#really fuckin flattered she came to me like ''i wanna say that to her word for word i wanna write a draft please remember what you told me'

[bbqhooligan]

it is so funny im kind of a Voice Of Reason to my friends and they come to me like "o great truth speaker i humbly request your input" its reached a new level since today my roommate asked me to repeat what id said to her yesterday about making up with her cousin, with a notepad in her hand.

all the while im the POSTER CHILD of depression and How Not To Live

[yslkook]

red card - on the defensive (1)

pairing: jungkook x reader (soccer captain jjk) summary: you and jungkook run in the same circles, and yet after three years, he struggles to get your time of day. you think he’s cocky and he’s going to change your mind. word count: 5.1k warnings: cursing, alcohol/drinking (lots of it), suggestive content a/n: this story is for @cutechim​, it went down in the DM’s and came to life. this is my entry into the blond jk foray!! enjoy<3

red card masterlist

“What should we drink?” Hana shouts over the music to you in the crowd.

“Uh… let’s do jagerbombs,” You shout back, even though you’re both relatively close to each other at the bar. You peer behind you at the group of people you’ve congregated with this afternoon, counting a total of four. 

“Can I have… eight jagerbombs?” You request of the bartender, who raises his eyebrow at you.

“Why am I not surprised,” He says with a roll of his eyes, “You’re all gonna run me dry of my jager.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time it happened,” You mutter. And you’re right- it’s happened at least twice over this summer, when you and your friends made a weekly appearance to this bar. The bartender knows you and Hana by your faces at this point and you’ve jokingly asked why your usual order of jagerbombs or tequila shots aren’t ready upon arrival.

These weekly occurrences were sponsored by your job at a law firm near your university. And by sponsored, you mean that your bank account takes a minor hit on a weekly basis. Since university had let out, you’d made yourself available for as many hours as possible- after all, you needed a way to fund these days and nights out.

While juggling a summer class three days a week for three hours each day.

But you weren’t completely financially irresponsible- you drew the line… eventually. Certainly not after eight jagerbombs though (you’d stopped questioning how you could easily drop that much money on alcohol these days). At least it's summer happy hour and you’re not paying full price.

Besides, you and your friends rotate rounds. Hana will get the next one, and then one of the guys, and so on and so forth. You’d gotten two extra specially for you and Hana, but nobody needed to know that.

You love these summer days, when it’s nothing but you and your friends enjoying the breeze and the vibes of a fun afternoon (that inevitably leads to a night of more recklessness). Nothing can take the tipsy grin off of your face or the arm looped around your best friend’s shoulders, except-

Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, and Jeon Jungkook.  You don’t mind Jimin as much (mostly because of Hana, who’s been harboring a not so secret crush that is definitely bordering more on love than a simple crush on him for who knew how long). But still, when all three of them are together, you make your disdain very known and obvious. At least you think you do.

Some of the star players from your university’s soccer team, and the captain himself, Jeon Jungkook. They walk into the crowded, noisy bar as if they own the place and you can already see heads turning. You roll your eyes and tell Hana to get it together when she starts giggling and waving at Jimin.

Your eyes seem to meet the back of your skull when all three of them saunter over towards you and your friends. It’s not that you have anything against them per se, it’s that you find them as a unit quite annoying and you know of their reputations. Or, you think you know of their reputations. Maybe you’re a little judgmental. But who cares, it’s not any of their business.

Most of your perhaps misplaced vitriol is reserved for Jungkook himself and the few interactions that you’ve had over the last almost four years of being in university together. You’ve had a few general ed classes with him freshman year, but after that most of your interactions were solely at parties and any excuse to celebrate. You had mutual friends (somehow) so it was inevitable that you saw him as much as you did.

Every fiber of him annoyed you- he was cocky and arrogant… Everything you intensely disliked in a person. Hana told you that you were being mean and judgmental (not as nicely), but if it meant not dealing with this boy who got a rise out of you for no reason, then it didn’t matter. Of course, he doesn’t take up space in your mind very often. Only when you have the misfortune of running into him.

You didn’t know him, and truly, you didn’t care to. You’ll remain civil though, only if he doesn’t annoy you. Which you doubt will happen.

Jungkook can sense your iciness towards him and his friends from half a mile away, from across the bar. And the bar itself is pretty big, with an outdoor area and an outdoor dance floor, and two bars inside with tables and booths and a dance floor. Despite the space of the bar, it’s crowded with college students, young professionals, and even older corporate workers who look like they work relatively close to the bar. He knows you and your friends come here often, and if that was why he had suggested to Jimin and Tae that they also come here then that was his business.

He swallows (not nervously). You look so pretty when you laugh, he thinks. He thinks you look pretty all the time, though. He lets his eyes wander to your tight black crop top shirt with cherries printed on it and your high waisted denim shorts. Jungkook’s throat goes a little dry when his gaze reaches your thighs, but he keeps it together somehow. He doesn’t know how, considering how nice that outfit makes your tits look.

“Hey Cherries,” Jungkook says smoothly, “Flattered you got this for me.” And he plucks the jagerbomb that you paid for for yourself and downs it in less than three seconds. 

Your jaw drops. The audacity of this boy.

“First of all,” You narrow your eyes, “Who the fuck is a ‘Cherries’. And second of all, I know you didn’t just drink the drink that I paid for. Right in front of my fuckin’ face.”

“That’s a funny way of asking me to buy you a drink, Cherries,” Jungkook grins, and gazes at your chest for a second too long. You roll your eyes and swat his arm.

“I’m not asking. I’m telling you. I’ll have a tequila shot, pretty boy,” You smirk at him and he smirks right back at you.

“I like a girl who knows what she wants,” Jungkook attempts, only for you to scoff.

“Congratulations,” You say flatly, “You’re lucky I’m not subjecting you to getting me two tequila shots for having to hear that line.”

“You don’t like my lines?” He’s pouty and his eyes are wide, mischief sparkling in them. You dare to think that he’s cute. Apparently all of the boys had dyed their hair blond this summer before the soccer season began and you must admit that it suits him. His hair falls over his forehead effortlessly, small hoops dangling from his ears as he smiles at you.

“Does anyone? Do your groupies?”

“Maybe I’m a little rusty…”

“Oh, I doubt that, Jungkook.”

“Well, you notice whether I have groupies or not, so maybe I’m not so rusty, Cherries,” Jungkook winks at you and you’re tempted to toss your drink at him. But that’s a precious waste of alcohol and perhaps you’re a little dramatic.

You only groan and accept the tequila shot, quickly licking your hand to place salt on and taking a wedge of lime.

“Ready?” Jungkook asks after doing the same.

“How lucky for me, that I get to do shots with our star quarterback,” You say flatly.

“That’s football, Cherries. I play soccer.”

“And I don’t care. Now, take this shot with me.”

As the afternoon blends into evening, you witness betrayal in front of your very eyes in the form of Hana inviting Jimin and his friends with you to the next bar. The ultimate betrayal.

But really, you’ve heard about those soccer boys. At least you think you have. Perhaps you know everything. Perhaps you know nothing at all.

And so the three boys follow you to the next bar as the night goes on. Nearly everyone was at least tipsy by this point, as you had all done a handful of shots following the boys’ arrival at the first bar.

You find yourself thinking that they’re not so bad, when they make you and your friends laugh easily and when being around them feels… fun. 

It’s easy to blame on the alcohol and the darkness of the crowded bar. It seems like everyone is out and about, the streets filled with college students and young professionals looking to unwind and let off some steam.

You love the feeling of the music pumping through your veins, along with the swirl of alcohol. You’re not ashamed of enjoying a drink (or several) and having a good time.

Even if it almost always results in you crossing the line and being hungover the next day.

“Wanna do shots,” You suggest to your circle of friends, eyes landing on Jungkook without you meaning to. Maybe it’s a hidden challenge and he raises his eyebrows.

“Again?” Jungkook says incredulously.

“Don’t be surprised,” Jimin mutters under his breath to Jungkook, “She’s kinda crazy.”

“I’ll take that as a yes… six shots then?” You say cheerily, ignoring Jungkook’s groan. You vaguely recall that Taehyung doesn’t really drink. How considerate of you.

Hana’s arm is slung around your shoulders, a bright (drunken) smile on her face as you pass shots behind you.

The following week, on your usual day of happy hour drinking, Hana presents you with a proposition that has you gasping and gagging, nearly writhing on the floor.

“No, for your information, I do not want to pregame at the soccer house. Thanks for asking, try again later,” You say definitively, pouring Hana a drink.

“Jimin invited us! I wanna see him,” Hana complains and pouts at you, “He said they got good alcohol for the pregame-”

“Jimin invited you, because you both like each other or whatever,” You roll your eyes, “I’m content to drink here alone-”

“We both know you’ll fall asleep if I leave you alone,” Hana says flatly, “Besides, Jungkook asked if you were coming.”

“And what do I care if Jungkook asked if I was coming?” You scoff, taking a long swig of the strong drink in your red solo cup. You cringe.

“He specifically asked if Cherries was coming,” Hana says with a near maniacal grin, “Pretend all you want that you don’t like that shit. Now go wear that top with cherries on it that makes your tits look nice. Quit being difficult.”

In the end, you end up walking the four blocks to the soccer house and you wear the baby pink long sleeved crop top with cherries on it and denim shorts, much to your chagrin (and to Hana’s delight). You’ve only been here a handful of times (maybe two or three) as a freshman for parties and hadn’t been back since.

Everyone knew the soccer house was the place to party to get shitfaced. Usually, the sophomore and junior year soccer players lived in the house while senior year players moved off campus.

You don’t know who currently lives at the house, but Hana quickly fills you in. Apparently Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook lived together off campus (because of course they did).

The soccer house has been part of the campus lore for years. Allegedly, all of the craziest, most reckless things happened at the soccer house and all of the best parties were there. You and Hana never felt that way freshman and sophomore year, instead opting to party hop at the frat houses rather than the sports houses.

How the tables have turned.

“You made it!” Jimin exclaims, outstretching his arms for a hug from you. Which you (awkwardly) return. You need more alcohol to be here, you think.

“Yeah, only ‘cause Hana told me you guys got the good shit,” You say flatly. Taehyung passes a cup of something and you eye it suspiciously but ultimately take a swig of it.

“Pretty good, Tae,” You say, raising your cup to him.

“Oh, I didn’t make that. I’m only the messenger,” Taehyung shrugs with a sly grin, “Jungkook over there did.”

You turn your head, only to find Jungkook staring back at you, lips upturned in a playful grin. It makes you roll your eyes, as most of his antics do.

“Hey, Cherries,” Jungkook greets, standing next to you after a few long strides, “It only took Jimin asking you once to come here, huh? I should be offended, considering how many times I’ve asked you-”

“And when have you ever asked me to party here, Jungkook?”

He only gives you a small smile, almost shy, and it’s a stark contrast from the generally cocky aura that hangs around him. “You just don’t remember.”

You frown a little, wondering what that means. But he gives you another broad smile quickly, shaking you from your reverie. Jungkook leaves you to your devices, being pulled away by some of the younger soccer guys that you hardly recognize. Freshmen? Sophomores, maybe? They look at Jungkook and the older guys with a playful sort of reverence- it’s clear that the team is close even off of the field. 

You briefly wonder what that’s like- having a group of friends like that. Hana’s always been the nicer, more outgoing one out of you both. She’s always made friends easily, with her sweet and genuine smiles. And then there’s you- you struggle to open up to others, always greeting anyone with the sting of sarcasm and holding people at arm’s length.

Sometimes, very rarely, you wonder how you and Hana mesh well together. When she could have a big group of great friends, you used to wonder if you hold her back somehow. It was stupid, and the first time you voiced your insecurity to Hana, she had smacked you upside the head and told you that you were stuck with her.

But still. You can’t help but feel burdensome sometimes. Maybe like you’re too much. Maybe not enough.

Hana pulls you out of your thoughts easily, an arm around your shoulder as she pulls you into conversation with Jimin and a few other girls. 

You down about half the cup of whatever concoction Jungkook whipped up for you and tried to immerse yourself in conversation. There’s a new girl here that you don’t recognize, Sunmi. She’s a transfer and the last thing you want is for her to feel left out. So you make sure to include her in the conversation and ask her questions, too.

Jungkook is not surprised that you don’t remember how many times he’s asked you to come party at the soccer house. Granted, it’s only been a handful of times over the last three years and change. It’s not like you were a stranger- he’s known you through a few mutual classes through the years, and through Jimin, too. After all, Jimin and your best friend have had this weird on and off, together but not together thing going on since the summer before sophomore year.

Maybe one of these days, they’ll get it together. Jungkook loves Hana for Jimin and vice versa- he’s never seen either smile as much as they do around each other. If only they would just admit how much they like (love) each other and put everyone around them out of their misery.

Jungkook thinks it’s a little romantic. Being so in love with someone that labels aren’t needed. There’s something poetic about that.

But Jungkook doesn’t know why you act like you don’t know him at all. You always greet him with a near frown or a roll of your shining eyes.

He doesn’t understand but he pays it no mind, instead turning his focus to the pretty woman eyeing him from the other side of the bar with her friends.

(She’s not you, but it doesn’t matter. Jungkook pushes you to the back of his mind, instead choosing to focus on the velvet heat of the woman in his bed later that night.)

With your shift at the law firm starting at 9 AM the following morning, you decide to remain relatively sober for the night (you enjoy a good time, but you try to draw the line when you can. Though there have been times when you’ve gone to work hungover or possibly even still intoxicated. It happens every so often. You’ve never claimed to be the paradigm of a working college student.)

But also, you don’t really feel like being out tonight to begin with. You do enjoy nights like this, but you also enjoy your quiet time. And it seems like this is one of those nights.

At least someone’s having fun, you think dryly, your eyes glossing over Jimin and Hana. You do think they’d be a great match- if only either of them would make it official. This dance that they’ve been doing for years frustrates you and Hana knows it. You’ve voiced it to her many times but she always says it’s not the right time.

It makes you roll your eyes. You briefly wondered if you should host an intervention and scold Jimin for taking too long- after all, if they kept playing games like this then who’s to say one of them wouldn’t move on? But it seems like they both always gravitate to each other no matter what.

He rotates around her axis and she rotates around his. It’s sweet but Jimin still puts a sour taste in your mouth for a reason that you can’t verbalize into words.

Maybe it’s the company he keeps. 

The music is loud in your ears as you dance with your group of friends, two of them in an impromptu dance off that you inevitably get dragged into. You sling your arm around Sunmi and nudge hips with her, getting her to come out of her shell a little bit and dance with her on the dance floor. She sings to the same songs as you do and gives you a bright, happy smile that you can’t help but return.

You buy a round of beers for your friends before the first yawn comes, not even at 1 AM. Hana looks at you quizzically.

You keep checking your phone for the time. Which in itself is pretty out of character for you. But you just need a recharge before the next outing…..

But you suck it up, not wanting to leave Sunmi by herself. You fight through your yawns and nurse your beer, twirling and swirling around with Sunmi.

And then you start to get hungry. Damn, you could go for some tacos right now.

“Hey,” Sunmi shouts over the music, “Wanna get food?”

“Wow, you read my mind,” You grin and chug your beer quickly. You and Sunmi both settle on the bar across the street (with the best tacos). You turn to find your friends and let them know that you’re heading across the street. Jimin and Hana both nod eagerly, Taehyung does, too.

You debate if you should ask Jungkook if he wants food- after all, it looks like he’s busy with a girl currently sending him sultry heart eyes. 

“Hey, we’re going to get food. Wanna come?” You ask, “You, too.” You look at the pretty girl who looks familiar. She probably attends the same university as you and your friends. 

Jungkook’s ears perk up at the mention of food, even with the girl currently standing in between his legs. She looks wary for a minute and before you can reassure her, Jungkook speaks up.

“Sure. I could go for some tacos,” Jungkook says, “Let’s get some tacos, Nari.”

“Are you sure, I mean I don’t want to impose. We can catch up later, Kook,” Nari says unsurely.

Jungkook will admit, this feels weird for a reason that he can’t place. The girl he’s trying to hook up with for the night getting tacos with the girl he might have a slight crush on. 

Weird. But still, there’s no harm in just having tacos.

“Trust me, you’re not imposing, Nari. I barely even like this guy,” You joke, “I’m just a big proponent of tacos and tacos should never be eaten alone. Tell your friends too, if they wanna come.”

“Hey!” 

You ignore Jungkook to reassure Nari and give her a bright smile. Nari looks at you, and then Jungkook before nodding slowly and returning your smile.

Jungkook walks Nari out with a hand at the small of her back, something you don’t miss as you chat away with Nari about anything and everything.

You even shoot Jungkook a wink when Nari isn’t looking. He groans internally- how poetic. His current crush giving him the approval of his hook up for the night (Nari knew what the deal was).

How incredibly awkward. Jungkook is capable of many things, always adapting to situations. But this is a new one and when Jimin and Taehyung catch his eye at the taco shop, they both give him a derisive smile.

Jungkook can only groan internally and eat his tacos.

Today’s Wednesday night is uneventful- Hana is with Jimin for the evening and they are likely going out with some friends. You had opted out, as you had an early shift at the law firm tomorrow morning. You’ve gone out the night before early shifts and early classes and more than half the time, you regret it the next day.

Does it mean you’ll stop those habits any time soon? Stay tuned.

But today, you just feel tired from a particularly long, difficult morning of class and your half shift that you worked until five PM. You hadn’t felt like cooking dinner (you had taken leftovers to work for lunch) and by the time you finished your homework for your natural language processing class, it was past 9 PM and your stomach was rumbling loudly.

You’ve been craving noodles, dumplings and chicken. So you place an order at the nearby restaurant by your apartment and order some extra for Hana for later or for tomorrow.

It’s only a fifteen minute walk from your apartment to the shop, and you plug your headphones in to begin your walk.

You sway on the heels of your feet as you wait for your food, saying hello to the couple who owns the small restaurant. They know you by face, from how many times you’ve been here. Your favorite comfort food (besides homemade food made by your parents) exists here. Your favorite aromas exist here and even just the smell of noodles and chicken has your tummy rumbling.

“I thought you would’ve been out,” A voice comes from your right side, “It’s the week before classes start.”

You turn your head at the voice, heart startling a bit. What in the world is Jungkook doing at your secret but not so secret restaurant?

“I could say the same for you,” You remark with a raise of your eyebrow, “I heard Jimin and Tae went out.”

You vaguely wonder if he’s still hooking up with Nari but decide it’s not your business to ask.

“Ah, well… I have work tomorrow,” Jungkook shrugs.

“Me too, they want me in at 7:30 tomorrow,” You complain, “What do I look like? A cog in the wheel that is capitalism?”

“Don’t we all?” Jungkook snorts.

“I didn’t realize you were working this summer, too. Thought you were just doing whatever soccer captains do,” You mutter, picking up your order off of the countertop.

“And what do soccer captains do, Cherries?”

“I dunno. Score touchdowns or whatever,” You shrug and laugh at the pained expression on Jungkook’s face, “And stop calling me that, Jungkook.”

“Whatever, Cherries. I’ve been working at this architecture firm as an intern. Figured it would help with post grad.”

“Oh wow, I didn’t know that was your major…”

“You definitely did, I’m pretty sure I’ve told you.”

“When-” You shake your head, not wanting to argue with him, “That’s cool. I’m working at a law firm, it’s about a fifteen minute bus ride from my apartment.”

“You wanna study law? Makes sense, because you always wanna argue with me-”

“No, I don’t really know if I want to go to grad school,” You trail off, “Hey! I don’t always argue with you!”

“You’re arguing now,” He says smugly, crossing his hands across his broad chest that you definitely do not ogle at.

“Whatever, Jungkook,” You roll your eyes, “You here for classes or anything?”

“Nah, not this summer. Just work and soccer,” Jungkook replies, “Gives me lots of time for other things.” The man has the audacity to wink at you and give you a big, bunny grin. You pretend like your stomach doesn’t flutter.

You roll your eyes, again. 

“How about you, Cherries? Any classes?”

“Yeah, I’m taking this natural language processing class three times a week for three hours each day-”

“Wait, you’re a comp sci major?” He asks incredulously, “Why are you working at a law firm then?”

“I’m working half as IT support and half as the intern,” You reply with a shrug, “It pays well and it’s pretty easy. Half of the IT support comes in the form of telling the lawyers to restart their computers for software updates. It’s so funny, you should see their amazed faces when all it takes is a fuckin’ restart. Makes a girl feel smart as hell.”

“Smart and pretty, huh?” Jungkook says with a crooked grin, “Where you been all my life, Cherries?”

“Shut up,” You say flatly, levelling him with a glare that only makes him smirk even wider at you.

“Cute,” He breathes with so much conviction that it almost makes you flustered. You clutch your bag of food a little tighter to ground yourself. 

“Me telling you to shut up is cute?” You raise both your eyebrows, eager to shield him from the heat in your cheeks.

“Among many other things, Cherries.”

“Share with the class then…”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Shut up, and why do you like calling me cherries so much,” You complain, lips jutted out in a pout, “I only wore that top once and now look. You’re referring to me as a delectable, juicy fruit. I mean I don’t blame you-”

“Cherries are my favorite,” Jungkook says, dark eyes swirling with stars. He unnerves you with his raw honesty and sincerity and he lets the implication of his words hang in between you both, your eyes wide by his statement. 

“Well, your taste is questionable because mangoes are very obviously superior-”

You both share a laugh and you’re pleasantly surprised by how the silence that comfortably falls isn’t awkward when you deflect. His name is called shortly after, breaking his intense stare. 

You let out a huff, pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose.

“Hey, I’ll drive you home,” Jungkook says, pushing the door open for you to exit the shop.

“You have a car on campus?” You say, unable to hold back the awe in your voice, “That’s awesome. And uh, no, I mean, you really don’t have to, it’s only a fifteen minute walk-”

“It’s a two minute ride,” Jungkook says, “But I mean, if you’re not comfortable, I get it-”

“No, it’s not that,” You say honestly, “I just don’t want to inconvenience you-”

“You’re not, it’s a two minute ride. Now get in,” Jungkook says reassuringly, opening the passenger side door for you. He puts his own bags of food in the backseat before getting into the driver’s side.

You’ve never really been alone with Jungkook, but for some reason it doesn’t feel that strange. It’s easy to keep conversation (really, it’s banter) flowing with him- as if you’ve been friends for the entirety of the last few years of college. As if you hadn’t spent nearly every waking moment thinking of him a certain way.

He’s easy to talk to. It unnerves you, but you roll with it.

“You should come to a practice one of these days,” Jungkook murmurs. You raise an eyebrow. Why would he ask you to come to one of his soccer practices when you had only just started an acquaintance-ship? Isn’t that crossing some sort of friendship line that you both hadn’t approached yet.

It’s months later when you realize that everything Jungkook does and says is because of his kind, golden heart. He’s such a genuine person, sincerity always dripping from his warm, brown eyes. Everything he does, he does with love.

“Thanks for driving me home, Jungkook,” You murmur with a small smile. It makes his heart sputter in his chest and he easily returns it. “Text me when you get home?”

“If you wanted my number, all you had to do was ask. Cherries,” Jungkook says smugly and you gasp, affronted. “Text me when you get inside your place.”

“That’s not- I didn’t-” You stammer, sighing, “I already have your number, stupid.”

“You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

“I’m not flustered,” You mutter, cheeks blazing as you hurry to get out of his car. Which coincidentally smells just like him. “Goodnight, Jungkook.”

“‘Night, Cherry.”

You roll your eyes but give him a small wave and a smile before entering your building. 

cherries: I’m inside. Drive safe jungkook: you worried about me? cherries: no im worried about your nice car jungkook: uh huh… gonna leave now, text you when i get home? cherries: 👍🏾

It’s about three minutes later (you barely even have time to wash your hands and change into pajamas) before your phone lights up again.

jungkook: im home cherries: me too jungkook: wow you’re funny cherries: pretty and smart too, according to you jungkook: well i wasnt lying 😍 cherries: Uh huhhhhh

You put your phone to the side to put some of the food on your plate, your stomach still rumbling. You turn on the anime you’re currently watching and get cozy on the couch with a glass of wine.

And in the middle of your late dinner, your wine and your show, your phone lights up with texts from Jungkook. It surprises you that he holds the conversation even when you had given him such a dull response. Isn’t he tired of texting you by now?

He keeps you company through your dinner and you barely are even paying attention to the anime you’re watching, only giggling to yourself over Jungkook’s silly texts-

cherries: you’re so distracting, couldnt even finish this episode of fruits basket jungkook: cute cherries: i cant tell u if its cute, i barely watched it bc of you jungkook: no i meant u. Ur cute

Five seconds go by. Then ten. Your face is heated- you’re glad he can’t see you. Maybe you’ll reciprocate someday. But today is not that day.

cherries: shut up

tags: @kookdbean

[tomdiddlyumptious]

Can u do a Tom Holland x black model reader

And she’s zendayas friend and she introduces Tom to her and they hit it off he ends up seeing her outside they have a sentimental talk about what it’s like being famous and they end up kissing maybe smut at the end and they wake up the morning after 😩😩😫

I MIGHTVE GOTTEN....YA KNOW TAKEN AWAY BUTTTTT

warnings: terrible fans, sadness, annoying papis, and I guess heavy smut but idk 🤷🏽‍♀️ NOT PROOFREAD, PROBABLY TERRIBLE ✌🏽

a/n: REEEEE I HATE MYSELF

You sighed as she grabbed your hand, pulling you, “look you have nothing better to do, so you do this or keep watching re-runs of Harry Potter and trying to shift, which isn’t gonna work” she rolled her eyes at the idea, looking at your scrunched up face.

“Well whatever, so much for getting a spell book” you huffed in loss, zendaya laughing at you as she let your hand go and opened the door “for my princess please” she dramatically said, her hand pointing inside the restaurant.

“We couldn’t have taken a walk-“ “y/n shut up and sit down please” you giggled as you walked slower to let her infront of you and guide you to a seat, next to her but also next to a nice, brown haired, of course skinny lean white boy.

And how did you know that? You checked him out without hesitation. As you looked back up at him you found himself with a cocky ass smirk. “Don’t flatter yourself” you chuckled only leaving him doing the same.

“Hey a pretty girl like you how could I not?” His hand lifted and ruffled his hair some, leaving you with a smile. “We all know who we are right?” Daya said, not wanting to introduce anybody when your all basically famous. “Yes?” The group said.

You knew Tom of course but not officially, your brother made you watch Spider-Man because he’s two years older then you and loves to debate that tobey Maguire is the best, which you have to agree, its only by the way he swings. Your brother also thinks tobey can play Batman but he is like 46, he will have a heart attack.

As you all ordered your meals and passed around plates Harrison and Jacob talked, zendaya and her brother talked, which left you and Tom.

“Hi I’m tom” he said, lifting his hands wanting a handshake, orrr possibly a hug, what’s the damage?. “Well hello Tom, my name is Y/n” you said, taking his hand in yours, also noticing you can’t even shake his hand because of his hand size, it basically devoured your whole hand. Tom chuckled as he looked at your small fingers.

“Compare?” He asked, “oh what are we in fourth grade?” You giggled but agreed, he put his hand up flat and open and you did the same, touching hands you noticed your hand was small, or his hand was big, who knows. “I should call you robin!” He chuckled.

“You are really a child, teen titans really?” You bursted into laughter but only Tom could really hear. “Hey I have to do something to keep me satisfied right?” He shrugged, “and tough talked for a woman with small hands”.

You playfully gasped as you hit his shoulder “no you just have large hands, above average, so leave me alone, and tough talk for a guy who’s 5’8, my brother was that height at like 14” he only left his mouth open as you laughed, his eyebrows raised as he said “touché, but you’ve been doing some research on me havent you?”.

“Eh, something like that” you shrugged, getting chopsticks and trying to set it up but failing, of course Tom hysterically laughed at you “fuckin chopsticks” you mumbled to yourself, still trying to get them in between your fingers but utterly confused.

“Here darling, let me help you yeah?” Tom said in his slick British accent,

leaving your stomach to drop to your ass but you agreed, forgetting what he was helping you with.

He took your hand softly and fixed it, staring at him in awe before-

snap

You both looked over and seen a photographer running away, leaving Tom pissed but you could only laugh. Everyone around the table noticed and started to feel bad about being “famous” because it does take away your private life.

As they all looked at you both you continued laughing, leaving them all confused “did you see the way he ran?” You only busted out laughing more as Tom could still see him, looking at the way he does run and starts laughing after.

“Your right!” Everyone starts to catch on as zendaya pulls out her phone to record him, putting it on her instagram story with text of “running to his casket” (I KNOW THIS IS MEAN BUT I COULDNT HELP IT)

As you all as a group ate your food, well you ordered a fork, and talked you all giggled, and got to know more about each other, when he found out you were a model he only smiled more because, you deserve to be one, your beautiful in so many ways anyone could see that, not just Tom holland.

You cracked open the cookie and grabbed the paper “I wanna see!” Tom said, scooting closer and resting his head on your shoulder as you read it “hop on a ride but you won’t go outside, lucky numbers 11,9,10,20” tom furrowed his eyebrows, “I don’t get it” he whispered in your neck, platonically. But he got your sweet spot so you bit your tongue some. “What makes you think I do? You do yours!”

He sat back up straight and grabbed his, opening it. “Hmm, take your time, try to wine and dine, same lucky numbers as you” he looked at you while your lower lip was puckering out, confused but not gonna stress yourself out about it.

“Aren’t they just beautiful” daya quietly said, recording it and putting it on her Snapchat instead. Harrison agreed as they all started at both of you but you didn’t take any sense to notice.

“Who’s paying?” Tom said. “Split” you say back, everyone taking out their credit card and placing it in the middle.

About two days later you went out for shopping, mostly for yourself but you did think about buying daya matching Harry Potter mugs.

You looked at Victoria secret, looking at all the options you could get, but you got white lingerie, lacy white lingerie. You had about 3 bags in your hands, all clothes as you found yourself hungry, you checked the time and noticed it was about five thirty but daylight saving so it was darker then usual.

You found yourself at a Chinese place at the food court, ordering what you wanted as your phone blew up from the events of yesterday. “Y/n?” You heard a familiar voice, you turned to see-

“Thomas?” You smiled at him as he smiled back, coming up close and seeing ‘foot locker’ and ‘Nike’ bags in his hand. “Hey!” He came over and reached out for a hug which you accepted, and you smelled so good, like no one else. He knew once they started to publicly date he would have to point out that you have this magnificent smell.

“Hey babe how are you?” You ask looking at him, letting him go as his hands were still on your arms. “My phone won’t stop blowing up” he sighed and rolled his eyes “eh same here” “what are you doing?” He asked, you pointed at the title of the food place “Chinese food” “your trying again aren’t you?” “You know what- shut up” you laughed making him join along.

He decided to join you at one of the tables, both with hats on and black tinted sunglasses. “This is humiliating” you sighed, playing with the noodles. “What?” He asked looking up at you. “I shouldnt really have to hide because I just want to eat alone” you let out a distant chuckle and let the food alone, looking at the table.

“Yeah I know it does suck, but atleast we have killer fans right!” “Yeah but then they want to turn on you because you wanna make a point or a decision for yourself” he only sighed in defeat at your point, nodding in agreement. “I mean I guess it’s what we signed up for” “I just really want to do what I love but then there’s the pros and cons, people loving my body and people hating my body, telling me I should lose weight and that I should just kill myself-“

“Well you shouldn’t, people tried to cancel me because I didn’t vote? I can’t!” He grabbed your hand and that made you look at him “and your beautiful, so beautiful, don’t take only my word but everyone else’s, and whoever is telling you to kill yourself has a problem with their body image, they want to be you!” He gave you a smile, you gave a weak one back. “Hey love, darling, trust me. There’s a lot of people out there that support you! Why do paparazzi want to take photos of you? To let everyone know hoe your doing at the moment!”

“That wasn’t a good one Thomas” you laughed which made him giggle, he reached over and let go of your hand and places his thumb on your chin, the coldness of his ring on his pointer finger as it’s under your chin.

“Your really fucking beautiful, princess, fame is annoying celebrity is a annoying word but guess what? Isn’t it worth it?” “Yeah I guess, because I met you” you smirk, he tilts your head up and looks at your lips, looking at your eyes for approval and you nod your head.

He presses his lips on yours, pulling you closer as he wants to climb over the table and just take you there, his lips on your soft delicate ones is heaven, feeling your hand raise up to his cheek as you let go for a longer one-

“Hey get out of here! It’s like 7, stop sharing your cootie germs!” The janitor says with his strong Indian accent which makes you both laugh while your lips are still pressed together.

“Hey I really mean it!” You both let go as he shouts a thank you and you didn’t even notice it was that dark, he didn’t either. “Wanna get out of here?” He asked, you nodded as you both grabbed your bags and threw away your food.

You both couldn’t keep your lips off of each other, he slammed you against the apartment door, leaving you to moan as he focused on your neck, grabbing the key from his poket and shoving it in the door, opening it as he twisted to nob you fell and he feel ontop of you, well on your stomach.

You both laughed out of breath as he got up to close the door, thankfully there was a door stopper that didn’t allow a mark on the wall, he came back down and helped you up, taking the bags from your hand and throwing it on the couch, the boxes of shoes falling out of the bag and on the floor.

