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crescenthistory · 1 month ago

Text

and what about it?

Summary: Continuation of this storyline. Barty and you keep bickering, to everyone's chagrin and no one's surprise – until you kiss, that is.

Words: 3.1k

Warnings: not proofread, use of y/n, absolute chaos going down, bickering, flirting, barty being maniacal and a bit masochistic, jegulus and wolfstar as supportive characters, literally everyone is silly in this

Note: you demand and i supply! i love these idiots

next part here!

The Hogwarts library was filled by a mix of quiet whispers and faint shuffling, with students huddled at tables pretending to study for the upcoming exams. In the very back, though, far away from the more studious lot, the Marauders and company had claimed their usual table, where studying was more of a suggestion than an actual plan.

James and Regulus sat closest to the end of the long table, side by side in that annoyingly close way that proved they were still very much in their honeymoon phase. James had his chair tilted back, arms stretched out casually behind Regulus, while Regulus, with an almost imperceptible smile, tried to look like he was paying attention to his Potions book.

“You know, love,” James started, leaning in a little closer to Regulus, “you don’t actually have to study right now. We could always… take a break.”

“Take a break from what exactly?” Sirius interjected, still hunched over the parchment he was doodling on. “You haven’t done a single productive thing in the last hour, Prongs.”

James huffed, but didn’t move away from Regulus, who was still pretending he couldn’t hear any of them. “I don’t see you doing any work, Pads.”

Sirius glanced at his doodles – an elaborate sketch of a Quidditch goal post being struck by lightning – before smirking. “This is art, mate. Very productive.”

Remus, who was sitting beside Sirius and perhaps the only one taking actual notes, sighed without looking up. “You two are hopeless. Some of us are actually trying to pass our exams.”

“Oh, Moony, live a little,” Sirius grinned, pushing his sketch toward him. “What do you think? Could sell this to the Daily Prophet, right?”

Remus didn’t even spare it a glance. “Absolutely not.”

Across the table, you were trying your best to focus on the notes in front of you, quill scratching against parchment. But the conversation around you, mixed with the ongoing flirtation between James and Regulus, was doing its best to pull you out of your concentration.

“Regulus, would you mind being disgustingly in love with Jamie a bit quieter?” you groaned, tossing your quill down in frustration, no longer inhibited around Regulus after the past few months. “Some of us are trying to focus.”

Regulus did not deign you with a glance, though his lips quirked up slightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sirius snorted. “Yeah, right. You’ve been staring at Prongs like he’s your favourite broomstick all day. You two are worse than me when I got my new motorbike.”

“Oh, don’t act like you weren’t gushing about that motorbike for literal months,” James fired back, a grin spreading across his face. “This is karma, mate.”

Before Sirius could come up with a retort, you shot another glare at James and Regulus, feeling your patience wearing thin. “I swear, if I have to witness one more doe-eyed moment between you two, I’m hexing you both.”

Barty, who had been uncharacteristically quiet up until now, leaned back in his chair beside you, smirking. “What did love ever do to you, Treasure?”

You shot him an unimpressed look. “It's quite obnoxious, for one.”

Barty grinned wider, clearly enjoying himself. “Don't you want to be obnoxiously in love?” he teased.

"I'd rather drink poison. Which I will, if you don't start focusing on our potions project soon." You rapped the textbook in front of him with your quill.

“Oh, come now, darling, you know I'd never do that to you,” Barty teased, lowering his voice in that infuriatingly smug way. “And there's no need to be jealous of Reggie – you could have all this romance if you wanted.”

You fixed him with a deadpan look. “With you? I’d rather go mad.”

“Already driving you mad, am I?” Barty shot back smoothly, leaning in just enough to make the air between you shift. “I must be doing something right.”

Sirius let out a loud, exaggerated groan from across the table. “Merlin, can you two ever go five minutes without throwing insults at each other?”

“No,” you and Barty said in unison, which earned a laugh from Remus and an eye roll from Sirius.

“I think they secretly like it,” James chimed in, finally pulling his attention away from Regulus just long enough to catch the tail end of your and Barty’s exchange. “You know, some people just communicate through bickering. It's their language.”

You crossed your arms, glaring at James. “I don’t bicker. He bickers. I’m just trying to survive.”

“You wound me,” Barty said, pressing a hand to his chest with mock hurt. “And here I thought you enjoyed our little chats.”

“If by ‘chats’ you mean listening to you go on and on about how brilliant you think you are, then sure,” you shot back, arching an eyebrow. “I live for those.”

“I am brilliant, though,” Barty replied, completely unfazed, his smirk growing even wider. “You’ve just yet to admit it.”

You snorted. “The only thing brilliant about you is your ability to push my buttons, when we should be studying, Junior.”

“No need to study when we both know I'll ace it regardless." You hated that he was right. "I prefer putting in the work where it matters."

You quirked a brow at him. “Sounds like laziness to me.”

“It's called priorities,” he corrected, eyes gleaming with amusement. “And right now, my priority is sitting right in front of me.”

The groan that escaped your lips was loud enough to draw the attention of a few nearby students, but you couldn’t care less. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“Because it’s true.”

“And yet, you keep sitting next to me. Interesting.”

Sirius, clearly unable to help himself, let out another exaggerated sigh. “Merlin, they’re at it again. Can someone put a Silencing Charm on them?”

Remus, who had been quietly enjoying the exchange, smiled into his notes. “I’d say just let them go. They’re only warming up.”

“You’re probably right,” Sirius agreed, glancing between you and Barty as if you couldn't hear him. “Let’s see how long it takes before one of them snaps.”

You rolled your eyes again. “Don't worry, Black, I’m already nearing my limit.”

“Then do something about it, love,” Barty purred, his grin turning devilish.

You leaned in slightly, narrowing your eyes. “I will, as soon as I figure out which hex will shut you up for good.”

Before he could retort, you flicked your wand under the table, sending a tiny jolt toward him that caused him to yelp and jerk back, the smirk dropping from his face momentarily.

James burst out laughing, nearly toppling over his chair. “Oh, that was brilliant.”

Regulus, who had been watching the whole thing with a half-hidden smile, shook his head. “She's going to kill him one day.”

“That’s the plan,” you muttered under your breath, though a small, victorious smile tugged at the corners of your lips.

Barty, however, recovered quickly, his smirk returning full force. “Oh, you love me too much to kill me.”

"I tolerate you at best, Junior."

"Same difference."

"I really don't think it is," James interjected, seemingly lost as his usual role of peacekeeper doesn't work with you and Barty.

"Oh, you just don't know her like I do." Barty's eyes gleamed as he stared at you.

The glare you shot him then was half-hearted at best. “Don’t push it.”

"You know I will," Barty said and winked at you, before closing the small distance between you to press a chaste peck to your lips.

It was quick, casual, and without any fanfare, just a soft press of lips, like it was the most natural thing in the world – because to you it was. You simply hummed into him before finally turning your head down back towards your notes with a satisfied smile, happy for the distracting conversation to be over.

"Excuse me what?!"

You hadn't even spent more than a second looking at your notes before you were interrupted by Sirius's voice.

You looked up to find everyone staring at you.

James had gone completely still, his mouth hanging open in an almost comical expression of shock. Regulus was blinking rapidly, as if trying to process what had just happened, while Sirius had frozen mid-doodle, his quill still in the air.

The only person who wasn’t shocked was Remus, who had broken into quiet, knowing laughter, clearly enjoying the chaos that was about to unfold.

“Wait– wait– hold on a second,” James finally sputtered, pointing between the two of you. “Did you just– did I just see–?”

"Use your words, Potter," Barty drawled out, eyeing the scene with interest.

“You two are– what?!” Sirius repeated, still frozen with his quill in the air. His eyes were practically bulging out of his head as he stared at you and Barty like you had just sprouted tentacles.

Barty, completely unfazed, leaned back in his chair with the most satisfied grin imaginable, casually crossing his arms behind his head. “Dating. Obviously.”

“Obviously?” James sounded like he might actually choke on the word. His glasses were sliding down his nose from the sheer force of his shock. “Obviously?!”

You shrugged, flipping through your notes like nothing at all had just happened. “Yeah. Why are you all acting like this is news?”

“Because it is!” Sirius threw his quill down dramatically, turning fully in his chair to gawk at you both. “Since when are you two... together?”

You exchanged a glance with Barty, who looked more amused than anything. “I dunno,” you said nonchalantly, “a few weeks, maybe?”

“A few weeks?!” James spluttered, his voice going up at least two octaves. He ran a hand through his already disastrous hair, looking utterly dumbfounded. “How– how did none of us know this?”

Barty gave an infuriatingly casual shrug, his smirk only growing wider. “Wasn’t exactly a secret. You lot were just too wrapped up in your own business to notice.”

“Too wrapped up?!” James looked at Regulus, as if his boyfriend might have some hidden answer to this impossible puzzle. Regulus, to his credit, had his head buried in his hands, looking both embarrassed and quietly amused. “Reggie, you didn’t notice?”

Regulus groaned, his face still hidden. “I noticed. I just didn’t want to talk about it.”

Sirius gaped at his brother. “You knew?”

“Well, I guessed, they're not exactly subtle,” Regulus muttered, still hiding behind his hands. “They bicker like they’re married.”

Remus, who had been laughing quietly this whole time, finally spoke up, his voice full of smug amusement. “He’s right, you know. The bickering should’ve been a dead giveaway.”

“Oh, come on,” James said, throwing his hands in the air. “Bickering is just– bickering! We bicker all the time! I bicker with Sirius – doesn’t mean I’m secretly dating him!”

“I should hope not,” Sirius muttered, still looking completely thrown. “You’re not my type.”

James blinked at him, momentarily sidetracked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Sirius said quickly, waving it off. “Focus, James! The issue here is this.” He gestured wildly between you and Barty. “This... thing they’ve apparently been doing under our noses for weeks.”

"I really think you lot are overreacting," you said, giving everyone a half-glare.

“I can't believe you kissed,” James said, as if just remembering it. “I mean... you kissed. Right there. In front of us. Our Y/N and Junior. Like it's no big deal.”

“It's not” you said, giving him a pointed look. “It’s called a relationship, Potter. People kiss in them.”

James shook his head, looking more confused than ever. “But you two have been acting the same as always! You don't even like each other! Actually, scratch that, you hate each other.”

Barty looked far too pleased with himself as he leaned forward again, resting his elbows on the table. “Oh, darling, you really don't know anything, do you?” he teased at the same time as you said, "And what about it?"

Sirius made a noise somewhere between a gag and a groan. “Ugh, stop. Just stop. This is making me nauseous.”

Remus was practically in tears now, wiping at his eyes as he continued to laugh. “This is... the best thing that's happened today.”

James looked positively ready to combust. "I am so confused." Regulus elbowed Sirius when he whispered what's new?

Barty leaned back again, his grin never faltering. “It's not our fault you were just too busy snogging Reggie here to notice.”

James immediately went red, and Regulus shot Barty a glare, though his lips were twitching with barely suppressed amusement. “Shut up.”

“Oh no, don’t let them turn this around on us,” Sirius cut in, pointing dramatically at you and Barty. “You two are the ones that have been lying this whole time!”

“We weren’t lying,” you said, your tone exasperated now. “You never asked. It’s not our fault you didn’t notice.”

Remus snorted. “To be fair, you do literally nothing to make it obvious. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were just flirting through arguments.”

“We are flirting through arguments,” Barty said matter-of-factly, earning a sharp look from you.

You jabbed a finger at him, narrowing your eyes. “We are not.”

“We definitely are,” Barty fired back, looking far too pleased with himself. “You think of new ways to insult me every day, and I’ve never been more in love.”

There was an audible groan from Sirius. “Merlin’s beard, I am begging you to stop.”

James had dropped his head to the table by now, shaking it slowly like he couldn’t believe what was happening. “I can’t even process this. I need to lie down. Reg, tell me this isn’t happening.”

Regulus patted James awkwardly on the back. “It’s happening.”

Sirius threw his hands up in the air, officially reaching peak exasperation. “I feel betrayed. Absolutely betrayed. All these weeks – months, even – and no one thought to mention, ‘Oh hey, by the way, Barty and Y/N are snogging’?”

"Shagging," Barty corrected, to which you fully slapped his arm and Regulus winced.

“Disgusting.”

You sighed, resting your chin in your hand. “I don't know what to tell you, Siri. It never came up.”

“Never came up?!” James lifted his head from his hands, looking utterly scandalised. “You’ve been dating for weeks and it never came up?”

“We didn’t feel the need to announce it to the world,” you shot back, now fully irritated with how much of a fuss they were making over this. “We were kind of busy with, you know, being in a relationship.”

“Exactly,” Barty chimed in, his grin back in place. “We were busy... prioritising.”

Regulus, still looking a little embarrassed but clearly entertained, shook his head. “You two are unbelievable.”

Sirius, ever the dramatist, leaned back in his chair, throwing his hands up in defeat. “I give up. Absolutely give up. The world makes no sense anymore.”

“Was it ever making sense to you to begin with?” Remus asked dryly, glancing over at him with a raised brow.

“Not the point, Moony,” Sirius muttered, still looking entirely put out.

Barty shrugged again, looking far too relaxed considering the chaos he’d just unleashed. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I will never get used to this,” Sirius shot back, glaring at Barty like he’d personally offended him.

James let out a long, dramatic sigh, slumping against the table. “I need a drink.”

“And I need new friends,” Sirius added, still shaking his head.

"What you need is to calm down," you muttered under your breath. Sirius's gasp told you that he heard you.

“I’m sorry for wanting to know when one of our friends is secretly dating a complete maniac.”

“Complete maniac?” Barty echoed, feigning hurt. “That’s harsh, Black. I prefer charming rascal.”

“I prefer punchable face." It would have been less convincing if you weren't smiling, leaning more and more into Barty's touch.

He grinned down at you and winked. “You can punch me anytime you wish, Treasure. Make sure it bruises, ‘kay?"

“Oh, enough!” James looked like he might actually lose his mind at this point. “You’ve been complaining about me and Reg, but you two are so much worse.”

Remus, ever the voice of reason, shook his head with a faint smile. “Just let them be. This is obviously how they work. I’m sure we’ll all get used to it eventually.”

James and Sirius exchanged a look that clearly said we absolutely will not, but neither of them said anything. Instead, James let out a long, tired sigh and stood up, ruffling his hair as if to shake off the mental exhaustion of the day. “Right, I need a break from this madness. I’m going to the kitchens. Anyone want to come?”

“Definitely,” Sirius muttered, standing up as well. “I need some food to process this... tragedy.”

Regulus chuckled softly, standing to follow them. “I’ll come with you. Though I’m still not sure why you’re so shocked.”

The boys kept bickering and mumbling between them as they hastily gathered their things, while you made a sound between a scoff and a laugh, leaning into Barty.

“Thank you for this gift,” Remus teased before throwing his backpack over his shoulder. “They will never recover it seems.”

You shook your head, but couldn’t help but smile at how much Remus had enjoyed the chaos. “You’re a bit sadistic, Lupin.”

“Only when it’s deserved,” Remus replied with a wink.

Barty stretched his arms behind his head, looking far too relaxed given the absolute meltdown that had just taken place. “Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way... care to finish that kiss?”

You shot him a glare, though your lips twitched upward. “You’re lucky I don’t leave you after the drama you’ve caused me.”

Barty grinned. “You wouldn’t dare. You like me too much.”

“You know, the fact that you two are dating somehow makes your bickering worse,” Remus said, still within airshot.

“We aim to please.”.

You rolled your eyes but didn’t argue. “Come on, let’s get out of here before Sirius comes back with his 'and another thing's”

Barty stood up, offering you a hand with a smirk. “As you wish, Treasure.”

You took his hand, but not without giving him a playful shove as you walked past him. “Keep talking, and I might change my mind.”

“I’d still win you over,” he replied, completely confident.

As you walked off together, hand in hand, you couldn’t help but think that maybe this chaos wasn’t such a bad thing after all. After all, you had Barty, and you were both having far too much fun watching everyone lose their minds over it.

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ruruvxz · 3 months ago

Note

have u seen the new pics of yunjin😍😍office siren yunjin has me on a chokehold

Please write boss!yunjin and worker!reader and basically everyone has a crush on her, but she tries to be so badass but she has the strongest crush on u. And it’s so awkward when u find out she has a crush on u, basically if uve ever read “finding secretary Kim” it’s like that☺️

-🍒

“Finding designer L/N”

Creative director!Huh Yunjin x Designer!Reader

↳synopsis: Huh Yunjin was the most prolific fashion designers in the industry, being the head of the “Huh House” she acquired the attention of plentiful suitors. Thinking she would never find love, she finally set her sights on one of her subordinates yet messes up everything completely when she sent a message confessing her love, to all her workers.

↳cw: swearing, overworking, mean!yunjin, rookie designer, pure fluff, yunjin absolutely embarrassing herself, dense reader, fictional character for plot, mentions of intoxicating, mentions of sexual acts

↳wc: 3.5k

a/n: hehehe i love finding assistant manager kim, so the the plot is basically the same thing minus the freaky deaky stuff. also her post saying “bayonetta” made me absolutely bust… sigh i love my wife so much and she doesn’t even know who i am. i absolutely loved writing this it was so fun

The day you got the acceptance letter to work under the "Huh House" a group filled to the brim with promising designers, you were more than ecstatic. Not only with the fact this could thicken your portfolio twice fold, but this also meant that you got to work with THE Huh Yunjin. She was undoubtedly one of your "celebrity"-like crushes, but her whole career was astonishing. Being the same age as you, you couldn't help but envy such a successful woman, and you knew she was a tad bit mean, but who wasn't?

Needless to say, you could barely contain yourself as you stood in front of the work facility, your palms sweaty as you held the doorknob. The thought of finally beginning a designing job next to one of— if not your favorite designers (not including Karl Lagerfeld, Miuccia Prada, or Vivienne Westwood) was almost a dream come true. If it wasn't for the fact that woman was the most viscerally heinous person you've ever encountered!

Before you could even peer your silly little head into the building you felt someone shove you inside with their broad shoulder, scoffing obnoxiously loud as they made contact. And without even apologizing, the woman continued to plow through you, paying no mind to the fact you were carrying a thick binder filled with your precious designs. But you were no pushover, and couldn't help but almost curse them out—well not until you locked eyes on who just assaulted your shoulder.

Furrowing your eyebrows as you jolted your eyes at the woman, it didn't take long before your mouth was slightly ajar as the redhead with her occupational lenses peered through oval glasses. Rightfully, trembling at her cold gaze before she spoke, clearly about to tell you off on your first day.

"You should learn to move out the way, dear." She hastily spoke, her eyes softened just a smudge, before ripping her gaze from yours and continuing to strut away. How surprising you thought, usually all the horror stories you heard from ex-designers (that so happened to hook you up with the position you're in now) always ended their stories with Yunjin acting out in some hostile way. But she took that a lot better than you expected, maybe it wasn't going to be all that bad!

Before you could regain your composure after being knocked down by the redhead, you felt yourself getting shoved back down once more. Looking up you fixated your gaze on the woman standing over you, she apologized profusely, reaching out a helping hand. She was much nicer than Yunjin just by this base interaction, so you happily expected her hand as she pulled you back up. She explained that she was a fellow designer named Jasmine L/N, someone who worked directly under Yunjin and who helped her procure various items for the Creative Director.

She was surprised to learn that both of you had the same last names and continued to explain that 2 other designers under the house also had the exact same last name. After a small pleasant conversation, you both ended the interaction quickly as the clock continued to tick off the seconds. Giving her a courteous wave, you jogged over to the assigned meeting room to get introduced to the whole system and facilities in the company. It was a little extraordinary that it so happened that the person guiding you happened to also have the same last name, but it was a small world after all.

After the short tour ended, your escort assured you to get settled as there were no upcoming shows to prepare for. Since everything was underwhelming at the moment, it gave you enough time to explore a little more. Taking in all the twists and turns of the facility, it was unexplainable and huge, but not unexpected. Each room was tailored completely to Yunjin's aesthetics or what she found was exceptionally unique, and her office specifically was eye-catching. The walls leading to her office were plastered with photos and awards congratulating her for her success and everything else of that sort.

If it was anyone else, you most definitely would've thought they were stuck up to pridefully display everything like this, but it was somehow different with her. You were in awe that she could achieve so much, that your hands mindlessly rubbed the plaque with her name beautifully etched onto the gold plating. It didn't take long for you to gain attention from a certain someone, may I say, the owner of that plaque you were caressing so gently.

