atsumu echoes, turning to face Aran once the door’s been shut and he’s made sure you’re sleeping soundlessly with your head resting against the cold window. Atsumu stands pin-straight, his posture contrasting the way Aran stands opposite him, relaxed with his hands stuffed in his pockets. “What’s that mean?”

Aran laughs, like he’s unsure if this is a serious question. “Well, I mean… they’re always asking for you whenever they get drunk like this.”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“That’s why you got here in record time, right?” Off Atsumu’s questioning gaze, Aran continues, “I called you five minutes ago, and your place is a fifteen-minute drive away. And you’re not in your pajamas, even though you said you’d change into them the moment you got home.”

“I was in the area,” Atsumu says weakly.

“Doing what?”

“Getting dinner.”

“Why didn’t you just get something delivered to your apartment?”

“Is it illegal to want to pick up the food myself?”

Aran raises his hands up in defence. “No, it’s not, but it’s also not illegal to say you knew this would happen,” he shrugs. “You knew they’d need you Atsumu, so you came. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Before Atsumu can force a response from his throat, Aran has already slipped back into the party, leaving Atsumu alone on the street. With an annoyed huff, he stomps to the driver’s side, muttering irked questions under his breath about what Aran could possibly mean. He opens the door with more aggression than necessary, only softening when he sees you stir underneath the jacket he’s draped over you to keep you warm.

He unlocks his phone when he feels a buzz in his pocket.

[00:30] Atsumu: are you still awake?

[00:48] Sakusa: Yes. Why?

Atsumu knows that your apartment’s farther from here than his, and he’s sure that by the time he arrives, Sakusa won’t answer the door because he’ll grow tired of Atsumu’s lack of response and go to bed.

The decision is made when he takes a right instead of a left, when he pulls into a parking lot that isn’t yours, when he carries your body up the stairwell and into his bed with ease.

Everything else comes as routine. He tucks the blanket under your chin, moves the glass of water so it’s too far for you to accidentally knock over in the morning, and leaves a change of clothes at the foot of the bed.

Atsumu likes routine. He likes the predictability of it all.

A groggy voice stops him from leaving the room.

“Tsumu?”

“Hey,” he whispers, crouching so he’s eye-level with you. “I hope you don’t mind I brought you back here.”

You blink sleepily at him, too inebriated and fatigued to acknowledge his words. “You’re a really good person, y’know,” you say languidly.

He smiles, amused. “Really?”

“Yeah. Thank you for picking me up.”

“It’s nothing,” he murmurs.

“It’s not.”

“I’m sure you would’ve been fine without me. Omi could’ve picked you up, couldn’t he? Samu could���ve, too.”

“I know, but you’re the one who always does,” you respond, nuzzling further into the pillow. “You’ve—you’ve helped me a lot.”

You shakily reach a hand to his face, playing with the strands of hair that fall to his forehead. He relaxes, eyelids growing heavy at the feeling of your featherlike touch against his cool skin.

“You’ve brightened up my life, I think,” your voice is muffled, but it rings in Atsumu’s ears clear as day, almost as loud as his quickening heart rate. “I appreciate you a lot more than you know.”

ii. Power

He watches with bated breath as the ball cuts through the air while gravity begins to pull Hinata back to Earth. Everything unfolds in slow motion; everything has faded into white noise.

With a slam, the volleyball connects with the ground, and it’s only when he’s pulled into a hug does the reverie shatter. Like being hauled out from underwater, the roars of the crowd flood his ears as Bokuto begins jumping on the balls of his feet and Hinata comes rushing over to them with a triumphant shout.

On the other side of Bokuto, Sakusa smiles, rolling his eyes fondly when Hinata and Bokuto begin making post-game plans to celebrate their victory. Atsumu, on the other hand, is uncharacteristically silent as he searches the bleachers with a cloudy look in his eyes.

He’s snapped out of it once again when Bokuto tugs on his wrist so they can go and listen to what their coach has to say.

Atsumu isn’t a stranger to winning — he used to get drunk on this sort of stuff, the exhilarating rush that shot through his veins after every successful game. He basks in the crowd’s excitement and admiration, because to be fawned over is the closest to love he’s ever been (if he could even call it that), but once the adrenaline cuts him off and he’s left alone in the locker room, it all fizzles out.

Something’s missing at the end of all this. Usually, the void in his chest is insignificant enough for him to brush off. However, today is different.

It’s abnormal for the power of the win to dwindle into nothingness only minutes after the game ends, but the blue moon has risen tonight, and now everything feels weird. The cheers aren’t enough to keep him from searching the gymnasium for a familiar face, and he itches to get to his phone in the locker room when he can’t find who he’s looking for.

“Why do you look like we’ve lost?” Bokuto asks. “C’mon, man! Smile! We just won! Aren’t you happy?”

“Of course I am,” Atsumu grunts.

(But…)

But.

The adrenaline shoots through him again when a voice he knows all too well catches his attention over the noise.

“Hey!” you rush towards them, dishevelled. “Before you get mad, I know I missed the game, I took a nap and slept through it, fuck, I am never going to stay up late playing Fortnite with you again, Tsumu, you’ve ruined my sleep schedule, but—” you huff, trying to catch your breath as you hand Atsumu a bag, “I’m sorry that I didn’t come. Congrats on winning, I heard the shouts from down the street.”

Atsumu smiles and peers into the bag. “What is this?”

“Mochi,” you answer. “A celebratory gift for my favourite setter.”

“I’m the only setter you know.”

“Which is why you’re my favourite.”

Atsumu snorts but hugs the bag to his chest, like it’s his most prized possession and he’d drag it along to the grave with him. “Thank you.”

If someone were to ask Atsumu if he liked the pedestal he’s put on after a match, he’d say yes. Of course he does. He quite likes it on top of the world.

But you match his joyful smile with one of your own and Atsumu finds himself rethinking his answer. “Anytime.”

The top of the world may be nice, but it is nothing compared to being on the ground next to you.

“You know what they say. With great power comes great responsibility.”

“Would you relax?” Sakusa snarls. “You’re in charge of us for a day. Get your head out of your ass.”

On the floor, Hinata lays like a starfish as he stares up at the ceiling, cheeks tainted a bright pink hue. “I think power’s gotten to your head.”

Atsumu waves him off. “I think this is the best practice we’ve ever had.”

Their captain had to run out five minutes into practice — relationship problems is what he grumbled to Atsumu before leaving him in charge without a second thought, much to the rest of the team’s dismay.

“I hope you’re never put it in charge again,” Bokuto complains before downing the rest of his water.

“Don’t be dramatic—”

“Do you know how gruelling this practice must be for Hinata to be tired?”

“Give us a break,” Hinata pleads, shifting his position so he’s on his knees. “Please. I’ll buy you lunch for the rest of the month if you end our suffering.”

Atsumu pretends to ponder the offer and grows more amused as Hinata begins to twitch nervously. “Okay, fine,” he relents.

Hinata cries with glee, hugging Atsumu’s legs before pushing himself off the floor and rushing out of the gymnasium — whether it’s to refill his water bottle or hide until he’s found, Atsumu may never know. With a snort, Atsumu grabs his own bottle amongst the rest on the bench, promising Bokuto absentmindedly that he’ll go easy on them for the rest of the day.

“I want to have at least a little energy left for the party at Kuroo’s tonight,” Bokuto adds, his smile widening when Atsumu nods in agreement. “See, I knew you’d get it!”

Sakusa takes a seat on the bench. “Are you going to the party, Miya?”

“Yeah, Y/N’s forcing me to come with,” Atsumu says. “How about you?”

Bokuto answers for him. “I’m making him come!” he exclaims. “You’ll have so much fun, Omi, you don’t have to worry.”

Sakusa deadpans, “I’m only staying for five minutes.”

Bokuto waves off his iciness with a flippant hand. “I’ll convince you to stay longer.”

“I really doubt that.”

“Don’t underestimate me!” Bokuto huffs. He turns away from Sakusa before he can continue to argue and focusses on Atsumu. “It’s good that you’re coming too, Tsum-Tsum! Maybe you can finally meet the guy Y/N’s going on a date with.”

Atsumu halts, hand tightening around his bottle. “What?”

“Some guy from their Psychology class asked them out a few days ago,” Bokuto says obliviously. “I think it was the night you picked them up? I don’t know. I think he was nice, though. Y/N probably already told you about it.”

You didn’t.

Atsumu forces a grin on his face. “Right, they did.”

Sakusa studies his expression with pinched eyebrows.

Atsumu’s cheeks hurt for the rest of practice, a consequence of the cheerful façade he’s plastered, but the pain subsides — if only for a moment — when he sees you outside the gymnasium, carrying your favourite boba drink in one hand, and his favourite in the other.

“Hey!” you greet, handing him the drink. “How was practice?”

“Awful,” Hinata mopes with a pout. “Your boyfriend here was running it like the navy.”

You frown. Atsumu blanches. “My boyfriend…?”

“Yeah!” Hinata slaps Atsumu on the back. “Him.”

All colour drains from your face. Your grip on your cup loosens for a split second before tightening it again in panic. You look from Hinata, the picture of innocence, to Atsumu, who only stares back, just as bewildered.

Hinata seems to take the hint as his eyes flicker between the two of you in confusion. “Sorry, I… I overheard Bokuto saying you were going on a date with someone, so I assumed—”

“Date?” you interrupt frantically, arms flapping to deny the words that have recklessly tumbled from Hinata’s mouth. “With who— with Atsumu? He’s not— we’re not— I’m not— we’re—”

“We’re friends,” Atsumu finishes, saving you from your stammering. You look at him gratefully, and he can only offer a weak smile in return. “I don’t know why you’d think we’re dating, Shoyo.”

“Sorry—”

“They’re going on a date with someone else.”

You narrow your eyes. “What do you—?”

“Oh, hey,” Sakusa says as he walks out of the doors. He tugs on the string of his mask to make sure it’s secure before nodding at you. “Did you stop by the grocery store yet?”

Atsumu’s words are long forgotten when realization engulfs your figure at the speed of light. “Oh, no! I took a nap and—”

“You really need to fix your sleep schedule.”

“I’ll have you know I slept four hours last night.”

“…That’s not a good thing.”

“It’s an hour more than usual.”

The genuine concern is evident in Sakusa’s eyes before he rubs his temples with a sigh. “Okay, whatever. Let’s go to the store before we head home, I need to buy more protein powder.”

“Ay, ay, captain.”

“Don’t call me that.”

You snicker then turn to Atsumu with a smile he’d move mountains for. “I’ll see you later, Tsumu?”

“Yeah, sure,” he murmurs. “Don’t take too long to get ready.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” you say, patting his cheek. “Thanks for agreeing to drive me there and back.”

He finds himself involuntarily leaning into your touch. “Don’t mention it.”

Your touch lingers for a second too long before you salute him in goodbye and rush to follow Sakusa to your car. Atsumu watches as your figure gets smaller and smaller, a smile on his face as you glance over your shoulder and stick your tongue out when you catch him staring.

He flips you off and makes sure to stick his tongue out, too, in hopes that it’ll make you laugh loud enough for him to hear.

(He doesn’t notice the mischievous glint in Sakusa’s eyes, nor does he catch his name slipping past Sakusa’s lips).

(But he does notice you tilt your head, lost in thought, before you look at him again, attempting to figure him out despite the distance.

He thinks nothing of it).

Just after his 9am lecture, someone asks Atsumu out on a date.

She’s nice and easy on the eyes; a little timid, but he supposes that’s just the affect he has on people. Big man on campus is what he’s always referred to as, until they realize that he’s nothing if not a goofball off-court. Still, the girl — Miwa is what she said her name was — doesn’t know that yet, so Atsumu gives her the benefit of the doubt.

And he says yes.

At 11:00, the whole team has caught wind of his evening plans, and Sakusa texts him to tell him he’s an idiot. Atsumu frowns, asks why, but Sakusa doesn’t reply.

At 6:00, an hour before his date, he shows up on your doorstep with a bag of clothes and a tie loose around his neck. His left pant leg is tucked into his sock and the other is haphazardly cuffed; his hair is all over the place, sticking up at the back as the result of a hair-gel disaster.

You stare at him with pinched eyebrows. “What do you need?”

“I’ve got a date,” he explains frantically. “I need your help.”

You hesitantly let him in.

At 6:15 is when the argument occurs. The reason why is something Atsumu can’t recall, only that it was something so small and insignificant that the argument shouldn’t have even happened in the first place. He thinks you may have been in a bad mood before he even arrived, but that doesn’t change the fact that you haven’t talked to him in the past five hours.

Oh, right. And the power goes out at 6:45.

He texts Miwa to cancel, promising to reschedule on a day where they won’t be talking to each other in the dark, but his phone dies before he gets a response. With a shrug, he tosses it onto the coffee table and makes a mental note to charge it as soon as the power comes back on, knowing full well that he’ll forget the reminder the second he makes it.

He should feel more guilty about the fact that he cares more about your absence than his postponed date.

Atsumu stares at your door for far too long before deciding that he’ll apologize to you — for what, he doesn’t know, but apologize first, ask questions later is his motto — once you’ve left your room. He’ll grovel and get on his knees and even humiliate himself if he has to, as long as it gets you to talk to him again, because God knows he’ll never survive this outage by himself.

(Also, you’re his best friend, and — Atsumu has never told anybody this — the last time you gave him the silent treatment, his chest physically hurt from not speaking to you that he vowed to never anger you again).

It’s 11:35, and you still haven’t left your room.

For the past few hours, you’ve been watching Netflix without headphones to torture a bored Atsumu, but the noises stopped about ten minutes ago, meaning your phone must’ve died too, so it’s only a matter of time before you leave your room in hopes of finding something to do.

Atsumu’s almost giddy at the thought.

At 11:50, he makes his move.

He hears the creaking of your door and your socked feet softly padding in the hallway. Atsumu’s always tried going to sleep early so he can hit the gym before it gets too busy the next morning, so you must’ve waited the latest you could bear with the assumption that he had fallen asleep on the couch.

Atsumu tiptoes to the end of the hallway, teeth bright compared to the darkness of the apartment, and his grin only widens when you finally see him.

You blink before scoffing, brushing past him to enter the kitchenette.

“Y/N,” he says, attempting to be stern but it comes off as a whine in his desperation. “Look at me.” You spare him a glance. Atsumu deems that’s good enough. “Listen, I’m sorry.”

He watches you open a cupboard and fill your glass with water. The seconds that pass by are agonizingly slow and Atsumu shifts uncomfortably when the silence drags on.

Finally, you look at him, unamused, and say, “What exactly are you sorry for?”

He purses his lips in thought. “Uh…”

Rolling your eyes, you turn to make your way back to your room.

“Wait! Wait,” Atsumu shouts, rushing over to block the exit. His eyes dart all over the kitchen in hopes the walls will have the answer to your question. You tap your foot impatiently, and it’s only when you go to open your mouth to tell him to move that he blurts out, “I’m sorry for eating the rest of your chocolate cake.”

You look at him incredulously. “That was you?”

“Yeah, I— wait, you’re not mad about that?”

“I am now!” you huff, using an arm to try and shove him out of the way, but he catches your wrist.

“Then I don’t get it!” he groans. “What did I do?”

You give him a once-over. “Well, what didn’t you do?”

“This is about the outfit?”

“You’ve cuffed your slacks, Tsumu. They’re cuffed. No sane person cuffs their slacks.”