You quickly took off your clothes, leaving you in your underwear with Tom just admired you, your sweet brown skin just shinning of cocoa butter lotion and body oil, smelling so intoxicating as he walked up to you, his hand softly placed on your waist as he whispered in your ear “help me” you giggled and unbuckled his pants while he unbuttoned his shirt, quickly only in his-

“Really? Spider-Man? Your such a narcissist” “your ruining the moment” “whatever kiddo” he took your hand and ran into the room, falling on the bed from the jeans around his ankles, you got comfy on the queen bed with the silky black sheets and blanket, your legs open waiting for him as he kicked off his jeans.

He looked at you and your legs, crawling over to kiss your shins up to your thighs, his lips so soft on your skin as if he doesn’t want to break it.

“You such a pretty girl” he purred, kissing up to your stomach, to the middle of your breasts to you neck. “Touch me please tommy” you sighed in relief as he went down to your underwear, pressing your clit and trailing down to see you soaked. “I’ve barely touched you princess, do I make you wet like this?” He talks mostly to himself, not expecting an answer but you do “yes you do, fuck you make me so wet tom, watching your hands move, you mouth-“

“My mouth huh? What do you want me to do princess? Eat you out? Make you come then I fuck you and don’t miss a beat? Make everyone hear my good girl?” He asked, making you moan at the scenarios “I want to you to be on top of me, I want to you fuck yourself on my dick until you make me whine” he comes up to your ear and whispers “which I don’t do”, you whimper as he unclamped your bra, the cold ring and Rolex on your back as he gets it off.

You smile as he just stares, reaching down and taking a nipple in his mouth, moaning as he punches the other. “Fuck Thomas your really good” “shh now, remember what I want you to do f’me okay?” He asked looking up at you, you nodded as he reached down in between your thighs, pushing the underwear to the side.

He puts a finger inbetween your folds, his fingers rather warm and he rubs right over your whole while he continues to kiss and leave hickeys around your neck and inbetween your breasts.

He pushes in his finger and you let out a whimper, his fingers way bigger then your own “your so tight around my finger, fuck your gonna feel so good around my cock, just let me make you come first” you nod at him and give him a open mouth kiss as he goes down, taking off your panties and lifting your thighs and putting them inbetween his head.

He pumps is finger in you slowly, my the third time you suddenly let out a “oh” as your breathe starts to get heavy, “don’t give up now darling” “get to work and I’ll see what I can do for-“ you moan as he wraps his lips around your clit, kitty licking.

“Don’t talk down on me, darling” he says, before adding another finger, his long slender fingers finding your spot as he rubs over it, shaking his head from side to side around your bundle of nerves, your legs raise into a butterfly just asking for more.

Your hands reach down to his hair and you pull it, ruffle it and whimper as his fingers press hard on your spot “ah!” You let out a high pitched moan, he makes eye contact with you as his tongue continues to run miles, infinity signs, even his own full name on you “I’m so close” you whimper, he already knew by how much you were clenching around him, he sped up his movements, licking the slide of your clit, bucking your hips and pulling his hair making him moan on you, high pitch moans, the sounds of his fingers in your wet slopping whole is just enough to make you come, “Aw please! Fuck tommy!” Your eyes roll back as you cum, your back arching more as your fluids let loose and your stomach a pit of fire.

“You tase so good, Mmm” he licks you clean, savoring your tase as he licks his lips and comes up to kiss you, sharing tongues and humming at the taste on his lips.

And it was your time for the deal, he turned you both so you were on top. His hands already behind his head as he enjoyed the view already, you grabbed his member and pumped it a few times making him groan, you swiped him between your folds and cried at the overstimulation.

“Fuck y/n” he moaned feeling of your wetness looking down and seeing his spit and your arousal connected to the tip of his member, you both moaned at the feeling of his member getting in you so slowly.

You started to move your hips against his, seeing him so comfortable and watching every single move you make could make you come right there, you started to bounce and you sat up straight, moaning as Tom took a hand of his and licked his thumb to roll your nipple “faster” he said, as you did it.

“Fuck tommy your so good” “oh no it’s you babygirl, fucking yourself on my dick like I told you to, I don’t have to do any-“ he groaned “work, your such a good girl, my princess” he praised making you whimper and lean down. In this moment he could stay there forever, your ass on display as you bounced your whimpers in his neck right on his sweet spot. “Shit y/n”he moaned, letting his hands go to your ass and lift his legs to thrust into you, “no tommy” you say weakly, pushing his legs down “I get to fuck myself on you like you said” you hit back a moan.

“I did princess- fuck” he let out an ‘uh’ as you clenched around him, his eyebrows furrowed as his mouth opened, you leaned back up to kiss his neck, his sweet spot and made hickeys with no hesitation. You moved faster and placed your hands in his chest and hearing your ass on his thighs, the slickness coating all over his member and trailing down his thighs “fuck!” You come, “don’t stop-please! Don’t stop” he practically begged, thats more than a whine and you were willing to take it, it was all so good, so good.

His hands left your ass and went up to your neck, looking down at his darkened eyes as he bit his lip “fucking yourself so good on my dick, fuck!” He came and shot his load up you “yes Tom!” You whimpered and arched your back coming with him. He painted your walls as you ride it out, him massaging your thighs and biting his lip as he watched his cum trail down your thighs and on his dick.

“You tired?” You asked, throwing yourself over, he looked over “yeah” he reached over to kiss you and wrap his arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his chest, he turned off the light on his night stand as you lifted your leg over his thigh, both on the left side of the bed and taking in each other, drawing patterns in his chest. “So does this mean-“ “yeah of course”

You woke up in the same spot, looking up at Thomas and finding him already looking at you. “Hey princess” he smiled, taking his arm and drawing circles on yours. “Hey bubs” you kissed his chest. You only admired each other before having to clean each other up, sharing a shower, nothing happened but giggles and soft rubs on the butt, of course until you put on the lingerie that you bought yesterday.

[nomazee]

Ex Animo

akaashi keiji x reader 

word count: 3000+

content: fluff (for once), mutual pining, cursing, sarcastic/cocky narrator.

cross-posted on my ao3

(hi hi hi! here’s another oneshot, this time it’s not angst and not in a weird writing style! i’m trying out something new, let me know if you like it, what you found good and bad, and how i can improve my writing and make it more enjoyable for you all. 

thanks for reading !)

☾.:°∗★.:☆:.★∗°:.☽

“He’s cute.” 

“...What?” 

“The blonde guy that Kuroo and Bokuto are ‘training,’ or whatever.” 

“You think he’s cute?” 

“Well, yeah. I think that’s pretty objective.” 

“...” 

“...?”

“Interesting.” 

You nearly sighed at Akaashi’s emotionless responses. Being a manager of Nekoma opened up the opportunity for you to become friendly with not only your own captain, Kuroo, but the captain of Fukurodani and his setter-best-friend, too. You found yourself becoming increasingly closer to Akaashi as the months passed by, though that didn’t eliminate the mild disappointment you felt at Akaashi’s often indifferent responses. 

You let out an audible sigh just then, bringing yourself back to the present-tense. “Think you could put in a word for me?” 

Your friend, having just been taking a sip from his water bottle, sputtered and choked on the liquid. “Put in what?” 

Ah. Now he was expressing an actual emotion. You supposed that was somewhat of an upgrade. “Like, you know. Tell him about me. Say some nice stuff, make me seem… appealing. The usual.” 

“I don't really understand what ‘the usual’ is seeing as I’ve never done this before--” 

“Just-- for God’s sake, Akaashi, tell him about me so that he can fuckin’ ask me out.” 

“Why don’t you do that?” 

“That’s not how it works.” 

“I don't really unders-- Well, I-- I don’t really think he’d be interested in you.” 

Maybe the way he worded it seemed off to you but your immediate frustration was certainly justified. You narrowed your eyes at him and huffed out a sardonic laugh. “Wow, you’re so nice.” His own gunmetal eyes widened the slightest bit as he re-processed his previous words and you almost laughed at how dense he was. 

“No, that’s not what I--” 

“Never-fuckin’-mind, I’ll just… I’m gonna head to bed.” 

“[Name]--” 

“Akaashi, I’m not mad, stop panicking. See you tomorrow.” 

You walked away, passing by Kuroo and Bokuto and saying goodnight to both of them before heading back to the dorm area where you’d be sleeping with the other managers. Honestly, you really weren’t mad--at least, not for the reason Akaashi thought you were. The minor insult he spewed out unknowingly wasn’t really upsetting, it was more that he seemed apathetic at your attempts to flirt with another person. 

Yes, you liked Akaashi--you had a dumb crush on him that Kuroo (and occasionally Kenma, observant and sarcastic as the kid could be) had been hassling you about playfully during the whole camp, yet you had made no outright move to do anything about it. And yes, it was incredibly fucking dumb that you were trying to make him jealous (you cringed at the childish thought) when you hadn’t even made an actual outright move to approach him about your feelings, but hey--at least you acknowledged this stuff.

So, yeah--that was your move. Trying to get acquainted with the cute blonde from Karasuno who you knew was an asshole, but a hot asshole. Tsuki-something was his name, and you decided that he doubled as both a serious rebound from Akaashi and a way to maybe get the Fukurodani player jealous. Though, it seemed like the former would be a much more realistic outcome, and even that was a stretch. 

Whatever, you sighed in your head as you bid goodnight to the other managers. No need to worry about something like this. They’re just boys. 

Yeah, a boy that you were practically in love with. But what are you gonna do, y’know? 

---

The next day passed by in a boringly average way. Your interactions with Akaashi were minimal, though you chalked that up to just being busy with your own team and not having much time to spend with your other-school-friends. (Really, you mumbled in your head, what happened last night did not even border an argument so there was no reason for him to think you were still upset.) Evening rolled around and you found yourself in the third gym yet again with Kuroo, Bokuto, Akaashi, and Tsukishima. 

At one point, you were chatting casually with Bokuto on the side when Tsukishima approached the two of you. 

“Hey,” he spoke, looking at you in particular. “I need to speak to you for a minute.” 

You blinked. Once. Then twice. This was real? This very attractive first-year that you’ve been materialistically pining after for was requesting to talk to you? Alone? Though, the way he worded it was weird. He spoke formally, like he didn’t really want to be there. Oh well. You’d take what you could. 

You gave a smile. “Sure. ‘S outside okay?” At his nod, you led the way through the double doors of the gym to step outdoors, though not before taking a glance at Akaashi and wondering if the pink of his ears signified that he really did follow your (kind of) joking request from last night.

“Tsukishima, right?” He gave a wordless nod of assurance. “What’d you need me for?” 

“You’re [Last].” A statement, not a question. “I recommend you talk to your friend Akaashi in there.” 

Oh. Not what you were expecting at all. “Uh, okay.” There was silence that you had expected him to fill in himself, but it persisted until you broke the barrier. “Is there… a particular reason why?” 

He gave an aggravated sigh, a contrast to his generally calm demeanor from before. “Just-- you’re a bit dense, both of you.” Nearly letting out an offended gasp, you let him continue, “He tried, uh, indirectly flirting for you, I guess, and told me about you, or whatever, and while I’m flattered, it’s a bit obvious that he’s got eyes for you and I recommend you address that soon.” 

He’s got what?!

You were very convinced this was a joke, but from what you’ve observed, Tsukishima was not one for long-winding pranks like this, both because they were a bit too cruel (not that he’d really mind, let’s be honest) and because they took too much effort to uphold. Nevertheless, you questioned him about both his intentions and further details about the situation. 

“I’m not lying, I wouldn’t really lie about this stuff.” He told you. “If I’m being honest I wouldn’t normally care to do something like this,” that was a bit obvious, “but Kuroo overheard or something, and told me to talk to you. Don’t know why he wouldn’t just do it himself, but-- whatever. Basically, Akaashi just kept talking about you and he had this weird look in his eyes and he said something like ‘you should talk to her, she’s cool,’ and the guy looked like he was in pain, for fuck’s sake. Just say something to him. Doesn’t matter what, just… do it, I guess.” 

Oh. That was actually kind of nice of the blonde, to take some time to actually talk to you. Even if it was pushed by Kuroo, who probably put Tsukishima up to the job because his words (which you’d already heard plenty of time before) would not nearly be as effective as someone who was practically a stranger to you. (A weird dynamic to have, but true nonetheless.) 

You let out a sigh. “Yeah, I’ll, uh, I’ll talk to him. But just to make sure, you’re being serious, right? And you’re, like, very sure about this, right?” 

He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t be taking the time to actually do this if I wasn’t serious. I’m not that nice.” 

“I can tell.” 

“Gee, thanks.” 

“Anytime.” 

“You’re kinda cool, though. Even though you’re a little shit. Wanna exchange numbers?” 

“Wow, you’re still flirting with me even though you’ve got a whole guy pining for you right over there.” 

“Hey! Who says I’ve got ulterior motives with you? I can have guy friends, you know.” 

He let out a scoff of amusement and his minor suspicion melted away quite quickly as he took his phone out and asked you to relay your number. After mirroring the process with your own phone, you stepped back into the gym with him, elbowing him playfully as you both continued to banter until halfway through the room where you had to split up, him going back to practice with Kuroo and you going towards Bokuto, who was now standing with Akaashi at the spot you’d left the owl-like boy. 

You gave a smile to the setter, who you’d noticed had been gazing at you discreetly since you’d walked into the gym with Tsukishima. “Heya,” you said to both of the boys. “What’s up?” 

Bokuto gave his usual childish grin and you found yourself contagiously returning it. “Not much! Just talking to ‘Kaashi for a bit. You get that blonde kid’s number?” 

Now that you were hyperobservant of Akaashi’s habits (mainly due to you wanting to absolutely, one-hundred guarantee what said blonde kid had told you before you did anything stupid), the way he flinched at Bokuto’s question did not go unnoticed by you. Your lips quirked up in amusement as you responded confidently, “Yeah, actually! He’s pretty funny.” You felt bad torturing the poor setter, but hey, you were gonna end his suffering soon anyways! (Relaying that in your head, you realized that came off a little morbid and assured yourself that you wouldn’t be actually killing the guy any time soon.) 

You shifted the topic of conversation, watching with internal humor as Akaashi shifted awkwardly on his feet and stole glances of you when he thought you wouldn't notice. Wow! Were you just really fucking oblivious before or was he purposely trying to be more obvious about his cute pining stunt. Regardless, you found it both cute and a source of entertainment (as sadistic as it was of you to admit) so you didn’t think of it too hard. 

“Hey, maybe we should start heading back.” Kuroo suggested at one point. “Getting a bit late.” 

You shrugged in agreement--not like they were doing anything important, really. You, Bokuto, and Akaashi were talking for a solid half hour and Kuroo and Tsukki seemed to be fooling around with each other (“fooling around” entailed Kuroo bothering Tsukki and trying to get him involved in whatever joke he was planning next, of course to no avail, but you appreciated your captain’s sense of determination).

You all exited the gym, Kuroo making sure to turn off the lights and lock it up as needed. You and Akaashi walked in front of the trio as they staggered a bit behind. You glanced to your side, smiling at him fondly. He locked eyes with you and a hint of curiosity was found in his aloof expression. You laughed, light and airy and shook your head. 

“You’re funny sometimes.” You stated simply, and Akaashi couldn’t seem to find much energy in himself to audibly ask for further clarification. A few minutes passed and you decided to make a move, looking at both of your hands and aiming to lock pinkies with him. 

At the feeling of foreign contact, Akaashi jolted and looked up at you, expression more shocked than curious now. You just smiled and turned your head forward, taking the chance to slip your whole hand into his and interlock your fingers like puzzle pieces. 

“What are you doing?” He finally hissed out, tone laughably frantic. “He’s-- He’s gonna think that we’re dating and that you’re, like trying to cheat on me with him--!” 

“Tsukishima?” You questioned, feigning ignorance. “Nah, he won’t think that. Stop worrying about it.” 

“[Name]--” The genuine panic in his voice was sort of funny, all things considered, and you let out a quiet chuckle. “Seriously, let go. Don’t you wanna get with him? This is a couple thing, and I’m not-- You don't--”

“Yeah, I do.” Your smile was confident and a bit cocky, but you were very certain about the outcome and prepared to be as fun about this as you could be. “Tsukki told me, actually. You should be thanking him. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell you.” 

“Tell… me?” 

You groaned out loud at his unsureness. “That I, you know, like you. Like, a lot. Had a crush on you for months now, man.” 

“But you-- I though you said Tsukishima was… cute?” 

“Well, yeah, he is, objectively. But I was really just saying that ‘cause I didn’t think you’d like me back and I was either trying to get you jealous or get some kinda rebound-- whatever it was, it doesn't really matter now, right?” 

Akaashi stared blankly at your alight expression. Moments passed, and you two walked silently, the only noise coming from the trio behind you chatting jovially.

“So, um,” he began. “Just to clarify--” 

“You like me,” you cut him off, “and I like you. A lot. Very much.” 

He finally let out a laugh, of both amusement and relief and shook his head light-heartedly. “God, and I was worried that I’d have to suffer with seeing you and Tsukishima flirt everytime we were in the same room.”

“That would’ve been hell.” 

“You’re telling me.” 

The atmosphere was less tense and panicky as it was before (which was mainly Akaashi’s fault, let’s be honest), and your interlocked hands swung between you as you continued to walk in content silence. 

“So, am I…” Akaashi paused, trying to gather his thoughts before continuing, “Can I call you my girlfriend?” 

As cocky as you had been before, hearing it out loud made you flush a light pink and you gave a girlish giggle in response. “Well, yeah. As long as I can call you my boyfriend.” 

“Always.” That was fucking cute. You felt your heart flutter and almost scolded yourself internally for acting like such a schoolgirl before ceasing your internal slander--if this was what it was like to have a reciprocated schoolgirl crush then hell fucking yeah, you had absolutely no qualms with it. Your steps seemed lighter and bouncier and a soft simper was etched on your face. 

Akaashi split up with the boys at one point, telling them he’d be walking you to the managers’ room (you caught Kuroo and Tsukki smirking at you both, likely in elation that their little three-braincell collaboration was successful, and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes and their cockiness). He made good on his promise, leading you to your room with his hand locked safely around yours until he stopped outside the door, turning to face you completely and letting go of your hand. 

“So…” he muttered, averting his eyes in uncharacteristic bashfulness. You smiled at his demeanor and took the chance to slide your arms around his neck, pulling him the slightest bit closer. 

“So…?” you mocked playfully, relishing in the short, sweet chuckle he let out. 

“You can kiss me.” At your statement, he cupped your cheek with one hand, gunmetal eyes finally meeting yours. 

“Can I?” He smirked sardonically. Cheeky bastard. 

Rather than responding, you pulled him closer with the arms you locked around his neck, clashing his lips into yours passionately. The heavy kiss simmered down into something much more tender quite quickly, though, with lips moving gently across each other and your head beginning to tilt to the side to allow for a better angle. 

You both parted after a reasonable amount of time spent liplocked, and as you took in deep breaths to make up for the ones you lost, you found yourself laughing at the situation you managed to put yourself in through the course of one night. Akaashi laughed with you, resolving to lean down and put his head on your shoulder, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and pulling you into an embrace. 

“That was great.” He mumbled. 

“I know, right?” 

He pulled back to flick your forehead playfully and you chuckled again. A few moments were spent gazing at each other comfortably until--

“Are you guys gonna stop making out in front of the door or what?” 

You and Akaashi jumped at the sudden opening of the door, frantically turning your heads to see Yukie with a mixed expression bordering on both annoyed and smug. 

“‘S cute and all, but we’ve been hearing you guys mumble outside for, like, ten minutes. And we’d like to have our friend back, please?” She directed her last statement to Akaashi and you laughed with her at his mildly uncomfortable expression. 

“He was gonna give me back eventually,” you answered in his place. “But she does have a point, Akaashi. We’ve been out here for a while.” 

In another moment of uncharacteristic nature, Akaashi’s face simmered into a faint red blush and you swooned at the sight. You unlocked your arms from around him and he mirrored your movements quickly, avoiding eye contact with both you and Yukie. 

Yukie turned to you. “I’ll give you a bit of time.” She gave a glare to Akaashi, “But you better hand her over in five minutes. I’m timing you.” 

“So am I!” You heard the familiar voice of Kaori come from inside the room and laughed in amusement as the setter’s face only grew more saturated. “I’ll be right there, I promise.” With an assuring nod and an “I’m-watching-you” gesture at Akaashi, Yukie slipped back into the room and closed the door, giving you an Akaashi (some semblance of) privacy again. 

“That was interesting.” 

“That was embarrassing.”

“For you.” 

“[Name]--!” 

You cut him off with a jeering laugh and rested your head on his shoulders just like he had done moments before. “I go to school with them,” he mumbled dejectedly. “They’re never gonna let that go.” 

“Yeah.” Silence, then, “Well, you can have fun with that.” 

He groaned into your hair and shook his head before the exaggerated noise simmered into light laughter. “I guess I should let you go now.” 

“I guess you should.” You unlocked yourself from around him and smiled fondly, the same emotion prevalent in his eyes. You leaned up and gave him a short peck, entering euphoria for a millisecond before turning towards the door and letting out a sigh of surrender. 

“Goodnight, then.” You spoke, looking back again to get just one last glance of him for the night. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Tomorrow.” 

“You know, maybe we can have out first date with Tsukki! As a little thank-you for getting us together in the first place--” 

“You know, you haven’t even explained that full story yet and I don’t think I want you to.” 

“‘KaaaaashiiiiI! C’mon!” 

“Goodnight.”

“One more kiss?!” 

“Not after that joke.” 

“I was kidding! I--!” 

“Goodnight.” 

“...you’re no fun.” 

[shewantedtobeasecretgirl]

10. Bathroom wall (Part Three) a.k.a. a queen bee, Prince in the shower and a backup Casanova

In the previous parts: The bunch spends a free evening in a bar, where local girls are trying to get closer to the band members. Dave suggests Jeff that he should make Judy jealous but she’s too busy with being outraged about a girl named Claudia dancing with Stone. Finally, Claudia backs down; after a fight with Stone, Judy reveals to Karrie, that her made-up stories about Stone had to do something with her reaction. In the meantime, Mike is feeling sick and refuses Karrie’s advice to take his health issues more seriously. She also shows him pictures of Effie but Mike’s evening ends with a surprising twist. Judy tries to calm down with the help a relaxing shower but she gets unexpected company in the common bathroom… 

@shadowsonoureyes I think I almost completed your drabble challenge 😉

“I got a lion in my pocket and baby he's ready to roar…”

God, I wish this was only a nightmare and I woke up suddenly realizing nothing of this madness has happened actually, maybe I could even laugh at the whole setting. But now, laughing is the last thing I feel like doing, I’ve been standing here since who knows when, I’m freezing, I wanna finish my shower, I wanna dry myself, I wanna get out of here… this with the lots of “wannas” sounds like some random lyrics of The Ramones… But as things stand at the moment, I’ll grow old and die here because this skinny hippo has been splashing beyond the wall for at least fifteen minutes, performing the longest and most inconsistent mix of Prince songs ever, deliberately altering the lyrics, changing the range of lines or even skipping some of them whereas repeating other ones infinitely like a broken record player.

“You got the horn so why don't you blow it…”

Actually, I’ve even started playing with the idea of turning the water on again, maybe this capybara enjoys listening to his own voice enough not even to hear it. But no, that’d be too risky. But I could definitely get rid of the shower gel bottle to be able to rub along my body against cold, I’ve been squeezing that little plastic flask at full strength since he entered here, as if it could help me become invisible. I slowly stoop to place it on the ground in the corner feeling like a compromised spy who’s ordered to put her weapon down without making any suspicious or ambiguous move; but due to the slippery surface under my soles I lose my balance and as I catch towards the wall to prevent myself from falling I drop it… and it lands with a loud crash in the metal shower tray. Fuuuuck… I freeze immediately and perk up my ears holding my breath trying to figure out if he heard it too… of course he heard it, it was as ear-splitting as a rocket launch but maybe he was too distracted and…

“Is somewhere there? Who’s that?”

He heard it…

“Who’s that? Scully? Is that you? Don’t be so shy, we’ve known each other for ages, I’ll even wash your back if you need help…”

Okay, Judy, you can’t hide any longer, you have to find out something, anything… what if I just ran out with a battle cry and grabbed my towel and… okay, maybe something more discreet would be more adequate.

“Scully? I’m coming over…”

“NO!!!” I scream.” It’s not Scully… it’s me… Judy…” I manage to reveal my identity only for the third attempt since my voice won’t obey and insists on sounding comically high-pitched. “And thanks but I’d skip the offer, I can reach my back.” Jesus, I don’t know why I’m babbling this, it’s like…

“Oh… I didn’t know it was you. Actually, I thought I was alone, you were so silent… I couldn’t even hear the water running at you…”

“Because… because… it wasn’t running since… it’s a part of my shower routine, I begin it with hot water then I turn it off and stand a few minutes until I start feeling I’m freezing, this method works wonders on the blood circulation…” I basically yell the end of my bullshit excuse since I turned the water on in the meantime to finally put an end to this awkward situation. Unfortunately, when I turn it off, I can hear he’s still humming, seriously, how much time does he need to dry his balls?

“Anyway… you were right.” he speaks up out of the blue.

I was right? Meaning what? You’re a pervert? You’re a bitch who would bang everything that moves?

“The acoustics in this room are truly excellent.”

You don’t say…

‘I’m flattered by the fact that once in a blue moon you are willing to agree with me. And, uhm, I’m ready with my shower and as you’ve probably already noticed, my towel is hanging on the wall on the other side so… so I’d feel honored if you left…”

“If I left?”

Yes, I mean get the fuck out you pig, you heard it well.

“Why would I leave? I want to enjoy these fascinating circumstances a little bit longer…“

I should have known this wouldn’t be easy, this must be like a dream come true for him: holding me hostage, taking advantage of my miserable situation…

“But seriously, just listen: I really get a dirty mind whenever you're around… Awesome!”

I roll my eyes so hard that I can see my own frontal lobe… Being forced to listen to Stone’s falsetto serenade while being butt naked, fuck, I didn't know what I was missing in my life until now.

“What do you want? Should I sing a fuckin’ duet with you for my freedom?”

“That’s not a bad idea, actually… what about Together Forever by Rick Astley?” I hear him snapping with his fingers and giggling at his brilliant idea.

“Well, the performance of Under Pressure would sound more honest from my mouth right now…”

“You’re just so negative, nothing can please you today seemingly. But as a sign of my generosity, I’m ready to give you that towel.”

How can a voice be so irritating? This nasal tone with the mannered Northwestern accent makes sound everything what he says extremely annoying, I could punch him even for citing the headlines of a newspaper.

“Ha-ha, very funny, Gossard. But let’s skip your cheap tricks and move your aaa…self out of here.”

“Cheap tricks? I don’t think there’d be anything interesting to see here, plus, you’re forgetting about a very important factor: I’m out here wearing a towel whereas you are in there wearing nothing so it is me who makes the rules. But, again, I’m a genuine guy so I give your towel to you, all you have to do is to ask me.” the pain in the ass goes on with his rant.

“Okay. GIVE ME THAT FUCKIN’ TOWEL!” I scream angrily stomping of helplessness.

“Why do you have to be so rude? You’re hurting my sensitive soul all the time; if you want me to cooperate, you have to be kind and ask me nicely.”

Once I get out of here, I’m going to fuckin’ kill you, I swear, I’m going to kill you ten times, I’m going to kill your reincarnated bodies too even if you will be reborn as a cute kitten or a baby giraffe…

“GIVE ME THAT FUCKIN’ TOWEL! Please?” I yell again and append a fake, cheesy appeal to my words.

“You see? It sounds immediately completely different.” he snickers satisfied.

“Okay, but we have to clear the logistics first. I think the least awkward way would be you standing facing the door, handing the towel backwards to me and I would reach out for it and…”

“Do you really think I wanna peep?” he asks with amused smugness in his voice.

I do? I don’t? Shit, there’s no right answer to this question, I mean, I’m not interested in him at all, I don’t care what he might think about my look, my body, I don’t even know whether he would think anything at all or he’d just act neutrally like I wasn’t a woman or human at all but fuck, I’m a human, I’m a woman, I could be the possible subject of a guy’s interest too and when I mean “a guy” I don’t think necessarily about him although he’s a guy too…

“I don’t give shit about what you want, what I want is to minimize the level of my retinal damage by not seeing your face, so please do me a favor, turn away from me and give me that goddamn towel.”

By the time I’ve finished the sentence, a pale body with something bright blue at waist-level appears on my horizon with funny side-sliding steps. He’s standing with his back to me, as far as I can judge it even without my glasses, my assumption is only based on the dark trail of his hair on his back. Or he’s an aberrant psychopath who covered his face with his hair to deceive me. He pulls my towel off the wall… okay, that means he’s truly facing the opposite wall unless his shoulders are especially flexible… damn, he reaches it backwards to me lifting his arm to the same height… I’m still not sure about his exact posture…

I slowly walk to the edge of the shower tray, hesitating for a few seconds which one of my body parts I should keep covered before reaching out for it. With a deep sigh, I opt for my breasts and try to grab my towel but there’s still almost a one-yard distance between our hands.

“Stone… you’re too far… could you come closer?” I moan in agony.

“Interesting… until now, you wanted me to go away and now you’re asking me the opposite. Or you’re just trying to trick me into touching you and then get me arrested for sexual assault… no, Camden, I don’t buy it. Anyway, walking backwards is dangerous, what if stumble and fall and break my neck? It’d be safer if you came out of your hiding place, you can’t spend the rest of your life there when I’m gone, I don’t care…”

I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this but I obviously have no choice… I approach him with sneaking steps while terrible thoughts are chasing each other in my mind… What if he can rotate his head 180 degrees like owls? What if he’s got extraordinary eyes like chameleons and due to his particularly developed peripheral vision he can see basically everything around him?

As I finally touch the terry cloth fabric, I immediately tear the towel out of his hand and wrap it around myself. His arm swings automatically back to his body as if it was pulled by a spring and while I pull back into my shelter to dry all my body parts, he keeps standing at attention on the same spot.

“Ahem… I’m ready so… you can go…” I make an attempt to get rid of him.

“You’re not a quick learner… and you’re pretty ungrateful… I haven’t heard the magic word yet.”

I can’t believe this. And I can be grateful to him for not humiliating me even more…

“Thanks…” I mumble.

“I didn’t understand it… it’s strange, the acoustics in that corner must be different, it absorbs sound waves…”

“Thank you, Stone Almighty Gossard, nothing could express my eternal gratitude, you’re my savior, I’d be nothing without you, from now on, I’m your slave!!!” I shout paying special attention to my articulation.

“Could you hear the echoes too? Much better.” he clicks with his tongue satisfied and disappears from my sight with the same hilarious moves he made earlier. “Good night, Judith, and if you happen to have erotic dreams this night, please keep them for yourself, I’d feel embarrassed if you told me about it…” he adds and as I open my mouth for some snarky retort, I hear the door slamming.

Finally. This… prick is just unbelievable, after his performance at the bar he thinks he did me a favor by not behaving a like a perv? And erotic dreams? Come on, I’d rather puked myself to death of his sight.

I have to use the awkward choreography I invented earlier to get back to my stuff I left on the chair, although I myself don’t really understand either, why, I’m alone after all... As I lean down for my glasses, my fingers reach out for… nothing. They’re gone! I grope the whole chair along… still nothing! I put down the shower gel bottle and try to crouch down to check the floor under the chair, which is not easy to do at all without exposing my intimate body parts. I keep adjusting the towel with my left hand while I try to scan trough every inch of this goddamn place with the other one and I’m about to drop the freakin’ towel when I hear a weird noise from behind my back. Snorts… silent snorts… like someone was suppressing laughter… oh shit. That moron, that son of a bitch… he’s Satan, I told it.

I straighten up as fast as I can, I can only hope he didn’t see my backside or my nipples or… why can’t I die here and now without more suffering?

As far as I can see him without my spectacles, he’s leaning against the sink and checking me out with folded arms.

“Taking away my glasses? That’s the most creative idea you could find out? Seriously, where are we, in third grade maybe?” I attack him but in the meantime I realize I should calm down, seeing me being upset is probably his favorite entertainment. “Okay, Gossard, go ahead. I don’t know why you crafted this vicious plan with trapping me here, taking away my glasses, stalking me… let’s get over with it, whatever you want…” I shrug resigned.

“Firstly, I didn’t know you were here, I just came in since I have the right to have a shower too. Secondly, I have nothing to say to you, it is you who should talk.”

“Me? Do you think I want to have a chit-chat with you here and now? Are you completely nuts? Just give back my glasses and get out of here!”

“Well, that has a price.” he answers irritatingly slowly, I can hear clearly he’s grinning.

“Is this a blackmail?” I scream outraged.

“Why do you have to use always such tough words? It’s a… mutually beneficial offer. You want your glasses whereas you also owe me an apology and I’m ready to accept it.” he explains with fake generosity.

“I’m not gonna beg you, you idiot.” I hiss between my teeth and grab towards his hands but I’m not fast enough to catch him off guard. He raises his arm high before I could get my property back and smiles down at me with a smug expression.