"That tag is beautiful isn't it?" The redhead spoke up, slinging your head over your shoulder in surprise, I mean, you shouldn't be all that shocked since this was next to her office but you were still a little scared.

"Gah! Oh my— you scared me!" You spit out, quickly removing your hands away and tucking them behind your back as you rotate your body towards her.

"Haha, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that." Yunjin smugly laughed as she brought up her hair to tie it into a beautifully messy bun.

"No— it's my fault I shouldn't have been lurking around here." You sheepishly admit as you pull your hands from your back to fidget with your fingers embarrassingly. Only making her chuckle louder as she examined your body movements, she would've probably scared you off by now, but by some odd circumstance, she didn't.

If it wasn't for your preconceived negative notion that she was absolutely terrifying, you probably would've found her endearing by the way she giggled, whilst pushing up her glasses to not falter it for its original position. Honestly, everything about her was charming in some odd sense, like how she came closer to you to explain how she won each and every one of these achievements by herself. Undoubtedly cocky, but it was so flattering the way Yunjin carefully explained everything to your basic understanding, she was full of herself for sure. (Or maybe she was just trying to impress a certain someone.)

"Oh and this one," Yunjin pointed at one of the brightly colored magazines framed perfectly on the wall, which had her face and a full body shot plastered smack dab in the middle. "This was for a photo shot for 'Dazed', not one of my personal favorites as they only really cared for my facial aesthetics not my work." She mumbled memories of all those discouraging discussions about her becoming a designer flooded her mind.

"I mean, usually when someone's work is beautiful, the apple doesn't stray that far from the tree doesn't it?" You mindlessly commented as your eyes fixated on her portrait, and back to the old designs she created during her high school days. "Your works really inspired me to be a creative myself, I used to be so insecure about producing my own line for the longest time, and seeing someone my age do it really put me out of my shell. Y'know?"

Yunjin turned her head, just enough to meet your gaze with a side eye, you honestly thought she was offended, but that was far from the truth. She saw herself in you, a young designer so eager to work without any real goal but only their passion inside of them, it was incredible. Yunjin was swayed that anyone, let alone someone who showed so much promise, took inspiration, from her?!

"Oh." She stuttered as she snatched her gaze away from your face, looking towards an old portrait from high school sophomore year, the year she was thrusted into the industry. "Thank you... Y/N was it?"

"You know my name?— Oh, and yes that's it."

"I think you should get back to work." She mumbled, turning her head sharply away from you, her cheeks burning ferociously red, but she was Huh Yunjin, she couldn't show any of this, let alone to her subordinate. "Oh okay!" You chirped as you backed away from her, wondering about her sudden change of emotions.

✄

It had been months since that interaction, and to be honest, you haven't seen her ever since then. Particularly due to the fact that she suddenly booked multiple shows in the span of a few months to launch her spring collection mainstream. Though it was extremely exhausting, to say the least, you enjoyed working with your colleagues, and the fact you could finally produce physical copies of your designs. Your designs were so well loved that you started to get lost in your craft, working day and night tirelessly to make the most breathtaking pieces.

So this day wasn't any different, you had slept on the faculty room's couch and was abruptly woken up by someone aggressively tapping your shoulder and calling out your name. "L/N... L/N? L/N!" A woman shouted in your ear, springing you awake, a little disoriented since you just woke up in an unfamiliar place you usually wake up to.

"You're finally awake, I got you coffee." The woman said next to your ear, jerking your head to the side to find you were at eye level with your boss who was leaning down to your sitting level. "AHH! You scared me!" You squeal, dumbfounded by how casual she was about the fact you slept so soundly in her facility. This undoubtedly caught the attention of fellow designers as you could feel some eyes peer towards you and Yunjin.

"I apologize, take this to wake you up," Yunjin suggested as she handed you a tall cold Spanish iced latte, in contrast to the fact she brought the others a small shot of americano. As quickly as she handed it to you, she scurried away back to her office, as if she just completed the most rigorous quest of her left. It hadn't taken long for everyone to crowd around you, wondering what just happened as Yunjin hated interacting with her subordinates let alone going out and by everyone's coffee.

As you all converse, you were quickly shut up by the fact that someone brought up the Milan Fashion Week deadline that was inching ever so closely. Mentally cursing yourself out, as you only completed a small minority of the pieces you were working on before crashing out on the couch. You lugged yourself up and over to your workstation, quickly pulling up the designs on your computer as a reference. Forgetting to close your other tabs as you were too unbothered to care about that at the moment.

You scanned through your material checklist and back at the dress you were designing to figure out if you needed to grab some more fabrics. It so happened that you were out of some decorative textiles, and needed to haul your way to the back to grab some. As you do so, you pull on your headphones and jam out to some tunes, ignoring your coworkers looking bewildered at their computer screens. Whatever they were looking at was none of your business as you needed to finish your dress quickly.

"Such procrastinators gosh!" You mumbled to yourself, not batting an eye at the fact they were all stealing glances at their computer and then at each other. It wasn't until another coworker "James L/N" stood proudly in his seat, throwing his fabrics all over the place that it caught your attention. You tossed your headphones to hang around your neck and walked towards him, questioning why he was acting out irrationally.

He responded by grabbing his monitor screen and turning it towards you, with a message that was sent on the company's group board displayed brightly. You titled your head as you read it out loud, with others eagerly awaiting your reaction.

"Dear L/N,

I hope you enjoyed the coffee I brought, I want to tell you how I feel.

Would you like to grab a drink together after you're done?

- Huh Yunjin"

You were most definitely appalled as you continued to read, that the stoic creative director Huh Yunjin, was confessing her feelings. This was astonishing, the utter fact she'd like anyone, let alone her subordinate was a red flag in itself, but your coworker, James, was jumping around like a crazed bear.

"What the— James wait— You aren't the only one with that last name though." You spoke up, recalling the three other people with that last name, not including yourself of course. "Jasmine, Daniel, and Matteo..." Another designer spoke up, instantly shooting James down, as he sat back in his seat with a winded expression. You felt a bit bad about how defeated he looked but he was kind of a jackass, so even if Yunjin did like this loser out of anyone, you were glad he didn't think so.

Jasmine, the woman you first met, spoke over everyone, finding it uncomfortable why anyone would think this message was directed at her, as she was happily engaged and had known Yunjin for far too long. "It isn't mean dumbass," She shot a glare at everyone, wanting to make it dead clear, "Besides there's still 2 other people we need to check off, Matteo and Daniel."

After a lengthy discussion, a crowd of people, all of which consisted of the fashion designers, formed a circle in the break room to figure out who this designer was. You didn't speak up as you didn't find anyone but Jasmine suited for the pick. Matteo was stuck up, and cared strictly about others' personal opinions of him, Daniel on the other hand was almost about as bossy and uptight as Yunjin. Both of them were unlikely partners for Yunjin but to each their own.

You found this whole debacle irritating, yet you had an excuse to leave the conversation as you genuinely needed to go back and finish up all your pieces. You worked tirelessly, eating up your whole afternoon and even biting time into the night as you continued to work. Only being interrupted by your 3 other coworkers wondering if they'd be the perfect suitor for Yunjin. Thankfully Jasmine had enough time to yank them away and send one of the slackers back home to rest.

As the clock struck 10:30, you spent the next 6 minutes working and glancing at the two other people left in the building. Matteo and Daniel, who had been preparing themselves after work for your boss, it was kinda freaky, but you know what, you were beyond tired to care. And to be fair you were only still here to pack up your stuff and also see the both of them get brutally turned down.

"Ah, you three are still here?" The redhead questioned as she pushed herself out of her office, still distraught about what she had done prior. "You both should go home, it's far too late." Yunjin imposed as she shot them her iconic icy glare, without a hitch, they scurried away like mice.

"Ah L/N, are you heading home now?"

"Yup! Just packing up all my paper designs and I'll be out of here." You replied, trying to hide your joyous laughter while you watched both the boys pack up and leave the building.

"I'll drive you home."

"Oh alright! Thank you!"

The car ride was far more awkward than you'd originally expected, you both sat in silence with the radio playing softly in the background, with Google Maps speaking loudly to add some "spice" to the ride. Yunjin's eyes never faltered from the road, almost as if she was trying her utmost to not look at you.

"Thank you for all your hard work today Y/N, I know how difficult it is to pump out so many designs in such a short period." Finally breaking the silence she complimented how tirelessly you worked, while she gave you a glance and back at the traffic.

"Thank you Ms.Huh! Honestly it's nothing, I love working for you, it must be Ms.Huh who's having a hard day today—" Whoops, you didn't process her words fast enough to understand she was talking about your hard work and not about having a hard day.

"I'm so sorry, I meant that—" You stumbled over yourself trying to explain the situation, "What I was trying to say—" You stop yourself momentarily to handpick the perfect words to tell her. "It's just that you always seem so stressed and uhm..."

"I'm sorry Y/N." She cut you off.

"I'm so sorry," Yunjin spoke up pushing her head down onto the stirring wheel, the street light illuminating her blushing red cheeks.

"Oh no! It should be me apologizing Ms.Huh—"

"Please call me Yunjin, we're the same age after all."

"Yunjin— I didn't want to say this but, everyone was so curious about who you meant to send that message to, it seemed so serious. If you sent that to me I'd be so scared!" You admitted, fiddling with your hands as she lifted her head from the wheel and turned her head towards you. Yunjin was far too deep into what she did, that at this point she didn't care about what she was about to say next.

"Actually..."

"I meant to send that to you, Y/N L/N."

You turn your head towards hers as she blushes madly, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose, not bothering to push it back up to her eyes. It was all so clear now, that was your last name after all wasn't it? And she was talking about giving you coffee in the message, so why did you assume it would be anyone else?

"Oh!" You hiccuped, trying to decipher that dreadful look in her eyes, the anticipation killing her, awaiting what you would say next. "I.. Uhm... would you still like to grab a drink with me?"

✄

You arose from the plush comforter your head pounding from a clear hangover, the bright New York sunlight hit your head like a train. Everything was once again disorienting like when you awoke in the facility room, your surroundings were completely unfamiliar, and your body was covered only with a baggy sweater and your undergarments. Your body was sore and drowsy, scanning your surroundings everything was unfamiliar yet beautifully decorated with whites and greys.

"What the..." You continued to inspect the room, slowly moving to the edge of the bed, ready to leave until a familiar delicate hand yanked you back down. As if you were in a horror movie, you snapped your head at the woman, realizing it was that darn redhead again. Which added more questions in your head than answers, why exactly, are you in her house?

Replaying the memories in your head, you connected the dots, oh, you may-haps slept with your superior, and creative director of the fashion line you worked on. You weren't a drunkard nor a lightweight so how could you forget such a detail?

"Y/N, don't go— not yet." She groaned, clearly still tired from last night. (You both came back to her house after only a few drinks, the both of you somewhat drunk but one more plastered than the other, actually— you were practically wobbling under her trying to get in. She led you to the living room to sober you up, as you kept spewing some nonsense about how much you idolized her. Talking about how jealous you felt when everyone was claiming that message was meant for them, and how much you loved her the moment you set your eyes on her. She was amazing, and you kept reiterating that as she listened carefully, falling deeper for you as you continued to yap all the alcohol out of your system. Finally passing out in her arms for a few moments before jolting awake. Yunjin expresses to your mainly sober state how much your speech meant to her, and how she felt the same way. Cutting her off with short kisses around her cheeks and then to her lips. And the rest was history.)

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm just stretching." You lied, hiding your embarrassment as you leaned down to kiss her forehead. Her expression softened as you pulled away and began stroking her dark red hair A small smile filled her lips, just for a short while, before she dozed back to sleep at your touch. When she didn't look like she was about to maul someone, she was very much adorable.

"I'm gonna go get us some breakfast okay? I'll be back in a few minutes Yunjin."

"Mhm..." She mumbled, pushing her head back into the pillow as she fell deeper into slumber.

“Be right back Ms.Huh.”

She lifted her head back up, clearly a lot more awake than last time, registering the name you called her. “I said call me Yunjin.” She barked, offended by the change in honorifics, letting you tease her, before stroking her head once more, running your fingers through her hair. “My bad, Yunjin.”

#idol x female reader #idol x reader #female reader #gxg #girl group imagines #huh yunjin x reader #Le sserafim x reader #huh yunjin #Le sserafim imagines #yunjin x reader #huh Yunjin x you #huh yunjin x female reader #huh yunjin imagines #yunjin imagines

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jinhyun · 1 year ago

Note

just saw your post about the drabbles and if you could please write "you know what we are. you just want to hear me say it." with hyunjin i would love you forever (i would even if you didn't write it tho). thank you <3

- 💗

"What are we?"

"You know what we are" you smiled, looking up at him for a moment before your face was buried on his chest again. "You just want to hear me say it".

"Well, yes" Hyunjin pouted, tightening his hold around your waist as he leaned against the kitchen counter. "Haven't heard you say it to your family all day".

You chuckled, but ultimately said nothing. Instead, you just took a deep breath and let yourself relax under the warmth of your boyfriend's touch.

It still felt surreal to call him that. Boyfriend.

Your boyfriend.

Having been friends most of your life, to the point that your family considered him to be another member of it and his family considered you a part of theirs, it surely felt like you were dreaming to get to call him that now, instead of just your best friend.

Then again, your family had been there when you first caught feelings for each other — catching on in the switch from platonic love to romantic feelings even before you did.

They had been there when the two of you finally realised your own feelings and started to faintly act on them.

They were there that night when you came back home squealing, after you went on a date neither of you dared to call as such and he softly kissed you by your doorstep.

They had been there through it all, and therefore, the term 'boyfriend' had become the rule to them when it came to what Hyunjin was to you.

No matter how many times you called them out on it, no matter how many times they almost slipped up in the presence of Hyunjin himself, and no matter how many times you told them you were still just friends, to them, Hwang Hyunjin was your boyfriend.

So, although you had only made it official a day ago, it hadn’t really crossed your mind to introduce him as such when your parents invited him over for lunch that Sunday, like it was usual by now.

"Are you telling them we're a couple now?" He mumbled.

This time, you couldn't help but giggle. "They've been referring to you as my boyfriend for like a month now".

Hyunjin smiled, having to bite his lip not to let out a breathy, incredulous laugh. "It's official now, though. So, you know… maybe…"

"You want to be introduced to them as my boyfriend?" You asked genuinely.

Pulling away from his chest just enough to look up at him once more, you were met with his excited eyes before he nodded.

He had been your best friend for years now, and he wanted everyone to acknowledge the fact that he wasn't just that anymore.

He wanted to take pride in being called your boyfriend now, especially in front of your family.

Smiling over how cute he was, you leaned up to press your mouth on his — feeling him smile against your lips before he cupped your face and his thumbs traced the corners of your mouth.

Your lips only detached when you heard an obnoxious cough by the door, being met with your sister's inability to hide her very obvious smirk.

"Mum says to go outside with the rest of us" she quickly let you know before her eyes fixed on Hyunjin. "And our dad wants your help with the barbecue".

Hyunjin nodded, placing his hands on your wrists to undo your hold on him. "Yeah, of cou—"

"Just let me hug my boyfriend for a little longer" you pouted, paying no mind to his previous attempt of walking away to go help your dad, as you rested your cheek on his chest and your arms tightened around his body.

Your heart melted over the way Hyunjin's heartbeat sped up at the sound of your words, feeling it pound heavily against the side of your face; and a small giggle escaped your mouth when one second later you felt his arms wrap around your waist and his lips press a kiss to the crown of your head.

On the other hand, your sister rolled her eyes in disgust.

"Hurry up or I'm telling them you guys are taking too long because you're making out" she threatened as she turned around to walk away. "Not like they'd really care, but…"

Watching her disappear from your view, your eyes locked with Hyunjin's again. He looked just as amused as you were.

"She didn't even bat an eye" you confirmed your prediction.

"And apparently your parents wouldn't mind us making out in here?" He laughed incredulously.

"I told you it'd be no news to them".

Shaking his head in amusement as a soft chuckle escaped his lips, he leaned down to lock them with yours in a tender kiss. "It's okay".

Maybe having your family take him for your boyfriend already was just as good as you introducing him as such to them, if not better.

In the end, what mattered was that they knew you were together and that he wasn't just your best friend anymore, right?

He didn't need you to tell them what you were at all.

"Still want me to call you my boyfriend in front of my parents?" You mumbled against his mouth.

He snorted, pressing his lips to yours once more. "Absolutely".

#skz #stray kids #hwang hyunjin #hyunjin #skz imagines #stray kids imagines #hyunjin imagines #skz scenarios #stray kids scenarios #skz reactions #stray kids reactions #hyunjin scenarios #hyunjin reactions

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glitterforashes · 1 year ago

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Maybe date hcs for sal??? If you're fine and well?? I love that pretty boy too much ^^

𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞 (𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞)? ; 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐜’𝐬!

>>> OKAY YA’LL HERE WE GO! so sorry it took me ages to get to this! wonderful ask from macncheese here, thank u for requesting! hope you enjoy!! <3 (SORRY I POSTED IT BEFORE IT WAS DONE IGNORE THAT. THIS IS FINISHED)

𝐒𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫 —

is literally a nervous wreck leading up to asking you out

“dude, calm down.” “I CAN’T CALM DOWN SHE’S SO BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT.”

has to give himself multiple pep talks in the mirror (they don’t work)

practices asking you out on ash (that doesn’t work either and she makes fun of him)

comes over to your apartment to play video games, is sweating and twitching like he’s cracked out

“sally? you okay?” “go out with me.”

“..please.”

the laughter that erupts from your mouth makes him want to curl up and die

you agree to go out with him obviously

you set a date for friday after school at 8

he picks you up from your apartment, wearing his only nice pair of jeans and a band tshirt

“uh hi.”

“hi baby:)”

he hands you a flower from the flower bush outside of the school almost mechanically and you immediately put it in your hair

you two walk together to the little pizza spot across from the apartments

you hold his hand and he almost explodes

he pays for u!!

ya’ll sit and eat and talk and laugh so obnoxiously everyone else in the room thinks you’re psycho

an old woman stares too long at sally so you flinch at her and she nearly has a heart attack

sally stares at you with so much adoration you think his only good eye is gonna turn into a cartoon heart and launch at you

you stay the night at his apartment after!!

• gizmo snuggles up between you two and you spend the latest hours of the night talking and twiddling fingers with each other

at eight pm sharp, there’s a knock at your door. you smile as you go to open it, revealing sally. even though he was dressed plainly, it bout made you foam at the mouth. “uh, hi.” he said. you smiled, heavily amused by how nervous he was. “hi baby.” he very very mechanically pulled a hibiscus flower from behind his back and extended it to you, standing still as a scarecrow. “aww, sal! thank you!” you took it and placed it behind your ear, smiling from ear to ear. he was so freaking cute you had to will your entire body not to just kiss him all over.

he was stiff and nervous and looked kinda scary, so you took his hand and shut the door behind you, starting to walk down to the elevator. “thanks for inviting me out sally.” you say. he cleared his throat abruptly, like your thanks shocked him, before mumbling “yeah you’re welcome.”

it was cute how he was so nervous— especially since you two had done way worse things together than just going to get pizza. you had been interrogated by police, chased by travis and his little boyfriends, given detention together, and a whole bunch of other things that were universally worse than getting food.

