#plus it’s how i met my current group of friends!! so it’ll always hold a special place in my heart bc of that;;;; cool name my beloved <3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

luffles424 · 5 years ago

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Zombie Bites

☼ Pairing: Yoongi x reader

☼ Genre: college!au, f2l, light angst, fluff, smut

☼ Count: 13.2K

☼ Warnings: alcohol consumption, unprotected sex, teasing, biting, marking, messy sex (look you fuck him in zombie makeup, of course its gonna be a little messy), blood? (its fake but like, it’s still there and described)

☼ Summary: Your friends have always been willing to assist you when you need a model to practice makeup on. And with the upcoming zombie film on campus is no difference. But something feels different this time, can a zombie movie be more than just a zombie movie?

☼ a/n: Adkjsdfgdf this was supposed to be for Yoongi’s birthday and I’m clearly a little late! But, it’s here! Let me know what you think! My ask box is always open ~ 💙💙💙💙

You kick the door, hands too full to even attempt shifting things so you could properly knock and if your hands were free enough to knock, then you’d just open the door yourself. You hope at least one of them is home, you really don’t want to have to carry all of this back home. Although you know Taehyung should be home and he lives nearby so you can always go there if this falls through. You know Yoongi should be home though, he doesn’t have classes today, but you can never account for his personal schedule for the studio. Primarily because it doesn’t exist and Yoongi goes when Yoongi feels like. You’re fairly certain Jin has a rehearsal today, but you can’t quite remember. You’re hoping to catch Yoongi anyway. You enjoy practicing on Jin, or any of your friends, their willingness to always let you do whatever to their faces makes you so grateful to have met them.

Yoongi and Jin were the first ones you met. You and Yoongi met in your stagecraft class freshman year. You both were hopelessly lost. Although you suspect Yoongi was more so, given that he is more involved in sound. Jin once told you later how late Yoongi would stay up researching so that he could help you in class and when you would meet to study together. As for you and Jin, you shared a beginner film class, being forced to pair up for a project but finding that you worked remarkably well together, each of your passions melding well.

You discovered they knew each other already when you went to Yoongi’s dorm one night to study and Jin answered the door. From there, Jimin, Taehyung, Hoseok, Namjoon, and Jungkook all slowly joined through shared classes and mutual friends. Now you’re in your senior year with a tight knit group of friends who you’d do anything for and who would do anything for you in return. Like right now, when you desperately need a model to practice on.

And while you love your friends, Yoongi is your favorite to practice on. And that’s only partially because you may or may not be also crushing on your best friend a little bit. But it’s hard not to fall for Yoongi. For all that he acts like a tough guy in all black and leather jackets, he’s the sweetest. He’s brought you food and coffee when you’re spending long hours in the art studio working and you do the same for him. Even his teasing towards you is sweet, it’s only sometimes upsetting because it’s exactly how a guy might tease his younger sister.

But beyond that, Yoongi’s the most patient. Taking the hours they sometimes have to spend in the chair in stride and not shifting in the slightest. Hoseok’s the worst at it, he enjoys talking too much and is animated when he does so. You keep shorter projects for him. Hoseok’s face suits subtle makeup more anyway. You’re really not sure why you want to make Yoongi look beat up. Well you do know why, but you’re choosing not to think about that reason.

It takes a few moments after your knock for the door to be opened, revealing a slightly disheveled Yoongi, which means you’ve woken him up from a nap. He’s going to be a little harder to convince if you just woke him up. It looks like he’s been at the studio all night again. His eyes narrow at you like he knew it was you, before his gaze trails down to the bag of food in one hand and your makeup case in the other.

He groans, but steps back anyway to allow you to enter. You count it as a win that he doesn’t slam the door in your face. Not that it’d do much, all of you have keys to each other’s places. Namjoon just lamented the other week, when he’d once again lost his set of keys, meaning everyone had to get new copies for him, why all of you don’t just live together. Jin suggested the better option was just to not give Namjoon keys.

“I brought lamb skewers.” You pipe up before he has a chance to say anything. He eyes you suspiciously for a moment as you set everything down on the table. You turn to him with a hopeful smile. “Where’s Jin?”

Yoongi ignores you in favor of digging a skewer out to munch on before deeming you worthy of an answer. “Apparently smart enough to not be here when you come by looking for a guinea pig.” He says around a mouthful.

You pout, wringing your hands for extra effect. “Do you guys really find it a bother?” You look down, you know Yoongi doesn’t like seeing you sad. “I can just post some fliers around if you don’t want to do it.”

You hear Yoongi huff then his arm is wrapping around you. It gives you the perfect way to hide your victorious grin. He’s a little too predictable.

“What are we doing today? Please no glitter. Jimin is still shedding it from last week.”

You giggle, moving to open your case and sort through the makeup you brought with you today. “Jimin was the prettiest fairy, thank you very much. And he wanted the glitter for the video. Have you not seen it? It’s… stunning.” You wave the thought off. “But no, no glitter for you. You get this instead.” You turn and hold up a bottle of fake blood. “I need to practice my horror and gore type stuff. We have a short film project in a few weeks and I have never done a full zombie before. Plus it’ll help me round out my portfolio.” You grin conspiratorially with him. “Plus, I figured we could prank the others.”

He lets out a put upon sigh, but you can see the grin he’s trying to hide. You know he’s always down to fuck with the others, the perks of such an artsy school giving you the ability to do so frequently in creative ways. “Okay, fine. What do you need me to do?”

You tug the white shirt you’d bought and hold it out to him. “Put this on first.”

He looks like he has something to say but just shrugs and does as you ask. He tugs his current shirt off and you try your best not to stare. Jimin was shirtless in front of you last week for hours for his fairy makeup and you were completely unphased by it, something you know that many people on campus would boggle at the fact that you had that in front of you and did nothing. Yet Yoongi is just changing his shirt, something you’ve seen plenty of times over the course of your friendship. All of your friends have seen everyone else in the midst of dressing for one thing or another, you’re all comfortable with each other. And with many of your degrees being what they are, you have to be comfortable with people in varying states of dress. But with Yoongi, this time, it’s a little hard to remind yourself that you’re friends and this is for practice. Something about the end of senior year drawing so near makes every moment with Yoongi feel slightly different. A little more charged than before.

Once he’s got the new shirt on, you grab a pair of scissors and the front of his shirt with your other hand so that you can pull it away from his skin.

Yoongi jerks backwards at the sight of the sharp object so close to his chest. “Woah! I thought this was supposed to be fake!”

You roll your eyes, tugging him back towards you. He goes with no resistance, despite his vocal protests. “I’m cutting the shirt, dumby. Not you.”

He pouts at the name. “Well how should I know that?”

You give him a flat look, does he really think you’d use scissors on him? “You think if I wanted to hurt you that I would lug all of my makeup over here to do it?” You glance at the open container of food, grinning evilly. “Besides, if I really wanted to hurt you, I’d go for your precious skewers.”

Yoongi gasps with horror and you really hope it’s fake horror. With him and Jungkook though, there’s a very real possibility that they would react this way and be completely serious. No one should be that theatrical over some lamb on a stick. “How dare you.”

You pluck a skewer from his protective hold and bite into it. “I said if. You think I’m gonna just get rid of my best model?”

“You’re just saying that so I don’t kick you out.” He grumbles, reluctantly setting the container back down like he’s scared that you’ll do something to it, but not before eating one more.

You murmur a quiet ‘uh huh’, finally making a few cuts to the shirt and ripping them a little more with your hands to make it look more natural. You scrutinize it for a moment, maybe also taking the opportunity to admire the way Yoongi’s chest stretches the fabric and the glimpses of skin you get through the rips. Maybe you should’ve had Yoongi doing more full body stuff for you. You nod your approval to the shirt and pull out a brush and small jar filled with a dark brown powder. Yoongi watches you curiously as you open it and start to add streaks of it to his shirt to dirty it.

“Is this supposed to be dirt?” He questions in disbelief. You nod distractedly as you continue to focus and you miss the face Yoongi makes. “Did you buy that? You know there’s dirt outside right?”

You finish, giving Yoongi an unimpressed look. If he really thought he was about to question how you do your job then maybe you should’ve used the scissors on him. “Do you want to go roll around in the dirt?” Your half tempted to make him go do it if he’s going to be a stickler for realism. You hold back a laugh when he shakes his head quickly, eyes wide cause he knows that you’ll follow through. “Then don’t question my fake dirt, brat.” You tap his nose with the brush, leaving a small splotch behind. You gesture to the stool nearby, the one that’s become the de facto makeup chair here. “Sit please.”

Yoongi does so as you gather up the few things you decide to use for this practice run. You don’t want to go too crazy for practice, especially if this is to be believable. Plus, you don’t have to do just zombie work, you’ve got to do the human too. So this is the perfect time to try that. You begin to work, falling into a companionable silence. Yoongi always stays quiet, eyes tracing your face as you work. Namjoon always questions what you’re using and doing, always wants to learn, even if he’s not particularly good at it. They all question, even Yoongi, but they usually wait until after you’ve finished to ask about something.

You step back, head tilted as you trace over Yoongi’s features, now dirtier, faint bruises adorning his cheek and jaw, along with a scraped cheek and temple and a split lip.

Yoongi speaks up while you inspect your work. “I thought you said zombie?” He looks adorably confused, so at odds with the beaten look he’s currently sporting.

You nod absently, picking the bruise wheel and sponge back up and adding more detailing around his eyes. Yoongi obediently closes his eyes without being told. You could kiss him, he’s the only one you never have to remind to do this, reading you and your movements more than well enough to anticipate what you need him to do. It’s definitely part of why he’s your favorite model. “I did. But I’m doing both the zombies and the human so I need to practice this too. And we have plans tonight and zombie makeup will take too long. I’d practice on Jin but I’m gonna have to do this on him enough for shooting.”

Yoongi peeks an eye open to look at you. “Jin’s working on this too?”

You switch your wheel and sponge out for a brush and the bottle of fake blood, thick enough to make small cuts and drips without spreading out past where you want it. “Yeah. I got the project first.” You pause and roll your eyes, memories of Jin begging you to do his makeup for his audition. There may have been a promise of all the alcohol you could drink, one that you definitely took him up on. “And I’m pretty sure he would’ve gotten the part regardless. But he wanted makeup like this done for his audition. Said he wanted to go in in character already and he wanted them to be able to see how he’d look in the role. That’s why I know I need to practice this. It was good enough for just a simple audition, but it’ll need to be perfect for the shoot.”

You add a few drips of blood to the shirt and step away again. “I’m actually surprised that you don’t know about this already. It’s a big collaboration between a bunch of the departments. I’m pretty sure Tae and Kook are doin camera stuff. And music definitely seems like an important part to include.”

Yoongi shrugs, a small lift of his shoulders so he doesn’t move too much for you. “We usually don’t hear about projects until later. We’re not as needed for earlier parts. If it’s starting soon, we’ll probably be told soon then.”

You close the cap on the blood, admiring your work with a pleased grin. You knew he’d look good a little roughed up. He looks every bit the bad boy he pretends to be, you just need to convince him to wear his leather jacket too. That’ll complete the look. “It’d be cool to work on a project together within our disciplines. I don’t think we’ve done that yet.” You laugh. “Imagine it, our names on the big screen together.” You sigh a little wistfully, it might be the only way your names are up somewhere together.

You miss the curious look Yoongi gives you at your sigh. “Yeah, too bad Jin’s name will be first. And bigger. We’ll just be tucked down at the end where everyone stops paying attention or leaves.”

You nudge his shoulder playfully. “I pay attention.”

He smiles softly at you as you begin to clean up. “I know you do.”

You finish cleaning quickly, you didn’t use that much to begin with and tug your phone out and grin. “Your favorite part. Picture time.”

Yoongi groans, foot kicking out in a show of protest. “Do I at least get to see what you’ve done to me first?”

You roll your eyes at his dramatics but flip the front facing camera on and hand your phone to him. His eyes widen briefly when he finally sees himself. He turns his face, looking at it from different angles, a low ‘wow’ escaping him as he gingerly prods a bruise like it will actually hurt if he touches it. He grins as he hands the phone back.

“Excellent work as always.”

You feel yourself grow warm, hiding your pleased smile behind your phone as you direct Yoongi’s poses so you can get shots to work from for final ideas for the film. You tuck your phone away once you're done.

“Great let’s go. I think everyone else should be at Tae, Jimin and Jungkook’s by now.”

You grab Yoongi’s hand before he can enter the apartment, you can hear the others already inside. He turns to you with a questioning look but you ignore it as you make a few last second adjustments, fixing his hat and brushing the shoulders of his leather jacket before giving a satisfied nod. He ruffles your hair and you swat at his hand as you dart around him to enter.

Your appearance is met with gasps and Jimin is quickly hurrying over, completely ignoring you in favor of Yoongi, hands hovering like he’s scared to hurt him more. “Are you okay?! Oh my god, you shouldn’t be walking, come sit down.”

You bite your lip as Jimin ushers Yoongi to the couch, watching as the others flock to him as well, all throwing questions at him at once. You notice Jin in the kitchen doorway and he smirks at you, clearly knowing exactly what’s going on, but he seems more than willing to keep quiet in favor of whatever your plan is. You don’t know how long to let this go on, but it’s too funny to watch. Yoongi actually looks a little flustered and it makes the scene all the more adorable to watch.

“Who did this!” Jungkook pushes Jimin aside and squishes Yoongi’s cheeks, looking imploringly into his eyes. “Please tell me you remember, I’ll beat them up for you.”

Taehyung swats at his arm. “You’re gonna hurt him more idiot, let go.”

He does so instantly, wide eyes glued to the tacky blood that’s transferred to his hand.

Yoongi chuckles. “If you’re gonna beat them up, my money’s on her winning.” He grins and something about it makes him look cocky and cocky is an oddly good look on him right now and you almost missed what he says completely.

They all look at him, varying degrees of confusion on their faces. “Her?” Namjoon presses.

Yoongi nods and gestures towards you, smirk still in place. “Yeah, she’s the one who did this to me.”

The three youngest look at you warily, Jungkook looks a little like he wants to take back what he said about beating up whoever did that to Yoongi. Namjoon’s eyes narrow, he’s too smart sometimes. “It’s makeup, isn’t it?”

You grin, giving a small shrug. “Guilty as charged.”

Hoseok appears at your side, puppy eyes in full effect. “That’s so mean to do to us. We were worried about him. You know he can’t fight.”

Yoongi protests with a weak hey, batting Jungkook’s hands away as he prods at the makeup with glee now that he knows it’s safe to touch. You feel like they misjudge Yoongi a little. Yoongi could definitely hold his own in a fight if he needed to. You remember very well watching him work with sets during your stagecraft class. You maybe almost ruined a few things by getting distracted watching him work. It’s definitely where your crush began, you’ve always been a sucker for watching a guy work up a sweat.

You smile and pull Hoseok into a hug. “I’m sorry, Hobi. I needed practice and it seemed like a waste that no one else got to see it.”

Hoseok’s arm wraps around your neck as he quickly turns your hug into a headlock, rubbing your head as you squirm. “Hobi, stop!” you giggle, prying ineffectually at his arm. “I give! I give! I’m sorry!”

Hoseok gives one last rub before releasing you, smug smile in place as you pout at him and attempt to fix the mess he’s created of your hair, not that it matters. The boys have seen you after all nighters and hungover, mussed hair is nothing in comparison.

Jin finally pushes himself off the doorway with a clap to grab everyone’s attention. “Right, now that that’s over with, are we ready to celebrate this project?”

Your days quickly grow busy, full of planning meetings and brainstorming sessions. You have little time to practice between classes, the meetings, and research. Although some of the research devolves into group binges of various zombie movies, all of you claiming it’s in the name of preparing for your various upcoming roles. But you know part of it is because you're all getting too busy to hang out as a group and if you can at least claim to be researching for the shoot as well. Hoseok hates the binges the most, he’s never been great with horror but the others have fun with it, picking the movie apart by the different aspects that they’re interested in. You get too wrapped up in inspecting the makeup that you don’t even really realize what most of the plots are or what the others do.

Yoongi offers to watch them all again with you, all in the name of research of course. He does it a couple of times, sacrificing sleep and time to work on other projects to stay up late watching zombie movies on your’s or his couch. He even points out ideas for you and pauses the movie when you start talking about a technique on screen, watching you with a fond smile.

Now you finally have some free time and you’ve been thinking about what you want to practice all week, all the ideas and plans you’ve created after your film viewings. You’ve just got the difficult task of finding out which boy is free and you luck out and find Jin and Hoseok together. Jin groans the second you enter the apartment and he catches sight of your case.

“I’m too pretty to be a zombie,” he whines.

You roll your eyes. You’d normally fight him on it, but with Hoseok here too, you decide to let it slide this once. “That’s fine. I can practice your makeup for the film and see how it will look with a zombie.” You turn to Hoseok with pleading eyes. “As long as I have a zombie.”

Hoseok looks like he wants to protest, glancing at the books in front of him, but he gives in with a sigh rather quickly. “Yeah, I suppose I could use a break.”

You give a small cheer. “Thank you! Dinner’s on me then.” You look over the two of them before deciding to give them the choice. “Who wants to go first?”

Jin jumps up. “Me, if I read anything else about camera techniques I think my brain might melt.”

He quickly settles into the chair, letting you get to work. His makeup is simple, you do much of what you practiced on Yoongi with a few modifications you’d decided on while doing research during the week. Jin and Hoseok chatter with each other while you work, you occasionally add things to the conversation when you happen to catch what’s being talked about, but much of your focus is on your work.

Once finished, you look him over before nodding happily. You pull your phone out to get a few solo shots, something he takes great joy in making difficult for you by posing in over exaggerated ways. You finally shoo him away and Hoseok replaces him and you purse your lips, tugging at his shirt.

“Lose this. I need your neck.”

Hoseok raises an eyebrow, tugging his shirt off. “If you wanted me naked so badly, Y/n, you could’ve just asked. I’m sure we can ask Jin to give us some time alone.” He winks.

You snort, about to respond that you just don’t want to hear him complain about his shirt being ruined but before you can say anything Jin’s answering. “She doesn’t care about you being shirtless. There’s only one of us she would care to have shirtless in front of her.”

Your cheeks heat and you glare at Jin. You never should’ve gone drinking with him and you should’ve known he was doing it just to pry information out of you. Wanted his makeup to look authentic for the audition, my ass. “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

Hoseok perks up, looking at Jin. “She likes someone? One of us? Who?”

“No one.” You cut in, tugging his chin back so he’s facing you and quickly starting your work on his face. It’s incredibly hard to work around the shiteating grin on Hoseok’s face. You maybe blend some spots a little harder than necessary if the way Hoseok occasionally winces is anything to go by.

“Oh, she does. She told me herself. Rambled on about how nice he smells and how he takes care of her. Waxed poetic about how she wishes she got to see him shirtless more often because she just knows that he looks good shirtless.” He waggles his eyebrows.

You point the brush in your hand menacingly at Jin, you wonder if anyone would believe it was justified. “If you don’t shut up, you won’t have to wear makeup for the shoot.”

Jin looks at the brush, completely nonplussed. “You wouldn’t dare when I live in such close proximity to a certain someone.” He singsongs. “And gosh, I just say such crazy things when I’m studying and sleep deprived, ya know?”

Your eyes widen, heart in your throat. Hoseok looks confused for a moment before you see the lightbulb go off and he grins too. “You like Yoo-”

You slap your hand over his mouth. This is so not happening right now, this is just a bad dream. Fueled by far too many zombie movies this week. You’ll wake up and be in your own bed and Jin and Hoseok won’t be teasing you about liking Yoongi. “Shut up, I don’t like anyone.” You hiss.

You feel his grin so you squeeze his cheeks, shaking him just slightly. “Say it. Say, ‘you don’t like anyone’.”

He’s about to respond and you can just tell by the glint in his eye that he’s not going to repeat what you told him to say, but the sound of the door opening takes everyone’s attention and you look up, blinking owlishly when you see Yoongi enter. He quirks an eyebrow when he sees you squeezing Hoseok’s cheeks and you quickly jerk your hand away. You’d really like to disappear now. It would’ve been bad enough to be here with Jin when Yoongi got home and now he’s got backup with Hoseok. You’re going to die of embarrassment by the end of the night, you just know it.

You quickly busy yourself with getting back to work on Hoseok, absolutely ignoring the delight in his eyes at Yoongi’s sudden appearance.

“Hey Yoongi, what’re you doing home already?” He calls and you wonder if anyone would believe you if you said the brush just slipped and poked him in the eye. It’s happened before.

Yoongi wonders over to the three of you, inspecting your work on Hoseok so far. “Apparently studying at the coffee shop was code for date? And I didn’t know that?” He says offhandedly.

You feel your heart stop. “You went on a date?” You blurt out before you can think better. That was supposed to just be a thought, you didn’t mean to say it out loud. You wish you could take the words back, especially when you see the way Jin’s eyes light up at your slip.

Yoongi nods, turning to look over Jin’s makeup next. He still looks like this conversation isn’t that important to him. “Yeah, Seulgi asked if I wanted to study for our class together at the coffee shop. Apparently I missed the memo that said it was actually a date.”

You swallow, studiously staying focused on Hoseok, tilting his head slightly so you can begin to create a bite mark on his neck. You don’t want to hear anymore of this conversation, you’re already really close to crying. Yoongi says something about needing to shower and meanders away. Hoseok must notice the glassiness of your eyes because he reaches out to give your thigh a reassuring squeeze. You give him a pained smile and continue to work.

Jin’s about to say something but you shake your head. “Don’t. Please.”

He remains quiet, letting you finish Hoseok’s makeup in silence. You’re incredibly grateful. For all that Jin can be a little shit, he still does care about his friends. You finish quickly, getting some solo shots and then getting some reference photos of the two of them together. They take great joy in being over the top once you get the base photos you need, posing and acting out silly scenes in full makeup. You snap pictures the whole time, you don’t need them for reference but they do manage to bring a smile back to your face and make you momentarily forget about Yoongi and his date.

You scroll through the photos, checking them out when you gesture towards the bathroom. “You guys can go wash up and we can go grab something to eat.”

You don’t see the devious grin Jin sends Hoseok. “Hmm, I don’t feel like going out. Let’s just order something. I’ll see if Yoongi wants anything.” You can only watch in horror as Jin calls for Yoongi down the hall. Yoongi reenters, hair still wet and looking cozy in sweats and a tshirt. “Y/n’s buying dinner. You hungry?”

Yoongi glances at you and you busy yourself with cleaning up. “Sure, I’ll always eat if it’s free.” He grins.

“Freeloader.” You grumble, turning to him with your hands on your hips. “You didn’t even do anything.”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow challengingly. He looks from Jin to Hoseok and grins, then he tugs his shirt off and nudges Hoseok out of the seat to sit himself in front of you. His grin turns smug. “There, you can do some more practice.”

Your mouth opens and closes a few times, but you’re at a complete loss for words. Your gaze flits over his bare chest before quickly darting away, Jin’s words from earlier coming back to haunt you, only this time with Yoongi’s actual bare chest. You’ve still got nothing to say and you can hear Hoseok and Jin snickering over your dilemma. It’s not like you can tell him no, he’d only get suspicious. Yoongi knows you never turn down a chance to practice, especially if you have something as big as a film shoot coming up.

You take a deep breath, you can do this. You can totally be professional. You’ve worked on a bunch of shirtless people. You’ve worked on Jimin and Jungkook. This is nothing. It’s just Yoongi. You straighten and roll your eyes at him. “Any other time I want to practice and you’re too busy.”

He beams at you, clearly thrilled that he’s won. “Yeah, but you’re buying dinner so...” He shrugs nonchalantly.

You stick your tongue out him and turn back to your makeup case, pulling your tools back out. You start your work, gently tilting Yoongi’s head so you can create a bite mark on his shoulder. His skin is soft and the smell of his body wash is overwhelming this close.

Just as you’re applying the base outline in latex, Jin speaks up. “How’d the date go, Yoongs?”

You jerk to glare at Jin, inadvertently dripping latex down Yoongi’s chest. You blink as it begins to slowly make its way down his chest, glancing up to see Yoongi giving you a worried look. You ignore him, turning back to the mess you made, forcing yourself into work mode and thinking about how you’re going to fix this mess because all you can do is try to fix it to make it seem like you did it on purpose. The only thing you can think to make this work without ripping all the latex off is to turn the bite into a bite that ripped skin off too. With a loose plan in mind, you begin adding more latex to his chest, creating a rough outline for the torn flesh, different scenes from zombie movies flitting through your mind as you use their looks as guidance.

Yoongi surprises you by actually responding to Jin once he decides you’re okay and have begun working again. “It was awkward as fuck because I didn’t know it was a date. I mean, who asks someone on a date under the guise of studying?” he snorts though he’s clearly not amused by the situation.

“A lot of people, Yoongi. A lot,” Jin laughs. “That’s like, the primary way people ask others out if they share a class. It’s all, hey let’s go study and then no studying happens.”

You can see the way Yoongi wants to move in response, the muscles under your fingers twitching and you appreciate that he is at least still restrained physically even if his mouth continues to run. “That’s dumb. I just wanted to study.”

Jin makes a noise of surprise. “What do you mean?”

Yoongi shifts and you sneak a peek at his face, noting the way his cheeks are beginning to turn red. “I just… Well I mean- Look, she’s just not someone I’m interested in that way.” He eventually stutters out, his eyes shifting to you before quickly jerking away to stare at the wall behind you.

You can hear the smugness in Hoseok’s voice when he speaks. “Oh?” he asks, full of faux curiosity. “And just who are you interested in? Do we know her?”

Yoongi splutters. “I- What? I- I’m not interested in anyone right now.” No one seems to believe him, even as much as you don’t want it to be true, that’s the weakest denial you’ve ever heard from him. You are a little curious to who caught his interest. He’s had girlfriends in the time you’ve known him, but you’ve never been able to pin down what they had in common to catch his interest. “Look I’m too busy anyway. I’ve got my classes and now the soundtrack for this to work on. I don’t have time for that.”

You stand up, effectively blocking his view of the others. “You got the soundtrack job?” you ask incredulously. Why hadn’t he told you?

Yoongi smiles sheepishly at you, clearly knowing this was coming. “I found out yesterday. I was actually going to probably come by your place and tell you tonight, but you ended up being here anyway. Surprise?”

You pinch his cheek, you knew he’d be asked to work on the soundtrack.. “That’s so awesome! I knew you’d get it!” You beam, you resist the urge to hug him and ruin the work you’ve done so far. You make sure to get him extra to celebrate later and lean back down to get back to work, adding offhandedly. “You know, if you’d just said that beforehand, I would’ve offered to get you dinner without the need to let me practice on you.”

Yoongi whines. “Not fair.”