He struggles to wrap his head around your response. “You’re mad,” he repeats, then gestures to his outfit confusedly, “about what I’m wearing.”

You seem to realize just how ridiculous it sounds uttered out loud, because you pout. “Not just that.”

“Then what else?”

You stumble over your words before you coherently state, “You’re going on a date.”

He frowns. “Yes.”

“You’re going on a date,” you say again when it’s obvious he’s not catching on to what you mean. When all Atsumu can manage is a perplexed sound, you add frustratedly, “You’re going on a date, which I don’t understand, since Sakusa told me that I didn’t need to worry anymore, but I guess he’s wrong because you came here asking for my help with looking nice on your night out with Miwa and—”

“Wait,” Atsumu interrupts, still puzzled. “What did Sakusa tell you?”

“He told me not to worry.”

“Worry about what?”

That snaps you out of it.

You open and close your mouth like a fish out of water. Then, you cross your arms over your chest, muttering out a response with feigned nonchalance, “Whatever.”

Atsumu protests, “Hey, I—”

“Where were you even going to take her?” you swiftly change the subject, and Atsumu decides that he’ll let it go — that’s what he’s been doing for a while, anyway, and another day really couldn’t hurt, could it?

“Dancing,” he says.

“Dancing?”

“Yes,” he responds, relaxing at the sight of your amusement. “I searched up unique date ideas and Google told me to take her dancing.”

“You should’ve just taken her to dinner,” you say. “Because you can’t dance.”

“That’s not true at all.”

“You were born with two left feet.”

“Quit lying, you’re only saying that because you’re mad at me.”

“I’m only telling you the truth!”

“I’m a good dancer!”

“You really aren’t. I thought that was established two weeks ago when we were playing Just Dance and you knocked over Aran’s vase.”

“That says nothing about my ability to—”

“Yes, it does.”

“I’ll prove it.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.”

“I’m serious,” he says, stretching his hand out for you to take.

You look at his palm and back up at him. “You’re kidding.”

“Not in any way, shape, or form.”

“We don’t even have music—”

“I’ll sing,” he shakes his hand. “C’mon, hurry up, my arm’s getting tired.”

Without a second thought, you interlace your fingers with his as he whisks you around the kitchen, his laugh loud when you yelp at his fast movements. He places his other hand on the small of your back to keep you from slipping on the tile as he leans to whisper into your ear.

“Any song requests?”

“None. You’re an awful singer,” you retort, bristling at the warmth of his breath.

“So, what are you saying? You’d rather waltz in silence?”

“Yes. And I wouldn’t even call this waltzing. We’re just sliding around the kitchen.”

“We’re waltzing,” Atsumu says firmly, daring you to argue. You only sigh, letting him pull you closer as you two clumsily move around the room. He sings your favourite song despite your insistence for him not to, humming the parts he doesn’t know and doing his best to hit every note.

You laugh into his chest, and he makes sure the sound is trapped in his ribcage so he’ll never have to go a day without it.

When the song reaches its end, you place your head on his shoulder, your breath piercing through his blazer and skin. “I’m sorry that I got mad at you,” you whisper despite the quiet, as if making your voice any louder will shatter the atmosphere. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It’s okay,” he murmurs.

“It’s not, but thanks for trying to make me feel better,” you say timidly. “I guess I just got my hopes up.”

Atsumu tries to get the information out of you again, the very thing that’s been bothering you — and, as a result, him — for weeks. “About what?”

Your fingers tighten around his. “Nothing,” you answer, and if you notice just how much his posture deflates then you say nothing of it. “Can we stay like this for a little while?”

“Yeah, of course,” he says, rubbing circles onto the back of your hand. “We can stay for as long as you want.”

iii. Love

“You’re gonna get it in my eye!”

“Then stay still!”

“Just promise not to poke me.”

“I’ve already promised five times.”

“Then promise again!”

“Tsumu—” you sigh, slumping your shoulders as you meet his defiant gaze. “I promise I won’t get anything into your eyes or your mouth or your nostrils. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Atsumu narrows his eyes. “For some reason that doesn’t make me feel much better.”

You groan. “We’ve been over this millions of times—”

“Sue me for thinking you’re still mad at me.”

“I told you—”

“Sakusa got into my head,” he explains for the umpteenth time that evening, “he keeps on saying I’ve done something wrong, but he won’t tell me what, and he keeps looking at me as if I’ve committed a felony. His face keeps me up at night, it’s the reason why I’ve had so many nightmares recently—”

“Sakusa’s being a nuisance. Trust me, you haven’t done anything wrong,” you assure, your voice echoing off the walls of your tiny bathroom. “You have nothing to worry about, so stop acting like I’m trying to kill you with this face mask.”

He stares pointedly at the tub sitting next to you on the sink. “It’s scarily green,” he whispers conspiratorially. “Like, it’s Hulk-green. Nothing should be that green.”

“If you’re implying it’s poisonous, it’s not.”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

“You’re ridiculous,” you grumble, spreading the mask across his cheeks, ignoring his murmured whines about how cold it feels on his skin. “You weren’t acting like this last time.”

“You were using a different face mask last time,” he rebuts. “I liked the other one better than this one.”

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind the next time I go to the store,” you hum. “Maybe I’ll even take you with me, so you can choose the face mask. It’ll save me from your complaining in the future.”

“You love my complaining,” he replies quickly. “But I really should. I’d make your grocery trips so much more fun.”

“You’d get us kick out.”

“Would not!” Atsumu scoffs when you don’t even bother to hide your unconvinced mien and places his hands on either side of the marble countertop, trapping you against him and the sink. “I’ll prove it this weekend.”

You shake your head. “I’m not going this weekend. The fall festival is on Saturday, remember? I’m holding off spending money this week so I can buy a ton of cotton candy without feeling guilty.”

“Really?” he snorts. “You’re not gonna get wasted this year?”

“Definitely not. Last year was a nightmare.”

“You don’t even remember what happened.”

“Exactly,” you say, smoothing out the mask. “And you’re always taking care of me when I’m drunk, it makes me feel bad.”

Despite his proximity, you don’t seem to feel the intensity of his stare. His demeanour has softened in the past five minutes, smiling warmly at the pinch between your brows and the way your lips have twisted into a focussed frown.

This has happened countless times before — on all the other self-care nights, Atsumu finds himself in the four walls of your bathroom, free to admire you all he wants without the company of his friends and their teasing remarks. Though he’d never admit it, he prefers the quiet, because here, the both of you aren’t brushing off comments made about your relationship; here, it’s just you and him, pressed against the bathroom sink, worries left behind on the other side of the door.

Here, it’s so peaceful that Atsumu believes, for a few short moments, that everything will be okay.

“Don’t feel bad,” he says breathily, dreading the moment when you finish and he’s forced to pull away. “I like taking care of you.”

“You’re required to do it because we’re friends.”

“No, I like doing it,” he says again, ingraining the statement into your brain so it’ll stay there forever. “You don’t see me letting Bokuto or Hinata — hell, even Suna, stay over at my apartment and sleep in my bed.”

You pause your movements, eyes flickering to his. “What does that make me then?”

“Huh?”

“Bokuto, Hinata, and Suna are your friends, but you don’t pick them up from parties and let them say the night at your place.”

“Well, that’s cause I can’t be bothered most of the time, since they’re usually going to on-campus parties and my place is so far from—”

“But you picked me up a few nights ago,” you interrupt, and Atsumu is drawn to the determination in your irises more than he wants to admit. “And a couple weeks ago too, I think. You’ve been picking me up before I even moved in with Sakusa, and my old place was thirty minutes away.”

“What are you saying, Y/N?”

“What am I to you, Atsumu?”

He grips the countertop so tightly his knuckles are as white as the marble. His heart drums against his ribcage, so loud in the cavity of his chest that he wonders if you can hear it too.

“You’re my friend.”

“Like Bokuto? Or Hinata, or Su—?”

“No, of course not,” he scoffs. Comparing yourself to them is absurd. “It’s diff— you’re different.”

“Different how?”

Suddenly, everything feels stuffy. Tension floods the room until he’s neck-deep in it and drowning, all while you stare up at him, awaiting an answer.

“I—”

Someone knocks loudly on the door.

“Hey!” Bokuto. “Is someone in here?”

You don’t answer. The ball is in Atsumu’s court.

There’s an answer that lingers in his mind, one that he wants to give you despite the risk that it could destroy everything he’s ever known. But as his hesitation grows, the ring buoy that is Bokuto’s voice becomes more tempting — something to save him from this situation where he’s flailing in hope and what-ifs. Something to save him from your want and his dread and all the other sharp objects that could slice your friendship in two.

(Aren’t you the one who’s always saying he should be more responsible?

Doing this is the most responsible thing he could do, isn’t it?)

“We’ll be right out,” he responds, and just as he replies, you pull away from him in defeat.

Everything in his body tightens.

You turn to wash your hands. Through the mirror, he can see you blink rapidly and clench your jaw.

When he finally goes to exit, Bokuto stands impatiently on the other side. His eyebrows rise when he spots the hairband keeping Atsumu’s blond strands out of his face.

“That’s cute,” Bokuto coos, poking at the heart that sticks out from the material.

“Thanks,” Atsumu says, adjusting the band and letting his fingers brush against the plush heart. “It’s Y/N’s.”

The sun had set a long time ago.

In its absence is the moon, its light barely sufficient to lead you and Atsumu home — home being his apartment, but you’ve been there so much it might as well be your own. It’s alright, though, he thinks; your arm is interlinked with his, and that’s all he’ll ever need to guide him.

Your hips bump his as you both walk down the sidewalk, the air a melody of your laughs as he retells a childhood story about him and Osamu. You fail to refrain the teasing comments that fall from your lips about how he’s always been a troublemaker, long before you ever met him.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” he’d said a couple minutes ago. “Since I’m your favourite and everything.”

You smile, and every time you do so, the more he believes that the bathroom incident has been forgotten.

But Atsumu’s not stupid. He senses your discomfort — it’s miniscule, but it’s there, and deep down he knows it’s all because of what happened last night.

Every Tuesday, you wait for his evening lecture to finish before you both walk back to his place to watch a movie. Some nights you leave before the clock strikes ten, most nights you stay over. It’s a routine that’s been implemented since he first met you, and never once has it ever felt tense.

Atsumu itches to fix it.

“Hey,” he pipes up, hoping to avoid any uncomfortable lulls in conversation. “You never told me how your date went.”

“My date?”

“Yeah. Bokuto says some guy from your Psychology class asked you out.”

“What?”

“At the party.”

You crinkle your nose in thought before a light bulb goes off in your head. “Are you talking about Kuroo?”

Atsumu’s eyes may as well bulge out of the sockets with how much they’ve widened. “Kuroo asked you out?”

“No,” you say quickly. “Well, yes. But he didn’t mean it. He only did it to get someone to stop bothering him.”

Atsumu frowns. “Then why did Bokuto say—?”

“Bokuto was drunk,” you snicker. “Plus, you know how much of a lightweight he is, and Hinata just kept on giving him drinks, so you can imagine how that went.”

“Not good, probably.”

“Nope,” you say. “Just imagine everything that could’ve gone wrong then double it.”

“Did he puke on Akaashi?”

“Yeah, and on Kuroo too.”

“See, that’s why I never let him stay the night.”

Your smile wavers and he pinches himself for saying anything in the first place.

“That’s probably the only good idea you’ve ever had,” you eventually say, but your voice is weaker than you intend it to be.

Atsumu can’t find the energy to argue.

He allows himself to be pulled down the street, your footsteps hasty compared to how he tries to drag his feet along the cement. Atsumu assumes you want to get this night over with, to spend only an hour — maybe two — with him before bidding goodbye, and the thought causes an ugly feeling to root itself into the pit of his stomach.

The wind whistles in warning. He should’ve expected something like this.

All good things come to an end is something he’s heard far too many times to count, but Atsumu is nothing if not an optimist, and even so, he never thought a saying such as that could ever apply to his friendship with you. Despite the hardships, the two of you have always pulled through.

But the clouds begin to drift over the moon, hindering its light, and his stomach churns at what’s to come.

Your voice, disguised as a remedy to soothe his unease, carries him forward. “Listen, I think I’ll head home after the movie.”

He blinks. “What?”

“I just want to sleep in my own bed tonight, y’know?”

“You can sleep in mine,” he suggests, his tone bordering on a plea. You always sleep in mine. “I can sleep on the couch.”

“It’s okay, Tsumu,” you reply. “You’re probably tired of seeing me all the time, anyway.”

“I’m not,” he insists.

You give him a tight smile in response.

Atsumu’s always believed he was good with words. His voice has failed him before, sure, and it’s not like it’s a secret that sometimes his carelessness lands him in undesirable situations, but he’s usually so quick on his feet. He knows what to say, and if he doesn’t, he can crank up the charm until everyone in the vicinity begins to suffocate on his charisma.

Miya Atsumu is rarely ever speechless.

But then you started acting different, and suddenly he couldn’t decipher your expressions or predict your every move. You would dance with him in the kitchen and tenderly apply skincare products on his face, but no matter how much he pulled you close, you would drift further away. You’d open up before brushing everything off as if he had nothing to worry about.

It's like you haven’t been paying attention at all. If it involved you, Atsumu would always worry.

The question slips out of his mouth too quickly for him to control. “Are you ever gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“What?”

He stops walking, and as a result, so do you. “Something’s been bothering you,” he says hoarsely. “And I was waiting it out because I thought you’d tell me, but… I feel like you never will.”

You lick your lips — to stall, he thinks, but doing so only spares you a second. “Do you have any guesses?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not an idiot,” you sigh. “You must have some idea.”

(And, perhaps, maybe a small part of him does. You’re his best friend, and he is yours, and you each earned that title by knowing the other like the moon knows the stars, like the stars know the sky, like the sky knows the sun.

He knows, you know he does. But this is irresponsible. It threatens everything).

“I don’t,” he lies.

“Atsumu,” you exhale, as if he’s entangled in your system, “do you really need me to say it?”

He doesn’t answer. You continue, anyway.

Three words are whispered into the dead of night, and the world tilts on its axis.

This was never part of the routine.

“Maybe I should just go home,” you murmur when he doesn’t speak. His fingers twitch, screaming at him to reach out for you as soon as you pull away. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Y/N—”

“Just let me go,” you say — you beg. “Please.”

His body screams, his nerves flare, but the messenger between his spinal cord and his brain fails to relay the message that he should do everything in his power to prevent you from leaving.

“Okay,” he responds. His voice sounds like it hasn’t been in use for years, tainted with defeat.

You turn to leave, and for the first time since you’ve met him, Atsumu doesn’t follow.

Atsumu’s moody, he has been for a while, and it doesn’t take long for everyone to realize it’s because of you.

Or, more specifically, the absence of you.

You’ve been spending more time by yourself than you have been with anyone else, cooped up in the safety of your bedroom and listening to — according to Sakusa — music that ranges from soft, heartbroken ballads, to hardcore fuck-you anthems. The lack of your presence is strange; you’ve always been a constant in Atsumu’s life, and to live without it leaves a lingering emptiness in his chest.

He'll catch glimpses of you sometimes on campus, and he feels, what he assumes to be, the same emotion people feel when they claim they’ve spotted Bigfoot.

For a moment, everything feels a little more bearable.

But then you disappear, leaving sorrow in your wake, and reality washes over him like an ice-cold bucket of water.