“you know you don’t have to be scared, right? loosen up!” you teased, bumping your hip to his as you two stepped into the elevator. “oh. right. sorry.” you laughed, and he chuckled softly, shaking his shoulders a bit. the walk was less awkward from there,, you continued holding his hand and making idle chatter, just yapping about whatever graced your mind. he made a point to walk a bit ahead of you and open the parlor door, gesturing dramatically like some sort of medieval prince. “after you, m’lady.” he said, and you laughed, doing a curtsy with your imaginary skirts as you walked into the building.

you two went to the counter together, but you ordered for the both of you because sally didn’t want to talk to the cashier. you got a full pepperoni pizza and a side of the crinkle cut fries you two would always request when you were high. you waited off to the side until you got your food,, which you took over to a booth in the back closest to the door. you two ate mostly in silence, too hungry to try to talk between bites. as of late neither of you had been eating the cafeteria food, so this was a saving grace to your stomachs.

in the post-food coma you two experienced, you threatened to stick a fry up sally’s nose and he nearly spat his drink all over the table, which made you laugh so loudly you nearly got embarrassed. you wiped up the mess yall made as sal packed your leftovers into a little box, shaking his head and chuckling to himself the whole time.

you carried the box of fries and he carried the pizza box, but you two still managed to awkwardly hold hands the whole way home. you shuffled into the tiny elevator and watched for a moment as it climbed the levels. you peeked over to sally to see him already side eyeing you and you both erupted into laughter, filling the elevator with the sounds of amusement.

when you got to sally’s apartment you two placed the leftovers on the little rickety kitchen table and immediately retreated to his bedroom, saying hi to his dad and beckoning gizmo to follow on the way in. you took off your uncomfortable pants and tossed them in a corner, and sal stripped down to his boxers. of course, this wasn’t uncommon. you had both established long ago that sleeping unrestricted was the best way to sleep.

you two plopped down on his bed side by side and gizmo shuffled his way in soon after, laying on your right arm and half on sally’s torso. you two spent some time just petting and praising gizmo, talking about how cute he was and sal telling you the story of how they got him.

around midnight you threw a pillow at the wall to flip the light switch off, and you two rolled over to face each other. your hand found his naturally and he began rubbing small circles on your palm with his thumb. “thank you for taking me out.” you whispered, nudging ever so slightly closer. “you’re welcome.” he said, shifting closer to you. you two migrated closer and closer until your forehead was touching the forehead of his mask. your breaths merged into one as you inhaled and exhaled in sync, just enjoying each others presence. gizmo purred like a motorboat, having moved to lay on y’all’s intertwined legs.

“i think i love you, sally.”

you said, but he was already asleep. you smiled and shook your head, snuggling your face into his as you closed your eyes. “goodnight then.”

“i think i love you too, (y/n).”

#sally fisher xreader #fanfiction #x reader #fluff #date headcannons #hcs #sally face #romance #cutie pie #fanfic #indie games #sally face x reader

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stobinesque · 2 years ago

Text

talking could, if we'd just dare (you know that i'll forgive you), pt. 1

@steddie-week day 6: misunderstandings / "You Lookin' at Me Lookin' at You" by Ozzy Osbourne | ~5.5k words | G or T inspired by this post from @inklessletter!

If Eddie was being honest, he’d never actually paid that much attention to Steve Harrington. Sure, it was impossible not to know of him. But for most of his life it had simply been…unimportant, to know about the various goings on of the Class of ‘85’s royal court. Harrington was rich, a bit of a bitch, and kept company with other rich bitches, and so Eddie neatly categorized him with all the other pretty, rich jocks, and went about his day. Life was easier when there was an order to such things. Keep the smalltown, upper-middle class heroes to one side, and the freaks and degenerates to the other, and everyone could live in an uneasy sort of harmony until they walked the stage and left this rathole behind.

Of course, repeating senior year thrice had put a wrench in that plan.

Meanwhile, Dustin Henderson had thrown the whole damn toolbox into the whole not-paying-attention-to-one-Steven-MiddleName-Harrington plan.

And whatever the fuck was going on now had just blown everything out of the water.

(Or into the water, as the case may be—except the freaky parallel hellscape they’d all dove into seemed to be utterly devoid of the substance, so maybe the original metaphor worked just fine.)

So now he had to contend with the fact that Steve Harrington was a) a pretty nice dude to recent victims of smalltown witch-hunts who had just been thrust into what was apparently a years-long government conspiracy involving monsters and mind-controlling wizards, b) a bit of a dork, c) friends with a whole bunch of dorks, most of whom were four or five years younger than him, d) admirably—though perhaps self-destructively—protective of said dorks, e) just as much of a badass as Henderson claimed, and, most distressingly: f) extremely hot while doing so.

The being a protective badass part, not all the other ones.

(The other parts Eddie was retroactively filing under “adorable,” and “cute.”)

The expression Steve got on his face when Eddie lobbed his battle vest at him was also priceless, so at that point Eddie figured, fuck it. What did he have to lose from some harmless flirting? The chances of him making it out the other side of this both alive and un-incarcerated were dwindling by the second, and it’s not like he ran any risk of things going anywhere. (Harrington might be a good dude, and alternate dimensions and monsters and superpowers apparently existed, but Steve Harrington being anything other than a straight man with Traditional American Values™ strained credulity—and the Munson Doctrine—far past any acceptable limit.)

After all, if there was one thing that Eddie had actually learned from D&D, it was that a little bit of flirting and fun could take the sting out of any TPK.

🦇🦇🦇

If Steve was being honest with himself—which he’d been making a concerted effort to try to do since fall of ‘84—he could admit that his…jealousy…of Munson predated Dustin joining Hellfire. His whole climbing-on-cafeteria-tables schtick was kind of obnoxious, sure. But up until he’d wound up flunking his first try at senior year, Eddie'd had this sort of dorky-but-cool aura that Steve wished he was apathetic enough about other people’s opinions to achieve.

For a man who seemed to genuinely believe he was a coward, Eddie Munson was so…loudly and unapologetically himself. In Hawkins, Indiana—a place that quite literally wanted to kill him for how much of a freak he was. And, sure, some of that came down to the whole wanted-for-murder thing. But the man had also spent the better part of the past twelve hours flirting with a former jock—whom Eddie himself admitted to thinking was a douche up until a couple days ago!—so Steve had the sneaking suspicion that there was probably a corner of the town that already had it out for Munson long before Chrissy Cunningham’s body was found in his trailer.

And it wasn’t that Steve wanted to get into metal, or that Dragons game, or start wearing hand-printed t-shirts and attaching his wallet to a chain. He just wished that even after all the years of monsters, and government threats, and Russian torture, he didn’t still feel the need to hold himself to standards set by other people.

If anyone was a coward, it was Steve.

And there was something kind of…nice—reassuring, even—about the fact that Eddie seemed to feel the same way—but in reverse—about him. Like together maybe they could take the bravest parts of the other and make them their own.

And underneath it all, Steve could admit, was the fact that Eddie was…pretty.

So. Steve was having a bit of a crisis

“Robin, I’m having a crisis.”

“We’re all having a crisis, dingus,” she shot back, slapping at his shoulder with the back of her hand.

“No— no, not that.” Steve started emptying one of the bottles of vodka they’d procured into the half-dead grass. “I’m talking about the whole—” Steve waved a hand over towards where Eddie and Dustin were horsing around. “The Eddie thing.”

“Oh, you mean the fact that he’s been blatantly flirting with you since you got eaten by bats?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yes, Robin, I’m talking about the blatant flirting.”

“And…why is that causing a crisis?”

Steve fish-mouthed at her. “B-because…” He leaned forward with a finger held aloft, ready to waggle it in her face. He paused. Frowned. “Well, because…” Steve threw up his hands. “I don’t know! A few days ago the man thought I was a douche. Literally just yesterday he was, like, hot-and-cold trying to throw me at Nancy, while also ogling my chest hair, and now he’s calling me ‘big boy’ and trying to get into my personal space? It doesn’t make sense, Robin!”

“Welcome to the club, buddy.” She raised her brows at him pointedly. And, yeah, that was fair, he guessed.

“And,” He started again, “And– I’ve also got Henderson insisting that I win Nancy back—he does seem to have finally dropped the whole are-you-secretly-dating-Robin thing, though, which—”

“Oh, thank god.”

“Yeah. But, on top of that Nancy has also been making eyes at me, but she’s still with Jonathan so I don’t know what to do about that. And it’s all just a mess, Robs! I’m a mess.”

“Yeah, well, that’s been true for ages, Stevie.”

“Thanks, Robin. That’s very helpful.”

“What? I’m just saying, if you’re going to tell me that I’ve got to ‘be myself,’ and put myself out on a limb with Vickie, while you’re out gallivanting with Helen or Jackie or whoever—”

“Heidi—”

“Whatever.” Robin waved her hand dismissively. “My point is: you keep throwing yourself at all of these girls who only know the old you—even if you’re trying to give them the new-and-improved model—and you haven’t even tried to go after a guy, and I think we both know why. And now you’ve hit the jackpot of what every tragic gay teenager in smalltown America can only dream of: you’ve got someone blatantly, and undeniably into you, who you also like back, and you’re telling me that you’re having a crisis? Need I remind you of the tableau we were treated to back at The War Zone?”

Steve sighed. “I know, Robs. You’re right.” Steve jammed a funnel into the neck of the bottle he was working on, and the two of them kept building molotov cocktails in the dying evening light, as Steve tried to reassure Robin that she still had a chance with Vickie—which she did, and Robin took his mind off his own impending disaster. But, if Steve had even a shadow of a chance of getting to hook up with a guy, Robin deserved to have a romance of her own. As much as Robin was afraid to see it, Steve was pretty sure he recognized that conflicted look Vickie’d had in her eyes when she’d spotted Robin in the store. There was something there, he was sure of it.

But maybe Vickie was like him. Maybe she’d only just learned this new thing about herself. Robin—and presumably Eddie—had had at least a couple of years to sit with this knowledge about themselves and come to terms with it. But for Steve (and Vickie?) it was still so scarily and terribly new. With girls, Steve knew how to play the field. He knew what was expected of him—what role he had to fill. But with Eddie a guy, all the rules went out the window; all of his scripts: useless. He’d have to start from scratch, and build something completely different from anything he’d been taught to want or expect before.

Maybe he was getting ahead of himself, though. Because Robin was right: they had more important things—end-of-the-world shaped things—to worry about. His love life could wait. Eddie could wait.

They all just needed to make it out of there alive.

🎸🎸🎸

Eddie survived.

They won.

Eddie survived, and so did everyone else, and they won.

Eddie kept repeating it to himself, because he couldn’t quite believe it.

He couldn’t make heads or tails of the fact that in the end running away was exactly what he needed to do to make sure they all made it out in one piece—more or less.

He’d walked right out of hell with nothing more to show for it than a few scratches up his sides, and a ring of bruises ‘round his neck. In the end, Steve was the only person other than Red who needed a hospital stay of any kind, because what would have been manageable wounds on day one, had become life-threatening after days of infection and improper care.

A future in a state penitentiary also seemed to be out of the cards. There was probably nothing any of them could say or do to convince the general Hawkins populace of his innocence, but Dr. Owens and his ilk had crafted a cover story believable enough to win over Powell and Callahan, at least. More to the point, though: all charges had officially been dropped, and the case was closed.

Now there was just the mortifying process of figuring out how to move on. Or at least forward.

That was the part you didn’t see in movies. No one showed the recovery. Because what was so interesting about watching someone pull their life and body back together? As though healing wasn’t just as much a part of the story as the falling apart.

Eddie wasn't ashamed to admit that it was driving him a bit mad. Because these kids all seemed to be seasoned veterans at it. They hadn't just snapped back to their relatively-easy-going-but-bitchy baselines by any means—Lucas and Dustin especially seemed incredibly subdued in response to the extent of Max's and Steve's injuries, respectively—but they moved around one another with a care and familiarity that spoke to years of experience.

“How did you do this?” Eddie scrubbed a hand through his hair, yanking at the roots. He and Robin were posted by Steve's bedside—he still spent most of his days semi- to unconscious. And while Eddie didn’t necessarily think it made a whole lot of sense for him to be spending more time at Steve’s bedside than the kids did, Robin was only ever dragged away from him kicking and screaming, and as the newest member of the apocalypse posse above the age of twelve, he was in desperate need of her guidance.

“How’d I do what?” Her typically-raspy voice sounded paper thin, and there were deep, dark circles under both eyes.

“I don’t know—!” Eddie flapped a frantic hand around, like he could manifest words and meaning into being. Something about it made the corners of Robin’s mouth twitch up. “Any of it? You–you dealt with a flesh monster, apparently, and you’re just...walking around on two feet, probably ready to graduate—which is more than I could guarantee for myself—”

“Hey, you will—”

“Not the point, Buckley! The point is, up until this new bout of freaky shit popped into existence, you seemed like you were walking around Hawkins without a care in the world. So how’d you do it? What’s your secret?”

Robin scoffed. “If you think I was walking around without being terrified every day, you either weren’t paying attention, or you’re a lot less smart than I gave you credit for, Munson.”

Eddie grimaced. “Sorry, sorry. That’s not what I meant, I just…you seem like you managed to pull yourself back together—whereas I feel seconds away from total collapse.”

“Yeah, that’s not just a you thing.” Robin twisted one of her rings around her finger. “But you wanna know what kept me upright? It was Steve. I don’t think I would have made it through the last eight months without him. And I know he’s gonna be alright, but I am still terrified that something will happen and he’ll get ripped away from me.”

Eddie frowned. He didn’t think he’d been picking up on those kinds of vibes between Harrington and Buckley, but the way she spoke about him… “Are the two of you, like, a thing?”

Robin barked out a laugh. “No! Not at all. I mean, he is the most important person in my life, and I would both kill and die for him. But, like, in a normal, platonic way.”

“...I’ll take you at your word for the ‘platonic’ part, but there is absolutely nothing normal about what you just said. You two are freaky for each other.”

Robin giggle-snorted, and it scrunched her nose up in a way that filled Eddie with warmth. Despite everything about his…everything, he’d never been short on friends—but it always felt nice to find another one. “Yeah, yeah I guess we are.”

“Mmm…Bobbie? ‘Zat you?” The beeping of Steve’s heart monitor picked up a little speed, and the man in question’s eyelids fluttered open. Robin immediately unraveled from the folded-up position she’d adopted in the hospital chair, and reached out to take his hand into her own.

“Yeah, Stevie, it’s me.”

Steve squeezed her hand, before his eyes started scanning the room—going wide when they landed on Eddie. “Oh. Eddie.” A light pink flush broke over his face, and he averted his gaze almost as quickly as he met Eddie’s. That kept happening whenever Steve woke up, and Eddie didn’t know what to make of it, but it always left him off-kilter in a way he didn’t want or know how to put a name to. He always took it as his cue to leave.

“Well,” he started, with forced cheer, and a shit-eating grin. He pushed himself up from the chair and dusted off his knees. “I’m gonna leave you two lovebirds to catch up,”

“Not lovebirds—” Steve slurred, at the same time Robin exclaimed, “Ew, Munson!”

Eddie just cackled and sauntered off with a jaunty salute.

🦇🦇🦇

Steve felt like he was losing his mind.

He'd been out of the hospital for a few weeks now, but he almost wished he was back there, because every waking second was just a never ending parade of pain and confusion.

Fuck, why did almost dying always hurt so much?

The upside of being awake and ambulatory, was that Eddie had finally stopped running out of the room whenever Steve was awake for longer than two seconds. The down side—which was unfortunately directly connected to the aforementioned upside—was that Eddie was being weird.

And, okay, Steve had an admittedly shallow pool of evidence from which to draw his comparisons from. But the fact remained that Eddie’s behavior towards him pre- and post-Vecna-slaying were worlds’ apart. And he didn’t know how to fix it. He’d tried everything: playing coy, bringing him small gifts, finding excuses to talk to him one-on-one when the rest of the group was gathered together. But none of it seemed to work.

What Steve wanted was to just be able to rock up to the trailer with a bouquet of flowers and ask him out to a night at Enzo’s. But even without the whole recently-wanted-for-murder thing, the two of them going out on what was obviously a date in Hawkins was not only a bad idea, but actively dangerous. And without his typical romance rituals to fall back on, Steve was at a loss as to how to proceed, when the object of his affection was acting so damnably fickle.

“I just don’t get it, Rob. One minute he’s calling me ‘big boy’ and getting all up close and personal, and the next he’s looking like I killed his cat!”

“You have got to stop using other people’s trauma as analogies for your love life, babe.”

Steve waved a hand. “Mrs. Henderson’s not here.”

Robin threw up her hands. “And that makes it okay?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Fine, whatever.” Robin ruffled her hair in frustration. “Maybe he’s just nervous!”

“Nervous! Why would he be nervous?”

“I don’t know, Steve. Why are you nervous?”

“Because I like him, and I don’t want to get hurt again!” Steve shouted, startling himself by the force with which the words came tumbling out.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Steve sighed. “I mean, it’s not just that, though, it’s…” Steve waved a hand into the open air between them. “I don’t know how to do this, you know? If this was a girl, I’d be thinking ‘oh, she’s playing hard to get—’”

“I can’t believe that’s a real thing people do,” Robin deadpanned.

“I mean, sometimes it really is just that they don’t like you—except that then they don’t keep trying to, like, hang out and joke with you—which Eddie does, he’s just hopelessly awkward about it.”

“Steve. Eddie is a hopelessly awkward person. It’s like a defining character trait.”

“Well he wasn’t with me.” Steve wiped a hand over his face and groaned. “I’m just nervous I misread the whole thing, you know? And if I did, and I ask him the wrong thing in the wrong way…what if he doesn’t want to see me again? Like, at all?”

Robin reached out and took his hand. “I hate that you have to know what that feels like,” she said, soft and careful. “But even in the wild event that Eddie is either a: entirely straight, or b: just not into you, I don’t think there’s any version of him that wouldn’t want to talk to you at all. So you should ask him out.”

“Okay, Rob,” Steve sighed. “Only on one condition, though.”

“Oh, no. Ohhhh, no you don’t—”

“You’ve gotta ask out Vickie,” Steve finished, holding out his hand with a smirk.

“Uggggh, fine. Deal.”

🎸🎸🎸

Steve was acting weird.

He’d been acting weird since getting discharged from the hospital—acting all shy and blushy one second, and then turning around and bringing him a new set of dice the next—but it’d really been cranked up to eleven for the past week.

And, look, Eddie knew he was new to the monsters-are-real crew. He knew that in order to make space for him they had to alter whatever their established dynamics were to fit him into them. But that didn’t account for the fact that all of a sudden Steve seemed to be completely unable to string two sentences together in front of him.

Maybe the two of them weren’t quite friends yet, but he missed the ease with which they’d been able to talk and be honest with each other only a couple of weeks ago. Hell, they’d had more chemistry together down in the Upside Down.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Maybe that had been the problem all along. Maybe Steve had finally clocked his doomsday-flirting for what it was, and was trying to establish boundaries. Eddie thought he’d pulled back since they'd all crawled out of hell—broken, but alive. As soon as the danger was clear there was no reason to play the bit anymore, right? It’s not like his flirtation attempts had ever been more than a way to liven up what had been an unmitigated shitstain of an experience. Sure, Harrington was pretty, and nice—and there was clearly more to him than met the eye. Eddie had really enjoyed getting to know him over the course of the past few weeks. He wouldn’t mind getting to know him better, if he was being honest. But it looked like the door was closing on that chance if he didn’t straighten things out.

“Hey, Harrington?”

“I thought I told you to call me Steve, Munson.”

Eddie smiled his ‘malicious compliance’ smile and clasped his hands behind his back, rocking onto his heels as he said. “Alright: Steeeve.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but there was a little smile on his face that belied the general bitchiness of the rest of his demeanor. “What do you want, Eddie?”

Eddie spread his hands out in front of him like he was unfurling a map into the air between them. “Just figured I ought to clear the air.”

Steve frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You know—the whole reason you’ve been all weird around me lately? I figured it’d be best if I put all of my cards on the table.”

The frown dropped off of Steve’s face—replaced by an expression that Eddie couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t…bad? There was no apprehension to be found there. Steve looked almost expectant. Hopeful, maybe. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense—but Harrington didn’t make a whole lot of sense, so maybe Eddie was just misreading whatever he was seeing there.

“You know it was all just in good fun, right? That it didn’t mean anything?”

The frown returned. “What are you talking about?”

“Back in the Upside Down. You know I was just messing with you, right, man? Just a bit of good ol’ fashioned I’m-about-to-die flirting, you know? Nothing to get all worked up about.” Eddie kept a wide smile fixed in place, tried to really lean into the whole ‘non-threatening gay guy’ vibe—an uphill battle for him, specifically on one of his best days. He’d do jazz hands if it’d help sell the performance any better. But each word out of his mouth felt more like a lie than the one before.

A thin fissure appeared on Steve’s face—a crack that Eddie could almost see through, but not enough to be able to make any sense of what was on the other side. “Oh,” Steve said. His voice was shaking and Eddie couldn’t figure out why. It set off alarms in the part of his brain that was always primed to run at the first sign of danger. “So you’re…not gay?”

Eddie frowned in confusion. Of all the ways he thought Steve might react, that was not one of them. So Eddie forced a laugh, trying to disarm the question. “Oh no, I am a flaming homosexual. I just want to make sure you know that doesn’t mean I’m interested in you.”