You finish the rest of Yoongi’s makeup in relative peace. Jin spends half the time trying to pester Yoongi into spilling who he’s interested in and the other part looking through take out places, loudly sharing his opinion on what sounds best, his obvious attempt to get you to order from where he wants. Yoongi resolutely ignores Jin, keeping quiet and still while you work. Hoseok moved back to work on some of his homework, patiently waiting for you to finish so you could get new pictures of them all together, though you do sneak a picture of him while he’s working but the image of a zombie doing homework shirtless is too funny to pass up.

You put a few last details on and look him over. Frowning, you poke at his unmarred pec. “Have you been working out?” His pec looks fuller than it used to, it would also explain why his shirts have been so stretched across his chest lately.

Yoongi flushes, hands coming up to cover his chest in a bid for modesty, as if you hadn’t just spent 45 minutes staring rather intently at it. “So what if I have? What’s wrong with that? Jungkook works out and I don’t hear you giving him a hard time.”

You blink at the outburst for a moment before doubling over with laughter. That certainly wasn’t the response you were expecting, you were mostly just expecting a yes or no. “Oh my god. Do you even listen? We all lovingly tease Jungkook about his muscles.” You wipe away a tear as you straighten back up. “I literally call him my muscle bunny. No one should be that buff and adorable at the same time.”

“Been working out for someone special Yoongs?” Jin teases and you very much don’t like where this is going. “Someone who has perhaps mentioned that they like guys with some firm pecs?”

You both glare at Jin. You know he’s teasing you for what you said while drunk. You assume he’s also still trying to get Yoongi to spill who he likes. You wonder if she also works out at the gym Yoongi goes to and that’s the reason for his newfound interest in working out. You tug your phone back out swiftly, needing the distraction from that train of thought. “Right so pictures.”

You’re incredibly pleased with how Yoongi’s makeup turned out despite the slightly rocky start and almost disaster. There’s definitely still some parts that you need to practice a little more and places to improve, but for essentially having to wing it, it looks really good.

You get new pictures, where they once again pose for goofy ones, forcing a very reluctant Yoongi to participate though once he sees your delighted smile in response to the silliness, he quickly acquiesced to silly pictures. You wait for Jin and Hoseok to go wash their makeup off, tugging on Yoongi’s arm to keep him from following. He looks at you questioningly.

You give his arm a squeeze, momentarily distracted by the way his muscle flexes at your touch. You shake your head slightly and smile at him. “I’m really proud of you for getting the soundtrack.”

Yoongi smiles back, face soft. “Thanks. I really was gonna tell you today.”

You nod. “I know. I’m always the first to know.” You nudge him towards the bathroom. “Go clean up, I’m ordering for your favorite place.”

Yoongi’s face lights up and giving your hand a squeeze, he hurries off down the hall to clean the makeup off.

You practice as much as you can over the next week, using the pictures you take as reference and taking them to meetings to decide what’s good and what needs changed. Jungkook takes particular joy in having you do gore pieces on him now so that he can go scare the others, primarily Jimin because Jimin never fails to get scared. He tried only one time with Yoongi and Yoongi almost punched him in the face out of instinct so he steers clear of him if he happens to be in makeup.

You open the door to Yoongi and Jin’s apartment, calling out an absent minded ‘hi’ like this is your own apartment and you set your makeup case down before collapsing on the couch. Yoongi appears a moment later from his room, eyebrow raised when he sees you sprawled out.

“Last time I checked, you don’t live here.”

You wave him off dismissively, you’re too tired to do more. “Your’s was closer. Be nice to me.” You pout.

Yoongi eyes you over, noticing your case nearby. “More practice?” He pushes your legs out of the way so he can sit.

You shake your head and stretch, throwing your legs across his lap, a pleased grin forming when he lets you. “No, I was helping Joy with a project. Was bigger than planned. Like I said, you were closer.” You shift to stretch again, muscles aching.

Yoongi grabs your ankle to stop your wiggling. “You’re a menace.”

You look him over thoughtfully. “Hm, you don’t seem to particularly care that I’m here. So clearly you don’t really think that. Besides, if any of us are the menace, it’s Jungkook. He’s been a terror this week. I’ve created a monster.” You gasp and sit up, hand against your forehead dramatically. “I’m Frankenstein. How shall I live knowing what I’ve done? Oh the angst, the guilt. Will Jimin survive my creation?”

Yoongi snorts, shoving you back down and you dissolve into giggles. “You should’ve been an actor. I’m pretty sure you could give Jin a run for his money.”

“I’ll take that as a complement. But really, if Jungkook wasn’t doing camera work for the film, he should’ve tried out for one of the zombie roles. He would’ve done great.”

Yoongi nods in agreement. “He would’ve. But I think he would’ve had too much fun climbing all over Jin for the sake of ‘being in character’.”

You hum, closing your eyes. You’re hungry, not having had time to eat while working. You wonder if Yoongi’s eaten yet. If he was in his room then he most likely was working so he probably hasn’t and you wonder how you can get him to buy you dinner. It probably wouldn’t be too difficult, you’re pretty sure you bought last time it was just the two of you.

He gives your ankle a squeeze to get your attention and you peek an eye open to look at him. “You eaten yet?”

“No?” You squint at him, suspicious, but you delight in the fact that he could practically read your mind. Or maybe he just heard your stomach.

He nods, ignoring your suspicious gaze. “Cool, I’ll order us something.” He tugs his phone out to presumably order food without even waiting for a response.

You nudge him with your foot. “You never offer to buy food. I have to pester you usually.”

Yoongi shrugs and sets his phone down, grinning at you. “If you’d like I can just eat all of the food in front of you instead.”

You sit up quickly, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug, cheek squished against his shoulder. “Noo, I’m sorry, don’t do that. Thank you for feeding me Yoongi.”

He chuckles, patting your arm where it's nearly strangling him. “Down girl, it’s just dinner.”

You wink at him. “I usually have to dress up and try a lot harder to get someone to buy me dinner.”

Yoongi flushes, slipping out from under your legs to quickly go to the kitchen. “Do you wanna drink? I think I need a drink.”

You tilt your head as you watch him go. Not that it’s particularly odd for you both to drink when you hang out, but his reaction seemed a little out of place. Maybe the score is giving him trouble, he usually will get a drink if music is being difficult. You hope it’s not from the girl he likes. Ever since Jin brought up her existence, it’s been on your mind, wondering what Yoongi’s type was. Briefly wondering what made you not his type. You’re very glad you’ve been so busy that you haven’t had a lot of time to obsess over those thoughts this week. “What do you have?”

Yoongi looks through the cabinets and fridge. “We have a bottle of cheap wine leftover from I think our last wine night. A bottle of nice wine, that I think is Jin’s and he’d probably kill us if we drink it. Aaand some spiced rum.”

“No Jin would kill you if you drink it. He likes me too much to kill me.” Yoongi gives you a look and you just grin back. He knows you’re right, though it’s not that Jin likes you more, you just have dirt on him. The one downside to his plan to get you drunk and ply you for information was that it also left him vulnerable to you getting your own information. “Rum is fine.”

Yoongi busies himself making you both drinks, coming back and handing you yours. You take a sip, coughing at the surprising burn of alcohol.

You raise an eyebrow as you look at him. “Tryin to get me drunk, Yoongs?” you tease.

He flushes, avoiding your eyes and taking a long sip of his drink. “Just made drinks, everyone’s gotta be a critic.” He grumbles.

You reply is interrupted by a knock on the door and Yoongi shoots to his feet to go answer. You take another drink, much more careful now that you know how strong it is, waiting for Yoongi to return with the food. He lays everything out on the table and it takes you a second to register he ordered from your favorite restaurant. You feel giddy, you haven’t gotten to eat here in a while because most of the others don’t care to go there, you usually have to order it on nights when you’re alone.

“You hate this place!” You look at him with wide eyes.

“No I don’t. It’s a good place.” You frown. There’s more to that you can tell, but Yoongi looks like he’s about to run away so you just let it go. You don’t know what’s caused the sudden shift. Although you suppose Yoongi has never explicitly stated that he hated the place, he’s just never spoken up in favor of it when your friends are gathered together and trying to find a place to eat.

You nudge him until he looks at you and you give him a shy smile. “You’re the best. Thank you.” You really don’t know what you’d do without Yoongi in your life.

Yoongi puts something on TV for you both to watch and you eat in relative silence, only making occasional comments on the show. This is what you love most about spending time with Yoongi. It’s easy, the silence between you doesn’t need to be filled. The two of you content to just enjoy each other’s presence.

Yoongi refills your drinks when they run out and you feel the pleasant buzz spreading through you. Yoongi sprawls out on the floor after he finishes his second glass, a good sign of his tipsiness. You stretch out on the couch on your belly, chin propped on the edge to look down at Yoongi. You poke his stomach and he squirms, batting at your hands when it turns from a poke to tickling.

He rolls over, away from you and catches sight of your case. Leaning up on his elbows, he drags it closer and opens it. He looks through it, pulling different things out to inspect before putting them back. He glances at you.

“You should do my makeup.” He decides.

You snort. “No I shouldn’t. It wouldn’t look good.”

Yoongi turns onto his side, head propped up on his hand as he looks you over thoughtfully. “Nothing you do could ever look bad.” He muses and it seems almost like it’s more to himself rather than to you. His eyes alight with mischief and he rests his free hand on his pec. “Ah, I get it. You are just scared to get so close to such perfect pecs again? You’re just intimidated by them. I mean, I understand, how can you work with perfection?”

You blink at him and burst into giggles, you love drunk Yoongi. “Oh, yeah. You caught me. I’m just trying to protect myself from that. I would never survive, I may just faint.”

Yoongi nods, looking like he isn’t fully catching your sarcasm. Although it isn’t completely sarcastic because you don’t think it would be wise to be near his pecs when you’ve been drinking. “It’s okay, I understand.” He tugs his shirt off, flopping back onto his back once again. “Come on, do it. I bet you can’t do something amazing.” He challenges.

And against your better judgement, you rise to his bait. Him lying pliant and shirtless on floor and taunting you is too strong for you to resist. You climb off the couch, settling next to him and pull your makeup closer. You don’t even know what kind of makeup to do. Your case is a mixed mess right now because you had to clean some of your zombie supplies out for things for Joy’s shoot. You think you have enough supplies to do some minor wounds and decide that you can just take the opportunity to practice and maybe use the opportunity to work mostly on his chest and stomach. You just hope you don’t get too distracted while working, you know he’d be insufferably smug about it.

Plan in mind, you begin working, but you don’t get very far in your work before Yoongi starts squirming. You huff, you should’ve known this was a bad idea, Yoongi always grows restless when he’s been drinking unless he’s cuddled up to someone.

You poke him. “Stop moving.”

Yoongi makes a face at you, he looks like a disgruntled toddler. “I’m not.”

You roll your eyes, but get back to work, chalking it up to him just needing to get comfortable. A few minutes later though and he’s shifting again. You give him a warning look and when he moves again you huff in frustration and throw your leg over his waist so you’re now straddling him, effectively holding him still. He blinks up at you with wide eyes for a moment before they darken.

You grin victoriously as he attempts to buck you off. You lose your balance slightly, hand shooting out to rest on his chest to maintain your balance and you giggle when he tries to buck you off again but your grip keeps you upright. He pouts beneath you and you’re about to taunt him further but you’re stopped by the sound of the front door opening. You sit up straight, craning your neck to try and see who’s entered. A moment later, your question is answered when Jin appears, looking just as surprised to see you as you are to see him.

Yoongi chooses that moment to try to buck you off again and your hand tightens as you try to maintain your balance. Jin’s brows furrow in confusion and he makes his way around the couch. The second he sees Yoongi beneath you, he’s turning his back on you both with a noise of disgust.

“Yoongi, what the fuck! I thought we agreed a long time ago that there would be no fucking in the living room!” he yells, arms flailing as he speaks.

Your cheeks heat and you quickly look down, realizing what a compromising position you’re in and how it must’ve looked to Jin. You violently shove yourself off Yoongi’s lap, back hitting the edge of the coffee table and causing you to wince.

“We weren’t doing anything,” you protest.

You know Jin is rolling his eyes, not believing you one bit. “Oh please. I know what I saw.”

“I was just practicing some makeup! Yoongi wouldn’t stop squirming. I was just trying to get him to sit still so I could work.” Your defense sounds weak even to your own ears.

Jin pauses and seems to debate something before hesitantly turning to look at you over his shoulder. His gaze goes from you to Yoongi and the half finished work on his chest to your makeup case and then he throws his head back with a groan. He stomps off to his room, muttering something about not being able to deal with both of your oblivious asses.

You frown, watching him go, perplexed by his words. What were you being oblivious about?

Yoongi taps you to get your attention and you turn back to see his smug grin. He glances pointedly to his chest where when you look, you see that you’ve accidentally smeared purple across his pec when you’d pushed yourself off of him.

“That’s not fair! That doesn’t count because that has extenuating circumstances.” You pout.

Yoongi just shakes his head, clearly deciding that this means he has won his little challenge. Not wanting to go down easy, you turn to your case, looking for one of the glitter creams you’d put in there for Joy’s shoot and before Yoongi can react, you smear it across his other pec.

You laugh in glee as Yoongi belatedly tries to move away and fails. You manage to dart your hand out, smearing more glitter across his cheek. He glares at you before tackling you and wrestling the bottle from your hand. He grins down at you in victory from his perch atop your thighs and he quickly dips a finger into the bottle, swiping it across your cheek. You try to fight him off, but it only succeeds in smearing more glitter on both of you.

You’re both breathless from laughter and the room slowly settles around you as you grin at each other. The glitter on Yoongi’s cheek matches the way his eyes shine and you stare at each other, the moment charged, tension thick. You wonder what he’s thinking and almost in answer, his gaze drops to your lips. Then there’s a bang from somewhere else in the apartment and Yoongi twitches, breaking the trance you both were in. He blinks a few times then slowly slides off of you, replacing the cap on the bottle.

“It’s late,” he murmurs.

You nod but remain on the floor. “Bring me my pillow please?” You jut your bottom lip out, hoping to convince him. You don’t want to move but you also don’t want to be uncomfortable.

He rolls his eyes. “Just come sleep in the bed, stupid. It’s not the first time.”

You chew your lip for a moment, you don’t know how to say that this time feels like it’ll be different. So you don’t say anything, letting yourself be pulled to your feet and following Yoongi to his room. He digs some of your sleep clothes out of a drawer and sets them on the bed beside where you’re sat. He leaves and comes back a moment later with some makeup wipes and a damp cloth, gently wiping you clean of makeup.

You’re stunned into silence, watching him as he works to clean you and you idly wonder if this is what it’s like when you’re doing his makeup. It feels scarily intimate and you don’t know if it’s just this moment or if this is how he always feels, that scares you more. You’re always so focused on your work, you’ve never noticed. He’s close enough that it wouldn’t take much to lean up to kiss.

Your heart is in your throat, you could do it. If it went bad, you could always blame the alcohol, but you're positive that he was about to earlier too. You’re snapped out of it by Yoongi straightening back up, giving you a soft smile.

“I’m going to clean up. I’ll be back.”

You feel startlingly sober after he leaves, changing your clothes mechanically. Once changed you slip into his bed, on your side, and try to think about how you’ve done this enough times that you actually have a side on his bed. But you and the guys all share beds often. This is not any different from those times. Except, it does feel different. You feign sleep when Yoongi re-enters and he moves around quietly to not wake you. He brushes a few strands of hair from your face and presses a kiss to your forehead before turning to go to sleep.

You try to keep from being awkward around Yoongi, the memory of his lips against your skin haunts you, but given the circumstances, you think you mostly manage to be mostly normal. At least normal enough that when you beg him to come to your studio to test the bite prosthetic that you’ve been trying to perfect, he agrees to it easily.

But that seems to be the easiest part. Now, with Yoongi in your campus studio alone, no chance of interruptions, the tension is thick in the air. You know you probably need to talk about the other night, there’s no way Yoongi didn’t feel the shift, doesn’t still feel it as your hands move across his chest, neck, his waist. But you both remain silent. You’re reminded of when Yoongi was washing the makeup off of you and how that closeness felt to you and you wonder if he feels that now. You sneak a glance at his face, but it gives nothing away, face relaxed and eyes closed as you work, if you didn’t know him better, you’d think he’d fallen asleep.

You shake yourself out of it, if his eyes are closed, clearly it’s not the same as it was for you. You ignore the sting you feel in your chest at the thought and continue working.

Your hands lightly trace Yoongi’s side as you draw away, scrutinizing his torso. Looking for any last details to tweak or improve. The wound between his ribs and the bite marks, actually more of a chunk ripped out of his side and a bite mark on his neck, look good. Coloring right, depth good, his face looks sunken in the right places, he’s paler than usual, it’s all just missing one thing. You walk to the work bench while he remains in the middle of the studio, eyes now open again with the absence of your hands on him. Looking through the various bottles of red lining the wall, you finally select one, a little runny but the right shade to look like it’s been dried to his skin for a while.

You pause when you get back to him, eyes flicking to his pants then back up to him. “Um, do you care about those pants?”

He glances down, seeming to not have known what jeans he was even wearing. He frowns. “Uh yes actually. These are my favorite.” You try to hide your disappointment, but Yoongi must catch it anyway, because he continues. “But I can just take them off so you can do the blood. Can’t properly test the makeup without all the makeup, right?” He winks and your heart swells that he’s so willing to do so much for you.

You chuckle and step back as he tries to carefully shed his jeans without ruining the makeup covering his chest and stomach. He doesn’t get very far, unable to bend over to push them down very far and too tight to have any hope to just kick off. You bite back a laugh and step forward.

“I can help?” You offer hesitantly. It’s suddenly hitting you that Yoongi is about to be in front of you in just his boxers.

He swallows, clears his throat, before giving a curt nod and looking away, his makeup hiding the ways his cheeks blaze with his thoughts. You kneel, setting the bottle of blood aside and reach up to grab his pants. You hesitate for a moment with your hands in front before moving to the much safer location at his sides, taking hold and gently pulling them down. You do your best to focus on the task and ignore the way his crotch is basically in your face and the fact that you're on your knees in front of him. Maybe you shouldn’t have knelt down to do this, giving the compromising position it’s put you in. You really should’ve thought this whole thing through before telling him to take his pants off.

You instead focus on the ground as you work his pants off. Once off and tossed safely to the side you look back up to him, which turns out to be a mistake. Because on the way up, you don’t miss the unmistakable twitch of his dick in his boxers, but you do miss the way his dark eyes follow your movements, tongue darting out to lick his lips. Your eyes widen and you quickly busy yourself with grabbing the bottle and getting back to your feet all while studiously ignoring Yoongi and the way your cheeks feel like they’re on fire.

He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

You want the ground to swallow you up. It’s worse that he’s acknowledging it, you both could’ve just pretended that his dick isn’t half hard and that you most definitely saw the outline of it. You shake your head. “It’s fine, really.”

You open the bottle of blood. You hope if you get to work that Yoongi will stop talking, won’t make this more awkward, give more tension to this situation. Yoongi goes silent as soon as the bottle is open, straightening his back and assuming his usual position and you’re grateful.

You use a dropper to get blood into the wounds, watching the paths the blood tracks down Yoongi’s skin once it overflows, following unti the drops hit his boxers and seep into the fabric. You continue, adding extra splatters and drips, blooding up his face as well. Your eyes trace the tracks left across his body, it’s missing something but you can’t place your finger on what. You step back, tilt your head to the side as you study him. You look from the bottle back to him, hoping it will hit you, but nothing comes.

After a few minutes, Yoongi moves, scratching lightly at the corner of his mouth and accidently smearing some of the blood there. He looks worried when he sees the red painting his finger tip.

“I’m so sorry, it just tickled, I thought I was avoiding it.”

You’re not listening though because the smear on his mouth is the answer you’ve been searching for. The blood you’ve put on is too neat, it looks unnatural. No zombie is going to just stand there and no human being attacked would be so still. They’d fight and squirm and blood would smear. You shake your head quickly when he goes to apologize again and step forward, reaching out and smearing the blood around his mouth a little more, fingers lightly tracing his lips. You only give yourself a small moment to appreciate the feel of them. You work down his body, smearing areas that need it and adding more blood when it seems like somewhere isn’t bloody enough.

Your fingers brush the hem of his boxers and you jerk your hand away, avoiding his eyes and trying to ignore the fact that he’s only gotten harder since you took his pants off. You step back quickly looking over your work again, not letting your gaze drop below his waist. It’s still missing something. You look at the bottle and your bloodied hand and look back at him, trying to piece out what you think is missing. You look at your hand again and get an idea. You pour a little more blood onto it, setting the bottle aside and stepping back to Yoongi. You look him over slowly, trying to figure out the best place for it and your eyes stop on the bite on his neck.

You study the other side of his neck, looking starkly bare next to the gore of the bite and your place your hand gently on his neck, thumb brushing his chin. You can imagine the jerking movement that your placement would have actually been had you been going for his throat and your caress seems all the more strange, so gentle compared to the violence that your makeup appears, to the bloody print you’re leaving behind.

You meet Yoongi’s gaze and are frozen by the heat in his eyes. Your fingers twitch against his skin but you can’t find it in yourself to pull away. You feel like you’ve been staring at Yoongi for an eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than a handful of moments, before there’s movement, you can’t really tell if it’s you or him who moves first. But then Yoongi’s lips are pressed to your own and you can now fully appreciate their softness.

You can feel the blood smear around your own mouth, taste the bitterness on your lips when you grow bold enough to let your tongue dance along the seam of his lips until he opens up to you and the bitterness of the blood is quickly lost to a taste that is wholly Min Yoongi.

Yoongi groans and pulls you flush against him and you can feel the blood seep into your clothes but you can’t really find it in you to care when he abandons your mouth in favor of trailing his lips across your jaw and down your throat to nip and suck at the skin there, marking you with set of bite marks. .

You moan at the sharp sting, squirming against Yoongi’s hold. He growls, arm wrapping tighter around you as he quickly maneuvers you to the floor, situating himself between your legs to keep you pinned with his hips. You gasp when you feel his hard cock press against you. He makes a noise against your throat and grinds against you a few times. You tangle your hands in his hair, staining the blond strands pink and red and give him a gentle tug. He lifts his head at your urging, looking down at you with hazy, hungry eyes, eyes that are at odds with the makeup surrounding them. You heart stutters in your chest, for a moment it’s easy to forget that Yoongi is human, the makeup and hunger in his eyes make him look ready to absolutely devour you.

Which he does when you pull him in for another kiss, muttering a ‘Yoongi please’ against his lips. He licks into your mouth and you feel wholly consumed by him. He gives you a squeeze before one hand is slipping between the two of you. His hips shift, cock pressing against your thigh so that his fingers can press at your clit through your panties and leggings.

Yoongi groans and bites your bottom lip. “Fuck… You’re already so wet and we haven’t done anything.” He leans back, a teasing smirk in place. “Zombies and blood get you that hot?”

You glare at him, reaching down and into his boxers to wrap your hand around his dick. His mouth drops open and you grin in victory.

“Like you have room to talk.” You begin to pump him slowly.

Yoongi grumbles and kisses you again to keep anymore smart remarks from coming out. He continues to rub you through your legging and you can feel your slick slowly soaking the fabric the more he presses against it. You whine, squirming against his fingers.

He shushes you. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll give you what you want.”

You huff, squeezing him tighter until he gasps. You smirk. “Then give it to me.”

He chuckles, giving you one last peck before he’s pulling away. “I should’ve known you’d be just as mouthy like this as you are any other time.” He sits back on his heels and grabs your leggings and tugs them and your panties off in one go, leaving your bottom half bare aside from the smears of blood.

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’ve thought about how I’d be like this?” You tease.

He pauses and you’re about to question him when he’s diving back down to silence you with a kiss. Had he thought about you like this? His reluctance to give a straight answer makes it seem likely and that sends a thrill through you.

He shoves his underwear down enough to get to his cock, brushing it along your folds. You gasp into the kiss, hands coming up to grab at his sides, one hand meeting the latex of the mark on his side.

He presses in slowly and when he bottoms out he jerks himself away from the kiss to stare down in wonder at where you’re joined, like he can’t believe this is happening. You’re not entirely sure this isn’t just a very weird wet dream. After a moment too long of his inactivity, you whine and squirm again. His eyes snap up to you and the lust in his gaze makes your breath catch in your throat. Yoongi’s features are much sharper with the makeup, more intense. You never thought blood would be a thing, but Yoongi covered in it while towering over you is apparently a thing you are very into.

His lips curl up devilishly and with the combination of makeup, he looks potently lethal right now, like he’s about to absolutely ruin you. You’d let him too. He draws out slowly, smirk still in place, until just the tip remains inside. Then he snaps his hips forward and you cry out. He starts a quick pace and your hands slide around to his back to dig your nails in. You vaguely think that you ripped some of the bite mark up, but Yoongi makes no indication that he felt anything. And you couldn’t care about ruining all your work when you’re doing your best just to hang onto your sanity as Yoongi’s cock drags against your walls in all the best ways.

Yoongi buries his face in your neck, hand slipping between you both once again to rub at your clit. “Come on baby, cum for me. Fuck, cum on my cock, love.”

He punctuates his command with a nip to your neck and you shudder, orgasm swiftly rising. A few more circles of your clit has your back bowing as you cum, pussy convulsing around Yoongi’s cock. Yoongi’s pace stutters slightly from the sudden constriction but as soon as your orgasm begins to subside, he’s grabbing your hips and thrusting harshly into you to chase his own release.

Tears gather in your eyes at the onslaught of overstimulation. “Yoongi… Fuck, please…” You don’t even know what you’re begging for. “Yoongi…”

He groans and kisses you messily as he gets a handful more thrusts before he’s cuming, flooding your pussy. Your gasp, shuddering at the warmth and his hips twitch at the sound. After a few moments of catching his breath, he carefully pulls out, flopping beside you and gathering you to his chest.

You both lay there in silence. Your mind is blissfully quiet for a while, until Yoongi presses a kiss to the top of your head and suddenly everything feels like too much, ming in overdrive because what was this supposed to mean? You’d been so careful to keep your feelings hidden and you feel too exposed. You need to leave, you need space, you need to think. You jerk up, quickly looking for your leggings. Yoongi sits up slowly, he looks confused and in your rush to find your clothes, you miss the flash of hurt on his face as he watches you.

“Sorry, I forgot we had a meeting for the film tonight. Everyone’s so busy this was the only time we could do it.” You babble out. You know you don’t sound particularly coherent, you can’t even properly stand.

You can’t find your underwear so you give up on them, you need to get out of here or you’re going to cry. You tug your leggings on, ignoring the cool tackiness of the crotch or the way they instantly get soaked further with your and Yoongi’s mixed releases.

Yoongi looks like he wants to say something but remains silent as you gather your things. You pause at the door and chew your lip. You turn and give him a little wave, the best smile you can muster in place as you do. You know it’s not very good, but it’s the best you’ve got.