Does he want me to bounce like a puppy? Well, I won’t. Actually, the only possible weapon that comes to mind is as childish as his stupid little trick but the end justifies the means… But I have to be quick since my one hand is busy with keeping the towel around my body and I don’t want to grope him for too long time either. But he didn’t leave me any other choice, unfortunately.

“Fine, Stoney…” I pretend giving in. “You’re right. So listen to me carefully because you’re not going to hear this from me too often…”

“I’m all ears.” he spreads out his free arm.

Piece of cake.

“Sooo…” I approach him cautiously “Stoney, I just want to say… TICKLE ATTACK!!!” I yell and poke my fingers between his ribs.

The effect is beyond expression. He immediately doubles over letting out a wide range of animal sounds and it only takes a few seconds to tear out my spectacles of his hand maintaining the offensive with my other hand.

“Ha, victory!”I yell chuckling at his convulsion but as I hear a weird noise over his whining, I immediately stiffen. “What was that?”

“What’s… what?” he asks still groaning.

“Didn’t you hear that? I think someone slammed the door…” I stutter as I place my glasses on my nose. “And that means someone had opened it before… and maybe saw us…”

“Bullshit. And even if it happened as you think, all that could be seen was you committing sexual harassment on me so…” he smirks sassily leaning back against the sink.

What an obnoxious asshole. And he’s also wearing flip-flops, which I’ve always hated on men, seriously, I could slap him with them…

“Sexual harassment? I would rather jump on a male tapir than engaging into an erotic intermezzo with you!” I tuck my hair nervously behind my ear.

“You and a tapir? I wish I could see the offsprings…” he keeps grinning and flips his wet hair back… actually, it’s surprising, usually, he’s not a big hair washer. A tiny waterdrop is swinging on the end of one of the dark strands that are wavier than usual, this must be their natural state… then the drop slowly falls on his shoulder and follows the line of his collarbone, changing direction at his neck only to gain momentum and now it’s pulling a trail along his flat stomach and…

“Ahem…” he clears his throat “shall we go? Or do you want to examine my naked body for a while?”

“Let’s go” I start like I was waking up from a dream and I can feel my cheeks are burning for some mysterious reasons. “But you go first, I don’t want to make myself ridiculous in front of more people tonight.”

“Okay, okay…” he walks out with lazy reluctance. “All clear!” he shouts and I put my head out of the door to check he’s not trying to trick me again. How can he walk so leisurely, isn’t he bothered by the fact he’s almost naked? And why did he wrap that towel so tightly around his waist that it shows every curve of his…body parts…?

“Do you want to spend the night in there?” he suddenly turns back and I can only hope I managed to look away fast enough.

“No… no…I’m coming…” I mutter and follow him in duck walk, squeezing my toiletry bag.

He stops at his door and leans with one shoulder against the door jamb, of course he wouldn’t miss out my clumsy performance.

“Wow, gracious. You were born to the catwalk.” he giggles.

“Shut up or I scratch your eyes out!”

“Okay-okay but I hope we can agree that we’re even.” he waves an imaginary white flag.

“We are. And I say now good night before you happened to die under unclear circumstances.”

“Good night, Miss Hundred Pounds of Concentrated aggression.”

His audacious grin mellows into a boyish smile and I don’t know if I am only hallucinating or for a fragment of a second, he scans me from head to toe…

He pushes himself away from the wall and disappears in the dark room, leaving me frozen in the hallway. I stumble back to my room and I plop down on my bed. But what was that stare? He was probably just mocking me as usual, he’s surrounded by beautiful girls and he must find my dwarf body structure ridiculous. But he said we’re even… I stare at the toiletry bag on my lap, although I didn’t turn on the light, its pattern is clearly visible in the street lights filtering through the torn curtain. Musical notes, treble keys… wait. He claimed he didn’t know it was me in the shower. But who else in the bunch would have a bag with these motifs? He knew it was me. He knew it and he still came in. He wanted to humiliate me, it wasn’t just an embarrassing coincidence. Stone Gossard, we’re everything but even.

***

„These piggies are so cute.”

“Yes, they are totally adorable.” Layne agrees observing them with a tender smile. “Look at their mom, how patiently she’s bearing as they’re pestering her… geez, some of these little fuckers are pretty aggressive… look at that one!”

He points at a spotted piglet which is the greediest in the bunch; I don’t know much about domestic animals, I can only guess he’s a tiny boar. He’s tossing away all his siblings to get free access to his mther’s teats and even after he gets one of them, he keeps her poking with his power outlet-shaped nose. Well, moms are the most patient creatures on earth, I’m sure I’ve caused a lot of trouble to mine too…

“I wonder if we can stroke them, their hair seems to be so fluffy…”

“A bit later, now it’s mealtime. Their mother is very protective of them, she would bite your fingers off… I think she’s going to pass out in a few minutes, you can try to grab one of them while they’ll be playing around her.” the farmer-looking guy answers. He can’t be much older than us but he speaks in a slow, prudent manner, which makes him sound like a grandfather. He must be an employee of this place… whatever this place is…

“Effie would love them.” Layne remarks, still fascinated by the nursing process.

Effie? Layne knows Effie? Interesting.

“Is she here too?” I stutter confused.

“Of course, dude, you bought her here, remember?” Layne glances at me and raises one eyebrow.

“Really? And where is she know?” I scratch my chin still not understanding how she got in the picture.

“She stayed in the house. She was interested in the greenhouse and the gardener happened to be there, you couldn’t drag her away from the orchids. Seriously, Mike, are you stoned our what? You should take more care of your girlfriend if you want to take this thing between you seriously.”

Girlfriend? Effie is my girlfriend? Okay, that sounds strange too not that I want to complain…

“And… what’s that house you mentioned?”

“Shit… I’m not gonna help you out with weed ever again, this stuff has obviously terrible side effects on you, you’re like a drunk goldfish. Hey, Jer, tell to this asshole where we are!” he shouts at his approaching bandmate.

“Estamos a la hacienda Cantrell, hombre! This my ranch! And in a few hours, we’ll be eating the best food you’ve ever tried, Consuela is the most badass cook in the entire world! But we have the whole afternoon, I want to show you my new golf course, we could even play, I have tons of golf clubs, I can lend you one of them…”

Wait, something’s wrong here. I know they have their share of success because of this Seattle madness too, not that they don’t deserve it, they are a fuckin’ amazing band but I never knew Jerry had a ranch, I mean, it must have cost a buttload of money and however much I like him, I must admit he’s not that type who prefers savings to poker, dope and strippers.

“How… how long have you owned this… this huge farm?” I wave around clumsily trying not to sound too stupid.

“For like… ages…? Hahaha, man, I know my beautiful maids drive every man crazy, that was my point when casting them and choosing their uniform. But you can’t complain either, I checked the little blondie out, nice catch! That cola bottle-shaped body, damn…” the skirt-chaser underlines his words by drawing the mentioned contour in the air flashing a filthy grin. I don’t like this tone, I don’t like the idea of Jerry talking about Effie or looking at her, fuck, I don’t even like the idea of any member of Alice In Chains staying in the same state as her for more than three seconds.

“But first, we have to choose the dinner. Which one do you want?” the guitarist nods towards the pigpen and knowing his dirty humor, I’m not sure whether he refers to any food-related or he’s called hookers or what?

“How… how do you mean?”

“Mike, this is definitely not your day, just pick one!” Layne giggles glancing amused at his bandmate.

“But… what?” I still don’t get where this whole thing is going.

“Geez man, okay, I”ll do it for you. Come on, little dudes, it won’t hurt, I promise you!” Jerry leans over the fence and grabs two piglets by the skin around their neck.

“No, no, are you trying to say we’re gonna eat them? No, never, this is the cruelest thing I’ve ever heard, you can’t…” I protest shocked but the asshole doesn’t give a shit about me and carries the two victims under his arms to the pickup standing close to us. He ignores the desperate squeals of the poor little things: he throws them in the truck bed and climbs after them.

“Jerry, where are you going? You can’t… stop, don’t do that, man!” I yell almost crying but he just keeps laughing with that typical, pedophile Santa Claus laughter of him.

“What do you think, for what purpose do I breed them? They are cute and all but just think about a crispy, red, roasted pig spinning on a skewer over the fire… yummy… Consuela has a secret recipe, it’s delicious. I takes hours to prepare it, though, but I think I can keep myself busy until then, you know, that blondie is waiting only for me…” he winks and I catch to my stomach. Effie… Jerry… no, that can’t happen, I think I’m going to vomit, Jesus, this is terrible…

He pats the side of the truck bed twice, signaling to the driver that he can start the engine.

“Yes dude, until the pork gets ready, I’m gonna bang Effie… bang Effie… bang Effie… bang Effie…”

His words get mixed with the squealing of the piglets and the roar of the engine and the terrible sounds keep echoing in my head distorted by the Doppler-effect until the car disappears on the horizon.

“Bang Effie… bang Effie… bang Effie…”

…

I wake up with a start. My heart is beating so fast that it almost rips my chest, the blanket is soaking wet of my sweat, even my hair is stuck to my head and neck. This was the worst nightmare I’ve had in the past years… wait… if it was a dream, why can I still hear the snorts?

I slowly turn my head in the direction of the sound and suddenly, everything falls into place. The girl with whom I spent last night is snoring next to me… Her red lipstick and black eyeshadow is smeared all over her face making her look like a slutty panda bear and the little stream of drool in the corner of her mouth makes it even worse. Thus passes worldly glory… not that I have any right to criticize her look, I must look like crap too and honestly, I also feel like that. My head is about to explode, my intestines are burning… but I can only blame myself and that bottle of pure vodka we consumed last night together. At least the sex was satisfactory... yes, satisfactory is the best term, not more, not less. The beginning was creepy, though, with those weird outbursts of her about her nonsense prohibitions… I mean, who the hell wants to do stuff like that? Poor girl, she must have had hard sexual experiences. But that cowboy roleplay could have been even good with the hat and slight bondage elements and all… but her exaggerated behavior kept it in conditional. After all, we both got what we wanted and I don’t have to feel guilty. I didn’t force her, she offered, I just played along… it was basically her who fucked me. I don’t know if it had anything to do with me being the guitarist of Pearl Jam but even if it has, come on, is that really such a terrible crime if the “also ran” member of the band takes advantage of his situation once in a blue moon? The girls are never cueing in front of my hotel door, I deserve to have blast when a rare occasion occurs for some mysterious reason. And I don’t owe anyone any explanation, the guys and Eric are not my chaperones, I’m a single guy with needs and I can’t live in a fantasy world for good, pathetically sobbing after someone I haven’t even met yet, right?

Hydration. That’s the first thing I need right now. The only problem is that she’s sleeping with her limbs spread in four different direction and her left arm happens to rest on my chest. Shit, I wish I had left after we finished it as I always do after one-night stands, it spares both the girl and me awkward morning scenes, these things are not about romance, anyway. But this time the sex was intense and the booze was kick-ass so we both must have passed out after getting on top.

I try to slide out of the bed basically in horizontal position placing the pillow on the same spot where my upper body used to be hoping she’s sleeping deeply enough not to notice the change. I freeze when she lets out a few louder snorts after my maneuver but after a few satisfied smacks, she calms down and keeps snoring. I tiptoe around the bed to collect my clothes and I found all of them except my boxers… fuck, she must be lying on them. After a few seconds of hesitation I get dressed without them, they’re clean since I didn’t have any “accident” yesterday so trying to get them back is not worth risking.

I silently walk out in the kitchen and immediately spot a few bottles of mineral water on the counter… but taking one of them would be stealing, right? But if I turned the water on, she might wake up… I open all of the cupboards until I find a larger glass and turn the water tap cautiously until a thin spout starts running from the pipe. It takes a while until I fill the glass with this method but I gulp the content of it with one breathe in a blink of an eye.

My rumbling stomach directs me to the fridge, even if I don’t want to take anything, I can check its content, right? The cool breeze feels unbelievably good as I lean into it… let me see… further bottles of water, some milk, a piece of moldy cheese which probably isn’t supposed to be moldy, expired yogurt and a bunch of bananas. Shit, banana is my favorite fruit, the best resource of potassium and I’m dying to eat one. But I decided not to steal anything… but come on, it’s only a banana.

As I’m about to leave the crime scene, I notice a notepad and a pencil on the table. Maybe… maybe leaving a note would be a polite way of giving an explanation for what I did, right? Yeah, that’s it! Okay… “Dear…” Fuck, what was her name? Clarissa… Claudette… CLAUDIA! “Dear Claudia,” Shit, this is going to be harder than I thought… should I thank her for the sex? “thanks for the evening. I didn’t want to wake you up so…” so I ran away like a coward “I decided to say bye in this note. I was really hungry so I served myself with a banana.” and last night I served you my banana, Jesus, I’m a gross pig. “Sorry for doing it without asking, as an apology, I drew you another one.” I try to sketch the schematic picture of a banana but it looks like a nonfigurative or even phallic symbol from any possible angle. Shit, I can’t leave it like this. Luckily, the pencil has a quality eraser on the top so I can make the terrible scribble disappear and correct the message. “I drew you the only thing I can draw:” I close my eyes to recall the logo I’ve copied everywhere more times than anything else… “KISS” at least I can still do it… I go over the message again, I think it’ll do the trick. “I wish you the best, Mike”. I stop in the kitchen door on my way out. Even a KISS logo can’t undo a theft. I should offer her some compensation… I walk back and grab the pencil again. “Ps. Next time we come to Charlotte, I’ll invite you for a coffee.” But what if we bump into each other anywhere else? “Of course I also invite you in case we encounter anywhere else.” Okay, ‘Cready, you don’t have to write an epistle, you don’t have to surpass Tatiana, just leave finally before she wakes up. But what if… what if she doesn’t like coffee? Now that I glance around, I can see no coffee machine here… “Ps2. In case you don’t like coffee, my offer applies to tea or soda too, of course.”

Okay, enough, she won’t even notice, who the hell takes inventory about bananas? I shake my head, take a deep breath and sneak out of the apartment.

***

Coffee. The first thing that comes to mind in the morning. I know I drink way too much coffee but caffeine addiction is sort of an inevitable outcome if you’re a rock musician at nights and an espresso guy at daytime. Of course the receptionist or janitor or whoever confirmed my initial aiming: this shitty motel doesn’t sell any food or drinks apart from the broken vending machine in the corner of the lobby. He also said I can take all of its content if I manage to fix it. No, thanks, the late seventies-looking chips bags with their probably fossilized content aren’t particularly tempting.

I’m heading to the bistro on the other side of the street, it’s probably not much better than that place but a coffee without hair in it and a decent breakfast would already satisfy my needs. On entering I must admit, the smells are better than expected and as soon as I take place in a booth, a polite waitress appears at the table handing me a menu and producing a cup out of the blue. She immediately fills it with the hot beverage I was longing for. A cigarette would feel good with it too but there’s no one around I could grub from…

I’ve taken only a few sips of my precious drink when I see a familiar hat appearing at the entrance and in a few seconds, its owner plops down opposite me, munching a banana.

“The prodigal son has returned, huh?” I remark with a wide grin.

“I know you missed me, just admit it.” he answers with a deadpan. “God, I’m starving…” he grabs the menu and begins to study it.

“A coffee, sir?” the waitress emerges again and spills coffee in his cup too without waiting for the answer. “What can I get for you?” she inquires helpfully as she pulls a small notebook with a pen out of the pocket of her apron.

“One Aspirin and a bullet in my head, please.” Mike groans with a dark face.

“Excuse me sir?”

“Give us a few more minutes, please.” I try to send a “don’t ask” signal with my eyes and it seems to work because she leaves with a confused nod.

“The last time I saw you, you felt sick. But somehow you must have resurrected like a phoenix from its ashes since you were out all night… so… go ahead.” I lean back but my bandmate is avoiding my gaze, turning his head around like he was distracted by the interesting furniture of the diner.

“Look, it’s Judy over there!” he shouts pointing at the counter.

“Mike… no… please…” I groan in pain but it’s too late.

“Hey Jude!” he shouts and waves frantically.

Great… I bury my face into my palms.

Unfortunately, Mike comes to the brilliant idea of stretching his leg along the seat he’s sitting on while she’s approaching us; so by the time she gets to our booth, her only option is sitting down next to me. Which she isn’t willing to do, she’s just sending reproving looks at me until I realize the reason of her reluctance is my right arm on the backrest. When I remove it, she slides in the booth as far from me as possible, she’s probably sitting with half butt on the air.

“Hi Judy.” Mike greets her pulling his small metal flask out of the inner pocket of his jacket.

“It’s six o’clock in the morning, you’re not having vodka.” she tries to tear it out of his hand without even greeting us.

“Easy Jude, it’s empty, okay? It’s just a bad habit that I keep checking it.”

“Anyway, I doubt he would begin the day with spirits, seeing he was drinking the whole night…”

“What?” she screams outraged.

“Jesus, are you blind? He’s, like, the quintessence of hangover, circles under the eyes, grey face, he looks like a dirty dish cloth…”

“Jesus, guys, do you really have to talk so loud??? Anyway, thanks Stone, you know how to compliment…” Mike moans rubbing his forehead with his hand.

“I’m just telling the truth. Come on, tell us how did you get so fucked up… or… no… I don’t want to know the details.”

“You probably think I got wasted with a few local dudes I don’t even know and I fell asleep in the corner and when I woke up, I realized someone had drawn a dick on my cheek.”

“You left out the pissing-and-puking part but yeah, sort of. Ouch!” I whine when she tosses me with a strict face at full strength in the shoulder. “What’s wrong with you, do you think he’s a saint or what?” I complain.

“Don’t even listen to him, unlike him, I’m interested in the details. So tell me… were there pubic hair on the dick too?” she leans closer confidentially, flashing a cheeky smile and however much annoying I find her, I can’t help snorting.

“Jesus, six of one, half a dozen of the other.” Mike rolls his eyes. “Anywayyy… I wasn’t with some unknown dudes… but I wasn’t alone either…” he shrugs with a mysterious smile.

“Okay, you’re getting a vasectomy. That’s final. I don’t want you to get sued by teen moms from every single town we stop in.” I shake my head.

“Not that I’m the Casanova of the band, are we going to talk about the favors you’ve done to Seattle’s female population too? Do you begrudge me it or what?”

“I’ve had a long string of girlfriends, so what?”

“What?” our band parrot squeaks in again.

“A long string? There’s a herd of them!” Mike goes on.

“Just stop!” she screams and we both fall silent, surprised by her sudden outburst. “I’m new here. Explain.” she adds in a mellower voice.

“Judith, maybe you should improve your “reading between the lines” skills. My colleague is trying to say that he spent the night with a female acquaintance, I guess we can call her like that with some euphemism. And I recommended some fertility restrictions regarding Mike’s wasted adventures are like the cliché bad examples in sexual education videos.”

“As if you…” my bandmate is about to reply but he gets interrupted by the returning lovely waitress, and honestly, I don’t mind, somehow I don’t want him to reveal my dating history before the girl who never misses any occasion to point out my flaws.

“Did you manage to choose in the meantime?” she inquires.

“I’d like to have… scrambled eggs with ham and a sesame seed bun, fresh orange juice, pancakes with maple syrup, a peanut butter sandwich and chocolate chips with vanilla ice.” Mike reads enthusiastically.

“A sunny-side up with bacon and a cherry pie á la RR.” my neighbor lists.

“A vegetarian cheese plate and I’d like to try that deliciously sounding pie too.” I smile at the waitress.

“It’s even better than you think, Sir.” she winks back at me and as I watch her collecting the menus, I can see Camden’s disgusted face from the corner of my eye.

“Sooo… a Twin Peaks fan, huh?” I nudge her. “From now on, I’m gonna call you Nadine, it suits you in every sense.”

“Nice try, Bob… Anyway, Mike, if this is your hangover appetite, what is your normal state like? I got nausea even of listening to you…”

“I burned a lot of calories last night so…” he grins proudly, making me cackle up.

“Here we are, I want details!” I imitate a drum snare with my palms on the table.

“Jesus, guys, are you really going to disc…” Miss Prudery clucks in but luckily, my bandmate ignores her whining.

“It was… wild.” he smirks firmly.

“Wilder than that escort girl in L.A.?” I giggle since this is one of my favorite stories with which I tease Mike from time to time and it’s also a great topic to outrage this first communicant next to me.

“What? Mike? You’ve paid for sex???” Bingo.

“How many times I have to tell that…” Mike pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers with a nervous gasp. “Judy, it wasn’t the way you think… when I was living in L.A. with the Friel brothers, I met a nice waitress at a concert venue… we sort of hooked up, she’d visit me at the record store I’d work at… she was busted all the time so I’d lend her my spare money, I mean what I didn’t spend on booking gigs for us… and Chris Friel tried to warn me gently that every time I’d give her money, we’d sex afterwards… and once we ended up in a strip club after a gig and I found out she was a stripper, she worked there, I mean, she was dropping her clothes right in front of me… and she wasn’t only stripping. So I realized that what I thought to be a friends with benefits situation was actually a prostitute-client relationship, she was just too good-hearted to enlighten me. Stone, are you happy now???”

“Awww, Mike, this is so sad… but it’s also somehow so sweet… I hope you got a discount at least. But what’s with that girl from last night? What’s her name?”

“Someone has suddenly become curious, interesting…” I throw in.

“Errrr… her name was…”

“Jesus, Camden, you know nothing about one-night-stands, don’t you?” I ask to buy Mike some time but to be honest, I don’t know what to think seeing the industrial amount of condoms I found in her toiletry bag last night. Either is she a wild cat and a really god actress at the same time or this tour is like a project for her to get rid of her virginity. Ten times at least. And Jeff Ament has the honor to assist. Jesus.

“Why, I only asked…”

“He doesn’t know shit about her, let alone her name.”

“You banged…” she yells but realizing everyone looks at us, she suddenly takes the volume back “You had sex with her and you didn’t even ask her name?” she whispers between her teeth.

“Why? Names are overrated. Anyway, she introduced herself, I just… can’t remember her name anymore. And she didn’t even care about my name either.”

“Judith, I understand this is new to you, you probably insist on swapping business cards before petting and ask the guy even to show his ID before the penetration but in most cases, these things are going in a simpler way…” I use the occasion to torture her a bit and she starts reddening so much that I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

“Hey Stoney, don’t mock her! Jude, there’s nothing wrong with being cautious. I mean, the social security number can even be useful in case your partner suffers a sex injury.” he tries to help her out clumsily and glances at me for reassurance.

“Yeah, let alone the blood type in case he needs a transfusion after the experience.” I scoff.

“Could we go back to Mike’s experience?” she squints towards me with popped eyes making a nervous gesture. “I hope you had protection…”

“Jesus, of course, she was prepared…”

“She??? Mike, how can you be so irresponsible, it’s always the guy’s task, I would never ever… go out with a guy who expects me to provide him with condoms, Jesus…”

Ha. The little liar…

“Are we seriously analyzing these details? I mean, how was the chick?” I exclaim, earning one more toss arriving from my right side.

“She was… nice. I mean, she had that crazy vibe… It was weird, everything was okay until we left to her place, we drank, we played pool, she started flirting, I reciprocated it and so on… At one point, she threw herself on me, by the time I realized what’s happening, she was basically already licking my tonsils… not that I minded. So she dragged me to her place.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad…” I grin.

“Something tells me there was a “but” in the story…” the queen of condoms reacts ignoring my remark.

“Well yeah… she disappeared in the kitchen to bring more booze, so I turned on the TV, I thought some decent erotic channel wouldn’t hurt in the process but I stopped at a documentary, it was filmed in Kenya, I think, with beautiful shots and interesting narrations… she came back at the part on mating lions, she asked me if liked it, I found her question odd but I answered “of course” and she got completely hysterical.”

“How… how do you mean?” she asks fidgeting anxiously with her coffee mug.

“She… she freaked out saying she couldn’t believe I’m into that too. It so strange, out of context, I guess it was probably some dark secret with his ex, so I didn’t ask.”

What a coincidence!

“Interesting, the same…” I reply but a nervous little hand beats me in the thigh under the table. What the hell is she doing?

“Go… go on Mike, and what happened after that?” she inquires with a forced smile.

“I managed to calm her down, switched to Playboy channel, and you know… we begin to get  into the thing on the couch… but my stomach started rumbling, I was starving since I hadn’t eaten the whole day. So I asked her if I could grab some food before we… you know… and she almost begin to cry, explaining she never mixes food into sex, it was so incoherent, I couldn’t even understand what’s happening…” he recalls causing me a lightbulb moment.

“Jesus Mike, I know why she acted like that…” I exclaim chuckling since it I know this is more than a simple coincidence, his story has too much in common with my conversation with Claudia. Actually, now that it’s not about me, it actually sounds funny. Hilariously funny, I can’t stop shaking of repressed laughter… But those restless fingers pinch me in the thigh this time and when I turn right to challenge her, all I can see are two, huge, warm, brown eyes, begging me concerned… and suddenly I realize what they are trying to say.

“And why?” Mike asks back. Okay, I have to find out something, and I have to do it fast, think…

“Because… because… she chickened out!”

“Yes, that must have been the reason.” she agrees as quickly as possible. Okay, crisis averted.

“She didn’t.” Mike smirks. “She finally allowed me to grab some snacks and then… mature content.” he illustrates with fitting hand moves the events. “Okay, she turned out to be into rodeo roleplay, which was new to me but… after all, it was fun.” he shrugs not too convincingly.

“Was she wearing boots with spurs?”

“Damn, Camden, you always grasp the most important details…”

“She wasn’t… but she had a hat made bondage stuff to me but it was fine.”

Our meals arrive in the meantime but somehow the consumption of my vegan cheese plate seems to be incompatible with the picture of the naked Mike tied to a bed and ridden by Claudia only wearing a cowboy hat.

“A lot of people are into it but of course, there are different levels.” our troublemaker plays the expert with her mouth full.

“It was the enjoyable level bondage. Anyway, she had one more outburst, when we were finished.” he tells stuffing a considerable pile of scrambled egg into his mouth. “After the action, she went out to the bathroom but she threatened to slit my throat if I’d follow her. Like, why would I do that?”

I snort but I manage to fake a cough fast enough not to be noticed by Mike and abused by the travel-size Terminator.

“I don’t know, shower sex?” she shrugs casually munching too. Like she knows.

“Yeah, but that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Whatever. Anyway, guys, how was your night?”

“Terrible.”

“Awful.” we answer at once.

“Why, was it because of the motel or…?”

“I had nightmares… I mean, during that one single hour I slept. I didn’t really dare fall asleep because of the cockroaches… and I kept dreaming about them.” she begins to play with the food pushing it around on the plate.

“Stone, you had nightmares too?”

“Oh, no… although I had every reason to do so. I don’t know, the bed was uncomfortable.”

There’s an awkward silence. Mike devotes all his attention to his food and honestly, probably neither of us minds that he stops asking about last night. Anyway, as for the Claudia thing, she was right. He was proud of his conquest, facing him with the fact he was only a backup target would have totally ruined his confidence. I have to warn Scully too, he’s such a gossip. And Ed would certainly disapprove it but come on, Mike just wants to enjoy being the member of a rock band. He doesn’t fuck girls in every bush we pass by, I don’t think he should be executed for it. Jeff isn’t better either, drooling over you colleague, how immature and irresponsible…

“Hi Jeff!”

Speak of the devil. Anyway, why is she so suddenly so enthusiastic of seeing him?

“Hi guys. Wow, that looks good.” our bassist leans over to check my plate while Mike pulls his leg back to leave him space. Of course he couldn’t do that a few minutes earlier, so typical.

“If you ask me, it tastes better without Mike’s bizarre sex adventures but it’s a matter of taste.”

“Bizarre sex adventures? Something tells me I have to catch up.” he laughs. “How are you, Judy? You disappeared tomorrow so early.”

“Thanks, I’m fine, I was just…tired. Look, Jeff, I was thinking… if you wanna hang out today before the show? I mean, you said you’d show me a few chords and…”

I can’t believe my ears. What made her change her mind? If Dave’s jealousy trick worked out, I have to re-evaluate my knowledge about dating.

“Sure.” Jeff’s face lights up. “Anytime.”

“Aaaanytime, Juuudy…” I mock. ”Just don’t forget to put some money in his G-string.” I add mumbling.

“Jesus, Stone, you’re gross!” Mike drops his fork annoyed.

“I’m the gross? Remember, Mike…” I’m ready to remind him of his various drunk performances but as the debate is about to get heated, Eric shows up in the diner followed by Ed and Beth.

“Guys, we have a problem…”

[scornedlove]

Chapter Twenty-Seven

CHRIS

A couple of weeks had gone by since I promised myself I’d give Tae some space. It was disappointing that she’d only hit me up once since then, especially after I revealed so much to her the last time she was here. I really opened up to her in hopes of gaining her trust, maybe that’s why I’ve been buggin. Without her conversation, it’s hard to keep my mind off of Robyn. The last time I saw Robyn, she not only looked like a stranger, but she treated me like one too. Between her and Tae, my heart was torn and it was all too much to deal with. 

Every time I felt myself getting in my feelings, I’d hit the studio, blast some music, and paint. It was like having a therapy session, which is how I was spending my Friday afternoon. I was in my zone, finishing up my third project this week when Taylor called, inviting me to go riding with him.

“Hell yeah! I had fun last time, but I wanna take it out where I can really put some gas to it.” I suggested, jumping at the chance to borrow his motorcycle again.

“Alright, I got you. I know just the place.” he promised, before we hung up. I finished the painting I was working on and stepped back to look at the finished product. 

Diamond always gave the cutest pouty face when I wasn’t moving fast enough for her. I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I put it in paint. I snapped a picture of it and sent it to Tae before leaving, hoping that would put me on her mind.

“This chick wants me to meet her at the A for some drinks” Taylor announced when I got to his place.

“When ya’ll planning on doing that?”

“Right now, I told her 8. ″

“Then why you ask me to ride with you?” I asked, noticing it was fifteen til. “I’m not trying to be the third wheel”

“You won’t be. She’s bringing her roommate, so I told her I’d bring my brother” he added, with a smirk.

“I’m not going on a double date with you man, you know I got a girl.”

“It ain’t a date, unless you want it to be. I know that long distance shit ain’t gonna last too long.”

“Shut up fool. As long as you don’t get me in no shit, it’ll last as long as I want it to.”

“We’re just gonna hang for a bit, then take em on a ride. The ladies love that shit and I’m tryna get some ass tonight.”

“Well I’m not-”

“-Stop being a tight fuck. It ain’t all about them, come chill with ya bro.”

“Alright man, but don’t be mad if they both feeling me and you end up coming home empty handed” I teased as he tossed me the keys to his Harley.

We arrived twenty minutes later than expected due to traffic, but the girls still hadn’t made it. We found a spot at the bar, ordered a couple of beers, and watched the Saints play the Falcons while we waited.

“It’s looking like you got stood up lil bro” I stated when I noticed it was nine and still no sign of the chick he described.

“There she goes” he nodded towards the door when a familiar, dark skinned woman walked in. “She bad ain’t she?”

“Oh, hell naw. I heard this bitch was fuckin with Anthony a couple of weeks ago. You need to be caref-”

“Fuck Anthony. That’s yo homeboy. Besides, I’m always careful.” he stated, gulping down the rest of his beer before standing to greet Kiki.

“Small world. I would’ve never guessed y'all were brothers. Ryan gonna be shocked as fuck.” she cackled, getting comfortable next to Taylor as Ryan walked in. She was on the phone, eyes fixated on Kiki as she strutted past a couple of guys checking her out. She didn’t even notice me until she ended her call, a couple feet in front of me.

“Hey” she smiled, surprised to see me. “When Kiki told me she set me up on a blind date I was nervous as hell”

“Oh, this ain’t that.” I explained, tossing back the rest of my beer. She rolled her eyes at my bluntness and sat on the stool in between me and Kiki.

“Obviously, you shut that shit down already. I’m just glad you’re not some fucking weirdo.” she admitted and I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter.

“I see ya’ll are on good terms again” I nodded towards Kiki, who was cheesing like a schoolgirl while Taylor whispered in her ear. “I’m glad I didn’t get involved in that”

“Yeah, it didn’t take long for Anthony to hop on the next bitch” she shrugged nonchalantly. “How do you even know him? He doesn’t seem like someone you would associate with.”

“Shit, we go way back.  He’s changed for the worse, that’s for damn sure. ”

“Well, at least one good thing came from him”

“What’s that?”

“He’s got some good connects. He introduced me to a DJ who’s been working with me on a couple of songs, even helped me land a couple of gigs when we were on good terms.”

“Good. Sounds like things are looking up for you.”

“You have no idea. I’ve been crazy busy. Matter of fact, I’m performing for this charity event in a few weeks, you should come.”

“Oh yeah? Send me the info. This is a crazy time for me too, but I should be able to work it in”

“Alright, but let me know either way. Don’t just leave me hanging.” she replied, before getting the bartender’s attention. They ordered margaritas and we settled on one more beer while we watched a little more of the football game. I wasn’t interested in the game, or getting drunk. I was ready for the adrenaline rush from flying through traffic, so after the ladies finished their drinks, we hit the road.

It didn’t take long for me to regret agreeing to do this with the girls. I’ve been abstinent for a solid five months now, and I haven’t seen Tae in over a month. Having Ryan’s double D’s on my back and arms wrapped around my waist had my man standing tall. I did my best to keep it to myself, but she got a couple of feels in. 