The frown slid off of Steve’s face, and the fissure smoothed itself away like it’d never been there. The Steve standing before him was blank-faced as a statue, and it made Eddie want to puke. In all his worrying about Steve being uncomfortable with the idea that Eddie was hitting on him, specifically, he’d entirely forgotten to be worried about Steve being straight up homophobic. At least he wasn’t throwing punches. That was something, right? But Steve was looking at him with such a totalizing coldness behind his eyes that Eddie felt like he’d been left out to sea.

Steve gave a stiff nod. “Right, of course not,” he said, but the words came out wooden. He threw a thumb over one shoulder and twisted on his heel, back toward the beemer. “I’ll just…I gotta go.”

And then Harrington turned his back to him, and walked away.

Eddie didn’t have a crush on Steve.

So why did it hurt so much to watch him leave?

⛵⛵⛵

Robin sped down the stairs when she heard the banging at the door. There weren’t many people who would bother turning up on her doorstep unannounced. Even fewer who would make such a concerted effort to try to knock it down with the force of their pounding fists.

She swung the door open to find a tear-stained Steve standing before her.

“What happened?” She gasped out. Was it back? It couldn’t be back. El and Will had both sworn on pain of death that it was over. Maybe there was a new horror in town? Maybe Nancy had gone missing? Or Dustin? One of the other kids? Maybe Eddie?

Steve cut off the racing of her thoughts with a sobbing gasp. “Nothing, Robs.” Somehow, he looked worse than he had after the Russians. His head was hung low, and Robin could swear there was a shadow of phantom-bruising around his eyes. Like he’d been emotionally decked in the face. He took a step forward to come inside at the same moment that she took him by the wrist and yanked him across the threshold.

“What do you need?”

“Bathroom,” was all he said. And then Steve swapped his-wrist-in-hers for her-wrist-in-his and he pulled her further into her own house, toward the second-floor bathroom. When they reached it, Robin plopped down on the floor with her back against the tub while Steve took up his position with his back pressed up against the toilet bowl.

“What happened?” She whispered.

Steve was silent for a long stretch of time. He turned his head to the side, as though he was trying to look out of the small frosted window high up on the wall beside him. “He doesn’t want me.”

“Who? What? What are you talking about, Steve?”

Steve turned back to face her. “Eddie. He doesn’t want me.” Steve no longer sounded sad—he sounded vacant.

Robin’s nose scrunched up like she’d smelled something wrong, because that didn’t make sense. Robin might not be good at clocking other gay people—she wasn’t that good at reading people, period—but it’s not like Eddie’s flirting with Steve had been subtle. And even beyond that, he was always looking at Steve while he was asleep in the hospital bed, in a way that Robin thought meant something… There was just no way that Eddie didn’t have at least a little bit of a crush on Steve, right? So what had he said to make Steve so certain about that he didn’t? “How d’you know that?”

Steve laughed, half-hysterical, as he tipped his head back onto the lid of the toilet. “He said it didn’t mean anything—the flirting.” Steve wiped a hand clear across the length of his face—chin to forehead—before digging his fingers into his hair. He laughed again. Or—it was more a puff of air, than anything else. And there was definitely no humor behind it. Just a bitter kind of resignation. “And then—he said—he told me he was gay, but that he just wanted me to know that it doesn’t mean he’s interested in me.” Steve covered his face with both hands and let out a broken sob. “God, he and Nance should compare notes.”

Robin could feel the lines carving an angry space between her eyebrows, and a fire in her heart. How dare he? Maybe Robin had misread Eddie's whole vibe toward Steve—but how dare he just trample all over and discard his heart like that? It didn’t make sense—but it was happening, and she had to fix it, because no one was allowed to break her other half.

“Hey Stevie?” She asked, trying to keep her tone light.

“Yeah?”

“Where do you keep your little nail bat nowadays?”

🎸🎸🎸

Let it not be said that Eddie Munson didn’t know how to pull off a top-tier wallow. Ozzy’s pleading vocals were pouring out the speakers, while Eddie was laid star-fished out on the mattress, staring at the ceiling like it might give him answers, and torturing himself with the memory of Steve Harrington biting into the tail of a hell-bat.

Is it me or is it you?

Things are so much different now

But nothing lasts forever

He really should have known that whatever kind of rapport he and Harrington had going was too good to be true. Once a rich dickhead jock, always a rich dickhead jock, right? He almost felt bad thinking that. But what else was he supposed to think? The second Steve Harrinton had found out he was gay he’d turned his back on him. That was pretty cut and dry.

A loud banging at the trailer door cut through his thoughts and over the sound of Ozzy singing looks and glances can't repair, talking could if we'd just dare.

Eddie had half a mind to just ignore it, but there were even odds that it was one of the UD Crew as it was a member of Hawkins’ resident angry mob. So Eddie peeled himself off the bed, leaving Ozzy blaring behind him, and yanked open the door. “What—?” He started, but came up short when he registered an absolutely livid Robin Buckley staring back at him.

Eddie hadn’t thought to take into consideration the idea that the person at the door might be a UD Crew member taking up the role of angry mob members. But Robin Buckley was standing on his stoop looking half-ready to commit a murder. The second the door was open, she shoved past him and into the trailer.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Munson?”

“Wh-what are you talking about, Buckley?” Covering his face with a piece of hair wasn’t enough—he wanted to melt into the floor. Had Steve really sent Robin to beat him up for being gay? That was some next level gymnastics in avoiding making physical contact with another man so that you don't seem gay.

Robin yanked at her hair and started pacing around the common area, glaring daggers into the floor (but thankfully not at him). “What am I talking about, he asks! You really are a medical grade idiot, aren’t you?”

“I—”

“No, shut up, I don’t want to hear it.” Robin abruptly swung around on her heel to rush at him and jab a finger into his chest. “You broke Steve’s heart. And I don’t care if you were never into him—because I know that you can’t help who you like, or love—but you had no right to be so fucking cruel about it!”

A penny dropped.

“Robin. What are you talking about?”

Steve was heartbroken? That didn’t make any sense. He should have been relieved, he should have—

Robin laughed, hysterical, and threw her hands into the air. “I am talking about the fact that you told my best friend who has been pining over you for fucking weeks that all of the very obvious flirting you’ve been doing ‘didn’t mean anything,’ and that you just had to let him know that you weren’t interested in him specifically.” Robin paused to take a deep breath and kept barreling on. “And I get not wanting to lead someone on, Eddie—but even I know that was the least tactful way you could have gone about letting him down.”

Eddie shook his head, backing up toward the nearest wall like a cornered animal, because what Robin was saying didn’t make any sense. “I— I don’t—I mean, I do like him. I thought he didn’t like me! I thought he was straight!”

That brought Robin up short. Her shoulders remained set into a tense line, and her brow was still furrowed in distrust, but some of the unrelenting ire slipped away. “You didn’t—? Did he not—? What the fuck, Stevie!” The last part Robin muttered under her breath.

“Did he not, what, Buckley?”

“He didn’t ask you out?”

“No. What? Was he planning to?”

“Yes, numb nuts! Steve’s been trying to ask you out for weeks! I mean I guess mostly this past week—but that’s because before then he’d just been trying to beam the knowledge directly into your head through your thick skull.”

“Oh, shit.” Eddie’s heart dropped into his stomach as the full ramifications of what he’d said caught up to him.

“Yeah, ‘oh, shit,’ Munson.”

“Buckley—” Eddie rushed over to clap both of his hands onto Robin’s shoulders. “Robin. I’ve gotta fix this.”

Robin rolled her eyes. They were still creased at the corners, but the rest of her seemed to have softened a bit. “Yeah, you do,” she said—all low and serious. “You’re gonna have to fucking grovel.”

Eddie nodded. “Can you help me?”

Robin narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “But let me make one thing fucking clear, Munson: I am doing this for Steve, not you, capiche? You put one toe out of line and I’ll go to the Wheeler house and grab one of Nancy’s guns.”

Eddie held up his hands in placating surrender. “Message received, loud and clear.”

Robin nodded, satisfied.

Eddie grinned back. “Let’s go get my man.”

there is now a part two!

#stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #steddie #steddie week #steddieweek2023 #steve harrington #eddie munson #(albeit a couple hours past mignight my time but that's just been my pattern thus far)#I don't want to put a steddie fic in the robin or st/bin tags but please know that robin is central to all things in steve's life #including this fic #for everyone who wanted a part two: it now exists #read writes

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tangerinesilk · 1 year ago

Text

－ I CAN SEE YOU : TANGERINE X FEM!READER

tangerine is going on a solo mission… well, at least he thinks he is. with lemon missing by his side, he’s left with one other option that is supposed to make his job easier. unfortunately for him, you’re not the easiest to work with. stubborn, strong-minded and feisty. you’re both so alike yet nothing has made your bloods boil more than each other.

rating ✷ r (18+ minors dni!)

warnings ✷ (very quick) smut: fem receiving, kisses all over bodies, a needy but quick hj, p in v, dirty talk, praising, implied rough (consensual) sex / others: cursing, drinking alcohol, mention and use of guns and violence, male hurting female (?) but not between main characters, mentions of blood and wounds.

tropes ✷ enemies to lovers!!!, person a is all talk no bite + person b knows that but still pushes them, playful banter, hiding together in small spaces, fake dating (?), if one is hurt– the other goes a bit crazy, says ‘i dont care’ then cares 5 seconds later.

word count ✷ 6k!

songs that fit the vibe ✷ i can see you - taylor swift | moth to a flame - swedish house mafia + the weeknd | king of my heart - taylor swift | attention - charlie puth | nonsense - sabrina carpenter

a/n ✷ so i made a poll a months ago and this trope + pairing won! i’ve honestly been wanting to write a dave lizewski one as well and got a request idea. so.. we will see lmao. i will probably post then maybe edit later if there's still things i don't like... also, if you couldn't tell but im kind of a swiftie so i will love to write fics inspired by whole ass albums y'all.

but i hope this is what u guys expected and wanted. i actually do love writing for tangerine. just gives into my delulu thoughts. also, if you guys would like a plain pwp fic and not all of this fluff and dialogue stuffed inside, pls let me know bc i am definitely into that idea. 🫡

“You had to go and get yourself shot… then you wonder why you have to wear a bulletproof vest. Fuckin’ hell.”

Tangerine kept his voice at a hushed tone, basically talking under his breath as he strutted through the grand hall of the hotel. Golden light glossed over his figure, passing by couples who were at standing tables with their cocktails.

“Well, Thomas said-”

“Thomas didn’t say shit. Don’t get me fuckin’ started now.”

Lemon already knew Tan was in a bad mood. Another Thomas the Tank Engine factoid wasn’t a playful move right now.

“Hey, mate. Don’t get all fussy wit’ me. You’re just mad about your new partner for the night.” Lemon rolled his eyes.

“Can’t believe I can’t be held accountable of myself. I can handle it on my own but you had to call the fuckin’ princess-”

“She’s good. Your denial is obnoxious, bruv. It’s only a night, you get in and get out.” Lemon replied, holding his wounded side as he laid in his bed back in England, “What happened between you two that you’ve got beef like this?”

“No time to explain nor do I have the patience.” He arrived at the small bar to the side of the room, “If I leave her behind, can I take half the pay that’s supposed to be hers?” Tangerine asked.

“She’s supposed to be wearing a red dress. You’ll see her there… and please don’t cause a scene.” His brother begged.

“No promises.” He replied before hanging up.

Tangerine blows a sigh past his lips, quickly asking for his drink of choice before scanning the mass of people around him. His blue eyes could only search so fast for the man that the hit was called on, causing him an instant frustration when he’s already worried about you ruining things regardless of how long you’re together.

“He’s next to the woman in the tacky gold ballgown… about two feet away from the ice sculpture.” Your soft voice suddenly spoke next to him, “But, I didn’t need to tell you that, right?”

The smirk on your face burned at his nerves and you noticed the clench in his jaw.

“Well, if it isn’t the fuckin’ Queen herself.” He said in a stern tone, “What? Germany was too borin’ for ya? Had to figure out a way to ruin someone’s operation?”

“Lemon is the one who called me in, and it isn’t about you. It’s about the pay out… you’re bound to screw something up with your ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ tactic.” You trailed, rolling your eyes as you turned your head away.

“And I’m certainly not afraid to use that tonight and not your fucked up, painfully long mind games like some fuckin’ psycho thilling killer.” He spat as his drink was place in front of him.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “Fuck you.”

“Darling, I’m flattered, but we have more important things to do right now.” He lowly groaned, purposefully looking at his target so his back was facing toward you.

Behind his tall stature, you glimpsed past his shoulder and saw your target chatting up a woman.

He won’t be smiling for long, you thought.

“Alright, I’ll wait for him to slip away, follow him and you go through the kitchen.” Tangerine said under his breath, keeping quiet for only you to hear him.

“To go where?” You ask, walking around him to stand face to face.

“Erm…” He sighed, “Whatever car or vehicle you got here in, drive yourself back to whatever place you’re staying and I’ll figure out how to wire you the money.” He shrugged, downing the rest of his drink.

He took a step but you placed your hand on the center of his chest, “Not so fast. I’m not going down if you make a mess of this.”

“I don’t make messes. Well, actually, I get away with them once I’ve done ‘em so, I don’t need to worry about a liability.” Tangerine smirked, a bit of a tilt to his head. Cheeky bastard.

“The only liability here is the one who is ready to pull the trigger in his back.” You said before huffing, “I’m not sorry for what happened in Paris, but that was my choice. So, I’m going with you because it’s our operation. You know… I don’t need a fucking helping hand either.” You practically growled.

The two of you held a long gaze, creating a tense eye contact before he sighed, “Didn’t even say anythin’ about Paris, but if you’d like to assume I’m still mad ‘bout that, be my guest, princess.”

His shoulder bumped yours, making you clench your jaw before quickly following behind his tall stature. While he seemed persistent, you grabbed his hand which made him stop in his tracks in the middle of the dance floor.

He turned, “Am I your babysitter?”

“No, you’re my date. Hold my hand, you idiot.” Your eyes pierced through his.

As he looked down at your hand, he slowly grasped it, your fingers intertwining with one another’s before he proceeded through the glamorous crowd.

Couples swayed and waltzed between each step you took, assuming you were unnoticed by your target. Tangerine kept his eyes on him, easy to with the frosty-white full head of hair he had slicked back. The woman in the tacky dress ran her hand down his shoulder, pressing her lips to his ear to whisper something which made you and Tangerine veer to the side at a standing table.

“Are they movin’?” He asked, facing his back toward them.

Your eyes smoothly shift, taking a quick glance at the assumed couple. You ran your hand down Tangerine’s arm, accidentally feeling how toned his bicep was through the thick fabric of his suit jacket. You almost glanced down, wanting to give another squeeze before clearing your throat. A heat rose on your cheeks as you turned your head to face away from him.

“Y-Yeah, near the bathroom. There’s also a backdoor that leads up to the second floor… lots of private rooms for reasons that are obvious.” You said in a hushed tone, moving away from him to the other side of the table.

“Alright, since you wanna tag along, I’ll follow them and you cover the door.” Tangerine suggested once again.

You furrowed your eyebrows, “You do understand what teamwork is, yes?”

He chuckled, “Yes, I go up there, shoot a few rounds, then we make a getaway.”

“Will you just trust me?”

“Your trust means nothing… I need to know you’re not going to fuck anything up. Just like in Paris.”

You smirked, “So you do have that against me.”

“Well, it’s not like it was your best. Leave me with a shot in the arm, Lemon on the ground and you, little miss greed, get away with your cash. If we all did this job for money, we wouldn’t be riskin’ our lives just runnin’ around killin’ or resucin’ people just for someone’s dime. You obviously do though.”

You narrowed your eyes, “You don’t know me…”

“Nor do you know me so…” He huffed, “Let’s just do what we have to do.”

There was tension between you, as if there was more fo a protective instinct than hate toward one another. You couldn't figure out Tangerine’s deal. Why was he so hostile toward you? Yes, what happened in Paris was fucked up, but he wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. He didn’t take shit from anyone, so why were you getting under his skin?

“Shit!” He grunted under his breath, seeing your target disappear into the hall.

The two of you hurry, yet still try to act casual to not raise eyebrows, and exit into the same hallway. As you push open the door, you hear the two talking in the stairwell before another door closes.

“You got your gun on you?” He asked as his hand slid into the back of his pants.

“Of course.” You scoffed, tearing up the slit in your dress. He saw the small pistol strapped to your thigh, making his mouth a bit dry.

He nodded, “Good…”

Taking a quick breath, Tangerine opened the door. You slipped through and he followed behind, your backs facing one another as you scanned the hallway. It wasn’t narrow but if anyone slipped out of one of the rooms, they were right in your sights.

“I’ll take this one, you take that one.” He whispered, pointing his gun to the opposite door of his.

With your heart in your throat, you slowly crack the door open and don’t see anyone before a body flies from behind and slammed the door open from Tangerine’s side. The woman lied dead on the floor, blood all over his dress, and just as you turned around, a punch slid across your cheek.

Instinctively, you ducked to dodge the second jab and swoop under to get on the other side of the man as Tangerine wrapped his arms around the guy to pull him to the ground.

Tan loudly grunted as he tried to gain control, basically attempting to straddle him in order to push his arm against his neck. Even with all his strength, the man gripped his hands around Tangerine’s arms to throw him off along with trying to push his knee between his crotch.

“Watch the door!” Tan directed to you.

You nodded, catching your breath with your back against the wall by the door. The adrenaline ran through your veins and heard your heartbeat in your ears as one tear of blood dripped down your cheek. The crack of bones made you turn your head, seeing the man’s body go limp as Tan began to stand over him.

He quickly walked over the man, as if he was in the way, and comes to your side.

“He nicked you bad. Lemme see.” Tan said, your eyes meeting his as he held your cheek. The touch of his hand seemed to be some comfort, his thumb wiping the blood away and trying to see how bad the wound was.

“Bastard.” He muttered, “C’mon, let’s go before someone comes up.”

Without a word in, he grabbed your hand and dragged you behind his lead. You two headed for the exit door down the other side of the hall as you heard footsteps rumble from the other stairs you came up.

“Wait a minute.” Tan said, fiddling with his belt buckle.

Your eyes widen, “What on earth are you doing?”

He smirked, “Relax, darling. You flatter yourself too much.”

You rolled your eyes as the sound of his belt slid against the fabric of his belt loops before curling the leather strap around the door to keep it locked. The two of you fled down the stairs and suddenly found yourselves in the kitchen area. A few eyes followed as you both ran through, very obvious that you were running from something, but still aimed to get to some kind of exit.

With sudden luck, Tangerine saw his car across the street, instantly knowing which way he was supposed to go. Without skipping a beat, he grabbed your hand once more and the two of you ran across the street. Hopping into the passenger seat and Tan taking off was like a blur, just happening in seconds.

“Y/N?” Tan saying your name woke you from your trance.

“Huh?” You asked, shaking your head.

He quickly turned his head, “You alright?” He said with concern, one hand on the steering wheel and his foot easing off the gas.

“Y-Yeah, I’m okay. I don’t know what happened back there.” You trailed, a bit embarrassed. You were never one to let your guard down, well– enough to get hit right smack in the face.

“Are you sure?”

You turned your attention to him, “I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?” You asked rhetorically.

“‘Cause of that big cut on your cheek.”

You narrowed your eyes, “Alright, what’s your big plan now, Einstein? Were just going to sleep in your car and hope we don’t wake up decapitated?”

He half-chuckled, “You truly think so little of me, don’t you?”

“Is that rhetorical?”

Tan rolled his blue eyes, “We’re goin’ somewhere safe.”

– – –

You wanted to believe you were strolling into some kind of trap. The lobby had a classic aesthetic to it, pale gold wallpaper and a wall of keys behind the person at the small front desk. You two placed your go-bags on the red carpeted ground as Tangerine checked into a room.

“Hello Mr. Tangerine.”

Oh, great. He’s some guest of honor here.

“‘Ello, Colin. My usual room.”

“Is that what you say in front of all the girls?” You tilted your head, standing behind him.

He rolled his eyes, “‘Cuse her.”

The man chuckled, crinkles by his eyes, “How many nights are you staying this time?”

This time. You could scoff out loud but you didn’t want to hear the tude from him.

“Just overnight. Nothin’ too serious.”

“Well, enjoy your stay, as always.” The man nodded before Tangerine thanked him.

The two of you head toward the old elevator, watching him quickly press the up button before you stand by his side. You half chuckled, “I’ve never seen you act so kindly toward anyone, tell me, does he see you bring girls through here all the time or-”

“Has anyone ever told you to shut your pie hole?”