His moping is how he ends up tagging along with Bokuto and Hinata at the fall festival, trailing after them like an upset puppy while they frolic down the streets, gawking at all the stands and taste-testing every snack they come across. The plan was to have them cheer him up, to make him smile even if it’s only for a second, because when Atsumu is upset, it becomes everyone else’s problem.

Hinata offers him some funnel cake and Atsumu absentmindedly murmurs about how it’s your favourite. They all buy friendship bracelets and Atsumu buys one for you too because he knows how much you’d want one. They all clamber onto the carousel and Atsumu wonders if you’d fall off if you rode the horse.

Bokuto and Hinata get tired of it all eventually.

“He’s hopeless,” Bokuto cries when they reunite with Suna and Osamu. “He won’t stop whining.”

Atsumu opts for standing on his toes to look over the crowd in hopes of finding you instead of replying to his friend. His eyes drift first to the ring toss, then to the man selling cotton candy, then to the spinning teacups.

Nothing.

Osamu says something that finally catches his brother’s attention. “Well, Y/N’s not coming,” he waves his phone in the air, which is open on his message thread with you. “Said they were busy.”

Hinata huffs. “They’re only saying that cause Tsumu’s here.”

Bokuto slaps his arm. “Shoyo!”

“What? It’s true!” he exclaims defensively. “You know how they’re always on top of their assignments, I doubt they’re doing anything but watching TV and—”

“Yeah, but still, don’t say that! Isn’t Tsum-Tsum heartbroken enough?”

“I am not heartbroken,” Atsumu snarls.

Suna gives him a look. “Well…”

“I’m not!” he flails, frantically gesturing to himself to show that he’s perfectly fine. “I mean, yeah, am I a little upset? Yes. But heartbroken? You guys are just saying anything at this point, like—”

Osamu interrupts him before he can continue rambling and digging himself into a bigger hole. “What did you even do, anyway?”

The Miya twins are notorious on campus for their bickering, but Atsumu thought that in this situation, at least his own brother would be on his side. “What makes you think this is all my fault?”

Osamu raises an eyebrow, mocking and patronizing. “Well, for one—”

“If anything,” Atsumu continues, hurriedly cutting him off, “I should be the one avoiding them. Not that I’d want to, I’d never want to, obviously, but if we were getting technical then they should be the one worrying about me and not the other way around.”

Hinata speaks, mouth full of the last of his funnel cake. “Who says they don’t worry about you?”

“I— wait, what?”

“They’re always asking me and Shoyo about how you’re doing,” Bokuto chirps. “How screwed up could things be that you won’t talk to each other?”

Atsumu inhales, and he feels the world begin to collapse into him. Unsure of what to say, unsure of what to think, unsure if it’s fair of him to reach for his phone and hope you’ll answer his calls. He knows why the two of you have found yourselves here, standing on opposite sides of a field of regret and hurt. He knows, that in his attempt to dodge change, he blew something up in the process.

Suna tilts his head in question. “Atsumu. What happened?”

Atsumu exhales. “They told me that—” the words lodge themselves in his throat, unwilling to leave.

But they all understand.

“Huh,” Suna hums. “Didn’t think they had it in them.”

“What did you reply with?” Osamu asks.

Atsumu prepares himself for their rage. “Nothing.”

He’s met with silence. Then, incredulously, Suna asks, “Are you stupid?”

Osamu answers for him. “Chronically so.”

Atsumu doesn’t have the heart to respond to the jab, and the severity of the situation significantly increases.

Hinata bites the inside of his cheek in thought. “I think he’s broken.”

Bokuto leans forward to study Atsumu’s expression as much as he can before the latter waves him off. With a frown, Bokuto steps back and looks around the grounds, hoping to find something that’ll cheer Atsumu up and make tonight not a complete bust.

A tent, flashy and sparkly and enchanting, lures him in.

Osamu looks like he’s about to say something, but before he can utter a word, Bokuto tugs on Atsumu’s sleeve and drags him to the tent, ignoring his protests. “I have an idea,” he says reassuringly, but it does nothing to calm his friend. “Trust me on this.”

Atsumu snatches his arm back and rubs it as if Bokuto’s harmed him. He cranes his neck around to look at the sign just outside the tent, and scowls at the pink and yellow doodles on the chalkboard.

“This is a psychic.”

Bokuto nods vigorously. “Yes.”

“Your idea of cheering me up is having me scammed?”

Bokuto pouts. “You love stuff like this.”

He’s not wrong. If it were any other day, this place would be Atsumu’s first stop. He’d be the one begging people to join him despite the fact that he knows the consequences involve a dent in his bank account, but today, predictions of his future are the last thing on his mind. Today, convincing people to get their fortune read is the least of his desires, because you aren’t trying to convince people with him.

There’s no point being here without you.

Atsumu moves to get out of line.

“Hey, dude,” Bokuto whines and holds onto his arm to keep him in place. “Just give it a try. It can’t hurt, can it?”

“Boku—”

“It’ll be fun!” he says cheerily. “Maybe it’ll give you some insight on how to apologize to Y/N.”

Atsumu wants nothing more than to move — to leave — but Bokuto mastered the art of the puppy dog eyes long before he could talk, and the moment he flashes them Atsumu realizes he has no other choice but to stay.

When he steps into the tent, the atmosphere changes.

He tugs on the sleeves of his windbreaker when the autumn air threatens to pierce his skin, and reluctantly sits down on the chair across from the psychic. She eyes his every move, trying to figure out what type of customer he might be — someone who’s just doing this for fun, or someone who’s going through a rough patch, or someone who needs a stranger to light the path they need to walk down.

Atsumu fidgets in his seat.

“You’re here for a reading?”

A shrug and feigned indifference are what she receives as an answer. “Sure.”

His mask of nonchalance begins to slip when the reading starts, growing restless as he checks the time on his watch and calculating the probability of you still being awake. He glances over his shoulder, praying to whichever deity who’ll listen that Bokuto will come in and drag him out once he’s realized that this is the last thing Atsumu wants.

You are not here, and his body stings whenever the reminder worms its way into his mind.

His uneasiness must amuse the psychic, because when he finally looks back at her, she’s grinning, knotting his stomach in worry.

She asks him a dreadful question, made of nuts and bolts and things that rub salt in the wound of his heart.

What is it that you desire most, boy?

Atsumu freezes, plastering a confused smile on his face. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m sure you know. Is it strength?”

Definitely not, Atsumu wants to say. He’s more than capable enough to lift heavy boxes, he doesn’t have to take multiple trips to move things from point A to point B, he doesn’t struggle carrying his friends’ slump and inebriated bodies into a bed.

Atsumu is strong. He’s proved it during his frequent trips to the gym and by winning arm-wrestling contests. He wears the trait like a badge of honour, a reminder.

He does not need any more physical strength.

He checks his watch and wonders if you’ve brushed your teeth and dragged yourself to bed.

The psychic pushes. “Power?”

Atsumu briefly shakes his head, a movement so miniscule it’s a surprise the woman catches it.

It used to be such a thrill, the popularity that came with his volleyball reign. He used to ride that horse and sit in that throne with pride, he let the excitement course through him and, for a while, let himself believe the squeals that came with victory was interchangeable with love.

But power does not compare. He was foolish to believe nothing could beat the rush that came with the admiration — the shouts of his name in the bleachers, the ever-growing follower count, the people confessing their infatuation whenever they caught him alone.

They do not know who he is underneath the volleyball uniform. They don’t know that he likes to go to the diner after games and order a strawberry milkshake, or that his bottom drawer is filled to the brim with spare clothes for you, or that his favourite nights are spent with you applying a face mask to his skin.

They will never know him as much as you do.

The psychic leans forward. “Love?”

Atsumu clenches his jaw. Yes, would be the short answer, but to say that without an explanation would mean to lie, and he’s never been a good liar. Because Atsumu’s always been loved — not by the crowds or the student body — but by his friends, his family, you.

You gave your heart to him, and he noticed too late that the bleeding organ resided in the palm of his hand, cracked and yearning and brave. And after he realized this, he selfishly craved for more, even though he knew it scared him. He has been in relationships before, but none of them crossed the threshold of what truly mattered — the intimate conversations, the dances in the kitchen at midnight, the confessions murmured under the duvet.

So, perhaps, yes, Atsumu desires love, but the one thing he supposes he wants more is courage.

The psychic smiles. “Ah. Bingo. So—”

“Miya.”

Atsumu whips his head around to find Sakusa standing at the entrance, skillfully ignoring the protests behind him to get in line and wait his turn. Sakusa raises an eyebrow at the situation Atsumu’s found himself in, but saves him from his judgement to state, “Bokuto told me you were in here.”

“Excuse me,” the woman chirps. “We’re in the middle of something.”

“If you think a scam is what’ll solve your problems, then you’re stupider than I thought,” Sakusa says.

Atsumu sighs. “You came here just to tell me that?”

“Well, yeah,” Sakusa shrugs. “There’s a simpler solution to all of this.”

“Okay, well—”

“Talk to them,” Sakusa interrupts, exhausted. “Before they give up.”

Atsumu kisses his teeth, changing his position in his chair so he’s fully facing Sakusa. “Since when were you the type to give advice?”

Sakusa ignores his retort with a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes.

“I have never seen you cower before, Miya,” Sakusa says, and the words are like needles on his skin. “Don’t let the first time you do so be now.”

Atsumu inhales shakily. “I don’t—”

“They got Hinge a few days ago,” Sakusa deadpans. Atsumu stiffens. “Don’t lose to some hack they found on a dating app.”

Atsumu looks from his friend to the clairvoyant before flashing her a sheepish smile and shooting clumsily out of his chair. The words that tumble from his mouth are barely coherent, and the last thing he hears before he exits the tent is Sakusa mumbling moron under his breath.

The journey from the festival to your apartment is a blur. He vaguely recalls running past his friends and returning their questioning shouts with a wave of his hand and getting angry at least two cars who cut him on the road, before he ends up in front of your door, nose tinged red from the cold.

His knocks are insistent.

“I’m coming, God, be patient,” he hears you say before you open the door to see him, and your annoyance is wiped away in seconds.

“Hi,” he says, out of breath from running up three flights of stairs after he got impatient waiting for the elevator. His eyes land on the blanket you’ve wrapped over your shoulders, and his lips quirk up at the familiar pattern. “Didn’t I get you that?”

You tug on the material defensively. “What are you doing here?” you ask. “And what the hell are you wearing? Did you not look at the weather before you left the house? It’s freezing outside, you idiot, you should be wearing a thicker jacket. And your face is so red! And your hands! They’re gonna get all dry if you don’t wear gloves! How many times do I have to tell you to dress for the weather otherwise you’ll get sick and…”

Atsumu rasps, “And?”

You gulp, taking a step back to distance yourself. “And you shouldn’t be here,” you say, sending a knife to his chest. “I thought you were at the festival.”

“That’s why you didn’t come,” he concludes. “Because I was there.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do?” you snap. “I told you I loved you and you looked at me like I was crazy.”

“I didn’t.”

“Whatever,” you bark. “My point still stands. You shouldn’t be here.”

He nods. “I know.”

“Then why are you?”

Eight letters are whispered into the darkness of the entryway, and the world is thrown off-balance.

“I love you,” he says, surprising himself with just how easy the words escape after he lets them, “and I’m so, so sorry.”

Your lips part in surprise. “What?”

“I love you,” he repeats. “And I should’ve told you sooner, but I— I was scared—”

“Then why are you telling me now?”

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “Love conquers all, I guess. My fear included.”

“You came all the way here to tell me that?”

He risks a step towards you and his heart flutters when you don’t move away. “I ran out of a psychic’s tent, too.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he murmurs. “That’s not important right now.”

“It sounds pretty important, I mean, you mentioned it and everything.”

“It’s not.”

“What exactly is more important than that?”

“Your forgiveness, actually.”

You huff. “Believe it or not, forgiveness doesn’t come so easily, Atsumu.”

“Can I kiss you, then?” he questions innocently, placing a hand against your cheek. “Will you take that as an apology?”

You still, licking your lips as you try to maintain your defiant stance. “…That won’t work every time you make me mad, you know.”

He tries his best not to smirk. “Is that a yes?”

“I hate you.”

He lets his lips hover over yours, and he’s not sure if the loud heartbeat ringing in his ears is his or yours (or maybe a mixture of both). “Is that yes?” he asks again, searching your eyes for any signs of discomfort.

Your eyes flicker to his mouth and then you mumble, “Yes.”

Atsumu pinches himself before capturing his lips with yours, eager and desperate, to kiss you with enough pent-up want and need to cause you to stumble. He’s gentle in the way he cradles your face, as if the world has found itself in his hands, still beautiful despite how much he’s hurt it.

He’ll make up for hurting you later, but for now he’ll allow himself to be selfish.

I love you, he whispers into your mouth, and you capture the confession with your own and let it live in your beating heart.

I love you, he whispers into your neck as you both stumble into the kitchen, making sure to tattoo the words into your skin so you’ll never forget.

“I love you,” he whispers one last time as the blanket covers you both and he’s sure you’ve lulled to sleep with your ear against his chest and his thumb drawing hearts on your shoulder, “so, so much.”

Slumber takes over you both, blanketing your smiling figures with hope and love.

© fushisagi, 2023. do not translate or plagiarize my works.

[vaultdwellerbarbie]

mary's song (oh my my my)

boone x f!reader (5.5k wc)

summary quite literally everyone who has ever interacted with yourself and boone knows that you're in love with each other, it's really just the two of you who can't seem to recognize it

content warnings tornadoes, a few crude jokes

hi everyone i'm back!!! just moved, but managed to see twisters again during it. i've been in a (useless) quest to find a twisters poster, too. this is named after the taylor swift song because... obviously, i'm sure you've heard the song. divider credit to saradika :-) also did anyone else get bombared on tiktok and instagram by anthony ramos shooting a video up his nose yesterday???? someone needs to tell him how to hold his phone

It had only been about a year ago that you first met Tyler Owens and, after a long conversation, had been invited to accompany the small team he had been putting together to chase tornadoes. Despite it not having been that long ago, a lot had happened in the time between your first meeting and now.

For starters, you had never really been big on using social media publicly before all of this. That wasn’t to say that you were terrified of it, or that you even had many qualms with your newly found position of having people know your name—really, most people were interested in Tyler, so it wasn’t like you were being hounded just because the channel had so many followers online. Even Tyler wasn’t being necessarily hounded, though he was a bit more famous than the rest of you.

The main part of your attention came from the second thing that had massively changed since you started working with the team: everyone seemed to be under the impression that you were in love with your best friend and that the feelings were reciprocated. 

To be clear, you were in love with Boone. But you didn’t think people needed to know that; you denied it every time someone asked you. 

When you joined the Wrangler team, it was an adjustment for everyone to have a new member of the team taking part in everything. That wasn’t to say that people ignored you, or that they didn’t like having you around; it was more like muscle memory. They had to balance making sure you felt included without accidentally making you feel suffocated, especially since you were still navigating being a chaser, which is tricky on its own, and being a ‘social media influencer’, in a sense. 

While that was happening, Boone took it upon himself to make sure that you were included and comfortable. He was nice, he was funny, he had a lot of energy, and you liked being around him. He made you laugh when you were scared, he made you eat when you got so lost in the work that you forgot, and he kept you up with long conversations even when you were exhausted and you would have told anyone else that you needed to go to bed. You often looked forward to your half-awake conversations at tailgates with him once everyone else had fallen asleep, even though you knew that you were going to regret it in the morning. 