“I’ll text you after. I’m so sorry I’ve gotta go.” You murmur as you slip out.

Yoongi sits on the floor for a few moments after you leave, cement floor cold against his bare ass. Eventually, he pushes himself up and moves over to the sink to begin cleaning himself up. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and pauses to observe just how much of your work was ruined. The bite mark on his side has been almost completely torn off, only hanging on in a few spots. The makeup and blood has been smeared into one big mess and he’s pretty sure most of it just rubbed off onto you.

Yoongi sighs. You hadn’t even gotten a picture of all this work before it’d gotten ruined and there’s no hope of him getting any picture worth while. He continues his trip to the sink and cleans himself up, completely used to the sting of removing latex from his skin. The methodical cleaning lets his mind wander and he regrets that he let hormones get the best of him in this situation. He’d wanted to ask you out first, maybe a couple of dates before anything physical like this. He’s liked you for so long and this was his chance. He tries not to think of your rushing out as meaning anything other than what you said about your meeting. He’s had his share of strange meeting times.

He finishes and dresses himself, taking it upon himself to clean up the supplies you’d left out in your haste to leave, a fond smile finding its way to his lips as he recounts the many times you’ve lamented your messy studio mates who leave supplies out. Once finished, he shuts the lights off and decides to head home.

He expects his house to be empty when he returns, it’s past midnight at this point and you had said there was a meeting for the film and if you had to go that meant that the actors would be there as well. But to his surprise, Jin is lounging on the couch, watching some drama on Netflix when he enters.

He frowns. “Is the meeting over already?”

Jin gives him a questioning look. “Meeting?” Jin looks him over, takes in the pink skin from where the latex had sat. “Where were you?”

“I was helping Y/n with some final tweaks to the zombie makeup. That didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know what meeting you’re talking about, Yoongi. There was no meeting tonight.” Jin catches the way Yoongi’s face crumples and sits up, gaze intent on Yoongi. “Why? Who said there was?”

Yoongi ignores him for a moment, goes to the sink to get a drink of water and Jin follows, waiting patiently for Yoongi’s response.

“Y/n said there was. She remembered after we-” He cuts himself off abruptly, cheeks turning crimson.

Jin picks up on it, perking up. “After you...?” he presses. When Yoongi doesn’t immediately speak up, he continues. “Did you finally ask her out like we’ve been telling you to?!” Jin’s about to excitedly continue when Yoongi cuts him off with a soft ‘no’. His face falls. “What happened then?”

“We- “ Yoongi rubs his hands on his face then sighs. “We fucked. In her studio. It just… It’s been building up for so long. But I had such a good plan laid out to ask her out. But... “ He trails off and doesn’t finish.

“Oh, Yoongi.” Jin murmurs, pulling the other into a tight hug. “I promise you this will work out. She likes you too and I’m sure she’s just a little scared about what this means.” Yoongi sniffles and Jin hugs him tighter. “It’ll be okay, Yoongi. Promise.”

You’re incredibly grateful that shooting started the day after your night with Yoongi in your studio. Your thoughts have been a mess. That night seemed like the culmination of something, but when you tried to think of just what it meant, you found yourself terrified of what the answer may be. So you did the safest thing and ran.

Jin tried to talk to you a little bit while filming, but he was still fairly easy to avoid with excuses of needing to touch up the zombies' makeup. You could see the sadness in his eyes and after the first two days he stopped trying to corner you and so you tentatively sought him out during break one day, talking about topics that stayed safely away from Yoongi. You assume Yoongi had told him at least something about that night, but you’re too terrified to ask what he knows.

But now here you were, almost two weeks later and you’ve only seen Yoongi in group settings. It’s the longest you’ve gone without hanging out with just him in almost the whole time you’ve been friends. He looked tired, but when anyone else brought it up to him, he’d wave it off that he was just busy with the film soundtrack. His eyes linger on you and you know he wants to talk to you, but you don’t know if you can handle that just yet. But you resolve that after the film is over and you’ve had time to process, you’ll seek him out. You at least owe him that much.

The premiere is tonight, it’s relatively small, mostly people who worked on it and their friends, plus some other students from the campus who get first chance to see films that will get screened to the public later. Your friends all gathered with you in a row and you can see Yoongi at the other end of them. The film turns out as good as you knew it would and as the credits begin to roll, people begin to filter out. Jin tells you that they’ll meet you in the lobby, they know how much you love to sit through the credits and appreciate everyone who worked so hard to put out a film.

You watch the names as they go by, overwhelming pride when you see your friends' names up there. Then it gets to the soundtrack and you bite your lip. Yoongi did most of the soundtrack, these are his babies and you read through each one and feel so much pride you might burst.

The grin on your face falters a little when you see the last three titles and you jerk to your feet, hands gripping the seat in front of you tightly. They can’t be. But there in black and white, “midnight meeting”, “old friends”, and “so much more to give” scroll by you. They could just be titles, maybe Yoongi didn’t even name them. But you know Yoongi would never send a track out unnamed and he names everything with purpose. Everything he creates has meaning. And there’s only one thing those three together could mean.

As the realization hits you, you gasp, hand covering your mouth and tears welling up in your eyes. This is his way of confessing because you’ve been avoiding him. He knows how you always stay behind to watch the credits.

A chuckle sounds behind you and you startle, turning to see Yoongi still sitting in his seat down the row from you. “I’m glad I chose this way so that no one sees you cry at the end of a zombie movie. They might get the wrong idea,” he teases.

“Yoongi…” you breathe.

He nods towards the screen. “Good idea, huh? Can’t say many people get confessed to through movie credits during the soundtrack part.”

He pushes himself to his feet, moving closer to where you remain frozen, mind still not fully caught up. He looks nervous when he stops in front of you and you haven’t said anything yet.

“I hope I didn’t read everything wrong?” He looks scared.

That snaps you out of your inaction, reaching forward to grab his cheeks and pull him in for a kiss. “Fuck, I love you, Yoongi.”

He grins into the kiss, arms wrapping around you. “I love you too,” he murmurs.

Zombie movies might be your new favorite genre.

#bangtanarmynet #hyunglinenetwork #btsguild #ksmutclub #kwritersworldnet #magicshopnet #yoongi x reader #bts x reader #suga x reader #bts smut #yoongi smut #suga smut #bts fanfic #yoongi fanfic #suga fanfic #bts au #yoongi au

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simtrospective · 4 years ago

Photo

SCRAPPED STORY CHALLENGE by @bugsims

01. Post a few screenshots from a scrapped scene / edit / story! 02. Share why you scrapped this specific thing. 03. Tag five friends, and watch the fun play out!

Thank you to @gilded-ghosts for the tag.

Because I wrote so much that you might prefer to skip, let me do 03. outside the cut. I tag...

@ladykendalsims - @jet-plane-sims - @boogey-studios - @pinkmonsimblr - @dynastiasimss

The above pictures (plus the related tray files) are all I have left of an idea that was half-formed to begin with and which never got off the ground at all.

01.

Depending on if you’re a follower of mine + how long you’ve been following me, you may have seen a few of these shots before but I’ll explain them anyway:

Set 1: The characters Charlie, Hick, and Craig, in their original states on the left and their enhanced, final states on the right;

Set 2: A few WIP pictures of the performance space/club/thing I built;

Set 3: A bunch of test shots I took to see how the characters looked interacting, what they did naturally, and how they looked when I ~directed them. I used these pics to try and find my editing style for the story. I didn’t find the style I wanted. Clearly.

02.

I scrapped this idea because it never came together; I didn’t connect with the characters; I didn’t care about the storyline; I’m not done with my new save so I couldn’t ~comfortably start telling this story when the rest of the world was/is disordered; and on and on. The point is, I wasn’t feeling any of this. Oh! And I hate the whole vibe and time period and aesthetic irl; what on earth was I thinking writing about it?!

So. What was this going to be?

[[Under the cut because this is... so, so long. So long.]]

Charlie, Hick, and Craig were

going

to live in Del Sol Valley in my new save, in the Pinnacles neighborhood, which I was

going

to turn into a Laurel Canyon-style neighborhood. An entire community of would-be songwriters/musicians were

going

to live in the two smaller lots and commune with one another and be the New Guard colliding with the Old Guard; the huge mansion lot was

going

to house an aging former film-current soap actor confronting his mortality and also hating the living shit out of these hippies whose existence he took as a personal affront--I digress. Back to the “story.”

Charlie, Hick, and Craig met after each arrived in DSV separately and they vibed and they moved in together, all in a matter of, like, a week’s time. Charlie and Hick vibed especially. So much in common! Such poor little rich [kids]! Both came from pampered environments in which their family money and respective fathers’ connections allowed them to skate through life and to play at being musicians because--despite crying oppression at the hands of upper class WASP-dom--they'll always have safety nets to ensure they’ll always be okay. Charlotte Grant graduated from her all-girls prep school and put on a floppy hat and became Charlie Grant; Richard Hickey (lololol) ripped up his acceptance letter to Britechester and grew his hair out and hitchhiked and told people to call him “Hick.” They’ve lived parallel lives and “recognize” one another as soon as they meet. They have an electric connection, but neither will verbalize that. Above all, they... really want to sleep together.

Craig grew up working class and has no safety net; he just wants a little adventure before he gets a real job/grows up/gets married (his gf back home is off to college; they’re long-distance; it’s... not going to work). He’s a good guitar player and he’s a good songwriter and that’s it but maybe it’ll be more? What do they say about the lottery? Can’t win if you don’t play? Charlie and Hick want to be famous ~rule the world. Hick plays guitar well and tries to write songs but they’re shitty. Charlie is passively learning the keyboard and writes songs that are not... bad...? Some are... good?

Charlie and Hick--can you tell they eclipse Craig, yet?--have weird sexual chemistry and tension: they tease, they flirt, they taunt, they enjoy one another’s attention but they never so much as hug. They both have cruel streaks as only disconnected, spoiled, emotionally stunted bluebloods can: the torture of their relationship/non-relationship gets them off more than anything else could and that thrill drives much of their behaviors: bringing wanton strangers home for one night stands, each hoping the other is watching/overhearing, fighting about little things, acting like inappropriately close siblings, acting like strangers. Craig suffers their whims; Charlie and Hick aren’t just united in their toxicity and their dreams of fame, but in how they make Craig into a third wheel or a--well, punching bag is too strong a term. Charlie and Hick think they’re teasing their bff but you know how it is to be teased allllll the tiiiiiiime and how it can make your head spin when people who can’t get along with one another join forces--without even having to discuss it--to turn on you. Their relationship gets patched up, you’re hurting, they insist it’s not a big deal and even that you even liked it. We’re all friends. We’re all best friends omg.

But sometimes they have fun together. They have a lot of fun together. Sometimes it all is everything each dreamed it would be. DSV is a wonderland and their careers are happening and life is happening and they’re best friends. They’re soulmates for life.

The three work on music, perform at clubs. Craig is starting to come into his own as a man. I hate the term coming-of-age but in the background of the Charlie & Hick Show, Craig is maturing. He has to, because C&H are fuck-ups. They jeopardize scheduled performances. They don’t know how to talk to club owners. They’re not interested in paying their dues. They are unable (or unwilling) to promote themselves without being obnoxious attention whores. They don’t practice or help write songs. They don’t take care of the house. Hick is late with his rent. Charlie thinks she can flirt her way out of everything. Craig is also the only one of them who works; he has a day job at a print shop, gives guitar lessons on the side, and makes sure the three get gigs and don’t get evicted. The only thing C&H put consistent effort toward is making the social scene or finding a party or scoring drugs or getting laid. As the group’s local star(s) rise, their fates start to change course which increases the interpersonal tension. Hick’s fun-loving nature is starting to turn into a legit substance abuse problem and he’s picking fights with the wrong people and socially devolving, his arrogance and issues and general laziness rendering him unable to relate to others; Charlie is getting a lot of attention from older men In the Business, who have the money and connections to make her a solo star, which she is shrewdly considering; and Craig’s resentment toward his “friends” and disillusionment with the superficiality of DSV is making him rethink his motivation for coming west in the first place.

Oh, and Charlie and Hick--again, as their paths change and as their weird tension remains unresolved--continue to take their bullshit out on Craig and now it’s not funny anymore, it’s not cute, it’s not exciting, and neither is it when Hick ruins a show by being too stoned to perform and neither is it when Charlie brings unsavory characters home who trash the three’s equipment and neither is it when C&H steal Craig’s songs and perform without him at a gig they didn’t tell him about.

What I intended was that the story would at first seem to be The Charlie and Hick Show, all about them, as if we’re supposed to root for them, but ideally, through my ~deft hand 🙄 the reader 🙄🙄 was supposed to be like, Um... hold on-- until it eventually was quite obvious that these two--though human; though in situations we could understand and empathize with--were captured at a point in their lives when they were Super Toxic Assholes, and what you were watching all along was Craig as Hero.

So I had ideas, but I didn’t know how to fit them together and I didn’t want a really long story and I couldn’t--I just couldn’t figure it out. I do know that the end was going to be Craig screwing them like they’d been screwing him, a final middle finger with consequences. I know that he and Hick were going to have words and Hick was going to try and fight him (such a loser) and Charlie was going to throw a Hail Mary of like... trying to seduce (lol) Craig into staying omg I always had a thing for you/we’d be such a great team/I always thought we could ~be something ~together uwu bullshit like that. Was this true? Was this true in her own mind? I think I was going to set the story up so that if you reread, yeah, it could be true, but she’s so flirty and manipulative and socially savvy and used to getting what she wants that who knows what her real feelings ever are? Ultimately that would’ve been irrelevant bc Craig never looked at her that way and hates her and Hick now; good going guys. It’s worth noting, I guess, that when I put the group on a test lot, Charlie was super into Craig immediately, went right to him, stood close to him, was eager to make romantic overtures; she went 0 to 60 in an instant and as so far as is possible in this game they had chemistry, but Craig was not feeling the romance. And no one was feeling Hick.

Anyway, Craig was going to move on with his life and Charlie and Hick were going to learn nothing and blame him, ~the end.

And then, as I continued to play my save and maybe tell more stories, there would be Easter eggs, references to Charlie, Hick, and Craig older/in the future and where they went in life in the background of other, unrelated stories: Hick’s substance abuse problems and rehab stints and going by Richard again and his eventual moderate fame and eventual sobriety and attempted comeback and his bad relationships with his exes and children; Charlie’s legit fame + marriage to a producer + eventual fade away + moderate comeback + solid second or third marriage and bff relationship with her children 🙄🙄🙄 and her palatial house on the coast and now she exclusively wears white and ivory and pampers her dogs and eats raw (but drinks wine) because it “cured” her undiagnosed, unnamed “autoimmune disorder,” which she wrote a book about resulting in a semi-comeback but as a Famous Person and not a musician. Craig going to college and becoming a high school English teacher who plays in a local band on the weekends and who has a good marriage (not to the long distance gf) and nice kids, one of whom would eventually have her own story where she pursued musicianship with her dad, which got him back into his first passion but it was a qt father-daughter project and not An Attempt to Be Famous.

So. Idk. That’s what this all would’ve been. But it wasn’t, and it won’t be!

#sims 4 #ts4 #scrapped story challenge

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just-honey-dewd · 4 years ago

Text

List of things I hope will happen in the Sonic Movie Sequel For some context...

After watching through the Sonic Movie (2020) several times, I’ve been getting ghosts of nightmares and daydreams regarding the sequel. I have specific, personal ideas for what I’d hope the sequel will cover since there was quite a bit of anticipation for more Sonic-esque lore and story during my third watch-through of the movie. So yeah, needless to say, this list is very much personalised, and the structure of it is pretty dense, so apologies to those who aren’t dense readers.

Oh, and surprise surprise, this’ll be long. So I’ll be hiding everything under the read more thingy. Click at your own discretion....

1) Sonic and Tails meeting (+ relationship)

I’m hoping Tails will have a significant difference regarding his character since he never grew up with Sonic, nor had any reason to look up to him. This would mean that any potential character arc for Tails will be pretty much untouched territory since most (if not all) the past takes on Tails’ first meeting with Sonic have been either underwhelming, insignificant to that continuity’s Sonic-&-Tails dynamic, or both. So I hope the movie doesn’t brush off the two’s introduction and that Tails is kept as a relatively significant character despite his not so close relationship with Sonic. I have personal fears that Sonic and Tails’ relationship will get rushed in the sequel similarly to the way the first movie rushes past 10 years of Sonic legitimately living in isolation by himself [(with little to no addressing of any experiences the kid would encounter through those years). I have some criticisms to make about the improper use of time skips in that movie, but that will be for another day.]

Anyhow, I hope the movie prioritises their relationship by NOT giving away too much screen-time to other characters, since him and Tails’ close sibling-friendship dynamic would need proper screen time to develop — this is UNLESS the movie team are planning on further deviating from the games and mainline continuities, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms...

Rewatching that ending scene, Tails lights up with hope at the thought of finding Sonic, which leads me to question whether he’s already met him or is simply elated at the success of finding him. I’m currently leaning towards the prediction that Sonic has a legend surrounding him and his speed and Tails knows him simply as that.

Thing is, will the reason he’s looking for Sonic directly endanger Sonic’s happiness and life on Earth, or will it poke at Sonic’s curiosity regarding his past and Longclaw? I feel the motive for seeking out Sonic will be the driving factor for how their relationship will develop and be executed. This set up for Tails’ introduction seems very clever to invoke some hype for Sonic fans, and give the writers themselves opportunity to put a unique take on Tails’ character — there’s potential to have his character be altered from even the modern games (which could be a good or bad, depending on how they interpret Tails’ current character, and what they think would require some reworking). I’ll address this further in the next point.

2) Tails’ Character

Tails’ current character is a mixed bag. In the games, he’s been written to be very cowardly and dependent on Sonic (Sonic Forces), a whiny asshole (Lost World), or just a lowly submissive sidekick. The comics do a better job with his character, but I do hope in the movie series he won’t end up being dubbed as ‘Sonic’s sidekick’ ever. The thought of that happening sounds pretty outlandish, maybe might even a bit insulting to the writers, since Sonic has been written as a more fleshed out character in the movie than he’s been written for quite the decade — I don’t see why or how Tails would be treated any different. But since it’s apparently pretty easy to write Tails into a pretty lame character, I’m gonna not have expectations once more till I see the final product, or interviews with whoever ends up voicing Tails.

I think in the movies, it’d work if Tails acted like a kid too (much like Sonic) but is perhaps more downplayed due to his (currently vague) responsibilities. Tails will probably still be a few years behind Sonic, so he still has that natural childlike innocence and naïveté — plus, without Sonic, I’d say he grew up to respond obediently to instructions and commands so this could be something Sonic might bump heads with. Tails could have a background lacking in familial relations, something that would be worthy of note in comparison to Sonic’s current living situation. Tails would likely also fall into being the expositionist character in the movie — which is both inevitable and acceptable on my part, as long as it won’t always be him. Also, it’d be cool if he either ends up abducting Sonic to bring him to their world, or acts as an initially polite chaperone for Sonic (and Tom, begrudgingly) — this would reinforce Tails as a character that can stand on his own without tying himself to Sonic, which is something I’ve been sorely hoping to see from his character for quite the while.

3) The Echidna Tribe, Tikal... (& Knuckles)

I’m pretty conflicted with this, since we have no info on what the sequel will be focusing on. But I figure, since the first movie went out of its way to introduce the Echidna Tribe early on — and subtly kicked off Sonic’s tragic backstory and, subsequently, the events of the first movie — they were to come back in the sequel. So what I have to say about them is... first off, they are not extinct — so we already have a major deviation from Sonic Adventure continuity, so there is almost no telling what the writers will do with em, which is both mortifying and exhilarating. Second, their motivation is at best drawn from inference — I predict that the Master Emerald exists in this story, and I predict Sonic being born with speed will be something of significance to the Echidnas (perhaps even told from a historical prophecy), but whether the Master Emerald and Sonic will be connected in any way will be hard to deduce with what little information there is. But I’m already making the bold prediction that they will play a major role in the sequel, so I’ll hold off on further speculation.

On to my Tikal paragraph... I want her to appear in this series, and I think it’d be more fitting she has more presence in this movie than Knuckles since her character directly tied into the Echidna Tribe as she was actively against their violence, so I could see her being an ally to Sonic and Tails, perhaps even being aware of Longclaw and knowing what happened to her. Tikal also just has a really cool theme from Sonic Adventure — just listen to it!

youtube

It honestly sounds like something that’d translate well into the big screen with the use of more diverse-sounding instruments, and would be fitting use of Sonic music for the fans, and for the narrative musically-speaking.

Regarding Knuckles... currently, the only thing even hinting at his appearance in the story is his natural ties to the Echidna Tribe, which I am betting (if he does appear) will most definitely be an active member in. There is so much potential for him to appear in this sequel, but the question is... how much of a role will he play? They could introduce him as a part of the Echidna Tribe, the guardian of the Master Emerald, or an isolated Echidna who isn’t closely tied to the Tribe.... honestly, there’s so much pathways to take his character.

Personally, I’d want him to actually not have a strong presence in the story (on his own at least) — more that I’d want him sticking with the group of Echidnas in the tribe. I want his character to not even be easy to pick out due to him wearing a mask. I don’t want him to stand out from his race, instead being subtly introduced as a reoccurring enemy for Sonic in the sequel (perhaps someone that actively chases after him or gets the closest to him) amongst the tribe. The best path to take with him personally is to have him be both among the tribe, but gradually exchanging dialogue with the main characters. Nothing as straightforward as him getting played by Eggman to antagonise Sonic for something he did — none a’ that. I want this movie to mostly focus on developing Sonic’s world, the Echidna Tribe and their lore, Longclaw’s character and/or history, and Sonic and Tails’ relationship. How Tom and Maddie fit into this story though, is one of the more daunting thoughts I have....

4) Tom and Maddie

Going by the fact that it’s been confirmed by James Marsden that he’s definitely gonna be reprising his role as Tom Wachowski for as many movies as desired, I’m expecting he’ll be in the sequel for a good amount of time. Whether this is gonna be good or bad for the sequel itself is up for debate, but I do see a bit of issue with him and Maddie’s inclusion in the story considering they have basically become Sonic’s surrogate parents and best friends — so I struggle to see how the sequel will successfully get into the lore of Sonic’s world without abruptly ripping apart Sonic’s happy family. Considering Tom ain’t gonna be left on Earth... if Tails brings Sonic back into their world, I can see him coming as a hesitant and apprehensive tag-along for Sonic's comfort. It’ll be hard to say if the sequel can be identified as more of a Sonic movie if Tom still accompanies Sonic into his world, but I think since Eggman is bound to return, casual audiences will still need an anchor to keep the movie from turning into just Eggman and a bunch of CGI anthropomorphic animals fighting on screen. But another issue I see here is the fact that Tom’s character in itself is rather plain in comparison to the identity of Sonic’s whole character and lore surrounding him. Tom offered normalcy, guidance, and friendship to an attention-starved, lonely, and vulnerable Sonic in the first movie. But since the sequel seems to be introducing a new variable — revelation regarding Sonic’s importance in his own world — what can Tom do aside from accompany and try to protect his hedgehog son? Tails will likely form a bond with Sonic that could rival Tom and Sonic’s budding familial-friendship, and Sonic has many other characters that can offer him friendship and love... not to mention that owl lady who “died” offscreen. The moment Sonic’s world becomes the focus of the movie, how will Tom fit seamlessly in the story? And how much of the movie will be any different from the first one? Will it still be on Earth or Sonic’s world?

Logic dictates that we’ve already seen enough of Earth, so with the introduction and set up of inter-dimensional transportation through rings, I’d figure it’d be time we focused on Sonic’s World. But given the trouble that had took place in trying to integrate Sonic into the real world (via. Sonic’s movie redesigns), I can only imagine what’ll take place in trying to migrate to Sonic’s World. Then again, it’s possible that the sequel takes place on Earth, which also sounds very likely, but less desirable to me.

Getting back on the topic of Tom and Maddie.... (yes, Ik I didn’t even bring up Maddie in that last paragraph don’t @ me)....

The issue I find I’m having with them as of writing this is the issue I found when watching Sonic X. In Sonic X, almost the exact same premise in the movie was used in the anime: Sonic characters existing in the real world. And unlike the movie, I found myself to immediately dislike the fashion in which the series wrote its human characters. To streamline my critiques regarding the anime, the human characters were bloating the cast, had very bland and unengaging personalities, and worst of all, would both serve no purpose for the overall story, and take screen time away from Sonic and his friends (who should’ve been the main focus of the story as they are the main appeal).

Applying this critique to the movie, the movie had done a fairly good job in making sure that Sonic characters and human characters had the appropriate amount of screen time, and it also justified the existence of Tom and Maddie — as they were one of a handful of notable inhabitants in the small town Green Hills, which Sonic resided in. They’re inclusion in the story was both necessary to the development of Sonic’s character, and surprisingly, Eggman’s. Tom and Sonic’s character arcs intertwined with one another. and interlocked with Eggman’s in the later half. For a rather underwhelming genre like buddy comedy, I found myself genuinely enjoying Tom’s character and felt genuine attachment to his and Sonic’s developing relationship. Which is why I’m all the more worried for how the sequel will continue on from this — since, from the look of things, Tom’s personal character journey seems to have concluded (any proceeding character arcs seem likely to pop up from Sonic instead of Tom’s own actions). So I fear I’ll inevitably lose attachment and love for the character, and in its place, misplaced frustration and irritation at his presence in the story.

So, uh... best of luck to the writers, cuz there’s gonna be a lot of juggling with the introduction of new characters and the continuation of other preexisting characters. Obviously Tom and Maddie will have to pull their weight if they’re gonna stay as prominent characters in the next Sonic Movie[(s) ?]

As unfair as this sounds, I’m not particularly excited for the next movie and am definitely worried for what’s to come for their characters.... all I can hope for is that if they come back and take up screen time, it is for good reason.

Also, I hope for more Tom and Eggman scenes. Should Agent Stone return, maybe he’ll come along for the journey into different dimensions (if there will be inter-dimensional travel prominently featured in the movie, that is...)

5) Eggman

Of all characters, I think Eggman has gone through the most interesting of changes — in regards to his backstory, character, and potential. Unlike his game counterpart, he isn’t an established to be connected to Sonic’s World, and was in fact tied to the human world. Now that he’s currently stuck in Mushroom what’s-it’s-name, there is no doubt that he’ll come out of it with his wits intact, his psyche damaged, and a newfound obsession with a certain blue hedgehog. I hope Jim Carrey can manage the comedic and genuinely threatening aspects of a man stripped of Earthly comfort and prestige, and now surrounded by foreign concepts of other worldly beings and power. I hope him becoming more acquainted with Sonic’s World will be represented with Sonic-music-turned-movie-soundtrack-appropriate music. In the end, I don’t expect Carrey to do a familiar take on Eggman of the games and previous cartoons, but I can imagine him effectively showing the effects of a year’s worth of isolation in a mushroom world on an already egocentric and eggcentric man. So I have positive thoughts for Eggman. If the sequel suddenly belly flops in quality compared to the first movie, I’ll still come for Carrey’s Eggman performance.

