#please everybody go check this out its incredible

[steviewashere]

Little Town Bar Bathroom

Rating: Teen and Up CW: Minor vomiting in the beginning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Use, Steve is tipsy for a good majority of this fic Tags: No Upside Down AU, No Supernatural Elements, Modern Setting AU, Hurt/Comfort, Mostly Comfort, Fluff, Bartender Eddie Munson, Tipsy Steve Harrington, It Starts in a Bar Bathroom, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve Harrington Has Self-Esteem Issues, Down on His Luck Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson Takes Care of Steve Harrington, Countdown to New Years, First Kiss, Implied Getting Together, Happy Ending Also here on AO3, because this one is over 5k words 😬

🎆—————🎆 Working at a bar had its perks. There was a consistent stream of regulars that he constantly talked to. He could change up the specials menu whenever he wanted—adding his own flare to the mix, if he so pleased. Sometimes, he had reign over the music. And, more often than not, he was allowed a free drink by the end of his shift.

The downsides, however, were long and weary. Customers who didn’t know what they were ordering, who swore him to Satan’s asshole if he got something wrong, and tried to barge their way in with fake IDs (as if he wasn’t going to check them). Oftentimes, the bar was packed and too hot and made him sweat like nobody’s business—hell, his shower had a run for its money the other night from how pervasive his musk had been. The last major issue he had took place in the bathrooms.

Given that this is a bar he works at, the stalls often fill with every drunk imaginable. The quiet ones that need a moment to breathe, the guys who can’t keep their hands to themselves (who Eddie has to often throw out), a few who are completely sober and just there to piss, and then the oddball loner. But since they’re drunk—well, the bathroom is often the majority of their custodial staff’s paycheck. Eddie doesn’t handle all that vomit bullshit well, despite tending the very thing causing customers to do that.

It’s tonight, though—New Years Eve, forty minutes to midnight, forty minutes to 2023—that the very thing he hates leads him to the only thing he unconditionally loves. He’s cleaning up the spilled beer on his countertop when he gets the innate, incredible urge to pee. The bar is crowded, so he wrestles in another tender, and speeds away to the men’s restroom. Everything’s going according to plan, as much of a plan as there is when it comes to using a public bathroom, up until he hears it. Somebody in the stall adjacent to him, retching up their entire soul in the toilet bowl.

He winces, just finished drying his hands off, anxiety teeming like water about to boil over, and moves on autopilot to knock on the door. “Y’alright in there, man?” Looking at the bottom of the door, he spots only one pair of sneakers—some Nike Cortez that are roughed up and peeling, falling apart from how much they’ve been used—assuming is easy; the guy doesn’t have any buddies in the bathroom with him. “Noticing there’s nobody else but us in here right now,” Eddie comments. “Can I fetch somebody for you? Help you get home?”

The guy jerks with another sound, moaning miserably once he’s done. He flushes the toilet, but makes no other move. “Alone,” he musters, “she just left me here.”

Eddie bites his tongue. Failed New Years date. Oh, boy. He sighs quietly. “Do you, uh, have someone you can call? Or…uh, I could see if my manager’s free, she could order you a Lyft? They should be free tonight, considering everybody’s drinking.”

“I…I’ll be fine,” the stranger croaks, “been in here a while. I’m sobering. Barely had anything to drink, honest.”

“You think you’re done with the worst of it? Make your way outta the stall?”

“Why? So you can berate me for making a mess of your bathrooms?”

Jeez, this guy is defensive. “No, man. So that I could get you some water, a ride home, maybe some food?”

He groans in the stall, still hunched over the toilet. “Don’t wanna go back out there. Got a fucking headache, all the booze and shit will make it worse.”

Eddie rubs a tired hand over his forehead. “My shift’s over in literally five minutes. Would you…would you feel comfortable enough to go to the diner next door with me? I’ve got some Advil in my employee locker. And I could get you a cheeseburger.”

The guy goes completely quiet and still.

He goes to try and shimmy around with the door, maybe get it off its hinges or something, make sure he’s not choking or—

But then he sniffles softly. “That sounds really nice,” he says, “you’re really nice. What’s…what’s your name?”

“Eddie, and yours?”

“Steve,” he breathes. “Sorry I’m such a sack of crap. Wasting your time.”

“Mm, you’re making it easier for me to clock out, actually. Wasting my time would be somebody trying to return a drink that’s been remade correctly five times. That’s when somebody should be sorry.” He peers down at his watch, right on the money to clock out. “I’m gonna get myself out of the schedule and I’ll come back to get you, okay? We’ll just hang out at the diner. And…I’ve got Lyft on my phone, I’ll call you one when you’re feeling a bit better.”

“Okay,” Steve sighs. “I’ll be waiting.”

He makes a quick turn out of the bathroom, rushing back towards the break room before he can get caught and berated by the other bartender he left to attend to customers. It’s as easy as 1-2-3, punching out, putting away his apron, and grabbing for his things inside his locker. Thankfully, there’s still a bottle of Advil. Granted, there’s only enough for one dose and he typically needs to take one after his shift for his sore feet, but he’ll make do this one time. This one exception—Steve.

Once back in the restroom, the stall that Steve occupied is now empty. Though, standing at the sink and lazily washing his hands is probably the most gorgeous stranger Eddie’s ever seen. Blue jeans and a deep red sweater, hidden under a tattered, brown leather jacket. Lean and tall, broad shoulders, big hands; moles dotting every square inch of bare skin, pink lips, droopy hazel eyes, and a nose that could rival every statue masterpiece. Then, he makes direct eye contact with Eddie.

Caught out. Stilled. But then he chuckles awkwardly, trying to ease some sort of tension—a tension Eddie can’t see. “Managed to get away from the toilet,” he says, “room’s spinnin’ a little.”

Quickly, Eddie’s coming up beside him, placing his left hand on Steve’s back. “How much did you drink, man? Somebody should’ve cut you off.”

“Only a few shots and a beer,” Steve mutters. “Guess I’m more of a lightweight than I thought I was? I don’t know…don’t know…it’s been a while. Usually come here when I got someone to sit down with.” His head lolls back down towards his hands, scrubbing at them loosely under the water. There’s a tired, defeated, sad glint in his eyes. “Been striking out,” he mumbles, “people looking for…for situationships. I don’t even know…what does that mean? I wanted a date, not sex.”

Eddie sighs through his nose and eases his hand up and down the curve of Steve’s spine, petting him as if to soothe him. Which, he supposes, that’s exactly what he’s doing. It’s not the first time he’s met a person out of their luck, crying into their drink. But the look in Steve’s eyes physically hurts. It reopens a hot chasm inside of him, bubbling like magma.

“Just take a minute,” Eddie murmurs, “let the room settle.”

Steve nods, slow and tired. Heavy. “Sorry, Eddie. I swear I’m better than this.” There’s a flash of a smile at those words, one that falls away just as quick as it came. He sniffles again, wet and unmistakeable. “Gonna be ringing in the new year alone, though. And I’ve got a headache. But…hey, I met you. Highlight of my night.”

When he chances a new look of Steve’s face fully, Eddie notes the fresh tracks of tears staining ruddy red cheeks. He coos softly under his breath, pressing his hand more firmly into his back, and stretches out to grab a distant paper towel. The water is still streaming from the faucet, and so he dips the napkin’s edge into the warm pour. Gently, he shifts Steve to face him better and brings the damp corner to his cheeks, patting over the tracks, rejuvenating the color in Steve’s skin so that it all matches.

For a moment, he’s caught out by the still watering hazel eyes on him—damn gorgeous they are, even like this—but they blink at him and he feels it, the stretch of Steve’s small smile. He returns it, of-fucking-course he returns it.

“Let’s get you cheered up, baby,” Eddie says softly, “the sky’s too full of fireworks for you to be sad.”

His palm strokes over Steve’s back, a heavy sweep of warmth. There’s the lulling rise and fall of his lungs, each breath unwavering and strong now, and not as nasally as it had been only moments prior. A hand sets on Eddie’s left hip, secure where it rests, fingers tightening into his belt loops.

“You always hang out with random strangers from the bar?” Steve questions quietly. There’s a hint, a little bit of something coating those words. A tidbit of heartbreak, if he had to give a name to it.

This close, Eddie can smell the last dredges of alcohol on Steve’s breath. There’s also the scent of his cologne, even as stale as it’s gone when he’d been hunched over the toilet, but it lingers. Peppery and warm and decadent like a slice of apple pie from the diner next door. He’s already getting that Steve’s as sweet as one, just needs to be righted slightly so it stands tall on the center of the plate.

The next words out of his mouth are tender and quiet, “No,” Eddie whispers, “you’re the only one.”

Steve hums, soaking up just as pie crust does. His hand tightens again on Eddie’s side. And then he sways them, half-steps, knees knocking. The sink is still streaming and there’s red rimming Steve’s honey eyes. It’s all so private. It’s almost just theirs. 

“Saying I’m an exception?” Steve then murmurs. 

His words land like gentle pecks to Eddie’s lips. And they’re closer than before. And he’d let them get even closer, if there was room.

“Why, you wanna be?”

“Mhm,” Steve buzzes.

The restroom door opens, a foot sandwiched in the gap of their space and the entire world. Eddie doesn’t let go, even if he was supposed to. Steve does, wearily aware. He finds himself not disappointed, though, not even in the slightest.

“You wanna be an exception over burgers now? There’s apple pie, too.”

“Yeah, Eds”—and oh, how that makes his chest flutter something incredible, his heart a newborn bird eager to take flight—“I wanna be your exception.”

If he wasn’t intrigued and swooning before, he most definitely is now.

But as it is, he simply pats Steve on the back and leads him out towards the bar again. Zipping through crowds of girls and forcing his way between boys about to brawl. There’s beer spilling out onto his clothes, that he hopes isn’t getting on Steve’s—doesn’t want to tarnish the absolute darling beauty he’s managed to rescue from the swamps of a muggy bar bathroom. Though, maybe it’s unavoidable. Maybe it’s just what is meant to happen.

Because something about Steve, his hand gripped tight in Eddie’s, the bounce of his step, his glassy eyes and loose smile when Eddie looks over his shoulder—something about the Steve of it all feels as close to myth alive as he’s allowed to believe. And, well, if there are more than three religions and some people don’t believe in any of it at all, then he can hold onto whatever the hell he wants. If Steve at his heels, chest slamming into his back as the cold outside air finally whips them in the face, is destiny, then…Eddie finally believes in destiny.

When the bar’s doors slam behind them and they’re overcome with the noise of distant fireworks and cars rolling by on crowded asphalt, Eddie begins to let go. Though, Steve grips to his fingers a smidge tighter than before.

“Wow,” Steve breathes beside him.

Eddie looks to him. His profile. The sharp angle of his nose, droop of his eyes, and curve of his easy smile. He follows his gaze, up to the sky.

A spattering of stars, only broken by the even brighter bursts of twinkling fireworks. Pinks and yellows and whites travel stark across the sky, each ember firing like a shooting star going home. He places his right hand over his chest, the beating of his heart a tumultuous, daunting thing. And he sighs, panting a short breath—

Let me keep him, he wishes, after tonight, let me have him. Please?

Steve squeezes their hands together, fingers sprawling so they can intertwine. His palm is sweaty, he’s shaking slightly. He laughs, though, a sputtering, unbelievable sound. “Thank god I’m outta there,” he whispers. Eddie gazes at the stretch of his neck, how his Adam’s apple resettles after bobbing out each individual word. There’s moles dotting there, too. Constellations, even more wonderful than the stars above them.

At least, Eddie thinks so. Objectively, he’s correct. Won’t hear anybody else on the matter.

He sinks his teeth into his lower lip and turns his eyes back to the sky. “Yeah,” Eddie murmurs, “you can only take so much being cramped in there. Everything’s a little more…”

“Sobering?”

“Real,” he corrects. “Everything’s more real.”

Their fingers are pretzeled together still. And as if to punctuate Eddie’s point, Steve makes him feel the pressure of their hands. As if to say, “We’re a little more real out here, too.” He supposes they are. And he supposes the budding warmth in his sternum—where he’s believed his soul to be his whole life—is real, too.

Eddie blinks, watching white streaks dissipate through the sky. His stomach grumbles, though, and he’s reminded with a back-handed slap why they’re out here. There’s plenty of time to watch fireworks later, but he’s only got such staggering minutes with Steve. And he promised food.

Maybe it’s too honest and maybe it’s a lot stupid—considering Steve is still such a stranger, an enigma to his brain—but he’d promise a whole lot more if he was allowed.

For now, he starts to drag them towards the diner. Only met with minor resistance from Steve’s stance. He relents quickly, though. Following after Eddie like a lost, scruffy puppy. Through the next burst of fireworks, he hears Steve’s stomach give a low grumble, too.

The greasy air of the diner hits him in one strong gust. Salt and cheese and a sprinkling of cinnamon. Pink bubblegum, too, as a hostess greets them at the door and leads them to a booth in the back right corner of the restaurant. The vinyl must be sticky when Steve bounces onto it, grimacing as his fingertips stay stuck like paw-pads on ice. Eddie finds out a second later when he saddles in right across from Steve, collecting the menus from the edge of the table as the hostess struts away to her bored stool at the coffee counter.

He hands over one menu, Steve taking it from him gingerly. With a passing, soft, “Thanks.” His eyes fall to the plastic sheet in his hands, seemingly enthralled by everything there is to choose from.

Eddie already knows what he wants, choosing to gaze ahead.

There’s a tiny pout to Steve’s lips, subtle an gentle, but definitely present. He’s muttering under his breath, thumbs tracing down the margins of the menu, half-formed sentences like, “Cheeseburger…tomatoes…lettuce—hmph—bacon optional, sounds good.” Steve takes the sleeve of his jacket and brings it up under his nose, wiping hastily at its tip. His face isn’t puffy or red anymore, just tinged with exhaustion. Even like this, slumped over a menu and recovering ever so slowly from the cold that had seeped into their bones and the roller coaster of emotions that had worked through their combined blood, Steve’s beauty is magnetic. But his thinking face? His consideration? His marveling wonder outside?

Aside from his looks, the rest of him still draws Eddie in.

Or maybe Eddie’s easier than he thought he was.

Or…or…Eddie knows what he wants.

“Oh, shit,” Steve breathes, “they’ve got fucking onion rings.”

“They’re pretty good,” Eddie amends.

Steve slams his menu to the surface of the table, hands spread, eyes wide insistently. “Of course they’re fucking good! They’re onion rings!” he softly exclaims. “Ooo, get ‘em with barbecue sauce and a Dr. Pepper? That right there is the champion of all meals.”

“Is that what you want?”

The menu’s picked up again. “Mmm…it does sound good…nah,” Steve says, eyes intense on the choices, “I’m still lookin’.”

Eddie snorts indignantly and greets their waitress. Ordering a basket of onion rings for the table, a couple waters, and a Dr. Pepper for “The man of the hour” with a half-gesture at Steve still muttering under his breath. It’s endearing how long it takes for Steve to finally settle on something, even if their combined grumbling stomachs get louder and louder, roaring over the tinny television in the opposite corner to their booth.

“You better pick something soon, else Anderson Cooper’s gonna blackout before the ball drops,” he gently teases, head nodding to the television. Steve looks to it, snorts, and glances back down at the menu. “I could also just pick something for you, if you’re too indecisive?”

“Chicken tenders,” Steve decides, “with crispy fries and a side of ranch.”

“Are you twelve?”

“Hey,” he objects defensively. “I happen to be a man of taste, thank you very much. It just so happens that I’ve got a young soul ’s’all.”

Eddie hums, face betraying him as it splits with a shining smile. Jeez, this guy is endearing. He leans over the table a bit, resting his chin in his hand; Steve mirrors him, smirking. Soft and low, he asks, “You still got a headache, Stevie?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. “It’ll probably stick with me tomorrow morning. Which sucks. I should’a left the bar as soon as my date stormed off. Would’a saved me a lot of trouble.”

But then you wouldn’t have met me, he wants to say, and that would suck worse.

“I’ve got Advil when the water comes. It’s the last dose in the bottle, but it should help. And also the Dr. Pepper. Caffeine might be good.”

“I don’t wanna take the last of your pills, man. You probably need it more than I do. Been working all day on your feet, I’m sure.”

He merely shrugs. “Yeah, well…I wanna help you. It’ll bring me some comfort if I can make you feel even a bit better, y’know?” Steve doesn’t say anything to that. Just looks at him like a confused, lost dog. Like he’s being offered scraps from a hand that doesn’t shake when he sniffs it. “But if it really bothers you,” Eddie continues, “then we can figure out a way for you to make it up to me.”

Steve cozies deeper into his hand, blinking long at Eddie. “That sounds good,” he breathes. “Say the word…”

“We’ll figure it out before you go home, okay? Not something for you to worry about now.” He fishes the bottle of Advil from his pants’ pocket and opens it swiftly, spilling the tablets into the well of his palm. Steve’s other hand is flopped over on the table, atop his menu, relaxed. Eddie places the pills in his hand and closes his fingers. No argument. “After you eat, I’ll order your Lyft. And then…maybe I can get your number?” He’s cautious about the conversation, though the words hit him at once. Failed date, New Years Eve, situationship. Eddie rushes to add,  “Just so that you can text me when you get home safely, that’s all. Don’t…I don’t wanna come off as, like, preying on you or something. Y’know, after the whole…Yeah. Just. Wanna make sure you get home safe.”

As soon as the breath rushes out of him, it’s like Steve breathes it in, responding with a syrupy, tired giggle fit. His hand fists the Advil tablets tighter. A flush colors his skin, travels down his neck as he loses himself to his laughter. The stretch of his smile and sprawl of his giggles make his nostrils flare. And Eddie doesn’t know how, after seeing the same on so many other guys, but the way Steve’s face simply moves with his joy stirs something in him. Awakes a part that had been hiding in a seemingly unending hibernation.

Shit.

Catching his breath and wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes, Steve resettles. Breathes, “You were so worried!”

“I was!” Eddie exclaims. He makes a dramatic show of crossing his arms over his chest, pouting his lips. “I didn’t wanna overstep. It’d be un-gentlemanly of me.”

“Oh,” Steve sighs, breath finally caught. There’s a big, goofy smile on his face still. His eyes glassy with—what Eddie assumes to be—happy tears. “You’ve already treated me way better than ninety percent of the dates I’ve been on, man. Don’t worry about…about being careful when asking for my number.” He rests in his palm again, his posture growing tired, slumping into the table. “I was gonna give it to you anyway.”

“Ninety percent? Who the hell do I need to fight?”

“People who are…unimportant and too full of themselves? I don’t know, Eds, it doesn’t matter. I’ll probably just…I don’t know,” Steve murmurs. He shrugs half-heartedly again. “I’m gonna go home after this and go to bed, wake up with a raging headache, and probably wish that you were still sitting across from me. Feel like you’d know how to make it better.”

Eddie hums. “Well,”—he positions himself better, sitting up in his seat and folding his hands on the table—“tonight, I’m gonna make sure you ring in the New Year happier than you are right now. And then, when you get home, you’ll text me that you did. I’ll tell you to have a goodnight’s sleep. In the morning, when you wake up, I’ll text you again, ask if you want some coffee. Maybe, if you’re comfortable, I could bring it over to your place and we could have a simple breakfast?”

“You’d do that?”

“If you want me to.”

Steve goes silent, noticeably contemplative. His eyes adrift to the table. In the mean time, Eddie orders their food and passes over the drinks when they arrive. He nudges Steve to take his pills and points out something that Anderson Cooper’s doing on the television.

But he doesn’t bring up tomorrow morning, not right now at least.

Because maybe he’s overstepping this. He’s putting himself in a position Steve doesn’t want him in. Only thirty minutes ago, they were complete strangers in a bathroom bar, groaning and grumbling at each other for being so defensive and combative. Maybe Steve’s got a friend waiting for him back home? Waiting to let him back inside and take care of him in the secret way only true friends know how.

They aren’t anything more than mere acquaintances. No matter how many half-lidded flirty glances Steve passes his way. No matter how many times Eddie’s eyes wander to Steve’s mouth as he gobbles down his serving of onion rings, a wish ringing out in his head, words caught star-bound in his throat, admiring.

He’s allowed to admire.

Not allowed to have, though.

And maybe he won’t ever get there. This will be it. A late night dinner, wishing Happy New Years, jokes tossed across the table like clumsy frisbees taking flight, and an aching in his chest. Feelings blooming in his sternum so suddenly, so abrasively, they’re thorns staggered sharp into his lungs. 

He breathes, his chest seizes, and the whiff of Steve’s stale cologne burrows inside him. He blinks, his eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and Steve’s strong shining summer smile brands to the deep crevices of Eddie’s brain. He laughs, their giggles blend, and the process starts all over again.

Is this what sunflowers feel like? Soaking up the sun, all that they can, and then begin the brittle early death of wilting into oneself? They have to wait so long to be born again.

Eddie doesn’t want this to be a one time thing, dead in the middle of winter, dead before it could be alive.

Steve will have his number, though. He’ll have a weakened headache in the morning now that he’s had some caffeine and begun processing a couple Advil. From there, though, the future is possible, but unseen. He’s not sure if he’s even something Steve could be looking for.

Wishful thinking, he tells himself, hopeful wishing.

“Dude, try this!”

He blinks back to himself, presented with a chicken tender thrusted into his face. It’s dripping in ranch, so Steve’s hand is cupped underneath it, trying to save the table. Eddie gapes, looking to Steve’s face.

The chicken tender is pushed into his space harder. “These are the best tenders I’ve ever had in my fucking life, and I need you to support me on this. Try it.”

At Steve’s request, he gingerly takes a bite. For some odd reason, he finds himself holding their intent and intense eye contact, unwavering. It’s just a chicken tender, nothing to write home about. Not like it tastes any different than the ones he can pick up from the Dairy Queen by his apartment, but if Steve’s saying it’s the best one he’s had…

“That’s pretty fuckin’ bomb, Stevie,” he says. It’s not a complete lie, but it’s not the complete truth. But it does earn him bright eyes and warm cheeks, a side by side dance in the booth across from him, and a pleased little grin. So…maybe these chicken tenders are the best, especially if they get a pretty boy like Steve to look at him like that.

“Told you,” Steve says around his next bite—half of a chicken tender and two folded onion rings. “You ever dip ‘em in gravy, though? That would blow away your socks, blow up your mind, and suck your dick.”

“You, uh, you really don’t fuck around when it comes to chicken tenders, do you?”

“I don’t fuck around with anything. I’m a set-in-stone kind of guy.”

The seriousness in his tone makes Eddie involuntarily choke on air, his eyes drifting away, flush high on his cheeks. He takes a few, quiet bites of his cheeseburger. It’s mediocre and spilling with grease, the bun is stale and the ketchup is weirdly cold, but he savors it. At least it isn’t another basket of tortilla chips and jarred salsa from the bar—he’d probably rip out his own stomach if he had to eat any more of those.

Steve tries to offer him another chicken tender, but Eddie pushes it back gently towards him. Tries not to coo over the soft, sad pout that the gesture earns him. “It’s your food,” he says, “I wanna make sure you eat it, sweetheart. You need it more than me.”

“But I wanna share it with you.”

“Stevie,” he murmurs, “I’ve already got my”—

He’s offered the chicken again. With a very forceful, “Take a bite. You worked for hours, I can tell from how tired you seem, and I want to share this with you.” And then—the bastard—adds a puppy-eyed pout to say, “Please? It would help me feel better.”

