#shot was sooooo beautiful
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They said Jennifer was the path ahead but we barely got her story. I hope we get more of her in future projects. 💕
#jennifer kale#she's the path ahead#the high priestess#shot was sooooo beautiful#agatha all along#my art#marvel
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"A cicada's long, drawn-out chirp pierced the night. Although it's late summer, it evoked the awakening of insects in mid-spring."
THE ON1Y ONE (2024). EPISODE FOUR.
#the on1y one#asianlgbtqdramas#asiandramasource#twdramaedit#dramasource#tvedit#*#faiza gifs#I!!!!!!!!!! LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ROMANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#GOD THIS SHOT WAS SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL THE SUNLIGHT OH GOD THIS IS SO BEAUTIFULLLLLL
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HEHEHEHEHEEEEEE OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY I AM SO EXCITED!!!!
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#greysedit#gaedit#april kepner#grey's anatomy#userlolo#mine#her hair is sooooo cute here but i hate that there are no better shots of it#also i hate that at times greys would pretend that shes not pretty when she is sooooo beautiful#fake that more patients didn't fall in love with her
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we're going to have GROWN UP DINNER. I am making a SALAD. there will be CHAMPAGNE. it will be FANCY. we will be smoking WEED.
#its our one year anniversary hehehehe#apologies to anyone who one year ago today had to deal with my incessant posting about this beautiful amazing hilarious supportive#loving caring divine gorgeous angelic man that i love so so so much !!!!!!!#gonna marry that man. eventually. when we no longer live with his parents#im making a spinach salad with strawberries and pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries and goat feta and raspberry vinaigrette#and then one of those cracker barrel baked mac kits (because im lazy but theyre sooo good and quick but FEEL fancy)#and then for drinks we're having french 75's!! which are fantastic even if u dont have real champagne#(which we do from new years/xmas and just never popped it)#its basically a shot of gin a shot of lemon juice/simple syrup (or just lemonade) and topped with champagne (or just sparkling white wine)#its sooooo tasty#and we have like 3 types of gin so like 👀👀👀 we cna get creative#i have bombay raspberry/blackberry gin that would be soooo good with it#or hendricks amazonia that we got in the cancun airport#or just classic empress gin which is expensive but niiiice and its purple hehe#but so is the raspberry one hehe
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I have spent half the day just wandering around the WoF wiki, gawking at the queen portraits from the Guide and catching little glimpses of lore (and spoilers) and generally learning a LOT
...and I have to admit that I desperately want to read more of the series now despite my earlier comments. orz
I'm at least gonna read the Legends books because I NEEEEEEED the humans' perspective so bad, you don't even KNOW
#Tyto reads WoF#also apparently I was wrong about there being a huge timeskip between arcs???#it looks like Lost Continent takes place immediately after Jade Mountain. a BUNCH of old characters show up again#(WHY did I think it was centuries/millennia later??)#so while I am still hesitant about the fairy dragons because they feel SOOOOO different and strange juxtaposed with all the Pyrrhia tribes#I guess I'll have to give it a shot. urgwh#......... anyway for real though have y'all seen these portraits of the queens#I can't stop staring at Moorhen. she's beautiful
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longlegs? more like bigdisappointment
#there were some real beautiful shots and great acting but it feel so flat?#wanted sooooo much more freakiness to take place :/ nic cage wasn't even scary
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEIYA! ⋆ 96.03.11
#fantastics from exile tribe#fantastics#seguchi leiya#jr exile#jpop#hkgifs#HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BELOVED SEGUCHIN#leiya i love you sooooo much thank you for shining so bright every day and blinding us with your smile#our lovely perfect sexy resident muscle man thank you for sharing your beautiful self with us every day❤️#lol normally i try not to use clips that show other members for bdays but i just love that shot so much!!!!#that is the energy we all have for leiya too hehe#and ofc that episode of fantacasino is still one of my favorite leiya looks;;;;;#also im starting to notice that my hair preferences for the members really show themselves in my bday posts lmao oopsies
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QUICK COMBO: LIKE CRAZY | LOST | LIGHTS | LIKE CRAZY
My thoughts on this QC:
I was really struggling with what order to put these in before I realized the obvious answer is to use both versions of LC. This follows the bookend structure internal to the song as well which gets my serotonin going. 😀 Anyway, this is the 'Lost in the Lights' QC, very self explanatory and the lyrics work so well with it.