Even then, you could never fully regret it. Boone went out of his way to bring you coffee or energy drinks depending on how tired you were; it didn’t take him long for you to figure out your tastes. 

That’s not to say that he was the only one who was incredibly generous with you - everyone was very welcoming, and you appreciated all of them; it was just a little bit different with Boone. At first, you figured it was just because your personalities meshed well together—and that was definitely a factor—but after a while, you started to recognize that it was a little more than that. As much as you tried to deny it to yourself, at the point that your stomach was fluttering every time he touched you, you knew that you couldn’t deny the reason why it was different with Boone. 

Well, you couldn’t deny it to yourself, at least. Everyone else you could deny it away to, even though you weren’t sure you were the most convincing liar. 

The fans picked up on it rather quickly, probably because with every seating and vehicle arrangement that they saw, you were almost always together. Maybe it was the way that you laughed at his jokes or the way that he had initially encouraged you when you weren’t sure what to say in front of the cameras. It could have been the fact that, as you got closer, you were a lot more touchy. Sometimes, you could act like you shared a brain cell, and sometimes that came along with you hugging on camera or sitting shoulder to shoulder, looking like you’re creating some sort of plan in the corner of the vehicle when in reality you’re... actually, often creating a plan. 

The rest of the team picked up on it just as fast, though they didn’t go to the extremes that the fans did—it wasn’t like you woke up to a message from a family member sending a ‘ship edit’ that your friends had made of you and Boone; that was all the fanbase.

No, the rest of the team were somewhat subtle about it at first. But when it got to the point that he would stand behind you, rest his head on your shoulder, and let you do the same to him whenever you felt like it—any restraint that they had was out of the window. At that point, Tyler was almost frustrated by the fact that you both continually denied that anything was happening between you when it was so abundantly clear to everyone else that the things that you both labeled as platonic were anything but that.

Still, even in private, you would never admit to anyone that you had any sort of non-platonic feelings for Boone, and he would deny, deny, deny every time someone asked him. 

Sometimes it was fans when you were selling merchandise; other times it was the people you were helping in the towns who noted how comfortable you were with each other. Outside of that, it was your friends pulling you aside and trying their hardest to get the two of you to finally admit that something was going on between you. No matter who it was, you both always had the same answer—you're insane, I’m not in love. Have you never had a close friend before? 

Out of everyone, Tyler was the most frustrated with it because he was close friends with Boone, and he knew that it would make him even happier if he could just admit that he has feelings for you. Still, nothing he did or said really helped, even though that never stopped him from continuing to try to get one of you to break. 

The most egregious example is the fact that Kate was convinced that the two of you were together when she first met you and had to be informed that wasn’t the case. She had, earnestly, been discussing what it was like to be in a relationship in public like that with yourself and Tyler when he had to politely inform her that you, in fact, were not in a relationship with Boone. Now, he ended it there with you in the conversation, but the moment he could talk to Kate alone they were both complaining about it—it made no sense to them that you and Boone weren’t in a relationship with the way that you acted toward each other. 

Despite that, you both continued what you were doing beforehand. There was, however, a palpable shift in the dynamic of your relationship after you met Kate—after the incident in the theater. 

Though you both survived it, you never shook the feeling that came with gripping onto flimsy, rusty theater seats for dear life and not knowing if the other person was going to make it out alive. During it, you wished that you had told him how you felt because you were worried that you would never get the chance again, but even after you both made it out alive, you said nothing—Boone said nothing. The idea of ruining your friendship if he didn’t feel the same way or vice versa just felt like too much of a risk, so you chose to keep it to yourself. 

Still, you managed to be even closer after that. You sat closer, touched each other more, and often refused to go on a chase without the other person by your side—that had more to do with the remaining fear of something going wrong again, but you also knew that it had something to do with the fact that both of you had something that you needed to get off of your chests and had decided to keep to yourselves for one reason or another. It got to a point where everyone seemed genuinely frustrated by your lack of communication on the matter, but you were both convinced that it was the only thing that you could do. 

Another chase had gone well, and you were sitting with your friends in the parking lot of some motel—admittedly, one of the nicer ones that you had stayed at—but you were pretty sure it was because it was recently rebuilt after being ravaged by a tornado. There were a few people you had met along the way—fans of the channel who were studying tornadoes and other natural disasters—who were having a conversation predominantly with Tyler and Kate. 

Feeling a nudge on your shoulder, you turned to face Boone, who was offering you a cold bottle of water. 

“Thanks.”

It was an unconscious choice when you decided to move a bit closer to Boone once he was seated, but one that caught the eyes of the people around you regardless. 

“My daughter is a big fan of both of you.” One of the older women commented, and a smile covered your lips as you turned to look at her. “But she seems to think you’re both…”

“She must be one of the editors.” 

“Writer, actually.”

“Ah.” 

Both of you knew about the edits and the fan fiction. That’s not to say that there were a lot of them, they were just a lot more popular than any other pairing in the fanbase. Many people who subscribed to the channel were people who were generally interested in nothing but the weather, but what caught the attention of the young eye? Admittedly, Tyler and not any of you. But what kept them coming back wasn’t just them enjoying looking at Tyler but rather the relationships between the crew.

For the same tried and true reason that people listen to podcasts, and before that radio shows, to get through their daily grind, they enjoy the relationships and conversations between the Wranglers. But younger people get heavily into shipping, and since the two of you tend to finish each other’s sentences, it’s often the two of you that get the most edits and fanfictions written about you—the most people in the comment sections who are convinced that something is happening that’s more than what they already knew. 

“But you’re not together, are you?”

“Not as far as we know. Are we, Boone?” You turned to look at him, but he only gave her the same smile he always gave the people who inquired about the nature of your relationship.

“I don’t think so.”

"Yeah, but everyone else does,” Tyler interjected, to which you could both agree. Though he said it in the sense that he—and everyone else on the crew—was under the impression that you were wrongly convinced that you weren’t in a relationship and that you were just blind to the reality of it, you agreed because you knew that everyone else believed that you were in a relationship with each other even if you continually denied it. 

“Even Kate does, and she just got here.” Dani was the next to speak up, but you just took a sip of your water and tried to ignore it. As much as you love everyone on the team, sometimes it could be difficult with them being convinced of your relationship with Boone being something that it wasn’t. To be clear, you loved him; you wanted it to be more than what it was, but it took a lot out of you to make peace with just being friends with him, and it could sometimes be draining to be constantly reminded of that. 

“She’s always talking about one specific chase, where she wore his glasses or something?”

You knew what she was talking about; you remembered that day vividly. 

While you, typically, came prepared for anything, your sunglasses had been destroyed in a chase because you had gotten a little bit overzealous and lost them out of the window. Since there was an outbreak at the time, you were so exhausted at the end of that day that you just kind of forgot that you were planning on getting new sunglasses. Despite the incoming storm, it was sunny that day. You complained to Tyler and Boone about how you hated not having your glasses during chases, and Boone took it upon himself to reach back from the front seat and politely put his sunglasses on your face. To top it all off, he made sure to give you a gentle pat on the cheek before turning back around. Certainly, your face had grown impossibly warm during that moment, and you weren’t sure how he could have missed that when he touched it. 

A lot of fans latched onto that because it seemed like a clear piece of evidence that something was going on between you and Boone. While you saw it as nothing more than him being silly—and a good friend—everyone who was already prone to thinking that something was going on between the two of you only had their thoughts amplified.

After a few moments, questions about your relationship were dropped, and whatever conversation had been happening across from you before just proceeded. But you couldn’t deny that there had been a shift since everything happened—since you first met Kate, since you almost lost each other, and a sopping wet Boone pulled you so tightly against him that you were pretty sure you were just a little bit more pressure away from being suffocated—but you knew that you had him in just as aggressive of a hold, and for good reason. You didn’t want to die, and that was enough to instill fear within you, but you also didn’t want Boone to die. You were terrified to lose him, and the mere fact that he didn’t know you loved him in any way other than him being your best friend was beyond you. But you also knew that you hated the idea of him not being in your life. What if he didn’t reciprocate your feelings? You didn’t want to risk losing him. 

The rest of the night went just about how nights like these typically went. You had a good time with everyone but gave Boone most of your attention. He was the one next to you, the one who let you rest your head on his shoulder when you got tired, the one who walked you to your room (that was right next to his) and reminded you that he would be up bright and early just to make sure that you were up bright and early. 

While you were up early, you were unhappy about it. The entire night you were tossing and turning, considering whether you should just listen to what everyone around you keeps saying about Boone and just follow what your heart requires of you. But the logical part of your brain refuses to allow you to make any rash decisions in the middle of the night. Not the night before a tornado that predictions are saying is going to be at least someone impressive.

Predictions can always be wrong, you know that. Just because the numbers are good doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re in for a big show. But, you’re still all prepared for something big to happen—even if you end up with a little tornado or nothing at all, the fans are still going to enjoy it, and you’ll have the added benefit of knowing that at least one town or city isn’t going to have to pay a fortune in repairs. While one little street sign might not make much of a difference, even one house being hit is something that everyone takes harshly on the team. A lot of thoughts kept you up at night, but you ultimately were able to fall asleep.

Waking up the next morning, getting everything ready, and opening the door to find Boone waiting at the top of the stairs with a coffee is typically how you end up getting out of bed every morning—today has been no different thus far. You’re not expecting today to be much different than any other day to begin with, so you’re not looking for much when you walk outside of the motel room.

“You know if today is an experiment day?” You asked, taking a sip of your coffee. Your arm was almost touching Boone’s as you walked beside him, but your friends were used to that at this point. If they even noticed anymore, they didn’t make the effort to say something about it. There was no point; it was like speaking to two brick walls when anyone tried to confront either of you about the nature of your relationship in any capacity. 

“Think so; you gotta ask Kate.”  Since the damage was, preliminarily, expected to be a bit higher of a risk than the smaller storms that you had been dealing with lately, it was most likely that it was an experiment day. While you knew that Kate’s formulations worked, you also knew that it wasn’t a miracle to end all tornadoes. She needed to continue working on them and making sure that they could be as useful toward preventing destruction as humanly possible.

Still, as you waited by the trucks, the early morning sun shining on Boone as you walked beside him, you couldn’t help but think about him in ways that you were certain a friend doesn’t typically think about her other friend. You knew that the way you looked at him was different, and you knew that you probably should have been more subtle about it. If he had noticed the way that you looked at him, he hadn’t said anything. 

“Sorry, we didn’t have time to eat.” He finally said, leaning against the truck. “I did bring this though.”

Your lips broke into a smile as you watched him pull a chocolate bar out from his pockets, but you only shook your head. “I don’t want to eat pocket chocolate, Boone.”

“Why do you always gotta call it that? Just ‘cause it’s in my pocket-”

“It’s hot out here! You can’t tell me that thing isn't melting—at least a little.” 

Boone opened up the candy bar, and you both looked at it. It wasn’t quite gooey yet, but it was definitely melting. “So what if she’s meltin’? Still candy. You like hot chocolate, don’t you?”

“Not the same.”

“It’s totally the same.”

“It’s not remotely the same!”

“We’ve gotta head out, kids. You’re with me.” Tyler interrupted you both, walking past you to get into his red truck. Realistically, you were pretty sure this was where you were going to be today anyway, but you also knew that you were going to both be in the back. 

Before Kate, you would often be in the back alone with Tyler and Boone in the front. When Ben came along for a little while, you would sit in the back with him if you were in the red truck, with Boone or Lily sometimes in the back with you. But, with Kate here, if you were in the truck with Tyler, you were almost always with Boone. If you were both there, you were in the back seat with him with Kate and Tyler in the front. Since today you were going to be running an experiment, Kate was going to be the one in the front seat since it was, after all, her formula and her experiment to begin with.

Once you were inside the truck, you sat as close to the middle as you could, and Boone always did the same. He liked to still feel more like he was in the front, and you liked to sit close to him.

"Sure, you don’t want any? It’s the good stuff.” His fingers were coated in chocolate at this point, and though you should have found it sloppy in some way, you found it endearing. He was always so genuine, and he was always incredibly excited to be doing what he was doing. You’d never met anyone who put as much energy and passion into everything that they do quite as Boone does, but maybe that’s just a part of why you’re so drawn to him. 

“If this goes well, we’ll be back in time for lunch.”

“But-”

“I appreciate it, you know I do.” You gave him a comforting pat on the head that he quickly swatted away; meanwhile, Kate and Tyler hopped in the front of the truck. The cameras were on regularly quickly, and whatever interpersonal conversations you were having quickly morphed into what they were on camera. Though sometimes you were certain that Boone was just a little more flirtatious on camera than he was off camera because you both knew that exaggerating your personalities helped with sales—and your relationship itself, whatever it was, helped with sales more than you cared to admit. 

Once you got to the sight, you always took a lot of joy in two things: one, seeing the storm itself since that was how you got into this line of work to begin with. But the second thing—the thing that most people picked up on when they watched you—was the way that you watched Boone. He was always a pretty happy person, but it was like his entire demeanor shifted when he saw a storm in person. No matter how many times he had been on a chase, he was always lost in the sight of it and the feeling of being there. He never once lost that sense of wonder or that look in his eyes, and it always made you happy when you got to be there with him and to sit it happening up close and personal. It just so happened that other people tended to notice that you spent a lot of chases just looking at Boone. 

As Tyler drove the truck into the tornado, you made sure to join in with Boone in amping up the viewers. At some point, you were pretty sure a good old-fashioned ‘yee-haw’ came out of his mouth, which you were more than happy to repeat as you waited for Kate to press the buttons that would release her barrels into the atmosphere. 

While Kate released the barrels, the sounds of your friends' voices explaining what they were seeing on the radar barely came through over the sounds of your voices and the tornado. It came in just enough for you all to hear that the height was dropping. Once the truck wasn’t being moved very much, the four of you stepped out of the truck. It was a bit windy, but it was greatly dying down. Whatever strength that tornado was going to be—and from the looks of it, you were certain it would be relatively strong—it was now a thing of the past. 

Boone always liked to celebrate at the end; you knew that. Sometimes that would be giving Kate a high-five for being the one to initially formulate something so powerful. Other times, it could be him doing a backflip, shaking Tyler, or the one time that he tried to dance with you much to your confusion. But each time, it tended to be something different. And no amount of these such instances could have prepared you for his initial reaction today.

It took you a moment to adjust to the feeling of his hands on your face, but barely any time to register that he had planted a chaste yet somehow sloppy kiss against your lips. Truthfully, you were pretty sure that Boone didn’t even recognize what he did until after he had done it, and you were both just left there, staring at each other with his hands still planted on your cheeks. But that lasted for probably about seven seconds, and he was gone to the camera just a moment later. You were positive that Tyler had recorded that, but you were honestly too shocked to even process whatever conversation he was having with Boone. 

“I thought you two were just friends.” Kate teased, approaching you as you placed the tips of your fingers against your lips.

“Me too.” 

Riding back to the motel, you were lost in conversation with the people in the front of the truck. You were going to need to be on the road again the next morning; Kate had gotten work about there being something big on the horizon across state lines. None of you were overly fond of going as far as she was proposing in such a short amount of time, but you were still going to have enough time to sleep at the very least. Joining in on a tailgate probably wasn’t in the cards for any of you unless you were willing to entirely forgo sleep just to do something that you had done the night prior with probably all of the same people, but you were still going to have time to have a meal before packing yourselves back into the car.