“Hmm, not verbally. But, those eyes of your say enough for me… you’re too predictable, sometimes, Tan.”

He gave you a lingering look as the door opened, passing him into the elevator. The two of you make your way to the fifth floor and the hall is eerily quite for a hotel full of private contractors and assassins. You had your hands behind your back then patiently waited for Tangerine to jiggle the key into the lock, opening a door to a huge room with a surprisingly wide view.

“You’d think the curtains were closed.” You muttered as he walked over, closing them anyways.

Suddenly, he stripped from his suit jacket and you couldn’t help but see how tight his button up was around his biceps and chest.

“Did you get that a size too small?” You ask as you chunk your heels into the corner.

“Well, I certainly can’t kill fuckin’ bloaks wearing baggy clothes now.”

“But, you can in a three piece suit?” You cocked your eyebrow.

He licked his lips, “As if your dress is a flexible material.” Tangerine said as he pulled his rings off, placing them on the night stand.

“I can say the same for your pants.”

Tangerine wanted to look down but didn’t give into your comment. You place your bag down on the bed, grabbing your silk pajamas nearly folded on top and changed in the bathroom.

“God, just go to bed. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.” You somewhat groaned.

You sit on the top of the bed, unfolding the duvet before shoving it off to get underneath them.

Tangerine paused, “What the fuck do you you’re doin’?”

You furrowed your eyebrow, “This thing called going to sleep. Try it sometime, you’d be less grouchy.”

He rolled his eyes, “I know that, smartass, I mean what’re you doin’ in the bed that I’m goin’ to be sleepin’ in too?”

You rolled over, putting your weight on your elbows, “I know you’re dramatic but this takes the cake for top performances.”

He faked a laugh, “If you don’t get your ass out of that bed in two seconds, I’ll throw you in the tub with a pillow.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to. Fine, do it.” You said before laying flat into the mattress, staring straight at the ceiling.

He didn’t care for your equal amount of sarcasm, but he just gave you a cocked eyebrow.

“Okay, fine. I’d rather sleep on the floor anyways.” He said, stretching his arms up and behind his head. Your eyes quickly admired his muscles before turning back.

“Be my guest, princess.” You scoffed, slipping on your pajama shorts, “I’ll enjoy my big comfy bed.”

You pulled the heavy duvet over your waist, curling up with the dense pillow beneath your head.

Tangerine stood there, biting the inside of his cheek as he watched you roll on your side. He tilted his head back before unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it on the desk chair. Although your eyes were closed, his side of the bed sunk in and you tried to hold back your smile at his faded stubbornness.

With your backs facing one another, you two just listened to the silence of the city. It gave you a moment to think of Paris– the last time you were with one another or much rather supposed to be against each other. You were a double agent, not exactly proud of it but you let greed take over your motivated justice.

Having to scam Lemon and Tangerine wasn’t your finest hour either, you thought about it for months and finally coming face to face with Tangerine (out of the two, he wasn’t the one you would want to bump into again), all the guilt came rushing back like the snap of an elastic band.

– – –

The morning sun runs through the thin silk of the curtains, shining over your bodies in the bed. You wake up to the sound of light snoring, happy that you could sleep through it, and Tangerine in a deep slumber with his arm over the bed. He suddenly looked like innocence, so soft and tender, simply laying there like it was any other day.

You sit up, putting your hair out of your face then head to the bathroom. When you turn the light on, you’re almost surprised to see your reflection. Forgetting about the scar against your cheek, you look more rough around the edges. You sigh as you run your fingers over it, remembering the way Tangerine did last night.

After washing up, you go back out and Tangerine is now standing up and stretching his arms above his head. Your eyes quickly shift up his body, admiring the tattoos in their random places and how the band of his briefs rest on his hips. You sealed your lips from smiling at how sharp his v-line was accompanied by the happy trail disappearing into his pants.

“Sleep good with that stick in your ass?” You retort, passing him.

He rolled his eyes, “...You’re annoying, ya know that?”

“Oh, you’ve made that clear.” You mocked him as you closed the curtains more, “That’s why I love to do it.”

Tangerine flicked on the lamp, giving the room a warm glow.

“Alright, I say we lay low today. Better to be out of sight and–”

You cut him off, “Stuck in this room together?... are you trying to kill me t–”

He then put his hand over your mouth, looking deep into your eyes, “Yes, stuck in this room where we can keep an eye on each other and you can’t screw me over again.”

Your heart stopped for a split second, as if he couldn’t have been more of the controlling one. He took his hand away and you gulped, “Yep. Fine. Fair.”

Tangerine pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek before you go to your bag in the chair that’s pushed in the corner of the room. You slightly bend over to look inside your duffle and his icy eyes can’t help but look up the back of your thighs and straight at your ass and lower back. How he could easily put his hands on your hips and make you hold onto something.

He shook his head, feeling like he was coming down with something to even imagine that thought.

You pulled out an old novel and sat yourself back on the bed, hoping that the hours would pass as you sank further into the broken-in mattress.

Tangerine sat down in the chair nudged into the corner, adjacent from your view, and he pulled out his gun that was conveniently tucked into the back of his pants.

“Are you actually holding me hostage?” You furrowed your brows, but didn’t take your eyes from your sentence.

“Whatever fantasy you’d like you believe.” He trailed, opening his gun and emptying his rounds into his palm.

– – –

Suddenly, you leaped out of a deep sleep. Your book laid open on your stomach while an extra pillow was between your legs. Your eyes fluttered open, thinking the past few days has been a dream, until you noticed Tangerine wasn’t sitting in the chair. You quickly looked around before hearing the bathroom door open and he stepped out, shirtless and in new dark slacks that rested on his hips.

Your mouth became dry. How could you dislike him so much yet here you are, ready to jump his bones as he crossed the room.

“What are you getting dressed for?” You asked, rubbing your eyes.

He half-chuckled at your groggy voice, “I want a drink.”

“Oh, like you’re not just going to abandon me here like I did you?... Where you go, I go.” You warned him.

He rolled his eyes, “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“A bit hypocritical coming from you.”

Tangerine just ignored your smart comment and opened the door, letting you through first before he followed. His eyes, once again, trace your lower back and trailed down your legs. His cheeks flushed pink as he quickly looked away, clearing his throat as he caught up to you so you two were walking side by side.

You pushed the faded down button as you pushed a big breath past your lips. Tangerine put his back against the wall and crossed his arms, his muscles basically restraining in his light button up. As you turned around, you rolled your eyes– but not at him, just at yourself. How could you have any little feeling for someone who also annoyed you to your core?

He took your silence as a bit of a tease. To be fair, you two didn’t really know one another. You met once before and then you simply betrayed him. Quickly, you were dead to him, but now you’re forced to be together and it raised an important question to himself too. Why was he helping someone who obviously can’t be trusted?

Tangerine furrowed his eyebrows at that thought, knowing he would have thrown you to the wolves last night after you closed your eyes. He played with his watch a bit before the elevator dinged and caught both of your attentions.

After entering, the low-sounding shifting mechanics of the elevator were the only sounds between you two. You heard Tangerine sniffle, seeing him stretch his neck out of the corner of your eye, but you kept a straight view to the doors. While Tangerine thought you were continuing to give him the silent treatment, you were lost in your own thoughts of the past.

You flashbacked to your last night in Paris together, and remembered how the guilt creeped up on you knowing that, in a few hours, you’d have to betray both Lemon and Tangerine. Before knowing them, you didn’t care, but now that you’ve realized how hard you were falling for Tan, it felt like a double edged sword. If you didn’t do it, maybe you could stay with him– have a life together. But, if you went through with your selfish heist, you’d lose the guy who made you comfortable with being vulnerable after a long time.

Obviously, you regretted your decision.

“Is this what you want?” You simply asked.

Tangerine quickly turned his head, “What?”

You rolled your eyes before facing his direction, “This.” You gestured between the two of you, “The weird animosity and constantly arguing and nit-picking?”

He never thought you’d be so bold to point it out, “I mean, we don’t like each other. Simple, isn’t it?”

“I guess…” You trailed, facing back toward the doors.

Tangerine licked his lips, wondering if he should utter the words on his tongue.

“...But, that doesn’t mean we can’t start over.”

You looked over your shoulder once more before turning around to him, “You mean that?”

He arched his eyebrow, “Should I regret it now?”

Just as the elevator dinged, the doors slowly opened and the hotel lobby appeared empty. You smirked to yourself, “Why don’t we catch up over that drink, huh?” You sort of teased– not sure if it had purpose.

– – –

Your drink tasted smooth, easily trailing down your throat as you leaned your head back to finish off the rest of the liquor in your glass. Once you tilted your head back straight, you were met with Tangerine’s signature eyebrow arch.

“Don’t worry, I’m paying for my own drinks.” You sighed, placing your glass back down on the wooden table top.

“As long as I don’t got to carry you back up to the room.” He sighed, sounding more defeated than witty, then his blue eyes glanced down then back into your eyes.

You hummed, running your finger along the rim of the empty glass.

“‘right so, what’ve you been doin’ since we last…” He cleared his throat, “saw one other?”

You crossed your leg over the other, “Not much. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve been out for a while. After leaving you guys, I laid low in Tuscany.”

“For how long?”

You shrugged, “Five months? I was on the countryside and I wanted to be alone…” then, you smirked, “I heard that you were in Kyoto.”

Tangerine could chuckle about it now, “For a bit. Had a job to do for some psychotic, fucked up family. The dad called in us, they were all turin’ on each other. Whole fuckin’ thing…”

“As in…” You trailed, “Against one another? The whole family?”

He just nodded before taking a sip of his drink.

You raised your eyebrows, “Wow… and you got out with no bruises or cuts? Bullet holes?”

Tangerine licked his lips before he presented the side of his neck, lighter skin over his tanner tone to show the scar. You carefully reached out, brushing your fingers against it which made a tingle go up his spine. You sit back down as he turned back in his chair, and he seemed to tense up.

“Amazing you survived it.” You sealed your lips.

He crossed his arms, “I supposed…”

A comfortable silent fell between you, the light, jazz music playing at a low, and Tangerine’s eyes trailed up the side of your bare leg. He didn’t mean to stare this much, but he felt more vulnerable than usual. One thing you knew is that Tangerine was a layered person, you had to take time to get to the center of him and realize he’s not so cold once you get to know him.

“Five months in Tuscany, I bet that was lovely.”

“Not really. I isolated the whole time… I wanted to be by myself, but I felt bad about what happened… what I did in Paris.” You admitted, but didn’t look into his eyes, fearing that he would turn on you in a second.

Tangerine sighed, “You had to do your job, we did ours… that’s ‘bout all that can be said.”

Assuming from the lack of eye contact and his tone, he seemed hurt too. You could easily let it boost your ego, but, you actually felt a relief. This hatred you’ve held against each other has finally come down and even though it wasn’t actually said, both of you can feel hostility leave the room.

You bit the inside of your cheek, “Remember, we’re starting over. Clean slate. I hope I’m making a good impression so far.” You raised your eyebrows, lifting your glass again just to drink the mixture of watered down liquor.

He chuckled, “You’re just lovely.”

The comment made your face get hot. You blame the accent and how it can just get under your skin.

“I don’t think you’ve ever called me something so nice.”

Tangerine smirked, “Funny since we’ve just met, darling.”

Darling.

It was the first time you heard it as a term of endearment then pure spite.

You rolled your eyes, but you could humor that Tangerine was going along with it. This new cheeky side of him was something you didn’t think existed– maybe it was the liquor talking, but you hoped it wasn’t just that simple.

“So, what brings you here?” You continued to tease, placing your elbows on the table, “Business… or pleasure?” Your hand laid on top of his, brushing your fingertips along the chunky rings that perfectly fit his fingers.

Multiples thoughts sounded through both your minds.

“Maybe it’s the liquor.” “Maybe we’re a little over our heads.” “Maybe we’re bored.”

But, Tangerine held your hand on top of the table, gently holding it as his thumb grazes over your knuckles.

“Depends…” He trailed, now leaning in too, “What are you here for?”

– – –

In just a few minutes, you two were back in the room you felt trapped in for hours.

Tangerine pressed your back against the wall, a tingle running up your spine from the coolness of the wallpaper. Your lips pressed together over and over, tilting your head before biting his bottom lip. He effortlessly lifted you up with his hand under the back of your thighs, and your ankles meet around his back.

He needed so bad, desperate even… and the feeling was mutual.

He put you down on your feet again, pressing a kiss against your scarred cheek then another on your jaw. His light kisses run down the middle of your breasts as his hand lifted up the end of your skirt. You pushed your hips out as your back was against the wall still, watching him pull down your panties in an instant. You kick them to the side and Tangerine placed your leg over his shoulder, kisses along your inner thigh and your hand ran through the front of his curls.

Suddenly, his tongue ran over your swollen clit before sucking on it. With one hand in his hair, the other caressing your breast and running your thumb over your nipple.

Tangerine panted, moving his hand against your pussy lips. He pushed them apart, showing your tight hole and how you clench around nothing. He lowly groaned, running his fingers over your clit before sliding his two fingers into your pussy. You bite your bottom lip to hold back the moan stuck in your throat, watching him suck your clit and finger you at the same time.

Just as your climax neared, he felt your cunt tighten around his fingers. He couldn’t end it like this so, he took them away. You let your leg down, watching him come back up and tower over you.

“If I’m goin’ to make you cum…” He sighed, “I’m gonna be deep inside you when you fucking crumble.” He said so low before pressing his fingers against your tongue, and you tasted yourself.

You pulled his hand back, running your thumbs over his tattooed hand.

“Not if I make you cum first.” You trailed, moving his hand down so you could kiss him.

He could drop to his knees in an instant, but Tangerine surprisingly kept his composure.

You smirked as you pushed him toward the bed, the back of his knees hitting it to make him sit down. As you stood in front of him, he leaned on his elbows as he watched your dress drop to the floor. It pooled at your ankles and when his eyes shifted back up, so glossed over, your bare body was the center of his attention.

“Hmm, I don’t think you’ll last.” You taunted.

As much as he could snap back, you straddled him and pulled apart his tightly buttoned shirt. Your hands ran over his toned and tatted chest before reaching down to his pants, unzipping the fly and he shuffled a bit to shift them off his hips. His cock was hard, restrained from his boxers and you felt flattered.

You giggled, leaning forward to share a slow kiss with him. Your bare pussy rubbed against his cock as you moved closer to him. A low groan mumbled between your makeout, and you pushed him back so you two both fell on the bed.

Your hands pressed into each side of the mattress, gaining strength to help yourself grind against his hard. His big hands tightly held your hips as you continued your smooth momentum, whimpering at your clit being rubbed by your harsh grind.

As heat rose in the room, your right hand dipped between the two of you, and ran over his hard cock once more. Tan’s lips now desperately met your jaw before taking a light bite at your neck. The feeling of your hand caressing through his boxers could make him release right there.

Becoming more impatient, you finally pushed your hand into the band of his boxers and he once more moved his hips to shift out of them.

“Fuck, your cock is so big… can barely hold it with my hand. God, I want you to stretch me out…” You moaned, “Is that okay?”

You purposefully let him believe that he was in charge, and you were falling into the submissive role. Tangerine gained a bit of confidence from your desperate comments, and he sat more up on the bed.

“Fucking christ…” Is all he could say.

He moved the swollen and red tip against your wet slit, also aching and needing your walls to wrap around him now. At first there was pressure, pushing the tip inside your hole then slowly guiding your hips down to completely take in every inch of his cock.

Once he bottomed out, your body lightly shook as your lips brushed against his. He was fully inside you, the tight and warm feeling making him wither beneath you.

Tangerine moved his hand, kissing your shoulder, “God, you feel like fuckin’ heaven.”

“Don’t stop. Please…” You huffed.

– – –

Then, it was morning.

The rising sun peaked through the small split of the curtains. As you tried to shift, your body ached throughout every muscle. A small groan left your lips, but you were pulled back by a strong arm wrapped around your waist.

It snapped you back into reality. Last night really happened… and you were okay with that.

Tangerine’s tattooed arm unconsciously tightened around you, holding you close still as he still slept behind you. You barely look over your shoulder and saw his face, his eyes still shut and his curls looked wild.

You faintly smile as you turn around to face him, and that’s what woke him up. He pulled his arms back and rubbed his eyes from the brightness of the sun coming in. You run your finger along a curl on his forehead, pushing it to the top of his head and your heart melted from the sight of those blue eyes.

“Did last night really happen?” You mumbled, but with a faint smile on your lips.

He placed his hand gently on your cheek, caressing his thumb against your jaw.

“I think the real question is…” He trailed, “Do we stay another night or go back to pretending to not know each other's existences?”

You bit your bottom lip, lightly giggling, “I think we pick secret option three and go somewhere else. Get away for a while… see where this is going. Don’t you?”

Just at that moment, Tangerine’s phone vibrated in his pants that were on the floor next to the bed. He turned over on his other side, reaching down to pull it out and reading a text Lemon just sent.

“Got a call about a job in Budapest. Are you in or overstaying your weekend?”

Tangerine smirked at himself, then felt your lips press against his neck. You placed another kiss on his shoulder, leaving a tender love bite before he turned back around to kiss you. Maybe it was the natural thrill of the chase, but you loved the not knowing.

Whatever was next, you could only hope that he kept it interesting.

#tangerine #tangerine x reader #tangerine x y/n #tangerine x you #tangerine fic

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a-5-m-0-d-3-u-5 · 9 months ago

Text

Scar Tissue (Price x Trans Masc! Reader)

Contains: Tooth-rotting fluff, completely SFW, FTM reader intended but should be safe for masc leaning enbies too, 2nd person POV, reader has a singular double mastectomy scar as is very self conscious about it, ambiguous warm drink cuz I don’t like tea or coffee lol, \obnoxiously self indulgent in my opinion but I hope it resonates with others

A/n: Woof I’m nervous but I do really like how this turned out. It’s cute and it even made my partner blush despite him being cis lol also Price is your husband because it’s cute and I said so. Be gentle with this one, yeah?

Although this is safe for all ages, I ask minors please refrain from interacting with me and this post, and any other posts. This is a space for adults.

The night always made things tougher. Something about the quiet, the darkness, the otherwise calm atmosphere made it harder to chase away the more negative thoughts. Insecurities burned hot in the cold of night as you stood outside on the small veranda of your little English apartment in the crisp wintry air to try and chase them away. The rain had only just stopped pouring down in torrents. The sound of wet tires driving below you accompanied the familiar, gentle smell of rain. It was comforting. Not enough to dull the pain, unfortunately, but comforting still.

You didn’t pay attention to the time, doing so usually just stressed you out during these moments, so you hadn’t noticed how late it was until your husband had sidled up behind you with a warm mug he’d made just for you. He handed it to you silently. He learned a long time ago what being outside this long this late at night usually meant. He wrapped a warm arm around your chilled shoulders and gently pulled you against him. Finally, you started to slowly pull away from your negative thinking just long enough to quietly speak.

“Thank you,” was all you could manage, but Price didn’t mind. He knew that for you, your words carried more weight than they seemed on the surface.

He hummed in response, giving your shoulders a small squeeze to say ‘you’re welcome.’

“Doin’ alright?”

A playful glare was all your husband got in return. He was happy to see you at least still had the heart to joke a bit with him.

“Right. Stupid question. Sorry, love.”

Eventually, you’d take a sip from your mug. He always prepared your drinks to your preferences. It made your chest warm.

“Wanna talk about it?” He was looking at you now. That gentle expression always comforted you.

You shook your head and took another slow sip, “Just insecurities again. Nothing major, I’m fine.”

“That why you've been out here on the veranda staring out at nothing the past couple hours?”

You took another sip, electing to say nothing. You did make it extra noisy though, pulling a rumbling chuckle from Price’s chest in the process.

Eventually, he guided you inside. You were as cold as the dead when he’d gotten to you. He wanted to warm you up and, if you’d talk, he wanted to know what was wrong. Knowing it was an insecurity of yours narrowed it down, but not enough to pin it. He needed to know a bit more.

You sat on your small couch, Price quickly following you. He took your hand in his. The callouses that littered his palm and fingers were always grounding. You were certain if you were blindfolded and told to guess which hand belonged to him, you’d guess correctly without fail. You knew every dip and ridge in his skin like your own.

You’d finished your drink after a while. You sighed, leaning into your husband’s chest. His heartbeat never failed to help your mind quiet down a bit.

“Just my scar again…” you mumbled, lacing your fingers in with his.