Listening Links:
#Spotify#bangtan sonyeondan#jimin#like crazy#lost#lights#like crazy (english)#QuickCombo#QC from CQ#Lights is another underappreciated song. the orig japanese tracks are sooooo good.#it was so hard choosing shots for Like Crazy#usually once i choose a vid it's easy but NO! LC is too beautiful!
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YOU ARE SPOILING ME. SPOILING ME ABSOLUTELY ROTTEN. 💛💛💛
Painland week day 4: domestic au
Outside Looking In by @dont-offend-the-bees
“So,” said the man. “Didn’t expect you to be out and about, and looking… well. Like you do.” Ronnie raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I…” The lady’s eyes flicked in Ronnie's direction before she cleared her throat. “Thought I’d put my face on for a change. A novelty.” “Well, you look dead fit.” He shot her a mischievous little grin, with a twinkle in his eye far too rascally for a man his age. “Always do, mind.” The lady blushed a little, high on her refined cheekbones. “...Thank you, Charles. You look.” She coughed and bobbed her head. “You look very smart, yourself.” The man – Charles, apparently – beamed, big and bright, and his lady friend’s blush deepened. Ronnie definitely felt like she was intruding, now. But there wasn’t much else she could do about it, save for take her break early and leave the bar unstaffed. And she was far too professional – and nosy – to do any such thing. In which Charles and Edwin's alter egos share a heart-to-heart, and an interested eavesdropper.
#THEY'RE SO BEAUTIFUL#I CRY#this fic is sooooo close to my heart omg and these are just the most gorgeous things#the warmth and the kinda sepia yones that really lend to the old married-ness of it all?#it's so cozy???? so comfy?????#your shot choices are IMPECCABLE as always#I'm in my feelings#i need to project these on the ceiling lie on my back on the floor and gaze at them#woooaaagghhhhhhh#I'm too lightheaded to handle all this love abhsdjjfjfbfjfj#EVERYONE SAY NICE THINGS TO ROBIN RIGHT NOW OR I'LL BLOW THIS WHOLE WEBBED SITE UP#art of my fic#dead boy detectives#my fanfic
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fic recs masterlist
since I was thinking about rereading some of my fav fics, here's a massive list of my favorites include haikyuu, jjk, bsd, etc
Haikyuu!
frankenstein's monster by starbeyy: sakuatsu fic where they both are diagnosed with OCD. this is the fic that is my instant rec, it's my roman empire. "you were the first beautiful thing i couldn't stop thinking about"?????????? this is a MASTERPIECE
the courtship ritual of the hercules beetle by kittebasu: THE iwaoi fic of all time, permanently altered my brain chemistry, my friend made me a gift of an embroidered hercules beetle and a quote from this fic and it's one of my most prized possessions
The Chosen One by moonyfest: one of my all time favorites, it's just so good and I love how their relationship develops, it's one of the fics that I reread every few months, nsfw in later chapters
Miya Atsumu, Adored By All (loved by some) by honest_pebble: the sakuatsu fic of all time, my inner atsumu kinnie came out while reading this and I cried multiple times while reading it but holy FUCK was it amazing, I reread this every few months as well, I have it downloaded on my phone lol
i wanna ruin our friendship by roseknight: highschool iwaoi fic, one of the first hq fics i ever read and it's very close to my heart because of it, make sure to look at tags for trigger warnings
i'm a house with no windows, you're the flowers on the front porch by miracleboysatori: a phenomenal childhood friends to lovers ushiten fic that has not been given the love it deserves, one of my favorite hq fics of all time, nsfw in later chapters
butterfly in the subway by bigspoonnoya: You've Got Mail au daisuga fic, a ton of background ships that are all super cute, I reread it all the time it's one of my favs!!!!!