6) The main cast of characters for the sequel

To summarise, this is my compromise on what the main cast of characters in the sequel will be. Consisting of both the characters I want to see get focused on, and the characters likely to get focused on. For the record, I know that this is way too early to properly make any predictions about the main cast, but this is mostly tied to personal opinion, as well as deduction, so take these with a grain of salt.

Conclusion

Now, I could be way off with my speculations, but I think as of now, with little to no information about the sequel, my thoughts, desires, and worries for the sequel are justified (and of course a little much). But now that I got these out of the way, I’m hoping this will either collect dust here instead of the back of my mind, or that this could spawn more discussion in the future when more info about the sequel comes up in the seemingly far-off future of 2021.

#sonic movie sequel predictions #sonic movie #my posts #i'm thinking of organizing my posts more #but ik it's easier said than done given how sporadic i am with everything in general #i'll get better i promise #if y'all got any comments or opinions about this feel free to respond

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tonysttank · 5 years ago

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fix you | pt. 1 | bucky barnes

so i haven’t written forever, but i was inspired to write last night and this is what came out. i currently have at least 10 parts planned for this series. its set post endgame. hope you enjoy :)

word count: 1.6k

If it were under different circumstances, you would have loved to be at the quaint cabin in the backwoods of the Manhattan suburbs. The rest of the team would agree. Everyone had been beaten, and everyone was feeling the aftermath of their most intense battle yet. The emotional toll of losing Tony was almost unbearable. As you looked around, surrounded by Earth’s mightiest heroes, you watched everyone wipe their tears, just as you wiped away your own.

You hadn’t been apart of the team long, but long enough for the introductory phase to have passed. You were all friends, and you were close with a few. As the minister said his final words everyone began to disperse. Hugs were exchanged; Morgan and Pepper joined at the hip as their loved ones expressed their sorrow. You moved from the commotion, wishing to step away and gather yourself. There was an iron bench underneath an oak tree that had to be at least 100 years old, and you sat yourself there. As you sat, you thought about how you got your job with the Avengers. You started at SHIELD, like most everyone else, being Peggy Carter’s niece it wasn’t hard to secure an assistant position, especially since your older sister, Sharon, was already a senior agent when you were hired. You had been given the task of being Natasha’s assistant, which was easier said than done. Coming straight out of high school and being thrown into the world of SHIELD was no easy task. You would be 29 now, had you not disappeared in the Blip. You missed Natasha horribly, she was your best friend. She taught you everything she knew, well all the good stuff at least, and losing Tony too was almost unbearable.

You were torn from your thoughts, just as a tear slid down your cheek. “How you holdin’ up, kid?” Steve asked you as he took a seat next to you on the cold iron of the bench.

You shrugged. “It’s hard, ya know? Losing people you care about.”

He sighed deeply. “It is.”

You knew Steve had felt intense grief like this many times, and you almost felt silly talking to him about something he knew all too well. “At least I have you.” You looked to him with a small smile, more tears finding their way down your cheeks. Being so close to Natasha also meant that you indirectly became close with Steve. You loved Steve, he was one of the most amazing people you had ever met. He was always sweet to you, and took care of you almost like a father would. You credited that to your Aunt Peggy.

“Come on, sweet girl. You know Nat and Tony wouldn’t want you to be upset, and I don’t want to see you be upset either.” He said sadly, wiping your tears away with his thumb.

“I know, I know.” You put your hand on his knee, silently thanking him for taking care of you yet again.

“So,” Steve began, his tone different now. You looked up at him, your eyes still red. “I’m going away, Y/N.”

“To where? Now? For how long?” You rattle off the questions quickly, going into a slight panic that he’d be leaving you while you were grieving so intensely.

“To somewhere I should have been a long time ago.” He said, looking straight ahead towards the pond at the edge of Tony and Pepper’s property.

His response made you smile. “Always the one for a mysterious answer, Stevie.”

He looked at you with a sad smile. “I’m not coming back, doll.” Your heart dropped at his statement, suddenly understanding what he meant. “With the Pym Particles… I can’t stay here, not when I know what could be.”

“This day keeps getting worse.” You breathe, blinking back tears and looking up at the canopy of trees.

“You know I love you, doll.” He puts his arm around your shoulders, pulling you to him. “You’ve always been my best girl.”

“Behind Aunt Peggy, of course.” You smile, leaning into his embrace.

Steve chuckles. “Bucky and Sam will look after you, and I won’t be far away, for a few years at least.”

“I love you, Steve. Thank you, for everything. Now go get that dance.” You smile at him as he stands, smoothing out his jacket.

You walk back to the house as Steve walks towards the pond. Pepper greets you as you walk into her living room.

“Hi, Pep.” You smile at her as you embrace one another in a hug.

“How are you holding up, Y/N?” She asks as you two sit on the couch.

You shrug, a small frown gracing your features. “I’ve had better days. Better months, really.”

She nods knowingly. Pepper always understood you, and right now she understood that nothing anyone said or did could make you feel better, or fill the Tony and Natasha and Steve sized hole that was left in your heart. She had the same hole.

“Morgan and I would love to have you stay awhile, and you know you’re always welcome.” She said, taking a sip of the tea that had been sitting on the coffee table in front of the two of you.

“Thank you, but I know it’ll be best if I head back to the city. Keeping busy will be the best thing for me right now, ya know?”

Pepper smiled, nodding slowly. “You’re right, but we would love to have you anytime. I mean that.” You reached over to give her a small hug, trying to keep calm and keep your tears at bay.

As you reached up to wipe at your eyes Sam walks in with Steve’s shield in hand, and you have to look away before you completely lose it, the grief hitting you harder than before.

“Y/N,” he says like he’s treading carefully, not wanting to upset you. You look up at him, tears heavy in your eyes. He sets the shield down and opens his arms for you. Almost instantly you are up and accepting his embrace. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Sam.” You say, pressing your cheek into his chest as he gives you a squeeze. You pull away, giving him a small smile. He steps around you, heading towards the kitchen. You look down at the shield, a small sigh leaving your lips. When you look up, you see Bucky through the window sitting on the same bench you found earlier. You and Bucky were friends, per se, not as close as you and Sam, and definitely not as close as you and Steve. You liked Bucky, and you knew he liked you too. He was comforting, seemingly familiar, even though you hardly spoke outside of group settings. You thought about what Steve might’ve said to him before he left, and wondered if it was the same as what he had said to you. You tried to shake your sad thoughts away as you approached the bench, not wanting to cry in front of a man you hardly knew.

“Hi Bucky,” You said quietly, standing next to and slightly behind the bench.

He turned slightly to look at you, a smile gracing his lips. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Can I sit with you?” You asked timidly, not wanting to intrude on his space. He had just lost his most important person in the world.

“Of course, Doll.” He said, still smiling, and moved over to make room for you.

The two of you sat quietly for a few minutes, listening to the leaves bustle in the wind and birds chirp in the distance. “How are you doing,” You finally began. “With all of this?”

He shrugged, not taking his eyes away from the ducks he was watching on the pond. “It sucks that he had to go, but I understand. If I had an opportunity to live a somewhat normal life with my girl I would have taken it too.”

You thought for a moment. “We do still have more Pym Particles, ya know.”

He looked at you with an amused smile. “I don’t have a girl to go back to, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”

The mood shifted, and you were grateful for that. “Oh, come on, Buck. I’ve read the excerpts in the museums, and I’ve heard plenty of stories from Steve. I know you were quite the charmer, and I don’t believe for a second that there weren’t plenty of girls who were waiting on you.”

“That may be true, but there weren’t any I found to be worth goin’ back to.” He gave you a soft smile. “Plus, ole Steve told me I gotta be lookin’ out for his best girl now.”

You rolled your eyes with a smile, “I’m 24 and he still treats me like a child.”

“It’s cause he loves ya, you know that.” He replies, and you smile.

“I know.”

“Plus, I won’t bug you too much, and now I have an excuse to talk to you.”

You quirk an eyebrow at him, “An excuse? You never needed an excuse to talk to me, Buck. We’ve always been friends.”

“I know, but you know me. I’m not the best with people.” He laughs sheepishly. You smile back at him. He was sweet; he had always been sweet to you.

What you didn’t know is that Bucky had always had eyes for you. He thought you were beautiful and kind. Like he said, he wasn’t the best with people nowadays, especially pretty girls he might have a crush on. He truly was glad that he would be able to talk to you now, and it seemed to him like you had the same feelings.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #mcu fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #platonic!steve x reader #post endgame #platonic!sam x reader

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threnodygrimblood · 5 years ago

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The Family that Shouldn’t Be

Summary: With Muriel and Eustace dead, Courage finds himself all alone at the farmhouse. Fortunately or unfortunately for Courage, the villains he faced in the past begins to make themselves at home at the farmhouse, bringing with them much fun and mayhem the small pink dog can handle.

Rated T for just in case

I feel like I went off-topic at the start of this chapter before bringing the Clutching Foot in. . .maybe? Either way, I hope it isn’t too confusing for my readers. Also, I will, on occasion, call Big Toe as the Clutching Foot since it's one of the other names he's called. I can't wait to start on the next chapter with the Black Puddle Queen.

All Courage the Cowardly Dog character belongs to John Dilworth

The Clutching Foot Who Brought Terror

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Courage clutched the flyer tightly in his paws as he gathered the. . .well, courage, to ask Katz if they could go to the County Fair. It was always a Bagge tradition to go even if Eustace didn't enjoy it. Plus, Courage hadn't seen Scarecrow in a while, and it would be nice to see a familiar face. Swallowing hard, Courage crept over Katz.

"Katz?" Courage said. Katz looked away from his book to look at Courage. "The County Fair is happening right now, and I was wondering if we can go."

Courage waited for Katz to say speak, but before the feline could, Cajun seemingly popped in from out of nowhere, startling the dog. "The County Fair? It sounds like fun! I'll go with ya, Pup."

Courage supposed he could go with Cajun if Katz didn't want to go. Before Courage could say anything, Katz spoke up, "I have nothing better to do, so I will accompany you to the County Fair."

"Nah, it's okay, pussy cat. You seemed so enthralled with your book that Pup and I can go by ourselves." Cajun insisted.

"That's the thing about books. You can put them aside and come back to them another time. You would know this if you read a book other than a cookbook." Katz countered as he closed his book and set it on the table.

Courage could feel the tension in the air, and he was curious to know why Katz and Cajun couldn't get along. He was sure it was more than clashing personalities.

"I want to bring along Le Quack and Weremole," Katz stated as he got up from his chair.

"Why?" Cajun inquired.

"I don't trust to leave Le Quack alone at the farmhouse, and I don't want Weremole to eat someone he shouldn't," Katz answered.

It wasn't hard finding Weremole and Le Quack. Weremole was, of course, was outside in what Cajun had dubbed Weremole's den. Weremole didn't have anything better to do, or so he said. Courage was sure that Weremole didn't have any rabbits to eat and no doubt wanted to eat someone, and Le Quack was down in the basement working on a new scheme. Le Quack was reluctant to come along but really didn't have a choice in the matter. Much like he didn't have a choice in where to sit.

When Courage opened the truck door, Le Quack hopped in and got settled, but Katz insisted, quite forcefully, that Courage sat in front, leaving Le Quack to sit in the back with Weremole. As soon they arrived at the fair and Katz parked the truck, Courage jumped out after Cajun, who was laughing at the fluffy state Le Quack turned out from riding in the back.

Courage spotted Scarecrow getting ready to operate the hayride, he turned to Katz and said, "I'll be right back." and walked over to Scarecrow.

Scarecrow looked up, saw a familiar face, and smiled. "Ah, Courage! It's been a while." He looked over to the truck and frowned. "Were are Muriel and her husband?"

Courage's ears drooped. "They died. . . months ago." Courage answered

Scarecrow's expression changed to one of sadness. "I'm sorry to hear that. How are you coping with their passing?" Scarecrow asked.

"I got some friends living with me and helping me out." Courage explained.

Scarecrow looked back at the villains and frowned. "They don't look. . . trustworthy," he said.

Courage smiled awkwardly. Scarecrow wasn't far from the truth. "Well, I trust them with my life." unlike in the past.

Scarecrow still wasn't sure, but if Courage and Muriel were willing to give him a second chance after what he had done to the Bagges, then he would trust the dog's judgment. Scarecrow smiled and said, "Well, I trust what you're doing. Don' be a stranger if you need anything at all. I also hope you have fun at the fair."

"Thanks, Scarecrow." Courage said, waved goodbye, and joined Katz and the others again.

"Who's that?" Cajun asked.

"That's Scarecrow. We met him in the cornfield last year. He was sad because he wasn't scary enough, so he believed becoming bad was the way to become scary. He tried to protect Muriel from Eustace and me. He locked down the house, set up traps, turned the basement into a panic room, and locked Muriel in there." Courage explained.

They looked over at Scarecrow, driving the hayride. "He don't look big and tough now," Cajun commented.

"After I rescued Muriel, I tried driving us away, but he chased us into a cornfield. Crows weren't afraid of him, so I got other crows to attack him. Muriel and I forgave him for meaning well and got him a job here." Courage finished.

"You are too nice, doggy." Le Quack told Courage as he walked past him.

"Ain't a bad thing," Cajun said as he followed after the duck.

Katz glanced down at Courage and inquired, "What do you want to do first?"

That was an easy answer. The first thing Courage wanted to do was ride the carousel. It was by his definition safer than the other rides, he did enjoy the Ferris wheel, but even the thought of him stopping at the top and the bar meant to keep him locked in breaking off and falling to his death usually left him with a death grip on the bar. So here was Courage, riding on the carousel giddy with laughter as the ride went round and round.

After the ride finished, Cajun had managed to convince Courage to ride the roller coaster with him lucky for Courage; it wasn't one of those tall coasters with a lot of loops. It still made the dog queasy after the ride ended. After wandering around with the villains looking at food and games, Cajun stopped at the dart booth. They watched the fox miss the balloons.

"You are, how you say? Bad at this." chuckled Le Quack.

"What a gyp! I hit that one balloon, and it didn't pop!" Cajun growled.

Le Quack continued chuckling at Cajun's misfortune, and Courage was sure he heard Katz chuckle softly too. Moving on, Courage stopped at the booth with the fishes. He did enjoy getting a fish and always gotten one every time he came to the fair.

Before Courage could hand over money to booth operator, Cajun spoke up, "You're gonna get a fish? Ain't ya worried about pussy cat here eatin' it in the middle of the night?"

Katz glared at Cajun, and Courage knew that the feline was planning to cause the fox harm. As the booth operator handed Courage the ping pong balls, he knew what he had to do to defuse the situation. Courage threw the balls haphazardly at the fishbowls until they were all thrown.

"Bad luck, Pup." Cajun sympathized.

"At least he didn't get ripped off as you did," Katz said with a smirk.

"Oh, haha, go ahead and laugh at my pain." Cajun sniffed then picked Courage up. "Pup and I are gonna drown our sorrow in sweets."

"But. But. . ." Courage began protesting, not wanting to leave Katz, Le Quack, and Weremole behind.

"It'll be fine, Pup. They'll follow us. At least Katz will not want to see me get ya into trouble." Cajun reassured Courage.

Courage resigned to his current fate and looked over his shoulder to see the others were indeed following after them. Cajun set Courage down near the funnel cake stand and ordered one for himself,

"What about you, Pup? Do ya want a funnel cake?" Cajun asked. Courage had his eyes set on the cotton candy stand nearby. Seeing this, Cajun paid for his funnel cake and bought a cotton candy for Courage. Le Quack bought a donut for himself, they sat on a bench and watched Weremole sniff the ground before rushing towards the cornfield. They watched the stalks rustle and heard a squeal followed by a snarl.

"Guess Weremole found himself lunch," Cajun observed.

Courage bit into the cotton candy and perceived that Katz wasn't with them.

"Where's Katz?" Courage asked Le Quack.

"No idea." Le Quack retorted.

Courage's brows furrowed as he puzzled over where Katz has gone to. Could he have gotten bored or tired and went back to the truck? It was a possibility. Courage finished his cotton candy and was licking the remnants off the paper cone when Katz came strolling over to the group. Courage glimpsed something in Katz's paw.

The feline stopped in front of Courage, and holding the object out to him said, "Here."

Courage eyed the item in Katz's paws and saw it was a small goldfish plushie. Katz cleared his throat and stated, "I suspect you wanted to get one of those goldfishes greatly, and I'm sure you would want one to feed and watch, but this is the only solution I could think of where you won't have to suffer heartbreak when it does. And you can cuddle with it when you're asleep. . ."

"Where did ya get it?" Cajun asked.

"At the ring toss booth. It wasn't hard landing them onto the pegs." Katz said with a shrug.

Courage focused his attention more on Katz's face than the exchanging happening between him and Cajun. Courage was sure that Katz was abashed about getting the plushie for him. But why did Katz have to be abashed about doing something kind for him? Courage couldn't figure Katz out. He seemed to switch between being aloof to being kindhearted towards him but still act cold towards the other villains.

Not wanting to be rude and appreciating the gesture, Courage said to Katz, "Than you, Katz."

Katz almost smiled, but it never made it on his face because of Cajun. "So now that you won Pup a prize, does that make ya both boyfriends?" he inquired.

The animosity in the air was very heavy, and Le Quack hurried away from the fox. Katz tossed the goldfish at Courage. He fumbled with it until he was able to catch it. Katz, in the meantime, stomped over to Cajun his paw shot out and gripped the fox's throat. A strangled sound wheezed its way out his mouth as he clawed at Katz's tight grip. Katz ignored Cajun as he dragged the fox over to the high striker game, he slammed Cajun against the long narrow frame and the fox clutched his throat as he coughed and wheezed as Katz slowly sauntered away.

"What is your problem?! Can't ya take a joke?!" barked Cajun.

Katz ignored Cajun as he grabbed the hammer out of the startled high striker operator's hand and swung it down onto the lever. The puck shot up, taking Cajun with it, and his head slammed against the bell at the top. Courage had followed after Katz and gasped aloud when he witnessed what he did to Cajun and hurried over to where the fox fell.

"Cajun? Are you okay?" he asked, and Cajun answered back with a pained groan. Courage turned his attention to Katz and said, "That wasn't very nice, Katz. Why do you always have to be so mean to Cajun?"

Katz stared at Courage, scoffed, and handed the hammer back to the operator. Courage sighed as Katz walked off, sure he was heading for the truck. What had started as a nice day ended in misery as Courage and Le Quack helped the injured Cajun back to the truck with Weremole trailing behind. Katz was already sitting in the truck sulking. After the rest of the party got into the truck, they were heading back home.

The running engine was the only sound rending the air. Having recovered a little from Katz did to him, Cajun stared out the window.

"Thanks for the head injury," Cajun growled.

"If you can string together words into a sentence, you're fine." Katz retorted.

Courage was getting anxious and hoped Cajun didn't say anything to push Katz more. When the farmhouse came into sight, Courage noticed that Katz was slowly the truck to a halt far from the house. Peering up at Katz, Courage saw the cat's eyes narrowed as he seemingly glared at the farmhouse. Stretching as high as his tiny legs could stretch, Courage glanced over the dashboard, and his eyes widened at the giant hole where the front door once was.

"Why does it look like someone blew the door in?" Cajun asked.

"Do we have a robber in the house?" Le Quack inquired, looking through the window.

Courage let out a gasp. The table holding Muriel and Eustace's ashes. Did it get ruined from the possible explosion?

"Oh no." he whimpered.

Courage scampered over Cajun's lap, worked the door open, jumped out, and hurried towards the house, the villains' calls to wait or to come back falling on deaf ears. Heart pounding, Courage rushed over to the table, ignoring the debris on the floor. Courage climbed onto the chair set near the table, and after checking the contents on the table heaved out a sigh. Other than a few shards of wood and one picture frame knocked over and the rest seemingly out of place, nothing was really disturbed.

"Courage!" Katz snapped, resulting in the dog turning in Katz's direction. Katz walked over to Courage and said, "Please don't go rushing off into danger like that!"

"Why? I've done it plenty of times." Courage reminded him.

Katz was about to reply, but a noise in the kitchen halted it. The villains headed for the kitchen, and Courage followed after them. Katz opened the door; they entered and stopped short, and Courage looked around Katz's legs, and his jaw dropped. Big Toe and the other four toes looked up from the meal on the floor.

Katz, of course, saw a mess on what was once a clean floor and the refrigerator door wide open. He could about feel his eye twitch.

The Clutching Foot looked up at them all, and Big Toe asked, "What?" followed by a chorus of "Yeah, what?"

Surprisingly it was Cajun that spoke up in anger. "What? What?! Your eating what I was planning on making for dinner! And you left the fridge door wide open! Your gonna spoil everything inside!" Cajun slammed the door shut. He opened the freezer door and fished for the ice cube tray and headed over to the counter. Courage walked around the Clutching Foot to help Cajun.

"What are you doing here, Big Toe?" Le Quack asked.

"We needed to do lay low, see?" Big Toe answered, followed by, "Yeah, lay low."

"Lay low from what?" Cajun asked as he placed the ice pack on top of his head.

"We did a heist, see? And this is the only place we could think of to hide out, see?" Big Toe answered. The Clutching Foot stomped over to bag near the table and grabbing the end of the pack with his teeth, tipped out the contents inside. Gemstones of various sizes and values and three statues of different height tumbled on the floor. Le Quack plucked one of the gems off the floor and examined it closely.

Cajun whistled. "That's a lot of rocks."

Courage picked up one of the statues and inquired, "What are you going to do with them?"

"Sell 'em, see?" Big Toe answered.

"Well, I hope you plan on cleaning this mess you so graciously made and fix the gaping hole out front." Katz hissed.

"Me and the boys can lick the floor clean, see? But we gonna need some help with the wall, see?" Big Toe informed the cat.

One of Katz's eyes twitched at 'lick the floor clean.' He heaved out a sigh, pivot, and walked out of the kitchen. Everyone watched the cat go, but it was Courage who went after Katz.

"Katz? Where are you going?" He interrogated as he followed Katz out of the giant hole.

"Away from here before I do something I may regret," Katz answered back.

"When will you be back?" Courage questioned further.

He received no answer as Katz slammed the truck door shut and drove off. Courage whined softly. All he wanted was a lovely day at the County Fair with Katz, but when that didn't happen, he hoped Katz's mood would improve when they got home, but no such luck. With a sigh, Courage looked at the destroyed wall and knew at least one way to make Katz feel better.

Katz returned quite late that night. Driving didn't settle his anger, especially since Di Lung almost drove into him. And Di Lung shouting, "Watch where you're goin', ya fool!" as he drove off in the opposite direction had Katz digging his claws into the steering wheel. Katz headed to the one place where he could, at the very least, feel better, his motel where his spiders still reside.

Being with his spiders did give Katz a little peace of mind, and he had come across someone vandalizing his once precious motel. . .and well, no one is going to miss one human. Katz certainly won't. After seeing his spiders, Katz went to his new club, Klub Katz. He quite liked the name that he decided to use it again since the last time he used it was on an island that very few people came across. Now Katz was home, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Katz was pleased to see the hole fixed, and a new door put up as he walked into the living room. The only one Katz could see still awake at this hour was Cajun. The fox sat in the rocking chair, looking bored as he flipped through the channels.

Katz took a step towards the stairs when Cajun spoke up, "There's a plate in the oven for ya if ya haven't eaten yet."

"I'm stunned that you saved me some dinner," Katz replied.

Cajun scoffed. "I wouldn't not after what ya did to me, and even if I were 'kind' enough to do so, I would do something get my vengeance on ya. But Pup insisted we saved dinner for ya and made sure I didn't over spice it."

That was considerate of Courage. Katz glanced around the room and commented, "I see the Clutching Foot cleaned up the house."

"Nah, the only thing the Clutching Foot did was lick the kitchen floor clean." Katz made a disgusted face. "But, Pup mopped the kitchen floor, swept the floor in here, tidied up, and fixed the wall."

The anger in Katz began rising again. "You made Courage clean up all by himself?" Katz asked slowly.

"I ain't that heartless. At least to Pup, I ain't anymore. And since Pup's short, I helped fix the parts he couldn't reach and help put in the door." Cajun told the feline.

Lucky for the fox, Katz doesn't have to wring his neck. "Why are you up? You're usually asleep by this time?" Katz inquired, trying to be a little bit civil to the fox.

"The Clutching Foot decided to become roommates with me in the basement, and all five toes snores. Loudly." Cajun explained. "I may curl up on the couch and sleep there later. You're so lucky to sleep in a bed with Pup, who probably don't snore."

"Indeed." Katz agreed. "But he does have nightmares and will on occasion wake screaming from terror."

"Still better than constant loud snorin'." Cajun shot back.

Katz gave Cajun a rare smile and headed for the kitchen. Katz heated his dinner, ate alone, then washed and dried the dishes, putting them away, and headed for the stairs. He quietly entered the room and got into bed and looked over at Courage. Katz was sure he felt his heart skip a beat when he spotted the fish plushie he got for Courage cradled in his arms. A red paw reached out to touch the sleeping dog but drew back. Katz laid down and fell asleep.

The next morning was pretty average, save for the new addition, or addition in the farmhouse. Once Courage was awake and had gone down to the kitchen for breakfast, Cajun asked if he could help make breakfast seeing how there are now five more mouths to feed. Courage was more than happy to help. The whole tome, Courage could feel Katz leering at them, and not only did it make him uncomfortable, but he wasn't sure what they did to deserve it.

Breakfast went along fine and without any disastrous result. Around lunchtime was a different matter. It came to Courage's attention that Katz was reading the same newspaper, which, in his countless hours of observation, knew he was still feeling moody. Hoping that making the cat another cup of tea would cheer him up, Courage headed for the kitchen. Once he stepped inside, he spotted Cajun at the sink, and something was. . .off. The fox had his back to Courage, and he could hear Cajun slowly run a knife sharpener over a blade.

Courage fidget in his spot, not wanting to get close to Cajun to use the stove. He jumped when Cajun spoke. "Ah, Courage. I'm glad you're here."

Cajun's voice sent chills down Courage's spine, and after swallowing the lump that formed in his throat, he asked, "A-are you getting ready to make lunch?" Courage didn't have a clue as to why Cajun was making him so nervous.

The sound of the knife sharpener stopped abruptly, "Why yes, Courage." cooed Cajun as he set the sharpener down on the counter then spun around. "And you're to be the main course!"