Eddie sighs dramatically, leaning forward and taking another bite. He raises his eyebrows, gazing at Steve as he rescinds his food offering. “Happy now?”

Steve nods, smiling as he does so. “Very.” He pops a fry in his mouth and crunches down on it, his grin as big as the Cheshire Cat’s. And then, his focus goes back on his basket of food, none the wiser to Eddie’s openly affectionate adoration.

He forces himself to look away, to stop getting caught up on the Steve of it all, this night. Probably one of the best New Years Eves he’s ever had. Eddie takes a deep breath, though, and looks to the television.

Forty seconds to midnight.

How’d their night drive by so damn fast?

“You gonna count down with me?” Eddie asks, interrupting the lull of silence that filled between them.

“Mm, among one other thing, yeah.”

“What other”—

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve quickly adds, dropping his food into his basket, “how much time do we have?”

“Fifteen seconds.”

He watches Steve wipe his fingers on a nearby napkin, counting aloud with “Fourteen.”

And as the numbers go down, Steve pushes himself closer over the table. Eddie can only match with him.

Ten.

This close, Steve no longer smells like his cologne. Just barbecue sauce and onion rings, the grease from chicken tenders, and a lighter thing that he can’t quite place. Something happy, whatever it is.

Eight.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have nice eyes, Stevie?”

“Don’t think anybody’s really taken notice.”

“Well…”—Eddie breathes gently—“you have really nice eyes.”

Five.

Steve slides his hand across the table, gripping for Eddie’s left. Their fingers tangle, pretzeled together. Warm, even there. His smile is warmer, though, and Eddie begins melting at the sight of it. He wonders if Steve is thinking the same thing.

Three.

“Two,” Eddie breathes.

He squeezes their hands. “One,” Steve sighs. And with it, he surges the last few inches over the table, pulling Eddie towards him, planting a delicate kiss on his lips. It doesn’t carry longer than a couple seconds, but it lingers. Lingers like the decadent, sweet scent of apple pie. They’ll have to get slices before parting.

The diner fills with cheers, whoops and hollers. There’s a burst of multi-colored light outside, painting the left side of Steve’s face with pinks and blues and yellows. Maybe it’s all so cliche. Maybe Eddie tripped and fell, went into some head trauma-induced coma where he can only dream of a picture perfect world waiting for him.

But Steve squeezes his hand again, fingernails pinching into his soft skin.

Eddie knows he’s awake.

The haziness has cleared from Steve’s eyes, replaced with romantic determination. And Eddie knows he must be mirroring something like that, too.

“Happy New Years, Steve.”

“Happy New Years, Eddie,” he murmurs—the breath ghosts over Eddie’s lips, close enough to kiss them—“best night I’ve had in a really long while, thank you.”

He wants to kiss him again, so he does. Gentle and quick, sweetly though, and drenching.

If a night could last forever, he’d pick this one right here.

“My pleasure,” he says and means it to the core of his soul.

“Can I take you up on that coffee tomorrow? I have donuts back home, we could make a morning of it.”

Eddie swallows, sure that Steve hears him. His palm sweats and the thing inside him, stirring and rolling the whole night, is finally, finally alert. “Of course, sweetheart”—it fills him with giddy pride the way that nickname brings a flush to Steve’s cheeks—“what time?”

“I’ll call you when I’m ready. I wanna hear your morning voice.”

“You flatter me.”

Steve raises their joined hands to his lips, kissing the back of Eddie’s. His lips are sticky, somehow, but sweet. The next time they kiss, he hopes Steve tastes like pie. “Good,” Steve whispers, “you deserve to be flattered now.”

And maybe it wasn’t the most romantic start to their relationship…

But Eddie wouldn’t have it any other way.

🎆—————🎆

[fmajorenthusiast]

POST THE COLLAB, KATIE

AHAAHAHAHAH YESSSSSSSS!!! (THIS IS ALSO POSTED ON JEANI'S TUMBLR SO YALL GO CHECK IT OUT THERE TOOOO!!!)

WHAT THE ROCKY HORROR CHARACTERS WOULD DO ON TUMBLR!!!!!

Frank: Frank posts shitty poetry that he writes meant to be a tribute to the TRAGEDY OF THE TUMBLR TITTY BAN. He recites it while pole dancing and/or just general thirst traps. But his content somehow never gets flagged, and he is so fucking insulted by this, it’s a badge of honor that pictures of somebody’s lawn has recieved, but not yet him? What does he have to do? He’s constantly getting asked along the lines of “CURLY HAIR ROUTINE ASAP” or “makeup tut please <3<3 “ and he will reply with a single product or just like a zoomed out pic of his bathroom sink for them to decode.

Brad: Brad thinks this is a dating app and posts his “Best” picture! This post (along with his bio) becomes one of those legendary Tumblr posts, it has gotten so blurry from screenshots to other sites that he is unrecognizable. Janet eventually shows him the ropes, but he still spends at least 24 hours just to “Learn what a ‘blorbo’ is goddamn it”. He also uses ‘Babygirl’ in the wrong context. Anyway, when he finally shows up on Janet's Blog, they’re like “Alright, this checks out” and then FRANK comes in like a wrecking ball, destroying all logic and making Brad lose half his followers but gain twice as many more.

Janet: Cottagecare Aesthetic blog. I know this in my bones. She would also reblog sentimental blackout poetry and little wholesome quotes. Half of her blog is BRAD MAJORS! She writes little love letters to him and posts pics of them together, just being Brad and Janet, they have a ship name at this point and are treated like fictional characters because of how incredibly, mind bogglingly sweet they are! Until somebody notices Frank in the background of one of her posts, and then she slowly starts posting progress on attaching rhinestones to burlesque attire (But she’s still all sweet with Brad in addition to this because she is an ICON).

Riff Raff: Riff Raff is the guy that saves everybody’s life with those little templates. Like if somebody didn’t post a blank version of that meme, he’s got you covered!. No Picrew link? Riff can and will find it, and both comment and reblog the post with the link. He also calls out internet scams, and will do so in the most helpful-but-still-trolling-them way possible. If you follow him, you’ll kind of get used to the little bits of advice that trickle into your feed. He doesn’t actually follow many people, and carefully curated his feed to perfection.

Magenta: Oh Magenta is here to TROLL PORN BOTS. She is here to troll porn bots in a MASSIVE way. She trolls them into being banned, but has LOTS of fun with it!!! She's gotten to the point where she has to seek THEM out because she's feared in the porn bot community! They know that she'll torture and bring them down!!! They can't stop her!!! She's like the stealthy tumblr superhero!!! She also makes so many snarky responses to people! She has the sassiest tongue on the internet and it strongly resembles the tone of the trope of the old lady who's completely lost her filter except she doesn't need to wait for old age for that one! Do NOT dare challenge her!!! She'll fully respond to passive aggression by cussing somebody out in the most powerful way possible and it's absolutely HILARIOUS. She's living her best life on tumblr and she's ADORING it so much!! She is an icon of sass and taking down porn bots, and we couldn't ask for a better hero here on tumblr!!!

Columbia: Columbia is an artist!!! She draws with the most amazing and eye-blinding palette out there!!! She loves what she's doing so much and she's SO talented!!! Its very neon and in a Pixar-esque style!!! Disney would hire her as an artist in a heartbeat!!! (But you must NEVER WORK WITH DISNEY COLUMBIA THEY'RE SO CORRUPT PLZ WORK WITH A COMPANY THAT WON'T STEAL ALL YOUR CREATIONS!!!) Her art is so bubbly and bright and fun!!! She also loves to make lists like these!!!! She's big in the world of fandom!!!! She loves it so much!!! She's sweet and fun and amazing!!!

Rocky: oh this sweet baby boy this sweet baby boy this SWEET BABY BOYYYYYY!!! First of all... he is just a darling, but this sweetheart is probably too young to have a Discord even! Let alone a Tumblr!!! That said, he's COMPLETELY safe!!! For two reasons!!! Number one, there's another part of everyone else's blogs that says "Don't you fucking hurt Rocky" or something close to it!!! Secondly, he's literally so pure of heart that you wouldn't dare!!!! He doesn't even know what to post about and the result is the best thing EVER!!! He'll post things like "I saw duckies today!" Or "I really really REALLY love bubbles!" Or a personal favorite, "I believe in unicorns!!!" He's a DARLING and probably has the most famous blog of anyone on this list solely because of how truly lovable he is!!! He is a true darling of the internet and he is BELOVED on Tumblr!!!

Eddie: Eddie uses his main blog as his own personal dartboard. Where Rocky’s little slices of life are sweet are cute, Eddie is that one guy who posts things like “I SWEAR TO GOD IF I NEED TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THIS FUCKING MICROWAVE FRENCH TOAST I WILL FIND WHOEVER MADE THIS AND RIP THE STILLBEATING HEART FROM THEIR BODY”. These rants either get hundreds of thousands of notes or absolutely none at all, there is no in between! Eddie has a sideblog for his motorcycle, and it’s actually really sweet!!! He talks about how he “adopted” Bessie (the name he’s given it) and the process of repairing her as well as the places he’s taken her!. BUT DO NOT CALL IT CUTE. He hates when anyone calls his little “relationship” with Bessie cute, and almost ran Brad over by the time the first “That’s ador- had left his mouth. Eddie knows all the lore of his favorite bands, and classic rock tumblr is constantly falling for his “Hey, I’m newer fan of (group or artist) could anyone explain what the (code name for bad even) Incident is?” He then reads the explanations aloud, sometimes with Frank, posting reaction videos on youtube/instagram!

Dr. Scott: Similarly to Brad, Dr. Scott severely misunderstood the point of tumblr. He was like “Oh, a place to share ideas? MY corner of the internet? This looks like a fun time!”. And…it goes how you would expect it to go. He makes every mistake that Brad did but worse. He falls for nearly every scam on the planet and has to be saved by the rest of the crew multiple times, actually tries to reason with both trolls and bots, doesn’t know how to block tags....etc. It took him a solid few months to learn how to reblog, and even longer to actually tag his own posts. He does eventually learn though! During a lecture, he forgets to close the tab before a lecture and the entire class sees his dashboard on the projector screen, and from there the entire lesson becomes “Tumblr 101”!

The Criminologist: He, like Eddie, has a main blog and a side blog!!!!! First, he's on the conspiracy theory side of tumblr and he and Doctor Scott will very occasionally cross paths and it is ALWAYS ICONIC! It's literally like those scenes in shows where the two masterfully secretive and manipulative characters interact and it's the FUNNIEST THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE!!! It's totally amazing!!! His side blog however, now that's when the chaos REALLY starts. See, he writes fanfic and is too embarrassed to ever admit it (even though it's Tumblr and that's one of the most important things that Tumblr is for!!!) What are these fanfics of you ask? Well they're Percibeth and Brad x Janet crossover fics of course! Also Eddie is Leo and Doctor Scott is Chiron because YES! However, this blog is discovered by Frank!!! Frank, who is ROYALLY pissed that he did NOT MAKE IT IN!?!?!? and that IT ISN'T SMUT!?!?!? What has the world come to?!?!? Of course, he outs this blog to everybody else!! It would be a disaster except for one thing!!!! This is TUMBLR!! And The Criminologist's identity is PROTECTED!!! Nobody knows!!!!! Shhhhhhhhhhhh

[wistfulenchantress]

This photo is currently my entire personality:

ok now that’s out of the way here is my intro post <3

Hello, my angel

My name is Witch

(important things are in bold)

My pronouns are they/them (preferred) or she/her, and i'm a genderqueer lesbian

It is always platonic 💛

I'm so bad at using tone indicators but you can always just ask me.

A mysterious force of nature. heart captured with the slightest hint of kindness.

Aquarius, INTJ, swiftie

@ wistfulenchantress on ao3, pinterest, instagram

i'm a minor (i'm chill with interacting with adults just don't be weird. like use common sense)

i am prob one of the most genuine people you will ever meet. if i say something i mean it, i just mean a lot of nice things. i promise i won't lie to you.

im so many fandoms. post a lot of marauders and stranger things, but i am in so many others i would love to talk about so just drop me an ask!

not consistently online rn. i'm getting back to it, but still going through some stuff

poetry blog: @thewordsofwitch

side blog for community: @troybarnesgaytruther

safe space: @safespacewithwitch

check out my ao3!!!!

my greatest triumph

asks and messages are ALWAYS open to silliness, questions, vents, or literally anything. (please put vents in my safe space sideblog, i check that inbox more often. rules for that blog can be found in its pinned post)

PLEASE DO NOT: try to get information about where i'm from, who i am, etc. i do not want to meet you in person please don't make me say no. that crosses a boundary.

NO POLITICAL TALK this is a safe space for anybody and everybody, it is a judgement free zone. i am really triggered by pressure for my political opinions. please don't. i won't respond and i will probably cry. so, please don't. if the post is overtly political you can discuss it with me but also please don’t but you can.

PLEASE DO: talk to me, spam me, do literally anything else that is appropriate. i am always bored, so please never think you are annoying. anons make my day. one time someone just told me a cute fact about their day over anon and my heart exploded. anon asks always welcome <3

please no chain mail, i will delete it

moots!!!!!! (incomplete list)

just my best friend tbh: @justiceforplutoo

my sun, moon, and stars: @garden-of-runar

literally just the best person: @tequilaqueen

absolute favorite ever: @picklerab23

the kindest and sweetest: @jamespotterbbg

genuinely one of the coolest people: @vintagetee13

so so so talented: @liggy-not-potter and @marylily-my-beloved

somehow hasn't blocked me (actually so amazing): @reo-bylerwagon

super friend: @seekmemystar

words cannot express my love: @mybedroomceilingsbored

my friendship rock from @themortalityofundyingstars: 🪨✨ (and it has sparkles)

missing out on things together with: @gildy-locks

idek how to describe how much i need him: @pangothepangolin

even more awesome people: @hisshiss-bitch @the-boy-who-drank-the-stars @moonage-nightterrors @thatrandommatildafan @theoneandonlypjofanatic

there are so many more and i will keep updating this. complain if i forgot you and i will add you, it's not deliberate im just dumb

that's all about me. have an incredible day, love <3

(made by me)

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 20 - 616

one day in New York by UltravioletLightwaves

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: E Words: 7,921 Tags: Flirting, Missions, Smut

Summary: Where else can you fight a giant insect in the afternoon, attend a fancy charity event in the early evening, and spend the rest of the night learning some surprising things about your coworkers?

Reasons why I love it: There is so much to love in this fic. The action is amazing, the team dynamics are super fun, and of course, the Stony flirting is fantastic. I adore Ultraviolet's writing style, it's so engaging and really makes the characters feel like real people. Plus, the smut is incredible. I love this fic so much, and I hope you'll go and check it out for yourself!

Quiet Time by saraid

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: E Words: 3,943 Tags: PDA, Bad Ex Sharon, Relationship-Affirming Sex

Summary: They were just stealing a bit of quiet time.

Reasons why I love it: I actually like Sharon as a character in canon, but I'm also a big fan of her being a sort of evil ex of Steve's, so this fic is right up my alley. I love how Steve doesn't hesitate to stand by Tony and deals with the problem straight away. Definitely check this one out, it's great!

Ambigram by magicasen

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 10,265 Tags: Time Travel, Action, De-Serumed Steve

Summary: Steve's lost the serum. Steve's not an Avenger anymore. Steve's supposed to be past these types of missions, even if he'll never say no to punching Hydra goons in the face. But if the Avengers need him, Steve will answer their call. But then an unexpected visitor from the past joins the fray. Steve's past self has lots of things to say: about the future, the team, and Steve's relationship with Tony.

Reasons why I love it: I'm always a fan of multiverse shenanigans, and this one is no exception. Steve kind of breaks my heart with his insecurities about his place on the team, but the ending is so hopeful that it makes up for all of it. I love this one, and I hope you go and check it out for yourself!

In the Morning, I'll Be New by WhenasInSilks

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: E Words: 5,055 Tags: Friends with Benefits, Light Dom/Sub, Hickmanvengers

Summary: “Please?” Tony’s voice is low and hoarse. It drags against Steve like the head of a match; a single puff of oxygen could turn that friction into flame. This is what it’s like, being with Tony. So many years spent wondering and here is the answer. It’s like being one breath away from burning.

Reasons why I love it: God, all the emotions packed into this are so good. The smut is incredible, and Steve's feelings for Tony are as beautiful as they are heartbreaking. Especially once you get to the end and that last sentence just punches you in the gut. I love this fic so much, and I bet you will too, so go and read it!

Everybody Got Naked and We Got Cap Back Day by Letterblade

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 5,085 Tags: Fix-It, Skrulls, Angsty Schmoop

Summary: The aftermath of the Civil War. Captain America is dead and buried, his country and her heroes torn and staggering. Iron Man, his friends lost or fallen, has been handed the wreckage of SHIELD. And, as the world slowly recovers, the secret council known as the Illuminati meets one last time, called together by the corpse of a shapeshifting alien Skrull, only to find that one of their own, too, has been replaced. In fear of an invisible invasion, two of the remaining council go investigating, and find a few ships out by Jupiter that don't at all belong...

Reasons why I love it: I want the title to be a national holiday from now on. I love how this fic turns canon on its head and brings Steve back into the story in a way that allows him and Tony to have a big, emotional reunion (and more). It's fantastic, and you should definitely read it!

[captainsophiestark]

October Fic Recs

Happy end of Fictober! I feel like I got to read a good amount this month, although by no means have I come close to scratching the surface of everything Tumblr's incredible creators made in October. Fortunately, that means I still have a lot of great stuff to read into November! Everything I did get to read is linked below the cut, so go check out those awesome fics and make sure to tell the creators how much you loved what you read!

If you want to see what else I've read, you can find my fic rec masterlist here

Star Wars

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Reader

A Chance Taken by @ghostofskywalker

A very sweet childhood friends to lovers fic with Obi-Wan with an incredibly fluffy promise of a happy ending

Truth Serum Isn’t Real …Oh Wait Kriff by @ghostofskywalker

A very sweet and funny fic with a love confession thanks to Count Dooku, with Anakin helping move things along on Obi-Wan’s side

Anakin Skywalker x Reader

The Long Game by @anakin-skywalker-always

A very fun fic with Anakin and reader’s POVs as they dance around each other, with bonus reactions from Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Cal Kestis as the reader’s Padawan!

Mini Matchmakers by @ghostofskywalker

This is literally the funniest, sweetest fic with Anakin and the twins. Luke and Leia make excellent matchmakers, and the fluff overload combined with the author’s usual humor is unbeatable

Intimidation by @idontknowwhattoputasmyusernameee

A freaking adorable and SUPER relatable fic with many many many awkward moments of the reader fumbling things around her crush, only to get to the happy ending

Trapped, Cold, And Annoyed: Another Mission With Anakin by @ghostofskywalker

SUCH a good fic that felt like a moment pulled out of the Clone Wars with a recurring character we just never got to meet. Great dynamics and vibes that fit the show with a very sweet and soft hopeful ending

Poe Dameron x Reader

Rainstorms with Poe Fall Blurb by @alwritey-aphrodite

Soft cozy adorable fic with Poe and the reader getting to take a break together from Resistance work, aided by Leia

Poe Dameron Vs. The Claw Machine by @ghostofskywalker

This is a very sweet and VERY funny modern AU with a date at the arcade with everybody’s favorite flyboy Poe

Every Time You Walk By by @girl-next-door-writes

This was so sweet and fluffy even in times of hardship for the Resistance, and it was also from Poe’s perspective which was really fun to see!

Marvel

Clint Barton x Reader

Congratulations! You Just Won The Shock of Your Life at 2am! by @ghostofskywalker

A very sweet fic with some comfort for Clint! #1 best person to find in your kitchen in the middle of the night, no contest

A Virtual World by @trekkingaroundasgard

Some excellent hurt/comfort with Clint, which can be read either romantically or platonically, and with a VERY cool way of writing and describing the superpowers of Clint’s partner

The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Elijah Mikaelson x Reader

Wedding Bells by @xxwritemeastoryxx

Some absolutely adorable Elijah fluff! We love a story where someone gets past Elijah’s fears of putting someone at risk to get to their happy ending

Kol Mikaelson x Reader

You’ve Never Seen Halloween Town? by @drakoneve

A super sweet Halloween fic with Kol, tons of decorating, and preparations for an excellent movie marathon

Harry Potter

Theseus Scamander x Reader

Just This Once by @its-vannah

An adorable fic with flashes through time that show different glimpses of Theseus and the reader throughout their time getting to know each other and being in a relationship

Ron Weasley x Reader

The Yule Ball by @marvelslut16

A very sweet fic with Ron and the reader at the Yule Ball, with my personal favorite meddling sibling matchmaker trope! George is very chaotic and it works to everybody’s advantage

Pirates of the Carribean

Elizabeth Swan x Reader

Terror of the Seas by @ghostofskywalker

Getting revenge and starting a crew with Elizabeth Swan? Yes please. Also the fluffiest concept ever, of looking for a place to run and instead finding a place to belong

Star Trek

Christopher Pike x Reader

Pancakes by @space-helen

The softest, sweetest domestic fluffy morning with Captain Pike. This is it, this is the dream

[pleafyistired]

Yesss that makes sense. What's up with the antagonist(s) 🐜 [<- spell check really wanted an ant emoji in there for some reason] - 🕶

workin on it! Please stand by..

ill summarise them! Or.. try to lol! Luckily they arent as fucking complicated as chris and erics dynamic lol

also that ant is so silly it stays ❤️🐜

The first one is panna! This fella is a lil SHIT that im still having to work out lol. But basically, theyre a vessel for the chaos pieces lodge into earth when earth was created long long ago. Theyre supernatural and the only motive they have really is furthering the chaos in the world. Theyve been through lots of skin and right now, its a human skin theyve taken. Its very dubious whether the human vessel is seperate from the crystals and panna is always a FUCKLOAD of ambiguity. It is implied theyre still somewhat human with human desire and can go insane without some human things. But at the core, they only care about one and one thing only: chaos on earth. beside that, panna is the silliest most whimsical guy of the show :3 they do things to please the chaos they held but also for their own fun! Absolutely no moral compasses, evil for the Lolz basically. Theyre also the top scientist and interested in knowledge beside their full job as the local menace ^_^

the second guy is… well his name is actually macabre, but my nickname for him is gun guy lol. Why? Well this dude is like what the name suggest, all about guns. In the fantasy world, hes the only one who have the ability to use the iron in his blood to turn it into armor and weaponry, and he use this fact to become a killer machine. He also have one single motive, which is just the destruction of everything he can. He will destroy Everything for no reason. Hes true evil and just want to kill everything basically! He has tore away his skin and turn the veins that coat his skinless body into guns and use it to destroy everything, he especially like turning his arms into machine guns! Its doesnt just limit to gun though, but thats his favourite weapon. Guns doesnt even exist yet before him, so technically hes the inventor of guns. Beside the mechanical parts, his biological body is also a fucking Gun itself. His skin is akin to those sea slugs that can sting you and can shoot out poisonous stings. Uhh to better visualise this, this video about the type of sea slugs im talking about.

erics dad is called ivan and a typical abuserrr. He abused eric and traumatised chris basicallyyyyy. Eric thought he was an amazing dad and a saviour for bringing him back to life but then he had an Actual healthy relationship lol. Chris is preyed on by him and got some issues from the dude. General bad guy whos also selfish and apathetic toward everybody and just care about his goals.

chris? He got a crisis about him being good after going full dictator mode when he returned from fighting macabre. He was paranoid about his loved ones being hurt again due to Complicated plot reasons and thought the “good” thing to do is take control over fucking EVERYTHING and went full dictator. And then he got Angel Disease (yes thats a disease i made up its very sick and Not Good for You ^_^) just not a good time for anyone in general. the thing about paragon heros, is that they are incredibly stubborn and will never do anything against what they thought is good. They would abandon everything for what they think is right, friends family themselves even. The problem is. What they Think is Right might not be Actually Right. Like that one post “humans will do anything they think is moral. You cant convince humans to do things they dont think is moral. You can convince anythings is moral to humans.” And thats the BASICCCC problem with the typical hero archetype. Their own stubborness to fight for what is right may seem admirable and awesome, until the “right” thing to do stop matching up to whats actually right. Chris got this exact issue lol. VERY brief summary of the beginning of part 2/3 of my story ^_^

honorable mention lol. Hes only mentioned in passing and never directly take part in the story, but also a big reason for chris’s fucked up childhood ^_^

[panestates]

list of my favorite life is strange fan works but as I was making this list I realized I don't actually have that many but here they are:

the company I keep by grey_amethyst - sorry if every time you see my posts I'm talking about this but it is so unbelievably good. It's incredibly impressive to see anything this nuanced for several characters that are either in a very dark grey area or not fleshed out at all (how did they manage to create a really solid characterization for KRIS??) but also grey's prose is incredible and everything is so GOOD. tcik follows Nathan from his freshman year and throughout his high school experience, depicting how he became who he is in the first lis game through his relationship with his family, Victoria, and Jefferson. I recommend that you check the trigger warnings at the beginning of each chapter. the only bad thing is this is unfinished and has been on hiatus since 2020 🥲 I have reread this 5(?) times now and every time I finish chapter 7 I check so desperately for that next chapter button and YET

full bleed by raycats - I think this one is pretty well known but I thought I'd mention it anyway!! depicts Victoria and Nathan's relationship before and during lis 1 from the perspective of Victoria - I LOVE love love the ugly jealousy Victoria feels towards Rachel and how awful she is. I had to take a couple breaks reading this because it made me feel so ashamed!!! please read it it's so good I feel like I'm not actually selling it

one of the money, two for the show by pochapal - also about Nathan and Victoria's relationship throughout lis 1 from vic's perspective. I really like how many characters pocha fits into this - Taylor and Courtney and their relationship with vic are explored in a really interesting way. excellent worldbuilding and the same ugly rawness I expect from any Victoria character study :p

degausser by wastelandfrenzy - explores if Nathan had rewind powers like max! just well written and good!! I see a lot of posts about Nathan maybe having powers in lis/cut Nathan superpowers storyline but this one is my favorite. him seeing his sister die and it triggering his powers ? Excellent

death of a blue bird and the people who failed her by bandydear - if you played lis and wanted it to be more like twin peaks.... this is for you in a huge way. such an excellent use of dark humor a la Mark Frost and David Lynch, everybody in this is so weird!! about the town reacting to Rachel Amber's disappearance and how it very slowly became something serious. "She knows the look in Rachel’s eyes. It isn’t the look of someone who can sleep anywhere and feel safe. It’s her at sixteen staring at the little pink plus sign in a gas station bathroom. It’s familiar like the tightness of William’s grip when she told him. Rachel and Chloe are not destined girlfriends or even best friends forever material. She sees that break up coming around the corner with its high beams on. But she expects damage. The wreckage and the two drivers screaming at each other before going separate ways. Not this… woosh." SO GOOD

[singlecoilneckpickup]

@rozecrest this was just easier but im so glad you liked it!

honestly you can't go wrong with any of his albums.