Nevertheless, we rode across the Pacific Coast Highway to the infamous Neptune’s net, where we hung out for a little while, had dinner, and smoked a blunt by the beach, before heading back to the city. That’s when I realized those couple of feels weren’t an accident, they were intentional. I don’t know if it was because she was tipsy, but Ryan couldn’t keep her hands to herself. I was cool about it the first time, but then she slipped her hands in my pants while I was driving, and I damn near wrecked trying to pull over.

"If you want to make it home without having to find another way, you gonna have to keep your hands above my waist” 

“Were you feeling violated? Because it looks like you were enjoying it.”

“Fuck that. I’m tryna keep shit platonic between us, but if you can’t handle that we can’t do this anymore. I’ll find you a ride, but I’m not doing this with you”

“Fine. I’ll stop.” she stated, throwing her hands up in defeat. She behaved the rest of the ride, but when we made it to her place, she invited me in and was offended when I quickly declined.

“Well, you know where I am if you wanna talk or whatever” she stated before sashaying towards her front door. The deep ass swing in her hips made it evident she wanted more than a conversation.

I waited as she dug in her purse, searching for her keys until she gave up and made a call. By the look on her face as she walked towards me, I knew bad news was coming. 

“Kiki has my house key and she’s not answering. Is it cool if I stay at your place tonight?”

“You gotta be kidding” I sighed in disbelief. “Ya’ll set this shit up huh?”

“Really? Don’t flatter yourself. A simple yea or no will do” she sassed, almost tripping over her own foot. 

“What other choice do we have? Let’s go” I shrugged, handing her the helmet back. She was fucked up and I didn’t want to be here all night waiting for a damn key, so I decided we’d deal with it tomorrow. 

ROBYN

“I can’t believe I’m doing this”

“It looks great and it’s almost done, no need to fuss now” I reassured Mel as I wrapped my arms around her for comfort.

Today I finally went through with covering the matching tattoo Chris and I’d gotten a couple of years ago on some drunk on love shit. Halfway through, I almost chickened out, so Mel made me a deal. She said she was done with tattoos before, but if I went through with this one, she’d get one of my choice blindfolded. So here we were, both with swollen hands, only mine was three times the size of hers.

“Alright, ya’ll know the drill. Keep it clean and dry.” BB, my tattoo artist, stated once he finished her design. “and you really need to baby yours Robyn, here’s some extra ointment. It should help with the pain too.”

“Awww shit! This is dope!” Mel grinned after uncovering her eyes. Capturing moments was inked flawlessly in script on the side of her left hand.The moment we were settled in the back seat of John’s ride, she snapped a pic and sent it to J.  

“I’m obsessed! Girl, fucking with you, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it’s perfect. You did good”

“Give jack he jacket!  You know I don’t do you dirty!” I teased, grinning from ear to ear. 

“Yeah, but you been wilding ever since that shit with Chris and Dre.”

“Bitch, you not even supposed to be saying the C word” I snapped, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Speaking of Chr- I mean C. Has he reached out to you since?” she continued, ignoring my annoyance.

“No. I guess I scared the shit outta him when I mentioned the police, but Aundre’s ass won’t stop calling”

“So you’re not talking to him either?”

“Nope. I’m taking your advice and leaving both of they asses alone.“

“We’ll see how long that lasts” she snickered, rolling her eyes, as if she knew I was to weak to go through with it. I hated when she did that.

“Don’t do that.’

"What”

“Don’t play dumb. I’m sick of that shit.”

“Chill out, it ain’t that serious”

“I am serious Mel. Don’t shoot me down like that. Not everybody got they life figured out by 24.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She quizzed, shaking her head. “I’m still figuring this shit out too. Everything ain’t smooth sailing over here either.”

“I find that hard to believe.” I scoffed, crossing my arms and wincing from the pain of brushing my freshly tatted hand against my clothes.

“I don’t complain all the time and I don’t wear that shit on my sleeve, but yeah Rob, I be going through some shit too.”

“Like?”

“Like my husband working seventy hour weeks and my married boss flirting and making passes at me all the fucking time”

“Michael?”

“Yeah, anytime we’re alone together he gets a little too close and happens to accidentally brush up against me the wrong way or says something sexually cryptic ”

“You lying! He’s fine as hell, but don’t fuck around with a married man. Matter of fact, you should just leave that job. These things always end up ugly”

“I’m not stupid, but I’m not leaving my job either.”

“Why not?”

“The amount of money I’m making with him is crazy, I ain’t gonna get that anywhere else.”

“Girl please, you have J. Who cares about the money? It ain’t worth the money, you need to quit”

“Easy for you to say. I’'m finally making good money and I’m not ready to let it go. Over a couple of ass grabs? Naw, imma milk this cow. Maybe I’ll be able to open my own shit one day.”

“Well all I gotta say is don’t slip up and lose ya husband over nothing stupid.”

“I would never jeopardize my marriage. J has made me a better person in so many ways, I’d be stupid to fuck up something this good. ”

“Fi true” I agreed, before John Legend’s All of Me started blaring from her phone.

“This my baby calling now” she gasped, a smile creeping across her face as she answered in her sexy voice. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous as they flirted back and forth. I had to turn my attention to the starry sky in order to successfully tune her out. Instead of obsessing over my own sad love life, I  looked for constellations while reminding myself of all the frogs she had to kiss in order to find her prince. 

CHRIS

“CHRIS WHAT THE FUCK!” Tae’s unmistakable voice pierced my ears, snatching me from dreamland. It took a minute for it to register that she was standing right in front of me. Then I realized why she was screaming.

“Get up Ry-” I attempted to wake Ryan’s drunk ass up, but she was out cold. We passed out sitting up on the sofa watching Rush Hour, I don’t know how her head ended up on my lap. It may have looked a little bad, but Tae was definitely exaggerating.

“SO THIS IS WHAT YOU REALLY DO WHEN YOUR BY YOURSELF! I KNEW  IT. YOU’RE A LIAR! ”

“BABE!” I yelled over her to get her attention. “You buggin. We’re fully clothed. Nothing happened.”

“And that makes this okay? Your fucking ex is laying in your lap!” Lose my number!” she screamed throwing my key at me and running out the house.

My mind was yelling for me to run after her, but my legs wouldn’t move. Is that really all it took for her to walk out on me again? If so, what is the point of this long distance shit? What was she even doing in Cali? I haven’t talked to her in days and she just randomly shows up to act like this. I had so many questions, but at the same time, I didn’t care for a single answer. I felt a weight lift from my shoulders as I realized something. I’m single again. 

[owlsoldwritingcorner]

Honey and Oats (Chapter 2)

Pairing: Agent Whisky x Reader

Warnings/Troupes: Not much rn except Age gap relationship for future. + Enemies to lovers. Two cowboys cant flirt for shit.

A/N: This is a bit shorter cus the next one is gonna be a bit spicy, so i wanted to give more room for that chapter!

Summary: “Mucous membrane.” Eggsy’s face scrunched up at the first thought that came to mind as he looked at the two of you. 

“That’s like up the nose, isn’t it?”

“What the fuck am I gonna to do? Stick my finger up…”

.

.

“It’s not just inside the nose, is it?”

AO3 Link

{First/Previous} {Next} {Masterlist}

And then there were two. 

Eggsy had to say goodbye to his girlfriend and get the tickets from his contact first before the three of you could hit the road. And because that damn cowboy refused to take literally any other vehicle, you were stuck in the trunk like a sack of potatoes. If you fell off the car, it’s your fault for not holdin’ on.

The stretch of silence was long and awkward between you two. You didn’t bother saying a single word to the man. Why would you? Boring holes in the back of his head with your stare was much more preferable. 

Just as the silence was starting to become insufferable, Whiskey honked his horn to tell Eggsy to hurry the fuck up already. Another second and there won’t be any more Statesman agents on the job. Soon after, Eggsy finally came back out. Three passes right on hand.

“Got the passes from my contact. You’ll love Glastonbury.” 

“Well that’s the easy part kid. Take a look in the glove box.” The younger agent opened the compartment to reveal the chip. And here comes the jokes about the finger condom.

“Fucking hell, bruv. Thought everything was supposed to be bigger in America?” Eggsy looked at you both with an amused expression. “Is that why you overcompensate with these massive cars?”

“Well, Whiskey’s dick is the exception to that sayin--”

“Shut your trap, Rum. It goes on your finger,” Whiskey sticks out an index finger to emphasize his point. “The surveillance tracker is on the tip. Apply light pressure for three seconds to release it,” The cowboy then shoves his said index finger in your face. 

“And you. What do you have against Jack jr.?” Before you could say another snarky comeback, Whiskey snapped his fingers and shoved the index in your face again. “You wanna ride ole Whiskey horse don’t ‘cha? Young girls like you always got trouble articulatin’ whatcha’ want.” The whole time, he just kept waving that damn finger in your face! Just right when you were about to chomp it right off, he pulled it quicker than any man’s pull out game.

“Not fallin’ for that one again.” He placed his hands on the wheel, looking at you via the rear view mirror with a triumphant smile as if he’s got you all figured out.

Okay.

You had to admit. Whiskey looked really fucking good for his age. You’ll never say it to his face though. It’d be both a hit to your pride and a major boost to his ego. Any bigger and the old man’s gonna pop. But really? It’s just too fucking bad that all that eyecandy ain’t got a good center to match!

“Now, just admit that all this pent up frustration, is cuz you’re into ‘old man’ Whiskey here?” 

“In yer fuckin’ dreams.”

“You’re right. You’re less of a god damn brat in them.” He muttered as he turned the key to start the car’s engine. 

Ugh. He always acts all cool and oh-so suave as if his back isn’t ready to break the moment he picks something up from off the--

Wait a fucking second.

“Whiskey, did you just-- Oh fuck!” Just as you moved closer to the drivers and passenger’s seat, you were knocked right on your ass. The familiar damn chuckle coming from the driver’s seat. That fuckin’ hillbilly practically kicked the fucking gas pedal just to laugh at your pain!

“You should really hold on kid. There ain’t no seatbelts back there.”

“And whose choice do you think it was to ride this fuckin’ car?! Achhkuot sbanh!”

“Getting the Cambodian out on me already? I’m flattered, querida.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During the whole trip, Whiskey’s words echoed through your mind.

You’re right. You’re less of a god damn brat in them.

Did… Did he mean for it to sound that way? Like, did he ever actually… Have those kinda dreams starring you? 

You tried to mentally wave it off as him just trying to shut you up, but his fucking voice kept popping up in your head.

You’re less of a god damn brat in them.

That buttery smooth, low voice of his accompanying those words. You couldn’t help but overthink what he said. 

Sure his glances are a bit longer than what’s considered a normal glance, but that doesn’t mean anything!, and when he gives you a pat on the back after  and whenever you’re up in his face, he licks those fuckin’ kissable lips of his like he’s thinking of something he shouldn’t--

Wait.

Did you say kissable?

You meant to say punchable. That cowboy’s face is just… The most murderable, most stabbable, most lickable--

Goddamn it! 

What the fuck’s gotten into you?! The guy admits to having, for all you know, one fuckin’ sex dream about you and you’re just readdy to turn to putty in his hands?

Just as the three of you arrived at the concert, you jumped out of the back of the trunk and quickly headed into one of the porta potties. Eggsy looked mighty confused at your disappearing figure as he got out the car.

“Do they know the concert is this way?”

“Well, considering this is a special kinda mission, I’d just say she’s dolling herself up.”

“Why? The target is straight, so it’s just going to be the two of us doing the work.”

“Yeah. But, she really hates it when she ain’t got nothin’ to do on the job.”

Eggsy just shot him a confused look until he saw you come back out from the porta potty. Then everything just clicked into place like a puzzle. 

Instead of your previous much cuter looking appearance. You were (admittedly) quite handsome after your change of clothes and other fixings. You wore more masculine looking clothes, cleaned up a bit, and you--

Oh.

You did an extra step.

The three of you showed your bands to the bouncers and waltzed right in. 

“According to her Instagram feed, Charlie’s ex-girlfriend is up at the VIP bar. Which one of us is gonna plant the tracker?”

“I say we both make an approach. Whoever gets it on best, goes for it.” You rolled your eyes at the suggestion. Getting a girl in bed really shouldn’t be played like a game.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a competition, bruv. Why don’t we just go up to her-- shake her hand, pat her on the back, whatever, you know, Job done.” 

“Well, as nice and easy that would be, Eggsy. Last I checked, our hands aren't a mucous membrane.” You sighed.

“Neither is the back. They teach you anything at Kingsman?” Whiskey added with an incredulous tone to his voice.

“What are you talking about?”

“Our trackers are designed to enter the bloodstream.” The agent put up his middle and index fingers and made an… Injection motion. 

“If the trackers were attached on the back or something, that’d risk getting damaged in case the target decides to do the ole’ late night tumble.” You added.

“They circulate harmlessly, providing full audio and GPS.” 

“Mucous membrane.” Eggsy’s face scrunched up at the first thought that came to mind as he looked at the two of you. “That’s like up the nose, isn’t it?” The three of you stop a few feet behind the target.  

“What the fuck am I gonna to do? Stick my finger up…” Eggsy paused once he stuck up his finger, similar motion Whiskey did prior. His face contorting into realization as to where else the tracker can be placed.

“It’s not just inside the nose, is it?”

“No, Eggsy, it ain’t.” The oldest agent let out an exasperated sigh as the British man let out a just as annoyed ‘fuck’.

“All right, I’ll take the first crack.” 

“You sure you won’t croak in the middle of it?” Whiskey finally popped his lid on that final quip from you.

“Know what? Since you’re so sure of yourself, you get first go.” You raised your hands in faux defeat as you walked backwards towards the target. You heard Eggsy give you a little ‘good luck’.

“My pleasure.” You quickly turned around and placed your elbows on the bar top beside the woman.

“I am so sorry to bother you little missie, but I just have to say you are the most ethereal being I have ever seen in my life.” 

“Oh? Is that so?” You’ve gotten her attention at least, she’s skeptical but it’s a start.

“Course! Out of all these stars playin’ today, you seem to be the one outshining them all.” 

“You should get better glasses then, it’s only daytime.”

“Are you suggesting the view is even better at night?” You mentally winched at that one. Yeah… Not your best hit.

“Nope,” She popped the ‘p’ before taking a quick sip of her drink. “I am saying that you are clearly blind. You’ve been looking at the sun for too long.” She then turned her head, all ready to ignore you. You rolled your eyes and looked at Whiskey, who looked more than ready to be tagged in, and signaled for him to come over by moving over to give him some space. 

Whiskey practically had a pop in his step as he waltzed over to take your place. 

He can finally rub a victory in your fucking face! You won’t steal anymore of his targets from him in the future! Take that you sexually confusing minx!

Wait that came out wrong--

“Now, I don’t wanna pester you…” Quickly distracting himself from the confusing thoughts, he got to working his charm.The woman turned her face to the new voice trying to get her attention. “But, I just had to know, what time are you playin’?” She let out an awkward chuckle. Whilst Whiskey kept her busy, you ordered yourself a Blue Long Island cocktail and not so discreetly listened in on their conversation. 

“I’m not in a band-- Oh god, who did you think I was? Please don’t say someone ghastly.” she hid her face in embarrassment at the thought. Great, you can see Whiskey’s dumb smirk loom over you now.

“God damn it, now I feel like a fool.” He got a bit closer to the blond and you shivered at the husky tone his voice switched to. 

He was supposed to be seducing her, not you! Get your head out of the fuckin clouds! 

“I just assumed a woman with your charisma… Well, she just had to be somebody.” 

Well… He tripped the landing a bit. 

“Right. Thank you.”

“No, it’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to make me feel like a dumbass. So I’ll let you make it up to me by letting me buy you a drink,” Wow, gettin’ a teensy bit aggressive there Whiskey. The blond then rolled her eyes as she stuck up an index finger.

“Follow my finger.” Oh boy. She then swiped her finger to her left twice as Whiskey followed, confused. Wait, was that--

“What are we doin’?”

“Swiping to the left,” You almost let out an unattractive snort. She indeed did what you thought she did. “What, you don’t do Tinder in America?”

“Tinder what?” Whiskey still had a dumb smile on and was as confused as a bat during the daytime. God, he seriously is an old man.

“You know what? I think it’s a generational thing,” Eggsy smoothly cut in and leaned against the bar on the woman’s other side. Oh just in time! 

You were just about to leave from the painful cringing you felt from both Old man Whiskey and little miss Tinder over here.

“It translates as,’Go away, old man’.”

Whiskey paused just before uttering ‘Be good, be cool’. Yup. You could see the biggest hit to his pride on his face yet as he walked off to a sitting bar at this outdoor concert. He just looked so pathetic and sulky you just needed to do something to fix that. Without realizing, you were already right behind the man and Champ’s words echoed in your head. 

“One job together ain’t gonna kill the two of you.”

You mentally wince at what you were about to do for the rest of the day.

You gave the sad man a firm pat on the back, he turned around with hope in his eyes only for that to be extinguished when he saw you.

“C’mon Weepin’ Willow,  I’ll play bartender.”

Taglist: @mxndoscyarika​, @engineeredfiction

[chemicalmagecraft]

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 28

A/N: Sorry about the wait. I made a new fanfic (btw if you like ATLA but think it needed more deadly airbending ninjas check out A Black Wind Howls) aaand then college started back up...

xoxoxo

I opened my eyes and deactivated my Quirks and skills, stepping on the perfectly generic object with one foot and jumping off a moment before it fully dissolved. "That was way smoother than it had any right to be," I muttered as I checked the time. About an hour had passed since I entered my mindscape. Huh. It felt like it was longer than that. Maybe time passes faster in the mindscape? I checked the text boxes that had popped up while I was meditating. It looked like the menus I'd tried to open when in my mindscape had opened in reality, for one... I closed them and looked at the ones that were left over.

Your WIS has increased by one! (x4)

Your DEX has increased by one!

Your CON has increased by one!

Shock Sphere (Active) LV1 EXP 1.49% MP 100

That was surprisingly good for an hour of meditation. Especially because neither of my stat boosts were set to WIS. I guess stumbling around in one's own mindscape is a great method of self-discovery. For one thing I decided I should probably stop raising All Might on such a high pedestal. Maybe I'd ask him if I could call him Yagi-sensei?

I shrugged. "I wish I could talk to the past bearers in the real world, though. They were really nice. Plus having seven seasoned heroes that I can ask for advice at any time would be really handy. Too bad I can't just invite them to my party." I thought about that for a minute. "Actually, can I do that?" I recited the party invitations and crossed my fingers. One by one they appeared in my party window and I opened up the voice chat.

"So is this how your party ability works?" Kaizen asked.

"Honestly I didn't think that would work," I said, "but I'm really glad it did."

"We're glad it worked too, kid!" Daigoro added.

I laughed. "Thanks! There are probably going to be times when I can't talk and have to use the text chat, and other times where I'll have to disband the party temporarily, but you guys don't mind keeping me company, do you?"

I heard Shimura chuckle. "I don't mind at all. And I'm sure the others don't either."

"I'd be glad to keep you company," Honenuki said.

"Better than playing another of Ichigo's stupid games," Hikiishi added.

"Hey!" Ichigo said indignantly.

"They are fun, but it does get old sometimes..." Sokolov muttered.

"Not you too!"

I laughed. This was going to be great.

xoxoxo

Bakugou Katsuki: youre real fuckin blase bout the voices in your head deku

Shigaraki Ichigo: To be fair we are actual people and we can only be voices in his head using his Quirk.

I'd decided that, because Kacchan already knew about One For All, I would tell him about the past bearers. I did it on the morning of the day that we were going back to Yuuei. He was surprised, but almost immediately shrugged and said, "You know what, this might as well fucking happen." Currently we were on the train to Yuuei.

Hikiishi Jiroku: if you think about it, we're like ghosts haunting your friend.

Bakugou Katsuki: oh like thats so much better

I saw a young girl with bright eyes staring at us out of the corner of my eye. "Mommy, it's the magic people!" she shouted to a woman next to her that I assumed was her mother.

"Don't bother them, Chi-chan," the woman said.

"Are you talking about us?" I asked the girl.

She gasped. There were stars in her eyes. Literally. "Yeah! I watched you guys on the sports festival! Your fight was awesome!"

Kacchan smirked at the girl. "You know it, kid."

She bounced on her feet. "Yeah! You guys were all like bam, pow, woosh!" The rest of the people on the train were starting to look at us. The girl pouted. "I wanna be a cool hero like you guys, but my Quirk is dumb..."

"I'm sure your Quirk is great!" I objected.

"All I can do is make my eyes glow."

"Well I mean for one thing you can probably use it to see in the dark." Kacchan said.

"That's the only way I can use it, though!"

"I wouldn't be too sure," I said. "Can you control how bright it is?"

She nodded. "It's hard, but if I try really hard I can make it as bright as a flashlight for a bit."

I put my hand on my chin. "I'd bet that even All Might would be thrown off if someone he was fighting randomly shined a flashlight in his eyes. And if you practice really hard you should be able to make them even brighter." I poked Kacchan. "Believe it or not, when his Quirk first came in all he could do was make little pops."

"Just make sure not to hurt yourself practicing," Kacchan reminded her. "Quirk strain is not fun. I mean, mine was probably a lot fu- a lot worse than yours would be because it's caused by explosions and not glowing, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful."

The girl nodded excitedly.

"And be careful in general," I said. "Hero work is dangerous. I suggest you learn martial arts or something like that if you really want to be a hero."

"Like you're one to fuc-" Kacchan caught himself before swearing. "Like you're one to talk, Deku."

"Fair enough. You should also try to learn some magic. It's a lot more versatile than Quirks, plus you can probably enhance your Quirk with magic." I winked. "Just be mindful of property damage."

She beamed at us. "Yeah! I will!"

Her mother smiled. "Thank you. She loves heroes."

I chuckled and rubbed the back of my head. "It's actually pretty flattering."

"Yeah, I got my first fan!" Kacchan said. He reached over to give the girl a high five. She looked really grateful, so I gave her a high five too.

"Thank you both sooo much!"

xoxoxo

"Damn, this is some heavy rain," Kacchan muttered from under his umbrella while we were walking to Yuuei.

"What bad luck, huh?" I said. I also had an umbrella, but at the same time the water was subtly avoiding me so I didn't even get slightly wet. Having so many elementals can be very convenient.

"What are you two doing, you're going to be late!" Iida shouted at us from behind. He was wearing a poncho and jogging.

"What the fuck are you doing, Glasses!?" Kacchan shouted. "This is not the fucking weather for a nice morning jog!"

"There is no wrong weather for a nice morning jog!" Iida shouted as he passed us.

We managed to catch up to him in the entrance hall. "I heard about your brother, Iida," Kacchan told him while he was putting his boots in his locker. "If you need to talk to someone about it... well you probably shouldn't talk to me, but I speak from experience when I say that Inui-sensei is very willing to help."

"Inui-sensei?" I inquired.

Kacchan grunted, blushing slightly. "Hound Dog," he muttered.

"I appreciate your words, but I don't need to talk about it," Iida said as he closed his locker door.

"Iida, it's okay to not be okay," I said. "It doesn't make you any less strong. Even All Might has his bad days."

"Thank you, Midoriya," Iida said as he started to walk away. "But I'm okay. I promise."

I frowned at his title.

I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

LV 36

Iida Tenya

"I'm gonna have to press X to doubt that one," I said after he was gone.

"Deku I know you have that whole gamer hero thing going on but that joke was so fucking terrible I think I'm legally obligated to give you a wedgie," Kacchan told me.

"Please don't."

xoxoxo

"I have a few announcements before today's business," Aizawa-sensei said, acting like normal and not at all mentioning the fact that he was wearing, with the exception of the same scarf and possibly the goggles hidden under it, an entirely new hero costume. He kept the original color scheme, but his outfit looked like it was inspired by a more close combat-oriented fantasy wizard that wouldn't look out of place in a JRPG at all, complete with a wizard hat and a collapsible bo staff holstered on his belt that Observe told me was made with an experimental design that let it more effectively channel magic. He was also clean-shaven for once, though he still had the dark bags under his eyes. It made that scar he got from the USJ incident stand out a little more.

"First," he pointed to Shinsou, who was standing awkwardly next to him, "we have a new student. Make him feel welcome or whatever. Now sit down, Shinsou. There's an empty seat behind Midoriya."

"Congratulations, Shinsou!" I told him with a smile when he sat down. "I knew you'd get in!"

"Thanks," he said, then looked at Aizawa-sensei. "Was he always wearing that weird martial artist wizard outfit?"

"No, that's new. Scarf's the same, though."

"I thought so."

"If you're all done talking," Aizawa-sensei said menacingly. "We're having a very important hero informatics lesson today." He grinned evilly. "Pay attention, because this could affect your entire hero career." A terrified murmur broke out in the classroom.

"This is not what I was hoping for my first day..." Shinsou muttered.

Kacchan, who was sitting in front of me, looked back at him. "Eh, don't worry. Aizawa-sensei's just a fucking drama queen like that. Watch, he's gonna say that this is just us picking our hero names." He pointed at Aizawa-sensei.

"You'll be picking code names today," he confirmed, as if on cue. The class cheered, causing him to glare at us with his Quirk activated. His hat floated slightly before he turned it back off. "This isn't just for fun. You'll be going on a work study soon, so naturally you'll be needing a hero name to go by. Are there any questions?"

Kaminari raised his hand. "Why are you wearing a wizard outfit?"

"Are there any questions about the work study?" Aizawa-sensei glared at him.

"Is there any reason behind the work study?" Shinsou asked.

"It's meant to give you guys hands-on experience with hero work. Also, more than a few of you have already gotten a lot of draft picks from hero organizations already. Usually those offers are given to second and third years, who are more experienced, but there have been several unique circumstances for your class." He pressed a button on his remote, bringing up a list on the smartboard. "These are the offers that were extended to 1-A."

"Oh wow," I thought. My name was on the top of the board and I had almost five thousand offers!

"Congrats, Midoriya!" Shimura shouted through the party chat.

"Yeah, that's something to be proud of, I'm assuming..." Ichigo added.

"Good job, kid," Hikiishi said.

I sniffed and wiped the tears off my face... and desk... I thanked them over the text chat and looked at the rest of the board. Kacchan was below me at a little over four thousand offers. Aoyama, Todoroki, and Uraraka were next below us at around two thousand each. Iida, Tokoyami, and Kaminari had offers in the hundreds. Sero, Yaoyorozu, and even Shinsou had a few too.

"Don't worry, those of you who didn't get any offers," Aizawa said. "There are hero organizations that work with Yuuei to give students who don't have any offers work studies. And as I said, usually only second and third years get offers. So I'm sure you'll get at least a few by next semester."

"And that's what the hero names are for!" Hagakure blurted out.

Aizawa nodded. "That's right. Technically you can change your hero name at any time, but once you start getting popular chances are the public is going to call you the same name even if you change your name, unless it's accompanied by serious rebranding or something like that."

"Oh, is that what the wizard outfit is for?" Ashido asked.

Aizawa glared at her for a prolonged period of time. "No. Comment. Because having a good hero name before you even debut is so important..."

Midnight-sensei strutted through the door and stood next to Aizawa. "Yuuei strongly encourages the teachers of the hero course to organize a workshop session for their students before their work studies so they don't call themselves something dumb like, oh, I don't know... Eraserhead?"

"Fuck you, Nemuri," Aizawa muttered, causing Midnight to wink and stick her tongue out at him. He sighed and pulled a folding chair and some small dry erase boards out from behind his podium. "Midnight here is going to make sure the names we pick are all right. The annoying thing with hero names is that whatever you pick tends to end up reflecting on your hero career, so choose carefully."

"Wait, are you picking out a hero name, too?" Kaminari asked.

Aizawa grunted and started handing out the dry erase boards. "Against my better judgement I decided, for multiple reasons actually, to adopt a more public hero persona," he explained.

"WHAAAT!?" almost the entire class shouted at once.

"Yeah, yeah. 'Course, I need a new name for it, and the timing lined up so I unfortunately had the 'brilliant' idea of participating in this exercise with you guys, for solidarity or whatever." When he was done with the dry erase boards he put his folding chair next to Uraraka and sat down. "So for the next however long, just think of me like a fellow student. Plus Ultra or whatever."

I uncapped my dry erase marker and stared at the board. What kind of hero did I want to be? What kind of name did I want to have? I had a flash of inspiration, but... I sent Kacchan a message with my Quirk. I wanted his opinion on it.

He turned back to me. "Really?" he asked. I nodded. "Well I can see where you're coming from with that," he shrugged. "If ya really want to, go for it."

I wrote down my idea and waited for everyone else to be done. Kacchan looked like he was having a bit of trouble, but shooed me off when I asked if he needed help.

"And now you'll be presenting your hero names, starting with who's done!" Midnight said after more than a few of my classmates had put down their markers. Nobody said anything, but the air tensed when she said that. "Of course you have to present them!" she said with a grin. "If you can't stand proud and present your name to your own peers, how are you going to stick to it in the face of the public?"

Okay that made me a little nervous, but I shook it off. I was about to volunteer myself for the first presentation, but Aoyama and Aizawa both stood up before I could.

"I shall go first!" Aoyama glittered as Aizawa muttered, "Let's get this over with."

Aizawa sighed. "After you, kid."

"Thank you, my wonderful teacher!" He strutted up to the podium and stylishly revealed the name he wrote on his board. "'Shining Hero: I Can Not Stop Twinkling!' That means that you can't stop my sparkles!" As he said that, literal sparkles bloomed into existence around him. Honestly that was about what I was expecting from him.

"I like it, buuut maybe take out the 'I' and shorten 'Can Not' to 'Can't?'" Midnight suggested.

"Yes! That's perfect, mademoiselle!" Aoyama beamed.

"That's a good name?" Shinsou snarked under his breath.

"I don't know," I said, "I think it's kind of a nice name."

"Because you're a fucking sap," Kacchan added.

I shrugged. "Maybe a little."

Aizawa sighed. "Well, I guess that means I'm next." He walked up to the podium unenthusiastically and lifted up his board. "Magician Hero: Grimalkin," he read, blushing slightly. He'd put a cute little cat paw print on the end where a period would be.

"Ah, like the witch's familiar from Macbeth!" Yaoyorozu said.

Aizawa nodded. "Yes, exactly."

"I love it!" Midnight shouted. "Cute, but still bold!"

"Thanks," Aizawa muttered as he walked away from the podium.

"Now, do we have any more volunteers?" Midnight asked.

Kacchan got up. "I might as well get this over with too." He presented his name. "The Explosion Hero: Grenadier."

"Excellent! It's simple, striking, and goes with your hero outfit's theme!" Midnight commented.

"Thanks, teach." Kacchan said. "I figured it'd be way better than my first idea."

"What would that be?"

"King Explosion Murder."

Midnight winced. "Yeah, Grenadier's a lot better. Next!"

Shinsou nodded and got up to the podium. "I'm afraid it might be a little dark, but... Control Hero: Mindjack."

Midnight nodded with a grin. "I can see your concerns, but it's perfectly fine. Better than King Explosion Murder, at least."

"You're welcome for the example, I guess," Kacchan grumbled.

"Now, who wants to go next?" Midnight asked.

I stood up. "I'd like to," I said. I walked up to the podium, took a deep breath, and showed the class my dry erase board. "The name I decided on is the Gamer Hero: Deku."

xoxoxo

A/N: The naming session went about the same as it did in canon from that point onward, just without Midoriya, Bakugou, and the grape.

Originally I was going to make this chapter longer but then I realized that ending the chapter on the first time the name of the fic is cool.

Elemental list: Midoriya: Halitus, Dune, Rayne, Blaise, Juniper, Mifuyu, Raimon, Iggy, Sonia, and Claude Bakugou: Pyra and Leaf Tokoyami: Corvo Uraraka: Nebula and Ion Hagakure: Lucy Tsu: Bubbles Aizawa: Charlie and Cassiopeia All Might: Seth O'Scope

[macbookpro-hard-drive]

control [jeremy h. x squipped!reader] pt.5

why is it almost 9 and im tired already smh

anyway, i almost titled this part 5 because i dont know what numbers are

update im a dumbass bc this was, indeed, part 5

warnings: uhhh sick moments. hospitals. guilt. squip aftermath. mentions of nightmares. 

       You woke up days later in the hospital.

       The first thing that happened was a blur of motions: you trying to rip out your IV as you panicked, and a nurse who just opened the door grabbed you by the wrist to stop you before you did any true damage. Then came a thousand questions from a thousand people, all trying to pinpoint the when and why and how and what happened that you could barely remember at that moment. When your breathing picked up and panic set in, the room was cleared save for a single person taking vitals. When he left, you were alone. The room felt cold. The room was silent-

       Wait.

       The room was silent.

       Oh, god, the room was silent.

       It was gone. Your thoughts were your own again, yet it still felt as if a piece of you had been snapped off. Broken off. Crumbled away over time, yet - yet... how long had you been out? Hours? A day? You couldn’t completely recall. You remembered someone asking you the date, the time, the anything, but... it slipped your mind far too quickly as a thousand other questions followed suit. You squinted at the whiteboard on the wall across from you, stamped into the corner, and red dry-erase marker spelling out the date.