He kissed his teeth, the clicking noise it made bringing you out of the beginning of another spiral, “What did I tell you ‘bout that, love? You know I think it’s perfect.”

“I know,” you said, tucking your head under his chin, “‘Fraid I don’t think the same way, is all.”

His free hand rose up to hold your head and he pressed a soft lingering kiss into your hair, “That’s why I’m here. To think that way for you. C’mon, then, on your back.”

You groaned, pretending your melancholy face hadn’t broken out into a small grin, as you were guided onto your back. Price hovered above you and lifted your shirt up to your collarbone, kissing slowly up your belly as he did so. His kisses finally reached the part of your chest you couldn’t feel anymore. The scar tissue had faded quite a bit, but it was still clearly visible. One straight line stretched across your ribcage. It was uneven, thicker in some places than others. When your clothes were on, you often forgot about it. But when they weren’t…

You couldn’t feel much of the kisses that your husband trailed across the scar. His beard would drag across the area around it, your body unsure if it tickled or itched, but you could only feel the pressure of his lips through the numb skin. Still, you looked down and watched as he worshiped the ugly line that ripped through your skin. It wasn’t neat, wasn’t typical, wasn’t the ideal, but Price always showed he never cared about that.

”It made you happy, yeah? All that matters, then,” is what he’d always say.

All those mean thoughts finally started to melt away as he continued to kiss along your chest, further up to your collarbone. He pulled your shirt down so he could kiss up your neck, across your jaw, and finally up to your mouth. You felt him grin against your lips. You suppressed an annoyed whine as he pulled away to look at you.

“Better?”

“A bit.”

“I can keep going.”

“Would you?”

You fell asleep on the couch with your shirt pulled up to your shoulders and Price’s lips against your scar.

#ftm reader #trans masc reader #masc nb reader #john price x reader #captain price x reader #price x reader #john price x male reader #john price x ftm reader #captain price x male reader #capitain price x ftm reader #price x male reader #price x ftm reader

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pinknightsinmymind · 2 years ago

Note

to you, whats the biggest difference between abby and ellie? in a relationship and during sex

OOOOH i think this is a really good question!! bear with me bc this is kind of a long post, and i hope it makes sense? i hope you guys can understand what i'm trying to say lol. also, post is below the cut bc it is pretty long and there are some nsfw elements (nothing crazy but it is there). anyways, enjoy!

in relationships:

hear me out! i think the biggest difference between the two is the fact that ellie is an introvert while abby is an extrovert. i think it really influences the two and how they show their love.

abby is a huge extrovert. when she walks around the WLF base, everyone knows her, they stop to talk to her, and they feel an equal amount of respect and fear towards her. her presence is just so commanding, just so attention grabbing, because she just has that charisma about her, you know? in a modern!au, she’s probably extremely popular as well. her father’s a rich surgeon, she’s a talented athlete, a good student, and she just moves with this assuredness that guides everything she does. you’d think with all these things she’d be the biggest asshole ever, but she’s not. she’s far from it. she’s sweet, and a dork who likes to tell stupid little jokes. in general, though, she’s loud and proud about everything she does and cares about, and that includes you. she takes you out on dates everywhere, spoils you like crazy, wants to take care of you. abby would buy you whatever you want, whether it's paying for dinner, buying you a clothing item you've been eyeing, beautiful jewelry, new supplies for your hobbies, she'll gladly buy it for you. abby is an open book, and carries herself with a strong “what you see is what you get” kind of attitude. she doesn’t need to be coaxed out of her shell because she’ll gladly interact with any and everyone, and that’s where she and ellie start to differ.

now that’s not to say ellie doesn’t want to show you off or spoil you—because she does—it just looks a little different for her. she’s quiet and reserved at first glance, sticks to herself and her friends, maybe a little too closed off, but once you start talking to her, it’s like unraveling a mystery. there’s so much to learn about her, so many sides of herself she doesn’t show people. she has so many interests, and she’s so smart, too. you get wrapped up in her and her mind easily, so entranced by this quiet girl and finding out who she really is. you think she’s got a beautiful brain and personality, and it matches that pretty face of hers. she shows you off to her friends and family, and spoils you, of course, but with personable gifts that hold meaning to you, and there’s just a sort of quiet intimacy about how she shows her affection. modern!au abby would be obnoxious with PDA, kissing you, holding your hand, arm around you, just very obvious about it. she’s making a loud declaration that you’re hers, but ellie’s is more of a quiet/subtle dominance. the arm ellie has around your waist? the way her hand against the small of your back guides you? the fingers she has interlaced with yours? she doesn’t need to be loud to let other people know you’re hers, because they can just tell by the way she touches you, by the way she glares at anyone who stares at you a little too long.

now this is not to say there is no quiet intimacy with abby—because there is—it’s just a little different. for ellie, intimacy is those little moments kept close and shared only between the two of you. as an introvert, her love is grounded in quiet intimacy. the little drawings she makes you, the songs/poems she writes about you, showing you a new song she’s learned on guitar. she’s a huge homebody who likes to stay in and do things like parallel play, reading comics together, playing video games, movie marathons, things like that. she just loves quality time as a love language! on the contrary, abby loves to take you out and go on fun dates together out in public to show you off.

in addition to at home dates, ellie loves to bring you around her family (her adoptive dad and her older sister, sarah) because she’s just so proud to be yours and have you as hers. she loves bringing you to family get togethers because she's excited for her family to meet you and make you apart of the family, too. that's not to say abby wouldn't do the same, because she would, and she knows for a fact that dr. jerry anderson is going to LOVE you, it's just that for ellie she doesn't let people get close enough to her to meet her family in the first place. for ellie, love is being able to share the parts of herself she doesn’t normally let others see.

for abby, intimacy is in the little things. there is no need to peel back her layers to get to who she really is, because she’s forward about who she is and what she’s about to everyone. but what makes abby different with you is the subtle meanings behind the things she does. with a father who’s a doctor, she’s always been a huge germaphobe, so she doesn’t share her food or her drinks with just anybody. she also doesn’t just let anybody sit in the front seat of her car, she’s not quick to answer just everybody’s texts or phone calls, and in canonverse she’s sure as hell not nice to everybody. but with you, you just pull out that softness in her, and every action of hers just has a little something to it, a special meaning added to them, that can’t be applied to anyone else. and those private moments between the two of you? that’s when it becomes clear there’s something different in how she treats you, from her stolen glances to her gentle touches, all of it. abby’s main love language is acts of service, and it becomes clear that despite her loudness, her honesty, her openness, her love is really shown through the quiet, the unsaid, and the small things. sure, she shows she loves you to both you and others through actions that have loud declarations, but the ones that hold the most weight are the small ones only you are allowed to see and experience because they are special just for you.

when it comes to sex:

while i think both women are extremely sexy, i think there’s a huge difference with how the two women approach sex and express their sexuality, so walk with me here. like i said, both women are sexy, but while ellie just exudes pure raw sex appeal, just an intense sexiness, abby is sensual. ellie is magnetizing, and her charisma pulls you in and makes you do all the work of seduction. she prods you, teases you, flirts with you, but allows you to take the jump. she wants you to decide to kiss her, to put your hands on her, and wants you to initiate to see that you really want her as much as she wants you. that’s just part of her charm. abby, however, with her sensuality, is captivating, and while you are drawn into her because of it, it’s an equal push and pull between the two of you. her sensuality allows her to initiate, but it also allows her to be seduced by you as well. she openly flirts with you, tells you what she wants with you, but she wants you to do the same thing in return. she wants to feel your sexual chemistry, and she loves to create sexual tension. so while abby is not afraid to initiate if she has to, she wants you to have the bravery to do it, too. ellie, however, wants you to initiate the first move the very first time because she’s too scared to, and because she wants to be sure that she’s not imagining the way you look at her, the way you get shy around her, the flirtatious things you say to her. she couldn’t bear the rejection or finding out she misread your intentions, which is why she leaves it to you. however, after that first time, ellie’s not afraid to initiate anymore, and her boldness compared to her previous shyness surprises you every time. she becomes a different person, emboldened and confident, because she knows you want her, too. during sex, ellie carries herself in a way that is so calculated and confident, while abby is so languid, a total romantic to her core.

#ellie williams #abby anderson #ellie williams headcanons #abby anderson headcanons #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x you #ellie williams x y/n #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson x y/n #abby anderson x you #tlou x reader

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wambsgansshoelaces · 11 months ago

Text

Turmoil; Chapter 8

Roman Roy x Reader

a/n: I need him biblically

let me know your thoughts x

Word Count: 3.289k

You got one lazy day. That was it before you had to throw yourself back into work. You and Roman both stand at your bathroom sink, his head tucked into the crook of your neck. You press a light kiss to his forehead, and surprisingly, he doesn’t run off after the fact. He winces, but he stays.

“Connor’s bank statements should be handed to you when you walk in today,” he murmurs.

“You’re a godsend.”

“I know, right?” He takes you by the chin and presses an obnoxiously sloppy kiss to your cheek. “Kendall and I are looking into that politician thing today. Maybe we can go out to dinner today?”

“You’d better show up today,” you warn. He playfully pinches your hip.

“I promise.” He moves away, pulling his shirt off and disappearing into the closet. “If I don’t, put a bullet through my head.”

You roll your eyes, smiling. “Rome?”

“Mm.”

“What’re you gonna do with that… thing with Marcia?”

“We wait until we can use it,” he calls back. “Thank god it’s on your phone and not mine.” You sigh. You both manage to get dressed and feed yourselves breakfast, and Roman hails you a cab and sees you off with a hesitant kiss to your lips.

You steel yourself as you stare up at the building containing your firm. You love your job- just not what you were doing with it now.

Before entering your office, you subtly slip a jewelry box onto your assistant’s desk. You’d gotten her a necklace and set of earrings while abroad as a thank-you for fighting Connor off with a stick. Roman was right, too. You give her the box and she slides you a manila file with a grin on her face, mouthing ‘thank you’.

You settle into your desk chair, leafing through the papers. It’s normal the first ten years, but starting another ten, his spending became erratic, and lo and behold, he stopped paying his taxes. You wonder how Connor has made it this far in life without getting killed by someone.

You can piece together the puzzle pretty easily. Connor thinks he’s too high and mighty to be taxed, he stopped paying them, the interest racked up an outrageous amount, and now he’s committing fraud to get money to pay everything off.

You take a moment to think.

If Logan bailed Connor out before, would he do it again?

You think you want to find out.

You could catch Logan with his pants down. You were closer to a solution to get him out of your- and Roman, and Kendall, and Shiv’s -life. You were lucky that he was the vote that would’ve won him the vote of no confidence- if he’d legally won, he would’ve dropped the guillotine on you and ousted the fact that you’d kept Connor innocent from fraud. Since he hadn’t, and he’d stayed, if he’d tried ruining your image, he’d look like a child throwing a tantrum.

Satisfied with your mental acrobatics, you toss the file into a lockable compartment of your desk. While you wanted nothing more than to serve Connor right that second, you knew taking him and Logan down at the same time would be much more satisfying. So you decide you’ll wait.

You make a small list on a post-it note of what you have so far. Kendall and Roman had begun to investigate Logan’s suspicious activity around the failed politician, Greg and Roman had gotten you the finances, you’d found more than one hard piece of evidence that Connor was lying on the suit. You also have the issue with Marcia, which you don’t really want to think about. Ever.

If you wait long enough, you think you’ll be able to find your way out of this mess.

Having gotten yourself into a good mood, you decide to pick up some pro-bono cases from junior associates in the bullpen to lighten their load. You spend the rest of your day doing paperwork, but you don’t mind.

You’re in your office for so long you eventually need to flick on your desk lamp. You’re not feeling as tired as you usually would at this point, and you’re thankful for it. When your phone rings, and you find Roman on the other end, you pick it up with a smile.

“Asshole. Why do you work so late?”

“Aw, I miss you too, Roman.” You jot something down in the margins of one of your documents. “Besides, it’s only dark out because it’s winter.”

“Are you almost done? I made a reservation for six.”

You glance over at your watch, sitting on the inside of your wrist. Five-thirty.

“Can you come get me?”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, we have stuff to talk about. Involving my big, happy, functional family.”

“We do,” you muse. “I thought this was a date.”

“It is, swear. I just have to tell you because I’m a good fiance.”

You laugh. “Whatever you say. Call when you’re here.”

“I’m already outside, bitch.”

“You’re so romantic.”

You clean up in your office, bid your assistant goodbye(even though you’d given her permission to leave ages ago), and find him parked in front of the complex.

“You drive? How many people have you hit?” you ask, climbing into the passenger seat. He rolls his eyes at you, waiting until you buckle your seat belt to pull away.

“Only two old ladies and their dog that looked like Kendall.”

You snort. “How was work?”

“Glorious. Felt like a superhero fucking shitting on my dad like that.”

“Go on.”

”We did some digging, found a few paper trails. I didn’t know the old man was stupid. Kendall thinks we’re on track to find people that have the ability to testimony.”

“If you even have an inkling that someone could, send them to me. Like immediately. We can’t have them blab to the wrong people. I can legally keep them safe from Logan if they disclose to the firm.”

“You’re the boss.” He honks at the car that missed the green light in front of you. “Fucking dick.”

“Of course you have road rage.”

“I don’t have road rage.”

You sit in comfortable silence the rest of the way, interrupted by the occasional expletive from Roman at bad drivers. He’s surprisingly level-headed behind the wheel, keeping calm regardless of the ‘idiots around him’.

At the restaurant, you take the inside of his elbow as you walk. He flexes his arm, trying to suppress a grin, setting his hand on his stomach. You can tell, despite his slowly dissipating disdain for your physical affection towards him, he fucking loved showing you off in public.

He’d warm up to you eventually. You didn’t want to force him into anything you didn’t want, so most of the time, you let him initiate physical contact. And even though neither of you ever spoke about it, you got the feeling that he appreciated it immensely.

You both sit in a secluded corner of the restaurant, and his legs press up against yours from his seat across from you.

“You should tell me more about yourself,” you begin, setting your head in your hands, balancing your elbows on the table.

“What is there to say?” Roman mirrors your pose.

“I dunno. What’s your favorite color, Romulus?”

“Green. The color of money. Next.”

“Oh, that’s so bullshit.” You lean back, laughing. He pushes off his elbows, instead crossing his arms over his chest. “Your favorite show?”

“I don’t watch television, Miss Attorney-at-Law. Eat, sleep, corporate fucking, repeat.”

“That’s kind of vile.” You take a sip of the water at your hand. “We should watch garbage reality TV together. You’d enjoy it.”

“Why watch on a screen when it’s my real life?”

“You boring piece of shit.”

Roman takes your hand from across the table, hooking your fingers together. “That I am.”

“What about movies? Or are you allergic to rainbows, fun, and joy?”

“Oh no, my throat’s itching,” he says sarcastically, pouting. “I don’t have time for any of that. And when I do, it feels… weird. I never was into movies or TV shows or video games when I was younger. I was always on eggshells with Dad, so…”

You give his hand an encouraging squeeze. “So… we can do all of that stuff together after we give ourselves a week off of work.”

“We just got back from Norway…”

“Roman. You’re really saying you’re not going to give yourself a week off for shits and gigs?”

He has trouble pushing down his smile. “Of course I will. You know me so well already.”

“We should do it after we serve your dad the papers. So he has to wait even longer to go to court.”

“Oh, Y/N, you’re evil. So perfect for me.”

You both laugh.

You both begin your meals, Roman surprisingly attentive the entire time. You both ask questions, answer them, and giggle like schoolchildren.

By the end of it, his chair is pulled all the way around the table, sitting next to yours as he tries to explain a business venture.

“So if pervs won’t disappear completely,” he says, gesturing with his hands, dead serious, “we appeal to the ones who like feet. Because who’s going to fucking know they’re your feet if they one, haven’t bought them, and two, inspect your toes in real life?”

You can’t help the ugly laugh that rips from your stomach. “Why have you thought about this in so much depth?”

“It’s infallible.”

”I didn’t know you knew what that word meant.”

He taps the side of his temple. “I’m learning. From you, specifically. Kendall’s fucking dumb.”

Back at home, Roman’s reclined into you, his head set lopsidedly on your shoulder. He scrolls through his phone absentmindedly, glancing up at you every so often, as if making sure you’re still there. You catch his eyes, and you both smile at each other.

Without thinking, you give him a peck on the lips. He lets you.

“It was hard,” he says quietly. “But it’s getting easier.”

“And so goes life.” You let your head rest on top of his. “I think you’re doing great.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “Thanks.”

He hums, satisfied, when your nails begin raking through his hair. You stay like that, for a long while. His eyes flutter shut, his breathing regulating as time passes. You think he’s asleep when his phone rings, loud and obnoxious.

“I’m going to fuckin’ kill whoever’s calling,” he mutters, shifting so that his head is in your lap. You see Connor’s name. “I’m putting him on speaker.”

He does, and starts the conversation with, “What is it, asshole?”

“Hey, Rome. I know it’s a little late, but your fiance hasn’t been returning my calls. Or texts.”

“She thinks you’re ugly. Not interested. Stop trying.”

“Roman.”

“Just being honest.”

“Well, be serious. We need to hurry things along. I’m starting to go into the red.”

“What the fuck are you buying? Oh, wait, your gir-”

“Shut the fuck up. That douchebag of an accountant. He’s doing some shady shit, I know it.”

“Or, shocker, you need to stop spending money. Batshit crazy idea, man.”

“You’re giving me financial advice? Remember when you spend twenty grand on a watch in high school and then lost it the day of?”

“At least I had the twenty thousand to spend.”

You have to suppress a laugh.

“This isn’t what I called for. Just forward the word, okay? I don’t want Willa to have to miss anything important at the theater.”

”What’s that have to do with my girl?”

“She can speed up proceedings.”

Roman looks up at you, and you shrug. You could, but you definitely wouldn’t. Not for Connor. “Yeah, come back later.”

“Nice talking to you, too.”

☾𖤓

The next time you’re at Waystar, it’s a ‘family’ meeting in Kendall’s office. You sit on the couch, Shiv sunken into the seat next to you.

“I say you take that nasty-ass video straight to Marcia and get the good shit from her,” Shiv says. “No beating around the bush. Surely she’ll spill.”

“You’re certainly free to do that. I can’t keep it on my phone anymore- I’m prone to vomiting,” you respond.

“Anyone know about that prick from the party? The one balding in all the weird spots?” Roman asks, leaning against the wall.

“What, Peirce? That’s the dick that was sucking the life out of Dad’s bank account. He was taking money pretending to be paying taxes.”

You turn and glance at Roman. “He’s actually not that stupid, is he?” you ask incredulously.

“I feel like we’re saying that a lot,” he mutters back. “You know that that guy is Con’s accountant now? And he has literally no money left?”

“He’s never been the brightest,” Shiv says without hesitation. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“How can he miss that, though?” Kendall asks, dragging a hand over his face.

“Desperate times,” Roman supplies.

“His firm name’s Thompson & Thompson, right?” you ask.

“Fucking banger name,” Shiv says. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“They have a consultation with me tomorrow. I don’t think it’s anything good, given Connor’s recent history.”

“Lock them out,” is all Roman says.

“This is all such a headache,” Kendall mutters. “Has anyone heard from Dad recently?”

“Surprisingly, no. He’s been suspiciously quiet,” Shiv replies. “You think he’s in the hospital again?"

“Wouldn’t he say something?” you ask.

“I guess not,” Shiv says. “Makes him look weak. Someone will notice, anyway. We’re in the States, we’ll know where he is soon enough.”

“He’s scheming,” Kendall states. “He’s trying to find a loophole back into the company.”

“He wishes,” you retort. “Vote of no confidence. Can’t come back on without making a big deal about it.”

“What if he wants that? He could use it to distract us,” Shiv suggests.

“But from what?” Kendall asks, staring at his feet, boring a hole through the floor.

“You’re overthinking it,” Roman clarifies. “What does he have that he can do right now?”

“God, I don’t even want to know.” You push yourself to your feet. “I’d better head out.”

Kendall grunts a goodbye, Shiv gives you a hug. Roman walks you, and as soon as you turn the corner and nobody’s around, he takes your hand in his.

“Is this what having a crush feels like?” he asks as you wait for the elevator.

“What do you mean?”

“I never stop thinking about you. I get all giddy talking to you- just looking at you. I’m always trying to make you laugh, smile. And look at your fucking face. I don’t need to keep telling you how fucking pretty you are.”