the spirit of the resolution by starbeyy: this is my fav sunaosa fic of all time, osamu's complicated relationship with his self esteem really hit me especially when they're getting late night take out, i adore this fic and it's one of my favorites
can i be close to you by radian: kuroken fic where they don't know each other at first but slowly become friends and it's all lowercase but it's so good i promise, super fluffy
Vienna Waits For You by Pouler (poulerslashes): asanoya timeskip fic that's sooooo good in talking about what it's like to grow up and feel the pressure of the world on your shoulders and living up to your potential and expectations, nsfw in later chapters
Black and Blue by MTrash: daisuga au fic, i was obsessed with this fic when i first read it, it's really sad but really good, make sure to look at the tags for trigger warnings, nsfw in later chapters
you're the brake lines failing (as my car swerves off the freeway) by ghostpot: kuroken fic where kenma realizes he's in love with kuroo and spends the entire fic freaking out about it
campfire in your chest by deanpendragon: tsukkiyama fic where tsukishima realizes he's in love with tadashi before kagehina realize they're in love with each other and it's super cute, all of this author's tsukkiyama fics are so good
Liebesträume (Dream of Love) by emivance: sakuatsu rivals to lovers musican au, their dynamic this entire fic is so funny and they're obviously intro each other but are in deep denial about it, nsfw in later chapters
surfacing by meeks00: bokuaka au where they find out their bfs have been cheating on them with each other, one of my fav bkak fics they're so precious, nsfw in chapters 2 and 3
daisy rings and frivolous things (i am deliriously in love with you) by gabstar: bokuaka one shot that I am OBSESSED with, the way their relationship speed runs is my favorite aspect of this fic because its exactly what i imagine their relationship doing
Similar Creatures by h_lovely: iwaoi Pretty Woman au that's soooooo good, i really liked how their relationship developed and grew throughout the fic, nsfw all over this fic
Kiss Me (Like You Wanna Be Loved) by kazzydolyn: bokuaka friends w benefits fic where they fall in love with each other at the same time but akaashi doesn't know what to do about it, nsfw
Guiding Stars by daedalust: hiruhoshi fic that y'all will devour once we get more of hoshiumi and hirugami in the anime, they have one of my fav friendships in the series, hirugami is enamored with hoshiumi who asks for dating advice
Behind Bricks by DeathBelle: bokuaka au where akaashi is a sex worker and they become friends but bokuto falls in love with him instantly, a lot of nsfw obviously
Hard Times by mooifyourecows: daisuga au where olympian daichi pays con artist suga to be his fake fiance during a cruise, my FAVORITE daisuga fic ever, i was chomping at the bit for each update, nsfw in later chapters
Valor with Honor, Fealty with Love by radiantradish: daisuga medieval knight au, they slowly fall in love as rivals and it's suuuper cute yet angsty, mild nsfw in later chapters
In the Armpits of Spring by Paintbrushyy_Ducky98: iwaoi au where they meet in high school and oikawa confesses to iwaizumi before they ever really meet, iwaizumi's growing curiosity about oikawa is soooooo cute their relationship is developed really well
The Space Between Stars by leuralo_l: bokuaka fic where everyone but bokuto knows that akaashi is in love with him, I was so impressed with this fic especially since the author said it was their first fic pls give it a read!!!!!!
wait (I'm on my way) by viverella: sunaosa fic where they're both oblivious to each other's affections and are quietly pining, their relationship is super cute and adorable
Close to the Chest by darkmagicalgirl: kyouhaba fic where they bicker but slowly fall for each other during high school along with background iwaoi, i loved this fic it was so good, some mentioned and blatant homophobia
beautiful monsters by gravitates: ushiten fic with slight angst but damn did it make me feel emotional, ushijima is so soft and tender and loving to tendou, another one of my favs
Cool, detached, casual by fluorophoring: kuroken fic where they try to have casual sex but it doesn't really work and they both spiral lol, nsfw
Breakers by ftld: sunaosa 90s au, god I LOVED this fic and how obvious of a simp osamu is, it's sooooo good, some mentioned/blatant homophobia
Special Relativity and Years by buttonstuck: mega angsty iwaoi fics with the second being an alternate ending of the first fic that has a sad, bittersweet ending that made me cry harder than I have in YEARS, some mild nsfw in the first fic
your whole life on your play by emleewrites: kagehina proposal fic that goes exactly how i picture it would go in canon
make up your mind by sketchedsmiles: sunaosa fake dating au where osamu asks suna to be his fake bf in order to one up atsumu who's dating sakusa, i absolutely loved this fic lol
Jujutsu Kaisen
Caesura by cielelyse: suuuuuuch a good rivals to friends to lovers satosugu fic about their first year in jujutsu high together and the mission that made them friends, probably my fav jjk fic ever
And every day, it's changed since then. by BotanicalBites: inuokka college au where yuuta is an artist trying to escape from his growing fame in the country and meets farmer inumaki
What Instinct Can't Teach by kiyokosturtle: chosoyuki and it's sooooo good how to author develops their relationship before the smut lol, nsfw in the last chapter
The Long Con by lyrebirdswrites: an itafushi no curses au that isn't finished yet but is soooooo good, this fic is currently being plagiarized by another author so it's on hiatus for now but I'm hoping the original author gets everything worked out!!!!