When that conversation ended, you knew you were close to the motel, but you also knew that you were left in silence. The moment you were, you were allowed to truly ponder your thoughts about your relationship with Boone. Even though it was a tame kiss, one that you could even consider friendly, you knew that it was something different. Because it was him, because he looked at you the way that he did afterward, because you were in love with him, because of the way that he had been looking at you since a lull in the conversation left you both to your own devices. 

He had kissed you, and you knew that he didn’t have platonic reasons for it. 

“Why do I have a feeling we’re going to need to pay for one less room tonight?” Tyler questioned, his eyes on the back, while Kate nudged and scolded him for making you both look away from each other like you had seen something that you weren’t supposed to have seen. Kate said something about “Look what you did” while you took note of the large crowd of people that were gathered right where you were about to pull into.

The moment you got out of the truck, you were all bombarded. Tyler was often the one who received the most attention, and it was no different today. But you noted the flock of people who came up to yourself and Boone, the way that everyone in your friend group seemed to have the same either excited or surprised look in their eyes when they looked at the two of you. Eventually, though, enough was enough in your mind.

Boone’s eyes were locked on your face in a way that was different from anything else that you had experienced before today, and you were certain that you were looking at him in the very same way. At some point, you just had to give in to your instincts.

Turning around, you grabbed onto his cheeks just like he had done to you and pulled him into a kiss. Boone immediately responded, an arm wrapping around your waist, as he immediately made the kiss a lot deeper than it had been earlier in the day. The feeling of his facial hair tickling your skin made you smile against his mouth, and your smile made him smile. The sound of the people around you taking pictures, talking amongst each other, selling merchandise, and chattering about your new relationship with Boone did nothing to deter you. You’d been waiting what felt like ages for exactly this, and you finally had it. 

Pulling away, you sighed as you rested your forehead against his. It felt like the world was a lot lighter now that you weren’t carrying the weight of wanting to feel his lips against yours on your back. But there was one more large weight that was really keeping you down, and you knew at this point that there was no sense in it any longer.

Those three words slipped out of your lips after a moment, and the giddy expression on his face translated into his voice as he told you the same thing. So you kissed him again, and again, and probably one more time for good measure before Tyler decided that you’d both probably had enough and were making the people around you—the people who were financing everything that you were able to do together—at least a little bit uncomfortable. 

But it didn’t matter to you if you needed to wait until later to kiss him as much as you wanted, because you had done it. You’d kissed him, you’d told him that you loved him, and you now knew that he felt the same way. Maybe it was odd to have been that close and been seemingly unable to communicate your feelings with each other, but it didn’t matter anymore. Even if you had some time to make up for, you were truly just relieved that you no longer needed to hide your feelings—that the edits and stories would now reflect reality, rather than just reflecting what you secretly hoped that your reality would become. 

Tyler’s theory had ended up being correct; they did end up needing one less bedroom since the two of you had decided to stick together for the night. But whether or not they made jokes or assumptions didn’t matter, because what mattered the most to you was right there in front of you. Plus, some little part of you had always loved that they all knew how much you loved him; maybe that was what made him feel comfortable enough to kiss you, and maybe that was what would make it an easy transition from being accused of being together to actually being together. But you weren’t sure yet, and you were beyond excited to find out. 

In the following weeks, it had proven incredibly easy to get used to the idea of being on camera in a relationship—some parts of it felt predominantly the same, but you also couldn’t deny that the slightly possessive side of your brain was just happy that people knew that you were with Boone and that nobody could—or would—try to make some sort of move to take that away from you. 

Your friends were supportive, albeit frustrated that they had to watch you both beat around the bush and pine for so long. The fans were supportive as well, and both of you ended up actually watching some of the compilations that people had made of your ‘best moments’ together. Though you finally deciding to actually go forward with the relationship did put all of the fans frustrated with your lack of progress back where they started to begin with, mainly watching the videos and the streams for Tyler. 

So, it allowed for a bit of calm. Even though nothing about your job was calm, and it was rare that Boone was ever calm, there was a sense of tranquility in being able to sit beside him during a chase with your hand in his, or to kiss him when something went right or wrong, or just whenever you felt like it.

As the day was winding down, about three months out from actually making your feelings toward each other known, you joined your friends outside at the dinner table at Kate’s mom’s farm. You had helped Kate and her mom cook dinner, while Dani had handled making the tea and Tyler had volunteered to set the table. Kate had opened up about this being a bit of a tradition with her and her friends before things went wrong, so you knew that it was important that you all pitched in so she wouldn’t be distracted by those thoughts of the past. 

As you set the food down, you moved to wrap your arms around your boyfriend as he snapped out of the conversation that he was in, his head tilting up from his seat as a smile covered his face. 

“Hey there, darlin’. Miss me?”

“‘Course.” You responded, pressing a kiss to his cheek and sitting down beside him. Throughout the meal, he kept an arm slung over your waist, letting you play with his fingers and rest your head on his shoulder. While you had always been affectionate with each other, it had always been restricted to anything that could be remotely interpreted as platonic. But, no longer having to do that, you finally allowed yourself to find true peacefulness in the chaos of your lives.

[bluemari23]

dazzling light || kim hongjoong

summary: your soul bond activates at a concert and you seriously doubt your actually going to be able to meet them, not when they are on the stage and more than likely can't see the soul light that surrounds you.

pairing: kim hongjoong x autistic reader

genre: soulmates, soul bonds, soul marks, fluff, some light angst

warnings: autistic reader, overstimulation, some slight panic,

word count: 1.5k

masterlist

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Despite your love for music, sometimes it could be too loud. Your ears ringing and sometimes you swore your brain actually shakes in your skull. The way you listened to music almost every second of the day was a surprise to some people, seeing as you were easily overstimulated and when too many things were happening at once, you used your noise canceling headphones for peace. 

You thought that a concert would be an isolated incident; Somewhere where you could only focus on the music and not on anything else. Where you could just feel the music and let your body sway to the rhythm. 

Finding out you had a soulmate at a concert was not on your plan for the night. 

And looking down at your wrist to see the gold letters building the name of your bias was also not on your plan for the night. 

For soulmates, soul bonds only activate when you are in the same room, gold letters representing the soul spell out the name of your soulmate. A gold light also surrounds the people within the bond so you could find your other half easier. 

But you knew who your other half was, and you doubted they could see you from the stage. 

You were seated near the front of the stage, a front row seat in the first part of the seated section. You had felt beyond lucky to get the seat, knowing how quickly the seats go and how easily the concerts sell out tickets. Now, you wonder if it was fate bringing you here. 

You anxiously sat, waiting for some kind of sign that he also sees you. But Hongjoong seemed to look almost everywhere but where you were seated. That was until he glanced at your section during Guerilla and seemed to do an obvious double glance. Everyone around you was screaming, thinking that he was looking at them, but you know differently. 

But then he didn’t look your way again. 

You couldn’t help but to think, maybe he doesn’t want a soulmate?

Did he see your soul light?

He probably isn’t interested in having a soulmate. Another person to depend on. It’s probably for the best anyways, with your disability anyways. You couldn’t always control your brain or the way your body took in stimuli. 

Seeing reason, you tried to just enjoy the rest of the concert, listening to Answer and then Crazy Form, which was one of your favorites. You followed the crowd and moved your light stick along with them. You even got up and danced for as long as you could handle. 

When the concert ended, though, you couldn’t help but to wait a couple minutes. You told yourself it was because you couldn’t handle the crowds trying to leave the stadium at the same time, but you knew it was because you hoped that he did want you, even the tiniest bit. 

After waiting about ten minutes, you gave up hope and started to grab your things. It was disappointing, but nothing you weren’t used to. Being a burden was unfortunately something you felt a lot, and this was nothing different. 

After grabbing your things, you began to make your way down the small walkway that led to the inner hallways of the stadium, out into the main concession area. You pass through the entryway only to bump into a large man in a stadium uniform. 

“Are you Ms. Y/n L/n?” The large man was imposing and his voice was deep and intimidating, making you hesitate for a couple of seconds before nodding your head, not wanting any trouble. 

“We’ll need you to come with us then.” You heard another voice, and someone pushed past the large and intimidating man to stand in front of you. 

This man was shorter, but still nonetheless intimidating. He wore a stern expression and his glasses reminded you of an old professor you had in college who loved to yell and throw things across the classroom when someone was talking during his lecture. It was safe to say you were now shaking in your shoes. 

The ma wore no indication of his position with regards to the stadium, and you were thoroughly confused now to what could be going on. 

“Is there something wrong, Sirs?” Your voice was weaker than you wanted to push out, showing how uncomfortable you were. 

The men just turned around and started walking, not even looking to see if you were following. But you did, entirely scared and uncomfortable and feeling entirely intimidated to do anything but what the men say. 

You followed them through a different hallway, one with the words “CREW ONLY” plastered to the front. You now went from being scared to freaked out. Your thoughts were going a hundred miles an hour until you ended up in front of a set of double doors that had the word “ATEEZ” printed on a sheet of paper and taped to the right-side door. 

Now, now you were completely frozen.

You swear your heart actually stopped. 

“Please.” The short man gestured you forward, knocking on the door for you without giving you a second to move. 

Before you could catch your breath, someone opened the door, a casual smile on their lips and a baggy but comfortable looking t-shirt with the new Ateez designs on it. You assumed this was one of the managers as he shook the smaller man’s hand and thanked them for bringing you here. 

“Hello, you must be Ms. Y/n?” The man then turned to look at you, his bright eyes centered on you and then your wrist where Hongjoong’s name resided in gold ink.

You just stared at the man, your obvious nerves showcased on your face, still completely frozen as you look up at him. 

“Please, don’t be nervous. Hongjoong is actually excited that we were able to find you still here and might actually start freaking out if we leave him in there with Wooyoung and Jongho’s teasing any longer.” The man cracks another warm-hearted smile at you before holding his hand out for you to take, a nice gesture. 

“How about we go and introduce you to your soulmate, hm?” The man, who still didn’t introduce himself moved behind you, hand hovering against your back as he opens the door again, the noise from inside becoming completely silent as you slowly moved inside. 

You saw Hongjoong first, his eyes catching yours as a large smile grows on his lips, his cheeks pushed wide as he does so. You then catch Wooyoung actually hanging off of the captain, Seonghwa trying and failing to get him off until you appear, both men slowly moving away from their leader. 

The soul light slowly dims until its gone when you are now only a couple feet apart. You could feel your body slowly relaxing as you got closer to your soulmate, something you’ve never felt before. Relaxation and peace were always hard to come by when your body always seemed to take in more stimuli that you could handle.

But you felt at ease, now an arm’s length away from the person you were destined for. 

“Hello. It’s nice to meet you.” Hongjoong spoke softly as if not wanting to break the moment between you. 

“Hi.” You smile a little, wanting to show him that you were okay, that you were okay with everything. 

“Why don’t we sit, get to know each other better.” He asked you, motioning to the now vacant couch behind you, big enough for the two of you. You also noticed the sneaky glances that the other Ateez members sent each other. 

“Okay.” You smiled at the boys as you passed by them, each of them introducing themselves to you as if you didn’t just attend their concert. 

You sat down, and before Hongjoong could pick another place to sit, every single other spot than the one beside you was taken by the boys. Hongjoong just took it in stride, sitting beside you as he dramatically shakes his head and sighs at his members actions. You couldn’t help but to let out a little laugh at their actions, trying to play matchmaker between soulmates. 

It was as if they all started speaking at once, the younger members just yelling out questions for you as you sat next to Hongjoong, Seonghwa trying but failing to reign them in, even if it was a half-hearted attempt at doing so. 

You didn’t even attempt to answer, seeing as you couldn’t distinguish a single question. Instead, you just took the hand that your soulmate offered you, shyly holding it in your grasp. 

“They’re always like this. I promise, they like you already.” Hongjoong leans down and whispers into your ear. You could hear the smile and adoration in his voice, something that made you smile again. 

“It’s okay. I can get used to it. I promise, I like them too.” You whisper back, looking up at him and watching as the look of adoration switches from his members to you. 

[steviewashere]

I love you guys, so for WIP Wednesday, you get the first two and a half pages of my unnamed, but currently named "Steve Makes Eddie Apologize to Lucas for Not Postponing Hellfire for the Championship Game" fic. Uh, I don't think there's any warnings, but here we go.

You can read it here on Tumblr

Or you can read it here on AO3

——— “So, you and Eddie, huh?”

Steve startles at the sound of a voice, deep and hushed, from where he's been waiting in Hawkins High’s parking lot. Hellfire was supposed to be out by now—6:50pm if his watch is correct—it’s their first time back since March and it would be cordial. But it seems that only Lucas got that memo.

“Jesus Christ, Sinclair!” He yelps. Holds his right palm flat against his chest, trying his best to rescind the spike of panic that is crawling through him. “I thought I told you to quit doing that,” he harshly whispers, rubbing his palm against his shirt. The scratchy material of his polo a balm against his nerves.

“Sorry,” Lucas sheepishly murmurs. Speaking at a normal volume, he asks again, “So, you and Eddie?”

He rolls his eyes. “What about me and Eddie? Can’t I just hang out with the guy without being pestered?”

Lucas shrugs. “You can do whatever you want,” he states, but Steve can already tell there’s somehow more. “But I didn’t think you two would be…buddies. Considering how he feels about, y’know, sports and whatever.”

For a moment, Steve considers Lucas’s approach. His fidgeting hands and his slightly closed off eyes. The hunch to his shoulders and the general unease that accompanies talking about Eddie. Which, that’s particularly odd. Aren’t they buddies, Steve questions himself. Wrapped up in the Hellfire club, their mutual interest in Dungeons & Dragons, the ragtag group of nerds that they are—all of that is perfect for their oddball friendship, at least Steve thought so.

“What’s wrong with you and Eddie?” Steve asks, beating around the bush. He doesn’t do cryptic. And he especially doesn’t do it with somebody like Lucas, a kid already smarter than him by several margins.

There isn’t an answer right away. But Lucas’s shoulders drop. His eyes go from frustrated to…sad. “Remember my championship game?” He asks, though it seems a bit much of a topic change. What does this have to do with Eddie, Steve has to wonder.

“Well, yeah,” he answers instead, “I was there. Had a pathetic date with a girl I hardly enjoyed being around. Mocked Tammy Thompson with Robin. Watched you get that winning shot. It was a, genuinely, awesome championship game.” And that’s the truth. It’s the best one he’s ever witnessed. Which is saying something, considering he’d played several championship games. All of them, though, were major losses. He’ll take those to the grave with him, with how often his previous basketball teams teased him.

Lucas gives a harsh single nod, a small smile that whisks away as soon as it appears. “Right,” he mutters, “I remember.” He leans against the Beemer’s bumper, shoulder brushing with Steve’s. Looks forlorn towards the high school’s doors, where Eddie and the rest of the Hellfire bunch should be spilling out any moment now. Steve looks on with him. Listens as Lucas’s voice drops low, nearly angry, fully spiteful, “I begged Dustin and Mike to talk to Eddie about my game. To see if the Hellfire campaign—which would be happening the same night—could be moved. And I, look, I understand that D&D means a lot to all of them, it means something to me, too. But I was really hoping to see my friends there. If not my friends, then at least Erica.