Purgatory is hilariously strong from start to finish and has these tracks which i love (i love the whole album but, in order)

I Swear (To God)

Feathered Indians

Tattoos

Purgatory

Universal Sound

Lady May

Live at Red Barn Radio I & II in absolute entirety tbh but the usual standouts are here

Shake the Frost

Deadman's Curve

Charleston Girl

Rock Salt and Nails

Follow You To Virgie (oof, about his mom, its a hard listen some days but FUCK its good.)

Bottles and Bibles

Country Squire was a mild style change-up, a little more honky-tonk. it's got some great tracks on it but it was also a mild writing departure for him as well, focusing a little more on country tropes and a LOT more tongue in cheek (the song Ever Lovin' Hand is a masturbation joke wrapped in a song about missing the person you love a lot). probably his weakest album? but:

Creeker

House Fire

Peace of Mind

All Your'n

Long Violent History is a kinda cool album, it's all instrumentals, old school holler jams and stuff. kinda hard to get into unless you're from that kinda thing i would assume? just reminds me of when i was a kid at thanksgiving and christmas back when we still spoke to my dad's side, and he and my uncles and one of my aunts would all get together and jam on some old gospel and bluegrass tunes. everybody brought instruments.... ah well. but i digress. you can take me out of the country but ill always be a big tomboy butch who gets a little too excited around jacked up trucks of a specific set of years, or the smell of gas and oil in the morning.

Can I Take My Hounds To Heaven i admittedly completely checked out on because i was deep in covid depression throes so i can't and won't comment because it won't be an accurate representation so.

Rustin' In The Rain I still haven't taken time to fully check out, as im working through a music backlog, but.

In Your Love is an incredible song and go watch the video because it cut me deep as fuck. i know a lot of people still stuck in those mines and i have friends with family members dying today because of coal companies. and im a trans woman from backwoods VA with all my roots in Appalachia from both sides (we had a handful of bootleggers in the family, explains a lot tbh). song hit me hard, in a good way.

anyway! im sorry! thank you for listening to me ramble about an artist i really enjoy! one of these days i should really just start a podcast called "Nobody Asked" and it's just me screaming into a microphone about stuff like this!

like dave matthews! like yeah i get it "ha ha dad rock" but come on!

Live at Radio City with Tim Reynolds is a fucking MONSTER album! and dave is a good guy! or at minimum is actually worthy of supporting because the dude has been doing activist things quietly and loudly for longer than ive been alive! and their music spans so many genres!

Eh Hee

Bartender

Still Water / Don't Drink The Water (back to back! they must be listened to together! please listen to this and Bartender off Live at Radio City)

#41

Two Step

Satellite

Some Devil

Grace Is Gone

and thats not even touching a fraction of this man's catalogue, he's been making music for forty something years

ahain im sorry i just really really love music and GAH theres so many artists from my chilhood and teen years and stuff that get so undeservedly swept under a rug because... i really don't know why. i feel like a lot of artists immediately get written off because of styles or genres or whatever and thats just so unfair and upsets ke geeatly.

that's not directed at you whatsoever rozecrest to be clear lmao sorry it may have come off that way

also anyone who has an interest in bluegrass/gospel go listen to The Seldom Scene's "Old Train" and "Live at the Cellar Door" in their entirety

[charlie-grusin]

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) : Movietalk # 09

When’s the last time the soundtrack ever sold you on a movie? If we’re talking more recently release-wise I’d say it was The Empty Man, though that was mainly based on the final Christopher Young pieces (“Where Sentence Is Served”, “In a Prison Built Out of Lies”) and not the album as a whole (p.s., it’s a good score!), but if we’re talking wholeness, if we’re talking about cleaning the whole plate from top to bottom and running through the runout groove, then I have to talk about The Long Good Friday. This is what happens when you recklessly surf on KPM music tracks, kids! – one moment you’re drifting across the moods and shuffling through the names (groovy and heavy, smooth and dynamic … Mansfield and Gray and Hawkshaw and Bennett) and next thing you know you’re looping Francis Monkman’s murderously high-class synth album that just so happens to come with a little equally excellent tragi-drama crime epic that would please the great Bard of Avon. And it makes for an interesting viewing experience when you finally decide the record isn’t cutting it, you gotta see it for yourself, because when it’s something as grand as LGF you first become entranced by its mystery, by all these threads beginning to grow dark and heavy and sink through the surface like some enfolding web (or an enclosing noose, rather) then long before we ever come to realize just how royally numbered everybody is we’re at an airport, various jets and trucks scattered along the freeway as the drooped-needle nose of a Concorde pierces across the screen, dwarfing every thing beneath it in the frame as the red carpet is tossed, the sinister low-keys make their way down, and the drums roll out the triumphant return of big boss mobman Harold Shand, walking casually along the terminal checking his surroundings for a familiar face or perhaps a recognizable danger but you can’t really judge him for that (it comes with the profession) yet the music never forgets the high he rides in that moment with all that iron coolness (the man comes before his fiefdom like it’s Saturday night yet he never demands to strut, never had a need for a pair of ruby slicks) and with all that sax-and-string combo going on he not only becomes the coolest motherfucker to ever gentrify the streets of working-class London but at the very same moment you, who have surely been scrolling back and forth across the Monkman tracks at this point, are taking this moment in through another frequency buzz like Holy shit, that’s the middle cue from “The Scene is Set”!

It may not seem much, at least not casually so – merely a musico-cinephiliac eccentricity, more like it – but even if you believe yourself far from the “weird” there is the likely possibility the earworm got you good once or will soon get you yet: to the best of my experience it may’ve been about a half or a fourth of us who were hyped about that Daft Punk Tron record Down South, but I could bet you hell’s bottom dollar nearly everybody was jazzed about the O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Armageddon and Twister albums well way before we checked them out on VHS, and even though I feel the album for Twisters is as much a vapid atrocity as the film itself I’m also just as sure this hadn’t stopped anyone from buying a copy or two from the local Wal-Mart entertainment department with the world-renown Mike and Ike and Dots and the five-dollar movie bin. We may stroke different, tango in asymmetrical aisles, but as beings in the purest sense of the word we can and do react the same (shocker, I know) – we love finding these things, seeing these relationships between one seemingly distinctive medium and another follow through and fall perfectly in place, a revelation of context and meaning that’s three-dimensional in comparison to how film music seems incredibly taken for granted nowadays by producers and populaces alike – and isn’t that the draw, the attraction of cinema? this ongoing attempt to bring forth the living through the mechanically-digitally flattened processes of the visual and the audible to make the past the present and the present more “alive”?? It’s good shit, and deep down each and every one of us, right in the nooks of the brain putty, we know it.

But what we should also know is that William Friedkin and Wang Chung ruled this thing like tigers in an apartment complex (gimme that range and gimme that speed and if you don’t do that I’m gonna wreck my way outta there (seeya wouldn’t wanna beeya)). It was easy for them to catch onto the pulse of the eighties straight from ground zero, of course – after all those were Wang Chung’s dance hall days, and Friedkin basically made this turbo-baby in the same breath he made the Laura Branigan “Self Control” video – yet this was not done in total submission to the Eighties scene, no matter how many kabuki dance clubs and glistening skylines you can track on your fingers. And although Ozploitater maestro Brian Trenchard-Smith would veil himself in MTV and Billie Jean and a dash of high octane Miller-esque action to covertly sneak in a damnable ridicule on the inevitable stupidity and fascism of the neon punk youth just a year later, Friedkin wouldn’t play so cloy with their parents oh nonono – if there is an image, one singular static motion to encapsulate this movie perfectly, it’s a hand pinned tightly against the throat and another posed into a fist, an anticipation of terror held at the decisive point of a pendulum. It’s not as meticulous and procedural in the grime and the dirt as was The French Connection but it is still an ugly, monstrous thing, a seagull writhing on the shore of the angels in a deep thick pitch just begging to be lit ablaze – a film that announces God is not in Heaven with Reagan in the White House right out of the gate and not a minute in then proceeds to introduce our two dueling characters proper by showing how they contemplate death (a meditative self-immolation, a bungee-rush from the top of the world to the cold hard waters), and an atmosphere where you could most definitely find someone spinning “Dance Hall Days” at a topless joint some place but not before those New Wave Brits sign your first-class tickets to the Resurrection. Is there any other reason why one of the tracks here is called “Black-Blue-White” besides this, that red-in-neon-red turns into an inescapable abyss that always turns out to be our very own?

Anyone familiar with Friedkin’s two back-to-back classics should know his M.O. by now: here in America we have Drugs and Religion, our two classics in the national hot-button topic genre many of us have tried to settle in the dirt but which many more (the riches and the bitches, mainly) have succeeded in tormenting them even further into our demented collective consciousness, finding new ways and more ways to weaponize and politicize these way-overblown matters towards some financially-satisfactory fiefdom above whatever moneymaking green hell machine lies in the sandbox. From what I could tell Friedkin seemed like a neat guy (RIP) but that’s besides the point – when it came to discussion he didn’t “give a flying fuck into a rolling donut” which side of the soapbox he stood on – for him that’s not what the movies are for. What he was fascinated by the most was the methodicals, the day-by-day rituals that pertain to these subjects as they were and are given in our modern society, whether it be a surprise bar bust (where and how do the fine and lovely denizens of this establishment hide their hash and speedsters, what kind of mini-capsules and gizmos do they conceal them in (what’s Popeye’s idea of a milkshake?)) or a literal rite of exorcism (the passages and the holy water, the inner-diligence and the strength of belief). It’s an approach that would seem completely dry and clinical on paper and you’d be half-right (or, rather, a third-right really); these moments may seem detached and broken from whatever entangled rhetorics may possess them, but they are not completely devoid of the visceral – they’re shot and framed so crystal close, presented as “hands-on” to the subjects in question that one could never shake their immediacy too easily whether it be a long shot or a quick-cut, and because this is Friedkin we’re talking about he always likes to go for something that plier-plucks at the nerves: the wholesale dismantling of the Lincoln from The French Connection gets so deep into the mechanical fabric and interior carpentry dust you’d want to clear your throat and toot on a tissue before they even get around to the goddamn rocker panels, and the surgical ordeal Regan undergoes in The Exorcist always manages to be the most easily unsettling moment out of the entire film due to how cold and vulnerable we feel alongside her on the medical bed (I may be easy on the needles by now but I don’t know if I will ever find solace in the possibility of being put under that). Yet that is also half of his M.O., because it’s oh so easy to elicit a wide guttural response and keep it hanging long enough to form into something soundly reactionary, we mustn’t be left alone with the prospects of international drug routes and demonic possessions anyway – we must instead consider what these things bring onto us and what it could mean by our very actions as the result. We may’ve come to side with Popeye Doyle’s crusade against Frog One’s dope enterprise but at the end of the road we never truly find him a hero nor his vendetta fulfilled, only instead to wonder whether his means of mania could ever be excused at best or justified at their worst; and we may’ve found a greater grasp on faith through Father Karras’s sacrifice, but those thought-strands of potential belief are never fully granted to us – we may’ve felt we’ve become more “enlightened” by this act of selfless love, and yet we stand on the same exact material square as once before (if that was indeed the devil – and he being vanquished in such a brutal battle – what forces then are we really beholden to in that great up above … how then do they perceive of us, we who have made ourselves the roamers of this desolating rock?). Ambiguous yes, but it is ambiguity with a purpose although it is silent, one that Friedkin’s work succeeds the most by aiming us towards some unspoken finality that only we must discover for ourselves – for it is through uncertainty that dares to break the shackles, and then and only then shall the truth set us free.

To Live and Die could only be a way of life if you’re a sadistic voyeur who perceives himself an upper-class Buddhist or you’re a suicidal streetcar named Bluto-prick with a badge, but it’s funny how Friedkin preceded Frankenheimer in the chase a mere thirteen years before Ronin because if there was ever one film to truly deserve the title of French Connection II it’s the one that knows the only clear end in sight for the rat race is demolition derbies and apocalyptic ruin. It’s steadily paced but you wouldn’t know it at first – not without Wang Chung’s bass-drum beats cutting through ethereal airs of suspicion and Friedkin’s touch for the vicious hooking you up on that mean adrena-lean – and although it’s a kind of momentum that could easily warrant the label “coke-fueled” (because it’s from the eighties and everyone and history and nostalgia has shoved to you about it up the nasal I suppose) it’s a descriptor that seems out of place even if we are speaking figuratively; maybe a few lines were shared now and then on set (hardy har har) but let’s not get too carried away from the big picture here because you would’ve thought they’d be a moment in this mid-eighties “coke-fueled” underbelly-city thriller when someone (anyone) would’ve maybe dabbled in a bit of that white horse or cocainum off a bed cabinet or something like I dunno: Willem Dafoe, Debra Feuer, Dean Stockwell… John Turturro!? But the thing is drugs are easy and drugs are cheap – give any character a needle or a baggie or even just mention it near close proximity and no matter what else you do there is bound to be some discoloration in the works, a lousy maneuver in vilification that only seems to work on an American mindset because it has worked far too well enough in reality because the loudest voices in the room have always been Pavlovian panic dogs constantly running on rabid guano fever pitches, and if there’s anything this film wants of us it’s more likely nothing to do with topical key-chain gazing (besides, we were well on our way in losing the war at this point even if this country would want you to believe otherwise – at least Hiroo Onoda was willing to surrender). Nosiree, the only sustenance you’ll find being partaken in this art-scene dump are burgers and booze and Marlboros (nothing more nothing less amirite) and the only utterance you may’ve overheard about drugs may’ve come from some shady-sided lawyer over the same bowl of counter-top peanuts because just like The French Connection it really isn’t about the drugs and it’s as much about that as this was about the cheat money – only a system so megalomaniacal and schizophrenic in preserving a “neutralized” status-quo that it will enact grotesque, paranoidal and ever-brutish measures against the people it claims to serve can believe its decaying carcasses could only be the result of some exterior, outside force of influence.

This system can wax as lyrically as it wants about the “invaders” seeping through the drugs or the “disintegrations” of some moral compass, but it can never in a million years convince us its money problems are our money problems. In a bank and a box Money Talks, and if there were any way to push ahead of the game against the wishes of the grinder-masters no matter how flimsy or how false we may just as well take that goddamn cookie with no guilt and all pride (because being raised in a game like this can’t help but make us all skewered and fucked) and if it just so happened that twenty you tried to use for gas was unbeknownst to you an all-along full-time phony there will always be the lingering wish that bill still counted and you were still twenty-shy rather than the forty, and perhaps you would even go so far as to wonder why the hell it even mattered and what was the point, paper is paper and money is money and the system just made a damn good way to fuck you over for it once again because it wants you living and available but never alive and free so why wouldn’t you take a hobby in the printing press and the arts? Any and either of these things don’t matter to Richard Chance, not a dice; he is merely a government errand boy let slip to wherever the system wheels him to on impulse, a thick-headed cog left unchecked because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? But Richard Chance is a bastard, a thief and a rapist tyrant whose principles are based solely on instant gratification and who is willing to go to extreme and lower depths of depravity to get it, and anything involving counterfeits or even the slaying of his veteran partner are absolutely divorced from what the man truly seeks they may as well be excuses written on rain-sogged notebook paper – he wants to nail Rick Masters and wipe the smug dead off his face because He Is There and he’s a target and if there was a single need Chance and the agency and the whole damn armada ever shared in earnest it’s that they seek Dominance, they seek Control of the beat and the lifeline of the cities so that the running streak of the machine can advance into history unrevoked and irregardless of its true intentions– if you’re okay and commander’s okay we shall keep on bashing heads; kill ‘em if they move, fuck ‘em if they cry.

And yet even in a single death the terror never ends – the system merely retreats, reorganizes, fills back those missing inches before the snake can slither back to momentum, a tail twisting and rattling anew. And it makes sense in a world enforced by double-crossing cannibals with no authority in sight that the one we relate to the most is Ruth. Her final look says it all: we are all trapped and we can hardly wait.

[sporkberries]

Do you have any Huntress/Helena Bertinelli issue or comic run recs? 👉👈 you have infected me with helena brainrot (positive)

So There are a two ways I can answer this question, the way i did previously with just the comics I'd recommend to get started or a full timeline for her- This time ill go with the full timeline. If you just wanna dip your metaphorical toes in the water check out this post, if you want to read her story from start to finish this is the post for you.

FIRST SOME CONTEXT ON HELENA BERTINELLI'S CHARACTER CREATION. Pre Crisis on Infinite Earth's there was a character known as Helena Wayne, she was the daughter of Earth Two's Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle and was The Huntress. She was fairly popular but the whole uhh massive crisis event erased her from continuity. The problem was people still wanted Huntress she was a recognizable name and also just people liked her so Helena Bertinelli was created. Despite sharing a first name and a superhero name Helena B and Helena W are INCREDIBLY different characters in personality and just.. in like every conceivable way. Alrighty now lets get started, Helena Bertinelli makes her first ever appearance in The Huntress(1989) I really like this comic run. It's pretty intense dealing with both CSA as well as SA but i think it does it pretty respectfully and well. Overall I really like this comic, that being said the art is a bit... rough, so i understand not wanting to read it. The Huntress(1989) 'era' of Helena ends with Justice League International Special 2, which btw if anyone has an actual good scan of this please let me know because my scan is ASS Then we got Detective comics #652-653 which has Helena's new costume and a team up with B-Man himself. Now its time for Robin III: Cry Of the Huntress- This is the first Helena and Tim team up!! I love them so much they r so silly so I consider this book required reading, also Helena has an awful mullet it's amazing Helena also has another story with Tim around this time in Benedictions which is a three part story in Dc Showcase 1994 # 5, Robin(1993) #6 , Showcase #6. Azrael is also running around as Batman during this so thats fun and quirky(i like azbat okay)

Next is Dixon's Helena with Huntress(1994) ERMM this is a comic that exists. It has some panels I like but i don't think its required reading it's uhh... Dixon!! and WOagh no wayyy another tim team up its almost like they are siblings bffs 5ever this is crazy Detective Comics #685-686 and Robin #17 also sidenote i like Lynx's 90's design a lot sighh Next is a string of complicated and long story lines. With Batman Contagion, Batman Legacy, Batman Catacylsm, and Batman No Man's Land. Also she gets her best outfit here yayyy :). Now parsing through all this stuff I don't really care that much about Batman: Legacy and I'm not gonna lie to you and say I've read Contagion in it's entirety because I haven't. Just know that Gotham gets hit by a mutated ebola virus and it sucks and is bad for everybody sjdkfbasdkg. Also again cool new Helena outfit top ten epic moments. Before all the No Man's Land stuff there is Birds Of Prey: ManHunt and Nightwing/Huntress. I do not like the latter and have no strong opinion on the former other than it's the start of a long line of Babs treating Helena like shit. ManHunt does have Dinah and Helena interactions though so :) yippeee Almost forgot this but Read Detective Comics #703 its a really cute Helena and Tim story read it right now thank you XOXOOXO I consider Cataclysm and No Man's Land, No Man's Land especially, CRITICAL HELENA READING. HELENA IS SO GOOD IN NML OH MY GOD. Cataclysm is kinda the set up to No Man's Land and also has a cool Helena/Steph teamup in Blunt Trauma. But No Man's Land is where the really juicy stuff is. I'm not really gonna say what specific issues Helena shows up in because you should really read all of or most of No Man's Land as its not only an important Helena story but THE MOST IMPORTANT Gotham story(in modern times anyway). I read the 5 trades but I've heard good things about the Omnibus as well. If you need further help with No Mans Land and how to read it just shoot me an ask or smth. READ NO MAN'S LAND Okay now after NML Huntres Joins the Justice Leauge of America in JLA #16. I have not read all of Helena's JLA stuff so i cant really comment on it I'm a failure sorry... NOW FOR THE RUCKA STUFF GREG RUCKA LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!!! So First check out Batman Chronicles #15, it's not all Helena but it does have a Helena story which is her first meeting with The Question so erm go read that !!! Now time for one of my fave huntress stories, Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood. THIS STORY IS SO FUCKING GOOD. It does retcon Helena's previous backstory which i have mixed opinions on but the new backstory is far from bad and also its just soosososo good i love greg rucka so much go read it right fucking now. Now I have bad news for you gamers. We have the Hush storyline wherein Jim Lee introduced the dreaded Helena Ab Window. Hush is generally pretty good but that outfit is uhhh an outfit!! she starts showing up in Batman #609 Generally speaking I do like this storyline so I would recommend the whole thing. Helena regularly starts appearing as a main character in Birds Of Prey at issue 56. Birds Of Prey IS a mixed bag but most of Helena's appearances from here on are in there so... Be prepared for a healthy dose of sexism though. Outside of BOP check out The Question: Pipelines which is a story in Detective Comics 854-864 written by love of my life Rucka of course. Helena is not in the whole thing but its a good story and her and Renee are a great Duo so I recommend it. While your out it also check out both issues of The Question: Convergence. Also written by Rucka and featuring Helena, its good :). Now I did leave some shit out like Battle for the Cowl but thats because I dont like battle for the cowl and also I don't think Helena is very central in those stories so TA DAA here is my list enjoy anon sorry for any spelling errors Tutorial on how i read comics safely

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 4 – STUCKONY FAVORITES

SERIES: dem bois by vulcan_slash_robot

Pairing: Steve/Bucky/Tony Rating: E Words: 26,210 Tags: Civil War Fix-It, Smut and Humor, Polyamory Negotiations

Summary: A semi-fixit verse that exists somewhere between canon, where everything is terrible, and a truly boring world, where everything is fine. Also, Stuckony. Like 90% MCU compliant through Thor: Ragnarok. After that it's chaos. And Sexcapades.