“Hm, maybe you do,” you say, grinning.

“But really.” He lets go of your hand in the elevator, instead winding an arm around your waist and pulling you flush against him. “Is this how normal people feel? All… sappy and shit?”

“I guess. I don’t think I can be considered normal, either.”

“Why not?”

“I’m into you, aren’t I?”

“Asshole. I take back what I said. You’re repulsive,” he says, lips on your jaw. When you’re in the lobby, he tells you, “Call me when you’re done,” and leaves you with a squeeze of your shoulder.

At your firm, you give your assistant a wave, gather some files, and head to a conference room. Peirce is there, waiting for you.

“Mr. Thompson,” you say politely, ignoring his outstretched hand. You wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole. “Please tell me tax fraud isn’t why you asked to see me and refused to disclose why over the phone.” You both take your seats.

“I’m afraid it is. Rather, not that I committed it, because I wouldn’t be here if I did.” He takes his handkerchief and wipes away a bit of sweat from his chin. He’s a horrible liar. “Rather, some accusations that are being made. I was wondering if anything could be done. And since you’re already handling my client…”

You have to refrain from rolling your eyes at him. “If you can prove it, we can sue for defamation. That’s really it.”

Peirce straightens. “I can prove it, actually. Tax returns, receipts.”

While you don’t take cases you don’t want to(Peirce makes you want to vomit), you know that this could lead to something useful. So you tell him, “Have them faxed by tomorrow,” and he’s on his feet, thanking you profusely as you push past him.

To your surprise, however, he follows you to your office. “Can I help you?” you ask, miffed.

“I just, ah, thought that since I was here, I’d check on how my client’s suit was going.”

“It’s going,” is all you say back. “Last time I checked, I’m the J.D. between the two of us. I can handle my business like a big girl, while it disappoints me to say that you can’t do the same.” You gesture in the direction of the exit. “If you would.”

“Are you sure I can’t just-”

“Quite sure.”

“But-”

“But nothing. Take no for an answer and go before I have you removed.”

Dismayed, Peirce shuffles off.

“And tell Connor to get off my fucking ass,” you say under your breath, heading into your office. You drop your notepad, pickingup your cell and dialing Roman.

He picks up on the first ring. “What’d the weasel do?”

“Was creepy. He said he’s being accused of tax fraud and that he can prove it.”

He scoffs. “He’s going to send you a ‘get out of jail free’ card from a Monopoly game. Does he really expect anybody to buy it?”

“If he’s still in business, people have before.”

He sighs on the other end. “Come home.”

“I have some paperwork to do. Then I’ll hail a cab or something.”

“Boo fucking hoo. I want to see you.”

“You saw me an hour ago.”

“I want to see you again.” Roman pauses. “Pretty please?”

“You can wait another hour. I believe in you.”

“Aw, come on. I’m warming up to you and everything.”

You laugh. “I appreciate that, Rome,” you say sincerely. “But-”

“I’ll do your laundry for a month if you just bring the paperwork home.”

You take a moment to consider it. “You know how to work a laundry machine?”

“I’m going to murder you. Come home so I can stab you.”

☾𖤓

The minute you’re home, he pulls you into bed with him and curls up against you.

“You okay?” you murmur.

“Peachy,” he says into your shoulder. “Shiv talked to Marcia. It worked.”

“At least that bullshit was worth something.” You shudder. “Why are you going to bed so early?” He’s dressed entirely in pajamas, his shirt a soft cotton that clings to every muscle in just the right way.

“Early day. Stockholder drama.”

“I thought Kendall did that.”

“He does. I’m going because I know they’re going to fight.” You feel him smile into your skin. “Hey, Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“Never mind. I’m not so good with words.”

Roman’s hand finds your chin, bringing your mouth to his. When your lips meet, his hand slips up your jaw and buries in your hair. You kiss back fervently, and he matches your vigor. He kisses you like he needs your taste to breathe.

Your hand finds the fabric of his shirt and glides across the panels of his chest, and he groans into your mouth. You feel the soft, oddly satisfying scrape of his stubble against your face. He pulls away only to dot kisses on the corners of your mouth, then unevenly again on your lips.

“I think what I meant was good night,” he says cheekily.

“Jackass,” you murmur giddily into his lips. “Fuck you, Roman.”

#succession x reader #succession #roman roy x you #roman roy x reader #roman roy fic #roman roy #succession fanfiction #succession hbo #succession hbo fic #wambsgansshoelaces #turmoil #succession fic

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ghost-proofbaby · 1 year ago

Note

modern!steve harrington + mine cause i just KNOW he’d love that song and daydream about a future with his girl listening to it 😭💜

mine (steve's version)

warnings: hurt/comfort, my fingers slipped and put angst

wc: 2.1k+

an: okay i completely goofed here and made this far angstier than you wanted, and did not realize until AFTER it was done. 😭 i'm gonna apply the same logic as miss swift does with surprise songs - since i technically messed up, if you'd like a redo with more sweetness, let me know and i've got you haha 😭 i also just processed you wanted him to listen to the song and that image broke my brain so basically what i'm saying is this one will definitely get a redo haha sorry nonnie <3

It had all started over a stupid fight. A fight that he didn’t even recall how it had started. That’s how stupid it had been.

Steve had been tired, coming home from a long shift at the diner. It had been a shit show for the entirety of the twelve hours that Steve had been there, instantly making him regret pulling a double to cover one of his coworkers who called claiming they had a fever, but that he’d definitely seen posting on their stories about being out for drinks very late the night before. But he wasn’t going to tell his boss that — he’d been there. One too many beers on one of his rare free nights with friends, and he too would call out, claiming something along the lines of food poisoning.

He wasn’t fully lying. That much alcohol probably had poisoned him considering the way he felt like death the next morning.

The coworker wasn’t what had him in a sour mood, though. Nor was it the one elderly couple that had kept trying to have terribly long conversations with him when he knew he had food to run. Nor was it that obnoxiously large group of preteens that seemed to have no self awareness as they’d reeked absolute havoc on the diner for the final hour before closing. No, none of that really phased Steve anymore — he was just tired. He was tired, a bit too easily irritated, and just wanted to sleep.

His plans for the night had been crawling into bed with you, watching some TV show or movie he wouldn’t pay attention to with his head in your lap as your fingers would scratch soothingly at his scalp. His plans for the night didn’t include this fight. If he could have stopped, God only knows he would have.

“They’re going to shut off the water, Steve,” you stress, on the verge of tears at this point. Steve didn’t know if they were from stress, exasperation with him, or if you were hurting from how flippant he’d been since he walked through the door. Regardless, it didn’t matter; seeing you misty-eyed twisted the knife in his chest all the same, “What the fuck are we going to do if they do that? This isn’t something to talk about tomorrow.”

“They’re not going to turn it off tonight!” he shouts right back at you, throwing his hands into the air in defeat, “Fuck, I- what do you want me to do about it? What can I do about it tonight?”

You snap your mouth shut at that, lips pressed tightly to avoid any quivering.

“I just worked twelve fucking hours, I just wanted to come home and relax, I’m not in the mood-“

“You’re never in the mood,” you flatly interrupt him, tone a stark contrast to all the overwhelming emotions prominent on your face. Your voice doesn’t even waver — he knows that whatever you’re about to say, it’s been on your mind a while, “It’s always we’ll talk about this tomorrow, or we’ll figure it out. But we never talk about it. We never figure it out, Steve. We can’t just- You don’t think I’m tired, too?”

His heart breaks a little. You’re right. You’re standing there, still in your scrubs from your own twelve hour shift, and fuck, you’re right.

Things hadn’t ever been easy. Back in high school, there had been the issue of Steve’s parents. After graduation, it had been the terrible decisions of what now. When you two had decided to pack up and get the Hell out of town, it had been the stress of finally dealing with all the uncertainty, all while desperately trying to keep afloat amongst stacks of bills and adult responsibilities neither of you had expected to drown in. Things had never been easy, but Steve didn’t care about easy — he just cared that you’d always been there, by his side, on his team.

Right now, it didn’t feel like you and him versus the world. For the first time, it feels like there’s only you two in the boxing ring.

“This isn’t a competition, we’re… we’re supposed to be on the same side.”

There it was — your voice cracks, and the moment the first tear falls from your eyes, you’re quick to reach up and swipe it away, pretending it never happened. Pretending that one tear wasn’t ripping Steve apart from the inside out.

“It’s not a competition! But Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m suffocating-“

“I’m suffocating you?” the tears are falling more freely, and you make no move to erase them.

That’s not what he meant. At all. He’s only making it all worse. So, so much worse.

“I-“ he starts, but he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to make this better.

He doesn’t know how to fix this.

In an instant, his hands go from threading and angrily tugging at his hair to flaring at his side as he suddenly walks sharply down the hallway. He’s making a beeline for your shared bedroom, doing the only thing he can think of to fix this for you. For tonight, at least.

You’re quick to follow, only two steps behind him, “Where are you going?”

“I’m-“ he pauses, yanking a random drawer open to the dresser, finding himself staring at a pile of your clothes rather than his own. He huffs through frustration and his own building tears, “I’m gonna stay at Eds’ tonight. Give you some space.”

“Give me space?” you laugh back in disbelief, not daring to take any more steps closer to him, “You’re the one who’s being suffocated-“

“You’re not suffocating me,” he stops all movement, hand still on the knob of his drawer. He turns to you suddenly, a new found confidence, “That’s- That’s not what I meant, okay?”

He can’t make this right, but he can’t leave you thinking that’s what he meant. You could never suffocate him — and even if you tried, he’d find it to be the most heavenly way to die. But you didn’t know that, not in this moment, and that was what was currently killing him.

You take a deep breath, one step forward, before asking quietly, “What did you mean, then?”

One last chance. An opportunity to make this right.

“You could never suffocate me,” all the shouting and the frustration has vanished, only softness and hurt left in their places, “Ever. Don’t you ever think for one moment that it’s you. It’s not, okay? I love you. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, you are-“ he chokes up, looking into your glossy eyes. He can still recall the way he felt all those years ago when they’d first laid eyes on him. He’s memorized the way it felt, because every time you look at him, it still manages to feel like the very first time, “You are everything to me. You’re- Fuck, honey, you’re my entire future. When I think about the future, all I think about is you.”

You take another step forward. Steve’s own tears now track his own face, his heart racing painfully.

“I love you so fucking much, it’s crazy. And I just- I feel like I’m fucking all of this up. You deserve more than this, and I try to give it to you, but I can’t-“

“That doesn’t all fall on you, Steve,” your hands shake as you lift them, finally close enough to touch him. Each palm rests delicately on his chest and you can’t look him in the eyes, “I don’t want you for your money. Never have, never will.”

He laughs wetly. You’ve more than proven that. When his parents cut him off completely, you hadn’t blinked an eye.

“I want you because I love you. I’m in love with you, Steve Harrington. Okay? I’m so in love with you, I followed you across the goddamn country.”

“Eddie and Robin did too, to be fair,” he reminds you, almost jokingly. All the tension from the fight is quickly fading. His hand drops from the drawer.

“They did, but I guarantee I love you more than them,” you scrunch your nose, almost grimacing before adding, “No offense to them, of course.”

“Of course,” he echoes, slowly reaching up and holding your hands that had been pressed to his chest. You don’t pull back.

“I’m just- it’s stressful. We’re both stressed. Neither of us were prepared for this,” you look him desperately in his eyes, “I meant what I said, though. This isn’t me versus you — I never want it to be us fighting each other. It’s always us versus the problem, okay?”

He nods when you wait patiently for his response, “Okay.”

“And I want you here,” you continue, “I want you here, in our home and in our bed. I want you here, even screaming back and forth with me, as long as you’re here. With me. Go to bed mad at me, I don’t care. Just… don’t walk away.”

You smile through the residual tears, squeezing his hands that hold yours.

Steve thinks about all the examples of love he’d ever been shown. His parents, in a castle of ice. The way the fights always ended in separate rooms, sometimes separate houses. His father storming out to spend the night in a hotel rather than having to be around his mother a second longer. He remembers the way that even with an abundance of money, they were never happy. They never loved each other. A marriage of convenience rather than love. Lasting only out of obligation, not dedication.

He didn’t want that with you. He couldn’t ever imagine what the two of you have being reduced to that.

When he looks at you, all he can see is happiness. All he can feel is that love bursting from his chest. Images of the two of you by Lover’s Lake, the way the waves of the lake had sent shattered and sparkling flares of light across your cheeks as you’d laughed at him as if he was the funniest person in the entire world. All the nights spent over the phone, talking about nothing and everything, desperate to just fall asleep to the sound of each other’s voices. The ridiculous nerves he’d felt on the first date, King Steve shaking at the thought of putting his arm around you because for the first time, he was truly scared of fucking this up.

You made him a better man. You saw everything inside of him that was broken, that he had spent so long trying to hide, and you’d simply sat down beside him with glue in hand, prepared to spend as much time as he needed to piece it all back together.

Go to bed mad at me, I don’t care. Just… don’t walk away.

“I can’t do that, sweetheart,” he finally sighs. Your face starts to fall, but he’s quick to clarify, “I can’t go to bed mad at you. Ever. And we can fight, us versus the problem like you said, all we want but… I don’t want to go to bed mad. I don’t want… I don’t want that. Whenever my head hits that shitty pillow every night,” you both break to laugh, because God, you both really did need new pillows (and a mattress, if you were being honest), “All I want to know is that you’re mine and I’m yours. Sound fair?”

You smile, and it’s the best thing he’s ever seen. It makes all the long shifts worth it as you nod slowly, “Sounds fair to me.”

“Good,” he guides the two of you to the center of the room before he drops your hands from his, sighing and letting his shoulders finally drop, “Then in that case, I’m staying.”

Even with crying tears on your cheeks, you’re still the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. You’re still the best thing Steve Harrington has ever had the privilege of calling his, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. So if we’re gonna fight — let’s fight, baby.”

He puts his fists up comically, and you only giggle and grab at them, shaking your head.

“I think we've fought enough for one night,” you mumble, bringing one fist to your mouth, kissing each of his knuckles gently.

Once you’ve placed your final kiss, he quickly placed the hand beneath your chin, lifting your lips to his. He kisses you in quick succession, and between each one, he repeats the sincerest I’m sorry he can muster.

He only stops once you’re smiling too wide for him to continue.

After his lips leave yours one last time, pulling back slowly as he savors it and you, he finally sighs, “I am curious, though — what the Hell are we going to do if they do shut off the water?”

You shrug, “Like you said, we can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Or we can use Eddie and Robin’s shower.”

As it turns out, Steve Harrington was wrong — when it comes to you, he can always fix things.

"brace myself for the goodbye, 'cause it's all i've ever known. then you took me by surprise, you said 'i'll never leave you alone'."

#speak now (ghost's version)#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington blurb #stranger things #steve harrington

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nevernonline · 9 months ago

Text

✧.* grow as we go; svt smau.

entry #16; the part we play.

synopsis: over the past ten years you’ve fallen in love many times. one day someone happens to stumble across your journal sitting out on your nightstand and started posting your entries online. after all of your secrets are leaked it’s clear things would ever be the same again.

𐦍 paring: svt members x afab! reader.

𐦍 feat: non-idol! svt

𐦍 genre/s: reader is super angsty low-key, fluffy, sexual themes.

𐦍 content: swearing, bullying, crazy ex’s, mentions of sexual relations, some drinking& mary jane 🍃

word count: 1.5k

note: in-between photo sets is some writing!! xo

masterlist ▸ 015 leave it to the cullens (part 2). ▸ 017 happy trails.

Jumping out of bed and throwing on a random pair of sweatpants scattered on her floor in what y/n referred to as her “stress pile” of clothes, she ran down the hallway to the front door to check who she had kept waiting for over ten minutes.

Much to her surprise it wasn’t one of her obnoxious friends waking her and her overnight guest up so early, but a shady one. Joshua.

“Y/n? I know you’re here, I asked the front door man if he had seen you leave yet this morning? Hello?”

And with a couple more knocks pounding in her brain, she swung the door open to reveal a smiling old friend holding a bouquet of wild flowers and a box of pastries.

“Sorry. Hangover. Why are you here?”

“Tomorrow is your birthday?”

“Right. But, it's also 7:30 in the morning?”

“I thought I’d come by today so I didn’t disrupt whatever plans you have tomorrow with Seokmin and Jun. That’s okay?”

“Yeah.”

“So.. Can I come in? Or do you not want to have a chocolate croissant?”

“I do, but coffee! I’m out of coffee. Can we go get some? I can’t possibly have a pastry without it, silly.”

“Yeah, of course. Mind if I use the bathroom?”

“Why don’t you just use the-”

In all of her attempts at protesting Joshua walking through her apartment and finding the boy hidden in the guest room, he still managed to somehow find a way in. Just like he was doing to her heart. She knew she shouldn’t even entertain the idea of spending a day with him and pretend that she has no idea the amount of blackmail he had a hand in, but a part of her couldn’t help it.

In all her daze of thinking of the moral repercussions of his and her own actions. She didn’t even notice him slipping back by her side. As she rapidly texted the man she unnoticeably had hidden in the room down the hall it was his time to sneak out like a secret to be kept.

“Ready?”

“Uh, yeah. Let’s go.”

“So, how was Wonwoo’s event?”

“Well for starters I had no idea that gamers drank so hard, I felt like I was back in freshman year of college trying to keep up with drunk Soonyoung and you at those dumb ass Dream Boy parties you used to take me to.”

“That hard, huh?”

“Yeah, I haven’t drank like that in so long. It’s fun once and a while I guess.”

Walking into the white walled coffee shop with Joshua felt like some sort of omen, but y/n couldn’t decide if it was a good one or a bad one just yet.

If Joshua was honest about his play in the game with Mimi, maybe someday down the road she could forgive him and patch up their friendship one last time. But, the more he waited to say anything, the more he lied and kept his secret the less she even believed he’d own up to his actions.

“What would you like?”

“Just a drip coffee please, large, no sugar or milk.”

“Okay, I’ll pay.”

“Wow. Thank you so much.”

Sensing y/n’s sarcasm, he smiled and turned towards the register placing their matching order and grabbing the cups as he handed her the steaming cup of fresh coffee and made their way back to her apartment.

Waiting to cross the street her front door opened, walking out was Minghao dressed in his same outfit from the night before, catching y/n’s eyes, as she quickly turned Joshua around to look at a dog passing by so Minghao could make his quick exit without any suspicion.

When she was sure he made his exit and got out of the line of sight, with Joshua by her side they headed back up to her apartment, announcing she needed to go use the restroom fast and search the bedroom that once belonged to another untrustworthy friend.

Under her laptop sitting on the desk, a small note was placed with just the corner of the purple sticky note sticking to the side.

‘Swan, by midnight tonight you’ll be one year older. I hope another trip around the sun brings you peace of mind and the happiness you truly deserve. See you tomorrow, MH.”

Placing the note under the cover of her laptop, she smiled to herself and decided now was the time to confront an elephant in the room.

She walked back up to Joshua sitting on her couch, the plate of chocolate croissants placed on the glass coffee table, two cups of coffee on either side.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course.”

“I need you to listen to me, like really listen and don’t deflect. I need you to tell me how you got my journal to Mimi.”

“I didn-”

“You did. I know it was you who took it, I just want to know why?”

“Just listen. I didn’t take it to give it to Mimi. I actually took it before she even got back in touch with me. And I didn’t just stumble upon it on my own time. Minnie showed me it, she wanted me to know how much I hurt you and how you felt about me because you never told me. You kept all those cards so close to your chest, I felt like I had to read more. So, the night of Mingyu’s bar opening, I had Mimi over at my house after, we were just catching up, talking, nothing too serious, she had just moved back and needed somewhere to stay for the night. She was the one who found your journal and took it and concocted the entire plan.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“I guess why didn’t you just tell me all of this at the beginning?”

“I was just going to bring you your diary back and ask you out, I had feelings for you too. I still do. I eventually was going to tell you everything. But, it just got so complicated and the day I came over and saw Minghao here, I got so pissed off at you for trusting him after he hurt me, I figured he’d hurt you too.”

“But he didn’t. You did.”

“I know. I should’ve just told you the truth from the beginning, but I was scared to lose you.”

“You already had lost me. How am I supposed to even believe a word you’re telling me right now?”

“Because, I have proof. The only reason I even still talk to Mimi is to make sure she doesn’t go too far.”

“Why did you fight with Minghao then?”