“They didn’t move the campaign,” he states so bitter, Steve tastes the words on his own tongue, “apparently a game where you’re shooting ‘balls into laundry baskets’ is too…mainstream and norm-ie for Eddie. He refused to move his precious game. Then, get this, instead of getting some random kid to play, they egged Erica in.” Lucas drags his eyes away from the school, head turning slow to look at Steve. He follows suit, eyeing Lucas back. His stomach churns with the vitriol painting itself unsubtly across Lucas’s face. “Color me surprised, I guess, that he’s going out with a jock,” he states, voice carefully blank of anything.

Steve stares on at him. He didn’t know this was the case at all. Remembers getting the phone call about Dustin wanting him to play, but he figured that had something to do with him bugging Steve for the millionth time. Because that was something Dustin wanted. For Steve to play. And, granted, Steve refused because it was too nerdy—unimportant and embarrassing. Yet, now he’s looking into Lucas’s face. Where hurt etches itself like solid lines of chiseled marble. Being told, instead, that Eddie’s holding his own bias.

Maybe he hasn’t removed his biases towards high school nerds, not completely. But he’s coming undone from that mentality. Considering Nancy and Robin and Eddie—Dustin and Mike and Lucas—even Max, they’re all big nerds. They all have some sort of interest with Dungeons & Dragons or theater or video games and math. And he loves them all. Though, Steve’s never stopped to think about the opposite side of the coin. Tail-side, where balls in laundry baskets is considered taboo.

After a deep silence when Steve finally digests this information, his eyebrows furrow on their own accord. Mouth downturning into a harsh frown, one that he feels to the bottoms of his feet. He stops himself in time from balling his hands into fists, but the urge to do so snarls in him like a newly unmuzzled, wild dog. A dog, he thought, that he trained obedient away from his anger. But it seems like once the teeth are bared, they never truly hide away.

“That ass,” Steve snarks. “What—so I have to reconsider all my biases surrounding nerds, reconstruct how I view everybody around me, and realize how awesome it is. And—what—Eddie can just get away with that…bullshit? That’s…What the hell?” There’s a little bit more of a bite to his words than he had anticipated. But it really isn’t fair. The table turns and he’s better for it, sure, but Eddie just…That’s not fair. The dog growls louder, drool burbling in its chops, a bark forming in the back of its throat.

———

[jinxificada]

friendly sleepover

bf!jinx x bf!reader

summary: in the nature of your friendship, neck kisses are just the smallest of love expression.

notes: nsfw, modern au. wc 2k. no proofread bc if i do i wouldn’t even publish it 😆😆🫶🏼 enjoy

ཻུ۪۪ ༄࿐༉⁎ ⁺

jinx opened the door as soon as she heard your knocking. she welcomed you with messy hair and the smudged makeup she's been wearing all day.

"finally!" she pulled your hand, quickly guiding you to her room. "i was starting to think you were going to stand me up!" she dramatized, helping you strip off your backpack. it was late at night, almost 10pm, when you were supposed to arrive at about 8:30.

"sorry! i messaged you but i didn't have any service." you excused yourself as you made yourself comfortable in the familiar place. the dark gray walls filled with graffiti and metal bands posters gave you a sense of comfort, a sharp contrast to the intimidation from the first time you had come over. "i missed the bus and had to wait for the next one. but i brought the snacks!"

"excuses, excuses." she muttered playfully, throwing herself on her half-made bed, lots of pillows and blankets already occupying 70% of the space. "ok, i believe you. but you better have brought those gummy candies i asked for, though!"

you only hummed, barging in your backpack to find two small bags. you throw at her the gummies, followed by a couple of other snacks. jinx snickered, mouth soon full of sweets as you stripped off your street clothes. her eyes lingered on your form until you hid it with an oversized shirt you usually bring to sleep in. you didn't mind putting on shorts like her, being a hot summer night.

you sighed as you crawled into the bed, laying next to her. "i wanna watch a movie." jinx rolled her eyes, yawning while handing you the remote of the mid sized tv she luckily had in her bedroom. "stop yawning! don't you dare to fall asleep." you threatened with a frown.

"how could i? i'm way too excited to do anything with you." she intended to tease you, but it came out more suggestive than she anticipated. she mentally facepalmed herself, quickly speaking again. "but toots! your movies are boring."

"shut up, i have the perfect movie." you smirked, scrolling for a bit until you finally found what you were looking for.

"robots? seriously?"

"you'll like it! my baby brother made me watch it the other day, it's fun."

jinx groaned but quickly ended her small whim, focusing on the candy more than the movie. she honestly didn't really care, as long as she's with you.

both of you were around sixteen years old when you moved to her small town, accidentally stealing her private hang out spot under the old stairs at school. she quickly took a liking to you, interested in your sudden arrival and relaxed demeanor. besides your great sense of style and your pretty smile, or the softness of your hair, or the way you matched her physical love language and you silently reassured how much you like her presence with light touches. soft tugging at the edge of her shirt, tangling your arms while you walk side by side, resting your hands on her legs when she comfortably puts them across your lap, maybe even doing it yourself.

the movie barely started when you cuddled up next to her, opening your own snacks while you asked: “where’s your dad, by the way?”

“he’s out… he said he’ll be staying late at work tonight. dunno why, but at least we have the house for ourselves.” she said, looking at you for a moment before returning her gaze at the tv screen.

“yeah, this is better.” you contently rubbed your cheek on her shoulder.

“geez–” she huffed in feigned annoyance to hide the light blush, “you’re awfully touchy today…”

you react frowning, “i dunno what’re you talking about.” her call out doesn’t stop you, staying pressed by her side. “it’s just…” your voice wandering off caught her attention, tilting her head at you.

“what? what is it?”

you groaned quietly, reluctantly pulling away from her to grab your phone. now it was her face hovering over your shoulder, looking at your fingers opening instagram and your chat with ekko.

ugh, ekko.

jinx already had an idea of what got you in a bad mood, you two hated each other’s guts since the very first moment you befriended jinx. it wasn’t a mystery, jinx and ekko were former childhood friends. growing up, ekko developed a sweet crush on jinx.

too bad she didn’t reciprocate.

but even after rejecting him, he still thought he had a chance. his subtle insistence was the cause that made her blow him off completely. ekko simply couldn’t understand it, so he blamed you.

sadly you all shared the same group of friends, the hangouts filled with bickering and a slight tense air between the three of you. it was also common for ekko to reply to your instagram stories with unnecessary comments about you and your posts.

this time he replied to a picture of you and jinx earlier that day, when you spent your afternoon by the lake. it was a cute selfie, both of you with wet hair and pretty matching bikinis.

< you two look pretty close for only being best friends. > he said.

jinx stared at the chat with furrowed eyebrows, she was confused. is that it? that was enough to get on your nerves? of course you were close— what is wrong with that? aren’t best friends allowed to hang out all the time and post pictures together?

her mind wandered off briefly. she was conscious that maybe, just maybe, the line of your relationship was a bit blurred. she thought about her own comments under your pictures, a clear display of possession in every word, even only with emojis. she thought about the way you hug her from behind anytime you could.

she didn’t even have to go that far in her memory. that very same day, at the lake, what was supposed to be a friendly hangout seemed —and felt— more like a date.

she could still feel the warmth and weight of your body on her back when she playfully carried you around in the water. your hands untangling her long wet hair while she comfortably sat in between your legs. your quiet sighs of pleasure when she massaged your back as she applied sunscreen—

“jinx.” you snapped her out of her short trance. “did you hear me?”

“huh? sorry, what did you say?”

“i was complaining. like— what is his problem? i swear he will explode out of jealousy.” you grumpily muttered, laying your head back to rest on her shoulder. jinx buried her nose in the crook of your neck, it was only natural.

“i don’t know why you let him get under your skin, you don’t have to worry about him.” she tried to reassure you, punctuating her statement with a gentle kiss on your neck. “you’re the one in my arms, after all.”

you mindlessly hummed, relaxing on her arms. “i know, i know… he’s down bad for you. and not only him! my fingers aren’t enough to count all the people feening over you.” jinx snickered, listening to your jealous bragging as she placed butterfly kisses on the side of you neck. she felt you tilting your head to the other side, welcoming her affection. “every time we go out you have at least three boys asking for your number. your followers grow like two digits every day.”

“hm. i do have my user on a lot of walls, though.”

“not the point. i should just lock you up here by now.”

the feeling of your soft skin under her lips was making her dizzy. she didn’t understand how you could act so nonchalant when she was trying to mark you. maybe she was being too subtle.

“that’s so boring,” jinx groaned, sighing through her nose as she placed her chin on your shoulder to glance at you. oh— your cheeks were flushed. the slight tint of pink suddenly encouraged her. “how would you keep me entertained, hm?”

you took a long, deep breath. the possibilities were endless, hundreds of scenarios flowing through your mind in half a second. preparing your answer, you turned slightly to meet her eyes. is then when you noticed she stopped her ministrations.

an unamused small frown appears on your face, “i’ll bring you books.”

her face twisted into a pout as she pulled away from her neck. she raised an eyebrow at her response, “books? you’re gonna lock me up and expect me to stay occupied reading all day?"

“what else d’you want?” you raise an eyebrow, pressing into her chest as you laid back. now it was your turn to rub your cheek on her neck, easily reaching the soft edge of her jawline with your lips. ”your little trinkets and gadgets?”

jinx’s arms tightened their grip around your waist, pulling you closer against her. "i mean... those would be nice too..." she tried to maintain her casual tone, but the feeling of your lips against her skin was making it difficult to keep her composure. "but I'll need something else to entertain me..."

“so greedy…” you murmured, tapping the other side of her cheek to make her turn towards you.

her eyes meet yours for a brief moment before you mindlessly took her lips in a gentle, yet deep kiss.

a soft gasp escaped her lips when your mouth captured hers. for a few seconds, jinx was stunned by the sudden kiss, but she quickly gave in, melting against you. her arms enveloped your body completely, holding you close as she deepened the kiss.

she was greedy, alright. she wanted more and more, she couldn't get enough of your touch. the calm pace of the kiss warmed up her chest, you moved so naturally that it didn’t feel like your first kiss. yet the taste and feeling of your lips sent shivers down her spine, she could hear the imaginary fireworks and standing ovations.

when your fingers tangled in the hair on the back of her hair, a low satisfied hum escaped jinx’s lips.

the kiss was intoxicating, like a drug she couldn't get enough of. jinx's fingers traced the contour of your body, exploring every inch of your skin as she continued to kiss you with a growing intensity. it wasn’t long until things got messier, her tongue pushed past your lips as her hands started to confidently wander around, slipping under your shirt.

her cold hands on your stomach made you flinch, breaking the kiss with a quiet gasp followed by a giggle. “you’re freezing.”

“hm, you don’t like it?” she smirked, purposefully caressing up and down, almost reaching the underside of your naked breasts.

it should be strange, unnatural. but neither of you felt that way, it was more like… an improvement. the only proof of the fact that it was the first time you acted on your feelings was the raw hunger, the primal need to possess the other.

the steamy make out was only interrupted to change positions. now jinx straddles your lap with her milky thighs pressed tightly against either side of your hips. it was impossible to stop herself from grinding into you, and so was impossible to shut the small whimpers coming from her throat.

they grew louder and desperate when your lips attacked her neck, nibbling the skin. “feels good, jinx?” you whispered softly, combing the harsh graze of your teeth with open-mouthed kisses.

she continued to grind with increased fervor, clearly chasing the delicious friction of your bottom against her pussy. if she moved right, it was her clit receiving the pressure, making her squirm and moan messily.

“yeah— yes, feels s’good.”

your hand sneaked down into her loose shorts, a strained gasp escaped her mouth as her hips twitched against your touch. next thing she knows, her insides squeezed your fingers as she eagerly jumped on you. the heat that was building on her lower abdomen grew exponentially, jinx was sure that her release was close.

her body moved against your fingers more desperately, more frantically. she was on the edge, the need for a stronger connection was overwhelming her. "i-i’m so close," she managed to gasp out, her body tense, coiled like a spring ready to snap.

her body trembled, her muscles clenched, her breath catching in her throat as her release washed over her, a wave of pleasure and heat overwhelming her senses. she cried, her hips bucking against your hand involuntarily as she rode the wave of pleasure, your name a soft, shaky moan on her lips.

even after she relaxed her body, your fingers gathered up her cum and teasingly rubbed her clit with her wetness, enjoying the way her body shivered and squirmed to the overstimulation.

“ngh— too sensitive.” she protested in a soft whine. you chuckled quietly, deciding to be merciful.

“that was so hot…” you sighed dreamily, hugging her boneless body when her head fell to your neck. “this enough to keep you entertained?”

“fuck you,” she huffed, though you could feel the big smile that formed on her lips. “you could always just mark me up.”

[alotofpockets]

We've got you | Arsenal WFC

Pairing: Arsenal x Teen!Reader

Request: Arsenal teen reader fic where they have an eating disorder and the team helps them through it.

Warnings: Eating disorders, passing out, talk of negative body image.

A/n: Thank you @catasha for proof-reading and your feedback & thank you @lessi-lover and @greynatomy as well for your help 💗

Masterlist | Woso masterlist | Words: 2k

-----

As the youngest player on the team a lot of your teammates kept a close eye on you. They made sure you did your homework, helped you pack your bag, and in general were there for you for whatever you needed. There was one thing they hadn’t noticed though, and it was that you had started eating less and less. You were actively trying to hide it from them, so you didn't blame them for not noticing.

You had been diagnosed with an eating disorder when you were fourteen years old, and though you had been doing better the past year, your old habits started to reappear. Of course, something like that doesn’t really go away, but the voices in your head telling you that you shouldn’t eat have been quiet.

None of your teammates knew about your diagnosis, as you hadn;t struggled with it during your time with Arsenal. Well, not until now. In your plan to hide it from your teammates, you hadn’t counted on someone knowing the symptoms of an eating disorder, but one of them did. Alessia Russo, one of the more recent signings was keeping an eye on your food intake, unbeknownst to you. She had noticed you barely touching your breakfast. At first she didn’t think anything of it, but when she saw you only eating a few bites of your lunch, until you excused yourself, her mind started to wonder. She recognized patterns she had been stuck on in her highschool years, and hoped that she was wrong, but she couldn’t just let the thoughts go.

After training that afternoon, Alessia walked with you back to your bags, having placed hers conveniently next to yours at the start. The two of you are talking, when she grabs a protein bar from her bag. “Man, I’m full. Can I interest you in the other half? I would hate for it to go to waste.” You hesitated, but took the bar from her, not fully confident in denying food one on one. Alessia continued talking, but you didn’t hear a word she was saying as you were trying to convince the voices in your head you should eat the bar she offered. You don’t deserve to eat. You’ve gained weight, eating the bar will make it go up more. You tried to fight it. I already took the bar, I have to at least take a bite to show my appreciation. After fighting with the voices in your head for what felt like half an hour, you managed to move the bar up to your mouth with a shaky hand. Luckily Alessia was busy untying her boots, and didn’t see your hands shaking. One small bite is all you were able to eat before the voices in your head started to get loud again. You smiled to Alessia, “Thank you for this.” and head back to the locker rooms. Once you were out of sight from the rest of the team, you threw the bar in a nearby trash can. 

You were currently training in Portugal, so you didn’t have much time where you weren’t surrounded by your teammates. Each meal time was taken together, so you diverted to making it seem like you were eating by tactically moving around the food on your plate, putting a bite on your fork and moving it around while you were conversing with the people surrounding you. Trying to keep their focus on your words, rather than the lack of food actually entering your mouth.