Reasons why I love it: Do you like humor? Do you like amazing characterization? Do you like feel-good stories wherein the Civil War is not only fixed but redeems everyone? Then you absolutely have to read this series! These fics are all so goddamn amazing, I can't even tell you which one's my favorite. Read them all and feast on the goodness! PS: The first part of this series is the cover art, which is adorable, but I'm not going to rec it separately here. So we're heading right into part 2, but if you check this series out, please look at the cover art as well, it's so cute!

This series consists of:

One More Time, With Feeling

Pairing: Steve/Bucky/Tony Rating: M Words: 22,937 Tags: Tony trying to be a Grown-Up, Fluff, Civil War Fix-It

Summary: The Civil War went slightly differently. Now that everybody's home again, what is Tony supposed to do with this other guy his boyfriend is in love with?

Reasons why I love it: Funny how one little change to canon can send a whole ass avalanche rolling. I really love how the Civil War is handled here, and Tony, oh my god, he's so fucking funny. The dialogue in this is amazing! And Jesus Christ, Steve's reaction at the very end just makes my day every time I read it. I love this fic so much, the perfect overture to an awesome series!

My Three Steves

Pairing: Steve/Bucky/Tony Rating: E Words: 2,069 Tags: PWP, Humor, Laughter During Sex

Summary: Bucky and Tony head to bed together without Steve for the first time. Or do they? In which there is only one Steve, but force of habit is a bitch.

Reasons why I love it: This fic is somehow hilarious as fuck and almost unbearably sweet. Like, I have to suppress the urge to squeal when it goes from funny to hot as hell to marshmallow-sweet in the blink of an eye. Also, we stan Steve the sass king just being completely done with Tony and Bucky's shit. An amazing sequel but it can also stand on its own, so go and read it now!

“I Understood That Reference”

Pairing: Steve/Bucky/Tony Rating: E Words: 1,204 Tags: PWP, Puns, Humor

Summary: Tony has been diligent in teaching his boys about the future. This may have drawbacks.

Reasons why I love it: Game of Thrones puns in the bedroom? Why the hell not? This one is fucking hilarious as well, vulcan has an incredible grasp of humor and a gift for dialogue. This one can also be read as a stand-alone, and it's well worth you time, but seriously, just read the whole series, you won't regret it. It's amazing!

[the-modernmary]

chess, not checkers || a. hotchner x f!reader

Summary: Cross-examining Agent Hotchner should have been a lot more simple than it had been. But when the questioning slips out of your control, you find yourself being profiled right there in the middle of the courtroom. Amazing how one stranger can know you better than anybody you've ever met.

Contains: SMUT! 18+ only, minors DNI. Fingering, (light) choking, semi-public sex, adultery, anger sex, enemies to lovers, edging, lawyer hotch <3

Word Count: 8k+

Comments: This is so heavily inspired by “charcoal grey” because we all know how hot he was in that scene. Thank you to @angelfxllcm for being an absolute godsend as I wrote this and being the most supportive friend ever. (If you haven’t read her work, you absolutely should!)

“Fucking FBI and their selfish ass schedules,” you grumbled as you hurried through the hallway of the courthouse, your intern Robin on on your heels. “Court gets pushed back for a week because Agent Hotchner just had to leave with them on a case instead of working remotely, and then expects us to drop everything to go to court the second he gets back to D.C. As if we don’t have jobs too. As if I don’t have six other cases sitting on my desk that now have to be pushed back because of him.”

 Robin scrambled behind you, nodding along to every word that left your mouth. “Does this happen with the, uh…”

  “BAU,” you supplied.

  “—BAU, right. Do court cases usually get pushed back for them?”

  You shook your head as you checked your watch. A glint caught the corner of your eye. Shit, your ring. You hadn’t expected to go to court, and completely forgot to leave it at home. You pulled it off and slipped it into the outside pocket of your bag, hoping nobody noticed.

“No. Most cases from the BAU never go to court,” you explained. “There’s enough evidence against the people they arrest that it’s almost always a plea.”

  The Bankers Box in Robin’s hands almost slipped as you placed another file precariously on top of it. “Then why is this case going to court?”

  Your step faltered as you processed her question, and you couldn’t hide the disbelief on your face. “You did read the brief for this case, right?” you asked, unsure if you really wanted the answer, except her embarrassed blush and averted gaze gave you enough of one. “Seriously? Okay, well, first of all, because of that, you won’t be sitting at the attorney’s table with us. Instead you’ll be in the public seating. I won’t weaken my case because you decided to be unprepared. If this happens again, you won’t be welcome to join me in court at all, am I clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.” Deciding to take pity on the poor intern, you sighed as you started your explanation. “Our client claims that his arrest was unlawful and therefore none of the evidence they found should be usable. I’m inclined to agree with him, so we’re fighting all of the charges that were made with evidence found after the arrest.”

  “So you don’t think he’s guilty?”

  “I don’t ask that question. I’m not God and I’m not his priest, I don’t need to hear his confession. I just need to get him out of unjust and illegal charges.”

  Robin’s eyebrows furrowed. “So he’s going to walk free? Even after everything he did? How do you sleep at night?”

  Fucking Christ, how did this girl even get into law school? You rolled your eyes, suddenly regretting your decision to take on an intern. “No, he’s not going to walk free. He’s going to get a lesser charge, because everything else was obtained illegally. And I sleep very well, actually, because my job isn’t some episode of Law & Order. Less than 10% of my cases ever go to trial. I’m not here to suddenly convince juries that the evidence is wrong. My job is making sure that everybody is given their constitutional rights, that the police are doing their jobs correctly, and that the State isn’t over-punishing. Any cop knows that, and if you ever come across one that doesn’t, you know that you should look into those cases even further. You have to realize, criminal defense lawyers—”

  “— are the last line of protection against a corrupt system.” You turned to see your assistant, Marcus, making his way towards you, briefcase and your spare blazer that you keep in the office in hand. “I see you’re giving her your famous anti-prosecutor lecture.”

  Marcus helped you slip on your blazer over your satin button up, his hands lingering on your skin for just a little too long to be considered professional, and it made you shiver in anticipation. “God knows she needs it. Thank you, Marcus, for bringing these so quickly. Were you able to get the physical copies of Agent Hotchner’s files?”

  Marcus held up his briefcase. “All right here. Although I have to say, I’m a little lost as to why you need his service records.”

  The three of you turned the corner to enter the courtroom, your heels clicking on the tiled floor. Robin obediently took her seat in the public viewing area while you and Marcus pushed through the swinging door to settle at your table. “I’ve heard stories of Agent Hotchner’s testimonies. He used to be a prosecutor, so he’s not easily tricked, but he is prideful and will defend his work. I’m going to use that to my advantage. It’s like I always say, practicing law means always playing chess, never checkers.”

  Marcus took the seat next to you, making sure to sit close enough that his knee brushed yours the whole time. “You know, I was thinking, this case is complicated,” he whispered, “And we haven’t combed through everything yet… It could take more time than we planned.”

  You smirked, knowing exactly what he was insinuating. “Agreed. I’ll tell Tony I have to stay late at the office tonight.”

  Before Marcus could continue his flirting, you were distracted by the door to the judge’s chamber opening, revealing the back of a man in a black suit. “Thank you again, your honor, for the continuance,” came the deep timbre of the man, and oh. You certainly weren’t expecting that. “A young girl was able to be reunited with her family this week because of it.”

  The man in the doorway turned, and your breath caught in your throat. He was tall and buff and expensive-looking and absolutely gorgeous. His suit was tailored to fit him perfectly, the sleeves of his blazer straining against his biceps. He carried himself with an aura of confidence, like he belonged in the courtroom, and he was making his way directly towards you. Unconsciously, you separated from Marcus, putting as much distance between you and your assistant as possible without raising suspicion.

  The man said something to the prosecution before turning to you, hand outstretched. He said your name as a greeting, and your name had never sounded so good. “I’m Aaron Hotchner.”

  When you stood up to shake his hand, you tried to ignore the way his eyes raked down your body, or the way the two of you held on just a moment too long to be considered proper. It felt as if he was looking right through you, learning all of your secrets as though they were written on your body. No, you knew that look. He was studying you. “Agent Hotchner, it’s a pleasure.”

  “Likewise, Counselor. Please, call me Aaron.”

  You raised your eyebrows in Aaron’s direction, still shaking his hand, and it made your skin burn. You dropped his hand. “I’m just glad we’re able to get this case done and over with. Hopefully with no more delays.”

  His eyebrows quirked upwards in what could only be described as shock. “I see your reputation precedes you,” was his only reply before going to his respective seat, and if he noticed you watching his every move, he made no indication of it. That being said, you definitely felt his gaze on the back of your head as the judge entered the room and the session began.

  As the proceedings dragged on, you and Marcus continued to talk strategy, his hand finding its way to your thigh ever so often. You also continued negotiating with the prosecutor, both of you flashing Post-It notes of potential plea deals that you would be willing to accept, always careful to keep it out of the eyes of the judge and jury. By the time Aaron had been called to the stand, the offer given to you still wasn’t low enough. Fine, if the prosecution wanted to make a fool of themselves, so be it.

  You listened to Aaron’s testimony with the prosecution, completely enraptured. There was something about the way he spoke, so full of authority and confidence, that made the entire room drawn to him. He was incredibly intelligent, that much was clear, and despite the many years since he had actually practiced law, that prosecutor candor hadn’t left him. Staying focused on the case had proven to be more difficult than previously expected. You found yourself staring at his lips, and it didn’t take long for your mind to conjure up some obscene and explicit situations starring the man in front of you. 

  Eventually, his eyes caught yours, and he watched you, his lips — god, those lips — quirked up in a smirk. Aaron watched you expectantly, and in the light of the courtroom, his eyes were almost the color of whiskey, and you wanted nothing more than to drink it all in.

  A sharp “Counselor” broke you out of your trance. In the corner of your eye, you could see Marcus looking at you in concern, but he was the furthest thing from your mind now, especially as Aaron let out an amused huff of air.

  “Counselor, does the prosecution wish to cross-examine the witness?” the judge asked with barely hidden annoyance, making you think that it probably wasn’t the first time she had asked the question.

  You stood up quickly, smoothing down your pencil skirt as you did. “Yes, your honor. Thank you,” you said, trying your best to keep your voice steady as you noticed Aaron’s eyes trailing down your bare legs.

  The cross-examination started normally, and Aaron answered all of your questions with careful precision that only a lawyer could pull off. He seemed to know exactly where you were trying to go with your questions, and easily sidestepped any unflattering implication you were trying to make. Long, biased questions were met with short, clipped answers, not giving you anything to work with. Whatever move you made, Aaron was right there, two steps ahead with you. Never in your life had you met somebody who could follow you so easily or could match your wit without so much breaking a sweat.

  It was exhilarating.

  “Agent Hotchner,” you started, hands clasped behind your back. “Could you please explain to the court how profiles are used when finding and apprehending suspects?”

  Aaron sat up a little taller in the witness box. “Using behavioral research and past case studies, we’re able to construct what we call a profile of the perpetrator, or unsub. Anything they do can give us insights as to who they are — their victims, what weapons they use, even how they dispose of the bodies. Once we have a profile of who we believe is committing these crimes, we have our technical analyst run the parameters through her system. From there, narrowing down our search is easy.”

  You nodded slowly, pretending to mull over what he was saying. “For clarification’s sake, in layman’s terms, you build your profile off of assumed psychology, and not concrete evidence, is that correct?”

  The muscles in Aaron’s jaw flexed, a sure sign he was gritting his teeth. “Behavior analysis is a tool, just like any other—”

  “It’s a yes or no question, Agent,” you interrupted, and oh, he was not happy about that.

  His tongue darted out from between his lips. “The research we use for behavior is—”

  “Yes. Or no.”

  Aaron hesitated, his frustration building up to palpable tension that settled in the courtroom like a thick fog. You weren’t giving him a chance to explain or show off anymore, didn’t allow him to be seen as the smartest person in the room anymore, and that was getting to him.

  “Yes,” he conceded, grimacing as if admitting that was physically painful for him.

  “Thank you,” you replied, and he caught the unspoken that wasn’t so hard now, was it? even if the rest of the room did not. You walked back over to your table, snatching up a piece of paper and holding it in the air. “Your honor, the defense would like to submit Exhibit Seven into evidence.”

  Once the judge gave her express permission, you placed the form in front of Aaron with your left hand, perfectly manicured fingers splayed out in front of his eyes. You almost missed the way his head tilted ever so slightly and his eyes narrowed, like he was staring at a puzzle half complete. “Agent, could you please tell us what’s laying in front of you now.”

  He leaned forward slightly, eyes scanning the paper before meeting back with yours. “This is a part of our official report of the case. Specifically, it has the profile that was used to lead us to the apprehension of Mr. Mckenna.”

  “Does it say on that paper who had the final sign off on the profile before it was circulated?”

  “Yes, that would be me. As Unit Chief, my job is to sign and finalize any reports.”

  “And could you please read the profile, verbatim, as written on that report?”

  Aaron’s face remained neutral, with the exception of his eyebrows scrunching together. Slowly, he had started to piece together your strategy, and he didn’t like it. “The unsub is a white male, between 32 and 40 years old. He’ll most likely be unemployed and driving a van or truck — anything that would let him easily transport his equipment and victims. We believe that he’s also had run-ins with the law before, likely as a juvenile. He’ll come across as friendly, if not a little shy. We believe that this comes from a failed relationship in his past, one where he believes that he was manipulated and wronged, and now he’s going after surrogates for that woman. Killing these women is the only thing that gives him any sort of power. If we can figure out who this past relationship was, it will lead us directly to the killer.”

  You paced back and forth in front of the witness stand, your skirt tightening around your legs with every step you took. “Between 32 and 40 years old, unemployed, and killing surrogates… Except Mr. Mckenna is 22 and works part time as a bartender. How do you justify arresting my client with those inconsistencies?”

  “As I mentioned before,” Aaron started, his voice dangerously low, “A profile is just one tool we use of many. Not every single part of the profile will fit every single time. Which is why we also rely on outside evidence to ensure that we have the best chance at catching the unknown subject as quickly as possible.”

  “Except you had no concrete evidence, which you admit in your own report!” You took two steps closer to him, getting as in his face as possible without risking being held in contempt. With every word that left your mouth, your voice got more and more forceful, and you got more and more under Aaron’s skin.

  “All of it was circumstantial at best. You had a hunch, an inherent bias against my client due to his previous conviction record, and you were frustrated at your own inability to get a good lead. But you can’t arrest somebody on a hunch, or because you’re angry. You had no evidence and the man you arrested didn’t even match the profile that you came up with!”

  Your eyes locked with Aaron, his gaze heavy, and neither of you dared look away first. “Objection!” came from the prosecutor behind you. Exactly what you wanted. “Argumentative and foundation.” You flashed Aaron a predatory grin.

  Two moves to checkmate.

  “Sustained,” said the judge.

  “Withdrawn.” You tapped the witness bench, hoping to convey an air of aloofness and calm. Aaron scowled. “Agent Hotchner, before joining the FBI, you were a prosecutor, is that true?”

  Confusion flashed across his face for the briefest of moments, and it gave you a twisted sense of satisfaction to know that you had the upper hand. You knew the answer to every question you were about to ask, and he knew that. He just couldn’t figure out where you were going with this line of questioning, or what the relevance even was. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  You made a soft hum of approval. “Could you please walk us through your higher education?”

  “I attended George Washington University for both my undergraduate and law degree.”

  “What did you major in for your undergrad?”

  Aaron hesitated. “Political Science.”

  Check. “So all together, you’ve had about seven years in higher education. In that time, how many psychology classes did you take?”

  It was almost sadistic, the way you relished in the slight twitch of his face — the realization that he had been backed into a corner. The silence was deafening as Aaron’s scowl met your smug grin.

  “None,” Aaron said finally.

  “None,” you repeated, performative shock dripping from your words. “Do you have any academic background in psychology or human behavior, then?”

  Aaron’s jaw clenched, and as you made your way closer to the witness stand, you saw his thumb frantically moving back and forth over his fingertips. Clearly, you had struck a nerve. “The FBI has rigorous coursework in order to become a profiler, along with multiple exams and continued training as more research becomes available to us. The profiling classes are no easy feat and are written by experts in the field. Creating profiles has a long and respected history in detective work, and these profilers have caught some of the most prolific serial killers of all time.”

  You placed a hand over your chest in faux modesty. “My apologies, Agent Hotchner, I believe I wasn’t very clear. I’m not calling into question the validity and effectiveness of profiles. I’m calling into question the validity and effectiveness of you as a profiler.”

  You could practically see the cartoon fire spewing out of Aaron’s ears. He was so close to being in your trap, something he had to have known, too, yet he continued to toe dangerously close to that line.

  “A lack of formal education in profiling,” you continued, keeping your voice light, “and the blatant disregard for basic police and legal procedure as shown in this case with my client… I mean, how many other mistakes were made in your past cases? It’s hard to believe that you can read anybody, much less the hardened criminal that you have painted my client to be.”

  Checkmate.

  “Objection!” cried the prosecutor again. “Your Honor, this is —”

  He was cut off by the judge raising her hand. “Sustained. Counselor, I would advise you to tread lightly from here on out.”

  You raised your hands in mock surrender. “Withdrawn.” You turned around to make your way back to your table, ignoring Marcus’s look of complete disbelief. Baiting Aaron had been easy, and now all you had to do was wait.

  The courtroom was uncomfortably silent for one beat… two beats…

  “Not only can I read Mr. Mckenna,” echoed Aaron’s voice, “But I can also read you.”

  Once you got back to your desk, you turned around, hands resting on the cool wood of the table top, but you never sat down. Instead, you leaned forward, and arched your eyebrows in a silent challenge — one he was all too eager to pursue.

  “The red Harvard Law tag on your briefcase is a perfect match to your lipstick, and you wear the same one every time you go to court. Not because you’re superstitious the way most lawyers are, but because it’s your way of maintaining control in the courtroom, something you’re desperate to keep in every aspect of your life, personal and professional. I would guess that this need goes back to late high school, early college. But you’ve been worried about appearances and how you’re perceived for even longer than that.”

  You fought the urge to roll your eyes. So he thought you were Type A? Anybody could have guessed that by your anything. All they would have to do is look at your color coded case files or your daily schedule, planned down to the minute. You had only been trying to sway the jury when you insinuated that he wasn’t a good profiler, but maybe you were actually starting to believe it yourself.

  Except Aaron got a dangerous glint in his eye, causing your stomach to bubble with anxiety. Clearly, he was playing chess, too, and by the looks of it, he believed he was winning. 

  “In fact, you’re so worried about losing control, that despite your busy schedule, you refuse to hire a planner for your upcoming wedding.”

  That got your attention. The objection that you were about to call died on your lips, and all you could do was stare with poorly hidden shock. Next to you, Marcus turned pale as a ghost.

  Aaron, cocky bastard, continued his profile of you, with no clear signs of stopping anytime soon. “You have a tan where your ring usually is, and I know you’ve been wearing it recently as you subconsciously fiddle with where it would be whenever things in court aren’t going your way. Just like you’re doing now. You still have your maiden name, which you plan on giving up when you do get married because not taking his last name would arouse too many questions that you want to avoid. Just another way your concern of appearances is manifested. So you’re engaged.

  “I would say congratulations, but it’s not a happy relationship, not on your side, anyway. Younger female professionals will take their rings off in fear of not being taken seriously, but you’re an established and respected lawyer. You needn't worry about that. So if it’s not about you, it’s about the fiance. You don’t want to be associated with him.”

  You gripped the edge of the table, too angry to form words. Your nails dug into the varnish, and you were sure that your heavy breathing could be heard from across the room. This dick. This absolute, garbage, piece of shit dick. The worst part was how casual he sounded as he aired all of your dirty laundry for everybody to hear.

  “He’s holding you back, in all aspects of life, but mostly intellectually. He doesn’t have a sliver of your capabilities. The two of you are probably high school sweethearts, prom king and queen type, but while you grew up and matured, he never did. He can’t keep up with you. Still acts the same way he did in high school, only now with more access to alcohol and money. Career wise, he doesn’t have much going for him, probably some sports related pipe dream. But you stay with him because you know how to control him and how to use him to your advantage.”

  Aaron’s eyes zeroed in on Marcus, and all of the color drained from your face. The voice in the back of your mind was screaming at you to object, to get the judge involved, anything, before Aaron did any more damage, but you were frozen in your spot. For the first time in your life, you were completely and utterly speechless and spiraling out of control.

  “That need for control is also why you’re sleeping with your assistant. It’s casual for you, but not for him anymore. You should break that off. That’s nothing new for you, though. In fact, I would bet that if we looked back at all of your affairs since your engagement, we’d find a long string of men and women, all of whom are your subordinates or of lower status than you. It’s a win-win situation — they’re more than eager to have a chance with you, and you get to stay in control. Oh, you’ll stop when you actually get married, but you continue to push that date back, as well. So…”

  He leaned back in his chair, clearly feeling good about himself, and God, you could kill him. You could reach over the witness box and wrap your hands around his throat and squeeze until his whiskey colored eyes popped out of his smug, beautiful face.

  Aaron lifted his chin, eyebrows raised in your direction. “Do you believe in my abilities as a profiler now, Counselor?”

  That snapped you back into action. You cleared your throat and unnecessarily smoothed down your skirt in an attempt to regroup your thoughts. “Well, Agent Hotchner, thank you for that little show and tell. It’s clear that you are very passionate about your career. However, just like your profile of my client, you have no evidence for any of your unsubstantiated accusations.”

  It was a pathetic attempt at saving face, and Aaron knew it, but it had to be enough for you. You turned your back towards Aaron so that you could face the judge, who, to her credit, had a perfect poker face the whole time. “Your Honor, I move to strike Agent Hotchner’s outburst” — not an outburst, Aaron was too composed to ever have one of those, but he grimaced at the word all the same — “from the record, as no question stands before the witness at this time.”