Bungo Stray Dogs
where your loyalties lie by writingfromtheshadows: soukoku yakuza au, this is by far the best bsd fic i've read so far, their relationship is just so believable and their characters are wonderful, nsfw
the art of burning bridges by sanguinekitten: soukoku fic from chuuya's perspective about different times in their lives together, it's so good
i think he knows by sanguinekitten: soukoku 5+1 fic where dazai knows that chuuya loves him but the latter refuses to admit it
Threats Made in a Hotel Room by moonrice (moonyeyes): soukoku fic where dazai pisses of chuuya so much they start making out
A Lesson in Thorns by arkastadt: soukoku beast au fic where they're in an arranged marriage and slowly fall in love, similar premise to where your loyalties lie but an entirely different plot, I still have ten chapters left but I'm really enjoying it so far, nsfw
Miscellaneous
i'll be your biggest kept secret and your biggest mistake by sascake: mha tododeku fic that I instantly fell in love with, the way the author writes both of them is so well done, not finished yet, mild nsfw mention
sore must be the storm by Pouler (poulerslashes): mha tododeku fic where they're trapped in a collapsing building and they have a deep talk about their lives
Until my Feet Bleed and My Heart Aches by Reiya: yoi viktuuri au fic that I binged like crazy, yuuri and viktor's first interaction goes differently and yuuri is determined to hate viktor, nsfw in later chapters
seraph's nest by phile: csm akiangel fic where they slowly become friends and fall in love with each other over the course of the manga's plot
#can you tell i have a bias for hq#haikyuu!!#jjk#bsd#fic recs#jinx talks#jinx reads#iwaoi#bokuaka#satosugu#sakuatsu#daisuga#asanoya#kyouhaba#akiangel#viktuuri#tododeku#soukoku#itafushi#chosoyuki#sunaosa#kagehina#ushiten#hiruhoshi#kuroken#tsukkiyama
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i want to hold you close, skin pressed against me tight | logan howlett/wolverine
masterlist ❈
summary: drifting from town to town and never lingering in one place for too long has served you well since you began to realize something might be...different, about you. you've never been able to put a finger on what exactly that difference is, until you end up at the same bar as a mysterious, albeit deeply captivating, stranger. author's note: this literally came from an idea of a reader that could share their own feelings through touch, which then snowballed into an arguably too long one shot (if i'm not careful, that's what i'm going to become known for hahaha) i recently rewatched x-men (2000) after seeing dp&w (twice) and haven't had time to rewatch the others. i know at the end of the first movie, logan leaves the school - so i feel like this would take place, hypothetically, either after he returns/before x2, or between x2 and x-men 3. idk it's not that deep seriously just imagine early 30-something year old hugh jackman's wolverine while you read this <3 kind of still a shithead, not yet entirely traumatized lol!!!
pairing: logan howlett/wolverine x f!reader word count: 10,353 (uhhhh hahaha next question) warnings/tags: pWp (with, y'all!), sloooow burn, user rhaenyratargcryen had to google everyone's powers multiple times just. be warned
18+/mdni i am sooooo serious and please don't repost with or without asking for permission. i'm not into that kind of thing, if you want to share pls reblog!!!!
title is from she wants revenge's "tear you apart"
It’s a Sunday, when Logan finds you. Or, you’d soon come to find, perhaps it was you who had been the one to find him.
You’ve grown accustomed to becoming a familiar face at every shitty bar in every small town your drifter lifestyle drags you to, and this hole-in-the-wall in the Hudson Valley that smells slightly of piss and even more of cigarettes is no different.
The motel down the street that you’d unpacked your menial possessions into is the perfect distance from the dive — you could walk home at the end of the night, and not worry you’d find yourself in trouble with a stranger. Well, the wrong kind of stranger.
Sitting at the end of the bar, you’re nursing your third drink in the fading light of the afternoon as it comes through the row of windows to your right when the light blinks out, abruptly, and you look up to find yourself face to face with a very ruggedly-handsome man with…mutton chops, you think? You snort. They haven’t been in style for centuries.