       Barely two days. That was good. You were... you were fine. You were okay. This was okay. Two days was okay. Two days was much less than what Rich dealt with-

       Oh. Fuck, Rich - had he woken up? He must still be in the hospital - was - were you in the same one? Fuck, you felt foggier than ever. Like the pieces wouldn’t connect, yet lined up perfectly. Every little bit of pressure merely popped the piece apart again, and it left nothing but frustration to fill the space between. You’d have to see him as soon as you could.

       The first person who came to see you (not quite counting your parents) was Christine Canigula with a pretty bouquet of sunflowers in her arms. Her purse bounced against her hip with every step around the room (mainly due to her trying to find a nice place to set the flowers down), and she finally gently sat at the end of your bed and talked to you happily about everything that had gone on within the past few days. She opened her bag, fishing out a small little bag of assorted goodies that she placed in your hands.

       “I thought you could use something nice,” she smiled, “I hope you get out of here soon.” When you couldn’t muster up anything past a weak smile, she continued, “Rich actually asked about you, when I saw him earlier.” 

       You looked up. “He did?” You asked, voice quiet and broken.

       “Yeah!” She chirped, “he woke up the other day, actually,” she drummed her fingers against her leg, “

       The second was Michael. Michael, who had a ball of emotions choking him as he searched for the right thing to say to you. Worried and angry and upset and... relieved. All of it evaporated as you told him everything. Every detail, every action explained - and he realized what lied beyond the glimpse you’d given him while you looked as if you were trying to escape his house. He sat on the edge of your bed in stunned silence, just staring at the floor as you felt guilt creep into your stomach. 

       “Michael?” You finally said, voice quiet. “I’m... I’m sorry.” You paused, “for everything. You - you don’t have to forgive me, but...”

       “You used me.” He said. You could hear the underlying anger dripping from those three words alone. 

       “I know.” You swallowed your emotions. “I’m... I know it was awful and I should have fought more to not do that, but...” 

       He finally looked back at you. “So,uh... how much of that was real, then?” 

       You opened your mouth to answer, only to stop for a moment, looking away. “I... I don’t really know,” you said, voice cracking and giving you away entirely. “Shit.” 

       “I mean-” He said, “you were - it was weird, [y/n]. One minute you’d be one way, and then... you were, y’know, you. It was like things never changed.” 

       That hit you hard. “Michael?” You choked out his name, before continuing, “please don’t tell Jeremy.”

       “What?” He stared at you, “[y/n], he deserves to know-”

       “No! I mean - he does,” you clarified, “I just - I need to tell him this myself.” 

       He bit his tongue for a moment. “I, uh, I think I’m gonna have to tell him some things before he loses his shit, [y/n]. He was fuckin’ freaked when the ambulance drove off.” 

       After a moment of stunned quiet, you mustered up a quick nod. “Right. Just - don’t tell him everything, alright?”

       The conversation had died there. After a few more minutes of silence, Michael stood and made his way to leave - rattling off the usual “get well soon” message that you expected.

       “Michael?” You called out, and he stopped. “Thank you for coming to see me. I... I appreciate it.” 

       His smile had faded, and he nodded a little. “Yeah...” He looked back at you, and he looked so soft and genuine that time. “Later, [y/n].”

       The next day, Jeremy was shoved into your room without much of a chance to gather his bearings. True to his word, Michael had explained a few things while leaving Jeremy pretty in the dark on what had happened. The hardest thing was looking at Jeremy and telling him the rest of your story. That you had wasted six hundred dollars on a stupid, shitty pill that you thought would help you. A pill that you thought would help you essentially get Jeremy to reciprocate the feelings that you bit back and hid underneath everything. You lied through your teeth that you had just wanted him and Michael back. You couldn’t just... admit that you had a crush on him, could you?

       He reached out and laid a hand on your own. “Michael told me.” 

       Shit. Fuck. Nope. You nearly hit the button for a nurse in that moment to try and see if you could get him out. What the fuck, Michael? “He told you...?”

       “Look,” he said, “I’m flattered, [y/n], I just... I like someone else. I mean, you’re - you’re cool and all, but-” 

       “I get it, Jeremy.” You said. “I... I understand.” You paused for a moment, “but... I did miss you and Michael, y’know.”

       “Why’d we stop hanging out?” Jeremy asked.

       Something inside of you hurt at that question. “I don’t know.” And that was true, to say the least. You had your suspicions, sure, but at the end of the day, the why rested without an answer. 

       He stared at you. “Wait...” He trailed off, before looking away. “Oh.” His voice dropped to a whisper, “shit.” He looked back at you, “hey, uh, I’m - I’m sorry for dropping you like that- I just-” 

       “I get it.” Which was sort-of the truth, at least. “You don’t have to apologize, Jeremy.”

       “... Okay,” he said after a moment, “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in school,” he stood, “feel better soon-” 

       And then he was gone.

       Three months later, and you were still haunted by a voice in your head every so often. You started therapy shortly after you were released from the hospital, the mystery of what happened to you remaining as such. You started medication soon after, your depression having grown worse post-SQUIP (and your father had been glad for you getting help, since he’d admitted it hurt him to watch you suffer for so long while being unsure of what to actually do to help you). You attended group therapy outside of Metuchen.

       You had Rich. Rich, who picked you up on Thursday nights to drive you to group and back again. Rich, who knew how you felt and hid his guilt for pulling you into this shitty world of trauma and pain that’d haunt you for who knows how long. Rich, who slung his arm around your waist casually when the two of you were hanging out and was touchy with you in a way that made you feel safe and secure. You had Rich at your side, the friend that you honestly had never expected to have but were glad for at the end of the day. While you wished he didn’t feel the pain that you did, it was almost... nice to know that someone else understood.

       At two in the morning, one mid-February day, he called you.

       “Another nightmare?”

       “Yeah... you?”

       “Yeah.” A pause. “You wanna talk about it?”

       “Yep,” he dragged the word out. “Uh - do you...?”

       “You go first, Rich.”

      His phone must have been on speaker, because you heard the sound of him shifting in bed - blanket swooshing as he probably turned over onto his side. “Same old shit.” He began, “I, uh, was in Jake’s house, and... it was on fire. My, uh... It was there.” He paused for a moment, “y’know. Saying the same shit.” You didn’t have to see Rich to know he was touching his neck, fingers running along the scars there. “What about you?”

      Your phone was lying beside your head. Shutting your eyes, you took a breath before exhaling slowly. “It was, uh, actually... good for once. I mean - it started good. I was... I was with Jeremy. I... think we were dating? I don’t know - we were holding hands and I had let go and walked ahead only to notice he was standing still, and - it... it’s weird, Rich, but - I swear there was some kind of stupid circuit pattern that, like, trailed down his neck - and... and his smile, Rich-” You paused, taking a shaky breath, “and then I heard it.” Another long pause. “Then I woke up.”

      You heard Rich suck in a breath. For the longest time, there was silence on the other end. Despite not hearing any chimes to indicate it, you thought that maybe he had hung up. But then he spoke, voice quiet and broken, “why did you say yes?”

      “What?”

      “To - to buying it, [y/n].”

      You stared up at your ceiling. Soon enough, you kicked off your blankets as you grew too hot for comfort, shifting against to try and find some sort of comfortable position. “You sold it pretty well, I guess.” You started, before biting your lip for a moment, “I thought it could help me.”

      “... With?”

      You changed the topic. “Why’d you take it?”

      No response.

      “Rich?”

      “Gretch is gonna fucking suck tomorrow.” 

      “... Yeah.”

      “You wanna skip?”

      No, you wanted to say. But you shrugged. “Yeah. Where are we doing?”

      “Fuck, I don’t know - Wawa?”

      “Sure.”

      Rich’s truck was like a second home to you, between the times the two of you skipped classes and every drive to and from therapy. The two of you skipped class too often - sometimes morning classes, sometimes afternoon, it always depended on how the two of you were doing. Sometimes you’d sit in the Wawa parking lot, eating breakfast or lunch, enjoying the rebellious freedom that came with skipping class. The guilt would stay in the backseat, a constant reminder of your fuck-ups, but... you were glad to have a moment to breathe.

      Rich’s hand found yours that morning. He squeezed it. For a minute, there were just two broken teens sitting together, holding hands, trying to feel less broken together. 

         Over a week later, you texted Rich after hearing it - or, at least, you thought you did. He told you to call Michael - closer to you, and carrier of the Mountain Dew Red at you and Rich’s mutual request. Your finger lingered over Michael’s contact information when a thought struck you, hard and heavy. Why call him? Why not let it come back and fix what it had done? You felt broken enough - how much more damage could it do to you? Besides... now you knew how to take care of it. Maybe that knowledge would be enough to help you gain some sort of control over it.

        An hour later, Rich texted you saying Michael hadn’t heard from you. Another hour passed. He told you he was coming over. You couldn’t respond, staring at your phone blankly as tears began to well up. Thirty minutes later, rocks hit your window. Five minutes later, Rich was sitting on the end of your bed as you curled back up, the bottle sitting on the bed between the two of you. He looked tired, running a hand nervously through his hair as he didn’t meet your eyes.

        “I know.” He said, breaking the silence. “Just - don’t fucking do it, okay?”

        You broke your gaze away from the bottle. “What?”

        “I... I’ve thought about it too,” he said, quieter this time. “But... I think...” He paused, “it’s just a bad idea, alright?”

        “It can’t-”

        “It can.” He stressed, before grabbing the bottle with one hand and your hand in the other. He pressed the bottle into your hand, curling your fingers around it in a cliche action. “Just - fucking drink it, [y/n]. I’m tired.”

        “You can stay here tonight.”

        “Nah,” he stood. “I... need to get home soon. Just... drink it, alright?”

        He didn’t leave you until you finally obliged.

        The chill in the air that came with early March was no match for the chill you felt whenever you were around Michael. But Michael had the soda, and Rich lived farther away from you, so he became your lifeline whenever you felt the prickly feeling that came with every nightmare of it and he, thankfully without much complaint, would show up on your front lawn. You sat next to him in silence, an half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew Red sitting in your lap as Michael quietly looked up at the stars. The feeling in your stomach almost seemed to weigh you down, keeping you in place until Michael decided he’d had enough, until he gave up on sitting with you.

        But he didn’t. He just sat there in silence, wearing his signature red hoodie in an attempt to keep himself warm. His breath colored the air with a puff of white as he exhaled. It was too cold for this shit, and yet... he sat with you. 

        “What was it like?” He began at one point, slowly looking over to you. “Y’know... the...” He paused, before tapping his temple, as if you hadn’t understood before. But you understood the why there. 

        “Like I was a puppet,” you said, echoing back something you’d said before in therapy. Almost completely subconsciously, you tugged at your sleeve. “I... I could disobey, but... it would get mad, and - and I didn’t like that, so I just... I did what it told me to. Sometimes, it would...” The ghost of a shock silenced you, and your breath hitched for a second as you try to regain some control over yourself.

        When Michael’s hand landed on your forearm, you flinched immediately. But before he could fully tear his hand away from you (having only just pulled it away slightly), you immediately shifted closer to him. Almost as if he understood, he opened himself to you, and - after hesitating for too many moments - you nearly collapsed into his arms, wrapping your own around his torso and burying your face in his neck. At first you had just wanted the comfort. The warmth of another person. But your breath went shaky, and before Michael could say or do anything else, he heard you choke back a sob before you clutched at the fabric of his hoodie. Every soft, broken apology sent pain rippling through him. He’d been so pissed with you before, and now...

       Now it was as if Michael was a child again, having seen the aftermath of hurricanes through Florida on the news. Or like the car accident he once witnessed, only staring before one of his moms tore him away from the sight, picking him up with ease and keeping his face turned away. He understood, all within that moment. He knew you were hurting, and in turn, he felt that pain too. He had hurt. He was in so much damn pain when he found out you’d originally just been using him, and now... he understood that maybe (or, perhaps, definitely, but a definite wasn’t quite there yet in his book) nothing had been your idea. Part of him wanted to look away from you, to give you some kind of privacy, and yet... you clung to him. You kept your face buried in his neck, hot tears wetting his skin, and you shook in his arms as you kept stammering out apology after apology for things that did and didn’t involve him. 

       That was when Michael decided that forgiveness was back on the table. Neither of you were ready to have that talk, but... the fact of the matter was that he let that option exist again. Every glimpse of you that had come flooding back to him when he visited you in the hospital seemed to haunt his memory once more. The real you. The you he hadn’t seen in so long. And, if he were honest, the you that he genuinely had begun to miss when your presence disappeared all that time ago.

       He was ready to try again, if you were there to meet him halfway.

       The following Wednesday came with a disgusting feeling of dread the moment that thunder clapped during your last class. You’d left your umbrella at home - clear skies, your weather app had lied - and chances were you were going to miss your bus when meeting with the guidance counselor quickly after school (because, of course, shit never worked out in your favor). So you clenched your jaw and pulled your bag close to you, taking off as the rain pounded against the pavement. You almost slipped, you could barely see through the rain, and you were already soaked to the bone by the time you were a fourth of the way home. When you heard a car coming down the street, you thought nothing of it until it slowed down, pulling over towards the side of the road and steadily crawling alongside you.

       Well, fuck, if you were about to die, at least you wouldn’t deal with-

       The car honked. When you turned, you immediately recognized the P.T. Cruiser and the two boys inside of it. Immediately, the passenger side window rolled down. “Get in, loser, we’re going shopping-” 

       “Michael-” You started to say, only to stop as you weigh your options. Get in the car and face Michael and Jeremy - or keep waking home in the rain. You barely even considered the latter as you pulled open the back door, throwing your bag in and immediately slipping into the warm car.

       The backseat was comfortable. It had always been comfortable, actually - that much was certain. Even when you were shivering endlessly, sopping-wet backpack lying in the floorboard between your legs as you rub your arms in some attempt to get warm, you felt strangely at home sitting in the back of Michael’s car. The sticker was still on the head-rest of the driver’s side. Jeremy kept looking back at you every so often as Michael made his way towards your house. The moment he turned onto your street, you went for your keys.

       And, of fucking course, you must have forgotten them that morning. So you ended up in Michael’s house, sitting on his bed in some of his spare clothes while your clothes are being oh-so-lovingly laundered by the ever-so-gracious Michael Mell. You toyed with the fabric of tee-shirt you were wearing, some indie band logo printed across the chest - something that felt so Michael, when you thought about it. Of course he’d have some obscure merch. You sat there with one of your class binders in your lap, working on homework when you finally get to geometry. As if to make the day even worse, you realized you were missing your calculator.

       “Shit,” you said, “fuck-” You looked up to Michael and Jeremy, “can I, uh, borrow a calculator? I think I left mine at school-”

       Jeremy stared at you for a split second before immediately going for his own bag. He stammered through a sentence, before he finally pulled out a familiar purple case and held it out to you. “I, uh, was going to give it to you tomorrow - I meant to give it back earlier but I, uh, forgot-”

       You took it gingerly from him, before kind-of smiling in return. “It’s fine,” you said, “thank you-” and then you cut yourself off with a sneeze, your arm flying to cover your mouth. 

       Michael chuckled a little as he laid back, stretching himself along the foot of his bed. “If you needed a ride, you should have just asked, ya goof,” he smiled at you.

       You nudged him with your foot. “Come on, Mell,” you said, “I thought I’d be fine.”

       “You’re lucky Jeremy saw you, y’know,” he said, “I didn’t notice you crossing the street earlier, so...”

       Jeremy flushed at the comment. Your gaze flickered from him back to Michael, “I thought you were driving, Michael.”

       “I was!” 

       “Aren’t you supposed to pay attention?”

       “I was!” He said again, sitting up, “you weren’t even crossing in front of me!” 

       “Thank god for that,” you said.

       “Wh- I wouldn’t hit you!”

       “That’s what they all say, Michael.” You smiled a little, “no, dude, I totally wouldn’t kill my wife, who would do that? Not me. I wouldn’t kill my wife-”

       “[y/n]!” Michael poked you in the leg, “come on - I don’t think I’d be that obvious-”

       “Are you seriously trying to say you’d be able to get away with that?” You said, only to notice how silent Jeremy had gone. When you looked back to him, you noticed that he had just sat there, watching you and Michael playfully bicker over his totally not real plans to murder someone. When your eyes meet his, he blinked, awkwardly smiling as he looked away and towards his phone. You barely get a glimpse of the time before you realized that your parents should be home.

       So Michael drove you (and Jeremy) home at long last, leaving you to thank him a thousand times on the way there and as you got out of the car. You barely had time to wave back at him before you crossed your front lawn to get to shelter, rain pelting you the entire time as you head inside with plans to tackle your homework.

       The next morning, you felt like shit. At three in the morning, you woke up with the grossest feeling taking hold of you and forcing you out of bed and to the bathroom. With a disgusting taste left in your mouth, you sank back, your senses completely muffled as you realized what had happened. Fever. Fuck. You pressed your back against the rim of the bathtub, and you breathed. Shit. Shit shit shit shit- you didn’t need to get sick. You skipped enough class as it was - this was only going to make shit worse.

       You didn’t realize you passed out shortly after until your dad stumbled across you. He woke you up gently, before helping you to your feet and helping your sluggish form back to your bedroom after pressing a cold hand against your forehead. Shaking his head, he walked you to your bed, leaving the room and returning with a cup of water to leave on your nightstand. He told you that he would be at work, but that your mom would drop by during her lunch break to check on you and hopefully bring some medicine. You barely processed it before you fell back asleep.

      The next time you woke up was around lunchtime. You still felt hazy and hot with fever, but the sound of your phone going off was enough to capture your attention. Michael. He had asked where you were, and you barely have enough energy to type out what you thought was just a simple “fever” - thankfully, auto-correct caught you - before you turned back over with the intent of going back to sleep. Barely ten minutes pass before your mom came in with a plastic bag in her hands, rattling off the contents of it before she felt your forehead. She told you to get some more rest. You happily obliged. 

      The next day, after a night of bland soup and forcing down your meds with ice cold water, you see a newly formed group chat with you, Michael, and Jeremy, poised proudly at the top of your messages. 

Michael: u guys need anything or

      You stared at the message. You guys? You barely have time to try and question it further when a text bubble popped up.

Jeremy: i’m good

You: what

You: you ok, jer?

Jeremy: no im sick

You: what

You: how???

Jeremy: you

Michael: jeremys being a little bitch

Michael: hes always like this when he’s sick

Michael: you need anything, [y/n]??

You: idk some good soup would be rad

You: my dad brought some gross shit last night and it sucked

You: parents got medicine. 

You: send me love.

You: and tissues

Jeremy: please let me sleep

You: sorry jer

Michael: kk

      Later that afternoon, the doorbell rang. You forced yourself out of bed, managing to get the front door open only to see a little plastic bag sitting right outside of it. You looked up to see Michael standing outside of his car, and you could only assume that he rushed back to his car to avoid exposure. He waved at you, only budging from his spot when you wave back at him. 

      Bless Michael Mell and the soup he brought you. You’d have to thank his mom. Or maybe both of them - they were both goddesses in your eyes. You only knew that Michael couldn’t cook for shit. 

      At midnight, you woke up again, a dull hunger restless in your stomach. You had left some soup for later, and you were fully ready to heat the rest of it up and devour it. You shoved the Tupperware bowl into the microwave, punching in a number before you swayed into the counter, leaning against it to keep yourself standing as the microwave buzzed. Strangely enough... it almost felt internal after a minute.

      Then you heard it. Your own name being cooed in a voice that sent shivers and a ghost of a shock through you. Glitching in and out. You panicked. You bolted, dashing to your room to find your phone. Your hands were shaking as you went to unlock it, fucking it up the first two times before finally getting it the last. You didn’t think. You went for the first number you saw. 

       The moment someone picked up,  you spoke. “Michael,” you said, voice caught in your throat, “shit - dude- it’s - it’s back-” You took a breath, trying to calm yourself before continuing, “just - I need the Mountain Dew Red. Please-”

      You heard a distant, groggy “...what?” on the other hand as a hand fell over your own, causing you to slowly lower the phone as it appeared before you.

      It stood tall as ever, eyes gentle, manipulating your senses as you swore you felt warmth from it’s hand over your’s. “We can fix this.” It said, voice quiet. Soft. Gentle. “We can start over and make everything right.” 

      “I...” You whimpered, attempting to take a step back. Instinctively, you dropped your phone and shut your eyes and covered your ears in an attempt to drown everything out. “No.” The word spilled past your lips once, twice, too many times as tears rolled down your cheeks.

      Fingers grazed your cheek almost lovingly. “Just let me fix this, [y/n].” It said softly, almost kind, and you felt your stomach drop. “You can reboot me - just - another dose of regular Mountain Dew-”

      “No,” you shook your head, “I’m - you’d-”       

      “I’ll fix this. I promise-”

      The sound of frantic knocking at your front door was enough to force you to your feet as you rushed to answer before anyone else could wake up. “Michael-”

      Jeremy stood there, soaking wet and panting like crazy as he clutched a bottle of salvation within his right hand. He straightened up a bit, holding it out to you. “Sorry - Michael, uh, gave me a few bottles as back-up so I ran-” He said. 

      He shut up the moment you flung your arms around him, burying your face in his chest, completely ignoring the soda he carried in favor of comfort. Just for a second. That’s all you had needed. He stiffened up underneath you as you clung to him, only for you to pull away almost immediately after.

      After you took the bottle and unscrewed the cap, downing the drink with nothing with a minor headache following in it’s wake, Jeremy could only stare at you. “You... You really heard it, huh?”

      You winced, breath hitching as you swayed slightly. Jeremy’s hands found your shoulders, steadying you as you looked back up at him. “I-” You started, only to stop immediately, “thank you- I’m- I’m sorry you had to run here.” You paused, “I... didn’t know it was raining, or I wouldn’t have-”

      “It’s fine,” he said, letting go of you as he took a small step back. “I’m - I’m gonna head back home-”

      Thunder clapped. Lightning flashed in the distance. You reached out and caught him by the wrist, “stay here.” You said, “it’s - it’s late, and... and I don’t want you walking home in the rain.”

      He almost debated with you, but another growl of thunder was enough to debunk whatever argument he was formulating as he followed you inside. You locked your front door back, retreated back to your room to find some clean clothes that would hopefully fit him (thank fuck for all your baggy shit, still hidden away in your closet), and handed him a towel. The microwave chirped for what you could assume was the thousandth time, and you rushed to stop it - only to have to punch in more time. You could hear the shower running from the room over. The hum of the microwave, the smell of spices tinting the air... and you felt alive. You were there. Breathing. Heart pumping. Mind... going, at least - even if there were moments of betrayal there. You were still there, and it was strange to think about that sometimes.

      The water shut off abruptly, and you pulled yourself from your thoughts as you stopped the microwave just a second before it was meant to go off. As you seated yourself at the kitchen table, Jeremy emerged and made his way over to you. He pulled out the chair nearest to you, and slowly sank into it.

      “You feeling better?” You asked, looking up at him.       

      “I, uh, I should be asking you that.” 

      “You were sick too, Jeremy,” you said, “why’d you run here?”

      “You sounded scared,” he shrugged, “besides - I’m better-” Immediately he was cut off by a cacophony of coughs, as he turned away from you. “I’m fine. What about-” He finally looked back at you, still embarrassed of the shades of red he’d turned, “what about you?”

      You suppressed a smile. “I’m... decent.” You shrugged, “I’ve... never really seen it before tonight.” 

      “You haven’t?”

      “Nope.” You paused, “I dunno. Maybe being sick like... weakened me or something.” After another pause, you noticed Jeremy shiver. “You can take my room, Jer. It’s warmer - I’ll just - I’ll take the couch-”

     “It’s fine, [y/n] - I’ll just - I’ll sleep on the floor-”

     “You are not sleeping on the floor, Jeremiah,” you feigned offense, “you are a guest! You’ll take my room and I’ll sleep on the floor-”

     “You’re still sick too, y’know,” he retorted, “just - I’ll take one side of the bed if you want-”

     “Fine.” You frowned as you stood, “if you insist.” 

     After leaving the bowl in the sink, filled with water in the classic “it has to soak” manner, you lead Jeremy to your bedroom. You snagged your phone from the floor, plugging it back into charge as you took one side of your bed - making sure to stay as close to the edge as possible while Jeremy took the other. The room was almost silent, the sound of Jeremy breathing quiet enough to merely tint the air.

     Right as you started to fall asleep, you turned onto your back. “Jeremy?” You said, stifled by a yawn. When he hummed in acknowledgement, you continued, “thanks for coming here.”

     You barely caught his soft, almost hesitant “yeah, uh, no problem” as you fell asleep.

[naromoreau]

(sorry if i sent this twice) can you pls write a sharky/reader fic where reader isn’t the deputy but just some college student visiting hope county, and she really likes sharky but he turns her down because she’s just too young for him?

Thank you very much for sending his in and I hope it’s not too late, so here it is! Big thanks to @fluttyseed for giving it a read

Pairing: Sharky Boshaw & Reader (Not Deputy), side Sharky Boshaw / GN Deputy.

Raiting: SFW, just a lot of unrequited feelings :((( and Sharky being all sweet about them. 

"Hop in, chica,gotta take you to this place that's like--like a strategic location for whatyou doin'."

The midday sun'sglare scorched your skin, making you squint and drag an arm across yourforehead to dry the fat drops of sweat sitting there. The air bristled witharomas, the surrounding fields giving off a hint of freshly mowed barley, thatnow mingled with a light note of propane and a touch of musk coming from him.It was intoxicating. 

You haphazardly threwyourself on the passenger seat, cheeks bright red and throat in dire need of agulp of water. 

"Where we going,Sharky?" There was a slight waver in your voice as you rifled in yourbackpack trying to count the vials to take water samples. You couldn't help butbite your lip at how much his proximity kept affecting you, how every time heflashed you that smile, the one that lingered in his eyes, quicksilver poolsglowing with a warmth, your heart fluttered wildly. Hopelessly. 

"There's a--uh,a lake I think you should check." He cranked the engine, and steered hissight on the highway. 

As someone whocould've got lost in her own home town, you were beyond grateful to Mary May tohave sent you to his metaphorical - until now - arms. He knew the ins and outsof trudging across wild Montana, as if he was just walking across his livingroom. Truth was you'd been worried when you realized your project about lakes'pollution needed a bigger sample than the one you already had, and needed toget them before the current semester at college finished. 

It was a good twentyminute ride until finally Sharky slowed down, and the truck stopped near the bankof a pristine lake, tires grating over fine gravel. 

"'Mkay now, youwant me to get them for ya?" He was already peeling off his hoodie, andshucking his jeans off with an enthusiasm that was utterly infectious. 

He'd offered himselffor the task from day one, trying to alleviate any hard labor from yourshoulders, claiming it was a good opportunity to freshen up in the ungodlyheat. You squinted under the heavy brilliance, admiring not for the first timethe multicolor landscape of this side of the County. 

"Sure," yousaid kneeling to take the vials out of your backpack, handing them to him,"just try not to collect too much mud this time, please?"

"Don't worry,amigo, I think I got the nuts and bolts of this shit." 

You watched him enterthe lake in nothing but his boxers, your eyes taking in the sight of him,putting to good use the fact he was obviously focused in doing what you askedfor. The first time he'd taken his clothes off, your eyes had widened of theirown accord, sliding down the lean muscles of his back and chest, and you'dthanked your luck he wasn't paying attention because your face had gone throughseveral shades of red before it stuck in a soft pink that you were able to maskas just exertion. 

He was so easy totalk to and funny to a point you couldn't keep a straight face every time hewas determined to make you smile. Which was often, not that you werecomplaining. And so, falling down that rabbit hole had been unexpected andinevitable, and now you were head over heels with his scrawny ass. 

Everything would'vebeen easier if he wasn't so damn handsome, and you could've just shaken off theinconvenient crush. But when he turned and faced you, smiling as he shook oneof the newly filled vials, and your gaze slid down his abs following his happytrail, you knew you were sunk down in a pit too deep. 

The sad part was thathe didn't seem to notice what he stirred in you, treating you like a friend andnothing more. Not that you haven't tried to move him to act, a little touchhere, and a hand lingering there, but a whole month and you were still empty handed. 

A sudden sloshing ofwater brought you back to reality seeing him proudly showing you hiswork. 

"Got everythingyou needed, chica." 

You tried not to givea wide display of your throat, when you felt your jaw unhinge seeing himcloser, water beads lazily rolling down his body and stopping in the mostinconvenient places. 

"Thanks, Sharkman." 

Taking the preciouscargo of his hands, you focused on the task of putting them neatly away whilehe decided to sprawl next to you, like a taunt to your senses. 

"Now I kindaneed to dry my underwear, cuz I lost the spare ones," he said stretchingon the yellow grass, skin glimmering under golden rays. "What you wanna donow? Any more uh, places you gotta look at?" 

"Notreally," you replied, "but we could go and grab a cold one at theSpread Eagle if you want?" You shrugged trying to feign nonchalance butyour heart was hammering against your ribcage, its rhythm drumming in your earsas well. 

"Gotta say Ilike how you think." He switched onto his belly, exposing his black-cladrear to the shining sun, "not gonna lie to you, chica, I uh, I alwaysthought college girls were all-all uptight and y'know, not nice, but you ain'tlike that."

A soft chuckleescaped you. "Well, thanks, man. You ain't that bad either." Therewas a quiver in your stomach at the downplay of your own feelings, regrettingthe shyness that prevent you to chase some other course of action, becauseyou'd be gone in less than a day, and all this would scatter into fond memories.You sighed. "So it's that a yes?" 

"Fuck yeah,count me in," Sharky nodded, "just wait 'til I don't feel like Ipissed myself and we're good to go." 

The almost faintnotes of a Diana Ross' song blasting from the car, wafted in the air, tanglingwith the stifling atmosphere, and everything was making you dizzy. You foughtthe urge to touch him, maybe brush two inches of his skin and finally find thecourage to voice the feeling you had been trying to disregard for the lastmonth. 

"Y'know, chica?I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna miss ya," he said covering his face with his capunder the blazing sun. "Had a good time doing all that science shit--- gofigure, a dumb dropout like me."

"You are notdumb, Sharky," you scolded him. It was something that ground your gears tono end, seeing how easily was for people disregard how smart he really was,throwing the same argument over and over again: dumb failure, you ain't morethan a school dropout. "If it wasn't for you I would've failed big time solet's just say this is also yours."

His chuckle rang inyour ears from beneath his cap, until he finally leaned on his elbows andlooked at you. "You're a real friend dude," he said, grinning. 

The weight of hiswords sagged your shoulders a little and you lowered your eyes to the gravelsurrounding the blue lake. Not something you wanted to keep on dwelling. 

"Aight,then." You stood up with a brisk movement, before the blushing had time tocreep up your cheeks. "Let's go get that beer."

----------

"... and lastthing I knew I was smooching it right in the fuckin nose, open mouth andall."

A gurgle of laughterrippled out of you, while images of his story flitted through your mind. An hourhad passed in the most perfect way, while you both shared stories over beers.But nothing had peaked this one yet. 

"Yeah, yeah,laugh all you want, dude-- I'm tellin' ya, that skunk? Meaniest dink ass I'dever--" 

"Kissed?"You offered, feeling tears welling up in your eyes. "I'm sorry-- I'msorry, that was rude." 

"Bet your ass itwas," he said, without stop grinning, taking a swig from his bottle."Don't expect my dates to almost rip my lips off, which it did--motherfucker left a huge scar here, see?" 

When Sharky leanedforward, your heart shivered in your chest, and you regretted you both weresitting side to side, without the table in between to dampen your stupidreactions. 

He stopped a scantinch from your face, pouting, his lower lip on display so you could see a faintscar on it. It must've been the alcohol, and the fact it was round number fourand your stomach was as empty as a wallet before payday, and suddenly it wasimpossible to quash down your leaping heart, his closeness rattling the sundryfeelings revolting in you. 

You pressed your lipsagainst his, hearing a surprised gasp dying in your mouth. It was soft and warmand your hands fell to his thighs, supporting you in your eagerness. 

But as soon as thecomfort of the yearned place came, it swiftly vanished. 

"Woah, woah,there," Sharky panted, clasping you gently by the shoulders, lips red andbreath stuttered, "what you doing, amigo?" 

There was no anger inhis voice, just the soft frowning of bafflement, metal-grey gaze delving intoyou, deep enough to break your flimsy hopes. 

"I'm--I'm sorry,Shark, I don't know what happened to me I just---" You tried not to showhim any tears, but it was harder than you thought. One drop, and then another,streaks ran down your cheeks, completely out of your control and the desire tojust bolt and run into the night churned in your stomach. 

"Hey, hey, easythere," he said, signaling someone for a glass of water and hugging you ina way that made everything more painful. But you couldn't push him away.

When the glass ofwater came, he made you drink it in three short gulps, until your intake of airevened out. 

"Hey, chica, I'msuper flattered y'know?" He cupped your cheek, lightly thumbing the rim ofyour jaw while you struggled not to run away fueled by embarrassment."Like, you're real cute, ok? And so fuckin' smart, but I mean, you're waytoo young--" 

"I just turned20, I know what I want," you retaliated. 

Sharky only chuckled,tilting his head back. "'Kay then, big you, still-- you got all that longass life to live and probably gonna end up with someone who's far better thanme-- I mean I'm pretty great, don't get me wrong," he said, and you huffeda short and hoarse laugh, "but y'know-- cherry, I ain't enough forya."