  The judge looked at you dubiously, clearly debating her ruling. There shouldn’t have been any reason to worry, you were legally in the right, but there was always the chance that she wouldn’t be on your side. You noticed yourself fiddling with where your engagement ring would usually be, and you cursed yourself under your breath. How could Aaron have possibly known all of that?

  “Sustained,” she said finally, “I direct the jury to disregard the witness’s, uh, example when considering the evidence.”

  You let out a breath of relief. It wasn’t much of a win — everybody still heard what had happened, it was still in the back of their minds, like the ring of a bell echoing — but at least in regards to the case, you had the legal upper hand.

  The judge turned back to you. “Defense, the witness is still yours, if you have any further questions.”

  If you were a little more in your right mind, you would have cut your losses, but between your oath to defend your client to the best of your ability and that stupid self assured grin on Aaron’s face, you knew that you really had no choice.

  Deep breath in… Slow breath out… You’re at a stalemate now.

  “Agent Hotchner,” you said, causing him to perk him up in interest. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting you to continue. “Wouldn’t an ex-lawyer and an FBI agent be familiar with the rules of decorum in a courtroom?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure I understand your question, Counselor.”

  “Let me rephrase, then. Would you say that you have a history of emotional outbursts and rule breaking in your line of work? And I’ll remind you that you are still under oath.”

  Aaron shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “No, I wouldn’t. Integrity is one of our core values, and we take that very seriously.”

  With shaking hands, Marcus handed you one of the files you’d had him print out on Aaron. “If that’s so, can you explain why, since your promotion to Unit Chief in 2005, you and your team have had seven disciplinary hearings, one of which being an internal investigation into the excessive force used by one of your agents, and another being a congressional hearing?”

  A sick sense of satisfaction passed over you when you saw him get visibly shocked, his poker face breaking for the first time that day. If he wanted to go for blood, you could fight back twice as hard. “I’m not at liberty to discuss either of those cases.”

  You shrugged nonchalantly. “Very well, Agent. So between the discrepancies in the profile, your inability to control your temper, and your history of breaking procedure, coupled with the fact that you arrested my client without any warrant by kicking in the door to an innocent civilian’s house, do you really believe that your arrest and the subsequent evidence that came from that arrest was obtained legally? Or do you just not care either way, as long as you’re able to prove that you’re right?”

  Right as he opened his mouth to speak, you turned your back on him and started to walk back to your table. Aaron wasn’t even able to get a peep out before you cut him off with a sharp “Question withdrawn. At this time, the defense rests.”

  “Our arrest was made on the grounds of—” Aaron tried, and you smirked to yourself. He must have been desperate if he was trying that move twice. You whipped around, gaze steeled.

  “I have no further questions, Agent Hotchner,” you repeated, only letting out the slightest hint of amusement. “But thank you for your cooperation with Lady Justice today.”

  Aaron’s eyes met yours, and a weight settled in the pit of your stomach. You should have hated him, but something about him had you completely and utterly entranced by him. Maybe it was the novelty of the case. Maybe it was the matching intellects and the fact that he was the only other person who could give you a challenge.

  Maybe you just liked the way you got to lose control with him.

  As he passed you, his arm brushed yours, and your whole body burned.

  “Very cute, Counselor,” he whispered, voice dripping with condescension. “How long did it take you to come up with that little switch up?”

  “Don’t patronize me,” you snapped. “I was playing chess, you were playing checkers, and that’s why you lost.”

  The rest of the session went on normally, if not a little tense. To your surprise, Aaron hadn’t left immediately after his testimony, and instead took a seat in the section for the public. Good. As soon as courtroom decorum wasn’t a factor, you were sure to give him a piece of your mind.

  Court adjourned for the day, and you couldn’t get out of there fast enough. You told Marcus to continue to push for a better plea option as you grabbed your briefcase and stormed out, pushing through the throngs of people until you could see the back of Aaron’s head.

  You sped up your steps until you were right behind him, and you grabbed his wrist to stop him in his tracks. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

  You pulled Aaron into an empty conference room, hoping to get some privacy before you completely blew your lid. You already had one public humiliation because of him, and you did not need another.

  “What is your problem?” you hissed, locking the door behind you. “You had no right to put my personal life on blast like that.”

  Aaron placed his hands on his hips, swooping the sides of his suit jacket back, and you had to make a very conscious effort to not stare. “You questioned my profiling abilities, and I proved them.”

  “You didn’t prove shit,” you argued, folding your arms across your chest. “Except for the fact that you’re an insufferable bastard.”

  “Are you saying that my profile was off? Because if you didn’t want to be caught committing adultery, then you shouldn’t have made it so obvious.”

  You gritted your teeth and took a step towards him in a futile attempt to come across as intimidating. Even in your heels, he still seemed to be towering over you. You’d have to level the playing field somehow. You gripped his tie and used it to pull him down so that he was closer to eye level with you. “I don’t need your judgment, Aaron.”

  Aaron moved closer to you, and you could feel the heat radiating off his body. His Adam's apple bobbed and it captivated you. “I couldn’t care less about what you do,” he said flippantly. “Matter of fact, I don’t think this fit of anger is even inherently about your little secret coming out. Do you want to know what I think it is?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I think,” he continued, completely ignoring your protest, “You’re angry because as much as you can dish it out, you can’t take it.”

  Your grip on his tie tightened at his words. “Trust me, I can take anything,” you said, voice low and breathy.

  Aaron’s eyes flickered to your lips — those kissable, red stained lips of yours. You hadn’t had to reapply your lipstick once throughout the day, and he idly wondered just exactly what it would take to muss up that perfect, pouty red lip. 

  “I also think that for the first time in a very long time, you didn’t have control, and you liked it.” He bent down a little bit more so that his lips brushed against your ear with every word and you could feel his breath run down your spine. “Aren’t you bored of sleeping with boys who are so far beneath you?”

  You’re not sure who initiated it, but the next thing you knew, your lips crashed against his, the two of you making out like it was the last kiss either of you were ever going to get. His hands felt impossibly everywhere all at once — gripping your hips, tugging at your hair, and even snaking under your work blouse to palm at your breast. His teeth nipped at the fibres of your lips. With every movement of his hands, little gasps escaped you, and you could feel the curve of his lips curling up into a smirk.

  His fingers trailed up the side of your body, past the curve of your neck, and tangled themselves in your hair before yanking it back, exposing the column of your throat. Immediately he attached his lips to your neck, nipping at your pulse point.

  “Aaron,” you whined, trying to regain the breath he stole from your lungs. You practically melted in his arms, going completely weak at the knees, especially as his tongue trailed across the underside of your jaw. You let his tie fall from your grip, instead bringing your hands up to cup his face to pull him in for another kiss. 

  His lips set a bruising pace, and it caused a fire to burn in the pit of your stomach. You had never once been kissed like this, never once felt so all-consumed by a person. Aaron’s cologne surrounded you, making your head spin. Bruises were sure to form from how harshly he was gripping your hips, but you didn’t care. He was addicting, and you wanted more.

  Hotch walked you backwards until you were pressed up against the wall, his thigh shoved in between your legs, forcing your skirt to ride up. The position made his arousal obvious as he pressed against you. The way he held you was possessive, primal even, Unconsciously, you ground down on his thigh, hoping for anything to help relieve the ache between your legs. 

  Unfortunately for you, Aaron caught on to what you were trying to do, and he chuckled against your lips before pulling away just far enough to speak. “Look at you,” he whispered, and the raspiness of his voice only served to turn you on even more. He hooked a finger under your chin, forcing you to look up at him, and his thumb traced your bottom lip, tugging at it ever so slightly. His other hand slowly trailed its way up your thigh, nails scratching at your skin. “Skirt hiked up around your waist, desperate to get off. Your little boyfriends aren’t doing it for you anymore?”

  He pressed his thigh further into you, ripping an involuntary moan from your throat. “Fuck,” you gasped, your hips still moving back and forth against him, not caring how needy it made you seem. “I need… I…”

  “What? Big, bad lawyer doesn’t have any more smart ass comments?” he cooed sarcastically, pushing your skirt up even higher. He replaced his thigh with his hand, and his fingers ghosted over your covered pussy, teasing you, not giving you nearly enough contact. “Fuck, you’re so wet already. Go ahead, needy girl, if you’re that desperate.” Aaron yanked down your panties in one fell swoop, and you blindly kicked them off to the side. “Be a good girl and show me how much you want this.”

  Without any more of a warning, one of his fingers entered you, and you let out a breathy moan that Aaron was sure to have on repeat in his mind for days to come. When the heel of his palm pressed against your clit, your brain completely short circuited. You threw your head back as far as you could despite being pressed against the wall as his name clumsily tumbled from your lips like a prayer.

  “You’re so fucking tight,” he grunted, pressing you further against the wall. “Can’t wait to feel you around my cock.”

  Electricity coursed through your veins as he added a second finger, easily finding that spot in you that made you see stars. You rocked your hips back and forth against his hand, eyes screwed shut in pleasure. His lips trailed from your jawline, down your neck, and to your collarbone. 

  “Look at me,” Aaron ordered, tightening his grip on your chin, and your eyes shot right back open. Instead of the whiskey colored irises you had gotten used to, Aaron’s pupils were so blown that they made his eyes completely black. “I want to see you lose control all over me. Gonna make sure you come harder for me than you have for any of your boy toys.”

  That wouldn’t be very difficult. Nobody had ever made you feel the way you did then, Aaron’s fingers buried deep in your cunt and lips exploring every inch of skin he could access. No part of this was for his pleasure — from the curl of his fingers to the slow circles on your clit, it was all expertly calculated to bring you to the edge with as much intensity as possible, and it was all devastatingly effective.

  “I’m so close,” you whimpered, and if it weren’t for the wall behind you, you would have completely lost your balance. “More, fuck, please.”

  “More?” he mumbled against the column of your throat. “Use your words, sweetheart.”

  Coherent sentences were not an option for you at the moment, not when you were so deliciously overwhelmed with pleasure and with Aaron. Besides, how could you tell him that you wanted him to completely and utterly ruin you? That you wanted him to bend you over the conference table and pound into you until you could barely speak. You wanted Aaron to mark you and send you home to your fiance with reminders of every little thing he did to you for the days to come. You wanted raw and untamed passion. You wanted to be consumed, for him to settle in your lungs like smoke, and haunt your dreams for the rest of your life. 

  You didn’t want nice and calculated the way every other man you’d been with had acted — you wanted Aaron Hotchner to take control.

  You couldn't say any of that, so instead, you grabbed his wrist, the one that was holding your chin in place and, without breaking eye contact with him, you guided his hand down until it rested on your throat. “More,” you choked out, giving him an animalistic grin.

  That was all it took. Using his grip on your neck, he pulled you in for another kiss, messy and desperate and swallowing all of your incoherent moans as his fingers moved harder, faster.

  You clung to him like a lifeline as you felt your whole body tense up, your orgasm fast approaching. You were so fucking close and he felt so fucking good and, God, if this is what losing control felt like, then you and Aaron could do this forever and —

  His fingers were gone from you, and you clenched around nothing. You cried out in protest, which only seemed to amuse him.

  “Oh? Prom queen isn’t used to not getting what she wants?” Keeping his hand on your throat and you pinned against the wall, he made slow, teasing work of his belt buckle.

  Your chest rose and fell in a desperate attempt to catch your breath. “What happened to watching me come undone all over you?” you shot, trying to even out your voice as much as possible. It didn’t work very well. “Did you lose your nerve?”

   A dark, humorless chuckle escaped his lips. “Don’t worry, Princess, that’s still the plan. I just never said where. I want to make sure you’re nice and wet and ready for me to turn you into a moaning mess on my cock.”

  In an attempt to regain some control of the situation, you rolled your eyes. “Yeah? And how do you expect to do that?”

  He smirked and released your throat. Wordlessly, he grabbed your wrist, and guided your hand down your body, further and further until you reached your throbbing pussy. He used his hands to press your fingers to your clit, and you whimpered softly. God, you were dripping, and the extra stimulation didn’t help your shaking legs.

  “By making you so needy and whiny that by the end of this, you're begging for me,” he hissed, lips brushing the shell of your ear with every word. He moved your fingers so that you were rubbing small, slow circles around your clit, although it wasn’t nearly enough to give any real relief. “Begging for me to come and fuck you over and over and over again. Because you know that your pathetic fiance and your string of affairs have never made you feel like this before.”

  Aaron yanked your hand away from your clit and you could sob. You wanted to cum so badly that you could barely put it into words. Still holding your wrist, Aaron brought your hand up to his face. He took a brief moment to admire the way your fingers glistened, covered in your arousal, before bringing them to his lips and sucking.

  Eyes wide, you made a choked noise as you committed the view of Aaron to memory. “Please, Aaron, fuck, I need you,” you whined, the start of a long string of incoherent begging. You needed him then and there, damn the consequences.

  He pulled your fingers out of his mouth slowly, and you moaned at the obscene wet noise it made. “So desperate,” he murmured as he began to unbutton his slacks. “All for me. All because I edged you once.”

  Aaron pulled down his pants just enough to pull out his dick, and you licked your lips involuntarily when you saw it, big and thick and leaking precum. Clearly, it gave Aaron a bit of an ego boost, because as he ran the head up and down your sensitive folds, he reminded you, “You did say you could take anything, Princess.”

  Your breathing came out shaking as you shivered, waiting for him to do something — anything. You were so empty and you needed him so badly. If you didn’t get his dick in you soon, you were pretty sure you would lose your mind completely.

  “Fuck me, Aaron,” you moaned, arching your back to press into him more.

  He pressed a chaste kiss to your lips in an almost intimate gesture. “Patience is a virtue,” he chastised.

  In your haze of arousal, you barely noticed him grabbing your briefcase and digging through the small pocket in the front. You especially didn’t notice his pause when his finger touched something small, round, and metal in the bottom of the bag. The only thing you cared about was him coming back to you, holding up a condom packet with a smirk.

  “I knew I’d find one somewhere in your briefcase.” You let the comment slide, the excitement at the prospect of sex with Aaron Hotchner outweighing any jackass comment he could make. Aaron made quick work of putting on the condom. The second he was done, one of his hands ran up your thigh, getting a good grip on it before pulling it up and around his waist.

  “Do you feel how wet you are for me? How willing you were to give up control? All for me? That—” Lips pressed to your ear, he pushed his cock into you, bottoming out with one thrust. You threw your head back in pleasure. “—Is playing chess, sweetheart.”

  Aaron dropped his forehead to the crook of your neck as he began pounding into you at a desperate pace. He had held off on his own pleasure for long enough, and now he was chasing his orgasm with a ruthless determination. One hand stayed gripping your thigh, the other one braced against the wall next to your head. Aaron nipped at your neck in between moans of praise for you.

  “I — oh, fuck — knew it,” he groaned, digging his fingers deeper into your thigh. “You wanted somebody to take control. Somebody who knows how to please you.”

  You wrapped your arms around his neck and tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling him impossibly closer to you. You were an incoherent mess at this point, his name tumbling from your lips like it was the only thing you knew how to say. At that moment, it probably was. 

  “Finally, that bratty mouth of yours is good for something. You sound so pretty, moaning out my name. Say it again.” A particularly deep thrust caused you to tug at his hair. “Louder.”

  Never before had you met somebody like Aaron Hotchner, and you weren’t sure if you ever would again, so you screwed your eyes shut and let yourself get lost in the absolute pleasure he was providing. You memorized everything you could — the way the calluses on his hands felt against your skin, the way he moaned out your name, how deliciously full you felt, and how for the first time in your life you felt truly seen — so that you could suspend the moment in amber to preserve in the back of your mind.

  “Please,” you begged, scratching his scalp lightly with your nails. “I’m so close. Fuck, Aaron, you feel so good, please.”

  Aaron tore his lips from your throat, choosing instead to press his forehead against yours. His lips brushed yours with every word he spoke, so close that you were practically kissing him. “That’s it, princess,” he murmured. “Be a good girl. Be a good girl and come. All over my dick.”

  When you came, it was with a cry of his name as your whole body shuddered. You clung to him as he continued to fuck you. His thrusts began to stutter, and he took the opportunity to capture your lips in one last, scorching kiss, and you were all too happy to oblige.

  You think he moaned something as he came, but you couldn’t hear it over the sounds of skin slapping against skin. He fucked you through his orgasm, making sure that you felt every single inch of him. As if you could ever forget it. 

  The two of you stayed where you were for a few moments, relishing in the feeling of being full a little longer. Your walls fluttered around Aaron, which caused him to muffle his whimpers into your throat.

  “Aaron…” you whispered, not wanting to disturb the moment. “That was so—”

  “I know.”

  “We shouldn’t have done it.”

  “I know.” He pulled back just enough to leave a lingering kiss on your lips, and your whole body burned. “But I don’t regret it. Do you?”

  You shook your head. “Not at all.” The confession lingered in the hair for a tense second because both of you seemed to remember where you were.

  Aaron slowly pulled out of you, an act that looked almost painful for him when you let out an involuntary moan at the feeling. He could have spent all day in you, if given the chance.

  The two of you adjusted yourselves in silence, both of you hoping to be able to leave the room with some semblance of professionalism. At the very least, the goal was to not look like you had just had sex in a courthouse conference room. Shame and embarrassment flooded you — what had you been thinking?

  Once you felt that you were presentable enough, you grabbed your briefcase and tried to ignore Aaron burning a hole in the back of your head with his gaze.

  “Well, Aaron, this was fun.” You cleared your throat. “I’m sure we’ll see each other around at some point.”

  You were two steps away from the door when you heard his smug, courthouse voice come back in full swing.

  “Forgetting something?”

  You turned around in a huff, ready to go right back to arguing with him, but what you saw made your whole body heat up in embarrassment. There was Aaron with a self-satisfied grin and dangling off his finger was your panties.

  “These are cute,” he mused. “It’s a shame I didn’t get to fully appreciate them.”

  You rushed over there, fully prepared to snatch them out of his hand. “And you never will,” you shot, but even as you said it, you didn’t make much of an effort to take them out of his hands. You just stared at him and his swollen lips and mussed hair, all your doing.

  Ever the gentleman, Aaron started to hand your underwear back to you, but instead of taking it back like you knew you should have done, you covered his hand with yours, closing it in a fist around your panties.

  “Who says you can’t?” you whispered, guiding his pantie-filled hand down to his pockets. “This way… You can keep it as collateral. To make sure I’ll come and see you again.”

  His breath hitched in his throat as you guided him to put your panties into his suit pocket, and you were glad to be the one surprising him this time.

  “I don’t care about your fiance,” Aaron started, and you braced yourself for the worse. “But I’m not interested in being the ‘other man’ to your affairs with your assistants, too.”

  “Consider it ended,” you promised, not caring how desperate or easy it made you look. You wanted to keep Aaron around for a long, long time.

  Just until the wedding, you corrected yourself.

  You slung your briefcase over your shoulder, wincing as it dug into a bruise that Aaron had left. It would be there for a while — you’d have to find a way to hide it from Tony until it faded. The thought made you stupidly giddy. “I’ll see you around, Aaron.”

  He nodded in goodbye, and you slipped out of the conference room on shaking legs. As soon as the door closed behind you, you reached into your bag, and reluctantly slipped on your engagement ring.

[scribblemetae]

Deepest Indulgence | Part One | TaehyungxReader

Description/Summary: The world was a mess. Gangs, violence and rates of poverty were at an all time high since the corporations took over everything. You built your sex house to be a safe place and a sanctuary for the vulnerable, promising to protect. What happened when a famous corpo walked through the door, begging for a job at Deepest Indulgence, the one sex house that wasn’t meant for men like him? 

Paring: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Cyber Punk, Dystopian Future, Sex Worker

Word Count: 8.4k

Warnings: Prostitution, The world is a mess, Switch Taehyung, Mommy Kink, Phone Sex, Confident reader, Sex House, Sex Work, Wet sounds, Flirty Taehyung, Shy Taehyung, honestly Tae takes us through a ride of feelings and emotions I'm not gonna lie. Hes hot as fuck. BS&T Tae, Smut, mentions of oral.

AN: This was edited by the incredible @craztextae If you havent read any of her works please go and read Madam Cupcake Series and Saturday Mornings

My Banner was created by Kris ( @lonelyhobi​ ) Who is another incredible writer go check out all of her works especially the Step-bro Masterlist and Punishment

You’d spent so much time and energy making this club exactly what you wanted it to be.

Not a day went by where you didn’t make sure everything was working smoothly, safe for everybody. As you walked down the red dimly lit hallway, noises of pleasure filling your ears, making a wide smile forming across your face. You reminded yourself of how proud of this you should be. It had taken you eight years to get to this point, eight long long years to now have people from all around the world coming to your establishment because it had become so revered amongst people of all genders and sexualities. 

As you got to the end of the hallway, you opened the doors to a balcony that looked out towards masses of buildings, all reaching high into the sky. There was barely any sky left anymore. All you could see was neon signs of all different colours, lighting up the world in various shades of pigment. As you looked down you contemplated the busy streets, the city always seemed more alive during the night than the day; all the windows glowing with a light-yellow hue, well, all the ones that could afford electricity that was.

So much about the city has changed since you first bought this building at the age of eighteen. You used to look out from here, your head full of dreams of what was to come, feeling that although things were broken, they could also be fixed. When you used to stand in this very spot you could still see across the sky. It was much clearer and your view was never intercepted by the glass buildings and advertising blimps that glided across the sky today, but those days have long passed. 

The industry smogged up the air so harshly you could barely tell night from day anymore. The majority of people wore masks to protect them from the fumes. Most businesses couldn’t care less about its people anymore. They didn’t care about the environment or the air that you were all breathing in every day, but you supposed that's why you were so respected. Your business didn’t have much of an effect on the environment but certainly had an effect on clients, and you made sure they were always safe and satisfied. You worked within the business of pleasure. You had to make sure your clients were pleased. It was one of the most important aspects of your job.

As technology grew, jobs decreased and standards of living started to drop. More and more, the innocent suffered while the privileged only got richer. You were an exception to this rule, a rarity that you hoped one day would become a normality. As the situation worsened, selling your body on the street, black market trade deals and street gangs became the most normal thing in the world. People didn’t bat an eyelid at things people from another world would probably grimace at, but alas: this was your world. This was the norm for you and everybody else around you. 

Your mother swore that there was a time when the world wasn't like this. A time that her mother used to tell her about. To people like you, that could be nothing more than a borrowed memory. A long forgotten tale that would forever be told to young children, becoming a dream. You never wasted your time on dreams, never hoping that one day things would go back to the beautiful stories you were told. No, you replaced the dreams with ambition. You would never see that world and you’d be stupid to try, but that didnt mean you couldn’t try and make this world - the real world - a better one for everybody. 

Your thoughts were gently interrupted by a soft voice that came from behind you.

“Miss, one of the Robots on Floor 1 seems to be having slight issues.”

You turned as you looked towards the speaker.

“What seems to be the issue, Kris?”

Kris was a wonderful woman who had worked for you for the past seven years as a part of your support team. She was in charge of cleaning up all your more... mechanical workers on floor one. Truth of the matter was that when you opened this business, your plan had been to keep people as safe as possible, and to try your hardest to offer a service that clients would never grow tired of while making sure that workers weren't forced to do anything they didn't want to like they had been for many years. The best way of ensuring this was by employing robots who would step in when people couldn’t. 

You hated calling them that. The word ‘robot’ made them sound so… cold, so fake, when in reality that just wasn't the case. 