Cajun laughed a malicious laugh as he held up the now sharpen gleaming meat cleaver. Courage made a good impression of a fluff ball as he screamed and ran out of the kitchen swiftly, leaving the door swinging in his wake. Courage rushed over to Katz as the cat peeked over his newspaper.

"Dear boy, what has gotten you into a state of terror now?" he inquired.

Courage hopped in place as he tried to explain through his babble about what transpired in the kitchen. As Courage finished his tale, Cajun walked biting into a carrot.

"What's all the screamin' about?" he asked. Courage belted out another scream and ran out the front door. "Was it somethin' I said?" Cajun asked.

Katz didn't answer. Instead, he got out of his chair and strode over to Cajun as he rolled the newspaper up. He proceeded to whack the fox on the head with the paper. Cajun yelped and tried to defend himself with the carrot.

"What did I do this time?!" demanded Cajun.

"Courage informed me that you were going to cook him for lunch." hissed Katz.

"What?! What insanity is this?" Cajun wondered.

"Are you going to deny it?" Katz interrogated.

"Of course, I am! First off, none of my recipes call for a dog of any kind, seein' how they are a distant relative of mine, it feels a bit like cannibalism to me. And second, I was out in the garden harvestin' some of the crops for lunch." Cajun defended and held up the carrot as evidence. "So either Pup is lyin', or there's two of me, and the second one is a lot more murderous than me."

"I hope you have a doppelganger because I would have to hurt you very badly if you tried to hurt Courage in any way." Katz threatened.

"Story of my life," Cajun grumbled and took another bite out of the carrot.

Courage was trying his best to hide, but it was pretty tough when he couldn't stop shaking, which in turn caused the bucket to rattle. He couldn't understand the villains. Courage thought they were no longer trying to kill him. But after the thing with Cajun in the kitchen, he soon had Weremole to contend with, the feral creature chased him around the house, his teeth gnashing until Courage took refuge in the barn.

And as Courage tried to catch his breath from all that running, Le Quack showed up, lit a bomb he had, thrown it in, and locked the doors on Courage.

Courage fumbled around for the bomb, quite glad that not only was light coming from the loft door, but the lit wick on the bomb helped him find it and put it out before it exploded. Lunch was tense for him as he sat very close to Katz, hoping the cat didn't mind, which he didn't seem to as he didn't say anything to it or tried to push the dog away. That seemed to lure Courage into a false sense of relaxation. Courage decided to take a bath after lunch to help calm himself further. He presumed Katz didn't like him sitting close to him. The cat had entered the bathroom, and when Courage asked him what he was doing there, Katz proceeded to grab the dog by the top of his head and attempted to drown him in the tub.

Courage thrashed about until he was successful in getting out of Katz's grip. He gasped for air, and as Katz reached for him again, Courage whimpered as he scrambled out of the tub. His wet paws made it difficult for Courage to open the door, but Katz approaching gave him the incentive, and he tore the door open and ran out. Tears pricked Courage's eyes as he wondered why now after the villains have been living with him, they decided to try and kill him. He thought they changed after he saved them countless times, and they rescued him once.

Villains will never change; it seemed. Determine not to stay around when the Clutching Foot decides it's his turn to go after him; Courage peeked from his hiding place and seeing no one in sight took haste running from the farm with no destination in mind. The dog ran until he was close to collapsing, being out in the burning sun until he spotted a familiar object approaching quickly. When Courage arrived, panting and sweating, he found himself at Shirley's wagon. He hesitated to climb the step and seeing if Shirley was home. Would she attack him as the villains have?

Courage didn't have time to ponder further, the door open and Shirley appeared.

"Ah, Courage. It's been a long time since we last met. Come in and have some tea with me." Shirley offered.

Not only was Courage parched, but he couldn't say no to the gypsy without the possibility of incurring her wrath. He hopped onto the step and walking into her wagon, which felt a lot cooler than outside. Courage sat at the table as Shirley prepared the tea and set the cups down.

"Thank you." Courage said, taking the drink and gulping it down.

"You're welcome," Shirley replied and took a sip from hers. "How are your Muriel and the stupid one doing?"

Courage with a sigh set the glass down and told the gypsy in detail about their passing months ago.

Shirley listened to Courage's story and feeling commiserating for the pink dog said, "I'm sorry for your loss, Courage. If you ever wish to communicate with your Muriel or the stupid one, don't hesitate to seek me out. I'll charge you a small sum for it."

Courage smiled and felt a little calm. "Thank you, Shirley," he replied.

Shirley nodded in response then asked a question that made Courage tense up, "Have you been living all alone?"

Courage shook his head. He explained that some villains he encountered in his past came to live with him for one reason or another. How the months that followed, they never once tried to harm him and how they ever saved him from a water creature that was similar to the Black Puddle Queen, but all that seemed to have changed today.

"I just don't understand." Courage whined. "We were living happily, then all of a sudden, they tried to kill me today." Katz's trying to drown him hurt Courage the most.

Shirley was ready to come up with some curses to help Courage out, but first, she needed more details before she could start. "Has anything changed recently?" she inquired.

"Well, the Clutching Foot arrived yesterday. He wanted a place to lay low because he had just robbed a place and stolen a couple of gemstones and three golden statues." Courage answered.

Shirley seemed to perk at the mention of the three statues. She got up from the table and rummaged around the contents in her trunk. Once she found what she was looking for, Shirley brought it over to the table.

"These statues, Did one of them look like this?" she questioned as she set the worn paper on the table.

Courage scanned the drawing and gasped. It looked exactly like one of the statues that the Clutching Foot had stolen.

"Yes, one of the statues look like that." Courage answered.

"Well, the good news is that none of your new questionable friends were trying to kill you," Shirley explained.

It was like a terrible weight on Courage lifted only for a new one to settle on the dog.

"What's the bad news?" he asked because there is always bad news.

"The bad news is that your friends are possibly in danger," Shirley told him.

"What?" Courage squeaked.

"A spirit lives in the statue. The spirit strives on terror and will take on the form or something or someone the person is afraid of." Shirley explained.

"Except for the Clutching Foot, I've been living with the villains for months. It doesn't explain why it took the forms of Katz, Cajun, Le Quack, and Weremole." Courage stated.

"Maybe you're still afraid of them subconsciously." Shirley offered.

It could be. Courage has seen Katz angry plenty of times and seen him take it out on Cajun most of those times.

"Why would the villains be in danger? There's nothing they're afraid of." Courage said.

"Anyone would be afraid of being eaten," Shirley answered.

Courage almost spilled his tea. "What?" he whispered.

"This spirit eats those it terrorizes. Which was lucky for you when you ran away." Shirley said.

"Oh, no." Courage whined. He needed to go back and save his frie- no his family. He finished the tea and quickly said, "Thank you for the tea, Shirley." he hesitated and added, "How much do I owe you for the information?"

"Free of charge just this once," Shirley answered.

"Thank you again." Courage replied. He said his goodbyes to Shirley and took off back home, hoping all the way that he's not too late to save them.

Courage didn't notice the distance it took to get home being a fretting state the whole way. It felt quiet when he got home; the door squeaked open much too loud when he pushed it open. Courage's heart thudded hard as he walked into the house, and out of habit, Courage called out, "Katz? Cajun?"

He wasn't surprised when he didn't get a reply. Courage spotted the basement door slightly ajar, and with the knowledge that the villains were in danger, he made his way down the stairs. Halfway down, Courage heard an unfamiliar voice speak, "Hmmm, who to cook first? Not the giant foot, it'll be last. Hmmm, maybe the fox."

"Whoa, whoa. I already been cooked once. I have no desire to be cooked again." Cajun stated.

"And it's that fear of being cooked again is what will make you a delicious appetizer." the evil spirit tittered.

Courage hurried down the rest of the stairs, almost losing his footing twice and once in the basement found the villains tied up except for Weremole, who seemed to be locked in a chest. The chest shook around, and Courage could hear Weremole growling and hissing from inside. A cauldron similar to the one the villains chained Muriel over sat in the middle of the room, and a lovely woman carrying Cajun over her head strolled over to the cauldron.

"Can't we just order you some take out instead?" Cajun offered.

"Cajun fox stew sounds better." the spirit stated.

With a cry, Courage rushed over just as the spirit tossed the screaming fox into the cauldron. Courage leaped and tackled Cajun before he hit the bubbling liquid, and Courage skidded across the ground hard.

"Oh, Pup. I'm so thrilled to see you." Cajun said with a tiny frighten whimper.

"I'm amazed you came back." the spirit said.

"I couldn't let you eat the villains." Courage stated.

The spirit winced slightly at that. "Even after four of your friends tried to kill you?" the spirit inquired.

"I know now that it was you who took on the forms of Cajun, Katz, Le Quack, and Weremole and tried to kill and possibly eat me." Courage said.

"I told ya I wasn't tryin' to cook Pup!" Cajun hollered at Katz.

"Now is not the time for that." Katz hissed back.

"Such bravery. How I loathe it." sneered the spirit. "Luckily, your friends have their little fears that are keeping me from returning into my prison. Did you know the giant foot is afraid of you, dog? It fears you will lick it as you did once before. We already know one of the fox's fears, but the cat's fear is the juiciest I've ever tasted. Would you like to know what it is?"

Courage watched as Katz seemed to freeze at the spirit's words. "No, I don't care what Katz is afraid of. All I care about is saving them from you." Courage told the spirit.

"Even though you still fear them?" the spirit asked with a grin.

"What?" Cajun asked.

Courage could hear the hurt in Cajun's tone, and looking at the other villains staring back at him could see the pain in their eyes.

"You are still afraid even though we done nothing to you the whole time we've been here?" Le Quack asked.

Seeing the smug look on the spirit's face and knowing he had no way out of it, Courage confessed, "How can I not? You are all villains, you all done something terrible in one or another to Muriel or Eustace or both or me, and it's hard to forget when someone or something incurs Katz's wrath." a determined look crossed Courage's face as he stared into the spirit's eyes. "But the spirit refused to mention that I'm afraid of other things and other villains I encountered in the past, it just chose to take on your forms because it was convenient."

"You mean something like these?" the spirit asked. With a wave of its arm, the windmill vandals, the dummies, and the other creatures they encountered recently showed up.

Courage shook at the sight of them but kept his resolve as he continued. "They scare me, but they are are a lot less terrifying than the thought of losing my family to them."

A stun silence filled the basement. "Family? What family?" Le Quack wondered.

"You mean us?" Cajun asked.

"Yes. I never hesitated to save my loved ones from danger, and none of you are the exception. And I decided we were a family after you rescued from that creature." Courage admitted.

"Oh, Pup. I'd hug ya if I could." Cajun said, his tail wagging.

"Such a strange hodgepodge family this is." Le Quack stated.

"What about us?" Big Toe spoke up.

"As long as you don't try to take any of the others hostage to force me to do a heist or any other terrible thing to me, then you can be part of the family." Courage told him.

The previous villains disappeared as the spirit wailed. Courage and the villains turned towards the spirit as it doubled over, taking on the forms of four of them.

"That's unnerving," Cajun commented.

"You wretched little dog! Those positive emotions are like poison to me." the spirit hissed.

"No matter how many times someone or something comes and puts my family in danger, I will continue to face those things to save them." Courage promised.

"We'll do the same for you." Le Quack said.

"Yeah." Big Toe and the other four toes agreed.

The spirit let out a shriek and disappeared. Courage put the fire out the fire under the cauldron first then using his teeth gnawed through the ropes on Cajun since he was closer. Cajun let Weremole out of the chest as Courage freed the others.

"Now then, do you have any idea where that spirit came from?" Katz asked Courage.

"One of the gold statues is its prison." Courage answered.

Everyone turned towards the Clutching Foot. "How were we suppose to know, see?" Big Toe said.

"Yeah, how were we suppose to know?" the other four toes agreed.

"Well, take it back where you got it from," Cajun suggested.

"We can't see? They'll know it's us, see?" Big Toe said, followed by four, "Yeah."

"I'll take it back." Le Quack offered.

"Ain't ya worried about being arrested?" Cajun inquired.

"No prison can hold Le Quack." the duck stated.

"Make it quick," Katz said.

The Clutching Foot and Le Quack went back upstairs first to gather the stolen goods, and Cajun said to Courage, "I'm gonna make ya dumplings for dinner tonight."

"Yay." Courage cheered as his tail wagged.

Courage and Weremole were the next to go upstairs, and once they were gone, Cajun turned to Katz.

"So pussy cat, what are ya afraid of?" Cajun asked Katz.

Katz's ears flattened against his head as he narrowed his eyes at the fox. "Why should I tell you?" he questioned back.

"Fair's fair since you know my fears," Cajun stated.

"And I won't hesitate to light a fire under the cauldron again and make cajun fox stew." Katz countered.

Cajun held his paws up in defeat. "Okay, I get it. I won't ask again."

Cajun left, and after making sure he was all alone, Katz whispered, "What I fear is losing Courage to that fox."

#Courage the Cowardly Dog #CtCD #Courage the Cowardly Dog fanfic #CtCD fanfic #Courage #Katz #Cajun #Le Quack #Weremole #the Clutching Foot #The Family that Shouldn't Be #fanfic #ThrenodyGrimblood #Katz/Courage #The Clutching Foot Who Brought Terror #Shirley #Scarecrow

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lost-n-stereo · 6 years ago

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A/N: Nabrina Prompt #18 “Did i ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?”

and I keep waiting (but I won’t say I’m waiting)

They say time heals all wounds.

That would be great if she wasn’t practically immortal, in an odd limbo where her body is barely changing but her friends are growing up and moving on.

You would think that it would hurt less as the days go by, since it’s been nearly two years since Nick sacrificed himself for the greater good and Lilith took him to hell. Except, he didn’t sacrifice himself for the greater good, he sacrificed himself for her. And that makes it a hell of a lot tougher to let go.

The first few months were the worst, when it was still fresh, always there in the back of her mind that he was possibly suffering in hell because of her. She took solace in Lilith’s promise to watch over him but it didn’t keep her from imagining horrible scenarios of torture and pain.

The Fright Club met often, dreaming up ways to go into hell to rescue Nick. They plotted ways to get Lucifer out of his body, searched tomes and spell books for clues or incantations, but always came up just a little too short.

Things changed within their friend group gradually over the last two years of mortal high school. Theo started dating a sweet girl from Riverdale and started spending less time with them. Roz and Harvey took a break in their junior year, in which time Sabrina and Harvey gave it another shot. They soon realized their mistake, that their love was one based in their past, and it wasn’t long before Harvey and Roz were back together for good.

Sabrina wasn’t waiting for Nick, exactly, but she always had him in the back of her mind. And always in her heart. She went on dates with nice boys, mortal and warlock alike, but never felt the connection she’d had with him.

“Tell me again why I decided to go to school all the way across the state,” Roz says, her voice pulling Sabrina out of her mind and back into the room her best friend is currently packing up.

“Because it’s fun and exciting,” Sabrina says, shaking off her inner monologue, as she grabs a pink stuffed bunny off of Roz’s nightstand. “Are you taking Mr. Wiggles with you?”

Roz laughs. “I’m eighteen now. Do I really need to bring my childhood toys with me to college?” She nibbles on her bottom lip and both girls speak at the same time.

“Yes.”

Sabrina giggles and sets the bunny on an already packed suitcase. “I think he’ll fit right in. Are the boys still meeting us at the diner before you head out?”

“Yeah, Theo said they would meet us around five.”

It’s been a summer full of the four of them, which isn’t to say it’s been much different than every summer since before she could remember.

Summer always comes with an expiration date. The days are long and warm, afternoons spent in Sweetwater River playing and splashing around with the kids from across the water and nights spent at bonfires and house parties. Fall is always a surprise no matter how much you’re prepared for it. She used to wait all summer long for autumn to hit. It meant her favorite season, her birthday and all the fun witchy holidays that she loved so much.

Now it’s just a reminder that high school is over and everyone is going their separate ways.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be all alone here for awhile,” Sabrina says wistfully. “Greendale won’t be the same without you guys.”

Roz stops packing, drops the dress she was holding into the open suitcase in front of her without folding it, and curls up on her bed with Sabrina. “You have so many responsibilities at the academy, time is going to fly by and before you know it, it’ll be Christmas break.”

“Winter solstice,” Sabrina amends and they both laugh. “You’re right. I’m just going to miss you all so much.”

They hug and Roz gives a watery laugh as she pulls away. “Okay, no more crying. We’re going to go have fun and we won’t be saying goodbye tonight. Just a ‘see you soon’.”

Sabrina nods and stands, wiping the corner of her eye with her thumb. “You’re right. Let’s get you packed up. You’ve got a long car ride ahead of you in the morning.”

*** The sun is shining high and bright when she wakes up the next day.

A look at her bedside clock tells her that it’s after nine, which means Roz and Harvey are already on the road and headed to their new school. Sabrina wasn’t surprised when Harvey told her months ago that he was applying to the same school as his girlfriend. Their relationship was built to last and it made her happy knowing they would have each other living so far from home. Theo wasn’t going far, only a short two hour drive away, so Sabrina knew she’d see him more often than the others.

She tried not to think about how she was losing her mortal friends to the real world. Instead, she decided to focus her attention to her non-mortal side and all of the people she still had here at home.

When Father Blackwood took off the Church of Night was left with only a handful of people, not many students at all. But with Aunt Zelda becoming High Priestess it brought forth a whole new group of witches and warlocks that were eager to study under her new leadership.

“Sabrina!”

Speaking of Aunt Zelda…

“I’m up!” She calls, popping up out of bed refreshed and ready to begin the next chapter of her life. Salem meows from his window perch and Sabrina smiles, scratches him on the head behind his ears the way she knows he likes. “You may not be a real cat, Salem. But you sure do purr like one.”

Twenty minutes later they are on their way to the academy, with Aunt Hilda and Ambrose in tow. Rebuilding the Church of Night was a family effort, one that Sabrina has not yet lived full time because of her dedication to finishing mortal high school. Now, she can not only help her family in their quest to make the church one that is wholly inclusive and thriving, but she can finish her dark arts studies without having to juggle her mortal ones.

“Conjuring today, eh Sabrina?” Ambrose asks as they walk through the doors of Gehenna Station. After passing all of her general courses last semester she’s finally able, and more than ready, to start her conjuring training.

In reality, she doesn’t need schooling or classes or spells, even. Learning you’re the daughter of Lucifer Morningstar, with power most witches and warlocks can only imagine, was difficult to come to terms with. She decided that she wouldn’t use those powers unless absolutely necessary and instead sticks to the magic used by everyone else.

“I’m excited,” she says as they pass the new sculpture in the center of the room, Lilith in her true form, beauty and power emanating from the carved stone. “Conjuring was always Nick’s favorite...”

Ambrose frowns when he sees Sabrina’s face fall. “I’m sorry, cousin. I know it doesn’t get any easier. But one day, maybe…”

“It’s a big maybe, Ambrose,” she says sadly. “Plus, there’s no use thinking about it constantly. Thinking about it changes nothing. I’m going to focus on what is happening in the here and now.”

“Good on you, Sabrina.” Aunt Zelda steps up beside her and looks up at the statue of Lilith. “I’m sure the Queen of Hell is watching over your young warlock as we speak. She knows how important he was to you.”

“Is,” Sabrina corrects gently. “How important he is to me.”

***

August turns into September and then into October with little fanfare.

She keeps in touch with Harvey, Roz and Theo over group chats and Skype sessions. There are tentative plans for Halloween, also known as her birthday, but she knows there are no guarantees when it comes to long distance friendships. They have mortal responsibilities that she just doesn’t have any more.

Besides, even if her eighteenth birthday is spent with just her aunties and Ambrose, it will still be fun.

“I love this weather,” Sabrina says to Ambrose as they walk through the woods on their way home from the academy. “The sky looks like it could crack open at any time. I can’t wait for the rain to begin.”

“Agree completely, cousin. All feels right in the world when it’s dark and gloomy.”

Sabrina kicks a small rock out of the way of the path with the toe of her boot. “How’s Prudence? Have you spoken with her?”

Ambrose shrugs and offers a small smile. “Still on the hunt for her father, o’course. I wish I could be out there with her but…”

“But Aunt Zelda needed you,” Sabrina finishes for him and he nods.

“She’s a strong girl, that one. I know she’ll find him and when she does…I’ll be there to help take him down.”

It’s been strange being at the academy without Prudence, especially considering two thirds of the Weird Sisters are still attending students. Dorcas and Agatha have been unlikely friends, although Sabrina thinks sometimes it’s her heritage they admire in her and not her personality.

Still, it’s nice to have friends.

“So what’s the big plan for your birthday this year, cuz? Your friends making the trip?”

Sabrina sighs. “I’m honestly not sure. They are so busy with school and the distance is a lot. I’m hopeful but won’t be disappointed if they can’t make it.”

“Very mature of you,” he says with a grin and she smacks him on the arm.

“Well I am almost an adult.”

Ambrose snorts, winds his arm through Sabrina’s and leads her towards their house.

“Trust me, cousin. You’re nowhere near an adult. Now your 118th birthday? That’s when the real fun begins.”

***

A knock on the front door wakes her up at 12:03 am on October 31st.

“Can’t even get a good night’s sleep the night before my birthday,” she mumbles as she climbs out of bed, slipping into a robe and a pair of slippers to save her bare feet from the cold wood floor.

No one else in the house woke up to the knock, which surprises her not at all. Her family sleeps like the dead most of the time and the knock isn’t particularly loud or demanding. In fact, she’s shocked that she heard it at all.

It doesn’t occur to her to maybe be wary of a knock sounding at midnight. There could be an untold number of dangers awaiting her on the other side but she doesn’t feel fearful at all.

Nothing can prepare her for what’s actually on the other side of the door.

“Happy Birthday, Spellman.”

Sabrina’s breath catches in her throat and she’s scared this is some kind of trick. An evil manipulation, perhaps, although she has no current enemies that she can think of. Except Lucifer, obviously, but he’s supposed to be in hell. In Nick. Except…

“Nicholas?”

“Hello, Sabrina.”

He looks exactly the same as when she last saw him, except his eyes aren’t red with the devil inside. There are no marks or blemishes on his skin, no visible signs of torture like she was afraid of.

“How…? What…?”

Nick chuckles softly. “Two very excellent questions. Sabrina…”

Her name is barely out of his mouth when she flings herself at him, her hands coming up to touch his hair, his face, his shoulders. He’s so solid and strong and real.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” she says, relishing the feel of his arms around her waist. “I don’t know how this is possible but I almost don’t care.”

“Lilith,” he whispers. “She found a way to contain him in Hell. I can explain it all to you but right now…”

His fingers card through her hair and she smiles against his lips when he presses them to hers.

“Your hair is longer,” he says when they pull apart. His eyes are intense when he looks down at her and she blushes.

“What?”

“Did i ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are? Because the memory of them has kept me sane for the last two years and now, looking into them…it’s like a dream come true.”

Her blood warms at his confession. “Nicholas.”

He kisses her again and she can feel in that single moment the amount of love and devotion that he has for her. Nothing that’s ever happened in her life thus far feels like this.

“I know we have a lot to talk about,” he says, his eyes downcast. “So much happened before I left and I know how angry you must be with me.”

Sabrina shakes her head, puts her hand on his cheek so he’s forced to look at her. “I was angry, Nick. But I also missed you terribly. And I know why you did what you did. It doesn’t make it easier or excuse it but I do understand.”

“I’m so sorry, Spellman.” He practically collapses into her when he hugs her again and she can actually feel the wave of exhaustion roll off of him. “I promise to make it up to you.”

“Stay here tonight,” she whispers. “Come with me.”

She holds her hand out and he takes it, bringing it up to his lips to kiss her knuckles.

There is a piece of parchment on her bed that wasn’t there before. She turns it over in her hands to see a simple line etched in black ink.

Happy Birthday Sabrina. I told you I’d take good care of him.

“What is that?” Nick asks, coming around behind her to rest his chin on her shoulder.

“A birthday present from Lilith,” she says as she leans back into him.

“The parchment?”

Sabrina laughs, turns around in his arms and brings his head down for a kiss. “No, silly. It was you.”

***

She wakes up hours later to her aunts’ surprised voices.

“Nicholas? What are you doing here?!”

“And in Sabrina’s bed, no less!”

“Aunties,” she says, pulling her blanket up around her and Nick. “I’m eighteen and my boyfriend just escaped hell. Can you cut me a little bit of a break?”

Hilda mumbles something about baking a cake and Zelda eyes Nick carefully.

“We’ll expect a full report of how exactly you’re back,” she says and Nick nods earnestly. “Well then, have a good morning you two.”

Ambrose passes by the doorway as Zelda is leaving. “Happy birthday, cousin.” He does a double take when he sees Nick. “Nicholas, good to have you back, friend.”

Nick laughs when the door closes again. “Your family is something else, Spellman.”

She turns so they are lying face to face. “I still can’t believe you’re here. In the flesh, lying next to me right now. I thought this day would never come.”

“Not me,” he says seriously. “Every single day I had to be away was just one day closer to being with you again.”

Sabrina sighs happily and lets him pull her body flush with his so he can kiss her. “Nick…what would you have done if I had, you know, moved on?”

“Cried.” They both laugh and he drops feather light kisses to her nose, then her cheeks and forehead. “It wouldn’t have mattered. As long as you’re safe and happy, that’s all I care about. You’re all I care about.”

He snuggles closer to her and kisses the top of her head.

“It would have really fucking sucked though.”

Sabrina laughs out loud, pulls him so he has to brace himself on both hands over her.

“Good thing for you the other boys I dated were so bland.”

Nick kisses her, presses his body down on hers a bit before sitting up with a start.

“Wait…what other boys?”

SEND ME A SHIP + PROMPT

#nabrina #nickbrina #nick and sabrina #caos #chilling adventures of sabrina #fanfic #prompt fill #100

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kihuis · 6 years ago

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{02} Not so Secret Santa

Kihuis’ days of Christmas series: Na Jaemin x Reader

Day Two: Reader’s best friend rigs the Secret Santa since they know Reader has a crush on Jaemin.

Word Count: 4.5k Warnings: slight angst? just a tad emotional.

“It’ll be fun! It’s a way better idea than the white elephant game and you know it,” you’re friend tells you as you walk to your next class. You can’t help but roll your eyes again at the idea of spending money you should be saving for a random person. Granted, they aren’t random people. You’ve been part of the same friend group for years so you know everyone who would be involved but it’s just not your cup of tea. Plus, you’ve never been really good at gift giving anyway.

“I told you, I don’t have the money. I’m saving up for college, you know this,” you tell her again.

“That’s why there’s a budget. No one is supposed to spend more than ten dollars, that’s the deal. It’s not like you have to buy someone a watch or new phone or something,” Somi says as you both round the corner. The door to your Algebra class is in sight now meaning she’ll be parting ways with you and you won’t have to listen to her beg for you to join in the Secret Santa she wants to host for your friends.