Your gaze drags across his face, down to his torso, then rests for a beat too long to be appropriate on the way his jeans sit low on his hips, a bit too tight on his thighs if he was to ask you. He stiffens under your wandering eye, watching you carefully as your attention returns to his — begrudgingly, considering he’s disturbing your peace — beautiful face.
He’s hot, you’ll give him that, but you try your best to glare and look unapproachable; it’s a Sunday and you’re drunk on bottom-shelf whiskey, trying desperately to communicate that you’re not quite in the mood for conversation with a stranger at the moment.
This man will not take a fucking hint.
He gestures to the seat directly to your right. “Mind if I sit here?”
You glance pointedly at the rest of the seats at the bar, which are all notably empty, but you say nothing and grunt your indifference. This guy doesn’t look the talkative type, but you really hope he isn’t looking for a chat. Luckily, he sits down silently and gestures to the bartender, who seems to recognize him and pours him a finger of whatever you’ve also been drinking.
From the corner of your eye, you can see that he’s picked up the glass and swirled the liquor around in it, but before he can take a swig, he opens his mouth with the glass practically pressed to it and mutters, “You know what you are?”
“That’s an odd fucking thing to say,” you remark, pulling your glass closer to you and closing both fists around it, turning to look directly at him. Your heart stutters as you watch the left side of his mouth curl slightly into a smirk. “Wanna explain to me what the fuck you mean by that, dude?”
The man grunts and throws back his whiskey, swallowing it in one go. Before you can get another word in, he lifts his left hand up, flexing his forearm, and you watch as three shiny, silver pieces of metal pierce through the skin between his knuckles with a sharp snikt sound.
“What the fuck,” you rasp, pressing a hand flat down on the bartop to push yourself up and away from him in the seat next to you, knocking your own drink over in the process. No one else in the bar seems fazed, like he comes in here and does this — whatever this is — often. He doesn’t move, doesn’t make an attempt to come closer to you than he is, and eventually your heartbeat calms down, and your flight response becomes a fight response. You bristle, a bit pissed off at what you read as an attempt to scare the shit out of you for fun.
“What’s your problem?”
“Ain’t got a problem, bub,” the man murmurs, leaning against the bar and grinning, the claws retracting. He wipes the backs on his knuckles off onto the thighs of his jeans, blood staining the denim red. “Was just trying to get you to do whatever it is you can do.”
You thank the bartender, who has dropped a rag in front of you to clean your spilled liquor and replaced your empty glass with a full one.
“Sweetheart, I could smell you the second I stepped foot through that door. I haven’t seen you around here before, you new in town?”
Smell you? You’re about one more strange statement from him away from losing your goddamn mind. “I’m gonna need you to elaborate on what you mean by smell. Please.”
He leans closer to you, that smirk on his mouth a provocation, so close that you can practically taste the whiskey on his breath. “You ever heard of mutants, dollface?”
—————
Now, seeing as that wasn’t the kind of conversation you wanted to have in public, you had tried to push him — Logan, his name is, you learn — back by his chest, but the man was an immovable object. Probably a good thing you’d ultimately decided it wasn’t worth trying to hit him.
“Excuse me,” you’d uttered, slapping a twenty dollar bill down on the bar top and slipping out of your seat carefully, quickly realizing how drunk you really are. When you right yourself, you turn to him and angle your head to the door behind you.
“We can have this talk somewhere else, yeah?”
Logan had looked up at the bartender, muttered, “Add hers to my tab?” and palmed your money to give back to you, following you across the room. When you’d tried to object, Logan had held his hand up and told you your money wasn’t good here anymore.
Now, you lead him through the door to your room, stripping yourself of your jacket and kicking at the dirty laundry on the floor at the end of the bed at the same time.
“Want to tell me what the fuck that was all about? Do I know you or something?”
“No, sweetheart,” Logan says, unzipping his moto jacket and slipping his arms from the sleeves, revealing a crisp white t-shirt and biceps thicker than your neck. You subtly try to shake your head, snap your attention away from them, but he smirks, catching your eye. “You don’t know me. But I think you’re like me. We’re drawn to each other, you know. It’s like some sort of…beacon, a homing device. I was coming to the bar anyway. I knew what you were, second I saw you.”
“And you think I’m…also a, what, a mutant?”
“Not think. Know. You seriously can’t think of a single thing recently that might have felt a little, I don’t know, off? Can you see things you couldn’t before? Have you been hungrier? Felt more on edge?”