Mechanical beings were just like anybody else. You couldn’t tell them apart from the average person on a base level. They could see and hear, touch and taste and, contrary to popular belief, they could also feel. Feel love, feel hate, feel the same way any ‘real’ human can. They had emotions just like everybody else did. 

Feelings and emotions were proven hundreds of years ago to just be chemicals in the brain, just like fuel in a machine, so what made their chemicals any less than everybody else's?

You were a strong believer in The Rights For Robots Initiative and you always protected your mechanical works as strongly as you would protect human workers. ‘Robots’ were still your safer option, simply because they were truthful. Honesty was a widely known trait of theirs, if their owner asked them for the truth, they were programmed to give it. They would also alway tell you exactly how they felt - if they felt unsafe, or unhappy in a situation, they would say it. Not to mention, they couldn't contract any sexual diseases, meaning that worry disappeared.

It was four years ago that you started taking on more humans than mechanical to work at your club. You never knew if you could trust them, and to put it quite frankly, they never held the sex appeal you were looking for. A ‘robot’ could analyse the way you were feeling; they were sensual and calculated in everything they did, but at the end of the day you were here to help, and the humans were struggling greater due to their nature.

Your club was never just about sex - it was about everything that came with it too. It was about love, it was about curing loneliness. It was about giving people whatever fantasy they wanted. Life in this world was poor and cruel and you took it upon yourself to give people a form of escape, and this was the best escape - a chance for people to express and act out their deepest indulgences. That was the reason behind its name: ‘Deepest Indulgences.’ When you were nineteen you thought it was a brilliant name for a sex club, but now you were older, you laughed. To you it was funny, just a random name you picked because you couldn't think of anything better but to others the name signified a home of escapism, so you could never dream of changing it.

“Which one seems to be having issues, Kris?”

“Hoseok, Miss.”

“He seems to have been having quite a few issues lately, does he not?”

Kris had always been a very caring person. She was fond of everybody she worked with, and especially fond of Hoseok; you encouraged a relationship between the two of them but she had always been too shy to act upon her feelings. She was such a sweet girl. There was a hint of sadness in her eyes as she remembered that this was the third time that month Hoseok had seemed to have issues with his system.

You smiled at her and grabbed one of her hands.

“It’ll be alright, Kris. We’ll get him fixed up in no time. Let's get him sorted out.”

Everybody who worked for you did so for different reasons, but most of them were just people who had nowhere left to go. Your mother died when you were fourteen and you became friends with your partner in crime Tanvi. She was living in the same apartment building as you alone, without parents and taught you exactly how to get by now that you were in the same position. As you grew up, you both became extremely close to the boy who lived in the hotel room next door, Namjoon, and he later became the first bodyguard for Deepest Indulgence. All three of you promised each other that, no matter what happened, you'd be together even as you grew old. You didn't know what you would have done if that promise hadn’t come true. You knew without a shadow of a doubt that you wouldn't be alive today without them, let alone in the position you were in. 

You stayed in your state of pondering as you walked down the halls and to an elevator with Kris by your side. You exited out to the entrance hall, walking towards the front desk. You could see tonight was shaping up to be a busy one; different people of all kinds sat on chairs and couches, each waiting to be the next person to get their rocks off and release their stress. When you looked around at all the faces, some new, some the familiar faces of repeat customers, they were all chatting away like they were friends who were seeing each other again. Kind of like they were part of the club, and as you were looking around you couldn’t quite help but bring yourself out of your contemplation and back to reality.

You looked at the entrance hall in its entirety. It was big and beautiful, the first area of the building you got fixed up when you started. It had dark-wooden flooring and grey walls adorned with artistic depictions of erotica all around. A yellow pattern in the flooring that came in through the door towards the desk in the corner, and the room was topped off with the most comfortable yellow couches around the walls, waiting for the many people that came in throughout the nights at Deepest Indulgence.

"Hey Jin, are you able to get somebody out to look at Hoseok's model again? We're having issues. Kris will give you the details on it all."

Jin was your receptionist. He started working for you pretty much as soon as you opened. You  had needed some help and needed it quickly, and he was the first person to walk through the doors. At the time, you took him on due to convenience, but as the business progressed and became harder, Jin proved he was fantastic at the job, keeping things simple for clients and making sure everybody was safe and following the guidelines. You got extremely lucky with him.

"No problem, Miss. Just so you know, there's somebody here enquiring about work."

“We have no jobs going at the moment, Jin, you know that.” You looked towards him and he raised his eyebrows immediately and huffed at you. You couldn’t help but let out a chuckle as he did so - he used to be so shy around you.

“I’m aware of that, Miss, but he… Well, he was very persistent.” 

You gave him a very confused look as you scanned the entrance hall for whoever Jin was talking about. It wasn’t that often people came here begging for a job. No matter how in demand the sex industry was, it was still looked down upon by people who didn’t rely on it to survive, and nobody here looked like they were the kind of desperate that people usually were while begging for a job. “It's the blonde gentleman in the corner.”

He tilted his head in the direction of a man, sitting alone silently, smiling to himself. He looked extremely well put together. An expensive looking patterned suit paired with a silk scarf wrapped around his neck, and a single earring dangled from his ear that touched his shoulder.

He was striking, a beauty that you would love to be able to advertise as belonging to Deepest Indulgence, but you kept true to a motto you were taught when you were younger: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Something about this man didn’t seem right to you. He was the kind of man that came in and demanded your best man or woman, prepared to pay high prices for what he wanted. Not the kind that would come in asking for a job.

“Doesn’t seem the type, does he, Miss?” Jin loomed over your shoulder as you stared over to the man, deep in thought. “But he was very polite and insisted on waiting for the ‘person in charge.’” Jin moved away very quickly as a customer came over to the desk to check-in and be sorted, mouthing over to you so that nobody but yourself and maybe the one customer in front of him could hear, “Said his name was Taehyung.”

Taehyung is lucky you didn’t have many jobs for the night. Mostly you’d be walking around the building, listening out for any issues that may be occurring and greeting all your customers, making sure they were happy and comfortable. If you’d had anything serious to do, you would have just told Jin to get rid of him. 

As you walked over to Taehyung, he noticed you straight away, and waited for you with an outstretched hand ready to greet you with a handshake. Once you reached him, you accepted his hand. You'd barely started shaking it before he was greeting you loudly.

"Hello. Are you the famous Miss A?"

His smile stretched across his face ear to ear. It was a boxy smile that took over his eyes while his teeth gleamed brightly.

Wealthy.

You couldn’t help but size him up as he was shaking your hand. Not a speck of dirt on him. Beautiful skin. Bright eyes accompanied by a bright personality. He definitely wasn't right for this place.

"I am. Are you Taehyung?"

"I am, Miss. I was wondering if I-"

"-You're here regarding work." You didn't see the need in letting him talk. Usually the passionate ones would talk for such a long time and it was always hard letting them down afterwards. At one point, you had taken anybody who needed the money, but as time went on you had to look after the people you already had. The more people who joined, the harder that became. You also had to accommodate your workers, as most of the people who worked here also lived here. You tried to get them to move on, providing an advisor that was open to all your staff to help make sure they managed to find a way to greater things if that was what they hoped to do. 

You couldn’t just take on anybody who walked in anymore. You had to be smart. You had to seek out the most desperate, and the ones who would be good at the job. "I’m afraid we don't have any jobs available. All my rooms are fully booked."

"Oh, I wouldn't need accommodation."

Him not needing accommodation implied that he already had a house, and that in turn implied he had an income. His voice was deep and loud as he spoke. You couldn’t help but look around, realising people were starting to stare. You had to shut him down and shut him down quickly. The last thing you wanted to do was make a scene.

"Sir, if you don't need the job, I can't in good-conscience just take you on for no reason."

He looked confused as you replied. You were smiling as politely as you could. He must have known a little bit about this place; you were famous for taking on those in need. Surely he knew you wouldn’t just give the job to somebody who didn't need it? 

"Please."

There was something about the way the word left Taehyung’s mouth. His personality shifted in front of your face. He went from happy-go-lucky to desperate - a desperation that you recognised in most of your staff, and for some reason, that made you utter the next words.

"Are we okay to talk in my office please, Sir?" He nodded his head up and down rather quickly. You turned on your heel, knowing he would follow you toward the elevator. You could see his demeanor change back slightly with the return of his smile as you both stepped inside the elevator. "Floor 10."

You looked to Taehyung and nodded your head towardthe elevator buttons as he was standing closer to them. He pressed the button to the tenth of twenty floors. You wanted your office in the middle of the building so that if anything happened to anybody, you'd be as close as possible to get there quickly and make sure things were okay.

Luckily you had a much better selection period for clients, taking all details, making sure they'd had the correct tests and making sure they wouldn't harm or injure anybody while they were in the building so things don't tend to go wrong as often anymore but it didn’t used to always be this way. 

"It looks bigger on the outside." You looked towards him as he spoke with an eyebrow raised. "The building. It looks taller than twenty floors."

You understood what he was saying. Most buildings in the area were at least fifty floors tall and this one was too, but sadly you didn't have the money to do up all the other floors yet, so you decided to keep those ones closed up. You were working toward opening them. More floors meant more rooms, and that meant more beds for people in need. No matter how many sex houses there were out there, there would always be more people out working on the streets, so the more beds you had, the better.

"It is."

You didn't feel the need to explain it any further. You weren't a huge fan of small talk and that was why you'd usually make Jin send any appointments up to you rather than riding the elevator with them. You were strong and assertive, you’d always been sure of that. You’d come a long way in life by being the way you were, but there was something about small talk, meaningless conversation that wasn’t being led by you, that always made you feel so … uncomfortable.

The elevator doors opened on your floor. Neon lights illuminated your office, a purple hue casting over the room as you walked towards your desk and sat in the chair behind it. You gestured for Taehyung to sit in the other chair opposite you.

“Lights.” As you spoke the neon lights were turned off and the softer lights above your desk turned on, making it a lot easier to see. The walls and floor were the same as your entrance hall; the only difference was the paintings on the walls weren’t erotica. There were letters and cards of thanks dotted around the whole place. All your furniture was purple as opposed to yellow and there were plants everywhere. You loved plants. You didn’t see many out on the streets anymore. Trees were scarce, and almost all plants in the world were now indoors. You loved the natural colours that they would bring into the room. Sometimes, it was nice to look at the natural green over the neon that washed over everything. 

“So, Taehyung, why are you looking for a job here? You’re clearly not somebody who's in need of this type of job or lifestyle.”

You knew your tone came out a little more judgemental than intended, but you couldn’t help it. He really had you on your toes teetering on edge.

“And what makes you think I don't need the job?”

You furrowed your brows. He didn’t think his wealth was noticeable, did he? It wasn’t everyday you saw people in here dressed the way he was. Even your more distinguished customers couldn’t afford the clothes he was wearing.

“Do I really need to explain?” You didn’t want to, but you couldn’t help the chuckle that left you.

“Okay, you want the truth?” Taehyung’s smile faded and his face became slightly more serious, and it impressed you. He went from casual smiles to a rather sultry one in seconds. “I like sex, I like having sex, and I think it would make a good job.”

Your laugh came out slightly louder this time. You’d seen his type before. Just another sex pest looking to get his rocks off in your establishment. He looked happy with his answer, as if what he said was supposed to impress you, but when he saw you shaking your head as you answered, the smugness slowly left his features.

“If I employed everybody that came here who enjoyed sex, you wouldn’t be able to move in this building. That's not what Deepest Indulgence is here for.”

“What, it’s not for sex?”

You were shocked by his attitude. It wasn’t everyday somebody would speak to you this way, not since you’d become well known within your field of work. Anybody in it knew what you stood for, they knew deepest indulgence was more that the average sex house. He’d clearly didn't know what he was getting into.

“It’s more than sex. We’re about art. We stand for love and incredible service, sex is merely the release to the service we provide.”

“Good thing I'm an artist then, Miss A.”

You couldn’t explain why, but his answer made you feel slightly hot. He said it so matter-of-factly that there was no room for doubt. If he was getting you this hot with his words, then he would certainly get your clients going in ways that would be good for business. That didn’t mean you were going to say yes immediately, but maybe you needed to press him a little bit further.

“Fine.” You dug around your desk, looking for your interview pad that had all the questions you’d need to ask somebody before they started working for you on it. “I'll humour you. I’m going to ask you a set of questions and you have to answer honestly.”

“Thank you.” He made himself more comfortable in his chair as a smirk grew on his lips. You wanted to wipe it off his face, but honestly, you couldn’t find the words to do so. This was the first time you'd had an interview with somebody brought upon you without any prep work since the business became more established and he wasn’t somebody you could read easily. You hadn’t had experience of dealing with people like himself, so you were just going to have to wing it.

“Okay. Give me your full name, your age, your pronouns and sexual orientation.”

“Kim Taehyung, 25, he/him and bisexual, I guess.”

“You guess? I need proper answers please, Taehyung.”

You noted down Taehyung’s answers on your pad. You didn’t pay him much attention as you scribbled away.

“I mean, I’d rather pleasure a pussy, but that doesn’t mean I’m adverse to a hot man’s dick in my ass.”

As you glanced his way, still scribbling on the page, you could tell he thought his words were going to get you flustered. It was amazing how much he’d changed from the man in the entrance hall to this man in your office. He was previously nice and giddy, but now it was like he was trying to fuck you with his eyes. Had he forgotten that you worked in the sex industry? You’d heard people screaming filthier things through the doors than what he was giving you right now.

“Taehyung, can I be straight with you for two seconds?” He gave you a nod and you continued. “I brought you up here when you asked for the job because it seemed like, just for a second, you needed one. What's happened since then that's changed your attitude so much?”

You were never one to mince your words with anybody, and you weren’t about to start now with him. You couldn’t read Taehyung and it made you very unsure. It made you feel a need to understand him.

“I guess talking about sex with a woman such as yourself changed my mood a little bit.” He bit his lip as he answered you but you weren’t having any of it.

“Well, here I expect my staff to be able to control themselves like adults.” Fuck, but he would be great for business! His words were fantastic; he knew just what to say. A man with an answer for everything might be a dick, but was also fantastic for the line of work you were in. 

“And also, you must know I don't just take anybody on here. I take those in need. This is usually a last resort for most people, so why are you here?” 

The smirk left his face as he swallowed

“I can’t get a job anywhere else that I want. I don’t want anything to do with the corporations out there, and quite frankly, I don’t think I suit being a business type.”

Finally, a real answer, and you could somewhat relate. If you didn’t fit into the serious business world you didn’t fit in anywhere. People never complained about it. It was the status quo, it's just what you did. It was hard to get into the business world. Becoming part of a corporation was the only thing that could get you out of the slums in the world so you rarely ever hear people complain about it but every now and then came a rich privileged kid that didn’t like the corpo life they had been thrown into. You hate to ever say you relate to any kind of rich kid but in this case you got it. You understood but the last thing you wanted to do was to get emotional over it, so you decided to continue with your questions.

“I don't need to ask any questions about the type of accommodation you’ll need as you said you're already living somewhere.” You looked at him when he didn’t reply straight away. He appeared shocked that you’d just continued with your questioning. “Taehyung?”

“Yeah, I live in the east quarter.” He shook his head, and that same, returning smug face came back once more. 

The east quarter. That was one of the richest areas in the city. He really would have been perfect in the corporations. They didn’t need to be clever or even wise. They just needed to have good enough status to keep themselves respected.

“Okay. So, when it comes to sex, we need to know all your dos and don’ts. What are some of your dos? What do you enjoy sexually?”

Gone was the smug Taehyung who joined you when you came to your office, replaced with a now shy boy in front of you. He was giving you whiplash with all the personalities he was showing you. You’d only been in his presence for about half an hour, and you already felt like you’d seen every side of him you could. He had a duality that not many people could emulate.

“Taehyung, now's not the time to go shy, okay? You’re going to be talking about sex here and I need your answers.”

He nodded his head and took a deep breath. The shy side of him was still present but seemed to be dwindling away a little bit with every second that passed.

“I’m... I like everything.” 

You heard him cough a little. You enjoyed watching him try to grab on to his bearings. When you interviewed people, it was rarely about what they liked and what they didn’t - even though you did need to know these things - and more about seeing how they dealt in these types of situations of outwardly talking about sex. It was a good way of seeing how comfortable they are.

“I need specifics, Taehyung. What really gets you going? I need to be able to match you with clients if I do decide to give you the job.”

“I like...” You could see him thinking. He seemed unsure about telling you. You sat back and waited, not prepared to help him out. 

“I like strong, powerful women who aren’t scared of putting me in my place. One who can knock me back a peg or two.” He stared at you with every word, still seeming shy, but also appearing to try and get a point across. When you noticed a mischievous glint in his eye, realisation hit.

You ignored his implications, not willing to let his words affect you. Visually, anyways. You couldn’t help the way his deeper-than-usual voice, mixed in with his suggestive words, affected your thoughts. 

“I meant more like… kinks, or specific sexual acts. Do you like sex toys? Anal? Rough BDSM? Love making? That kind of thing.”

“I’ll try anything once. I like to serve people, to make them feel good. Sex toys... yeah, I guess? But I’d rather do it myself. Anal is cool, too. If somebody wants to me to fuck them rough, I will. If they want me to make love to them, I’m willing to give it a go.”

“So are you more submissive or dominant?”

“Whatever they want.”

You raised your eyebrows as you noted everything he was saying down. A hard switch. You didn't have many male switches that worked here. Most men either wanted to completely submit or completely dominate. There was rarely an in-between.

“Any hard no’s?”

“If I find any, I’ll let you know.”

"Taehyung, the clients here tend to want some... very specific things. You saying you're okay with anything opens you up to worlds you've probably never known."

You weren’t surprised by his nonchalant reaction. People who had never been in this industry always had such a know-it-all attitude about sex, thinking they’d seen everything they possibly could to do with sex. The reality was that none of them had ever seen such a wide variety like what this place had to offer. You'd been in this game long enough to know some of the weird and wonderful things people may ask for, and you’d made it your job to provide as much of it as you deemed acceptable.

“I’ve had enough sex to know I enjoy pretty much everything you can throw at me. I’m willing to bend to anybody’s desires. In fact-” that smirk was back on his face, -“that's what gets me off  the most.” The way he looked at you, his head moving around, slightly laughing while his eyes stayed firmly gazing into your own sexuality as lust started radiating from his aura.

Taehyung's confidence seemed to be coming back and for that you were glad but you couldn’t help but worry he was making himself appear to be perfect for the job manipulating your perception of him.

All you wanted was to make more money, to be able to open up more floors and take more people in and give them somewhere to live, stopping you from having to be so picky. You’d  promised you would do everything you could to make that possible, but never before had you considered taking somebody on purely because of their sex appeal. What would people think if you took somebody on who wasn’t struggling? Would people think you had turned your back on those who needed you? All those questions ran around in your head as you debated taking him on. 

Would he really be worth it?

“Please Miss A. I want somewhere to belong.” He was back to begging and puppy eyes,, the same face that made you bring him to your office in the first place. “I can really see myself belonging here.”

“Taehyung, go back down to the first floor, and I’ll give you an answer within the hour.”

He nodded his head. You were unable to read his expression as he left for the elevator, pressing the button that took him back down to the entrance hall. You had been a second away from giving him the job, but you couldn’t give in that thoughtlessly. You really needed to weigh out your options, make sure that what you were about to do was the right thing. That’s why you had to send him away, you needed to give yourself time to think. 

You sat there, reading over the notes you’d taken, considering everything you knew about him thus far. You decided to start writing a list of pros and cons. 

Not being able to understand him was a big one for you. You had fifty sex workers on each floor, a hundreds of them all together, and each one of them you knew like a friend. You knew everything you needed to know about them and you could read them all like a book. It wasn’t a controlling thing; it was a business thing. 

Cons: 

Wasn't in need meaning he wasn’t as serious about this as everybody else.

Was a bit arrogant.

Could damage your reputation

Couldn’t read him at all.  

You had to know what they were like for safety reasons. How they would react to certain interactions, for example, or if they were hiding things from you. All that you did was for their own good, even if they didn’t always know it. 

Everything else would have a solution, if you thought hard enough about it. But your lack of knowing his motives was something you couldn’t overlook, as you wrack your brain you go on to listing the positives.

Pros: 

He's sexy as hell. 

He would take a lot of money for the club.

 His sexual preferences are flexible. His way with words. 

Bring in a much higher amount of female clientele.

There was simply no denying any of that. He would be the most attractive man in the house for sure, and with him around, you knew he could make money for the place if he really was as good as he portrayed. Then it hit you. Just because he was sexy didn’t mean he was any good at sex. It meant nothing. Sure, he could get you riled up but could he really deliver on any of his promises? 

Your pros and cons were equal. This had to be your way of finding out; you needed to set a challenge for him. He wasn't in need, so if the only reason you’re going to take him on is due to his sexual prowess, he needs to prove he has it. You called down to Jin on the front desk, giving it a few seconds before he answered the phone laughing, voice happy. He really was perfect for your front of house. 

“Yes, madam. How may I be helping you?” 

You couldn’t help but laugh at his joking over-formality. He always had a way of perking your spirits up when you were in a stressful situation. 

“Jin, could you send Taehyung up in about twenty minutes?”

“Twenty? He’s already been sitting down here for fifteen. What’s taking you so long?”

He was full of sass, and if he was anybody else, you’d have cursed him out, but you knew he was saying it in complete jest.

“Shut up and just do as I say.”

You laughed back at him as he dismissed you.

“Well, of course. Oh, and... would I be completely out of place to say this guy might not fit the bill but my god he's hot as hell.”

He just laughed as you put the phone down, it was around your closest friends you could reject the business woman aura and let your guard down. They always knew what you were thinking, Jin's words echoing the ones in your head for the last half an hour.

You can always go to them when you need to forget and hide and just be the softer version of yourself.  As the place got bigger, people started talking. A lot of people didn’t like what you were doing, taking people away from their pimps, making it harder for someone to just pick and take anybody they wanted. The corporations also weren’t a fan of yours, as you were always talking badly about their effects on the environment. You were classed as a rebel, a part of the resistance against the rich people, but then, that never stopped them from coming to you when they wanted to get their rocks off. They used your services because you’d left them with little other choice, and for that, you were proud. 

That's why you assigned your employees and yourself a letter. If someone worked for you, they didn’t work for you with their real name. You went with the alphabet system because that's what you -Miss A-, Tanvi - B - and Namjoon - C - always went by when you were younger. They were your code names when you used to steal things to get by. 

None of you had family growing up so you had to find other ways to survive without that support.  You named yourselves after your mother’s favourite song, something about “A-B-C as being as easy as one, two, three,”… It was at least a hundred years old, but you always remembered her singing that part, so it just stuck with you, stuck with your friends, and then it stuck with the workers in your club as you decided to just keep running down the alphabet. It has worked so far, so why change? Jin, Kris and everybody else who worked in your immediate staff work under the name of their assigned letter.

As you sat there, remembering your mother, you were interrupted by the elevator opening and Taehyung appearing once more. 

Had it really been twenty minutes already?

“Why? Have you been counting down the minutes until you saw me again?”

It was like he’d heard your thoughts...Wait, had you said that out loud? 

You groaned to yourself in annoyance, and this time his smirk slightly annoyed you as he sat back down in front of you, clearly thinking the job was going to be given to him easily. Oh, how silly he was to think it would be that simple.