As soon as you get up to the classroom, your eyes land immediately on the the pink tuft of hair at the back corner. Jaemin waves at you with a smile, your heart beat already speeding up just at a glance.

“At least promise me you’ll think about it. I mean who knows, you may even get Jaemin and you could get him something special,” Somi says, nudging you with her elbow.

“I was already planning on getting him something,” you tell her with another roll of your eyes.

“Even better, you can get him two things. Think about it.”

With that, she takes off down the hallway towards her own class. You shake your head, not willing to hold onto whatever empty promise she might have thought you gave her.

You make your way towards the back of the room to take your usual spot next to Jaemin. He’s currently doodling something in the margins of his math notebook next to equations and formulas. You can’t but smile at how cute he looks, although he always looks adorable.

“Sup nerd,” you say as you take your supplies out of your backpack.

“Creep,” he replies, not looking up from his doodles. Even from his side profile, you can see the hint of a smile that plays at his lips while he shades what looks like a drawing of Snorlax.

“You into the Secret Santa thing?” you suddenly ask, turning your nose up as a sign that you’re not into it.

“I think it might be fun but I don’t really have money,” he replies, looking up at you. The moment his eyes meet yours, you feel your heart skip a beat as it normally does. How does one boy have such a huge affect on you? “I want to do it, though.”

“Really?” you ask with a face, showing your clear disinterest in the activity. It’s not that you want to be a Scrooge, you just don’t see the point. Gifts are supposed to be meaningful and deep. If you were to draw a name of someone you’re not as close with, it would be nearly impossible to get a gift that has significance.

“Why not?” He grins at your expression. “You don’t like the idea?”

“I just don’t see the point I guess,” you mumble with yet another eye roll. Soon, they’re going to get stuck up in your head. “Why don’t you get back to your Pokemon, weirdo?”

Jaemin giggles at your teasing and does as you suggest, turning back to his tiny drawing before the teacher begins his lesson.

As you always do, you manage to zone out of the classroom and instead let your mind wonder to Jaemin. Having been friends with each other for years, it’s not out of the ordinary that you two spend a lot of time together but somewhere between the time that you met him and now, you’d fallen for him. His smile was enough to light up your life and his laugh put you on a new kind of high. You don’t know when you’d developed your crush on him, but it was the scariest thing you could hold onto.

You wonder if he has any inkling of an idea that you like him, maybe even love him, especially considering almost everyone else in your friend group knows. Somi got it out of you one night after the three of you hung out for a movie. It was like a movie within itself, the moment you reached for the popcorn that was in his lap at the same time he did. You’d jerked your hand away where he just smiled at you. Somi had see the reaction you had and questioned you about it, where you confessed.

Suffice to say, she wasn’t too surprised.

Sneaking a glance at Jaemin, you wonder if he’s going to do the Secret Santa with your friends anyways even though he said he doesn’t have the money. He’s the type of person you know is going to get everyone a gift either way but would join in just for the fun of it.

Then you think maybe you’d get lucky and get Jaemin as your Secret Santa. You know what you’d been planning on getting him anyways so maybe it would just be easier to have him as your Secret Santa. If you got Jeno or Renjun, picking something out for them would be easy enough. You’d just get Jeno the new x-box game he’s been wanting and get Renjun another Moomin plushie.

Obviously, Jaemin’s present has already been thought out for quite some time.

When you were both little, your mom and dad had a tree house built in your back yard. You’d always loved that tree house and Jaemin loved to come over and the two of you would go up into the tree house at night and keep your collection of mason jars full of discoveries you two had made. There were some with multiple colored and shaped rocks that you found and there were some that had treasures you’d found when you helped your mom with the garden, things like old coins and a piece of an old smoking pipe.

You’d decided to raid your attic at the house you live at now and look for one of the jars. Luckily, your dad hadn’t thrown them all out and you found one that was full of sand and sea shells from the time both your families went down to the beach for a couple days. Jaemin spent the entire time collecting the shells in the sand. At the time you’d made fun of him for it and just to be silly, he’d let you keep the shells. You decided to put them in a mason jar and keep them with your collection, loving them anyways for the simple fact they came from Jaemin.

When you retrieved the shells from your attic, you cleaned them all off and arranged them into a new, smaller jar to make a simple paper weight or decoration. Jaemin likes to collect little trinkets and knickknacks and this one was obviously special.

Should you not get him for Secret Santa, you’ll be bummed, but there’s no way you’re not gifting this to him this year.

Somi shakes the Santa hat around, shuffling the little pieces of papers that have names written on them. When Jaemin declared he was in fact interested in participating in the Secret Santa, you immediately gave in, later telling her that you’re in as well. Due to your late entry, almost everyone else has already chosen names but Somi was quick to let you know that she’d put your name in the draw anyways because she knew you’d do it anyways.

You shake your head as you reach into the hat, grabbing onto a small slip of paper. “Who’s gotten who?” you ask before removing your hand.

“I don’t know, that’s the whole point,” she replies deadpanned. “Just look who you got already!”

She seems way too excited about your choice, random as it is, but you feel your hands begin to sweat when you open the paper and see Jaemin’s name written on it. You instantly picture him in your mind, his sparkling eyes when he’s under the moonlight, his crooked lips when he talks through his excitement. Everything about him plagues you every day, every little quirk about Na Jaemin captured in your mind and heart.

“Who’d you get?” Somi asks cutely, nudging you in the ribs.

“You don’t know, that’s the whole point,” you echo, tossing Jaemin’s name into your locker before shutting it. “So when are we handing out these presents?”

“Next week after school. Your dad said we can meet at your house,” she tells you as you both start off towards the cafeteria.

“You already talked to my dad about it?” you ask incredulously, but unable to keep your smile at bay. Of course your dad would be okay with your friends coming over and it’s clear Somi had guessed you were definitely going to agree to part take in the Secret Santa.

“Just be glad you said yes when you did. He was my last resort,” she says.

“You bribed my dad into getting me to join your Secret Santa?”

“I didn’t have to bribe. He was happy to do it,” she finishes with a sly grin. “But I knew you’d give in, you know. Especially with Jaemin doing it too.”

You shush her quickly realizing how close you already are to the table full of your friends, Jaemin obviously included. Luckily, no one heard her remark considering Haechan is in the middle of telling some story about Mark as usual, everyone immersed in his flashy movements as he describes an embarrassing encounter Mark had with a girl.

“I swear, she looked terrified,” he’s saying. “We all knew pick up lines weren’t his forte, but it was possibly the worst one he’s had to date.”

Mark buries his head into his folded arms on the table, groaning at the memory. Renjun slaps him on the back, sputtering that he isn’t all that surprised while Jaemin laughs, theatrically throwing his head back while clapping. The second the harmonious sound reaches your ears, every nerve ending in your body catches fire.

“How do you mess up that badly?” Jeno laughs, shaking his head.

“Yeah, yeah, Mark’s a loser. Okay everyone listen up,” Somi interrupts. “Who hasn’t chosen a name for Secret Santa?”

“I don’t think Jisung has yet but he’s not here today,” Jaemin says. He looks up at you with a smile before scooting to the right a bit, giving you enough room so sit between him and Renjun.

Somi settles across the table beside Mark who’s sulking after the name calling and story telling. “I’ll give him the last name tomorrow. Let’s discuss the gift exchange details.”

“Ten dollar budget. Y/N’s house next Friday. No revealing Secret Santa’s until after gifts are open. We know how it works, Somi,” Haechan rattles off, picking the pickles off his hamburger.

“Who’d you get?” you hear beside you. Jaemin leans his elbow onto the table and rests his cheek on the palm of his hand as he turns to face you, a cute smirk on his lips.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a ‘Secret’ Santa now would it?” you respond cocking your head to the side.

Jaemin chuckles, raising his brows once to tease you. Can he be any cuter than he already is?

“I’ll tell you who I got,” he says slyly, biting his bottom lip. “You’re curious, right?”

“No,” you declare, trying to hide your smile, but ultimately failing. “I for one am actually good at keeping secrets unlike you Nana.”

The nickname has always so easily flowed from your lips and you love to use it because it flusters Jaemin, usually making him smile wider and blush a bit. Your other friends sometimes use it too, but you’ve always noticed it doesn’t have the same affect on him when anyone else says it. That may be in your imagination though.

Like always, his ears begin to glow red as he rolls his eye in mock annoyance, but smiles nonetheless.

You can’t wait to give Jaemin your present.

The week doesn’t seem to go by fast enough. It’s like a normal countdown to Christmas, but really it’s just you wanting to see the look on Jaemin’s face when he opens your present to him.

The tree at your house officially has every present underneath it. Everyone dropped them of on their own time as to make sure no one knew who had what gift. Your dad was a big help in all of it, making sure you were out of the room when someone brought a present. Apparently he was very excited to be hosting such an event even though it was Somi who put him up to everything.

Finally Friday rolls around and you’re finishing up the gingerbread cookies for the evening. Haechan and Somi are already here, both licking at the leftover dough that didn’t fit on the baking sheets.

“What recipe is this?” Haechan says before shoveling a spoonful of cookie dough into his mouth.

“It was my mom’s,” you answer with a smile, taking the last batch out of the oven. “She loved to bake.”

“She was very good at it then. This is so good.”

You smile at the memory of your mother. It’s been a hard few years without her here but you and your dad are still happy despite everything you’ve been through. He’s even started dating again.

“She made Y/N’s ninth birthday cake, too. The one with three tiers,” Somi recalls. She sticks her finger into the bowl of dough and scoops some into her mouth. “You know, I think you got the baking genes from her because he’s right, this is really good.”

“Jaemin’s here!” you dad hollers from the living room. Somi and Haechan both look at you with knowing expressions, raising their eyebrows suggestively. You give them both a glare before turning back to the cookies shaped like trees and gingerbread men to transfer them onto a plate.

“Something smells good,” Jaemin says as he trots into the kitchen. You can’t help but notice how good he looks in his blue sweater and black scarf, making his pink hair stand out in the best way it can.

“Y/N’s cookies,” Haechan says through a mouthful of dough.

“Mom’s recipe,” Jaemin assumes with a questioning look. You nod, your heart fluttering at his memory of your mother. He knows how much you thought of her and when he mentions her at all, you can’t but feel like he knows he makes your insides turn to mush.

“Are we going to frost them?” Somi asks excitedly.

“These don’t need frosting,” Jaemin asserts, grabbing one from the plate despite that it just came out of the oven. “Believe me, I’ve had them before.”

“I probably don’t make them as good as she did, though,” you mumble.

After taking a bite, Jaemin shakes his head before he nods it. “You do everything as good as she used to,” he praises.

If he has no idea the way he makes you feel, he definitely will now with your face heating up at the compliment. From the corner of your eye, you can see Haechan and Somi snickering to each other. You fight from sending them another glare and just brush off the comment.

“Mark is here!”

After everyone shows up, you all sit in the living room with cups of hot chocolate, or in Jaemin’s case, coffee, and snack on cookies while sitting in front of the fire. You can’t help but keep glancing at the tree, seeing all the presents underneath it and watching your gift to Jaemin as if it plans on sprouting legs and running away. When your dad helped you wrap it, he cried at the memory of your families on the beach, your mom in the ocean with little you on her hip. He told you it was the best memory she got to share with you before getting sick.

“I think he’ll love the present,” he told you before taking you into a hug. “It’s meaningful for everyone.”

Now you just want to run over to the tree and hand him the gift, but Somi has you all on a schedule. Right now you’re playing the ‘Two Truths, One Lie’ guessing game, Christmas edition. The person who’s turn it is has to tell the players three Christmas gifts, two of which they have actually received in the past and the last one something they haven’t. You’ve almost gone completely around the room and it’s Renjun’s turn. He’s the last player, thankfully.

“Okay. A bike, a bag of jelly beans, and underwear,” he rattles off.

“Easy. No one would get you one bag of jelly beans,” Mark says. “And every kid gets a bike at some point.”

“And Jeno literally got you underwear last year a joke,” Haechan comments before taking a sip of his drink.

“Anyone else?” Renjun asks, looking around the room. Everyone agrees on the jelly beans making him shake his head and laugh. “Well, you’re all wrong. Two years ago, I got a bag of those beanboozled jelly beans in my stocking.”

“That’s a cop-out, you can’t count what came in your stocking,” Somi complains.

“That wasn’t in the rules,” he voices.

“It’s common sense,” she snaps back.

“Wait, you’ve never gotten a bike for Christmas?” Jaemin asks. “That’s like, a childhood ritual.”

“I got one when I was five, but it was for my birthday, not Christmas.”

“Whatever, next,” Somi grunts, standing from her spot on the sofa. “I guess Injunnie wins since no one guessed his right, even though he pretty much cheated.”

“It’s called a loophole. Stocking have gifts in them you know?”

Somi rolls her eyes and hands him the twenty dollar gift card prize that can be spent anywhere of his choosing. He thanks her as he takes it, earning him a scoff. “Now that we’ve finished with games, it’s time for the Secret Santa exchange.”

Your heart rate picks up as you watch your friend approach the tree, grabbing a present at random. It’s not yours unfortunately.

“Jeno,” she says, handing him the first gift.

Jeno smiles with his eyes, as he always does, as he unwraps the gift. Just like you had planned on getting him had you chosen his name, his Secret Santa got him the new x-box game he’d been on about for weeks.

“I pretty much kept bringing it up so I didn’t have to buy it myself,” he says as he flashes the present to everyone.

“Don’t guess who got for you yet, we’ll save that for the end,” Somi tells him, heading for the tree again. She picks up another present, again, not yours to Jaemin.

After Mark, Chenle, and Haechan has open their gifts, a maple leaf beanie, a bag of chocolates, and wallet respectively, Somi picks up a small box. She glances at the tag and reads out your name.

Why you’re so nervous to be receiving a gift as well, you don’t know, but when she smiles and hands you the box, your breathing becomes heavy. You feign a smile and pick at the bow on the top, untying the ribbon that was placed around it to keep the lid on. Once you take the lid off though, you feel your heart almost stop.

What’s inside is a heart-shaped locket. But it’s not just any locket. It’s the same kind of locket that you mother used to wear. The one you dreamed of owning one day. The one she kept a baby picture of you in when she was still here. The one you’d been devastated to lose when your dad had no choice but to sell it when you’d been tight on money.

“What is it?” Chenle asks curiously.

You don’t even realize you’re crying when you look up to your friends, a single tear rolling down your cheek. The smile you wear now is real as you wipe it away and look back down at the locket. Opening it, there’s a small picture now of your mother. “It’s a replica of my mom’s locket. My dad got it as a wedding gift after they got married,” you manage to say, your voice growing hoarse a the sight of her beautiful face.

Silence fills the room as you continue to stare at the necklace. Somi probably got it for you, she’s always been one who knows exactly what to get as gifts.

“Thank you,” you mumble into the room at no in particular. “I love it.”

“Alright,” Somi says cutely to lighten the mood. She stoops to pick up another gift and you’re too distracted by the locket still to see she finally picks up your present to Jaemin. When you hear his name, you look up to watch him open it, wanting to remember his reaction.

He removes the packing tissue from the bag you’d put it in before removing the jar, his eyes immediately finding yours before breaking out into a smile. It doesn’t surprise you he knows exactly where the shells came from and that you were his Secret Santa.

“Sea shells?” Haechan asks, clearly not impressed with the gift, but you’re not offended considering he doesn’t know the sentiment.

“Not just any sea shells,” Jaemin tells him, looking at you again. “They’re special. Thank you Secret Santa.” He doesn’t even try to hide who he thinks got him the gift.

Somi, Jisung, and Renjun finally open their presents, finishing the gift exchange. You all go around the room to guess your Secret Santas. Somi guesses Mark correctly, Jeno guesses Chenle, and Renjun guesses Haechan. Jaemin is next to guess and before he says a word, he looks up to you and smiles, sending your heart soaring as always. You can’t help but smile back.

“Y/N is my Secret Santa,” he declares. You nod your head, confirming that you are. While the next few guess, you keep stealing glances at Jaemin, each time you do, he smiles back, lowering his face shyly.

You’re shocked to hear Chenle guess correctly that Somi was his Secret Santa, leaving Jaemin as the only gift giver left when it’s your turn to guess. Your smile turns into a look of shock as you look over at him, his own smile more sincere than ever. He’d gotten you the locket that meant so much to you at one point in your life.

“How did you two get each other? What are even the odds of that?” Jisung asks. Somi chuckles at the question, but you hardly notice.

“Thank you,” you whisper, looking right at Jaemin. You wonder if he can even hear you from across the room. You’re having trouble even hearing yourself with how loud your heart is beating. He must have at least read your lips though, because he nods his head once, his eyes shining in the light of the Christmas tree.

The words of everyone for the rest of the night up until people start to leave are pretty much drowned out. You don’t even hear your dad tell Somi that her dads are here to pick her up. All you can focus on is the necklace, the mason jar full of sea shells, and Jaemin.

He’s the only guest left when your dad begins to clean up the kitchen, you and Jaemin cleaning up the trash in the living room. The locket is already secured around your neck, your mother right next to your heart where she always has been.

You’re both silent as you clean up empty plates and torn wrapping paper. Your heart is still beating harder than ever, practically slamming against your throat. It’s not abnormal to be alone with Jaemin, but right now, your friendship has so much more meaning than it did before.

“It’s not a replica,” he says suddenly, not looking up from the trash bag as he throws a plate into it.

“What?”

“That’s really your mom’s locket,” he states quietly. You absentmindedly reach up to touch the necklace, feeling your eyes fill with tears as if you haven’t done enough crying over it already. “When your dad sold it to finish paying your bills, he was so upset and talking to my mom about it. I decided to go to the pawn shop and buy it the next day.”

Jaemin doesn’t look up from what he’s doing when he says this. “I wanted to give it to you sooner but Christmas seemed like a special time to do it. I debated waiting until Valentine’s Day but I couldn’t wait any longer.” Finally, he looks over at you. You haven’t moved from your spot by the fireplace, a dirty plate in hand while Jaemin told you all this.

“Why Valentine’s Day?” you ask. It’s an oddly specific day for such a present, the day people celebrate love. Sure, it would be worthy of the occasion but couples are usually the only ones to exchange gifts that day.

Jaemin smiles his shy smile that you’ve seen him wear so often before stepping toward you and taking the plate from your hand, tossing it into the trash bag. He can’t meet your eyes when he speaks again. “Because I was going to confess to you.”

Your breath catches in your throat as he looks up at you, his dark eyes shining when they meet yours. You don’t know what to say in return even though ‘I like you too’ seems like a good option. Instead, you just break into a smile, answer enough to his confession. Jaemin smirks and steps even closer to you, his eyes flicking once to your lips.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, pointing up at the mistletoe above you. You can only giggle in response and he leans down to press his lips against yours, everything coming together and playing out just as you’ve imagined it would. Your stomach erupts with butterflies and you swear you can hear fireworks as you kiss. Jaemin reaches his hand up, cupping your chin with it and swiping away at the new tears falling down your cheeks.

When he breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against yours. “Somi was doing something right when she rigged the Secret Santa,” he says with a laugh.

Your eyes widen, only a little surprised at this revelation. “Did she know you like me?”

“I’m pretty sure everyone did,” he replies. “But you.”

You roll your eyes at him before placing your arms around him in a hug, your cheek squishing up against his chest.

“Thank you,” you tell him for the nth time tonight. “So much.”

“Thank you, too,” he whispers before placing a kiss on top of your head.

This is a Christmas for the books.

353 notes · View notes

bilbos · 6 years ago

Text

Would It Be Okay? || Erik Johnson

requested: yes || no

word count: 1.9k

author’s note: This is a pinch hitter gift for the @hockeynetwork‘s secret gift exchange! I wrote this fic for the lovely @babrielandeskog, I hope you like it! <3 The poem (everything in italics) is by Ryan Stiltz.

Would it be ok if I took some of your time? Would it be ok if I wrote you a rhyme?

It’s a Saturday night where you would much rather be in your apartment and relaxing, but your friends have insisted that it’ll do you some good to get out a little. This week wasn’t bad per say, but it just…wasn’t ideal. Things were off and you were hoping to have some time alone to just recalibrate and recenter yourself.

The house party that you’re at isn’t like the over-the-top ones that you went to in college, thankfully. Music is playing loud enough to allow for some form of privacy with conversations, but not loud enough for your head to hurt. As you scan the room to see where your friends went off to, a guy about your age catches your eye.

He’s not conventionally attractive, but there’s still something about him that draws you too him. Unfortunately, as your checking him out, he glances in your direction. Blushing, you look towards a different part of the room, hoping that one of your friends magically appears. Apparently, this is what you get for deciding to go get a drink on your own.

Thankfully, not more than a few moments later, you spot Jade, which means Elle and Sam aren’t too far behind. You make your way over there, but not without noticing Sam raising a questioning eyebrow.

“What was that?” you ask.

“You seemed a little distracted there,” Sam comments, nonchalantly. “Taking in the views?”

You snort. “Bold of you to assume anyone here is view worthy.”

“Staring at EJ would contradict that, y/n,” Sam retorts.

“EJ?” you ask.

“The dude you were staring at,” Jade answers. “He plays for the Av’s.”

“The…hockey team?” you say, hesitant.

Elle sighs. “We’re getting there. But yes, the hockey team.”

“Well, I’ll just gladly appreciate from far away then,” you reply.

Jade glances over your shoulder for a brief moment. “Not for long.”

“Uh, hey there,” a voice behind you says.

You can tell the girls are trying hard to not laugh as you turn around, pasting a smile on your face. “Um, hi.”

“Do you ladies mind if I talk to your friend for a moment?” the guy, EJ, asks.

“Sure, but we’re going to keep an eye on you. No shady shit,” Elle answers.

EJ raises his hands. “No shady shit, I promise.”

The girls head over to another part of the room, but make sure to keep you in their line of sight. As much as they may joke around about things, you all take each other’s safety extremely seriously. There are too many stories of things gone wrong, and you appreciate their care so much.

“So, uh, what brings you here?” you inquire, awkwardly.

“Just…you were checking me out earlier and I just thought I’d come say hi,” EJ says, a tad awkward as well.

You laugh. “Well, hello then. I’m y/n.”

“I’m EJ,” he replies. “So, what do you do? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Well…”

Would it be ok if I opened my heart? Would it be ok if I took on the part of being your man

It’s been three years since you’ve met EJ, and as weird as he can be sometimes, you definitely don’t regret it. He’s become on of your favorite people in Colorado and has settled into your friend group better than you could have ever hoped for. Knowing that he’s put in effort to get to know them means the world to you.

Currently, it’s a Sunday afternoon where the two of you are lounging in his living room, just catching up with each other. You’re laughing at some dumb joke he’s made when you catch him looking at you a little bit different.

“You doing okay there, EJ?” you ask.

He nods. “Yeah, I just don’t know if it’s the right time for that conversation.”

“Dude, we’ve known each other for three years and have extremely weird conversations. Just tell me what’s on your mind, okay?”

EJ nods and glances away for a moment, looking like he’s trying to find the right words. This is a bit uncharacteristic of him, so you make sure to really listen to what he’s going to tell you.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and I don’t want to ruin what we have, but I think I might be falling in love with you, y/n. For a while now,” EJ says softly.

“Oh,” you whisper.

It’s not like you haven’t been hoping. Because you have been. But for as much as you love EJ, you also realize that you’re not the typical hockey girlfriend. Being plus-size has never deterred you in any sense, but you also recognize the reality of it as well.

“Is…that a good reaction?” EJ asks, hesitant.

“Yeah, EJ, that is a good reaction,” you answer, laughing softly.

“Well, then, I guess it wouldn’t be told bold of me to ask you to be my girlfriend,” he comments, a bit smugly.

“No, it wouldn’t,” you reply. “I’d be more than happy to be your girlfriend.”

Would it be ok if I could make you smile? Would it be ok if I held you awhile?

EJ holds you tightly. You both know that you’ve been missing your family and that you need to visit them for a while. But it doesn’t hurt any less knowing that you’ll be gone for almost three weeks. Your grandmother isn’t doing well and it’s important that you get as much time with her has possible.

“I’m going to miss you,” he whispers.

“I’ll miss you too, babe,” you reply. “But you have your new horse to hang out with. That’s basically the same thing, right?”

EJ snorts. “I don’t think I can cuddle a horse to sleep at night.”

“Oh, please, like you wouldn’t try,” you joke, stepping back a little. “You also have plenty of games. And I’m also sure the guys will be more than happy to come over and keep you company while I’m gone.”

EJ smiles sadly. “Call me when you can, okay? I’ll fly up there if you need it.”

“I…I think I’ll be fine,” you reply, choking back tears.

“You know I’ll do anything for you. I know I joke a lot, but anything for you,” EJ says.

You nod, hugging him again, knowing that it’ll probably make you late for your flight. He’s been a big support system lately, making you feel lighter, no matter the situation. It’ll be hard leaving him, but you know that he’ll always pick up the phone when you need it.

“It goes the same way,” you whisper. “And I’ll call you when I land.”

Would it be ok if I kissed your face?

Would it be alright to find a way?

It’s a warm summer morning and the two of you are laying in bed. Yesterday was…hard to say the least. The two of you had your first serious fight and it was over something so stupid. Or not really. Your still not totally sure about it.

Last night, you weren’t feeling so great about your body, and while you’re normally able to just ignore it, the feeling just wouldn’t leave. You were also hanging out with some of the other wives and girlfriends, which didn’t help your mental state any.

EJ picked up that something was off right away. The two of you know each other too well at this point to not pick up on things like this. When you told him what was going on, he was obviously trying his best to make you feel better, but something about his statements just rubbed you the wrong way.

So here you are, just laying in bed, in total silence. Obviously, you want to talk about it, but you’re not even really sure how to bring it up. These are issues you’ve been having your whole life and you just don’t know how to explain to EJ that even though it’s not the best situation, you’ve learned how to deal with it in a way that’s healthy for you.

“I know sorry doesn’t cover it,” EJ whispers, breaking the silence. “I just get worried, you know?”

“I would have talked to you about it eventually. When I was ready to,” you reply. “I appreciate the sentiment, I really do. But sometimes I just need my space to deal with the problems first.”

“I get that. And I promise I’ll work on it,” EJ says.

You roll over and look at him, smiling. “I know you will. You always do. Now give me a good morning kiss.”

To tell you there's nothing I'd rather do Than spend my whole life loving only you...

It’s been fairly quiet offseason so far. Which wouldn’t be too bad, except for the fact that you live with EJ now and having him be relaxed for so long is a little suspicious. But you know that if you bring it up, he’ll brush it off and explain it away in a way that probably makes a lot of sense. Maybe you could ask Tyson.

Before you forget, you send Tyson a text about it. He’s currently chilling with EJ, so you don’t expect a quick response. However, only a couple minutes later, you get a text saying, Nothing’s wrong. He’s 100% fine. I promise.

You sure about that? you reply.

….yes. everything will be fine.