“He pisses me off. Simple as that. I knew he had helped Mimi. I knew he was being deceitful to you as well, but so was I. It was just a matter of who owned up to it first.”

“Alright. What else do you know?”

“I know that Minnie is helping Mimi. They’ve been in contact with each other for quite some time, even before Mimi moved back. I can’t tell you why only because I genuinely have no clue. But, I have a feeling she's trying to hide something about herself and not exposing you.”

“And Mingyu?”

“No. He has nothing to do with it.”

“Okay.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Mhm, sure.”

“Do you think we can ever get past this? Even if we just stay friends or see each other once and a while?”

“If what you’re telling me is a hundred percent true, then I think we can. But, if I find out you’re lying to me, I will never speak to you again.”

“I can show you the texts. Between me and Mimi, Minnie, Minghao. Anyone involved.”

“Who sent me the bouquet? You right?”

“Yeah. It was just a warning to be careful about the people around you.”

“Okay. Well. Thanks for telling me, I guess.”

“There’s something else.”

“Uh, alright?”

“Tonight. There’s a party at Mingyu’s bar that Minnie was throwing for your birthday. I came over here initially to invite you. They told me only you’re invited. No Seokmin, Jun, or anyone else.”

“Why?”

“They wanted me to take you as a surprise.”

“My party is supposed to be tomorrow night?”

“Yeah.”

“So they have something planned for me and I feel like it’s safe to say it’s not good.”

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s safe to assume that yeah.”

“Okay, if you want to make it up to me. You’ll help me sneak Minghao and the dorks into the back of his restaurant.”

“Yes.”

“Call Jeonghan, tell him everything. Get him to cause a distraction so they can come inside. Text Minnie and ask if it’s okay you invite Seokmin to come with you and I. It's believable I wouldn’t go anywhere on my own without him and I’ll handle the rest.”

“Are you going to tell me what the rest is?”

“Yes, eventually.”

“Okay, let’s hurry, we have about three hours until I’m supposed to bring you.”

“What’s the dress code?”

“Formal. It's some sort of mask party.”

“Fuck.”

“So you’re still friends with Hao?”

“Yes, idiot. I heard you jiggle the doorknob this morning. Come on.”

taglist: @sun-daddy-yoriichi @hipsdofangirl@kissesfrmwonwoo@minhui896@wonwooz1@porridgesblog@jasssy051@soonyoungblr@saucegirlreads@musingsofananxiouspotato@young-adult-summer@punkhazardlaw@bibs-world@the-swageyama-tobiyolo@wonuulvr@woozixo@k-drama-adict@90s-belladonna@blaycke@dnylwoo@to-mi-yo, @nonononranghaee

note: hi me again!! lol. I hope you enjoy this messy lil installment. not my favorite (everyone says this sometimes ik ik) let me know what you think our resident traitor mimi is up too 👀

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tiffanybluesclues · 8 months ago

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HELLO! I'm making an obnoxiously long meta about the inconsistencies of Dick's and Bruce's relationship. I'm ALMOST finishes but I need an instance of adult-ish Dick Grayson saying that he didn't want Bruce to be his father pre-flashpoint

Also if you have instances of the writer hammering they're brothers pre-flashpoint that'd be cool as hell too, but I already got at least one instance of it (when dick goes to college)

Thank you in advance!!!! I'm still on the Kory-Bruce meta lmao I'm so annoyed he barely mentions her lmaooo

Somewhere in the decades and decades of pre-Flashpoint DC Comics, there may be an instance where Dick Grayson (as an adult or at least as a teenager) said he didn't want Bruce to be his father, but I've never seen it and I'm kind of glad I haven't because tbh based on what I *have* seen it would be Dick lying to himself.

I'm guessing the page that inspired your quest is this court scene from "Batman: Year 3" (1989)?

– Batman #439, 09/1989.

Maybe it was a modernized explanation for why Bruce took Dick in as a ward instead of adopting him – as opposed to the version in Batman #213 (08/1969), with the court saying Bruce couldn't adopt because he was a bachelor.

Something that speaks volumes to me is that in the same story as the above court scene, in the preceding issue actually, Dick thinks to himself that Bruce was like father to him. There is no internal conflict in this statement, no thought about how he at some point didn't want this. "He was like a FATHER to me and I LOVED him." He follows that up with a sad reminder of the distance between him and post-Crisis Bruce: "...and though he could NEVER bring himself to say it, I know he loved me too."

– Batman #438, 08/1989 or 09/1989.

You're familiar with the college-send-off, so please keep it in mind when you read this scene with [regard to] Bruce and pre-Crisis Jason.

– pages from Batman #376, 10/1984.

Alfred's response makes sense, it's a good explanation. It's also a complete rewrite of history, so these two are lying to themselves – or, more likely, the writers are trying to emphasize the current day stakes and emotions at the expense of the past. With the above panels in mind, let's look again at how Bruce actually reacted when Dick left home...

– pages from Batman #217, 12/1969.

Oh suuuuure, he definitely didn't mope around feeling lonely and depressed at all – and closing up Wayne Manor and moving out was a ~totally~ chill and non-dramatic reaction to Dick leaving for college... lol, okay, Bruce. I guess 159 issues and almost 15 years can make memories faulty.

The following are two pages I saved because of their references to the history that Bruce and Dick share. I want to highlight the page on the left though, because on a single page this comic manages to pay respect to the long history between Dick and Bruce while also disrespecting Dick's role as a surrogate son in Bruce's life.

– pages from Detective Comics #533, 12/1983; The New Titans #61, 12/1989.

That final yellow panel is so rude to me lol, like how dare you say "for the first time" as if like-a-son-to-him Dick Grayson didn't happen.

Comics from the 60s and 70s were probably the peak time for the idea that Bruce and Dick were like brothers. As far as I can tell though, writers didn't really have other characters describe them as brothers. I've seen mentor & apprentice, friends, partners, guardian & ward, knight & squire, and (primarily when there are no other children in the mix) of course Dick is also described as Bruce's heir pretty often.

I feel like, compared to Batman comics, the 1980s Teen Titans comics were more willing to say Bruce and Dick had a father and son relationship. Donna even contrasts her sisterly relationship with Diana to the parent and child relationship of Bruce and Dick during "Who Is Donna Troy?"

– The New Teen Titans #38, 01/1984 (Donna); The New Titans #61, 12/1989 (Alfred); The Brave and the Bold #197 04/1983 (Golden Age/Earth Two Bruce Wayne).

At least they let Earth Two Bruce remain true to Golden Age vibes.

My headcanon is always that he is the Bruce who every Dick Grayson grew up with, regardless of era, regardless of rewrites. Here are some panels that kind of support that – a significant factor in how Dick views Bruce is that he had a "softer" version of him than the man we see now.

– Batman: Gotham Knights #26, 04/2002 (Barbara); Nightwing #134, 09/2007 (Dick in flashback); Batman #437, 08/1989 or 09/1989 (Dick again).

A repeated theme from Dick is that he is insecure about his place in Bruce's life, and in some instances Bruce even made it clear that Dick's role was as a soldier, or at best a partner, and that being part of his family was conditional.

– left: pages from Robin: Year One - Part 2, Part 3, Part 3, Part 4, 01/2001.

right: panels from Robin: Year One - Part 4, 01/2001; Batman: Gotham Knights #43 09/2003; Action Comics #613, 08/1988; same; Nightwing #134, 09/2007; Nightwing Secret Files #1, 10/1999; same.

With that underlying insecurity, and the deep love and loyalty that Dick has for Bruce, I think that by the time he came of age it's likely that Dick actively wanted Bruce to be his father.

The first 20 or so issues of Gotham Knights offered some great material about their familial relationship (leading up to the adoption storyline). In issue #14 Dick writes a letter that he still never send. I swear half the delay in my response was probably me deciding which panels to include from this because it is a gold mine for the kind of meta you're writing.

– panels from Batman: Gotham Knights #14, 04/2001.

& with that I've hit the image limit, but I'll reblog with some panels on the point about how Bruce and Dick were often described as friends (something I saw possibly just as often as ward and heir).

#dick grayson #bruce wayne #batman and robin #dc meta #tiff.txt #long post #dc comics #dg #bruce #dynamic duo

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oceanbilly · 1 year ago

Text

Sorrow's native son

hi, i've never posted a fic and what i wrote might seem strange and unusual, so i wanted to give an explanation beforehand. i happened to read that one page from the stranger things book, max's book to be exact, it was the scene where neil abused billy with a belt and something in me broke and what i wrote was like a knee-jerk reaction to that. it's not really a romantic setting, i think it ended up being gender neutral too (but not 100% sure), i just needed to find a way to make billy less lonely. anyways, i hope there's at least one person who will enjoy it and relate to it.

My finger slid across the different boxes on the shelf. My eyes eventually landed on the one with the sale sign hanging below it. The store was quiet except for the low buzzing of the fluorescent lights. It was getting late.

I heard a bell announcing someone’s arrival. The cold air wrapped around my body like a blanket and I shivered. As I entered another aisle, my eyes fell on Billy Hargrove.

Our paths rarely crossed, yet his sight was uncomfortably familiar. Back in high school, he always made sure to be obnoxious enough to be noticed by everyone. He was loud and bold. Liked showing off his body even in the most inappropriate places and despite the dreadful weather, as if he was rebelling against Hawkins for the sake of it. He liked being intimidating and feared. He liked being admired.

All of that used to make an impression, until the thin veil of bullshit dropped and I saw the nasty truth.

Not long after graduation, when I was walking down Cherry Lane, I saw him carrying a big box out of the back door of his house. I wouldn’t pay much attention if it wasn’t for his father, who was walking closely behind him, pushing him to go faster. When Billy tripped and the box fell with a loud clash, I stopped. I wasn’t planning on helping – it was sheer curiosity more than anything else.

Before even a thought could pass my mind, his father’s booming voice rang in my ears. His mouth danced around the word ‘useless’ like he was used to it, like it was his favorite word and saying it caused him great pleasure. I wanted to scowl and move on, telling myself that it was none of my business, but a pained noise made me freeze. A heavy boot collided with Billy’s ribs once, twice, three times and I felt every kick in my own body. His father spat on him, yelled a few more offensive words and left. I saw Billy push himself up until he was on his hands and knees. His head hung low as he took a few deep breaths. I didn’t know what I should do, or if I should even do anything at all. Billy, however, decided for me, because when he raised his head, his cold eyes pierced through mine and I knew I shouldn’t get close.

In that position on the ground, he seemed like a wounded animal, glaring at me silently. I felt like an intruder. I looked away and forced my feet to start moving again. I walked, but it was harder now, slower, because of the heavy guilt that kept weighing on my shoulders.

After that day, I saw him everywhere. It was like I was being punished for what I did. Or didn’t do. His sight alone always brought back the shame and the guilt.

Right now he was browsing the medicine shelf. He picked up the aspirin and then put it back down. He pulled out a crumpled five dollar bill out of his pocket and looked at it like it was offending him. He also looked different. His hair was gathered in a bun, and instead of his usual showy outfit, he was clothed in sweatpants, a plain t-shirt and a red plaid shirt thrown on top of it. It hung loose on him, too, and it was dripping wet. I looked outside the window, where the heavy November rain was wreaking havoc. He eventually stuffed the money back into his pocket and put the bottle down. He huffed, irritated, and stormed out of the store.

I bit my lip nervously. I quickly grabbed the aspirin and made my way to the checkout. When I went outside, I saw him walking slowly down the street. He wasn’t in a hurry, like there was nowhere he was supposed to be in this nasty weather. His figure illuminated by the street lamps seemed small.

I chased him down and stopped in front of him, successfully cutting him off. I pushed the bottle of aspirin into his hand. He furrowed his brow and looked confused for a second, before his features were clouded by anger.

‘I don’t need fucking charity,’ he spat.

‘Take it or don’t, I don’t give a shit.’ Lies.

Billy has been all I could think about. Every time I saw him in public with his father, my heart sank. It was easy to miss – the light shoves, the way Billy never really looked him in the eye. Whenever I saw him, my mind immediately recalled the image of Billy on his lawn. It was burned into my brain and it paired well with the pang of guilt somewhere in my chest.

He also seemed to remember this moment well, because whenever he spotted me in town, his body tensed and he turned his head away. We never actually talked, but his posture was a warning in itself.

Billy clenched his jaw, but his hand tightened on the bottle. The dim orange light couldn’t hide his swollen eye and a bruised cheekbone. He opened the bottle and took out three pills. I dug in my shopping bag for a water bottle, which I passed it to him. This time he accepted it without any biting remarks. My gaze flickered down to his hands and one look at his clean knuckles told me everything I needed to know. He swallowed the pills.

‘C’mon, I’ll give you a lift,’ I said and pushed past him to go get into my car.

I half expected him to just leave and not look back, maybe flip me off as a goodbye, but to my surprise he slipped into the passenger seat next to me. I took in his face which scrunched up in pain for a second, but he schooled it very fast. The raindrops slid down his cheek.

Billy didn’t seem like the person who could simply accept help. It wasn’t taught to him. His pride got in the way too. His whole body was stiff, like he was ready to bolt any second. Like he was still on the verge of making his final decision. However, these last gruelling months have taught me that he also had a strong survival instinct. If he did something uncharacteristic – he did it out of pure need.

‘So what, you just pity me? Is that it?’ His voice was low and quiet. There was a layer of anger to it. This situation was taking away his control and he didn’t like that.

‘No,’ I replied, starting the engine and pulling out onto the road. ‘I pity your dad.’

‘For having a useless son?’ He asked louder now. The cool mask of anger was cracking, allowing the anxiety to seep through. From the corner of my eye I could see the end of his sleeve gripped tightly in his hand. I flinched at the word. It was now my least favorite word.

‘For being a braindead pissbucket.’ I spat. ‘I believe it’s incurable.’

I risked a quick glance at him and found him staring at me like I grew a second head. He snorted loudly and turned towards the window, a smile playing on his lips. I felt a bit lighter now that he was slightly less tense.

‘Do you want me to…’ I hesitated, knowing I was about to bring his mood down, ‘drop you off at home?’

He didn’t reply, but he shook his head, still looking out the window. I clenched my jaw, eyes fixed firmly on the road. He was out late in the pouring rain in the middle of November wearing these damn rags. He clearly walked for a while and he didn’t have his car. I wondered briefly if his father would be above kicking him out of the house for the night. I didn’t ask where to take him, because I had a feeling he didn’t have anywhere to go.

After ten minutes of silence I pulled up to my driveway.

I got out of the car and leaned down to look at Billy. ’C’mon.’ There was no point in asking. I let him make his decision based on what he really needed right now. He followed me without a word.

I opened the door and pushed him inside first. The pleasant warmth of the house made me sigh in relief. I took off my jacket and shoes, and looked at Billy, who was currently leaving a small puddle on the floor. I walked up to him and gently slid the dripping plaid shirt off of his shoulders. I was going to put it on the radiator in the kitchen, but something caught my eye. His white shirt had splashes of red all over his back. My heart stopped and the shirt slipped out of my hands. No. No, no, no.

‘Billy?’ My voice sounded weak and uncertain.

‘Yeah?’

‘You’re… You’re hurt,’ I said, eyes glued to the blood stains.

He tensed immediately. He didn’t reply and I was worried I saw too much. The most he had hoped for was probably just the painkillers and a place to crash. He didn’t actually plan on letting me in and now I accidentally stepped into his personal space. I was too close to the issue and I knew it scared him.

‘It’s fine,’ he said in a defensive tone. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

I could just let it go. In fact that’s what I should’ve done.

But then I felt it again. It creeped upon my shoulders slowly just to crush me all at once. The guilt. It didn’t let me move. It didn’t let me breathe. After that the panic started to set in. I let him suffer for so long.

I grabbed his hand, led him into the kitchen and made him sit in a chair. I pulled the first aid kit out of the cabinet and I saw it in his eyes. The flash of anger and betrayal, but I have already made my decision.

‘Take your shirt off,’ I said in a serious tone. ‘Please,’ I added quietly.

I expected him to put up a fight or at least make a suggestive joke, but he didn’t. He knew there was no use. The curtain was ripped away a long time ago and he had to accept that. But it was clear that he had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that someone knew the truth.

He gripped the hem of his t-shirt and started pulling it up, but halfway through he made a pained noise and let out a frustrated sigh. I grabbed the shirt for him and gently pulled it off.

When my eyes landed on his back, I felt dizzy. His tan skin was littered with angry red welts. The bruises were slowly blooming all over his back and the skin was broken in places. My first instinct was to ask him if he was hit by a car, but I knew better. And then I saw a few deep red squares that made me sick. The belt buckle.

“Jesus,” I breathed, before I could stop myself. I reeled back horrified. I’ve never seen anyone hurt this badly. I tried not to overreact – I had a feeling he would just run if I did. I suppressed my rising panic and closed my eyes for a second. It didn’t help much, the image already burned behind my eyelids. “I’m gonna clean it up, is that okay?” I asked, full of hesitation. I wasn’t sure how to even approach this without making him upset or ashamed. He was in a very vulnerable position, which could trigger his fight or flight response.

He didn’t reply, but he did give me a quick nod.

Feeling slightly relieved, I took out a cloth, dampened it and gently pressed it against his skin, trying to clean the dried blood away to see the wounds clearly. He flinched, but stayed quiet. I had to resist the urge to just take my hand away, so that I wouldn’t cause him any more pain, but this had to be done.

I drenched a gauze in an antiseptic and with a light hand started to disinfect the injuries. That did get a hiss and a muted fuck out of him, which I tried my hardest to ignore. Looking at his massacred back up close was making me lightheaded.

How could someone do this to another person? To their own kid?

The shame I felt was shattering. I knew. I knew this whole time and I failed him. My mind was cruel enough to make me feel like I was the one holding the belt.

I tried to be quick with the antiseptic, because his body felt like a tightly wound up string, ready to snap at any moment. I looked at the pile of bloodied gauzes and felt nauseous.

I took a few clean ones and covered the wounds, and then secured them with some medical tape. It looked a bit ridiculous and not professional at all, but the aesthetics didn’t matter right now. After I was done, Billy didn’t say anything. He wasn’t really moving either. I could only imagine what was going through his head right now.

I sat down in front of him to check how he was doing and I was met with a very hard image to take. He wasn’t crying. His head was hanging low and he was staring at the floor. His eyes were eerily hollow. Emotionless. There was no dramatic reaction, no sobbing, no fighting. Just acceptance.

I put away the first aid kit and cleaned up the used supplies.

‘Any cracked ribs?’ I asked standing awkwardly next to him. He shook his head without looking at me.

I was conflicted. I didn’t feel like I had the right to act like his friend now, but leaving him alone was not even an option. I looked at him sitting there. His body wasn’t as muscular as it used to be, he looked thinner. When he was hunched over like that, his skin stretched over his ribs grotesquely. He seemed to be a shell of the Hawkins High king he once was. All of his friends who used to worship him left the town. He was alone.

I put the kettle on and prepared some hot tea to warm him up. He didn’t even move, didn’t speak. He was lost in thought. I put two mugs on the table and sat down in front of him.

I wasn’t certain if I should say anything, but when I looked at him my heart broke. I saw my hand reach out involuntarily and cover his. It was cold. His head snapped up and he looked at me surprised.

‘I… I’m sorry, Billy. I’m sorry for what I did.’

He seemed confused. ‘What did you do?’

‘I pretended like I didn’t see it. I acted like I didn’t know.’

He looked down again and shook his head. ‘It’s not your job to help. I manage on my own.’

I squeezed his hand lightly.

‘I know we’re not friends, but… I don’t want you to be on your own anymore. If you let me, I’ll be there for you. With you.’

The look he gave me was indescribable. His brows were drawn gently like he didn’t quite understand what I was saying. The feeling of support was so alien to Billy he wasn’t sure how to react. I wanted him to know that if he shared this burden, it would get a bit lighter. He didn’t have carry it alone anymore.

He didn’t sob or open up immediately. He did not pour his feelings out to me. He sat there quietly for a long time, but I could see that there was no anger or fear darkening his beautiful face anymore. He was weighing his options, thinking carefully about the secret he has kept for so long. He was now forced to confront it, to look this monster in the eye and call it by its name. He had to acknowledge his pain, really feel it instead of burying it deep under his skin.

The yellow overhead light in my kitchen betrayed Billy and I caught the glimpse of how glassy his eyes were. He didn’t let the tears fall. He didn’t even let his voice break.

All he said was: ‘Okay.’

And I knew he was ready to let me in.

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