“So, I've weighed out all the pros and cons, and basically, you seem to be all talk.” You said everything in a matter-of-fact manner, but his face didn’t seem to change at all. Taehyung still seemed confident, yet once again he was completely unreadable as you continued talking. 

“If you want the job, you’re going to have to put your money where your mouth is and prove you can actually get somebody off.”

He smiled the widest grin as he looked at you, sliding his hand across the table to grab yours, and you chuckled, realising exactly what he thought you wanted him to do. 

You retracted your hand before he could even get close to you.

“Not that. Not even a little bit, Taehyung.” You pointed toward the phone on your desk. That got his attention. 

His eyes were wider than usual and his mouth slightly parted as he looked at you as if you’d stolen his last cookie. He followed your hand towards the phone, still looking confused. “Here at deepest indulgence, we try to give every service possible. That includes, amongst many other things… phone sex.” 

Taehyung looked back and forth between you and the phone, mouth still agape and eyes questioning. “You’re going to take our next call and prove that you’re really worthy of working here.”

You pressed a button on the phone and it turned purple.

You sat there and folded your arms, leaning back in your chair.

There was something you enjoyed about the power you held over him. He looked so unsure. Two seconds ago, he looked ready to fuck you, thinking that was what you were asking for, but now you were asking for something he hadn’t expected, Taehyung looked like a deer caught in headlights. 

You couldn’t believe how sexy he was at your mercy. God, he really would be good for the house. You suddenly wanted to try and make it slightly easier for him after realising you were being a bit harsh, part of you wanting him to do well. Usually before people did this, you would guide and help them, but you’d wanted to see what Taehyung could do on his own. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t give him a little help. You sat forward in your seat, trying to relax him a little bit.

“Basically, next time the phone rings, you answer. Make the customer feel comfortable with what they’re doing and take it from there.”

Taehyung gulped and nodded his head, eyes still wide as he looked at you. ‘His nervousness was cute, but somehow, he was still so sexy at the same time.

A few seconds passed by and then the phone started to ring. 

You couldn’t help the snide smile you gave as you tried not to laugh. Really, you didn’t want to seem evil, but you were enjoying having power over him. Taehyung could have easily said no and left, but his willingness to go through with it made you closer to hiring him than not. He touched the phone, adorned a smile, and lifted it towards his ear.

“Hello?”

You were shocked. His voice was deep normally, but when he answered the phone, it was so much deeper, so sexy, and laced with a sultry tone. He’d done this before, no doubt about it. You sat back in your chair once again, listening to his side of the conversation.

“No, no, it’s okay baby, don’t feel shy. Do you mind me calling you baby?”

Asking what the client wants? Perfect. A very good start.

“Of course I can call you that, Mommy. Want me to be your baby boy?”

Fuck, his voice was so attractive. His entire persona had slipped into one that you could only describe as unwavering confidence. He gave off an energy of pure sex that was contagiuous, even to you. You’d pride yourself on not getting riled up by much, especially considering everything you’d been surrounded with in your life, but the way he said ‘Mommy’ and the expression on his face as he looked towards the wall was driving you crazy.

“Yes Mommy, I’ve been so bad. What should I do to make it up to you?”

He was so good. You bit your bottom lip while you listened. You didn’t notice him turn to look at you.

“I wanna do everything for you, Mommy. I could kiss you - touch you. If you’d let me, I’d love to pleasure your pussy.”

The moan that escaped your lips was involuntary as he said the last sentence, staring directly into your eyes. He still had the same boxy-smile on his face, but by the looks of him, he was mocking you by biting his own lip, obviously noticing you had done the same. His shaggy hair was in his face as he shook his head while winking at you. 

Fuck, he’d made you wet so easily. You were very soon jealous of whoever was getting to lead the conversation with him on the other end of the phone. 

“Oh, you do Mommy?. You want me to service your tight little pussy? Fuck, it’d be my pleasure. Go on Mommy, show me your pussy, please.”

He pleaded into your eyes, every word filling your ears and you unintentionally pretended they were meant for you. Something told you that every word really was meant for you. Taehyung sat closer to you, leaning into the desk, motioning for you to come closer too. You knew you shouldn’t have, but you couldn’t seem to control your curiosity.

As you got close enough to his reach, he pulled you in even closer, tucking his face into your neck, phone to your ear so you could fully hear the conversation on both ends. You just missed what the woman said before, but you clearly heard Taehyung reply.

“Yes Mommy, looks like it tastes so good. I'm gonna kiss your pussy now, okay? Just picture me kissing it all over. Tell me what you like, Mommy.”

You and the woman on the other end of the phone gave the same gasp, and Taehyung chuckled as he wetly kissed the side of your neck. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as he continued his assault on your skin, making loud sucking and licking noises. If it was anybody else, you'd hate the noises he made, but something about Taehyung being the one to make them made your pussy so wet. You did everything you could to not make any noise, knowing the person on the phone would hear you straight away. You could hear her moan, but she was the last thing you were thinking about then.

“You hear that, Mommy?”

Taehyung made a particularly loud wet sound by sucking on your neck. He was giving you a hickey. You hadn’t had a hickey since you were a teenager - you saw them as childish, but as he did this to you, you found yourself running your hand through his hair. 

“That's how good I think your pussy tastes. So wet, I can't help but slurp it all up.”

The sounds he made were no less than dirty and filthy, and you loved every second of it. 

Taehyung had to have the job. There was no way you could let him go after this. He had cracked a resolve you’d been building up for years to a point where all you wanted to do was push your fingers in your pussy just from his words. If he could do that to you, then he could ruin some of your clients. You stopped thinking when his mouth travelled further up to your ear, pushing his head still closer to you.

“Fuck yes, I just wanna make you cum Mommy. Will you let me make you cum?”

The woman on the other end of the phone started moaning loudly and you were so jealous that she was able to play with herself over his voice. You wanted to reach in your now wet, dripping panties and start rubbing your clit because of his words. Your whole body felt like it was on fire as you grabbed his hair tighter, letting out a little whimper. 

“Fuck yeah, Mommy, I love it so much. Cum for me, please.”

The moans were just getting louder and louder from the phone and you couldn’t blame her. If it was possible, you’d cum from his words alone. What he was saying and the voice he was using was all just so sexy. 

Such a deep voice belonged to a dominant, but hearing it in such a submissive way nearly made you cum there and then. It’d been so long since you had orgasmed, he’d be able to do it with just a flick to your clit, and you closed your eyes and pictured it. You pictured his long slender fingers working their way over your clit, and your body felt electric. You were breathing so loud that you had to throw a hand over your mouth to stop yourself being audible. You squeezed your eyes shut, focussing on his hot breath currently against your neck, his hair tickling the side of your face, and the image of his fingers dancing over your pussy.

“You cum tastes so good. Fuck, yes, keep cumming on my mouth Mommy. Let me taste it all. Fuck yes, scream louder for me.”

And she did. The woman shrieked as Taehyung kept himself planted next to your ear.

He whispered sweet nothings as he let her come down from her high, and you again pretended that they were for you. Your body calmed down slightly as the conversation came to a gentle end, and Taehyung put the phone down, still pressing himself against your neck and kissing it. It was only when he moved his lips up to start kissing the shell of your ear that you pushed him back, holding one hand still against your mouth and your other against your neck, laughing out of pure disbelief at your situation.

Taehyung reached out to you again, pulling you toward him, connecting your mouths. He bit your bottom lip into his mouth and sucked on it, hard.

“Wanna make you cum so bad, Mommy. Let me make you cum.”

Nope.

Can't let this happen.

Nuh-uh. 

You pushed Taehyung away. 

You wished to God you weren’t sensible, wished that you could just let him take you and do what he wanted with you, but you couldn’t. You’d be risking too much. If you slept with him now and then gave him a job, it would look too dodgy on your behalf. You were already going out on a limb giving him the job in the first place; there was no way it would look good if sex was involved. People would think that was your entire reason for employing him, and you wouldn’t destroy your reputation over desire. You’d worked too hard to do that.

“Taehyung. I don’t fuck new workers.”

You were scared Taehyung would take it badly.  You’d just let him mark your neck while he made the most sinful sounds in your ear, and you’d whimpered for him. Now you were telling him you couldn’t do anything with him.

You sounded like a tease, but you weren’t in your right mind beforehand. You were overcome with lust, but now you could bring yourself back to reality, even if reality was screaming at you ‘even if reality was screaming at you to just give over to him.

To your surprise, Taehyung kept the smile on his face even in rejection, and that just made you want to kiss him even more.

“You mean I can work here? You’re going to take me on?”

Did he really think for a second that after that, you weren’t going to give him the job? Was he crazy?

“Yes, Taehyung, you got the job. Come in tomorrow so we can get you fully tested and checked out. You’ll start on the phones for now until you’ve worked your way up to when we know you can be trusted.”

He beamed a smile that you hadn’t seen since you met him in your entrance hall, and it made you melt. You needed to get over this. Quickly. 

You’d slept with people here before. You were still their boss, though, and everything was always professional, and you made sure it stayed that way even after sex. You were a woman who had needs, and what better place to get your needs met than here? That's what you said to everybody else, so why wouldn’t you do it yourself? 

But Taehyung was something new.

He was different than anybody you had hired in the past; you didn’t want to bring more attention to him than you knew there already would be. That... and you weren’t sure if you could keep it professional if he was as good in bed as he was at talking dirty in your ear.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss A.”

“You’re welcome, Taehyung.”

He stood up and made his way toward the elevator for the last time that day. He smiled at you as his finger hovered over the button.

“Can I just ask one thing?”

You looked at him and nodded your head once, not really trusting yourself with what you’d say to a man that you wanted to fuck, who was about to leave your office. The temptation to ask him to stay was incredible.

“What's your real name?”

You blushed a little. You didn’t give out your real name to most people, but something didn’t want to stop you from telling Taehyung.

“It’s _____.” 

His smile for a second turned to a smirk as he looked and winked at you.

‘“I can’t wait to work with you closer, _____, until I’m not longer a… ‘new worker’”

[greensaplinggrace]

“how could you ship Darklina knowing she based it off of her abusive relationship?”

By educating myself about the origins of this rumor and learning that it’s false! By scouring the internet for a time wherein she explicitly stated it was based off her abusive relationship and coming up with nothing. By finding only the most obscure posts and references in interviews that talk about how her relationship at the time of creating Shadow and Bone caused her depression. 

So no, Darklina actually wasn’t based on Leigh Bardugo’s abusive relationship. That’s a rumor.

It is also in incredibly bad taste to use a real person’s history with trauma as a way to harass fans of her novel. I honestly can’t believe the amount of times I’ve seen her history dredged up for an anti’s chance to “get one over” on a shipper. And I’m honestly appalled by the amount of times this argument has been raised against other, real life, actual abuse survivors who ship Darklina. 

“how could you ship Darklina knowing she based it off of her abusive relationship?”

By acknowledging also that fiction is a work meant for thousands. By remembering that any personal experiences an author puts into a novel are not universal. That every fan is different and will have lived extremely different lives from her. That expecting them all to read the same message in her story is impossible, especially since it’s one very specific to Leigh Bardugo’s own private life. 

By exposing myself to the entirety of the fandom and not just one echo chamber, by seeing posts about how some people are triggered by Darklina and other people are triggered by Malina. By realizing that the world isn’t black and white, that everybody is going to be coming into this with their own baggage and traumatic experiences, that Leigh Bardugo, in putting this book out there for the entire world to see, gave every reader the chance to see something different and unique and personal in her words. By remembering that fiction is not reality, and that reality is the people behind the pages and behind the screens.

“how could you ship Darklina knowing she based it off of her abusive relationship?”

By remembering that Leigh Bardugo actually championed the Darklina ship! That she actively supported it and its fans for years. That she baited a vast majority of this fandom into believing certain things were going to play out in her stories that never did.

By remembering that the Darkling is given his own backstory. That we see him as a child. That we have a chance to connect with his own traumas on an intimate level. 

By remembering that Leigh Bardugo made some missteps in how she framed the plight of the Grisha. By acknowledging that some people will see themselves in the Darkling, that they can’t not, that his character goes beyond Alina and his relationship with her. That thousands of fans look at this man fighting for the rights of his people, living with centuries of generational trauma, persecuted by outsiders and ostracized even within his own community, completely alone, and feel agony over the way he’s treated by the story. By acknowledging that the story Bardugo told was a damaging one to some who read it.

By remembering that the people in this fandom have lives and traumas of their own that they’re seeing in this book, in these characters, in this world, and they’re all taking away something different. By remembering that Leigh Bardugo is now not the only one involved in this story. That this goes beyond her. 

“how could you ship Darklina knowing she based it off of her abusive relationship?”

By realizing that many antis parrot buzzwords without any real idea what they actually mean as a means to scare off potential Darklina fans and actively shame the people who ship it, and that this rumor in particular got circulated by antis for much the same reasons.

Anti Darklinas grossly misuse terms like abuse, grooming, and pedophilia on a regular basis, and it’s actually kind of disconcerting. The way they overblow the negative aspects of the relationship and then twist or outright lie about canonical facts in the series is something people should be on more of a lookout for. Especially when it pertains to them creating content that could be damaging to a lot of people in the community and especially when they go out of their way to stalk and harass fans, purposefully triggering them.

Leigh Bardugo has recently misused the word grooming as well. It’s hurt a lot of fans and downplayed the reality of an actual, serious issue that many people face in real life. And because apparently none of these people are capable of research, the antis are now the parrots repeating what she’s said without any thought to the gravity of the situation.

So please, please, remember to fact check this stuff, and don’t believe every little thing the antis say. Not liking a ship is valid, respectful criticisms of a ship are valid, but the continued and exaggerated use of this rumor is just plain fucking offensive. Have some goddamn respect.

SO! How could I ship Darklina knowing it’s based it off of an abusive relationship? It’s easy. I just mind my own business and engage with the media/literature in a way that’s actually healthy. I don’t take the Word of God from an author who’s already finished the series. In fact I don’t take her word on much of anything, because why should I? I draw my own conclusions. I open myself up to new ideas. I remain confident in my ability to engage with the literature critically and comprehensively. I HAVE FUN.

[imagine-straykids]

Stray Kids SS: Argument PT. 1

SS for short scenarios. Stray Kids arguing with their significant others

requested? No. I just write whenever I feel like it.

genre: fluff, angst, romance, etc etc.

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Bang Chan

     You’re no bragger but you think you’re pretty reasonable most of the times. You understand your boyfriend is a busy person and his work came first and foremost. You’ve tried not to take it personally and he has made it pretty clear before you guys even got into this relationship that he wouldn’t be the best person with time management.

     Of course you took a gamble and compromised to form this bond with the one and only Christopher Bang. You had always put his feelings first whether that’s him choosing his friends, work, or music over you, you were definitely okay with that as long as he came back to you at the end of the day. Even the smallest texts nearing the end of the night like “Goodnight sweetie, hope you had a good day!” was enough for you. You weren’t asking for much. You don’t know how much lower you can set your standards because slowly and progressively, Chan was already failing to meet them.

     The most you guys have ever been apart was maybe two weeks and even then, Chan had always made sure to check on you through texts or phone calls. So when it was nearing a month, and he has rejected your invitation to do something for the second time in a month, you were left to feel less than pleasant whether you had set yourself up for failure or perhaps did you deserve more than what you had settled for.

       You couldn’t help but to be upset to some degree and even then you still doubted if your feelings were valid. You even felt guilty since you had promised him a long time ago you would be understanding. Were you wrong for just wanting a little bit of your boyfriend’s attention?

       So when Felix brought you his breakfast treats like he would every Sunday because the boy loves baking, he could tell in your eyes that your world was seeing more than blue. You weren’t your usual self who was always welcoming and greeted him with warmth. The tone in your voice and your body language imitated that of a walking dead and although you tried your hardest to put on a great appearance, Felix could see right through you.

       When he had asked you if you were alright, a sea of tears just came bursting through. Like a puddle that you had held inside for weeks finally being freed. You told Felix everything and everything. It was nice to have someone to talk to, for once in a long time. Felix had always been very understanding of you and was very much like a brother. He reassured you and you felt so much better after, that when he left, you even thought you might finally be able to get a good nap after some words of comforts.

       Your nap was shortly disrupted when a series of loud knocks were ringing through your door. It took you a few seconds to process everything because your brain was still trying to wake up along with you. Then a beep from your phone was heard. You turned to the left side where you had placed your phone and noticed long notifications of texts and missed calls from Chan. Oh lord. Well of course who could that be at the door then.

       Felix had only told Chan out of good intention, and honestly you weren’t even surprised. Not one thing said to one of those boys will stay in its origin. You crankily tossed your blanket aside and walked up to the door as you took a deep breath. You opened the door and it was just the one person you were expecting.

       Chan looked totally out of breath, as if he had been beaten by a stick over and over again, you can see the sweats tracing along the line of his forehead down to his cheeks and his hair has gotten messier than usual.

    “Chan--” You were cut when Chan just shoved himself inside your apartment.

    “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He looked at you dead in the eyes as he shut the front door.

    “Tell you what?” You weren’t acting naive but you just wanted to know what exactly Felix had told him.

    “What you told Felix. Why didn’t you tell me that? That you wanted to hang out with me, that you’ve been feeling sad and lonely?”

    “I did. I asked you twice if you wanted to go out or do something. You said no both times.” You defended yourself.

    “Why didn’t you say anything when you were not feeling good then?” A worrisome look overshadowed his angrier look earlier.

    “Pfft,” you scoffed. You couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Really Chan? Do I need to feel less than okay, do I need to question if my boyfriend even wants to be with me, for you to actually worry now?” you challenged him full on.

    “What do you mean.” Chan wasn’t gullible, but sometimes when he gets too caught up on one thing, he misses another.

    “Why should it be my responsibility that you act like a reasonable boyfriend who cares about his girlfriend’s needs. I shouldn’t need to tell you when you should be doing your parts. You were on the line of almost ignoring me for a whole month, doing whatever you’re doing without caring for my well being, and the two times I ask to do something, I get pushed aside. And you’re here telling me I’m not trying harder?”

    “I already told you from the beginning, y/n, that I am not the best person to be in a relationship with. I lose track of times, get lost in my own thoughts. I apologize if I made you feel like I didn’t care about you. I do. Sometimes I just need time to myself, you know. And I try to do it without hurting your feelings but it’s hard. Because I care about you too.”

    “I know that you’ve warned me from the beginning. And I’m a fool. I can’t do it anymore, Chan. I’m not the girlfriend you want me to be. I thought I could do it because I love you so much... but it hurts to be away from you. I can’t do it, Chan. Sometimes I just miss you, and want to be with you, but I’m afraid I’m going to bother you because you’ve already set your boundaries. I’m sorry.” you started sobbing even thought you told yourself you weren’t going to cry. 

    Chan quickly pulled you into a hug as you ugly sob into his chest.

    “It’s going to be okay, y/n. We can get through this together. If you still love me, we can talk it through. You still love me, right?” he angled your frowning face up to his.

    “Of course,” you answer like music to his ear.

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Lee Know

    Before you ever accepted Minho’s confession, you’ve been told by nearly everyone around him that he would be a handful. And oh Jesus, you wish they had warned you better, because he wasn’t just a handful. Minho was a pain in the ass if he didn’t try. Even before you got together with him, he found pleasure in teasing and making fun of you whenever he got the chance to. 

    But besides the assholery moves Minho liked to pull, when he was just with you, he showed sides of himself that only you got to experience. That’s pretty much your answer whenever somebody ask you how did you guys even got into a relationship considering y’all were pretty much like fire and water. The person who everyone else found to be a living nightmare because you just don’t mess with him since he has such a way with his words, you’ll find yourself questioning your intelligence.

     Minho can either be the best person you’ll ever meet in your lifetime or as so he likes to claim, or he can be the person that makes your feet turn the other way whenever you hear his name. So you knew this weren’t going to turn out pretty when Minho was forced to be in a team with Hyunjin for game night and Hyunjin was losing every single point possible.

       At first, him and the rest tried to play it off light heartedly, but you can feel the room growing sour each time Hyunjin missed the hints and was unable to score a point for this game of Charades that was suggested by the super innovative Chan, who decided that Hyunjin and Minho in the same team was evolution.

       The others were having a blast poking fun at Hyunjin and Minho whose points were definitely not looking very nice until Minho out of a sudden, slapped the pile of papers onto the ground and said he’s had it.

    “I don’t want to be in a team with him! He sucks!” Minho pointed fingers at Hyunjin who obviously took it personal by the look of his face.

      The room silenced and everybody just stared until Chan spoke up, “Come on, just this once. You guys are never on the same team because you always want to change.” 

    “Yeah, because he sucks, can’t you see. Even a 5 year old kid would be able to score more points than him. We’re not even losing by a little. We’re unredeemable at this point,” Minho spit out without missing a single beat.

       Everybody was growing uncomfortable, especially Hyunjin who had done his best to stay positive the whole time.

    “Minho! Can you not. That’s incredibly rude. It’s just a game. Losing one night won’t kill you. How childish can you be.” You stared at your own boyfriend in disgust.

     “Really now, you’re going to argue with me against this?” It was like he really couldn’t believe you were not on his side.

    “So what if I am. You’re acting ridiculous and you deserve to know it.”

    “Guys! Please stop. Don’t argue because of me please. He’s right. I wasn’t very good. Don’t be angry at him because of me, y/n. I’ll be fine. I’m going to go outside to get some fresh air, I’ll feel better once I come back.” Hyunjin excused himself and left.

      You could only roll your eyes when Minho, being his stubborn self was refusing to go after Hyunjin and continued to stay in the same spot.

    “How selfish can one be.” You criticized him before you followed after Hyunjin.

     You had hoped Hyunjin didn’t think too much of it, knowing how Minho usually is. Being the sweetheart he is, he thanked you and told you not to worry. When you went back inside, the others notified you that Minho had already left and honestly, you could care less. He was being a d*ck and this time, you weren’t going to cave in. Only time would help kill that inflated ego of his. 

         About a week has passed and you still haven’t talked to Minho and vice versa. You knew that his diva ass would never give in, so you didn’t quite know why you were silently battling him when you’re pretty sure if you wanted to fix this, you’ll have to do it yourself. But you didn’t want to.

         You’ve had enough of Minho always getting what he wants, always having the last say in anything, and thinking that you’ll always bend backward for him. It’s kind of funny because Hyunjin had actually told you that Minho already apologized, so why are you guys still fighting? Pride. Now it’s just a fight of pride. And as much as Minho has it, you have a lot of it as well.

           It was the weekend, and usually you’ll spend your weekend with Minho doing whatever you guys usually do but since he wasn’t here anymore, you decided to just spend your day relaxing with a nice cup of tea watching Netflix. It was your day off work and you weren’t going to let this day go to waste.

           You gently set your tea down on the little table to your right, about to lay against the couch when the corner of your eyes caught your screen lit up with a text message. You sat back up and struggled for about a couple seconds trying to reach your phone that you had placed a little too far. 

           It was from Minho. You couldn’t believe it. Reading what he sent you just made it even more amusing.

        Stupid, are you going to apologize or not - Minho Lee

        Why should I apologize. What the hell? I didn’t do shit - Y/n

        Okay well I already said sorry to Hyunjin so I don’t know why you so pressed for. I didn’t do nun to you. I mean I know you kind of had a thing for him and all before we met but don’t take it out on me - Minho Lee

         This little shit, you thought.