Okay, ‘will’ be fine? I thought everything was fine.

Um. It is fine. Look, I promise nothing weird is going on.

You roll your eyes. Fine. It better be, Tys.

Tyson doesn’t reply after that, so you assume that EJ was finally demanding his attention again. A few hours later, EJ comes back and plops down on the couch with you. As much as you want to bring up your concerns, you have a feeling Tyson already talked to him about it.

“Tyson showed me your texts,” he whispered, kissing your next slightly.

“Oh,” you said. “That’s good, I guess.”

“Come with me upstairs,” he says mysteriously.

“That’s an odd way to ask me for sex,” you joke. “If you’re trying to be seductive, that’s a new take, babe.”

“I’m not trying, I promise. I just need to show you something.”

Sighing, you nod and follow him to your bedroom. He opens up the closet and grabs one of his hockey duffel bags. EJ then goes and opens the bag. You peer in, curious. Inside, there’s a bunch of random objects that you remember from some of your early dates, as well as some pictures from different events.

“What’s all this for?” you ask.

“Okay, so please let me explain first before you react,” EJ says.

“That’s…okay, sure,” you reply.

“So, I was planning on proposing to you in a really cute way, by like a scavenger hunt or something. I just knew I wanted to do something romantic because you deserve it,” EJ explains. “That’s why I have all of this stuff. I was planning on making it special. But when you texted Tyson, I knew that you were already so suspicious. And I couldn’t have prepared it all in time without caving.

“Now this is me telling you that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. There’s no one else I can imagine doing stupid shit with and who healthily enables my love for horses. So, y/n, will you marry me?”

EJ gets down on one knee and pulls the ring box from his pants. You start tearing up and nod.

“Yes, EJ, I’ll marry you.”

#hockeynetwork #erik johnson #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #alyx writes shit #mine #omg this was so much fun to write!!#I really do hope you like it!!#I....did not realize you got your gift already #so uh #whoops #but I hope you still like it anyways

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aweebwrites · 6 years ago

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Original Ending

So you guys remember that fic I wrote for Ninjago Valentine's Week? I had to cut it short because mobile but here's the original ending. If you haven't read it, I recommend doing so to understand this since I didn't start from the top. Enjoy!

_______________________

"You wanted to talk?" Zane prompts curiously.

"Yeah..." Cole says, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly before stepping closer, ignoring the frigid water lapping at his hooves. "I kinda wanted to say something a long time ago but I didn't know how to say it, you know?" He says, pulling something out of the small satchel he always carries and lowered himself to his knees, shivering when the cold water lapped at his underbelly but ignoring it in favor of what he held in his hand.

Zane on the other had was still curious but was anticipating now. Was he saying what he hoped he was?

"I talked to Nya during the summer for the best thing I could offer you to not screw this up and well..." Zane lifted himself up on his hands unconsciously, heart pounding as Cole stretched his hand out to him.

Zane gasped softly, seeing the gorgeous pearl in his hand, his eyes widening as his pale cheeks turned light blue with his version of a blush.

"I really like you Zane... More... More than just friends." Cole says, glancing away as his tail flicked anxiously. "And I was hoping you'd let me court you." He says, catching the mer's eyes again, swallowing nervously.

"Cole..." Zane says breathlessly, in awe of the large pearl and at his words. "Of course. Yes." As if there was ever a doubt.

There was no question about it. He had been nursing a crush for the strong stallion with a kind smile and gentle hands since he first met him. He hadn't said anything up until now, despite what Nya told him because he was seen as a monster and he didn't think he could handle the rejection when crush spiraled into love so quickly.

"Really?!" Cole says, baffled yet excited.

"Really." Zane smiled, accepting the pearl and craidling it gently, core warming at the sight of it.

He's never seen any this big before. His webbed hand couldn't fully close over it.

"Great." Cole says with a relieved sigh before grinning wide.

Zane looked up at Cole again and shifted closer, reaching out and tugging him down by the wool vest. Cole flushed, now nose to nose with the beautiful cold water mer.

"May I... Kiss you?" Zane asked softly, learning the term from Nya and seeing it from Jay and Kai.

It seems like a very important part of courting for land creatures so he would like to do the same with his land creature.

"U-um yeah. Sure." Cole got out, face red but anticipation building inside him.

Zane nods once before he closed his eyes and pressed his lips against Cole's.

‘Hot…’ Was Zane's first thought at his first kiss.

Cole was having opposite thoughts but neither minded. Taking the initiative, Cole cupped Zane's cheek and deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding against Zane's longer and smoother one. He tasted so much like cold and ocean and… And Zane. A low crooning sound had Cole pulling back, curious to the sound and where it came from. Instead, he saw Zane with cheeks blue with blush and lips puffy from their kiss.

“Forgive me. I only make that sound when I'm-”

“Wait, you made that sound?” Cole asked, surprised.

Zane nods and Cole… Found he liked it.

“Oh, OK.” Cole nodded as he swiped his thumb against his cheek he still held, smiling warmly once Zane leaned into it. "I know things won't be easy what with me being a centaur and you a mer but I went to this sea witch earlier-"

"You what?!" Zane hissed, flinching back with wide eyes as he almost dropped the pearl.

"I- um... I went to a sea witch..." Cole says, taken aback and confused at Zane's horrified expression.

"Sea witches are not to be trusted Cole! They are tricky and devious beings! Whatever they promised you will come at a cost you may not be able to pay!" Zane says, breathing picking up, worrying for his courted. "What did you ask them to do?" He asked, hoping there was a way out of it.

"I asked her for something that would let me breathe under water so I could be with you there." Cole says quietly and Zane couldn't help but awe at his thoughtfulness.

"Cole... That was thoughtful of you but we could have made it work still. I can breathe air for as long as I'd like. My only concern would be drying out." He says, reaching up and cupped his cheek with his cold, webbed hand, making Cole shiver but lean into it. "You're cold. Let's head inside with the other and we can discuss how to get you out of this." He says as he slithered backwards into the water.

"She was trustworthy though. Even Master Wu trusts her." Cole says as he got up on all fours and began trotting along the coastline as Zane swum in the shallows, head out of the water.

Zane frowned at that. Master Wu is a dragon who can take a more humane form at will. He is almost as old as this world itself and was the one to teach them all about their powers. If he trusted a sea witch then they were trustworthy indeed. But even that didn't soothe Zane's worry.

"What did she give you?" Zane asked instead as he slithered along the coast really.

"Some kind of potion. She says it will only work when it's time. Sadly I didn't get when that time is." Cole huffed, slowing down as he came to the entrance to the cave where Kai left a few feathers in the outside wall to warn anyone who were not friends to stay away.

Phoenix harpies may be extremely rare but every creature knew their beautiful feathers anywhere and knew it meant agony if they trespassed.

"We'll talk more on the inside." Zane says and Cole watched as he slithered into deeper waters before diving under, his white and blue tailfin disappearing soon after.

Cole smiled to himself despite it all and headed inside, lowering his upper half until he got to the main cave that was nice and wide, able to fit them all and more. Inside, the light from outside was reflected inside thanks to the water, showing Kai who was preening Jay's feathers as they talked with Skylor and Nya who were in one of several pools in the cave. A splash alerted them that Zane had arrived and he climbed out of the main pool that lead to the sea into a slightly smaller one that was closer to the group and was easier to keep cool with his powers.

"Do you feel strange now? Or did you then?" Zane continued questioning.

"No. Not at all." Cole says, settling next to his pool, leaning against the edge.

"What's going on there?" Jay asked curiously.

"Cole went to a sea witch and I'm-"

"YOU WHAT?!" The others immediately blurted.

"Wu trusts her! Mistaké's pretty cool!" Cole defended.

"Oh." They all said, relieved.

"If Wu trusts her then it'll be fine." Kai dismissed, adding another blue feather to the small pile he had going.

"Yeah. Remember that time I got sick and set off this wicked storm that torched everything?" Jay asked, ruffling his right arm of feathers Kai was done with.

"How could I forget? One hit the pool and nearly fried me." Nya says drily.

"Yeah, still sorry about that... But! She came over and gave me some stuff to make me better and it worked in a few minutes! No side effect aside from being unable to use my lightning for a few hours." Jay shrugged.

"I suppose..." Zane relented, relaxing and trusting Wu's judgement.

He glanced down on the pearl firmly clutched in hand with a small smile Cole saw- and made him grin like a dork.

"Holy moley pearl!" Nya gasped, peaking over into his pool to see it.

"So you two are finally courting?" Skylor asked, flicking her tail back and forth in the water.

"Ye- finally?" Cole asked her with an arched brow.

"Nya's been telling me about you two for two years now. Honestly I was gonna intervene if you two didn't get together before we have to split up again." Skylor says with a smirk.

"Same." Kai says, running his talons carefully though the shorter feathers along Jay's thighs.

"I was just gonna dare Cole to say something." Jay shrugged.

"... I've been thinking..." Zane says, gaining their attention. "About splitting up. I was thinking... I should stay here." He says and Cole perked all the way up at that.

"And I could stay here too!" Cole says with a grin as he stood up, looking around the large sized cave. "I mean, it's about time I left the herd anyway. Me and my dad don't get along that much and... Well... I want to be anywhere you guys are." He shrugged and Zane fell in love all over again.

He was too precious.

"This is our favorite nest after all..." Kai shrugged.

"Plus the caves go a lot higher. Maybe even Master Wu can hang out here, and even the squirt." Jay suggests.

"It'll be a lot of work fixing this place up more but it'll be worth it in the end..." Nya shrugged.

"I wouldn't mind sticking around either." Skylor says as Nya wrapped her seal skin around her neck after she took it off.

"And with the pools already here and se- cure?!" Cole yelped once the rock below his back hooves gave away, sending him tumbling back into the water despite his desperate grasping of the rock with his front hooves.

"Cole!" His friends' panicked scream of his name was all he heard before there was water over his head and- he had to hold his breath!

He kicked against the water, trying to swim to the top but the current was dragging him further down, out of the water entrance to the cave and further on still. He couldn't surface! He could swim- all Centaurs could- but this current was too strong. He felt clawed hands under his arms trying to pull him up, a second pair holding him under his front hooves and yet another trying to push him up but it was no use. His lungs were on fire! He had to breathe! If he didn't, he'd die! And if he did, the results were the same.

His vision began to blur as his kicks began to lose stamina. He saw panicked blue eyes before a white tail passing by upwards. He couldn't hold his breath any longer... He was going to... Cold lips pressed against his, breathing air into his lungs but it wasn't enough. His lung capacity is greater than a mer's. As soon as his mouth pulled away, he breathed in. The burning stopped at least but now he couldn't feel anything but the feeble working of his throat and lungs, trying to get air still as he we dragged along the current like a ragdoll. He reached out to touch his face once more but somewhere mid stretch, everything went dark.

"Cole! No!" Zane screamed once his eyes went dim and his heartbeat stopped but his scream was nothing but bubbles under the water.

Nya gritted her teeth as she held him still, tears vanishing instantly in the water.

"We're out of the current now. Let's get him to the surface." Skylor says through clicks urgently, not willing to give up.

They can save him. They will! Zane swallowed then nodded, all of them holding a section and swimming up away from where they knew the currant was. When they broke the water, it was to anxious phoenix and storm harpies hovering over the water.

Jay gasped once he realised he wasn't moving, his red rimmed eyes filling with tears.

"Is he?..." Kai whispered, tears threatening to fall.

"We have to get him to shore. Now." Skylor says, even as they swam as fast as they could with him.

They pushed him up onto shore, Kai dropping down and checking his pulse. He gritted his teeth and shook his head.

"No way in hell you're leaving us now Cole!" Kai yelled then began pushing at the torso of his horse half, barely budging it. "Dammit! I'm too light! Zane, Nya-" He stopped once he saw both mers and selkie not too far behind Cole, Nya comforting Zane as Skylor looked at him.

She shook her head and Kai gritted his teeth as he clenched his talons into his palm. Zane pulled away from a sobbing Nya to lean closer to Cole, trembling webbed hand brushing back his long hair from his face. He looked so peaceful. As if he was sleeping. He felt so numb as he gently stroked his pale cheek, not hearing his own anguished sobs over the deafening ringing in his ears but feeling them rock his body. He just got him…

Jay looked down at his best friend miserably, half blinded by his own tears. He was useless. Utterly useless in rescuing him. If he had… If he had… Done something other than spectating then maybe… Maybe… Kai pulled him into his chest, kissing the top of his head as he shook, his breathing heavy between choked off sobs.

“We-” Kai's choked up words died on his tongue once he noticed something. “What’s with that green glow?” He whispered, gaining Jay's attention.

He peeked out from Kai's feathers, at the body of their friend and realised that he was right. There was a weird smokey green glow around him now that turned the skin of his upper half the same green.

“Guys!” Jay yelled, drawing their attention to him.

“What is that?” Skylor asked as she shifted closer.

Nya gasped then.

“He drank a potion from Mistaké! Do you think-”

Her question was answered by Cole suddenly gasping, his instincts sending him to his hooves and out of the shallows, nearly giving Zane a heart attack. Said mer blinked owlishly at his courted, hand over his wildly beating heart as Cole coughed up an unhealthy amount of water from his lungs, his legs wobbling as he did so.

“Cole?!” Kai gasped as the centaur panted heavily, blinking confused.

“K-Kai?” Cole rasped, confused.

Didn't he just…

“Cole!” Jay screeched happily launching himself at his best friend, wrapping himself around his upper half and digging his talons into his flesh and repeatedly zapping him with his happy electricity.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Cole hissed and pried him off of him. “Glad to see you too pal but I still have feelings!” He says, holding him back at arm's length.

“Just checking.” Jay says cheekily then gave him a relieved smile. “I'm just glad you're back, no matter whatever you are now.” He says as Kai collected his mate.

“Yeah. You had us all for a while there.” Kai says with a grin as Cole looked himself over.

“Why am I green?” Cole asked as he looked at his hands then chest and hide.

His hide was still black but with a weird low green glow… He gasped.

“Am I a ghost?! Or a zombie?!” He asked, freaking out.

Nya huffed out a laugh as she leaned against Skylor. Yep. This is their Cole.

“Neither actually.” Zane spoke up, shock finally wearing off.

Cole's eyes instantly locked onto his courted before he approached, not feeling the coldness water at all. Not when he had Zane here, when he had a second chance with him.

“Zane…” Cole whispered as he lowered himself to his knees in the water, reaching down-and-out cupping both of his cheeks.

“Up North… There's a name for what you are now…” Zane whispered, reaching up a webbed hand to cup his cheek as well. “Kelpie.” He murmured, urging himself closer, his other hand tracing the beginnings of gills at the side of his lower half.

“Doesn't matter too much to me. I'm just glad I get a second chance with you.” Cole murmured, leaning down and pressing a kiss against his forehead.

Zane smiled softly, glad too. But after a day like today? He just wanted to curl up and sleep with his beloved.

*****************

Bonus:

“You know, I just realised. I could have tried shocking your heart.” Jay says a week later, perched on the edge of Cole and Zane's shared pool where Cole was getting used to breathing underwater.

“Yeah, no. You still don't have your voltage settings under control.” Cole says with narrow eyes, switching to air so he could speak. “All you'd do is make it impossible for me to come back.” He huffed, nuzzling Zane's throat where his mark would be when they were ready.

Zane only crooned, wrapping his tail around his front hoof as he pressed closer. That day gave him nightmares still but talking about it like this seems to help.

“Really, thank you for not doing that.” Zane says with a smirk, making Cole and Kai snicker while Jay pouted.

“And you were here when Mistaké came to talk to us. Cole was meant to die that day. There was nothing we could have done to change it.” Nya says, leaning on the edge of her pool and messing up the feathers in Kai's hair below.

It had ate at her how the water currant wouldn't listen to her, despite her being able to control nearly all aspects of water. She accepted it after that explanation. After all, faith was a fickle thing…

“I'm curious about you and Nya.” Kai says to Zane. “You need to stay in cold water and Nya needs to stay in warm. Sure the lake is pretty huge but I don't think it can do both.” He says, looking up at Nya.

“It can't right now but with some new currants and Zane's affinity for ice, it'll be cozy for us both. We can always meet up on the middle for a few hours too.” She shrugged.

“But aren't cold water mers territorial?” Skylor asked as she swung her purple scaled legs back and forth in the water from Nya's pool, her serpent tail doing the same.

“Just as much as your average warm water mer. If food is scarce on the other hand…” Zane says, recalling witnessing death matches over territory with plentiful food.

“It won't come to that. All of the lake is our territory- we made that clear. Even when Wu, Lloyd and whoever else we decide on get here in spring, we'll still have a lot of food to spare. Don't worry about it.” Cole says, pecking Zane's nose the mer promptly wrinkled cutely.

“We made clear? You mean you.” Skylor snorted. “Every squatter was scared speechless seeing a kelpie rise up out of the lake like a demon, flashing fangs and glowing green eyes. Hell, I nearly took off too.” She admits and they chuckled.

“Yeah. If anyone here is territorial, it's you.” Kai grinned.

“Luckily a certain someone just loves that~” Jay cooed and they all laughed at the blushing couple.

Zane smiled despite it though. His pod was unique but he loved them all.

(I love this au so much! You can definitely expect to see more of it popping up! Feel free to drop by in the asks if you have questions! My sleeping schedule is all over so I'll answer them as soon as I see them!)

#ninjago #glaciershipping #plasmashipping #amberphoenix #cole #zane #kai #jay #skylor #nya #ninjago kai #ninjago cole #ninjago zane #ninjago jay #ninjago nya #ninjago skylor #au #fantasy au #aweebwrites' work

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austennerdita2533 · 6 years ago

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To my fellow PJo-loving anon:

Here’s the New Year’s drabble I told you I’d try to take a stab at all those days ago. So sorry it’s taken me so long to finish, but 2019 has been bumpy for me so far. Plus I kept reconfiguring this because I’ve never written Dawson’s Creek/PJo fic before and was looking for a way to merge the idea in my head with the words I put on the page, something I never manage to fully achieve. I’m never happy haha. Alas, therein lies my endless writer struggle.

Anyway, this is pure fluff with a very-much-alive Jen--just as you asked. :)

Also here: (A03)

I hope you like it, sweets!

xx Ashlee Bree

Always Remember Us (Quipping) This Way

“It’ll never work, Pace,” she said as she sipped a hot toddy from her chair by the bonfire. Peering out at the creek instead of at his crunching approach, the sky starless but with air brisk enough to flake the lapping waves of the cape with snow if it so desired, Joey felt the drink’s warmth soothe the chill in her mittened hands before it spread to her bones with a shiver she’d never catch. “Whatever you’re planning, I admire the effort, I really do…”

“I sense a major but coming. Dawson, Jen, Jack, Dougie—” he corralled as amusement, firelight, and perhaps one too many merry whiskeys danced in his eyes. “Don’t you hear the major but lurking in my wife’s next words?”

“Sure do, little brother.”

“She told me but was her favorite conjunction once,” Jack said with a tip of his beer and a hiccup.

Amused, Jen exhaled. Shook her head. “Sometimes I forget how much I miss you people.”

Gathered around the flames with good friends, warm blankets, and a combination of new and old memories, this group of twenty-somethings wouldn’t trade a laidback small town holiday in Capeside for anything more extravagant tonight. This was comfort at its finest. This was fun amid freezing Massachusetts wind and temperatures cold enough to give them frostbite. This was quality family time.

“Your ingenuity’s unmatched at the moment, however misguided it might be. I’ll give you that much,” Joey said as she hugged her knees and scowled in vain at the ‘something’ hidden beneath her husband’s coat while her friends laughed. All of them seemingly in on the same joke.

“I’ll take that back-handed compliment and raise you a nod in thanks,” Pacey fired back.

She regarded him with an arched brow as he neared, pointing.

“Don’t think I’m not onto you, by the way. I know that scheming look of yours all too well.”

“You know,” hand wagging, his tongue slid out over his bottom lip, “it’s not nice to accuse my face of things. What’s an innocent guy supposed to think?”

“Innocent? You?” Joey waved him off. Sighed long and well. Then she toasted with Dougie before taking another large swig from her mug. “Please, you haven’t been innocent since we were seven and you tried to trick me into eating a bucket of sand so I could protect myself from the Loch Ness Cronster who lurked beneath the Leery’s dock,” she said.

“Wow.” With a hand over his heart, he feigned stumbling backwards as if she’d shot him. “I can’t believe you’re still holding that against me. What is this, the second grade?”

Shrugging, “Potters are serious grudge-holders.”

“Notorious in your case,” Pacey added under his breath.

“Hey! Those are fighting words. Put up your dukes.”

“I told you she wouldn’t fall for any of your end of the year games this time, man,” Dawson called out with a hearty chuckle, Jen looking on by his side. Her red knitted head rested against his shoulder while one arm curled around his middle and her lips lifted in a quiet smile. Observant as always.

“I suppose we’ll have to see about that now, won’t we?”

Looking up, Joey’s eyes narrowed in challenge, “Oh, bite me Pacey.”

He halted before her then, head cocked and knees stooping so he could pull her to her feet in one smooth motion. He spun her toward him with ease, thanks to their ballroom dance lessons all those years ago. It seemed time and trust and love had finally taught them how to move in sync. Or at least had kept them from bruising the hell out of each other’s toes now that they could anticipate each other’s steps better. (Sometimes, anyway. Yeah, sometimes was still the most accurate word.)

“Whoever said anything about biting, Potter?” he whispered against the shell of her ear.

“Nice try, Fred Astaire—but no.”

“How are you objecting already?” She tried to push against his chest with fisted mittens but Pacey reeled her closer by the scarf strings. “You don’t even know what I’m about to do,” he said.

“Don’t I?”

“I promised you, remember?” An arm slunk around her waist. It held her firm against his chest where she belonged. “No pranks to herald in the New Year.”

“Oh, really?” Joey crossed her arms, playful, a little smirk forming at the corner of her mouth. “Then empty your pockets.”

Appearing affronted for a moment, but only a moment, Pacey scratched a thumb across his chin as if in thought before he reached into his coat with that grin of his widening until it was on full display. It was the cheeky one, too. Not the regular obnoxious one he wielded for sarcastic purposes or provoking alone because he knew it drove her mad, and boy, did it ever! (The number of married years under their belts did nothing to appease how much he still plucked at the nerves under her skin at times). This grin, though…this one he flashed only when some kind of raucous surprise or sweeping unexpectedness was on the horizon, and much to her eye-rolling chagrin, it usually was.

“This is how romanticism dies, I’ll have you know,” he said with a low grumble.

Joey pulled back.

“Why? You mean because I’m loath to accept that -” she swatted above them “ - that thing as a lousy substitute?”

“Yep.”

She humphed.

“Keats would be disappointed in you, my lady.”

Caught somewhere between a snort and a scoff, she gaped up at the no-longer-hidden item in Pacey’s hand before offering him a wry smile and wrapping her arms around his neck. Then she pressed their foreheads together, cupped his face in her palms. “Says the man who’s currently dangling a stalk of produce above our heads like it’s the most sentimental gesture in the history of sentimental gestures,” she pointed out.

“Come on, Jo. It’s romantic.”

“Mmm…debatable,” she said with a cute scrunch of her nose, with a shrug that caused their hips to bump. “Especially considering it’s celery you’ve pilfered from the fridge, which you then tied with a little red bow before presenting it to me.”

“That’s only because I’m conscious of how every detail matters, you see.”

“It does have green leaves, Joey. That’s festive, right?” Jen cut in at the first stroke of twelve. “Also, it’s fibrous in a non-poisonous way, so there’s that added benefit.”

“Yeah,” Jack laughed, Dougie’s hand on his knee. “It’s not like anybody here cares if the leaves are brown and wilting off the damn thing already.”

“Besides, it’s not as if we don’t all know Pacey completely ripped off this whole idea from Jacob Goldman with his broccoli mistletoe in Grumpy Old Men, anyway. So I think we can safely chalk up this amorous whim to borrowed creativity and an unspecified amount of liquor,” Dawson added in that philosophical tone of his, but with a face which was as free of jealousy as it was unencumbered by any mulling forehead lines.

“Don’t forget love, Leery,” said the borrower in question before he leaned in to kiss his sharp-tongued, big-brown-eyed girl. Their lips met just before the final midnight chime. “You know it’s about true love above all else with me.”

It always was.

Since Dawson was liable to see the film angle in everything, therefore, big or small, it was no surprise to the rest of them later on to learn that he’d found Pacey and Joey’s impromptu kiss beneath a shriveled stalk of celery in the last seconds of 2008 to be an inspiring slice of life for him. In his own words, or as he’d dubbed it in the bonus features of the Season 4 DVD, it was thereafter known as—

An absurd moment of affection, humor, and storytelling possibility.

#anonymous #dawson's creek #pjo drabbles #pacey and joey #ashlee bree's writing endeavors

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faketextsbtsthings-blog · 6 years ago

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Double Trouble: Part One

Summary: Two new hot boys arrive at your boarding school. When you are chosen to be their guide/buddy you didn’t think they would turn out to be this hot! Will you- the school’s most prized student- be able to behave yourself?

Warnings: None just yet ;)

Pairings: Jimin x Reader, Yoongi x Reader, Yoonmin x Reader

A/N: Yes I know what you’re thinking; ‘another Yoonmin fic?!’ You’re absolutely right my dears, I can’t help myself with these two. I have made Jin, Joon and Tae brothers and some of the guy’s ages are different in order to fit the story better. (gifs are not mine)

Summer is finally over and the new school year at Redwood Academy is about to begin in a few days time. It is almost as if you never left in the first place, your dorm is exactly how you left it. All you needed was your clothes and other belongings from home. You can’t wait for the new term to start, unlike most people. School is very important to you and the next two years will be the most important. You’re a senior now. It is up to you to set the standards for the years below. Your friend Seokjin became a senior last year all on his own, as he is the oldest of your friend group. This year his brother Namjoon and your friend Hoseok will become seniors alongside you. The youngest of the Kim brothers, Taehyung is in the year below with his friend Jungkook.

This year, you will be welcoming two new students to the Academy. You are quite excited to introduce them to the school. All you know so far is their names; Min Yoongi and Park Jimin. Very few volunteered to be the newcomer's buddy, so you were picked by the principle. They won’t arrive until the first day back otherwise you would be meeting them today.

As you are getting things organised in your dorm, there’s a knock on the door. You weren’t expecting anyone, who could it possibly be? You open the door slowly only to reveal that it is Hoseok waiting on the other side.

“Hobi!” You practically jump on him, hugging him tight like a koala.

“It’s good to see you too, y/n!” He hugs you back just as tight.

It has been a while since you last saw your best friend as you both went home for the summer. You haven’t seen Seokjin or Namjoon either but they won’t arrive until Sunday. Another day won’t kill you, plus, you have Hoseok here. Of course, he is smiling brightly as always. His smile is so contagious. You have missed him so much.