You were about totell him how wrong he was, how misdirected his guessings were, when you caughtmovement in your peripheral vision. It was one of Sheriff's Whitehorsedeputies. The newest one if your memory didn't fail you. 

"Everything good'round here?" They placed a hand on Sharky’s shoulder, and you saw himpositively turn beet red under his cap. Your eyes were drawn to their face,white flashing through plump lips in an honest smile.

"Yeah, officer,uh-just, uh, just saying goodbye to a friend," Sharky said stumbling uponwords on a higher rate than normal. 

"Ah, well, sorryto interrupt, then." They gave a slight nod, dimples coming to life on awarm face, and they were gone, boots tapping against the wooden floor. 

You saw Sharkyfollowing them with starved sight, eyes almost swaying with the cadence oftheir walking and a hard knot formed in your stomach. 

It was clear as day.After all, you'd seen his whole shenanigans for a month, time long enough soyou could realize he had a crush, the size of a wild moose, on the JuniorDeputy. 

Not much you coulddo, as much as it hurt. 

You found your voiceamidst the inner turbulence. "Y'know man? You should pursue that,"you said with an almost complicit smile, wiping your tears. 

Watching Sharkyambushed by feelings was a whole show. "What? Nah, you got it wrong,sweets- I mean they're a fucking cop, we're like natural enemies--" 

You scoffed."Sure, man, whatever helps you sleep at night, still," you added,"they're really cute." 

"The fuck you'retalking about, chica?" 

"Oh, c'mon,don't be such a liar."

He remained silent fora few seconds before finally springing up, giving you a hand. 

"You reallythink so?" He almost whispered. 

Your illusions anddesires scattered in the air. But he was your friend, and if that was the bondthat should remain, you were determined to honor it. 

"Yeah, man. Whoknows? Maybe that's your destiny right there."

[rami-hoe]

The Soldier and the Nurse

Part three

Pairing: Snafu x oc

Word Count: 1.1k 

TW: war, injury

Two and a half months. It took me two and a half months to get back on my feet, but it went by in the blink of an eye. I got my papers way too soon- my body may have been ready but my mind sure as hell wasn’t. But that wasn’t something you could just come out and say. I was a Marine; I was supposed to want to get right back up there and start fighting for my country again. It wasn’t that I’d lost my pride in the cause. We were still fighting for the right reasons, and we needed all the men we could get out there, but I could admit to myself that I wasn’t ready to be one of them again. I just needed a little more time here. Another week and I’d be fine. Another week and I’d be ready to pick up my mortar and get back out there.

“Another week wouldn’t make any difference.” I blinked in surprise. Madeline was usually such a positive person. She sat on the bed next to mine, facing me. She leaned across the gap to take my hand. “Merriell, you’re not feeling this way because you don’t want to go back right now,” she said. “You’re feeling this way because you don’t want to go back at all.”

I straightened my back and pulled away from her. “What the hell is that s’pose to mean?”

“You’ve seen what’s out there,” she said. “It’s easy to want to go and fight and be a patriot when you don’t know how bad it is, when it’s all songs and glory and fabulous parties when it’s all over. But if you’ve actually come face to face with the reality?” She hopped over to my bed and sat beside me. “It’s a little more difficult then.” Her hand moved up to my shoulder. “You’re not supposed to want to go to war, Mer. Not if you know what war really is,” she said.

I focused on where the bed frame had scratched the floor as I mulled over what Madeline had said. She made a good point. When I first enlisted, the only thing I knew about war was what I had seen on the posters. The brave patriotic soldier marching off to defend freedom, that was what I thought it would be. I knew better now. I’d seen the dirt and the mud. I’d had friends die right next to me and I’d gone to sleep in bloodstained clothes. I’d killed, and I’d killed without feeling a goddamn thing. That was what war was. It brought out the worst in each of us, turned us into something other than human.

“Exactly.” I hadn’t realized I had been talking out loud until Madeline replied. “Now that you know that, you can’t go back to being that naive boy who was excited to get a gun in his hands,” she said.

“I know.” I snorted. “I wish I could be that stupid again.”

Madeline laughed and rested her head on my shoulder. “Be glad you’re not,” she said. “Being that stupid would get you killed.”

“I don’t wanna die out there,” I said. I’d never said it out loud before. I never thought I would, but there it was, out in the open. It lingered in the air, and for a moment I was terrified of what it might do out there. But then she smiled.

“You’re not gonna die, Mer,” she said. “You’re gonna go back out there and help them win the war, and then you’re gonna come find me and get your victory kiss.”

“I gotta win a war to get a kiss?” I asked.

She grinned. “I promise it’ll be worth it,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

She laughed. “I’m flattered,” she said as she stood up. “I should get back to work.”

The second she started to walk away, it came out. I grabbed her hand and stood up as she turned back to me. “I don’t want a kiss,” I said, pulling her closer. “I want you.”

Her brow furrowed and she chuckled. “Well, I like to think I’d be there to give you that kiss.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I want you. After all this shit is over, I want you. I wanna be with you.” I stepped towards her. “I know this sounds like nurse fever, but that’s not it. Shit… Maddy, you are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, and I don’t want this to end with the war.” Her lips parted, but she gave no sign of her reaction. “I’ve never met anyone half as kind, a quarter as smart, or a fuckin’ fifteenth as beautiful.” She laughed at that. I took it as a good sign. “When I’m with you, I just feel good. I don’t wanna stop feelin’ that way.” The words didn’t sound right, but they were the best I could do. I was never good at finding the right thing to say. “I’ve never felt like this before, and I know a thousand guys have said that but-” She stepped forward and captured my lips in a soft kiss. Her hand slid up my chest to the back of my neck as my arm curled around her waist.

“You shouldn’ta done that,” I said when she pulled away. “Now I don’t got any reason to win.”

She smiled and rested her forehead against mine. “How about this,” she started. “You win the war, and you get to take me back to New Orleans.”

“You wanna come to New Orleans?”

She shrugged. “The French Quarter sounds interesting. I wouldn’t mind you showing me around.” She took a step back and glanced down at my half packed bag. “You should finish packing. Don’t wanna be late for departure.”

“I can stand to be a little late,” I said.

“But I don’t think your CO will agree,” she replied.

“That’s that whole smart thing I mentioned before,” I said.

Her giggle was a beautiful sound, but her smile soon faded into something more somber. “I guess we should say goodbye.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “No goodbye. Just ‘see ya soon.” She squeezed my hand. “Do you speak French, by any chance?” I asked. Her lips pursed and she shook her head. I brushed her hair away from her ear and leaned in to whisper “je t’aime, Madeline.” I pulled back and smiled down at her. “I tell you what it means the next time I see ya.” She reached into her apron and pulled out a small notebook and scribble something down.

“If you can’t find me after you’re discharged, this is my home phone number,” she said as she handed me the paper.

“You promise you’re gon’ answer?” I asked, and she nodded.

“I promise,” she said. “See ya soon, Mer.”

“See ya soon.”

[primal-screamer-blog1]

Mutually Assured Destruction (Playlist Here) Rating: Mature Pairing: Nikki Sixx/F. OC Description: Growing restless in his discontent, Nikki Sixx is plagued with past anxieties that he never could find the courage to confront. He’d seen and done it all but when it came to Ruby Moon, he’d always felt he had unfinished business. Now, years after their tumultuous relationship had seemingly come to an end, Nikki finds himself compulsively recounting memories and asking questions only she would have the answers to. current word count 16,606

Prologue One : Red When I See You Two : Attention, Affection Three : Think About What You Know Four :  Patience A/N: This one took me awhile because honestly, it’s a bit light on Nikki. There’s a lot of exposition here but thankfully this will be the last chapter where that happens. We’re much closer to them being together than it may seem. Surprise feature in here. Hope you enjoy xo  masterlist.

1983 Vince got put on the cover of Kerrang! Magazine. After that, every changed. The boys were hungrier than ever and still, no one would sign them.  They were too new and too much of a risk;  Nikki was lighting himself on fire every night while Mick was slowly locking in place.  But the crowds were becoming too much to handle.  They broke attendance records at clubs all over town and eventually someone called in the fire marshall.  But with no album, they were barred from access to bigger venues - no one was taking them seriously.  So they did it themselves. Nikki locked himself in the studio all summer with Motley Crue. Four long weeks, high on coke and shoved in a tiny recording booth with three other guys for seventeen hours a day, he was feeling tense and tight.  It was up in the mornings with cocaine and down in the afternoon with full handles of whiskey. Managing his stress, and therein his substance intake, became more important than staying fed so he was flat broke too. And then the album came out. People couldn’t buy Too Fast For Love fast enough. By the time the first pressing had run out, they sold out a 3,500 seat arena in San Francisco, a full 378 miles away from L.A. And the record labels took notice.  Elektra sent them on tour to Canada, footing the bill and signing them for the next seven years. The makeup, the stage show, the clothes, Tommy’s sticks spinning in the air; it’d worked. Motley Crue made it. And in the meantime, while Nikki was in and out the studio, up and down on planes and playing shows to thousands of people in another country, Ruby met someone. A few advertising executives from Palo Alto were taking the night off from their business trip in L.A. at the Seventh Veil. They were in L.A. because they’d just closed a massive deal with Calvin Klein and were contracted to run a billboard campaign. They were scouting locations. What they found, were models. Ruby and Roxanne could be seen topless, with their backs turned, fourteen feet high on five major highways in California. The girls were rendered in black and white, tight Calvin Klein jeans hugging their hips. They clutched hands, Roxanne looking down, her blonde hair splayed down her back, Ruby looking over her shoulder and smiling flirtatiously into the camera.   California Girls wear Calvins. For the two weeks following, The Seventh Veil received calls daily asking for Ruby. Plenty of local boys had come in to watch her and Roxanne, to gape at the girls they saw on the billboard, but the same guys started calling at least once a day. And every time her manager asked her if she wanted to take it, she said no. She didn’t want to be a model and so she didn’t want the attention. She wanted to pay the bills and that was the extent of her interest in Calvin Klein. The paycheck was more than she’d seen in her life, but she considered it nothing more than luck.  What she really wanted, one of the only things she cared about really, was to play music. She finally found a guitar player, a tall, skinny boy from Nebraska named Billie. Billie had shaggy black hair and was raised on classical music. He only wore black and when his fingers moved across a fretboard, his hands looked like frantic spiders, jumping and sliding across the guitar. He listened to DeBussy, read Fangoria and exclusively drank black coffee with a double shot of whiskey, no matter the hour. He also insisted that they were the Plastics and never The Plastix ever again.   Ruby introduced Billie to Alex, a teenage Mexican punk with a skunky two toned shag. Alex liked the Circle Jerks, double cheese pizza and banging on drums. He also liked Billie and Ruby. That was about it. They were missing a bass player, but together, they started writing songs in Billie’s basement apartment every day.  Ruby had no intention of losing focus. She was making money and making music. It was everything she had come to Los Angeles to do. So it was really frustrating for her when this guy kept calling. “Ruby, please just take it!” Roxanne begged her after picking up the phone. Roxanne had become paranoid with all the new found attention they were receiving. Ruby may have had her one persistent caller but when the guys came in, they wanted to see Roxanne. They were getting aggressive and it was beginning to stress her out. “Ruby if you don’t answer, he’s never gonna stop. Just take the call so he can leave us all alone.” Roxanne looked like she might quit right then and there if she didn’t. Ruby sighed. “What’s his name even?” “Says his name is Axl.” She raised an eyebrow. “Another fucking rock star?”  Ruby rolled her eyes. She grabbed the phone from Roxanne, who quickly replaced it with a drink and stormed off. “Listen to me, you little creep. I’ve been turning you down for two weeks now. What do you fucking want?” She heard a low, heady laugh on the other end. “How about you turn me down to my fucking face?” She didn’t stand a chance. Axl was gorgeous. He had long red hair, a big, wide mouth and intense, startling green eyes. He showed up in a tight cut off Iron Maiden t shirt, a red bandana tied around his forehead and torn up jeans tucked into heavy army boots with the tongues pulled out. A toothpick hung from his lips. “Your name’s Ruby, right?” “How do you even know that?” She shot at him, her hands on her hips and her mouth fixed in a scowl. A smile spread across Axl’s lips. He let out the same slow laugh she heard on the phone. “You’re even cuter when you’re angry.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “How did you find me, asshole? Only local boys know where we’re at, what’s your deal?” “Your pictures on the fucking 405, sweetheart. You’re not hard to find.” “Alright, great. Look, Axl, right? I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” “There’s a company name on the back of the billboard,” He cut her off. “So I looked it up in the phone book and I called it. The guy on the other end told me he had no fucking clue who you were, but that I could call the ad agency and then he fucking laughed at me and was all like ‘good luck, kid’ as if I’m not standing here right fucking now. Fucking prick. Anyway,” Axl took a breath while he flipped his toothpick around. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care that he was rambling, his voice deep and his cadence slow. It was only hypnotic in that she had to try hard to pay attention.  She found she was more watching him than listening to him, his green eyes shifting about. “So I called the ad agency and they were like ‘that’s Ruby Moon. She’s fucking something, huh?’ I was like god damn right, man. Where the fuck can I find her? And so like, they just gave me your fucking information, which like, totally fucking warped, by the way. Turns out, I been living down the street from here the past six months. Fucking bizarre. So I figured I’d call you up and see if I could come talk to you.” “Yeah…fucking bizarre.” She trailed off, staring at him. He seemed frustrated about something, more than just a little cagey. He stood with his arms across his chest and though he went on in a bit of rigid tone, he looked at her like all he’d done was casually comment on the weather. But recounting his story, something about him seemed almost painfully sweet, if not niave and sentimental. She loosened up a little. “You really did all that?” “Yeah, I mean…you got eyes that knocked me the fuck out.” Finally, he smiled. She had to look away to keep from blushing. She felt embarrassed and flattered. She didn’t know why. She got asked out on dates constantly working at the club, but Axl didn’t seem all that interested in the strip club. He seemed interested in her. "So....what?” She almost stuttered. “Did you like wanna go on a date or something? Is that why you're here?" "Nah, I just had to come see what you were about." She tilted her head at him, confused as to what exactly he was here for. A slow look of realization spread across his face. “Oh, wait, would you go on a date with me?” “That’s not what you came here for?” “No fuckin’ way. You’d go out with me? For real?” She couldn’t turn him down at that point. Axl didn’t take Ruby out to dinner or for drinks like most guys did.  Instead, he bought two 40 ounces of malt liquor from the gas station and took her onto the public transit bus. She agreed to go out with him that night, his fascination with her quickly becoming mutual. It was 2:30 in the morning and she’d just gotten out of work. “You know, I have a car. I could’ve drove.” She told him, pulling a black denim jacket over her cropped tank top. “Get your own date.” He nudged her in the shoulder. “I’m not letting you hijack mine.” Axl told Ruby that he was from Indiana and, like many, moved here to start a band.  He wanted to sing. “My voice is kinda weird, not a lot of people really get what I’m trying to do.” He said. “I’m with these guys right now, Hollywood Rose. I don’t really know how long it’ll last. This guy Izzy is a fucking great guitar player though. I just want it to go somewhere.” She told him about the Plastics and their new direction with their new guitar player. “Kind of punk, kind of glam, but also, kind of not at all.” She explained it. They talked about influences from Kiss and Aerosmith to Velvet Underground and Patti Smith. Axl argued that punk was transgressive. “Devil’s Advocate.” He added. “I love punk rock.” “Transgression is exactly the point, right? Transgress in technology, you can progress in ideology.” She tapped a long finger nail to her temple. He almost laughed at her. “Why the fuck are you a stripper?” “Because I fucking love it, asshole!” “You sound like you went to college.” She laughed. She wasn’t about to tell him her life story. They got off at the last stop. They’d been on the bus for about an hour and the streetlights stopped appearing.  There was only one other person on the bus, a small old woman asleep in the front. Axl and Ruby sat in the back, each of their legs flung over the others and giggling while they traded a bottle back and forth. “Is this where you murder me?” She asked, peering out the window at the desolate road they plugged along, hills rising all around them. “We don’t have to go.” He said, looking concerned. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable or anything.” Ruby pinched her brows together, not used to hearing something like that come out of a guys mouth. For a moment she considered what he meant; she really had no idea who he was or where they were. “I’ll take my chances.” She grinned at him. He smiled back at her and put his hand on her thigh. She let him keep it there. When the bus finally stopped, they were on a wooded road at the last exit before the Hollywood sign. Axl kicked at the dirt under his boots and lit up a cigarette. Ruby looked up and down the road, cracked and covered with potholes. It was hard to see the night sky, tall trees stretching together above them. She could tell they were high up in the Hollywood Hills, the temperature having dropped significantly from when they left the strip. “Where are we?” She asked, joining him and lighting up her own smoke. “Mount Lee.” He exhaled. “C’mon. We’re not too far.” “We’re going hiking?” She asked him, watching him start to lead her down the road. “Not even. There’s a path right up here.” He said, sticking his hand out at her. “C’mon.” She looked at it for a moment, unsure of herself suddenly. “You want me to hold your hand?” “What are you, a robot or something? Yeah, hold my hand.” She thought about it for a moment. All the intimacy she encountered since she’d been in California had only taken place in someone’s bed. In a bathroom stall, up against a wall at a party, all the same; she realized this was the first date she didn’t feel any expectations. She felt that she could just as easily tell Axl no as she could take his hand and walk with him and it wouldn’t matter to him. So she did. His hand was big and warm. She smiled as he led her past a large wooden sign, Trail Marker 13.3 Miles etched into it. They went into the brush and down a small dirt path. She was thankful she changed into her street clothes before leaving work, dreading just the idea of walking around the dirt in heels. “How did you find this spot?” She asked as they weaved through the dark, trees and foliage closing in around them. “I was in a pretty fucked up place when I first got here.” He told her, pulling a branch out of the way and holding it back for her.  “I used to come up here and drink by myself when I didn’t have a place to stay. Just wander around in the dark feeling like a fucking wolf.” “Are wolves nocturnal?” “What?” “Like are they mostly active at night?” “I don’t fucking know. They’re always howling at the moon and shit, right?” “Yeah, I guess so.” “We’re almost there. It’s right up ahead.” The full silver moon above illuminated a small clearing of tall grass and purple wildflowers. Axl walked in ahead of her and sprawled out in the grass. She looked up and took a hesitant step in. There seemed to be a million more stars in the sky than there were in the city, the night a crisp, clean black and white. “C’mere.” Axl called out to her, tipping the bottom of his bottle up at the sky. She stepped all the way out into the clearing and he picked himself up on his elbows. She sat down next him and took the malt liquor, taking a deep swig of her own. “It’s really beautiful up here.” She told him. “You’re really fucking beautiful up here.” He said, staring back at her. She instinctively looked away to hide her smile, feeling on spot under his gaze. “No, c’mon. Lemme see it in person.” He gently placed his big, warm hand on her neck and guided her face back to him. Her smile fell slightly and she blinked up into his eyes. His wide grin came back. “God damn it.” “Why are you being so sweet to me?” “I dunno.” He shrugged and gave her a knowing smirk, keeping his answers to himself. His hand slid from her neck to her back and she pulled in closer to him. “Why are you so surprised?” He asked her. She nuzzled her head into his chest before pressing her lips softly to his throat. “I dunno.” He made a satisfied hum and worked his hand into her hair. He gently tugged it so that she looked up at him. He held her there for a moment and moved the loose strands out of her face.“Why’d you come out with my tonight?” He searched her eyes, the same color green as his. She caught her breath and let out a sound between a whimper and a giggle, feeling on spot. He let his hand fall and trace her collar bone with his thumb. “Give me a break. You know you’re gorgeous. That’s why you wanted to see me in person, right?” “Be for real.” He tried not to smile. She took in a deep sigh and looked down, needing a moment from his concentration. “Honestly?” She began, considering her words. “You seemed exciting.” “Bus ride change your mind?” “No. Not at all. Most guys just wanna go out with me so they can tell their friends they got with a stripper. I still don’t really know what you want.” She pulled his hand up to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. “Axl.” She murmured his name, glancing up at him. They both let their guards down. He pushed his mouth onto hers. She felt a warmth spread in her chest as she breathed in deep, pulling herself onto his lap. She draped her arms down his back, his hands holding onto her hips and grabbing at her thighs as his tongue opened her mouth. Beneath the moonlight, Ruby and Axl kissed and touched and rolled on top of each other until it faded and the sun took its place. In the vibrant orange and pink of daybreak, the crickets making their last calls in the trees, Axl pulled Ruby’s shirt over her head and kissed her breasts. She took off her bra and he took off his pants and a warm breeze rolled over them, until eventually, they were naked in the morning light. He held her tight and pushed deep into her until she squeezed around his whole body; his cock, his waist, his shoulders. Her nails grazed down his back, on top of her until she loosened again. She smiled in his arms and he kissed her forehead and her lips and her shoulders, pulling her jacket around her and laying naked in the sun until they heard a group of hikers falling in in the distance. For the next three weeks, Ruby had Axl in the morning, band practice in the afternoon, work at Seventh Veil at night and would be back in bed with Axl by the end of it all. They showed each other songs the other had written and smoked joints by the pool in her apartment complex. They sang duets in the shower together and sat in awe of the other’s voice. Izzy or Billie would stop by to shoot the shit and play guitar, exchanging ideas for the Plastics and Hollywood Rose. The diner down the street from her house had already taken note of her usual egg white and black coffee. Now when she came in, they had a cheeseburger and a double order of fries ready for Axl. They would eat, smoke and talk into the night until they found themselves tangled up in her bed again until the sun came up again. Until one morning her phone rang. “Ruby! We saw you and Roxie in a magazine in goddamn Canada! What the fuck?” Tommy’s excited voice came over the end. “Tommy?!” She gasped excitedly into the phone. She hadn’t heard from any of the boys in Motley Crue since they left for tour. She kept so busy, she almost didn’t notice they’d been gone for longer than they said they’d be. “I’m so excited to hear from you. Where are you guys?” “We’re in Toronto! We’ve been selling out every night, they had to add extra dates to the tour!” “No fucking way, that’s amazing! Are you loving it?” “I’m having the time of my fucking life, Ruby Red. I hope this tour never ends.” “I fucking hope it does. I need you guys to come back! I miss you all so much.” “I’m always missing you, California Girl. You’re famous now too!” He said, referencing the slogan on her ad. “She’s from fucking New York!” She heard Nikki’s muffled shouting over the phone. “Wow he’s just so supportive.” She said sarcastically. “Ah, you know Nikki. He’ll never be happy.” Tommy laughed. “Hey, fuck you!” She heard Nikki again. “Dude, take the phone.” Tommy rustled around and Nikki muttered something unintelligible to him. “Talk to Ruby, dickweed. Ow! Alright, well whatever. I tried!” “Don’t worry about it, Tommy, he’ll have to talk to me someday.” She joked. “Hey, we’re gonna be back in two days. The label is throwing us a party at Nikki’s new place and you gotta be there! I wanna hear all about how you got in a fucking magazine.” “I got nothing but time for you, T-Bone.” She hung up the phone in the kitchen, pulling her blanket around her naked body. Her bare feet padded across the black tile and into her bedroom where Axl still slept. She leaned against the doorframe and looked at his hair falling down his back, his shoulders gently rising and falling with his heavy breathing. He let out a snore and she giggled quietly before falling back into bed with him. He made a noise in his throat as she laid kisses on his shoulder blade. “Who’s on the phone this early?” He groaned and rolled over, pulling her on top of him, keeping his eyes closed. “My friend Tommy. He’s a drummer. They’re coming back from tour in a few days.” “Fucking lucky.” Axl pulled a pillow over his face. Ruby sat up and ran a finger down his ribs. “Hey Axl?” “Baby.” He sat up, hearing a slight rise in her voice that let him know she had something serious to say. He held back a yawn, trying to rub the sleep from his heavy eyes. She grabbed onto his hand - something she no longer found intimidating. “You mind if I just hang by myself tonight?” He quirked a somewhat spiteful smile at her. “You finally getting tired of me?” “God, no.” She laid a kiss on his shoulder. “I just wanna get some alone time before my friends get back into town.” “You’re just so popular.” He teased her and gave her nipple a hard flick before laying back down. “Get on top of me, popular girl. I wanna feel like a fucking football player.” “Oh my God, fuck off.” She laughed as he pulled her on top of him. He fucked her good and hard before kissing her goodbye. “I’ll call you in a few days. I gotta see Izzy anyway. Says he found this wild guitar player I gotta check out, so we’ll be tracking him down.” Ruby took the night off. The piping hot bath tub simmered as the bubbles grew taller. With a bottle of champagne and the local rock station playing, she slipped in for the night to clear her head. However the radio had other plans. “Ladies and gentlemen, exploding hot on the scene and closing out their first international tour, we have Motley Crue rocking the airwaves tonight with their first hit single, 10 Seconds To Love! Check this one out, listeners and stay tuned for your chance to win a signed copy of the record! Rock n Roll!” She popped the bottle and let the foam run into the tub. She wouldn’t be bothering with a glass. She hadn’t thought about Nikki since they left. She made an effort not to. Things had been strained between the two of them in the weeks before tour. Without seeing much of the other, their last serious conversation didn’t have much resolve. And how could it? She thought. She didn’t know where things were going with Axl. She knew that she really liked him, but she also knew when she told Nikki she didn’t want a boyfriend, she meant it. She drank from her bottle of champagne and submerged beneath the bubbles. She thought about Nikki. She thought about how much she missed him. One late night while the boys were recording, Nikki had shown up on her doorstep unannounced. His head was hurting and his stomach was growling. “I can’t get these fucking songs out of my head.” He sighed in the doorway, soaking wet from the downpour outside. She rushed him in and got him a towel while he dropped his sopping t shirt in a puddle on the floor. “Take a shower.” She told him, holding the towel out at arms length. “You stink.” When he emerged, clean and warm, his hair was wet and laid flat. He shivered in his briefs, joining Ruby where she sat on the couch. She was in a pair of sweatpants and an old high school chorus line t shirt, makeup wiped from her face and her hair pulled back. It was a rare sight for both of them to be seen like this. As he sat down, she got up and rounded into the kitchen. She came back with a heaping plate of leftover spaghetti in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other. “Eat up.” She told him, handing him off the plate. “Sorry for showing up so late.” He said, leaning over and scarfing down the food. “It’s fine.” She said, watching him with concern. “When’s the last time you ate?” “I don’t know.” “Jesus. You gotta take better care of yourself, Sixx.” “I gotta get this fucking record done first.” After a few huge bites, he took the rum from her and washed down his massive helping. He hadn’t realized he was so hungry. He sighed and finally relaxed into the couch. He pulled a wool blanket off the arm and wrapped it around himself. “Your place is so fucking nice.” “Having a job is nice.” “I’m gonna have a place of my own one day.” “Yeah you fucking are.” She grabbed the rum back from him. “This album is gonna blow people’s minds, Nikki. When you see that, you’re not even gonna remember nights like tonight.” He shifted in his place, hiccuping from how quickly he drank and ate. “I want to though.”  He chugged more rum. “Well, you’re definitely not going to at this rate.” He looked up at her and blinked hard, his eyes bloodshot through smudged eyeliner he wasn’t able to wipe off. He groaned. “Ruby, I’m sorry for being such a shit head.” “What ever could you be talking about, Nikki?” She smiled sarcastically at him. “You’re the worst.” “No, please, say it again. I wanna hear a long apology.” “C’mon, I’m being serious.” “I am too! Suck it up, Sixx. I’m gonna give you all the shit I can.” “Fine. Fine. Fuck. I’m sorry. I’ve been an asshole. You don’t deserve any of that.” He rolled his head on his shoulder to look away from her. “You’re allowed to do whatever the fuck you want. I can’t complain about you living your life. That’s fucked up for me to do.” “Nikki, you know I love you. Right?” “You do?” “Of course, I do. You know I do. Why else would I let you in my house at three in the morning?” He chewed on the inside of his lip, frustrated with himself and for some reason, still frustrated with Ruby. He meant what he said, it’d been on his mind all day. But hearing her say that she loved him somehow made him feel worse than before. He pulled his knees into his chest. “Yeah, sure. Love you too.” He didn’t mean it the same way she did. Not in this context anyway, and he knew it was the only context he’d hear it in. She pretended not to notice. “Nothing is ever coming between us, okay? I promise.” In the tub, she thought about Axl again as she remembered her words to Nikki. All she could do was sink deeper into the bubbles and hope it was true. Taglist: @triplehaitches @vamprlestat 

[lickstynine]

Misadventures of Kit: Chapter Twenty-Five

I just want to say a quick thank-you to those of you that have been waiting so patiently for this. I was really struggling when school first started back up, but I think I’ve finally gotten into a routine, so I’ll be trying to post chapters regularly again.

written with @ocsickficsideblog

By the time Kit was feeling well again, it was barely a week til Christmas. He’d been watching the calendar warily. The Raycraft Christmas ball was drawing close, and even though he wouldn’t be going alone, he was still terrified. Siofra had visited several times while he was sick, and she’d promised repeatedly to beat the shit out of anyone who bothered him, but Kit couldn’t shake the lingering feeling that something would go wrong.

Now it was the 19th, and Kit was getting dressed properly for the first time in almost two weeks. He’d promised to take Siofra shopping for a dress, both as thanks for going with him, and so she’d have something appropriately fancy to wear. Alistair had of course insisted on coming along, and the younger boy was sitting impatiently on the bed while Kit put on mascara and re-re-re-fixed his hair.

“Kit, are you done now?” Alistair asked. He was grumpier than usual because he really didn’t like crowded shops, wearing his scruffy jeans and his black jacket so he could pull the hood up and sulk.

“Almost, but I’ve said repeatedly, you don’t have to come.” Kit huffed. He loved going shopping with girls, but he hated shopping with Alistair.

“Yeah I do. I need to protect you.”

“From what? The shopping centre werewolves?” Kit rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know what’ll crop up,” Alistair mumbled. “Not werewolves. You clearly don’t know your lycan folklore.”

Kit groaned. “That’s not the point. My point is, I don’t need a bodyguard, and even if I did, Siofra is stronger than you. You hate shopping, there’s no reason for you to come.”

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Kit sighed in frustration. “Well, you’re choosing to come along, so you don’t get to complain.”

Alistair pretended to pout. “But there’s so much to complain about!”

Kit gave him an irritated look. “I’m serious. This is supposed to be a nice day with Siofra.”

“I was joking,” Alistair said. “You can just say if you don’t want me there.”

“Will you get offended if I say that?”

“No.” Yes.

Kit rolled his eyes. He knew better. “Come along, but if you start whining, I’m calling Taddy to take you home.”

“Okay,” Alistair said, brightening just a little. Kit didn’t make him stay home, that was enough to cheer him up. Kit just sighed dramatically, putting on his scarf and gloves and many coats before daring to leave the house. Though his cough had mostly cleared up, the cold outside air still made him wheeze. Alistair supervised this process, making sure Kit was adequately bundled.

When the boys made the trek down the stairs, Siofra was waiting outside the block of flats, with Finny sitting loyally at her feet. Alistair immediately cheered up, kneeling to greet him. Finny was equally excited, throwing his front paws on Alistair’s shoulders to bark and lick his face. Alistair laughed delightedly. “Hello, Finny! I missed you!”

Finny boofed in response, nearly tackling Alistair in his continued attempts to cuddle. Kit rolled his eyes, but Siofra grinned. She had deliberately brought Finny to distract their inevitable third wheel. She met Kit’s eyes, and he nodded gratefully. Alistair was none the wiser - it might hit him later on tonight, and he’d feel indignant, but now he only had eyes for Finny. Siofra ‘generously’ offered him the leash. He took it at once, beaming, genuinely believing she was being kind.

Kit took Siofra's newly-free hand, and they headed off towards the shopping centre at his admittedly slow pace. She didn't seem bothered, telling him about the hike she'd gone on last weekend - she and Riagan had trekked Ockley to Leith Hill, which sounded terrifying to Kit, even in fairer weather, but he listened loyally as she rambled.

“I'd offer to take ya sometime, but you're not exactly… outdoorsy.” Siofra laughed.

Kit shook his head. “I know, it's alright. That was always more Al's thing than mine.”

“What was my thing?” Alistair called back. He’d gone dashing ahead with Finny.

“Going outside.” Kit said, “Like into nature, not just out of the house.”

“Oh yeah, I like that. As long as there’s no people.”

Siofra snorted. “Well, yeah, that’s half the point of goin’ out. Get away from all the bustlin’ crowds ‘o idiots.”

“Definitely,” Alistair mumbled, petting Finny. The dog licked his hand before walking ahead to sniff a tree. Siofra went back to talking to just Kit.

It took almost an hour to reach the shopping centre, but Kit and Siofra were still chattering away when they approached the first store. Kit was so absorbed in a story he was telling, Siofra had to tug his arm to keep him from smacking into the doorway. She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got the survival skills of a dodo bird.”

“I’m not that bad.” Kit huffed. “I’m not extinct.”

Siofra fought the urge to snark back, knowing she couldn’t let him know what Alistair had told her. She settled on, “That’s sheer fuckin’ luck from the look of it.”

“That is correct,” Alistair said.