         Bruh. I never liked him tf. I just think he’s very pretty. Prettier than me. And unlike someone, he actually has half a brain and some human decency - Y/n

           Okay we get it, you have a crush on Hyunjin - Minho Lee

           No, dumbass. The problem is you always going around saying, doing whatever you like without considering other people’s feelings. I know that’s your personality and all, but there’s a limit between what’s okay and what’s crossing the line, and whenever I try to tell you, you never listen. Always doing whatever you want. Hyunjin is one of your best friend and you hurt his feelings the other day and didn’t even feel bad about it until someone got in your face and told you you were being a d*ck. I love you, Minho. But I just wish you would listen sometimes and be open to I don’t know... improvements? - Y/n

           I’m sorry, I’ve just grew up this way so it’s hard to get out of a pattern. Sometimes I say things I don’t mean and sometimes I say things I do mean and then I don’t realize that my actions has caused harm to the other person, because I’ve just always been this way you know. Others have tried telling me before but I've always brushed it off because I am a stubborn person. But I care about you. You’re one of the very first person other than the members that I deeply care about. So if you’re telling me this out of love then I’ll take it into consideration. I know I should’ve been nicer to Hyunjin as well. Chan yelled at me for a while the other day, so please don’t yell at me too :( - Minho Lee

         Of course I care about you. Everything I do is out of love, dear. You’re one hell of a nuisance but I love you. I know you grew up this way and it is difficult getting out of a pattern, but take little steps. I’ll be here with you. and yeah, you totally deserved that from Chan. Jk I love you - Y/n

         You’re mean :( can I come over. We were supposed to go shopping today - Minho Lee

          Mhmmm. Let me think about it - Y/n

          Well you have 2 seconds, because I’m already outside your door - Minho Lee

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Changbin

    Changbin liked to brag about anything and everything, whether that’s how many confessions he got on Valentines, to how many people who wanted to be his partner when it came to a science project, or even the amount of girls that would hit on him daily.

    You never really minded because that was just how he is. And of course, mainly because you knew all those scenarios only existed in his head and was as real as flying fairies and pink unicorns. So when someone was actually blatantly hitting on him, Changbin wasn’t as knowledgeable as his bluffs claimed to be.

    Changbin was one of the best from his music class, so good that the professor made him the teacher’s assistant even when the semester was on going. He usually talk tales of how many students usually needs his help when it came to writing lyrics or composing as a beginner. Interesting enough, but nothing major as he’d like to phrase it.

    Then every time when you guys would usually meet at the end of classes to which you usually ask how his day went, he started talking about this girl who he’s currently assisting. At first it was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a student from his class who he’s helping because that’s his job. Even the first two or three days of his on-going blabbering about this student didn’t kick something in you until maybe the fourth time this week where this girl is always managing to squeeze herself into his schedule everyday. It shouldn’t have bothered you, but for some reason it did.

    Especially when he’d say alarming things like “Oh yeah and she also asked me if I wanted to get a drink after class but I told her I have plans.” or “She compliments me a lot and told me if I have time, she’d love to listen to my work.” 

    Maybe you’re overreacting and she’s just a really engaging and kind person. You felt bad at first for assuming such a thing about another human being, so you gave her the benefit of the doubt because you didn’t know your dumbass boyfriend would be this oblivious when someone is clearly trying to get inside his pant.

    So when you happened to walk past the school garden the following week and saw the both of them from your very clear sight, you were a little more than dumbfounded. This girl was not even trying to hide it at all. You didn’t know how Changbin was keeping his eyes to himself at this point. The outfit she was wearing was definitely very sexy and appealing. Changbin was still faced down, scribbling something on the music sheet trying to get the female to engage but she clearly had something else in mind.

    You could’ve sworn you saw her hand trailed alongside Changbin’s thigh and so you accidentally let out a shriek, but quickly hid behind the thick white pillar, grumpily dragging yourself back to class in anger after.

    After your final class of the day, Changbin waited for you at the bench near the entrance where you guys had always met up. He beamed with ecstasy once he saw you, but you quickly brushed past him and continued walking completely shunning his existence. His smile progressed into a frown once he realized that you were not in your usual mood.

    He ran in front of you and blocked any further movements.

    “Y/n, are you okay?” He asked with a concerning expression.

    You didn’t say anything and only continued scowling.

    “Come on. You know you can tell me anything,” He encouraged.

    You of course, continued to be silent for a few more seconds because you honestly couldn’t get anything out due to how enraged you were feeling on the inside.

    “You liar!”  you slapped his chest with literally no strength at all as your tears escaped at the same time.

    “Wait hold up, what did I lie about?” He was in complete confusion.

    “I saw it, Changbin. You and her at the garden. How could you let her make a move on you like that.”

    His face showed that it wasn’t really clicking with him until he thought more about it.

    “Who did I let make a move on me? Minji? I was only helping her, Y/n. Please don’t misunderstand. The class was getting really loud and we needed a quieter place, so I asked the instructor if it would be fine if me and her went somewhere else.”

    “So you just let her be all up on you like that? She was clearly hitting on you, Changbin. How do you not see it?” School was no place to be emotional, but here you were, bawling like a little baby at the entrance of the school as Changbin tries to comfort you. You guys definitely weren’t getting weird stares. Nope.

    “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know you thought of it like that. Cause I didn’t. I just thought of her as another student that needed help. I’m sorry Y/n, if I made you uncomfortable. I didn’t do it on purpose I swear, because in my mind, there’s no one else but you. I know I like to boast all the time but I only do it as a joke because you seem to like it. I would never in a million year think of hurting your feelings. Hundreds of other girls could give me attention or like me, but none of them matters if they’re not you. I only love you, Y/n.”

    His words made you immediately stopped sobbing as if your broken heart has been patched up.

    “R-really? You mean it?” You pout.

    “Of course, silly. I would never think about being with someone else but you. Never.” He leveled your face with his.

    “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. Just seeing another girl being intimate with you kind of tugged something in me.” you awkwardly chuckled.

    “Aww. My baby was jealous. Not going to lie, you’re kind of cute when you’re upset,” He teased you.

    “Changbin!” you slapped his shoulder in retaliation.

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Hyunjin

    Between the both of you guys, Hyunjin had always been the one who had the upper hand in almost everything when it came to catching others attention. Anything ranging from looks, to talent, or even intelligence, you can admit he’s got it better than you do.

    Going out to public places, you quickly got used to getting stares from other girls or even old Aunties who would comment on how good looking your boyfriend was, and how lucky you were to have him. They weren’t wrong, you were of course very lucky to have someone like Hyunjin who was definitely way too good for you. You didn’t take it to heart very much that other girls have eyes for him the way you do, because he’s made it distinctly known that he only saw you. Jealousy in the relationship was a bigger problem for you than for him at the beginning, because compared to him, you were not as sought after.

    The whole duration of your guys relationship, he never had to deal with any actual threat or competition that he could possibly lose you, or that you would find someone else more intriguing than him because he was always accustomed to you having your whole attention toward him whenever he was in the room. So that was why when the opportunity finally present itself, he found himself developing a sort of ill feeling that he wasn’t familiar with. A feeling that left a bitter taste in his mouth, one that turned his vision red when he wasn’t a violent person in the first place.

    You had been talking about this friend all week, reminiscing the past to Hyunjin about all the crazy things you and this friend did back in the days. Hyunjin being the amazing boyfriend he usually is, was very supportive of course. You haven’t seen this friend in years ever since his family moved away to another city.

    He called you a few days ago to let you know he’ll be back in Seoul, visiting for a few days and wanted to catch up. How could you let this chance pass by. The person that was there for you when you had your darker days, the person that ran miles through the rain when you needed him, there’s no way you would say no.

    Hyunjin was more than happy to accompany you to the Mall although you did assure him he didn’t have to, as you didn’t want to bother him if he had plans, but he was persistent he wanted to meet your friend and get to know one another. Since he agreed to everything, you thought might as well introduce them to each other.

    But Hyunjin’s cheerful and optimistic aura rapidly changed into a stinging one when your friend ran up to you with a hug, and oh boy did your friend looked nothing like Hyunjin had drew in his head. In his head, he was a she. The person that was arms deep within your hug didn’t have long flowing hair, nor did he looked very feminine like he had pictured. He was growing some kind of hatred for this stranger that he barely even knew, and it was only solidified more when you would get so engaged in conversation with your friend, you would forget for a moment Hyunjin was even there. 

    The way you laughed at his jokes mirrored how you would exactly react to Hyunjin’s whenever he said something funny. He hated how your friend would sometimes pull you so close to him and you would just go along with it. Hyunjin literally felt invisible. This friend of yours managed to shrink you and Hyunjin’s year long relationship into what felt like you both only knew each other for weeks. Hyunjin could tell just by his body languages and actions that this friend knew you for years. And then he just felt like nothing. Hyunjin was nothing compared to this friend of yours, and he was mad at himself, mad at you, mad at him, mad at everything.

    He was so tangled up in his own train of thoughts that he hadn’t even realized you have been trying to call him.

    “Hyunjin!” you pinched his arm not too hard.

    “Oh I’m sorry, what.”

    “Do you want ice cream?” You asked him.

    “I’m good no thank you,” He answered completely uninterested.

    “But you love ice cream, Hyunjin. Are you sure?” you tried to get a confirmation just one last time.

    “Yes, I am sure.” He rolled his eyes as if he’s being pestered by an annoying bug. It wasn’t what he said but it was the way he said it. He was giving you attitude and you didn’t like it at all.

    “Okay geez, just a no would’ve done.” you frowned.

    Hyunjin has his days, but he’s usually self composed when it came to your friends. He had always been nice and pretty kind if someone was close to you since you were his girlfriend, but he was different today. He was hushed and soundless, not at all like the Hyunjin you knew.

    “What flavor would you like, Y/n?” Sanghyun, your friend asked.

    “Mhmm. Any flavor will do.”

    “I’ll get mint for the both of us then, if that’s fine with you.” Sanghyun looked for an answer in your eyes.

    “Yeah, that’s fine.” You nodded.

    You were not too cool with the flavor but you haven’t seen your friend in a while and it wouldn’t hurt to just take it this one time, for him. It didn’t bother you too much that he might’ve forgotten. It’s been a while.

    Hyunjin was beyond confusion. For as long as he knew you, you hated mint. Absolutely refused to eat it whenever he took you out, and now all of a sudden you’re fine with it? For him?

    “But I thought you hate mint. So what? You suddenly like it now because he suggested it?” Hyunjin fired, as if he was ridiculing you.

    For a second you thought you forgot to clean your ears, because you refuse to acknowledge that Hyunjin was actually trying to cause a scene right now, in the mall, with your friend by your side, in front of all these people.

    “What’s up with you today, Hyunjin. Giving me an attitude when I asked a simple question and now this? If you have a problem, you can tell me. No need to make a scene,” you scolded him, utterly embarrassed by your boyfriend’s action.

    Sanghyun looked terrified down to his toes just glaring you guys down.

    “Fine, I’ll tell you what my problem is.” And without your consent, Hyunjin somehow managed to drag you all the way to the parking lot against your protest.

    “Let go, Hyunjin!” you threw his hold off of you.

    “What the hell is your problem? You made me look like an absolutely fool back there. How do you think Sanghyun feels now, seeing how much of an asshat my boyfriend is acting after all those stories I told him about how you’re the most kind and caring person ever,” you raised your voice, too irritated at this point to even care if anyone heard you.

    “Well, I probably wouldn’t be acting like this in the first place if you had made it clearer that your friend was a freaking guy.”

    “Really, Hyunjin. Is this what it’s about? That my friend is a guy? That’s it? I’m sorry but, if you’re going to act childish and jealous because you can’t handle me being friends with the opposite gender, then that’s your problem. Not mine. Besides, we don’t even like each other like that. He was one of my only friend back when I had nobody. He was there for me when no one else was. I don’t see anything else in him but the same guy back then who was like a best friend to me.”

    You had hope you knocked some sense into him. Your tone turning from furious to more serious.

    “I don’t care if he was your friend from back then or whatever. You have me now. I don’t like the way he looks at you, or act around you. I never act like that around any other females.”

    You were this close. This close to just straight punching him and running him over with his own car. The person you were talking to right now and yesterday was the difference between day and night. You think that might’ve been the shittiest thing Hyunjin has ever said since you’ve known him and you were denying it yourself that it came out of his mouth.

    “Oh go cry me a river, Hyunjin! When I was telling you the details of my past friendship before you even knew the gender, you were rooting for me, but now that you know it’s a guy you’re all of a sudden acting like a little bitch? Why does it matter whether it’s a guy or a girl?” You questioned his integrity, but most of all, you were just in disbelief.

    “Fine, whatever. Suit yourself.” He sarcastically threw his hands up in the air in defeat and drove away without final words from you. Unfuckingbelievable. He was like a little child throwing a tantrum because he didn’t get what he wanted.

    You didn’t want to leave Sanghyun hanging, but if you were to be frank, Hyunjin totally killed all the good vibes within you and left you with no motivation or energy to do anything else. You made way back to the ice cream court and simply apologized to Sanghyun on yours and Hyunjin’s behalf. He didn’t mind too much and only wished you luck on the relationship. It was a bummer that he was leaving tomorrow already and the only day he was free to spend it with you, your man child “boyfriend” had to go and ruin it all.

    When you entered the lonely atmosphere of your hollowed apartment, Hyunjin’s well being did crossed your mind because he was notorious for being quite stupid, always acting on his feelings whenever he was upset. You never had to worry too much before though because it was only on rare occasions where his head would be so far up his ass, but you knew this time was one of those occasion. But you were mad at him as well. Never in a million years could you picture him ever saying those nasty things.

    You settled down on the couch and eventually put your mind and body to rest. Today’s been a long day and you needed that nap more than anything. You had called Jeongin and Chan to notify them of what happened and to keep an eye out for Hyunjin in case, before closing your eyes and seeing black.

    When you were finally conscious enough, the only thing that made its existence clear, was the sound of traffic outside your window. You may have overslept just a tiny bit. Rubbing your eyes to get a better view of your surroundings, you felt a weight on you as you struggled to get up. Turning towards your left, you found Hyunjin completely knocked out and slouched against you with his head on your shoulder and his arms around your waist. Right, Hyunjin had a spare key to your apartment.

    He looked like an absolute angel that fell from heaven, almost as great as the day he conquered your heart. He was adorable and quite resembles a puppy when he’s not spurting all those hateful words. You needed to use the restroom bad so you made an effort to untangle him off of you but just as you were about to get up, a strong force wrapped you back down. 

    “Ahhh! I thought you were asleep.” you faced him with bulging eyes.

    “I was.” He calmly replied, his arms still around you.

    “Bummer. I like it when you’re peaceful and not so angry. You are cuter that way,” you purposely jabbed.

    “I’m sorry. I really am. I wasn’t thinking at the moment and just acted on emotions. I’m really sorry y/n. I was angry when I drove off but when I got home, I just kept thinking and thinking and the more I thought, the stupider I realize I was... please forgive me.” he pouted and rested his head on your shoulder.

    “Oh you big baby. Don’t try to bribe me with your cuteness now. You made Sanghyun scare of you and today was his only free day to catch up,” you scolded him as you pinched his cheeks.

    “I won’t ever do that again, I swear. I’ll be better next time. I was just... jealous when I saw another guy acting close to you. It makes me scare that I’m going to lose you. I know I was wrong. But I just want you to know I’m sorry.” He said it softly but also with shame.

    “Oh dear. There’s nobody else I love more than you. If anything, I should be the one scared to lose you.”

    “I only love you, y/n.” He looked into your eyes and did that little smile that always makes your heart weak. The one where his dimples would pop out.

    “I love you too, Hyunjin. Now let me go, I need to pee.”

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SORRY I GOT CARRIED AWAY WITH HYUNJIN’S. anyways.

Part 2 for the remaining members coming soon

[sehunniepotwrites]

let’s break the ice | m.l | two

🏒  SYNOPSIS— in which your college’s hockey team crashes your lunch plans after practice and you have to get away before dying of embarrassment 🏒 GENRE— fluff, humor, crack, college!au, ice hockey!au 🏒 PAIRING— ice hockey captain!mark lee x reader 🏒 WORD COUNT— 1.5k 🏒 WARNINGS— sexual innuendos made; povs switching during the same scene; cursing 

🏒 AUTHOR’S NOTE— oh shit, does that say part two?? l m a o

y’all asked for it, so here it is! i’m turning this into a mini-series featuring random snapshots of mark with his love interest! no regular updates, the parts are just going to be randomly uploaded as we go. surprise surprise! i have a couple of moments planned already, so stay tuned! (i’m still working on the requests i have left as well as my other wips, please be patient with me!)

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You take that back, you absolutely hate hockey. More specifically, you hate the handsome devils that make up NCT U’s team and how they turned your meal with Jaemin and Jeno to a team dinner. 

You hate how they are relentless in their teasing and force you into a chair right next to their captain. And you absolutely despise how all eyes are on you as Mark tries to strike a conversation with you.

The group decided to forgo your original plans of eating at a Thai place, opting to visit the local diner they frequented instead. You felt sorry for the person waiting on your group; having to deal with a loudmouth team that wanted to split the check was always a struggle. They just smiled as they readied your seating, pushing several tables together to accommodate your group. They quickly took your drink orders, the others ordering milkshakes and sodas while you and Mark just asked for waters. Your friends mocked you for even getting the same drink and it just went spiraling from there.

“I’m so sorry about them,” Mark whispers under his breath, hand coming up to cover his small face. “They’re being dumb. I’ll tell them to stop.”

He’s leaning his body towards yours and you feel the team’s stares as you move to cover your mouth. “Are they like this all the time? I mean, I know Jaemin and Donghyuck are but the rest, questionable.”

He rolls his brown eyes to convey his extremely annoyed state, “They’re nosy assholes, all of them.” Mark shoots his mates a glare that’s meant to be intimidating but it’s far from that off the ice. He looks like an upset little puppy, face crinkled and eyes rounded in the cutest way. You want to pinch his cheeks but you refrain from doing so. 

“What are you two lovebirds talking about?” Donghyuck smirks from the other side of the table.

From beside him, Yangyang adds, “Yeah, share with the whole class!”

Mark groans— he can’t believe he has to deal with two loudmouths in his team. He looks to the older members: Sicheng is just silently grinning and Ten is wiggling his brows at the captain. The only one’s looking sorry for him are Jeno, the ever-so-sweet one sitting beside his boyfriend, and Sungchan, the shy new addition to the team. 

Jaemin, sitting on your right while Mark is squished on your left, laughs, “You’re not talking about being smashed by him, are you?” He’s obviously taking pleasure in your pain. You don’t think they’re ever going to let that go.

You smack him across the arm and he winces at the stinging contact, surprised by your strength. “Oh my god, stop! No one was supposed to hear that!”

“And yet, everybody did,” Yangyang says teasingly, eyes slotted and mouth upturned into a shit-eating grin. You don’t think he should be talking, you’ve seen his struggles with the person in the dinosaur mascot suit but that’s another story.

“Let’s just forget everything about that, please!” 

“I, uh, agree,” Mark says, clearing his throat. He smiles nervously at you and you return it with a shy one of your own. God, how can one person be so attractive? 

“So cuuuuute,” Donghyuck coos and the other players follow, loving the way their captain cringes at their voices. Not being able to take it anymore, you put your face in your hands as Jaemin joins in on the commotion. 

What in the world did you do to deserve this treatment, you wonder as your face heats up in your hold. You’re at the point where yanking your hair out sounds like a better time than dealing with the jokes the boys are throwing your way. You don’t know how much more of this you can take. 

You feel Mark shift in his chair. He brings his lips to your ear to ask, “Do you, uh, I don’t know, maybe, wanna get outta here?” 

His voice is low, soft, and comes off as a bit timid as he presents the question but it still sets the butterflies free in your stomach. They’re flying around, tickling you in the weirdest way but you don’t mind— it’s been a while since your heart fluttered like this.

Biting back a huge smile, your cheeks make your eyes curl into little slits as you nodded enthusiastically. “Oh my god, yes please,” you answer as you scramble for your belongings. 

Mark wastes no time, pushing his metal chair out from under the table before pulling yours out. He grabs his team jacket and slings it over his shoulder before guiding you out the door, his hand gripping tightly onto yours. The group of boys yell at you to come back and you ignore them, too busy reeling at the feeling of Mark’s hand in yours. It’s warm and inviting, the way his fingers wrap around your smaller palm. 

The cold autumn breeze hits you as soon as he opens the door and it gets worse when you’re running down the street so one of the boys can’t chase after you. You’ve made it two blocks before you stop running and that’s when Mark finally notices that he’s still holding on tightly to your hand. 

“Oh, I, um, sorry,” he mumbles as he rushes to let go. His high cheeks are turning red and it clearly shows how flustered he is.

“It’s okay,” you reassure him with a giggle. 

The wind blows through the holes in your knit sweater and you shiver at the sudden cold. Ugh, why didn’t you think to bring a thicker jacket?

Mark notices and he immediately takes action. “Oh, here,” he says before taking his team jacket and draping it over your shoulders. You quickly try to tell him it’s okay and shrug it off but he insists on you wearing it, a small grin peeking out on his lips. He watches you slip your arms through the blue sleeves and pull your hands out through the orange and white lined ends.

Before you could get to it, the blond hastily zips the jacket up to the very top for you, his knuckles brushing against your chin. It leaves your heart beating wildly against your ribcage, fighting its way to come out. Mark takes a step back to admire the sight of you in his clothes— his last name embroidered on one side rests proudly against your chest and it looks damn good on you. 

“T—thanks,” you stutter, not used to being treated this way. The move was so incredibly sweet and you think it’ll live in your mind for the rest of your life, rent free, along with all the other cute things he does.

Mark’s grin widens. “Yeah, yeah, of course,” he replies, glad he’s not the one stumbling over his words for once. Maybe he’s staring at you in his jacket longer than he needs to but you don’t mind, not when he’s looking at you with shining eyes you want to get lost in. 

You don’t though, your little moment being interrupted by the loud growling of your empty stomach. Your eyes become circles and you’re suddenly burning up in his jacket. Wrapping your arms around your middle, you let out an uneasy laugh.

Mark’s bright laughter fills your ears and soon, you’re joining in too, quiet giggles shaking your body. 

He clears his throat and scrunches his nose at you. It’s an endearing look, you think, as you save the sight in your memory. “C’mon, let’s go get you some food,” he chuckles, slipping his hand into yours once again. 

Mark leads you down the street, a loose grip on your hand, and he hopes you don’t feel how clammy his palms are through your sweater paws. His eyes are darting to anything and everything but you, too scared to look you in the eye. He thinks if he spares one more look at you, he’ll combust. 

“You were gonna get some Thai food, right?” Mark asks. 

You glance at him and nod in agreement, “Yeah, there’s a place Jaemin and I usually go to. We were just gonna head there.” You tell him where it’s located and it’s a bit of a long walk. He didn’t mind though, he quite enjoyed holding your hand.

You don’t see it but Mark secretly pumps his fist when you initiate the interlocking of your fingers. The feeling of his hand in yours is so comforting, you don’t think you ever want to let go.

Peeping over at him, you catch him do the same to you at the exact same time, right down to the second. He blinks at you, eyes widened in shock and another burst of laughter bubbles through you, entertained at how ridiculously shy the both of you were. 

Seeing the university’s golden boy as fumbly as you were in this particular moment relaxes a bit of your nerves, though. Many people see the famous Mark Lee as this picture perfect student athlete but during this moment, you just see him as a boy.

You’re just a girl walking time with a boy and you think nothing else could ever beat this moment. 

© sehunniepotwrites, 2020