You squeeze your eyes shut, trying and failing to think of any big change, but you come up short. Shaking your head, you glance back up at him. “No. No, everything’s been the same. I’ve been on the road a bit, moving from place to place, but that isn’t unusual for me.”
“Any particular reason you chose Westchester County to land on?”
“I don’t know…I just,” you blanch, realizing he’s right, except it hasn’t been one big change – it’s been little by little. “I felt drawn east.”
Logan considers this for a moment; you can see the ditch between his eyebrows deepen with thought, before he seems to come to some sort of conclusion.
“I think you been in fight or flight for a long time, trying to survive on scraps and strangers’ generosity. Let me guess. No family left? Nowhere to call home? Somethin’ big and bad happen to you?”
You say nothing and he watches a scowl slip across your face, humming when he realizes he’s cut deep, to the bone.
“C’mere,” Logan murmurs, and you take steps backward as he comes toward you, the backs of your calves meeting the bed. He holds his hands up, palms facing you. “Hey, okay. I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’m not in the business of scaring little girls.”
“I’m not a little girl,” you scoff, staring at him out of the corner of your eye as he advances, albeit a little more slowly, on you.
Logan shakes his head. “You’re still much younger than me, sweetheart.”
“What? You don’t look older than 31, maybe 32.”
“Yeah, well. Looks aren’t everything, okay? I’m just — I’m not in the business of scaring girls. I wouldn’t’a let you bring me back here if I was going to hurt you; that’s not who I am.”
You suppose you don’t have much choice but to trust him.
“I wanted you to come here,” Logan breathes, hands returning to his sides. He gives you a look, asking permission to move closer to you, to touch you, and you tip your head forward in a slight nod. “So I can do this.”
He grasps your forearm in his hand, places your palm on his bicep, and immediately winces. White flashes in front of your eyes, and a sharp pain nearly splits your head in half. You gasp his name, beg him to stop. When he pulls your hand from him, it almost looks like the print of it has been burned into his skin.
“I have a friend who’s an empath,” Logan murmurs, pupils blown, once his heartbeat has recovered to its resting rate. “She has to touch someone, to affect the way they feel. It’s good for, you know, calming people down in situations where they might be worked up. You, on the other hand…”
Logan trails off and you shake your head, bringing your arms up to fold across your torso, shivering gently. “What? I’m what?”
“I think, when you touched me, you made me feel what you were feeling. You were scared of me, huh? I could feel it, immediately. I could taste copper in my mouth, I started sweating.” Logan laughs softly, running his fingers across the skin of his right hand. “My palms are still sweaty.”
He’s still staring down at his hands, at the stretch of skin on his arm that still stings with the feeling of you. Your eyes rove over his handsome profile, at his strong nose. His jaw ticks when he looks back over to you, one eyebrow curled.
”Sorry,” he adds. “I didn’t know it would hurt you.”
Already walking past you, Logan gestures toward the bed. “Sit,” he orders, and you blanch and do as he says. He digs a cellular phone out of the front pocket of his jeans and ducks his head, disappearing wordlessly into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
Groaning, you fall back onto the bedspread. Fuck, this whole ordeal has sobered you up, and quick. Why is there a strange man in your bathroom? You could make people feel what you’re feeling? What was going to happen now?
You run through every possibility — you could leave before he comes back, abandon your stuff, take your car and run — but by the time you come to any sort of conclusion, Logan emerges from the bathroom.
“C’mon,” he says, sliding his jacket back over his arms, zipping it up and gesturing toward the door with his head. “Got somebody who wants to meet you.”
You sit up straight and look around at your belongings. Logan seems to take this hint and starts gathering the articles of clothing strewn across the room, along with those still somehow neatly folded in the motel dresser, ignoring your protests and stuffing them in the suitcase open on the floor against the wall. After a few moments of watching Logan pull together your worldly belongings, you fumble with the drawer on the bedside table, open the bible, and pull out your passport and an indeterminate, but large, amount of cash. Logan eyes it but says nothing, and when you zip your suitcase closed, he picks it up for you without a word.
“You won’t need to come back here,” Logan mutters as you slam the tailgate on your truck closed. He points to the room you’d just left, then rounds to the driver’s side of your truck and starts walking across the parking lot, looking over his shoulder to shout, “You can leave your key in the room. There’s plenty of empty beds where we’re headed.”
“And if I don’t want to go?”