Alessia stuck around until most of the room had cleared out, leaving just the two of you in the room. She moved over to your table, “Hey y/n, how are you doing?” You look up from your plate, “Oh hi Lessi, I’m doing alright. How are you?” She smiled at you softly, “I’m doing alright as well. I wanted to check in with you, to see if everything was okay, since I noticed you hadn’t really touched your food.” Your cheeks turned red, had she noticed? You quickly shake off the thought and shrug your shoulders, “Oh, yes, I’m okay. Just not very hungry, that’s all.” Alessia didn’t want to push you, knowing that that could make it worse, so she settled on talking about football instead, to bond with you, and not let you be on your own. 

The next day you were running around during practice, you loved drills where you got to show your speed. The team was split into two lines, as you would be competing against each other. One person from each team would go at the same time, sprinting to the finish line, the one that reached it first would earn the cone for their team. The team that got to ten cones first would win the exercise. 

Your team was currently at nine cones, while the other team was at eight. It was you running against Lotte, and if you were the fastest, you would get the victory for your team. “You’re going down, grandma.” The team knew you as a joker, so Lotte was used to your antics. “Yeah yeah, you just focus on not tripping over your own feet, kiddo.” You roll your eyes at her, “That was one time!”  

The two of you get ready on the line and wait for the countdown and the whistle to blow. You were running neck and neck, until about three quarters of the way, it was then that you got a step ahead of Lotte, but your lead didn’t last long, as suddenly you found yourself getting weak and dizzy. You divert from the straight line that you were running, and slow down your run. Lotte immediately noticed that something was wrong, and stopped her run to help you. “Hey kid, what’s wrong?’ She grabs your shoulders to keep you in place. “Dizzy.” Is all you get out before you collapse in her arms. 

You passed out for a moment, but luckily the medics were quick by your side. “What happened?” You ask when you see all your teammates standing around you with worried looks on their faces. “You passed out, kid. Do you know what happened?” Leah had your head laying in her lap. “Don’t know.” You say groggily, still not feeling well. “Let’s get you to one of the physio rooms to get you checked out.” One of the medics reached down their hands to help you up. 

Everyone was in the hallway, waiting to hear what was going on, a few of them pacing the hallway, and others sitting along the wall. “She was joking around just moments before, how could this happen out of nowhere?” Leah voiced the thought that most of the girls shared. “I might have an idea.” Alessia said softly. 

The medics walk out of the physio room once they are done examining you, “She seems alright now. We don’t know what happened yet, so we will have to keep a close eye on her. We advised her to stay in the room for at least another hour, just until she feels a bit stronger again. You can see her though.” 

After what Alessia had just shared with the group, just Alessia, Leah, and Kim go into the room first. “Hey kiddo, how are you doing?” Leah sits down on the bed with you, and wraps her arm around you. “I still feel a bit weak, but otherwise okay. You all look very serious though, what’s going on?” Leah looks up to Kim with tears welling in her eyes, not being able to do the talking without breaking. You were like a little sister to her, and it hurt seeing you like this. “It came under our attention that you haven’t really been eating, and we wanted to check in with you. You really scared us out there kid, you need to take care of your body. Can you please tell us how long this has been going on?” They knew now, so hiding was no longer an option. “I was diagnosed with an eating disorder when I was fourteen.” You could feel Leah tense beside you, as she came to the realisation just how serious this was. “I never mentioned it because it’s not been a problem since I’ve joined the team. It started playing up again a few weeks ago, I can handle it.” You were downplaying your wording, trying not to scare your teammates. Leah shook her head, “You’re not handling it though, you literally passed out!” You were shocked with the emotion behind her voice. “Leah, I’m fine.” Leah felt herself getting angry, “No, y/n, you’re not.” She said before she left the room, not wanting to get angry with you while she knew you were struggling.

It stays quiet for a moment, before Alessia speaks up. “I struggled with my weight and my body a lot growing up. I wanted to be skinny, but it ended up making me too weak to play. I learned that for football being strong was more important than my body fitting this image in my mind that society had created.” Kim continued where Alessia left off, “It’s important to give your body the right nutritions, it is for all of us, but especially for a growing body like yours. Skipping meals can harm your body, more than it will do good. We understand that this is a lot, but we really do not want anything like today to happen to you again.” Tears started to form in your eyes. Kim stands up and goes in to hug you, “It’s okay, sweetheart. We’ve got you.” 

Once you calmed down a bit, Kim continued the conversation. They wanted to do everything in their power to help you, because they understood how mentally challenging an eating disorder could be. “We’re going to set up a meeting with the dietitian and nutrition team tomorrow, and get you on a plan that will help you eat in a healthy way, that is based on your body specifically. Alessia is going with you, because her experience will help make sure your best interest is at heart. We are going to be there with you every step of the way. You’re a part of a team, and that means we don’t let anyone go through something alone, okay?” You nodded, “Okay.”

In the hallway Leah is crying into Lia’s arms, after she asked the rest of the team to give you some space today. “She’s acting like nothing is wrong, Wally.” The older girl rubs her hands over her best friend’s back in soothing motions. “I understand, but she needs you Lee. I know you’re angry with her for not telling anyone she’s been struggling, and with yourself for not noticing she was, but let’s focus on the fact that it’s out in the open now, and you can help her.” 

Lia’s words were convincing, so much so that Leah headed back into the room, and asked for a moment alone with you. “Hey kiddo, I’m sorry I ran out. I couldn’t handle my emotions in a way that would be fair to you, so I needed a moment.” You smile at her softly, “It’s fine Lee. I understand, it was big news, and I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.” Leah steps forward and hugs you to her chest. “Let’s get you home, okay?” You had been living with Leah since you moved to London, probably the reason that you were closest with her. “Okay.”

The next morning Leah drove you to London Colney for your appointment with the dietitian and nutrition team. Alessia was already waiting when you arrived, she greeted you with a hug. “It’s good to see you, kiddo. Are you ready?” You returned the hug. “As I’ll ever be.” 

It was very helpful having the both of them there. Leah for reassuring you, and Alessia to make sure you answered all their questions properly. After an hour of talking with the team, they had set up the basics of the plan for you. In the next couple of days they would get back to you with a more elaborate plan, including meal options and recipes. 

You know that your journey with food and your body weren’t going to be easy, but you knew that you weren’t going to be alone. The team had always been like family to you, and yesterday showed you again that they would love you unconditionally, and that they would be there for you, no matter what. 

-----

💗 If you enjoyed this fic, please consider liking, commenting, and reblogging! You can also supporting me by leaving a tip 💗

[wilcze-kudly]

Katara and the fear of loss (aka why she waited)

I think one aspect of Katara's storyline I don't see explored nearly enough the fact that she is terrified of losing others, especially those whom she cares for. This makes sense, especially looking to her background, how the death of her mother affected her and the fact that war has been a very large part of her life since she was a small child. Not to mention, she is actively a huge part of said war, along with her brother and friends, at the tender age of 14.

Now, some of you may ask "quill what the hell does Aang have to do with Katara's mother?"

Yes, on the surface, there isn't that much connecting Katara's dead, grown ass mother to Katara's alive 12 year old goofball bf but the parallels between Kya and Aang are planted even at the beginning of the show, in the first few episodes.

When Zuko and the Fire Nation attack the Southern Watertribe, they are looking for Aang, the last airbender, not dissimilar to the Southern Raiders looking for the last Southern waterbender. Furthermore, both Kya and Aang willingly give themselves up to the Fire Nation in order to protect the village, particularly Katara.

Throughout the show, we see Katara's interest and endearment towards Aang grow, and we see them create a genuine friendship. But I'd argue that Aang being the Avatar is, to some degree, a problem to their relationship. Aang's duty as the Avatar, and the risks and decisions he is faced with due to it, often create a rift between him and Katara.

Be it due to Aang's responsibilities leading him to make decisions she doesn't agree with, like in the Avatar State, where Aang feels the pressure to force the Avatar State due to the suffering of the soldiers he feels responsible for.

Or, more poignantly, in the Awakening, where Aang is once again compared to one of the parents Katara lost due to the war, though Hakoda's 'loss' was not due to death, but a need to fight. I think this also shows how much Katara values Aang not just as the Avatar, but as a person.

Katara: Aang. He just took his glider and disappeared. He has this ridiculous notion that he has to save the world alone, that it's all his responsibility. Hakoda : Maybe that's his way of being brave. Katara: It's not brave; it's selfish and stupid! We could be helping him, and I know the world needs him, but doesn't he know how much we need him, too? How can he just leave us behind? Hakoda : You're talking about me too, aren't you?

This is twice Aang has been directly paralleled to one of Katara's parents, whose repsective losses have clearly affected her greatly. This is also extremely poignant, since we've been explicitly told that Aang's love for his own lost family, the Air Nomads, was reborn into Katara. For Aang and Katara, the ways they deal with their losses influences how they pursue each other romantically.

Of course, there's also the ✨️ immediate threat of death and physical injury✨️. Aang and the rest of the Gaang, but particularly Aang is constantly being chased and tracked and endangered by the Fire Nation and he is meant to face the Firelord and defeat him. There are a lot of possibilities for something to go horrifically wrong here.

From Aang being half dead when Katara found him, then almost immediately getting kidnapped by the prince of the goddamn Fire Nation, to almost every villain of the week shenanigan, Katara already has good reason to worry for Aang.

But then the reach Ba Sing Se and things get even worse. Jet, Katara's only other canonically confirmed love interest dies, and Katara is helpless to do anything about it. This is already enough to make someone reconsider future romantic endeavours, but surely it can't get any worse, right?

Oh yeah, Aang FUCKING DIES

He gets blasted in the back with lighting, right as he enters the avatar state, right before Katara's eyes. The saviour of the world, but more importantly, her dear friend, brutally cut down before her very eyes. And Katara, a child, is the only person with even a sliver of hope of bringing him back.

So is it really any surprise that Katara, having experienced loss before multiple times over, and almosf having lost Aang himself, would be hesitant to enter a romantic relationship with someone being actively hunted by the greatest military in the world, someone obligated to take on the leader of said military?

Katara is afraid. She's afraid of opening her heart up to loving Aang and then losing him after that. This is the main reason why she hesitates in initiating her and Aang's relationship. Whenever Aang tries to brooch the subject, she brings up the war and the Firelord, but due to being a child, she struggles in communicating her exact feelings, which leaves Aang confused and of kilter. Katara often gives Aang romantic attention, and clearly feels rather possessive of him, however, she is not ready to enter a romantic relationship due to the threat of the war looming above their heads. But due to being 14, she doesn't know how to explain these feelings, which is what leads to the minor conflict between her and Aang. Because, you know, they're both children in a situation that children aren't built to deal with.

Katara : Aang, I don't know. Aang: Why don't you know? Katara : Because, we're in the middle of a war, and, we have other things to worry about. This isn't the right time.

It's important to note that Aang isn't exactly a bad person for wanting this relationship to be made tangible. He does push boundaries, and kissing Katara without her consent in the Ember Island episode is obviously a horrendous misstep (which he acknowledged), but I think you can at least understand his motives. He may soon die, after all, and he wants to love Katara and wants to express that love before he possibly loses his entire goddamn life. I think this can also be traced back to how Aang deals with the genocide of the Air Nomads and vs how Katara deals with the death of her mother.

Aang certainly blames himself for the death of the Air Nomads, although this guilt is unfounded. Perhaps part of him believes that if he'd just stayed with them, spent a little more time with Gyatso, he could've helped them. It wouldn't be a leap to imagine that Aang wanting to spend more time with those he loves, including Katara is a coping mechanism surrpunding that loss.

Now juxtapose this to Katara, who's entire encounter with Yon Rha is permeated by helplessness and fear, an 8 year old Katara being unable to do anything but run away and try to get help, sadly not in time for Kya to survive. So Katara trying to assert some control over her relationships, maintaining a certain distance to Aang while the war that robbed her of her mother is still in full swing isn't an improbable concept. She's trying to not feel that helplessness again.

(Katara probably blames herself for her mother's death too, but it has less to do with Katara's actions and more to fo with what Katara was; a waterbender, something she hasno bearing on)

This is why she initiates the kiss with Aang at the end of the show. Not because she feels the need to give in to his advances due to him being the hero of the world. Not because she's caving to his insistence or because she's pressured. But because the possibility of Aang getting fucking murked by glorified pyromancers are significantly lower than they were during the war.

This is not a 'taking one for the team bcs I feel like I have to due to Aang saving the world' type of smooch. This is a 'finally I feel safe to express my feelings' type of smooch.

To be completely honest, I don't like how Kataang was handled post day of black sun, I think it was an unnecessary addition of a redundant "will they, won't they?" aspect to the relationship. Teasing Zutara in the last few episodes was also just unnecessary, because it was obviously never a viable endgame relationship and it only served to give kid zutara shippers false hope. This is especially fucked up looking at how the same zutara fans were later mocked by the creators, which, no matter what you think if the ship, is a horrible thing to do to a bunch of teenage girls and I think has contributed to those teenage girls growing into bitter, aggressive adult zutara shippers.

But, as much as I dislike this storyline, it does make sense for Katara's character and is an interesting and touching 'silent arc' for her to have. We often see characters fall in love in the midst of a conflict, but we aren't always shown how that conflict would affect the way they look at their relationship, so I appreciate this storyline for what it was.

[lovebugism]

Can u plz do something with Stevie x shy!reader and the reader obsessed with birds? I've never seen it done yet 🥲

i know very very little about birds so i tried my best haha hope u like it! — steve tells you he loves you for the very first time at six in the morning on his back porch swing (shy!r, fluff, 0.7k)

bug's one year celebration ♡

Steve didn’t know being your boyfriend meant going on dates that preceded sunrise. He was only ever a morning person when the paycheck called for it, in truth. But he sits with you still, as warm and close as the bundle of fresh laundry he left in the drier, while the sky turns slowly pink. 

There’s no one else he’d want to be awake at 6 a.m. with.

He can’t tell if you’re sleeping or not, but you’re leaning heavy on his shoulder like you are. Maybe it’s the porch swing forcing this proximity, or the way you’ve got yourself curled on it. Either way, the weight of you is a comforting one. It makes the twilight between times feel much less bitter.

Then, the late late night gives way to an early early morning. The buzzing of nocturnal nightlife turns into the sudden chirping of faraway birds.

“What’s that one?” Steve asks with his cheek smushed into your hair.

“Mourning Dove,” you answer immediately, though he thought you half-asleep. He hadn’t had to ask you which one it was, either. It’s a deeper coo compared to the high-pitched chirping, slower and more sorrowful.

“How can you tell?”

“‘Cause the three part-call. With the highest in the middle,” you explain distantly, more focused on getting comfortable next to the warm body beside you. You worm both arms around one of Steve’s and bury your nose into his sweatshirt-clad bicep, sinking further into the shared blanket draped over you. “I think it’s a male looking for a mate.”

Steve pushes you back and forth on the swing with one foot. “I hope he knows you’re taken,” he jokes.

Your tired eyes peek open to shoot him a heavy-lidded, monotoned stare.

He licks his lips. “Not my best, huh?”

“You’ve had better,” you tease and settle back into him again.

“Also, I was, like, one hundred percent sure that was an owl, by the way.”

“I think all the owls are asleep now.”

“Ah,” Steve hums with a slow nod, golden hands curled around the warming mug of coffee between them. “That’s why they call ‘em night owls, huh?”

You smile wide to yourself, not bothering to hide it because he can’t see how big you’re beaming from this angle. “Nothing gets past you, does it, Harrington?”