Even though you stayed in contact during the holidays the two of you just sit on your bed talking away quite contently. Hoseok is happy to be back too but he will miss his family. You will miss yours too, you always do. It is always the same at the start of the school year but it does get better. Everyone is too focused on their work to think about home.

“You looking forward to meeting the new guys?” Hoseok changes the subject of the conversation, not wanting to feel homesick already.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun.” You answer hopefully. “I wonder what they will be like.”

“I bet you’re hoping they are cute, huh?” He playfully nudges you with his elbow.

“Oh shut up!” You hit him on the shoulder with a pillow. “I’ve no time to fool around with boys.” You quickly remind him even though he has heard it all before.

“I will make sure you have fun this year.” A cheeky grin appears on his face.

You have always had a small group of friends here at Redwood, to be perfectly honest, that’s how you prefer it to be. Sure, it would be nice to be popular but you would rather focus on your education, as lame as that sounds. Your parents don’t pay all this money for you to slack off. Not only that, you actually want to do well. It’s easier when you are outgoing like Hoseok, everyone likes him. That doesn’t necessarily mean he is best friends with everyone. It just means people like being around him. On the other hand, some people think you are a bit of a bore. That’s because they haven’t given you a chance to show your personality more. You’re so glad that your friends did otherwise things would be pretty lonely around here. Especially when you have to live here for a whole year.

Who knows? You might even gain two new friends this year. Providing they actually like you. That’s why you have to make a good first impression with them on Monday. Show them that Y/n Y/l/n is great fun to be around.

Monday Morning...

You wake up a little bit earlier this morning to make sure you look presentable. Normally, you don’t put in as much effort as this but it is the first day back and you have two new students to look after. Meaning you have to look your best. The curls in your hair sit perfectly in place and you make the finishing touches to your makeup. You grab your backpack, throwing it over your shoulders before leaving your dorm.

The principal told you to come to his office at 8 o’clock to meet the new students, so you make your way to his office with some time to spare. On your way, you are spotted by Seokjin and Namjoon who wave at you frantically. You make your way over, deciding to stop and chat with them for a little bit.

“Hey guys, it’s good to see you.” You give them both a quick hug but Jin holds on for a little bit longer than expected.

“Y/n I have missed you!” He finally lets go, your bones feel like they have been crushed, he’s stronger than he looks. “Where’s Hoseok?” He asks when he realizes he is currently not with you.

“Hobi’s probably still in bed right now.” You shrug your shoulders, not knowing for sure.

Namjoon turns to his older brother slightly concerned, “Should we go wake him? He can’t be late on the first day.”

“If we must.” Jin blows a lock of his hair out of his eye dramatically. “See you around, y/n!”

“Bye guys!” You wave to them as they head for the boy’s dorms.

After your abrupt reunion with the eldest of the Kim brothers, you continue to make your way to the principal’s office. You knock on the door, waiting for a reply. A few seconds later, Mr Schumer prompts you to enter. As soon as you walk in two heads turn in their seats to look at you. The blond one’s face is expressionless as he looks you up and down. The one with the orange hair gives you a playful smirk. You swallow hard, suddenly feeling nervous and shy. Both of them are extremely attractive. How are you supposed to be around them? If you knew they were going to be this hot, you might have declined to be their buddy.

“Y/n, please take a seat.” Principal Schumer says, sitting at his desk with his hands clasped and a smile on his face. You laugh nervously, taking a seat beside the one with the orange hair. The blond one is kind of intimidating, you would be a wreck if you sat next to him. “Why don’t you boys introduce yourselves?”

“I’m Jimin, nice to meet you.” He holds his hand out and you shake it.

“Yoongi.” The other says his name but doesn’t want to shake hands with you.

“Good. Now that we’re all acquainted, Y/n can start showing you around the place before your classes start. If you boys have any issues at all, you come speak to me, okay?” Principal Schumer seems eager to get you all out of his office. It’s the first day so he will have a lot of stuff to get through.

“Yes, Mr Schumer.” Jimin breaks eye contact with you and smiles at the principal like butter couldn’t melt. He doesn’t fool you though, this boy is going to be trouble and you know it.

Yoongi just sits there quietly, arms folded, looking unbothered. Something also tells you that he is going to cause problems for you. This is certainly not what you expected. To be honest, you don’t really know what you were expecting. It’s not like you can turn back now, you’re stuck with these two.

The three of you exit Mr Schumer’s office, both Jimin and Yoongi look at you expectantly. “Are you going to show us around or not?” Yoongi rolls his eyes at you for just standing there.

“Y-yes, of course. Follow me.” You tuck your hair behind your ear, leading the way.

Yoongi and Jimin follow you closely behind around the building. Everyone is looking at them (mostly girls) and whispering to each other. They would giggle as you walked by them. You don’t get why girls get so giddy around boys. Sure, Jimin and Yoongi are nice to look at but they make you want to run off a cliff because they make you so nervous. Being around them makes you feel on edge. You hide it well, though, keeping it together.

Once the tour of the school is complete you stop to ask them about their timetable. “May I see your timetables?” You ask them.

Jimin gives you one of those flirty looks again. “Of course you can, sweetie.” He hands it over to you gladly.

“Here.” Yoongi practically shoves it into your hand.

It doesn’t take long for you to realise that they are both in all your classes. Great, just great. Is the world really trying to punish you? How on earth are you supposed to concentrate on anything with these two around?! You hand them back. “Looks like we’re all in the same classes. It’s English first period.”

“I like it here already.” Jimin’s smile increases.

“Great, I’m literally stuck with you two,” Yoongi says rather unenthusiastically. Seriously, what is this guy’s problem? He has been nothing but rude since you met him. “Can we go to class now?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” You force a smile even though inside your rage is brewing.

When the three of you walk into the room, everyone falls silent, including your friends Hoseok and Namjoon. This is the first time they have seen you with the new students. They look at each other, mouths open in shock. Even they didn’t expect them to be this attractive. The other guys in the class give Jimin and Yoongi ‘the look’ as if they are exerting their dominance somehow. That’s another thing you will never understand. Why do guys suddenly act all macho when there is new competition? Surely they shouldn’t have anything to worry about?

Since you are their buddy, you will have to sit with them in every class, at least until they settle in. There are three spare seats in the middle row. Jimin and Yoongi sit on either side of you, leaving you awkwardly in between them. Namjoon and Hoseok turn around in their seats, gawking. You glare at them, not wanting to draw any more attention to yourself. They turn back around like scared little puppies.

Thankfully, Mrs Chen finally shows up to save you from this awkwardness. You hoped she would get started on the class straight away but she is fully aware of the two new faces in front of her. Jimin looks over at you and winks, your cheeks start burning up. Why is he being so flirty with you? Is that just part of his personality? If so, it is making you kind of uncomfortable.

“Good morning everyone. It’s good to see you all again. I hope you had a fantastic summer.” She greets the class as always. “I see we have two new faces with us this year. Boys, would you like to introduce yourself to the class?”

Jimin automatically gets up from his seat and makes his way to the front of the class. Almost as if he has done this before. Yoongi, however, remains seated. The whole class is staring at him. He lets out a sigh before dragging himself to the front beside Jimin. You can tell he is out of his comfort zone. Maybe he isn’t rude for the sake of it. Sure, he’s antisocial but what if there’s a reason? You never thought about that until now.

“Who wants to go first?” Mrs Chen asks, standing between them.

“I’ll go first.” Jimin is quick to volunteer. Probably because he can’t wait to talk about himself. “Hey, my name’s Jimin. I’m from Busan.” Surprisingly he keeps it short and sweet. Instead of talking to the class as a whole his gaze is fixated on you, making you shift in your chair.

“I’m Yoongi and I’m from Daegu.” His eyes dart around the room, not knowing where to look.

“Thank you, you may now return to your seats.” Everyone claps for them as they make their way back.

You find yourself looking over at Yoongi, who sits with his head resting on his closed fist. From the corner of his eye, he catches you looking. You quickly divert your eyes, acting as if you weren’t just staring at him.

It is finally lunchtime. Your first day back has officially dragged in. Having Yoongi and Jimin in all your classes so far has been exhausting. Jimin is very talkative whereas Yoongi, not so much. You have to force the conversation out of him. It is like trying to talk to a brick wall; ineffective. Maybe things will be different now that it is lunchtime, he might loosen up a bit. You asked Jimin and Yoongi if they would like to join you and your friends for lunch. It will be good for them to get to know other people. Hopefully, they will make their own friends soon enough. That way, you don’t have to worry about them anymore.

The two of them are currently deciding what they want to eat so you make your way over to your table. Namjoon, Hoseok and Seokjin are already there waiting. You slump down on the bench, placing your tray on the table.

“What’s the matter with you?” Jin stops eating to ask. “I thought you would be over the moon. Everyone is talking about how hot the new guys are.”

“Hot guys make me nervous.” You point out. “Besides one is really mean and the other is too flirty.” You let your shoulders fall.

“That’s them over there, right?” Namjoon looks over at them.

“Are they joining us?” Hoseok asks, his mouth stuffed with food.

“Yeah I told them they could, you guys don’t mind, right?” You were hoping they would mind but of course, your friends are too nice.

“Sssssh! They’re coming.” Jin orders you to be quiet.

Jimin and Yoongi stand behind you, not knowing where they should sit. “Guys, this is Jimin and Yoongi.” You point to who is who to stop any confusion. Of course, Jimin decides to sit next to you while Yoongi sits beside Namjoon. As if today couldn’t get any more awkward for you. The others introduce themselves to save you from doing it.

“So guys, how has your first day been so far?” Hoseok asks them both, making effort to get to know them. Bless his heart, he is so welcoming to everyone.

“It’s been good. Thanks to y/n.” Jimin replies.

Yoongi finishes chewing his food first before answering. “It’s been okay.”

While the others talk, you sit there quietly eating your food. You have nothing to add to the conversation anyway. They are asking Jimin and Yoongi the usual questions. Jin then tries to impress them with his terrible jokes. Jimin laughs but Yoongi just gives him a blank look. Not because he doesn’t understand the joke, he just simply doesn't find them funny. Yoongi isn’t letting his guard down just yet, keeping mostly to himself, joining in every so often. His eyes meet yours briefly, except this time his expression isn’t harsh. When he realises he has been looking for too long he clears his throat and shyly looks away again.

“Hey, y/n.” Taehyung taps you on the shoulder to get your attention. Jungkook is also with him.

“Oh hey, Tae. What’s up?” You turn around to face him, thankful that he showed up when he did.

Taehyung plays with his earlobe. “Remember before summer you said you would help me study biology? I was wondering if we could meet later?” He seems timid about asking you for such a favour.

“Sure! I can meet you in the library straight after my last class if you’d like?” You are more than happy to help. After all, you did make a promise.

“That would be great. I’ll see you then.” Taehyung leaves with Jungkook, waving to his two big brothers.

As soon as they are gone, Jin stares you out. “You better not be crushing on my baby brother, Y/n.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” You sneer at him for his comment. “I’m just helping him out with his studies.”

“Why not ask me for help? Why you, huh?” Jin challenges you in front of the group, the rest fall quiet. Namjoon isn’t freaking out over this, so why is Jin adamant that you have a thing for his little brother? “Study biology my ass, is it that a euphemism?”

“Eww, you’re so gross.” Your face screws up in disgust. How could he even say something like that? The boy has no filter. “Besides, I’m way smarter than you.” You tease and he nearly chokes on his food.

“So, you’re a tutor, Y/n?” There’s a glint in Jimin’s eyes. You know exactly what he is thinking.

“Not exactly...” You begin to answer, Jin’s suspicion growing more. Jimin has just put you in a very awkward position. If you turn him down, it will only make Jin question your intentions more with Taehyung. “What is it you need help with?”

“Oh you know, a little bit of everything.” He doesn’t break eye contact with you the entire time. His stare is rather intense.

“I guess I could help you out if you need it.” You have a feeling you will regret saying that.

The first day back is officially over. As per-arranged, you meet Taehyung in the library after your last class. He has already found the two of you a table. You expected Jungkook to be here as well but he isn’t. Not that there’s a problem with that. You’re just here to study, right? Nothing more, nothing less. Hopefully, Taehyung sees it that way too. He’s your two best friend’s little brother, you could never see him that way. Sure, Taehyung is really handsome and one of the sweetest boys ever but you could never go there. He’s in the year below too, people would talk about you for seeing someone younger than you, even if it is only by a year. People will judge you for everything these days.

To be sure, you will treat these study sessions as formally as possible so that no one gets the wrong idea. It’s bad days when a girl and a guy can’t study without something going on. Rumours are bound to find there way around the school, they always do. At least you know they won’t be true.

Today’s topic chosen by Taehyung- as he struggles with it the most- is genetics. You decide to start with genetic variations. He knows the basics which is good. Whenever he gets confused he asks you for clarification or to explain it better. While the two of you study you also teach him some of your techniques that help you remember.

“So, what do you think of the new guys? I hear you are their buddy.” Taehyung decides to ask while he writes down some notes.

The question throws you off a little bit. “They are alright, I guess.” You shrug your shoulders, having nothing more to say on the matter.

Taehyung smiles at you. “That’s not the reaction I was expecting.”

“Why? What were you expecting?” You are slightly confused.

“Well, all the other girls have been swooning over them.” Taehyung shakes his head and laughs.

“I see.” You tap your pencil against the wooden table, biting your bottom lip in thought. Jimin and Yoongi are ridiculously good-looking, it makes sense. You’re not that shallow though, looks aren’t everything. Besides, why would they be interested in you? There’s plenty of pretty girls they probably have their eyes on. Not that it bothers you.

The buzzing in your pocket snaps you back to reality. “Do you mind if I check this?” You ask Taehyung before going on your phone, not wanting to be rude.

“Of course, I don’t mind.” He continues what he is doing while you quickly check your phone. There’s a text message from an unknown number. With furrowed brows, you unlock your screen.

“Who’s got you smiling?” Taehyung asks out of curiosity, seeing a smile to yourself.

“No one.” You place your phone face down on the table so that there are no more distractions. “Now, where were we?”

#bts fanfiction #bts imagines #BTS x Reader #Yoongi x Reader #Jimin x Reader #Jin x Reader #Namjoon x Reader #Hoseok x Reader #Taehyung x Reader #Jungkook x Reader #Min Yoongi #Kim Seokjin #Kim Namjoon #Kim Taehyung #Jeon Jungkook #Park Jimin #Jung Hoseok

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burning-up-ao3 · 6 years ago

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20 Penguins Thoughts: Teammates' concern for Patric Hornqvist is real

January 15, 2019 8:17 AMBy Jason Mackey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

SAN JOSE, Calif. — It’s a text message that Kris Letang doesn’t want to send.

Not because he doesn’t care — he does.

More how he knows it’ll be received.

But like many Penguins who’ve experienced multiple concussions, Letang knows exactly what Patric Hornqvist, who’s had five of them since December 2014, is going through. And Letang, while he cares an awful lot, doesn’t want to be burdensome.

“I’ve been through that,” Letang said. “The last thing I wanted was everybody texting me. That’s why I try to leave him alone. If you’re too [in his face], he might feel like he has to come back quicker. He might not make a good decision.”

Injuries in contact sports are inevitable. Even ones to your brain.

“It’s part of our sport,” Letang said. “We know what we signed up for.”

But with yet another one happening to Hornqvist, something has become clear when discussing the situation with his teammates: This isn’t the same as someone recovering from a knee injury or even his first or second concussion; Penguins players are genuinely concerned about Hornqvist’s head.

“When it’s a good friend and someone we all love and is important to us, you worry about it,” Matt Cullen said. “The positive is we have some pretty good people in place as far as taking your time off and allowing things to heal up and doing the best you can to control those things. Aside from that, we all just hope he’s alright.”

2. Hornqvist, who was concussed last Tuesday against the Panthers, has been skating on his own back in Pittsburgh, which is obviously a good sign.

While the Penguins look forward to getting Hornqvist back, they also don’t want him to rush anything, for fear that he comes back too soon and jeopardizes his long-term health.

“You have to be careful,” Sidney Crosby said. “He has to make sure he’s ready when he comes back.

“He’s been smart about it, though. Especially the way he plays and how tough he plays, he has to make sure he’s feeling good.”

There’s a pretty good reason Hornqvist should take this slow, too.

Actually a couple of them.

“He’s got a family and kids (daughters Isabella and Vendela),” Cullen said. “That’s the first thing that you worry about for him. … Our thoughts are all with him, that’s for sure.”

Mostly, the Penguins just want Hornqvist to be able to be himself again.

“He’s a heart-and-soul guy,” Cullen said. “He’s one of the most important guys in this room as far as keeping the team on the right track. He just brings so much life and energy to our group. He’s one of those guys that makes it really fun for all of us. It’s a lot different when he’s not here.”

3. The other thing area of concern — and this is probably more outside of the Penguins dressing room than inside of it — is Hornqvist’s style of play.

The same rough-and-tumble style that has made Hornqvist so good at what he does — enough for 20 or more goals in every full season he’s played and a $5.3-million-a-year contract through 2023 — is the same one that doesn’t age well.

When Hornqvist does come back, it’s easy to say that he should change. For his own health and career, sure, but also for his family. But can he? Crosby thinks that will be tough.

“You can’t adjust to a puck in the face,” Crosby said, referencing what caused Hornqvist’s latest concussion. “What are you going to do? He had one off his head in warmup. They’re fluke things.”

Which, again, is why Crosby doesn’t think Hornqvist can or will change his game whenever he does get back.

“He only knows one way to play,” Crosby said. “That’s the way he plays the game. Sometimes those things can happen. The way he competes and the way he plays, I don’t see him changing that.”

4. Hornqvist has said repeatedly that he’s not going to change his game, often reasoning that he can’t or he’ll be out of the league.

It sounds harsh, but Letang understands where Hornqvist is coming from.

The Penguins asked Letang to change his game last season — OK, tweak — to take fewer dangerous hits, but it wound up being one of the things that contributed to an off-year for him in 2017-18.

“You can’t really change your game, honestly,” Letang said. “Certain players have played their whole life like that. That’s why they have those contracts and why they’ve had so much success. If you change that, you might become ineffective.”

5. I hope Hornqvist can do something. For his health and for his family.

Staying objective as a reporter is one thing, but you root for everybody — player or not — to avoid serious brain injuries.

As Cullen said on concussions, “There’s still so much we don’t know.” He’s right. But we do know this: They’re scary. Especially when they occur with the frequency that they have with Hornqvist.

“I feel for him,” Matt Murray said. “It’s a tough situation. It’s not an injury that’s fun to deal with, obviously. I can’t speak to how he’s feeling or anything like that. I just wish him all the best, like the rest of us here. Personally, not anything to do with hockey, you wish that he’s feeling good.”

6. The NHL and NHLPA met recently to discuss the current CBA, which runs through 2022, although the league and players have the option to terminate it this September (to be made effective Sept. 15, 2020).

From the league’s perspective, commissioner Gary Bettman would seemingly like to hold another World Cup of Hockey in 2020, and that could play a part in whether or not there’s labor peace through 2020 and beyond.

While Crosby said he didn’t want to comment specifically on negotiations “because it can change so many times,” he said he would be in favor of another World Cup. Crosby also would love to play in the 2022 Beijing Games.

“I’m good with both,” Crosby said. “I’ve had good experiences in both. I don’t know about the timing of it and how it fits in with everything. They did a great job in Toronto [in 2016]. Definitely the two Olympics I’ve been involved with, I thought they were awesome. We’ll see what happens.”

7. Crosby said much must still be determined with how the event would be structured — he brought up the possibility of another Team Europe and the under-23 squad as variables — in addition to the length of time it would require out of players.

But Crosby did really enjoy the last World Cup, held in Toronto in 2016, and would be all for doing it again. Maybe both, if the NHL and NHLPA could swing it.

“I think it was a big thing,” Crosby said. “We’ll have to see how it works out. I don’t know if it’s going to be the same format or how that’s going to shake out. The length of time, too, and when they do it. It’s something they have to figure out. I think they’re both [meaning the Olympics, too] are pretty good events.”

8. My two cents: I think the NHL is more in favor of the World Cup, while the players would probably rather go to the Olympics. They see the latter as a bigger stage, and they’re probably right.

Bettman has said before he worries about the disruption to the NHL season, but with the 2022 Games being in Beijing, that’s a major business opportunity for the league.

Would it be the worst thing if they did both? As long as the players would be on board, I don’t see an issue. I think it could be a lot of fun.

9. With Washington’s Alex Ovechkin set to pass Sergei Fedorov in career points by a Russian-born player — he’s six away after Monday’s game — I thought it would be a good time to ask Malkin about hockey in his home country and sort of the state of the Russian player.

Malkin said he’s “proud” of what some of his countrymen have been able to do, name-checking Ovechkin (on pace for an eighth season of 50 or more goals) and Tampa Bay forward Nikita Kucherov (NHL-best 75 points in 46 games).

There’s also other highly skilled players in Artemi Panarin, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Vladimir Tarasenko, plus some solid defensemen (Ivan Provorov and Dmitry Orlov spring to mind) and a pair of Vezina Trophy winners/finalists in Sergei Bobrovsky and Andrei Vasilevskiy.

“Russia loves hockey, first of all,” Malkin said. “When the national team plays, everyone watches on TV. Russia has always had so many good players — Fedorov, [Igor] Larionov. Lots of huge names.”

10. Malkin also lobbied for Russian players to come to the NHL and stay, believing it’s the best league in the world.

“If you have a chance, you need to come to NHL and try,” Malkin said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re 20 years old or 25. Just try. It’s No. 1, for sure. Every best player plays here, for sure.

“If you [want] to be better and you want a challenge against the best players, you be here. Be better every day, play against good teams. Of course I’m proud of Ovechkin and Kucherov are doing right now.”

11. I dug into some recent numbers of current Russian NHL players, and it’s roughly the same this season as it has been for the past couple years. Maybe a tad better.

Thirty-eight Russian-born players have played at least one game in the NHL this season. That number was 39 in 2017-18 and 42 and 41 in the two years before that.

Last year actually saw Russian players produce more offense than they have in quite some time, with those 39 players combining to score 428 goals and register 1,048 points.

This season, Russian-born skaters should meet or exceed those numbers. Russian players currently have 204 goals and 586 points a handful of games past the halfway point of the NHL season.

12. In talking to Malkin, I realized that I had ever asked him who he idolized while growing up in Magnitogorsk.

He cited watching Detroit and the Russian Five in the late 1990s — Fedorov, Larionov, Slava Fetisov, Vyacheslav Kozlov and Vladimir Konstantinov.

“I don’t know. It’s a hard question,” Malkin said with a smile. “I watched Detroit, Russian Five. You always hear, ‘Russian Five, Russian Five.’

“My style is more [like] Fedorov. Best player so far. He plays center. He plays wing. He can do everything. He’s a really, really smart guy and a smart player.”

13. Ever wonder why they call Marcus Pettersson “Dragon?”

Yes, seriously, that’s his nickname dating back to his time in Anaheim.

On Friday, before Pettersson played his first game at Honda Center since being traded to Pittsburgh, I asked him where the nickname came from.

Turns out it originated in Sweden. Pettersson had a high school basketball coach that called him and another kid “Dragons.” For no apparent reason, either.

Then one day in Anaheim, and perhaps because he’s tall and lanky, someone asked Pettersson if he ever played hoops.

Pettersson has always been kind of so-so on the sport but relayed the story from his home country.

“I just told the story as a joke, and they thought it was hilarious,” Pettersson said.

14. Turns out Derek Grant, a teammate of Pettersson’s in Anaheim who was there for the original story, retold it in Pittsburgh, and the nickname has remerged.

“I didn’t think it would stick,” Pettersson said. “Somehow it did.”

15. I talked to goaltending coach Mike Buckley about a few things in Anaheim, most notably what has helped Matt Murray get right again after returning from injury.

He brought up the team’s overall play and the emergence of Casey DeSmith as reasons why — the latter because he’s been able to shoulder some of the load and also the competitive environment it has helped create with Murray.

One of the things that outsiders have brought up relative to Murray is how he’s been taller in his net. Buckley said no tactical adjustment has been made, though he does think it may be at least a little bit true.

“He’s more confident,” Buckley said, smiling and standing up straight.

16. Another thing Buckley should get credit for this season is the emergence of DeSmith.

Both are New Hampshire guys and, like Murray, have a pretty good history together.

The biggest thing that has led to DeSmith’s breakout year, Buckley said, is how much better he’s been able to read the game. It’s similar to what has made Murray so successful.

“That’s where he’s made the biggest jump,” Buckley said. “He’s always been a pretty good play-reader and has anticipated well. But to catch up with how quickly it happens at this level, that was a big jump for him. I think he’s really adapted well with that.”

17. I also asked Buckley how the Penguins plan to manage the dynamic of Murray and DeSmith and what that might mean for each guy if both are playing as well as they have recently.

“I think it’s one game at a time,” Buckley said. “I think that healthy competition … keep that going right up until playoffs.”

If DeSmith can get this out of Murray simply by playing well, I think it makes his new extension — worth $1.25 million per season — even more of a bargain.

18. I don’t think it will take until Feb. 10 for Justin Schultz to come back.

That would be his original target date given the four-month timeline we were originally given, but the fact that he skated in full equipment for the first time last Friday likely bodes well for him joining the team soon.

The only complicating factor here is that, after this road trip, the Penguins have another week off because of their bye week and the All-Star Game.

Hard to imagine Schultz not being back with the team out of the break, if not before.

19. What will Jim Rutherford do at the trade deadline? Let’s use some deductive reasoning.

I have a tough time seeing Rutherford letting this deadline pass and not combining a good young goalie (Tristan Jarry) and a defenseman (they have nine) and doing something to help the NHL club. Rutherford is in win-now mode. He has a terrific opportunity to improve his team.

What needs to be better? Easy: third-line center. Their wings are fine. Defense has been good, too, and it’s about to get much better. They’re set at goalie, and they have three fourth-line centers.

It’s literally the only piece of this team that’s incomplete. I just don’t see how Rutherford can look at Tampa, Toronto and Washington and think the Penguins are getting enough from that position.

20. San Jose is my absolutely favorite road city. We get asked this question a lot — where do you like to go on the road? Well, here. And north of here.

Heaven for me came Wednesday. As soon as I landed in San Jose, I hopped onto a train bound for San Francisco and eventually wound up at Haight-Ashbury, the Grateful Dead/hippie Mecca.

Spent the afternoon and evening walking around and listening to music, doing some shopping and had dinner at Magnolia Brewery … just an amazing time.

If you’re a fan of the Dead’s music, or just a different-looking scene, I can’t recommend the Haight enough. And San Francisco, in general. What an awesome place.

Jason Mackey: [email protected] and Twitter @JMackeyPG.

First Published January 15, 2019 8:00 AM

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