Kit just huffed again, leading her to the women’s formalwear section of the shop. “Come on, we’re looking for dresses.”

“What sort of dresses do you like, Siofra?”

“I like bright colours. Blue an’ green usually look good, black is easy. Somethin’ that makes my tits look nice, nips in at the waist.” She replied, looking at a deep blue gown on a mannequin before shaking her head. “Colour’s nice, but it’s just a shiny tube. Might look nice on a real skinny girl.” Suddenly, an idea made her snort. “Kit, you try it on.”

Kit’s face flared red. “I’d rather not.”

“He’s not trying it on,” Alistair said firmly. He knew Siofra didn’t know about the Dress Incident, but it still rankled.

Siofra drew back a little. “Jeez, okay. It was a joke. C’mon, let’s just look around.”

“Sorry,” Alistair muttered quietly, but he didn’t offer an explanation. Kit was just glad to be distracted by dressed, guiding Siofra over to an emerald dress with a low-cut top and a full, flared skirt.

“What do you think of this?”

“It’s nice. Little plain, though. If it’s gonna be long, I want somethin’ to be happenin’, ya know?” Siofra mused. “Is there anythin’ with lace? I like lace dresses. It’s like ‘I’m pretty, an’ I’m fancy, but I still fuck.’ Y’know?”

Kit laughed, “I don’t, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“You’re a weird girl, Siofra,” Alistair said, grinning.

“So are you.” She grinned back, turning to examine a deep purple dress with a patterned bodice. Kit came to look with her.

“This fabric is lovely.”

“Yea, looks like it might get warm, though.” Siofra said. “Don’t wanna sweat too much while I’m dancin’.”

Kit paused; he was always cold, he hadn’t even thought of that. “Oh… you’re right. You want something lighter, then?”

Siofra nodded. “Yea. Some’o these are nice, but I wanna look around more. Nothin’s speakin’ to me yet.”

Alistair didn’t join in the conversation much. He mooched around swishing the skirts of mannequins and making shoes dance on his hands and generally worrying the staff as they watched him mess with things. Finny, ironically, was well-behaved the entire time, just padding quietly at his side. Eventually, Kit and Siofra gave up, leaving the store to explore another. Alistair sighed to Finny. “They’ll be at this all day.”

Finny let out a dog sigh. Kit and Siofra were already ducking into another store that had stunning gowns on the mannequins. Kit was pondering outfits, and after a moment he asked, “How do you feel about red?”

“I like a good red. Red is a sexy colour.” Siofra said, winking at him.

Kit grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He’d had a vision of him, hair freshly dyed, red accoutrements paired with a sleek black suit, gold jewelry on top of it all, and Siofra, in a matching red gown and gold accessories.

“You got an idea?” She asked, “You’re makin’ a thinkin’ face.”

Kit nodded. “Come on, let’s find a red dress you like.”

Siofra followed him through the store, gathering up several gowns in varying shades from wine to crimson. Alistair sighed and made scarlet woman jokes, picking at his hangnails. Finny nosed his leg while Siofra smuggled Kit into the dressing room with her. Alistair raised his eyebrows, squatting down and shaking Finny’s paw. “Honestly, Kit is so blooming fancy he won’t answer the door in pyjamas, but I bet he’s getting up to stuff in there with Siofra. Gross. I hope they buy the clothes and don’t just put them back.”

If Alistair actually thought about it, he would’ve known Kit was just in there giving Siofra input on the dresses and helping her try them on. They went through about eight gowns, but all they really figured out was what they didn’t like.

Sequins look too cheap.

The short skirt is too casual… and a little slutty.

That wine colour is too dark, and cool. It doesn’t quite suit you.

Narrow skirts aren’t very flattering to your shape.

These rhinestones don’t look that elegant up close.

Eventually, they came back out, dumping all eight dresses on the reject rack. Despite the seeming failure, both Kit and Siofra had a fire in their eyes.

“To the next store?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yup. Finny, come on!” The dog stood up, tugging Alistair along after his owner.

“You two look like you’re going to war,” Alistair said, running to keep up.

“To war with tacky dresses!” Siofra yelled. She was practically lifting Kit so she could run faster, but he was still out of breath by the time they got to the next boutique.

“Siofra, be careful with him,” Alistair called, as if Kit was his premature newborn.

“I’m fine, Al.” Kit mumbled, but he was wheezing as they walked into the shop.

“Siofra, he needs to rest a minute.”

She paused in the doorway, looking around and finding a cushioned bench to deposit Kit on. “I need to piss anyway. I’ll be back. You figure out how to breathe.”

Kit nodded, waving as she walked off. Alistair sat beside him, rubbing his back. “You alright?”

“Just tired.��� Kit sighed, running a hand through his hair. His chest was still heaving, and he let out a tiny wheeze with every exhale.

Alistair bit his lip. “Your chest still sounds bad.”

“It always does, this time of year. Fucked up from years of pneumonia.” Kit mumbled, leaning on the back of the bench. “I should've brought water.”

“Want me to go buy some?”

“Would you?” Kit took out his wallet, handing Alistair a crisp fifty pound note.

Alistair grinned at it. “Yeah, I’ll buy it. With this fifty.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Just keep the change. I don’t have anything smaller.”

“Course not,” Alistair said fondly, leading Finny to a smaller shop selling health food and fruity drinks. “Wait there.”

Kit, of course, stayed put, out of exhaustion as much as obedience, while Finny sniffled curiously at the shelves of the shop. Alistair found water easily enough, pulling a face at Finny. “Lots of gross food in here…”

The dog didn’t seem as bothered, nosing at anything he could reach. The shop owner was giving Alistair a less-than-delighted look. Alistair quickly paid, getting even more evils for using a fifty. He returned to Kit at nearly the same time Siofra did, and Kit stood, taking the water and following Siofra through the maze of racks in search of a suitable dress.

They had settled on a few details already, bypassing anything that wasn’t voluminous and bright red. Eventually they narrowed it down to three:  two strapless, one with a fluffy chiffon skirt and sparkling floral bodice, and one all satin, with a nipped waist and shimmery detailing around the top; the third had off-the shoulder sleeves, with floral appliques adorning the translucent sleeves, the bodice, and the outer chiffon of the skirt.

Siofra seemed satisfied with their choices, tugging Kit towards the dressing room. “Alright, come on Christina, I need help with my zippers.” She gestured for Alistair to follow. “You, too, Alyssa. Ya don’t hafta come in, but ya hafta at least look at me in each one.”

Alistair sighed, but he did actually want to see the dresses, so he let “Alyssa” slide - though it did annoy him that the sales assistant let him through into the changing room without a second glance, clearly believing him to be Siofra’s dumpy little sister. He was allowed to sit on a bench outside the row of stalls, while Siofra and Kit disappeared into a cubicle to try on the first dress. There was a bit of stumbling, grumbling, and mumbling about “stupid fuckin’ zippers halfway up my arse,” but before long, Siofra stepped out to model the dress.

It certainly wasn’t an ugly dress, but the floral pattern on the bodice tapered up and inward over the cleavage, featuring Siofra’s strong shoulders and completely concealing her breasts. “Fuck me, I look like a bloody drag queen!” She huffed, glaring at the full-length mirror on the open door of her changing stall.

Alistair laughed hard. “Go in that one!”

“You wear it if ya like it so much. I intend to show up lookin’ decent.” Siofra rolled her eyes, pondering whether Alistair might actually fit in the same dress as her. It would be close - he definitely wasn’t too tall or muscular - but she decided he was too squishy in the middle to fit in anything cinched at the waist. After another moment glaring in the mirror, she closed herself back in the stall so Kit could help her change dresses.

“Why does chiffon have so many fuckin’ layers?” She grumbled, “It’s like wearin’ a hoopskirt made’o bloomin’ candyfloss!”

Kit chuckled, “It’s for volume. Take away all the layers, and this is a boring A-line.”

Siofra rolled her eyes. “I know why. It’s just a pain. Come on, let’s get the other fluffy one over with.” She snatched the off-the-shoulder dress off its hanger, pulling it over her head with Kit’s assistance. Though the back opened wide with the zipper, she had no hope of stepping into anything with her hips. The sleeves were a bit snug near the top - dresses weren’t typically made with muscle in mind - but she liked the cut of the bodice better. She swung the door open so Alistair could see.

“Well, at least this one shows off my tits,” Siofra mused, “but I’m afraid if I lift my arms, I’m gonna rip these flimsy sleeves off like She-hulk.”

“Better body, but you look like Popeye with those arms,” Alistair said.

“Well maybe if the sleeves weren’t cut for Olive Oyl, it wouldn’t look so bad.” Siofra grumbled, swishing her hips in the mirror before closing the stall door again. “Fuck this fluffy bicep prison.”

Kit was snickering again as he helped her out of it. “Do you want to bother with the last one? I’m not sure this shop really styles for your body type.”

Siofra shrugged, throwing the heap of chiffon and fabric roses at him to hang back up. “Might as well, I’m already in my knickers.” She’d discarded her bra for the trying-on, since the straps would be awkwardly exposed. Kit hung and set aside the second rejected dress, unzipping the last one and helping Siofra pull it over her head.

“I like the material of this one.” He remarked, running a hand over the cherry satin as he zipped her into it. “Very sleek, elegant.”

“Ooh, this one makes my tits look great!” Siofra grinned in the mirror. She wasn’t wrong - the bodice had a slight dip between the breasts, and the glittering red stones around the top drew even more attention to her chest. Kit nodded, stepping out of the way so she could open the door.

Alistair was already snorting with laughter. He adopted Kit’s plummy accent. “Very sleek and elegant.” Then he switched to Siofra’s Irish lilt. “Cor, don’t my tits look great!”

“Your tits look terrible, actually. You should get a more supportive bra.” She grinned at him.

“Har har. That dress is nice though. Tits and all.”

“Yeah, I like this one.” Siofra nodded, “Skirt’s way more comfortable, too. An’ it looks expensive. I like that.” She swished her hips in the mirror, causing her dress and her curls to sway. Finny gave an approving bark.

Kit seemed excited. He hadn’t expected to find a dress they’d like so soon. “Do you want that one, then?”

Siofra shrugged. “Sure, yeah. I like it. I look hot in it. Why not?”

Kit nodded, bustling the other two dresses out to the reject rack while Siofra posed in the mirror. “Should we start looking for accessories, then?”

“Let’s just buy this an’ go. I had to walk through purses to get to the loo, the selection here is shit.” Siofra said, ducking back into the stall to put her own clothes on. Dress in hand, she and Kit walked to the checkout.

Alistair stood up and trailed after them, sighing heavily. “God, is everything going to take so long? Shoes and purses and flipping rings…”

“The jewelry will probably be easiest, actually.” Kit replied. “Most of the time, necklaces have matching earrings and bracelets and so on. Do you want to do that first?” He asked Siofra, “There’s a lovely jeweller right down this way.” He gestured towards a row of shops.

“Sure, yeah.” Siofra nodded. “I don’t wear earrings, though, so don’t get excited about that.” She warned him. Kit didn’t seem bothered, and they discussed metals and gems while they waited in line at the register. By the time the dress was handed back in a sleek shopping bag, they had already settled on rose gold and rubies. Kit was babbling excitedly as they walked to the jeweller.

“Most of my jewelry is yellow gold, just because it’s more widely available. I didn’t really like rose gold when it first came into style, but I warmed up to it a few years ago. I think it will look lovely on you, especially with your hair.”

Siofra let him talk, listening and nodding as they walked into the store. She was a little out of her element now; her idea of expensive jewelry was the department store - this place looked like a dragon’s hoard. “I hope you know what to look for, cause I’m lost.” She mumbled.

Kit nodded. “I saw an ad for one of their collections a few months back, follow me.” He led her to a lovely array of rose-gold jewelry, set with a variety of gems to show what the shop had to offer. There were only a few bracelets, but the necklaces and earrings were more numerous, and nearly a third of the case was taken up with mannequin hands modeling rings. “They can set any stone in the piece you like.” He explained, letting Siofra examine the case herself. She was trying not to gawk, but couldn’t help staring at the jewels oozing from the pinkish metal.

“Bloody hell… what’s my budget?”

Kit laughed. “You don’t have a budget. Pick what you like. As much as you like.”

Siofra turned to stare at him, more awestruck than ever. “You’re joking.”

“Why would I be?” Kit shrugged. “My father is making me go to this stupid party. I might as well waste his money making you look nice for it.” He was eyeing the earrings himself, wanting to coordinate his own jewelry with whatever Siofra chose.

Alistair attempted to entertain himself by trying to find the most expensive thing in the store, continually getting distracted by the prices. He’d still had money when he was old enough to be able to buy stuff for himself, but he’d never been one for fancy jewellery like this. He was more of the skull-ring-from-Hot-Topic type back then. Finny was interested too - he liked the sparkly things, and pressed his nose against the glass trying to look closer.

Alistair grinned at him. “Shame you don’t have fingers. But we can get you a necklace,” he laughed. “You’re getting nose marks on the glass.”

Finny gave a low ruff. He seemed to like the idea of his own shiny accessory. The sales girl giggled at them. “We do custom collars and dog tags on request.”

Alistair brightened. “Want a sparkly collar? Then I can take you to the Pride Parade.”

Finny barked again, and the sales girl went to a shelf, picking out a book to show Alistair while her coworker helped Kit and Siofra. She laid it  out, opening to a page of thick glittery chains, as well as varying fabric and leather bands that could be stoned and studded. Alistair held the book out like he was showing Finny too, ignoring the amused look he got from the girl. “Are you a glitter or a leather boy?”

Finny snuffled at a picture of a bright blue band, adorned with gold studs and white stones. Perhaps it was sheer chance that he’d reacted to that picture, but Alistair nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good one.”

“Do you know what size band you would need?” The girl asked.

“Siofra!” Alistair called. “What size band does Finny wear?”

Siofra set down the ring she'd been trying on, turning to look incredulously at Alistair. “What?”

“Oh, Finny wants a fancy collar. Don’t worry, I assure you Kit has spent money on more useless shit than this.”

“He wants it?” Siofra asked, trying not to smirk too hard.

“Yeah, he was snuffling the page.” Alistair looked completely serious.

Siofra chuckled. “Um, I usually get ‘im an extra-large when I buy collars. A large might fit, but I worry ‘cause’o all the fur.”

“Extra-large,” Alistair told the girl. He didn’t want to risk getting a tight one.

She nodded. “And did you want all studs, or studs and diamonds?” She pointed to the different options in the book.

“The diamonds… They look pretty.”

The clerk checked a box on a form she’d pulled out. “And you wanted the deep blue?”

“He wants that, yeah,” Alistair said, nodding at Finny. The dog barked happily. Siofra rolled her eyes at them, turning back to her own counter to try on more rings. Alistair ruffled Finny’s fur as he got the collar sorted with the girl, rubbing the soft part behind his ears. Finny tilted his head, tail flapping happily.

The clerk finished typing the order into the register, looking back to Alistair. “Custom orders usually take two to four weeks to complete. Your down payment will be £1200.”

“You fuckin’ what?” Siofra spun back around to stare at Alistair and the girl.

“Kit.” Alistair didn’t even blink. “Credit card. Please.” The older boy pulled out his wallet and passed it to Alistair without looking up from the ruby earrings he was considering. Siofra was staring at them both like they’d just turned into dinosaurs.

Alistair held up the card, raising his eyebrows at Siofra. “Nice, isn’t it? I could do this once. Buy stupid shit I don’t even need. It was cool. Now I have to dig down the back of the sofa for the bus fare.”

Siofra snorted. “Yeah, that’s university for ya.” She was looking at Kit, and how casually he shoved aside a set of earrings to ask for a pair with more diamonds. “Is it still a sugar daddy if I’m older?”

“What would be the younger version? A sugar son? Yuck. And what is he to me? I’m not banging him.” Alistair never did have any awareness of his language in a posh shop. The clerk was giving him a weird look, and awkwardly cleared her throat.

“Ahem, sir? The down payment?”

“Oh yeah.” He handed the card over. She scanned it and handed it back, along with a receipt to sign. He scrawled his untidy signature and gave Kit the card back. Kit stuck it in his breast pocket, knowing he'd need it again once he and Siofra picked everything out. She had gathered a pile of glittering rings, along with a matching pendant and tennis bracelet. He was still waffling between pairs of earrings, trying to decide how to arrange everything - the bane of having ten piercings in each ear.

Alistair was soon bored again, sitting on the floor with Finny and sighing heavily. The dog climbed into his lap and mimicked his sigh. That made Alistair laugh a bit, rubbing between Finny’s ears. Finny licked his face and Siofra grinned at them. “You can take 'im outside. 'e probably needs the loo anyway.”

“Thank god. I’m losing my mind in here,” Alistair mumbled, easing Finny off his lap and getting up. “Come on, Finny.”

Finny climbed to his feet, bounding for the door. He was eager to get outside, too. Alistair ran through the shopping centre with him, laughing when all the posh people gave them dirty looks. He felt like a teenager for a moment. Finny pulled Alistair through the crowd, weaving deftly through the clusters of people. They burst out onto the street together, and Alistair walked Finny up and down the high street, letting him stop to pee. The dog quickly selected a tree and did his business before tugging Alistair down the street.

Alistair let Finny lead him submissively. “Where are we going then?”

Finny just continued to run down the street. Alistair started floundering after a few minutes. “Finny, I don’t think I’ve gone running since PE at school… And even then I’d bunk off and sit in the bogs.”

Finny stopped pulling Alistair along, instead electing to run circles around his legs. Alistair laughed, dragging him to a bench. “Come here…” The dog followed him dutifully and sat by his feet. Alistair gave his lap a pat. “You can sit right up here.” Finny hopped up at once, his fuzzy butt resting on Alistair’s legs. Alistair hugged him happily, completely swamped in dog fur. Finny was content to sit like that until Alistair’s phone buzzed. It was Kit.

We’re going to look for shoes. Do you want to come with or stay out with Finny?

Alistair pulled a face. I’ll come. Where are you?

By the food court. Siofra was hungry. Do you want anything?

Do they have those fancy donuts? The Krispy Kreme ones?

Yeah, what do you want?

Just get that really chocolaty looking one with the crumbly topping.

Alright. Kit didn't bother asking what his cousin wanted to drink - he'd already bought Alistair a hot chocolate when he was getting himself a chai tea. Meet us by the Krispy Kreme.

Okay. Don’t touch anything strawberry flavoured.

Wasn’t on the agenda. Kit rolled his eyes. As if he was the one who forgot about his allergy, when Alistair had never told Julius about it and nearly poisoned his cousin as a result. He was still grumbling to Siofra about it when Alistair came up to meet them, Finny in tow.

“Did you two buy what you wanted then?” he asked.

“We did.” Kit waved the tea in his right hand, offering Alistair the donut and hot chocolate in his left. Siofra just nodded. Her arms were weighted with bags holding her dress and jewelry, and her hands and mouth were busy with a carton of inauthentic but deliciously greasy Chinese food.

“Only one donut?” Alistair said, taking the drinks and food with a grin. It was an old, old joke between them, back when Alistair was still a little pudgy five year old. He’d always insist he could manage several desserts.

“Yes, because you don’t have a change of clothes.” Kit smirked.

“Ha ha. So you’re going shoe shopping next? Are you getting those fancy ones with the red insides or whatever it is?”

Kit rolled his eyes. “I already have a pair of Louboutins that will match my outfit. We’re finding shoes to go with Siofra’s dress, and hopefully a matching clutch.”

“A clutch? Oh! One of those stupid little purses?”

“It's not stupid.” Kit rolled his eyes. “It's small, so it can hold necessities like a wallet and keys, but it isn't a huge bulky thing that's in your way all night. It's an evening bag.”

“I remember them! Remember when we were kids and that Lord’s daughter - Arabella, was it? - hit me over the head with her clutch? So I tied her pigtails to the door handle and slammed it shut,” Alistair giggled.

Kit didn't seem as amused. “You're leaving out an important detail. She hit you because you were flailing around by the refreshments, hit her punch, and spilled it all over her dress.”

Siofra snorted. “Always been a charmer, huh?”

Alistair stuck his tongue out at Siofra. “She didn’t have to hit me, did she? I’d have said sorry for spilling her punch if she hadn’t, and the whole clutch-and-pigtail drama could have been avoided.”

“You also could've been dancing on the dance floor, instead of endangering innocent people seeking refreshments.” Kit pointed out. He spotted a shoe store and walked inside, Siofra in tow. Finny pulled Alistair along, following sedately, while Alistair glared at anyone who gave them funny looks.

Kit and Siofra went immediately to the high heels, looking at the array of shiny shoes on the shelf

“We definitely want something red or rose gold. I know your skirt is long, but it you lift it, the shoes ought to match.”

“They've also gotta fit,” Siofra reminded him. “Most gals have smaller feet than me. See what they've got in a 9.5. I can do a 9 or an 8.5 if it's open-toed.”

Kit sighed. “Well, that certainly limits our options.” He started exploring the shelves, but found little more than a generic gold sandal. After a good ten minutes of scouring, he shook his head and stalked out of the store. “This place is useless.”

“We’d be fine if it wasn’t for her troll feet,” Alistair snorted. Siofra kicked him in the shin as she walked by.

“Shove my troll foot up your arse if you don't watch your fuckin’ mouth.”

“Ow! Get her, Finny,” Alistair urged. The dog just barked cheerfully and kept walking. Alistair rolled his eyes, letting Finny drag him after Siofra. “So where to now? How many shoe shops can be in one big shopping centre?”

Siofra looked at him for a moment, then back to Kit. “Is ‘e actually that stupid, or does ‘e really just never go outside unless ‘e’s followin’ you like a needy puppy?”

Kit shrugged. “Bit of both.” He said, leading the group into another shoe shop.

“I’m not the needy puppy when you’re koala hugging me all night,” Alistair grumbled.

“You’re the one who insists I stay at yours.” Kit replied, not even looking up from the high heels he was examining. The pair he was looking at were actually quite pretty - bright red pumps with narrow laces attaching them at the ankle. Each lace had shiny gold aglets and the heel was tall and thin. Siofra looked at them approvingly, selecting a pair in her size to try on.

“These are cute.”

“They’re basic.” Kit replied flatly. “This style is popular right now. Five girls at any given nightclub are wearing this shoe in one colour or another. You’re not a vapid parasite looking for a face to suck. You’re an exquisite guest at an exquisite event.”

Siofra snorted, amused but also taken aback. “Damn, okay. Maybe save for them for a backup at least?”

“If you like them.” Kit shrugged.

Alistair held Finny’s leash out in a lordly fashion and stuck his nose in the air. “You’re an exquisite quest at an exquisite event, my darling,” he said in Kit’s posh accent. “We must have your own shoes cobbled for you by the finest craftsmen out of gold and marble, studded with pearls fresh from the ocean. We can’t have common shoes on my precious carpets, oh heavens no.”

Kit rolled his eyes at his cousin. “Why don’t you go piss on a tree with Finny? That seems more like your kind of activity.”

“Oh, aren’t we funny. He’s already pissed. I want to see what shoes old Hobbit Feet gets anyway.”

“Who the hell are you talkin’ to about shoes?” Siofra asked, “I saw glittery pink trainers in your wardrobe.”

“I didn’t buy those! They were fucking hand-me-downs from Toby’s sister,” Alistair grumbled. “I don’t have rich parents to fund me anymore. You know how expensive shit is? It’s awful!”

“So you fit in Toby’s sister’s shoes, and you’re givin’ me shit for my shoe size?”

“Maybe she had gigantic feet too, you don’t know!”

“I saw the shoes.” Siofra grinned. “She didn’t.”

“Didn’t you know that posh folk are known for their dainty feet?” Alistair declared, struggling to keep a straight face.

“Then why are Kit’s shoes bigger than mine? He’s the daintiest of the three of us by far.”

Kit spun around; he’d been busy scrutinizing shoes and not listening to the others. “What?”

“They are? Kit, what’s your shoe size?”

“...good question.” Kit sat down on one of the little benches, lifting his foot to check the number on the sole. “10.5. Why?”

“That’s huge!”

“I mean, I said the same thing, but not about his feet.” Siofra grinned. Kit went red, but he laughed so hard, he snorted.

“Gross! I don’t want to hear about that!” Alistair cried, blushing too.

Siofra just laughed. “Stop talkin’ about my feet, an’ I’ll stop talkin’ about his dick.” She turned to look at a pair of gold pumps, trying to gauge whether they were too yellowy.

“Are those the one?”

“Mm, no.” Siofra had pulled out one of her rings to compare the colour. “I kinda wanted a red shoe, anyway. Red pumps are sexy as fuck.”

“Alright, Dorothy. Clicking your heels will be useful at our place, you’ll get to leave early.”

“Actually, in the book, Dorothy had silver shoes. They changed them to red to show up better on-screen.” Kit chimed in.

“I don’t really remember the book. You read it to me when we were kids.”

“I remember. You called my mum Glinda and yours the Wicked Witch, and got sent to your room for the night.” Kit rolled his eyes.

Alistair snorted. “Don’t tell me that wasn’t genius. And true. And your mum bought me fake fairy wings and I got upset when I couldn’t fly with them.”

Kit just shook his head. “I remember.” He went back to looking at shoes, glaring at a ruby pump that had a nice colour but a slightly squatty heel. “This shop is just as bad as the last.”

“What exactly is wrong with that shoe?” Alistair asked.

“The heels are too short, and wide. It's not elegant. Not to mention, it would look pitifully small on someone as tall as Siofra. That heel height might work proportionately for someone Julie's size, but even then, it's unflatteringly thick.”  

“Maybe we could buy them for Jules. He has to climb on the countertop to reach shit from the back of the cupboard.”

Siofra snorted and Kit rolled his eyes. “If I'm going to buy Julie heels, they'll be attractive.”

“He has really fucking small feet. Like, comically tiny.”

“He could probably fit both feet in one'o Kit's shoes.” Siofra grinned.

“And have room to spare,” Alistair agreed.

“My feet are not that big!” Kit cried.

“I was making fun of Jules’s feet that time. It’s no fun when he’s not here to hear it.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Loving fiance you are.’

“Shut up, I am. If I gushed about him all day you’d feel awkward, right?”

“I'd feel annoyed.” Kit corrected.

“Well, either way. And for the record, I like his stupid small feet. They’re cute and ridiculous,” Alistair said.

“You're just ridiculous.” Kit huffed. “Come on, let's try another shop. This place is a disappointment.”

“Ugh, how many more?”

“However many it takes to find good shoes.” Kit replied. Siofra just chuckled, gesturing for Finny to come along..

“I can’t believe people enjoy this. I’m bored and hot and my feet ache and this place is full of other humans.” He pulled a face, like other people were the equivalent of sewer rats.

“This is why I said you didn’t have to come.” Kit reminded him, “And that is why I said if you did come, I’d send you home if you complained.”

“I have to look after you!” Alistair huffed. “I’m practically your carer. I should be receiving benefits for this.”

“First off, I pay for anything you ask for. Second off, we already discussed that Siofra can take care of me just as well.”

“You know I’m not being serious, Kit. And yes, Siofra is fine and responsible and strong, blah blah blah, but you’re my cousin. I’d worry about you.”

Kit groaned. “You should worry about my sanity if you keep whining. For Chrissakes, Finny is being more cooperative than you, and he doesn’t even know what the hell we’re doing!”

“I’ll bet he does. He’s a clever dog.”

“Okay, so the dog is smarter and more cooperative. Good for him. You still need to stop whining.” Kit said.

“Only if you stop bitching.”

“What am I bitching about?!” Kit cried.

“Me.”

“The only thing I’m bitching about is your bitching!” Kit’s face was going red, and he looked close to popping a blood vessel. “You agreed to not complain when you insisted on coming with us!”

“Kit, calm down,” Alistair mumbled, looking almost unnerved. “What’s wrong with you? I’m not being serious.”

The older boy deflated, his voice wobbly with frustration. “Then why are you seriously trying to drive me insane?” His eyes flickered between Alistair and Siofra and the crowd around them, afraid to say more in such a public setting. Though the cup in his hand was still half-full, he mumbled something about wanting another tea and walked off towards the food court. Siofra sighed and rolled her eyes.

Alistair looked equally upset, mumbling something about taking Finny to pee despite the dog having just been. He went off in the other direction. Now Siofra looked properly peeved, stalking after Alistair and grabbing his collar. “Oi! You don’t get to just kidnap my dog.”

“Get off me!” He yelled it way too loudly for a public place indoors, but his voice was thick, like he had a bad cold. The people nearby gave him weird looks, but Siofra just seemed like an annoyed big sister, so nobody gave them a second glance.

“Then gimme my fuckin’ dog, an’ I’ll go find your idiot cousin myself.” Siofra kept a stony grip on his jumper, holding a hand out for Finny’s leash. Alistair handed it over at once, keeping his face turned away.

“Now get off.”

“Gladly.” Siofra dropped his collar, wiping the now-free hand on her jeans. “You go cry while I fix your fuck-up.”

“Fuck you,” Alistair spat, clenching his fists. He kept his back to her though, hoping he might be able to pretend he wasn’t near tears later if she couldn’t actually see him welling up.

“Go annoy someone else, why don’t ya?” Siofra rolled her eyes and walked off in the direction Kit had gone.

[mollyshaj]

30.

Three Years Later - June 17, 2016

Mariah

Walking in my house I shook my head when I saw Damien sitting in the living room playing that video game like he always does. I swear to God you cannot get that little nigga off that thing. It’s cool though, he’s out the way when he plays that. He needs to play it in his room though, I don’t know why he gotta be in the damn living room all the time.

“Damien, is your father here?” I asked him after stepping in front of the TV. He sucked his teeth but pressed pause on his game. “Lose the attitude I’m just asking a question.”

“I know, he was in the kitchen the last time I checked. He probably went upstairs though.”

“Alright thanks,” I mushed his head playfully then went upstairs. Before I could walk down to the bedroom I shared with Tristan I stopped and opened the door to Jayce’s bedroom then walked in. “What are you doing?” I questioned when I saw her typing away on her laptop.

“Finishing my book report. This is my last assignment for this class then we’re done.” She answered. “You’re home early,” She turned and looked at me and I couldn’t help but smile at her. Jayce is so damn beautiful and she’s growing prettier every day. Shit, I feel a great sense of pride just looking at her sometimes.

“I know I let Rachel close the store down tonight. I didn’t want to be there longer than necessary.” My store Material Girl, opened two years ago and business has been booming since we opened. The only problem with my store was it kept me busy. Running the store dealing with my kids and Tristan’s big headed ass always had me on the go. I never really got the chance to just sit back and relax.

“Okay, well I have a question. It’s really a question for you and Tristan but I think it’s easier to ask you first.”

“Oh lord, what is it?” If she’s scared or hesitant to ask Tristan anything that means she either wants to go somewhere or it’s about a boy.

“You know that boy Lucas, the one that goes to my school?”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“Well he asked me out so can I go?”

“I personally don’t mind you going but Tristan isn’t going to see it that way.” To say Tristan was over protective over Jayce would be an understatement.  He really goes psychotic over her; she doesn’t even like him coming to the school because his grown ass doesn’t know how to act.

“That’s why I want you to talk to him. He only asked me to go to the party the school throws. That’s completely chaperoned and no I don’t need one of y’all to be there.”

“I’ll talk to him; I’m not making any promises though.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“Alright did y’all eat?”

“I did earlier when I first came in from school. Tristan said you were cooking.”

“He got me fucked up, get dressed and tell Damien to get dressed to we’re going out.” I walked out of her bedroom and walked down to mine.

Tristan was lying across the bed with our daughter Chase lying on his back watching ESPN. I swear to God this nigga was determined to turn her into a tom boy. “Hey baby,” Tristan said when I walked in the room.

“Hey,” I went over to the bed and kissed him on the lips before picking Chase up and kissing her cheek. “You might wanna get up bruh; we’re going out to eat. I’m not cooking.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to that’s why, come on get your big ass up. I’m going to get her ready, you handle whatever you need to handle.” I walked out of the bedroom and went right next door to Chase’s room and put her in her crib. “You ready to look pretty baby girl?”

Our daughter Chase Amari Myers was born on September 20, 2013. She was a week late and took me through 15 hours of labor before she popped her little ass out of my body. As if birthing her wasn’t bad enough, she’s spoiled as hell. Tristan literally gives her whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. He doesn’t know the word no unless he’s talking to Damien and Jayce and even then he still doesn’t say it as much as he needs to.

Chase wasn’t the only thing that was new for us, we just moved into this big beautiful house twenty minutes away from Ebony and Kaylin last year. Granted it’s not as big as theirs, we have five bedrooms four bathrooms but I didn’t need that much space anyway. Jayce and Damien were both mad about having to switch schools but they eventually got over it.

I was going through Chase’s clothes when my phone started vibrating in my pocket so I pulled it out and looked at it. When I saw it was Ebony I answered. “What’s up Eb?”

“Not a damn thing, I’m bored as shit. What are you doing?”

“About to get Chase dressed, we’re about to go out to eat. You wanna come with us? Y’all can meet us at that Italian restaurant we always go to.”

“That’s cool with me, we’ll see you there. Thirty minutes good?”

“Yeah that’s fine. You spoke to Nicole?”

“Not since last night, you know she and Rashad are off on one of their littler voyages. The plus of not having kids I tell you.” I shook my head chuckling because she was right.