He scoffs. “Alright, smartmouth— tell me which bird that one is?” It’s louder than all the rest of them, probably coming from somewhere close. It’s a prettier sound, too. A lot higher than the one before it — a harsh humming, then rapid little chirps, followed by a high-pitched trilling.

“A Lark. Maybe a Lark Sparrow, ‘cause of the buzzing.”

Steve huffs. 

You amaze him, sometimes, with how smart you are. Other times, he’s jealous because he doesn’t have a whole filing cabinet of knowledge in his brain about a very particular topic of interest. Not about birds. Not about anything. 

If he had to give an on-the-spot presentation about anything in the whole wide world, he’d only be able to come up with the time he won the basketball championship his sophomore year of high school. Which not only makes him sound like a complete meathead, but also makes him sound totally lame.

“The amount of information in your head is alarming, you know that?”

He feels your cheek squish against his arm when you smile. “I thought you liked that about me?”

“I do like that about you,” he laughs. “I love that about you.”

You lift your head to blink over at him, eyes still glassy with leftover sleep. Your gaze is wide and filled with something glittering — hope, maybe. “You love me?” you murmur after a few moments.

Steve bounces a shoulder and tries to be cool about the sparkling in his chest. “‘Course I do,” he answers like it’s obvious. He flashes you a crooked smile and two eyes more honied than the early morning sunrise. “Why else would I be out here at 6 a.m.?”

“’Cause you really like birds?” you joke in a tiny voice.

The boy nods, meeting your quiet smile with a more obvious grin. “I’m crazy about ‘em, actually,” he confesses, scrunching the bridge of his chiseled nose.

He’s not talking about birds this time.

[reiderwriter]

do you think you could write where reader is a part of the BAU and gets kidnapped/ hurt by an unsub and spencer saves her? much love and i love your fics!

Hi! Thanks so much for your request. I'll admit this took a bit more brain power than usual 💀 may have gotten slightly carried away creating an unsub lmao

Summary: You go undercover for a case and Reid keeps you company through online messages, only to feel absolutely worthless when you go missing.

Warnings: Typical case descriptions, kidnapping and abuse of Y/N, Reid self-deprecating again but it has a happy fluffy ending so a win.

My Requests are Open! Send me an ask if you want me to write something~ 💕 And check out My Masterlist!

“Y/N, what do you think? I’m not going to send you in if you’re not confident you can complete the mission.'' Your Unit Chief, Aaron Hotchner, was briefing you on the plan. Luckily for the team, or rather, unluckily for you, you fit the victim profile of your latest case, and with an absence of leads, your last chance to get him before he took another victim was an undercover mission. 

“I can do it, but can we establish a background in enough time? He’s devolving and he’s going to need to pick up another victim pretty soon.” 

You’d been called in to consult on the case two weeks prior. Local women who lived alone in the metropolitan area had been going missing on a weekly basis for the last three months, and the BAU team had been called in when they’d finally found the dump site of the first three victims. 

You’d so far managed to figure out how he was finding his victims from their home computers - a site for young women to look for sugar daddies. You’d previously profiled him as a man in his mid-40s who was going through a personal loss and was lashing out at women who represented someone specific to him, and after searching through the dating profiles, you were pretty sure his stressor was a recent or impending divorce. 

But try as Garcia might, these dating websites had a whole lot more encoded data than was expected, and after the Ashley Madison scandal of the previous decade, they’d taken to deleting the majority of their user data regularly so that certain accounts couldn’t be found. Which meant that you were left with a geographical profile you couldn’t pin down, a profile that could match half the men in the city, and a killer that was almost ready to strike again. 

“Garcia can get something ready for you in the next 8 hours, and we have some access to some FBI safehouses in the area that we can ready in at the same time. Go get yourself prepared for cover.”

And that’s how you found yourself living in a dingy studio apartment on the south side of the city for two days, waiting to report back about whatever men approached you. There wasn’t much for you to complain about, but you were getting pretty lonely. 

You’d greeted your new neighbors and made a show of attending some ‘new to the neighborhood’ events, making sure to get out and about to let the team assess if the unsub was stalking you. Other than that you’d spent the rest of your time in your apartment a constant tab open at the sugar baby website. A few men had been interested, and your computer was cloned and running simultaneously on Garcia’s system so the team could do their best to track suspicious accounts. 

The rest of your spare time was, surprisingly enough, spent messaging Spencer Reid. You’d been on the team now for three months, joining the team as a transfer from the blue collar division you’d worked in straight out of the academy. You had spent the same amount of time doing your best to gain confidence to work in the field. Sure, you’d trained for this, but theory and practice were so different and you really didn’t want to fuck up so early into your job.  

Which is why, you supposed, that Doctor Spencer Reid was so intimidating to you. Though he admittedly wasn’t the best at field work, noting the amount of exceptions the FBI had to make to allow him outside of the office at all on your first meeting, he was just so damned competent. With three PhD’s, three BA’s and a pending fourth on the way, he was the golden child of the BAU, and you found yourself desperate for his approval. It surely didn’t help that he was also your exact type to boot, and sometimes you found yourself conflicted if you wanted his approval because he was so good at his job or because he was go goddamn good-looking. 

With no way to know how the unsub was tracking his victims before he kidnapped them, your team theorized it was unsafe to have physical check-ins, opting instead to set up another account on the sugar baby website, that would be manned around the clock. And tech-averse Reid had volunteered to do the bulk of the manning, leaving you with all the time in the world to talk to him in your private chat room. 

sug4rbbY/N: Good evening, Doctor, got any interesting facts for me today? ;)

D0ct0rD0ct0r: Did you know that it is illegal to flirt in Haddon Township, New Jersey? Under the section “Peace and Good Order,” a person may be punished for approaching “any person of the opposite sex unknown to such person and by word, sign or gesture attempts to speak to or to become acquainted with such person against his will.”

sug4rbbY/N: Well, aren’t I glad that we do not live in New Jersey then. 

D0ct0rD0ct0r: There’s more where that came from if you’re ever interested. 

sug4rbbY/N: I’ll certainly keep that in mind. 

sug4rbbY/N: Any plans for the evening, doc? 

D0ct0rD0ct0r: Just sitting here talking to you :) 

sug4rbbY/N: All by yourself? ;)

D0ct0rD0ct0r: Never feel like I’m alone when you’re online. 

sug4rbbY/N: Haha that’s sweet.

sug4rbbY/N: BRB, Doc, my doorbell’s ringing.  

You stood up from your desk, a glance at the mirror betraying your feelings, as your flush was prominent. You weren’t sure if it was the intimate nature of the messaging system, or just for the sake of your cover, but the flirty tone of your messages had certainly been leaving you wondering if there could be more to your relationship with your coworker in the future. 

You quickly walked over to the door, opening it wide and came face to face with a bouquet of flowers. 

“Miss Y/N Harper?” the man behind the bouquet used your cover name to address you, and you hesitated a little before nodding in the affirmative. “Can you sign here please? It’s standard procedure for deliveries like this.” 

“But I didn’t order any flowers…” you took the bouquet from the man and grabbed the pen in his hand ready to sign. 

“Oh yeah, our shop specialises in anonymous flowergrams. That bunch you’ve got in your hand has some aconite, some white lilies and jasmine flowers.” The delivery man explained, and something in your gut twisted as you listened to his words. 

“But aren’t lilies usually meant for funera-” you didn’t get to finish because he had pushed a wet rag to your face, and you had just enough time to shake some small petals off and push them far enough underneath a nearby shoe storage unit before you faded into unconsciousness, your last thought a prayer that your team would uncover your clue. 

–x– 

Needless to say, when you didn’t check back in a few minutes later, Spencer had alerted every cop in the vicinity of your new apartment that you were gone, and they discovered your apartment empty within ten minutes. 

“She was right there,” Spencer ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “She was talking to me and then she just got up and he took her.” 

“Reid, calm down, she can’t have been gone long, and we have security cameras all over the building. We’ll find her.” Morgan reassured the younger male while searching the entrance of your cover apartment for clues. 

“That’s easy for you to say, it isn’t your fault that she’d gone.”

“And it isn’t yours either, Reid. You did your job, but he wasn’t going to stop until he had her.” 

“I should’ve notified the standby officers as soon as she sent through that last message and what was I doing instead? Trying to figure out if she was flirting with me for real or not. I’m pathetic.”

“Reid, get your head back in the game. She’s gone and theres nothing you can do to change that now, but we need your head here or we’re not going to find her. Y/N’s an agent too, remember, she can hold her own. Now look and think.” 

“SSA Morgan, Doctor Reid, we may have something over here,” one of the local detectives called the two men over. They’d found the remnants of the petals you’d done your best to scatter, and even though the unsub had taken the bouquet with him, he hadn’t been as thorough as he should have been. 

“We didn’t set her up with any flowers when she started her cover, so these must have been bought in by the unsub. I’ll call Garcia, tell her to look for any flower shops within his comfort zone.” Morgan hit the number on his speedial, but before he could start, Reid cut him off.

“Wait, I think we can narrow the search a bit further. Those are Aconite petals, they’re not often stocked by local florists because they have a pretty sinister meaning. They’re usually used to express hatred for the receiver, and because of their poisonous properties most florists don't stock them for fear of doing harm and causing lawsuits. He must be specifically ordering them in to give to his victims. Garcia, can you crossreference the list of florists in the area and check to see how many of them have purchased this plant recently?” 

“Just the one. Sending you the address now. Go find our girl Doc.” 

–X– 

When you came to, in what you assumed to be a backroom of some kind of flower shop, you were bound at the ankles and wrists and there was a gag in your mouth. You struggled a bit against your bindings but it was no good, and you had to reassure yourself that you were going to be okay, doing your best to push down the tears and clear your head. 

You decided your best bet was to get to know your surroundings, check to see what was around you and what you could use to your advantage. There was a clock on the wall, and you realised that you’d only been gone half an hour. Reminding yourself that the unsub kept his victims for a minimum of two days did a lot to get your heartbeat back to a normal pace, but it spiked again as soon as you heard the door slam open and your captor walk in. 

“Stupid little bitch,” he slurred his words slightly and you could smell the alcohol on his breath as he moved closer to your space in the corner. You tried your best to scamper as far away from him as possible, but he grabbed you by the hair and pulled you up to his face. 

You winced at the pain and tried to squirm out of his hold. “Look at you all pathetic now, begging me to let you out. It’s not going to fucking happen, y'know. I’m going to be the last person you see, last person you hear,” he throws you against the wall, pinning you up with his hand on your arms as he sends a leering glance down your shirt and then gives you a disgusting grin. “Last person you touch.” 

Your bindings mean your movement is limited, but you still manage to bring both your legs up to knee him in the groin, effectively pushing him off you but landing hard on the ground yourself after you manage to do so. 

“Fucking whore,” he shouts at you standing up and dealing a sharp kick to your head that has your vision going white for a minute. “I’ll teach you to fucking mess with me again, you little bitch.” He makes to grab you again, but before he can you hear the blissful sounds of a door being kicked down and the shouts of the FBI to stand down. 

Two agents are on him in minutes and you finally allow yourself to let out a deep sob in relief, as a third, very recognisable agent, makes his way to your side. 

“Y/N, shhh baby, it’s okay. You’re okay now, I’ve got you,” Reid whispers in your ear as he unties you as gently and carefully as he can. The moment your arms are free you leap into him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pushing your face deeply against his chest. He pulls away just enough to untie your legs, and then lets you burrow into him again. 

“I knew you’d find me. Knew you’d understand something from those fucking flowers.” You sob into his chest now, as he strokes your hair, just holding you like that on the floor until you’re ready to move. 

“I’m so sorry, Y/N. I should’ve sent someone to check sooner, and I should’ve never let you accept that stupid cover mission,this is my fault and I'm going to make it up to you. I'm never going to let anyone hurt you ever ag-” he begins rambling but you shut him up again, this time by firmly pressing your lips into his. 

“Before you say anything else, this is not transference and I’m not doing this because you saved me, we both know I would’ve done that eventually anyway,” you rest your forehead against his, and after he has time to process what has just happened, he’s wiping the tears away from your face, and gently holding it with both of his hands, leaning in to do it again, gently pressing his mouth against yours as if he’s afraid you might bolt at any second. 

“Thank you, again. For finding me,” you whisper to him, the space between you so miniscule now that you barely had to move your lips to know that he understood you. 

“Thank you, for letting me find you.” He grinned at you and held you again, determined to never let you out of his arms ever again. 

[katzske]

Thoughts on Earthspark Season 2 (first half)

Spoiler Free:

I must admit I’m dissatisfied.

The animation and rendering definitely looks cheaper. Sometimes it feels like frames are missing, animations not polished, scenes not fully rendered. 2d and 3d poorly blends. It’s quite noticeable unfortunately. Characters also do the TFP Megatron stare now.

That being said, time was taken to revisit old models of characters and give them a new appearance. (4 i’ve noticed) It makes sense given a lot has changed during one year time skip.

The writing often feels either like exposition dumping or naruto filler episodes. I was never at the edge of my seat even during the climax. I ended up skipping through episodes due to the lack of relevant plot information.

Something ES managed to maintain were carefully composed shots that make great still images. While that’s nice for screenshots and redraws, I also feel like it’s the only unique aspect of ES’ animation style that remained. The rest, as previously mentioned, has lost quality.

Character Details I’ve noticed and want to talk about (spoilers ahead)

half of season 2 part 1 is filler. optimus trailer episode, great america with cosmos, a pachycephalosaurus-truck fighting mushrooms, hashtag taking ten years to dispose of hard drives…. each episode did have a few minutes of either cute or important moments. but the majority is a waste of time.

I was hoping that we would learn more about the decepticons. now that they’re free, what are they up to? how are their dynamics? how did season 1 finale change their perception on things? would they try to convince the terrans THEY are the good guys? nothing like that though.

There is no satisfying character development for starscream. ES Starscream was perfect to explore a more neutral version of him, who does not do bad things out of pleasure, but due to necessity; following his desire to be free. In the show he mentions he wanted to get rid of his oppressors (in his eyes autobots and humans), but a real “bruh” moment was when he told Hashtag the only reason he opened up to her last time was to tell her “take care of yourself first”. It completely disregards the fact he came to help in the season 1 finale after reflecting on Hashtags words. It also aggravates me that the writing could have been a very easy fix. “hey i’m not being selfish by destroying this town. im doing this for the decepticons, we have lived under the control of the autobots and then of humans. this needs to stop, we deserve freedom and i will do anything it takes.”

the show managed to establish some friction between starscream and shockwave but for deception standards it was very tame. overall i think it was written okay; he purposely let the Terrans escape with the fragments, and he bailed on Starscream once he went bonkers. I hope that he gets to be a Decepticon leader in the second half; i don’t think we have seen that in any TF TV show before. i also like that his antennae and eye color give away his emotions now.

i feel like the autobots are treated even worse than the decepticons this season ngl. they merely exist; and when they do have the spotlight it’s often for comedy.

why the fuck did shockwave not wait for hashtag to just dump the hard drives and leave. if someone walked up to me yelling “give me your trashbag” as i’m trying to dispose of it i’d be weirded out too lol.

i hope the chaos terrans don’t return. aftermath imo was, plot wise, redundant. spitfire at least was interesting and had an impact.

i wish there were more interesting fights like in season 1 instead of, oh no they’re hitting the trailer with sticks, oh no we are an abomination of dinosaur and vehicle for what feels like 15mins straight. i miss seeing soundwave slay.