Nicole and Rashad are always taking a trip somewhere. They just went to LA in April, now they’re out in the Virgin Islands. I hate them so much sometimes, lucky bastards.

“You got that right; it’s cool though because I want to go to Paris for my honeymoon. I already told Tristan he better not try and get cheap with me, I’ll slap his ass.” I told Ebony and she laughed.

“The last thing that nigga is cheap, wait the way he proposed to you was kind of cheap. Actually it’s not kind of the shit was cheap.” She joked.

“He’s lucky I’m not an ungrateful ass bitch.” Tristan proposed to me on New Year’s Day and as much as I thought he would try and go all out to surprise me his ass got pissy drunk at Kaylin’s party and when we got home he pulled the ring out and asked me. I laughed at his ass but said yes. When he woke up he didn’t even remember asking me. That man is dumb as hell sometimes.

“You love him that’s why you’re not ungrateful but fuck that I been meaning to tell you something. Tell me why I ran into that nigga Rio the other day when I was taking Jayden to get his haircut.”

“Are you serious? I thought his crazy ass was in jail.”

“He was but he’s out now. Girl the nigga was screaming my name and shit. I just grabbed Jayden’s hand and left.”

“I told you to stop taking his ass all the way to JC to get a haircut. You should take him to the same place Kaylin goes.”

“I never had problems taking that drive though, plus he knows Dave and I know he’s not going to bullshit with my baby’s head. I don’t know, running into that nigga really freaked me out.”

“Did you tell Kaylin?”

“Hell no, you know how he is. Let him find out the nigga that was beating my ass is out of jail he’s going to lose his damn mind.”

“Well what are you going to do? Hide it?”

“I don’t know, I just saw him one time. Hopefully I won’t run into him again. Fuck him though, we’ll see you at the restaurant.”

“Alright.” I ended the call then shook my head.

Ebony was really playing with fire trying to keep running into Rio a damn secret. Rio, or Mario as the law knows him is a complete nut and he’s Ebony’s ex. She met him maybe two years after Quan first left. They weren’t together for six months before he started putting his hands on her. It got so bad that she ended up in the hospital with three broken ribs, a broken wrist and a fractured leg behind that nigga breaking in her house after he heard she was supposedly giving her number out to other niggas.

Luckily she wasn’t that damn dumb and got his ass put in jail but obviously he wasn’t locked down too long if she ran into him. I don’t understand why she’s hiding it from Kaylin, he got rid of Quan’s ass he can get rid of Rio but that’s on her. I’m going to mind my damn business.

After getting Chase dressed and ready I took her down to Jayce’s room so she could watch her while I got myself together. Once I was dressed and ready we all left and headed down to the restaurant.

We sat there for about ten minutes when Ebony finally came walking in with Kaylin and Jayden. “Hey y’all,” I got up and gave all three of them a hug. They said what’s up to everybody then sat in their seats.

“Where’s baby girl at Kay?” I asked him about Angelic. She was the sweetest little girl ever but she was hyper as hell at the same time.

“With her mother, she’s with us next weekend.” Once everybody ordered their food, Jayden and Damien were sitting next to each other talking basketball or whatever else and Jayce was on her phone doing something with Chase.

“You see that picture Nicole put on Instagram?” Ebony asked me.

“Nah, let me see.” She pulled her phone out and scrolled around for a minute before finally handed me the phone since she was right next to me. I looked at the picture and started laughing.

xbrownbeautyx

xbrownbeautyx: how is he with you if we ain’t even in the country? Bitch don’t flatter yourself my nigga don’t want you, you won’t be getting my life. Get the fuck over it.

“Oh Lord,” I shook my head. “She doesn’t throw shade she just chops your ass in the throat.”

“Kay told Rashad he better do something about that bitch.” Ebony shook her head.

“I don’t understand why she’s so pressed. They never even fucked before. These bitches be out here losing their mind for no reason.”

“For real, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that bullshit. Y’all have some damn patience. How is everything going with his mama?”

“Court in a few weeks, we already know we’re going to win and keep full custody.” Two years ago Tristan and I ended up getting temporary custody of Damien because his mother is a complete idiot. She met some nigga and started dating him, I guess she thought it would make Tristan jealous but it didn’t. This bitch wasn’t even with him four months before she moved him in that house.

Come to find out not only was he a fuckin’ alcoholic he was a dip head. Dip is basically cigarettes and or blunts dipped in chemicals, mostly embalming fluid. Being where I’m from I’ve seen a lot of dip heads and that shit is not only fucked up its makes them crazy and violent.

Tristan and I knew nothing about her moving him in the house until one night Damien calls Tristan crying talking about that nigga was beating the shit out of his mother. I sent Chase and Jayce next door with Mc. Cicely, an old woman I was living next to while we rode over to this girl’s house.

When we got there we could hear her ass screaming from outside. Tristan busted in the house and ran to the living room and Carmen was standing there beat the fuck up, face all black and blue yelling and screaming while this nigga was beating on Damien. I’ve never seen Tristan explode like he did that night.

He pushed the man off Damien and dragged his ass outside the house and proceeded to beat him the fuck up. Usually I would rush to stop him from doing something stupid but I had to let him get them licks in because it was necessary at this point. I don’t know who, but somebody ended up calling the cops. Just as the police was pulling up Tristan picked that nigga and slammed in on the front of somebody’s car so bad the whole damn windshield shattered.

They arrested him while I stayed back and tried to figure out something with Damien and Carmen. When the ambulance came around to look at their bruises they ended up transporting everybody to the hospital. Tristan called my phone and basically told me to stay and figure out what was going on with his son, he just wanted me to call Kaylin or Rashad to come bail him out. I called both of them niggas and they went and got him.

While in the hospital I learned that not only did Damien have bruises on him from that nigga putting his hands on him that night. He had bruises that looked a few days old and the only way that was happening was if Carmen had been letting that nigga beat her son. Sure Tristan disciplines him but he doesn’t beat him like that. Damien didn’t want to talk in front of the doctors but once he was left alone with me he told me everything.

That man Carmen was with was beating on both of them the whole time he was staying there and was telling Damien if he told Tristan he was going to kill Carmen so he kept his mouth shut. The only reason he called Tristan that night was because this time the psycho pulled out a gun.

The next day when Tristan was released we were still at the hospital because they wanted to keep Damien overnight. I went and picked up Jayce and Chase and took them to Ebony’s. When we all got back to the hospital and I told Tristan everything his son told me it literally took Kaylin, Rashad and about three security guards to get him away from Carmen because he was trying to kill that bitch. If we weren’t in the hospital I probably would’ve let him.

Tristan took Damien home with us and filed for full custody the next day. He didn’t try to get her locked up he just wanted his son with us and he’s been with us ever since. Now we were going to our final court date in a couple of weeks to find out if we won. The lawyer basically guaranteed us custody but we still had to go.

To say Carmen is salty as fuck about her son being us full time would be an understatement. If she didn’t hate me before she definitely did now. Damien refuses to talk to her, he doesn’t want anything to do with her at this point and she thinks I’m the reason. As if I have mind control over her son and told him to hate her ass. The bitch is always popping shit on social media and now one of her cousins that used to talk to Rashad back in the day is starting shit with Nicole.

The bitch is playing on her phone, stalking her social media accounts being annoying and lying on her pussy. Claiming Rashad if fucking her and shit and we all know that’s a lie. I don’t even get why the bitch so pressed. Nicole and Rashad have been together for years at this point and everybody knows it so why the bitch is acting like she doesn’t know that and faking like she hurt is beyond me. I personally feel like Carmen is putting her up to it. She can’t get to me because it would be bad for her case so she wants to annoy my friend. The bitch just doesn’t know Nicole is with the shit, she’ll drag both of those bitches.

Shit was just over dramatic with Nicole and I right now as far as relationships are concerned. Luckily Ebony didn’t have crazy ex problems, she and Brandi were actually getting along. They didn’t hang out with each other or anything but they don’t have any issues or anything. They actually speak and have conversations when they see each other. My bestie is growing up for real because five years ago, Ebony would’ve still been mean to the girl.

“You know she’s going to be coming for you once the custody is official right?” Ebony asked knocking me out of my thoughts. I shrugged my shoulder before taking a sip of my drink.

“I really don’t give a flying fiery fuck; she can come at me and get her ass whooped if she wants to. I’ve been waiting to drop that whore for years.”

“She needs her ass whooped for real.”

“I know and she’ll get it. I’ll see that bitch around. Just wait.”

Nicole

“I’m not ready to leave man.” I told Rashad as we were packing our clothes. We’ve been in the St. Thomas for the past week and I was not ready to go back home.

“Me either but we gotta get back to the real world. Besides you keep going back and forth with bitches on the Gram anyway.”

“I’m not going back and forth I’m just setting the bitch straight. Posting pictures of you like you’re around her when we aint even in the country. The only reason I did it was because I know her raggedy ass friends and that thirsty ass cousin of hers be watching my damn page.”

“Just ignore her; you know I’m not fucking that bitch. You know I never fucked that bitch so fuck what they’re talking about.”

“I can’t make any promises about that. You know I don’t like lying so therefor I’m just going to say I’ll mind my business as long as the bitch stays in her lane.”

“Do you Nicole; just don’t bring that messy shit home.”

“I got you on that.” After we were done packing we left the hotel we were staying at then went straight to the airport where we had to wait about an hour before even boarding the plane.

Once we were seated in first class I looked at Rashad. “What’s the next destination?”

“I don’t know, I was going to leave that up to you. I don’t mind going to Paris again. That was a good time.”

“Yeah, but I want to go somewhere we’ve never been before. That’s the hard part.” Rashad and I take advantage of the fact that we have no kids. We were together, I love him and he loves me but we weren’t settled down like Ebony and Mariah were. There weren’t any kids running around our place and we didn’t have anything stopping us from doing whatever we wanted.

They had the houses in the suburbs and shit while Rashad and I still lived in the city. We did move out of his one bedroom condo and into a two story, four bedroom, three bathroom penthouse apartment. Hell, the only reason I wanted the extra room was because I knew our friends were going to have us on babysitting duties which neither one of us had a problem with.

“What about Rome?”

“That’s a good one, I like that idea.”

“Alright then, Rome it is. We’re going to set that shit up for August.”

“Cool. You think they had everything straight at the hotel while I was gone?”

“I didn’t get any calls but you never know. You just gotta see when you go in.” I was running The Carter Hotel in New York for Rashad, that’s how I made my money.

When I first started working there I was just looking over the employees and helping him organize everything but after a year he basically promoted me to the manager of the entire of hotel. Of course it’s some employees that had an issue with my being there but I really couldn’t give a fuck. The only reason they don’t like my ass is because Rashad and I are together plus I don’t play games at all. I run a tight ship which is why it’s making as much money as it does.

After the four hour flight back to New York I called an Uber to get us back to our place. When we got up to our apartment I went straight to the bedroom to lie down. The only thing I hate about traveling is missing my bed. Nothing felt better than being in my own shit.

“Baby, you hungry?” Rashad asked me when he came in the room.

“Yeah, you wanna order something?”

“Nah, I gotta go check on some shit so I’ll just bring you something back. I’ll only be gone for like an hour.”

“Alright, text me when you’re done doing whatever you’re going to I’ll tell you what I want then so you won’t forget and bring back some bullshit.” I smirked at him. Rashad’s memory is fucked up sometimes. He forgets the simplest shit and instead of asking about it he just takes a guess.

“I’m not going to forget but do that.” He came over and kissed me on the lips then walked out. “Love you ma!” He shouted from down the hall.

“Love you too!”

A smile came on my face while I got up to take a quick shower. Once I was good and clean I threw on one of Rashad’s old football jerseys and a pair of his boxers before sitting on my bed and calling Ebony. I didn’t really get to talk to them much while I was gone and I needed a good laugh.

“Are you finally back bitch?” Ebony asked when she answered her phone. I didn’t get a hi or anything the bitch went straight to questioning me.

“Well damn, hello to you too.”

“My bad,” She laughed. “What’s good Nic. Are you back?”

“Yeah we just got back home actually. Rashad went to go do something and get us some food so now I’m just sitting here. What are you doing?”

“I just got in the house from a photo shoot.”

“Ooh shit, what magazine this time?”

“Not for a magazine, this hair company. I forgot the name of it but their hair is the shit. Got this shit flowing all down my back. You know they send me free shit just to promote it.”

“Yeah and they pay your ass lovely. Who said you can’t make money off Instagram?”

“Dummies, shit I make stacks just for taking a picture of some damn jewelry and posting the shit.”

“What happened with that offer you got?”

“I’m not doing no damn Love & Hip Hop. I almost pissed myself when Viv told me they contacted her about me. The fuck I look like going on that shit and making a complete fool of myself.”

“Yeah they will have your ass doing some pure divine bullshit. Take it as a compliment, that means your name is out here bitch.”

“Oh please, that’s a bad thing as much as it’s a good thing. The great part is I’m making my money. The fucked up part is people think they know my life or think they know me. Calling me a damn IG model, no bitch I’m a professional model signed to an agency who just so happens to milk the shit out of that dumb ass app.” Ebony said in a serious tone.

The one thing that pisses Ebony off is trying to down play her and what she’s done. She’s been grinding hard as hell for the last few years and working her ass off. She’s graced the covers of numerous magazines and she was bent over fucking a rapper, shaking or showing her ass to do it. She did more than just post pictures with that nasty ass Flat Tummy Tea. Call her an IG model if you want to, you might get slapped.

“People are going to hate Ebony don’t let that shit get to you. You know you work your ass off fuck everybody else. Shit, you think I care about those bitches at that hotel hating on me? Talking about I don’t do my job, I’m just there because I’m fuckin’ Rashad. I had to curse one of those bitches out and fire her ass before we left.”

“What happened?” Ebony laughed again. For whatever reason this bitch thinks me going off is funny.

“First of all the bitch was already on thin ice because she’s a fuckin’ idiot and she’s always later or calling out. So because she barely comes to work her check is bullshit and she came at me about it talking about I’m jealous of her and that’s why I docked her pay and that I wouldn’t be shit if I wasn’t fuckin’ Rashad.”

“Oh hell nah, what did you say?”

“I went clean off on that hooker. I looked at her and was like I don’t know who the fuck you take me for but you really got life fucked up. I said Rashad is my man so the fuck what, that has nothing to do with how I do my job which I do quite well thank you very much bitch. Now you check looks like shit because you barely bring your dumb ass to work. The fuck you think you automatically obligated to money because your name is on the pay roll? No bitch the hours have to worked and you don’t do that so you can take that shitty ass paycheck and get the fuck out because you’re fired any way. Then I walked back to my office.”

“Wow Nic, you probably hurt the bitch feelings and everything.”

“I don’t care either, bitches really be having life fucked up. I’m about to be 30 years old I don’t have to be dealing with these dummies. I’m running out of patience my nigga.”

“Oh do not bring up age please, I’m 28.”

“So? You say that like you’re old.”

“I know but come on man my baby is 11 years old he’s almost a teenager. Angelic is 3 going on 30, that little girl is a mess.”

“You think you got it bad, Mariah is in the house with two teenagers and a toddler. I’m pretty sure Tristan is going to fuck around and get her pregnant again just wait.” I laughed.

“He probably will, when are you and Rashad going to pop one out?”

“When I have a ring on my finger and say I do, I got him until then I’m good.” It wasn’t my desire to be a baby mama. I’m good.

“I feel you; I told Kay the same thing. You know he’s asking me about a baby and shit. I told his ass I got you after we all have the same last name. If I marry him Jayden’s last name is getting changed to King just like mine.”

“Good, that’s his father they need the same last name.”

“Yeah well his father is irking my nerves with this baby shit, if we’re not arguing about that we’re arguing about some other shit.”

“Y’all are out of that honeymoon phase and real life is setting in. You’ll be fine, y’all love each other.”

“I know but damn shit is just rough right now.”

“Rough how Eb?”

“It just is, we argue all the time. Sure we have good days and when we’re good, we’re good. When shit is bad, it’s bad. If we argue I don’t even sleep in the damn room with him. I’m talking about me going to bed in the damn guest room for five nights straight in the past week Nicole.”

“The fuck happened?”

“I don’t even know but I’m over this shit man, and then I ran into Rio the other day and now he’s stalking my fuckin’ pages. I block his ass and he pops up again, this nigga is on this crazy bullshit.”

“When the fuck did he even get out?”

“I don’t know but he’s out and he’s on my ass. This nigga is really buggin’ I’m scared to go to my bookings because this bitch boy might pop up.”

“You told Kaylin?”

“Hell no if I tell him he’s not going to let me out of his sight and I don’t have time to be following his ass around when I have my own shit to handle.”

“You need to tell him, the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’ll be fine Nicole, and don’t go running your mouth to Rashad.”

“I’m not but you still need to say something. I’ll keep quiet for now but as soon as I get the feeling something is going on I’m snitching.”

“Yeah alright I hear you, I gotta go cook for these kids. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alright, later.” I ended the call the put my phone down. Ebony is as stubborn as they come. Let Kay find out this nigga been damn near stalking her and she’s keeping it quiet. She thinks they’re into it now he’s really going to have a fit.

[worldsandcenturiesfunposting]

Trump’s Bad Day : ( A Political Fanfiction for Intellectuals

It was another day in the White House and President Trump was not happy. As per usual, he woke up before the sun even rose to take his routine shit and Twitter time. Unlike those loser Presidents from the past, Trump knew the best method of proclaiming his word to the masses was at 140 characters at a time. If that’s how much he’s able to read, certainly it must be how much the rest of the country is capable of as well.

He looked around the historic building, clenching his butt cheeks in hopes of making it to the restroom on time. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find his phone! He looked under his high chair but couldn’t find it nor did he find it on his desk underneath the multitude of crayon’d in pages of the 2016 election results. It wasn’t even in that special spot in Ivanka’s room that coincidentally gave whatever’s placed there a perfect view of where she changes. 

The excruciating exercise he went through searching for it was draining his limited life force. His hands sweated greatly, unable to even grasp the big boy little spoons he uses to eat his delicious two scoops. The dye in his hair was starting to run down his face, making him look like an orange/lemon blend. 

At last, he couldn’t take it anymore. He slumped over on the floor and had to finally release himself. It was the same feeling he got when he passed legislations.

When the sun rose and the rest of the staff attended to their duties, Mike Pence found both Trump and Bannon sleeping on top of one another. At some point while it was still dark, the head of Brietbart drunkenly stumbled in, tripped on his boss, and fell asleep as well. When trying to remove the ungodly mix of alcohol and adipose tissue of of the President, Pence once again smelled a horrid odor that was all too familiar with him after these 100-something days of Trump’s presidency. 

“Donald, again?” He sighed. 

Even in sleep, Trump giggled.

It wasn’t until an hour later that Trump was dragged back to his room, cleaned, changed, and given a set of new clothes. Pence insisted he wear a normal tie that day but Trump refused to abide.

“I want the long one!”

“You can’t wear the long one, Donald. It’s too long. You’ll trip over it!”

“I WANT THE BIG BOY TIE!”

A familiar site to the electroshock therapy enthusiast, Trump started jumping up and down in a fit of rage. At times, he’d run over to the wall and start pounding on it, making such little noise, it was as if a fly had slammed into it. 

“BIG TIE BIG TIE BIG TIE BIG TIE BIG TIE-”

He droned on and on, and tears started to stream down his face. finally Pence threw his hands in the air and said “Alright! Fuck it! You can have the big boy tie!”

Like a flick of a switch, Trump stopped his tantrum and beamed a huge grin in Pence’s direction. “I’m a bigly good deal maker, Pence. You should know this.” He pointed at his VP and snatched the tie from his hands. 

“If only you could negotiate a law to kill the faggots, Trump.”

“I’ll make that deal when the dems stop obst-obstric-ob-ob...blocking me!”

“The dems are the minority in everything, Trump. They have no real control over congress or the senate or anything!”

“Killery’s emails say that the deep state is actually controlling them. Don’t you read Bread-bart?”

--

When they walked out, they found Bannon in the same spot on the floor. Somehow in his sleep, the man managed to gather dozens of bottles of gin seemingly out of thin air. Groggily, he started to get up.

“Uh bu ughuhu...are the fuckin’ kikes dead yet?”

“No, Bannon.” Pence replied dryly. 

“Thosuh fugg fuking guh hook noses th-I ughu I wish the Holocaust was real fo then uthu would be gon!”

“That’s nice, Bannon. We need you to help Trump sign a bill for our corporate masters.”

“It’s going to be a biiiiiiigly bill, Uncle Bannon!”

Bannon complied. He pissed himself first, but ultimately he stumbled behind the two which made Donald giggle over how silly his uncle was being. All the while Bannon was trying to tell Donald about how the white race was being bred out of existence and how to use secret code words like ‘N1gger’ or ‘k1ke’ to trick normies into spreading nazi propaganda. his words weren’t at all clear and Donald simply giggled most of the time, but somewhere in Trump’s mind, he was absorbing that information.

Before Bannon could call for a race war, he slumped over again and threw up on the back of Pence’s shoes before falling sleep entirely.

“Uh oh, Uncle Bannon had an accident!”

Pence remained silent, seething to himself that one day congress will stop worrying about what a bunch of frog posters thought of them and impeach Trump. How much longer must I endure this? Dead God! Dear mother! Someone help!

They continued on. Trump skipped the whole say singing ‘Bigly bill’ over and over and occasionally telling Pence he had to sing along. 

When they arrived in the oval office, Trump ran over to his seat, lost breath half way, sharted, and then walked the rest of the way. With a wet plop, he sat down and banged his fist on the desk.

“No more fun and games. It’s time to put my big boy pants on and do some work!”

Pence walked up behind Trump and reached into a drawer, brushing aside many drawings of Trump punching Hillary and pulled out the bill his boss was supposed to sign. 

“What’s the bill, Mike?”

“Fuck the poor, take away their health care and let them fucking die by Paul Ryan.”

“Paul Ronald? I love that guy!”

Pence’s eye twitched. In his mind, he was at a cross roads between screaming about homosexuality and letting Trump’s little outburst slip. He knew his pussy grabbing boss was a good Christian who didn’t approve of gays, but what he said disturbed him on a spiritual level.

“I mean, he’s not me or anything, but Paul Renalds, I know him. He’s a great guy, believe me. I remember when I met him, I met him way back ago, he said I was supposed to be President because he knows a good deal maker when he sees one. I make the best deals, believe me, they’re the best. My deals with Paul Rogers, he looks at my deals and he agrees to them because they’re the best. Believe me, Paul Roomba, he knows my deals. This deal here, it’s the best. The best deal. And his eyes are cute!”

Pence finally had to excuse himself, leaving the President alone to sign the bill. It occurred to Trump how strange the situation was. Normally when he signs bills into law, he has everyone stand in the room with him so they can congratulate him on what a big boy thing he was doing. Where was everyone?

“This was supposed to be a bigly moment. I want my praise!” He whined and screamed and pounded, but no one came in. Not even his famous tantrumps would sway the universe this time.

Slowly the gears in his head started turning His buddies in the GOP really tried to push this bill through fast. Kushner said they were doing it before Hillary emails about it on her private server. What was so special about the bill?

He reached over on his desk and grasped it in his hands. Squinting his eyes, for the first time in years he tried to read. “F-f-fuuuuuck t-tha pooor, tac...tic? Take! Take away thi-thir? Heat-ha...”

Sweat dripped from his brow as he slowly stumbled through the title. “bie..Pool Reean...Oh Pool Ransom! I love that guy! I made a deal with him earlier, and he agreed to it saying I make the best deals. The best. I remember making a deal in Saudeyrabba with those darkies, I gave them bigly amounts of weapons for money. Such a good deal. The best deal, believe me. The un were mad for some crap about human rights or whatever, but they’re just liblosers who don’t know good deals. Not like me, I make the best deals. Like I made a deal with Bannon the other day, it was such a good deal! The best and...oh shoot! I lost my place!” He sighed heavily and moved his eyes to the top of the page. 

Hours later, Pence came in, having obtained written permission by his wife to be able to hear any vaguely homosexual things from Trump even if she isn’t there. “Have you signed the bill yet, sir?”

“By pool Reea-Mikey! You made me lose my place! I don’t wanna lose like Shillery!”

--

Ultimately the bill wasn’t signed that day. Trump got bored of reading and instead drew a picture of his magnificent wall on the back. Completely irate but trying to keep his cool, Pence congratulated Trump on the wonderful drawing and said they could try again tomorrow while he stuck the picture to the fridge with all the other bills Donald didn’t sign. 

Their moment was interrupted by Kusher whose voice I have no idea what it sounds like so I’m assuming it sounds something like Kermit the Frog. He came in and stomped his foot. “Daaaaaaaaaady! The feds are being mean to me!” 

In Trump’s mind, he was so flattered. Kusher reminded Trump of himself when he was younger and asking his own father for a tiny loan of a million dollars. Ivanka, that hot piece of ass, really knows how to pick a man. But wait! If Ivanka picked Kushner, then she didn’t pick him! He was getting cucked! Uncle Bannon was right! Kusher was a dirty penny pinching jew boy who should be shoved in the oven and turned into a cake!

“Now Kusher, you know what I told you about handling the deep state.”

“Daaaaad, sending my body guard over to fire their leader didn’t work for meeeeeeee!”

“Kushner, if it worked for me, it’s bigly good. The best idea, believe me. I remember when Comey was giving me trouble, trying to investigate me and Russia. My relations with Putin, I don’t have them. I may have talked to him and agreed to win the election for him so he can systematically destroy the US from the inside out by telling me to appoint the most egregiously incompetent and malicious cabinet in presidential history who have a vested interest in destroying the very organizations they were chosen to run thus ensuring the US has very little power or influence over the world and weakening the pressure put on Russia which in turn would allow Putin to gain more influence over others...buuuuuuut I never met him, believe me! Bigly no no on meeting him!”

“Well if you don’t help me with this then I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll tell Ivanka!”

Trump leaped in the air. “Not Ivanka!”

“T-That’s right! I’ll tell her about this, daddy!”

“Okay okay! I’ll help!”

He ran out of the kitchen and out of the White House doors. For the first time, he had enough energy to do so. The prospect of losing his daughter’s affection would drive a man to do anything. At least that’s what Trump thought. When he was on the White House lawn, he finally stopped and wondered.

“Where does the feds work again? Gosh, who knew government could be so complicated?”

--

Dinner in the White House was supposed to be a special time. Everyone was gathered around ready to congratulate Trump on signing the bill and ensuring thousands of people would die, but were sorely disappointed when the learned that Trump tried to actually read the bill, failed to get past the title, and gave up. Still, they had to congratulate him lest the man throw another tantrump and ruin the dinner.

“An amazing job, your highness!” Rence Preibus said, raising his glass. 

“Your leadership is the best! Way better than that fucking nigger was. One day, I’m going to go to his house and put a bullet in his nigglet kids, but your kids, you have the best genes. We’re the master race, Trump!” A keebler elf said. Most people call him Jess Sessions. 

“I...have to use the restroo-” General Mattis was about to say before getting cut off. 

“Those fucking niggers, can you believe they were in here? Once I roll back the war on drugs, all of those shit skins are going away. Every fuckin’ one of them!” 

“Anyways, I’m going to leave n-”

“And the mexicans? They’re nigger lite! They’ll get it too. I’ll fuckin’ arrest them all! I swear on me lucky charms, I’ll fuckin’ arrest them all like the rabid squirrels who attacked my magical woodland kingdom. Those squirrels were fuckin’ niggers!”

Kelly Conway was ready to speak up. She was assured that there were no microwaves in the room at the moment. However, Mike Pence stopped her. “Women are to be seen, not heard, Kelly.”

“I for one am very happy for you, Trump. Not even Hitler was able to pass legislation!” Spicer beamed.

Bannon slammed both fists on the table. “Are you sayin’ tha h- *hic* Hitler, MY FUHRER, isn’t good enough?” He was ready to crawl up and strangle Spicer. “M-I-ighguhu va da b-both of us u-ughnggh”

Not even able to present a coherent thought, he passed out on his mashed potatoes. Kusher rose from his seat and pulled out a sharpie from his pocket, drawing several Stars of David on the drunk’s face. 

A turtle spoke up. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to pass our health care bill, but you’ll get it next time! We’ll get rid of those poor people together, and it’ll be your victory!” McConnell tried his best to hide his burning anger. Those poors will get to live another day because of his. Paul Ryan looked him in the eyes and nodded knowingly. Both of their dreams were squashed. 

“I dreamed about taking away health care from poor people since my college days,” Ryan said, “with you in charge, we’ll surely do that!”

Everyone else sang their praises, and then began to feast. Only Pence and Trump didn’t eat. The former because his wife hadn’t given him permission yet and the latter because when he looked down, he noticed that his food wasn’t a well done steak with extra ketchup but instead a massive log of shit. 

“COMEY!” He shouted, flipping his plate onto Pence. “He did this! He’s always doing this! Why does he keep bullying me! I want him to stop now now now now now!”

Pence tried to comfort him. “How do you know it was Comey, sir?”

“Because he’s a fuckin’ meanie!”

“You fired him weeks ago. he doesn’t have access to our kitchen.”

“He used the deep state to do it! I know it! The whole thing’s rigged! Bigly bad!”

Trump started to straight up cry and rolled out of his high chair. Not even three scoops of ice cream would satisfy him now. 

“I want him to stop now! I want the feds to stop attacking me! I want my documents to stop being leaked! I want them to ignore Russia now! Putin said this would be easy but it’s not! It’s difficult! It’s not easy peasy lemon squeasy like he said!”

Most of them had fled the room save for Kusher and Pence who spent the next several hours trying to consolidate him.

--

It was the first time in a long while since he heard his father’s voice. Barron Trump was in the middle of building a massive wall in Minecraft in hopes that his father will notice him, and while every previous attempt failed, he was sure it would work this time. He’d bet his fidget spinner on it!

As if a miracle from God, Trump entered his room and called his name. 

“Barron, I need help with the cyber!”

“D-dad?”

“I need you to hack into the FBI and remove everything they have on me and Russia!”

“Okay, dad! I’ll do my best!”

Trump slammed the door shut and Barron got straight to work. The moment went so fast but it felt like forever. Finally, he was communicated to! He was acknowledged! Using every bit of skill he had, he remotely accessed the FBI’s database and scanned through the files, trying to find any that looked relevant to the investigation between Trump and Russia. 

“Let’s see... aliens, JFK, Atlantas, big foot, little foot, 9/11, the moon landing...”

So many files; it was enough to overwhelm a kid. But Barron was an expert with a mission in mind. He wouldn’t let anything stand in his way. 

“Wait, this stuff looks good.”

When he opened the data base labeled ‘Putin and orange retard’, he was treated to a page with thousands of different files connecting Trump, his administration, and the Russians. There were pictures, scans of documents, text files, and even videos.

“Wow, I wonder what dad was doing with them.”

He clicked on video titles ‘pee tapes’ and minutes later from the halls, the staff could hear his screams.

--

Trump was scouting through the different rooms in the White House. Inside one was his wife being triple penetrated by secret service members. “Melina or whatever, have you seen Ivanka?”

“No!”

“Ok.”

He left unaware that he was being cucked. In another room was Sessions pulling on a rope that was attached to the ceiling fan while some voice, distinctly black, was gasping for air just out of view.

“I barely recognized you in your white hood. Have you seen Ivanka?”

“No.”

“Ok.”

A third room had Spicer and Bannon wresting for alcohol. Spicer was ranting about wanting to make the pain go away while Bannon just made several drunken antisemetic slurs. 

“Hey have you seen Ivanka anywhere?”

They both shook their heads before Bannon finally snatched the bottle away, flipped it to its narrow side, and smashed it over Spicer’s head. The man was knocked out and the alcohol was spilled, forcing Bannon to crawl on top of Spicer and lick it off his unconscious body. 

“Boy, Pence would be mad at that!”

Finally, Trump entered a room and found Ivanka. She was dressed in the sluttiest attire she had and laying in her bed, leads spread apart. Trump was already trying to pull his pants down, having difficulty moving his gut so he can unbuckle his belt, but wasn’t even able to do that when he saw Kusher walk up and climb on top of his daughter. 

“Kushner, stop cucking meeeeee!” He whined.

Ivanka didn’t react. Her mind was incapable of processing anything beyond fashion design and money. She sat there with wide open glassy eyes and a mouth slightly agape while Kusher himself turned around and looked Trump in the eyes. 

“Stop it now, Kushner!” 

“No!”

“I said now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now!”

Kusher walked over and slammed the door shut. Donald pounded on it with his tiny hands but couldn’t break through. He cried and yelled and rolled on the floor, calling for ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis to launch a nuclear strike against the room and kill Kusher but to no success. 

“I’m telling Putin on you!” He screamed again before finally leaving. Once again he crawled back into his bed all alone and could do nothing but watch the news. Fox, the only real news channel, was reporting on how Trump single handedly cured cancer while the fake news channels were talking about how Muller continues to hire the absolute best lawyers and prosecutors the country has to offer. Trump yelled at the TV to stop Muller from continuing, often mistaking Muller for Comey, but it was no use. No matter how much he cried, the TV didn’t show the investigation stopping. 

He knew that morning, he would have such a rant to post on Twitter. It was a bad day. : (