Logan stops and turns back to face you, his jaw set. “Pretty soon, people’ll figure out what you are, sweetheart. And they won’t take to you as nicely as I have.”
You snort. Nicely. But you know he’s right. It seems like things are a little different around here, for people like you. But you know that now you know what you are, that will change. As you’re trying to figure out what to say to him, Logan starts backing up.
You’re still unsure of how to talk to this man you’d only recently met, who’d already had a hand in changing your life fundamentally, but you hold a hand up, asking him to stop. He does. He watches you carefully, probably trying to decide whether or not you’re going to run away. You’re still not sure yourself.
“How did you know that you needed me to touch you?”
“Call it gut instinct.”
“It didn’t hurt, by the way,” you murmur, turning to look at him. A few paces away from you, one of Logan’s eyebrows arches, and you wring your hands together.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It felt good.”
—————
The place you’re headed — plenty of empty beds, he’d said — is less than a ten minute drive from the motel you’d been staying at, it turns out. Logan had told you to wait by your truck while he went back to the bar to pick up his bike, then drove ahead of you all the way there, your headlights illuminating the back of his body. Wrought iron gates await you, and they ease open as you pull up the long gravel drive.
Logan drops his kickstand and leaves his motorcycle directly in front of a large set of wooden doors, and you slow nearly to a stop, trying to decide where’s best for your truck. Logan’s one step ahead of you and dismounts the bike, pointing you toward a line of cars on the other side of the little lot, following you on foot as you shift into park and turn the vehicle off.
“What is this place?”
Logan is popping your tailgate open when you open your door and he pulls your suitcase from the bed — the act takes him little effort, you notice. You thank him and try to take the case from him, but he shakes you off and leads you to the building.
“It’s a school,” Logan says, pushing through the front door. Immediately you’re greeted with the sound of children’s laughter, of feet running on wooden floors, of voices echoing off walls in the distance. You catch the door as it closes behind Logan, trying your best not to be distracted by the subtle opulence of just the foyer.
Logan drops your suitcase by the front window, then unzips his coat, removes it, and hangs it on the coatrack to his right. “We’ll figure out your room situation soon, but I wanna take you down to meet Charles first.”
“Charles?”
“He owns the place,” Logan mutters, crooking a finger to indicate for you to follow him. “He’ll want to see what you can do.”
Pursing your lips, you decide to press your luck with Logan. “What about what you can do? Is it just the claws?”
Logan smirks, coming to an abrupt stop in the dark hallway. He turns to face you, and you can see his teeth shine as he smiles. “What? You hoping for somethin’ else, a bigger show than I gave you earlier?”
You stand your ground with him, but your heart is racing, and he cocks an eyebrow like he can tell. He relents, shrugging.
“I heal pretty fast, too.”
Charles’ office is behind the last door on the left, at the end of the hall, and you’re shocked when Logan knocks, rather than entering the room like he belongs there.
“Come in,” you hear, then realize you hadn’t actually heard it. It’s more like you’d felt it knocking around the inside of your skull. Your heartbeat picks up again.
“It’s okay,” Logan says out of the corner of his mouth. “He does that sometimes.”
The door opens, and you’re met with an almost-empty office — only a bald man sat behind a large wooden desk.
“So,” the man says, folding his hands upon the tabletop. No hello. No, it’s lovely to meet you. “You’re an empath, are you?”
“I — I guess?”
“Hm,” he murmurs, glancing at Logan, who stands behind you and to the left, slightly.
“She is, Chuck,” Logan assures Charles. “I felt it myself. She can show others her emotions, make them feel what she feels. She was scared when she met me — had my heart racin’. I could see myself through her eyes.”
He hadn’t told you that part, and you worry he’d noticed that your heart hadn’t only been racing because you were afraid. Charles clicks his tongue, and surveys you, your dirty shoes, the wild look in your eye, and clears his throat.
“If you wouldn’t mind, young lady, I’d quite like to feel for myself, as well.”
A blush heats up your face and you step forward, throwing a tentative look at Logan over your shoulder. He nods, dispelling any fears, and you step forward until you’re standing at the edge of Charles’s desk. You reach across, shaking, and take the man’s hand in yours.
“Oh,” Charles murmurs, his pupils dilated. “That’s certainly new. You’ve no need to be afraid, dear, we only want to help you. As I’m sure Logan told you, it’s a dangerous world out there, for our kind.”
“And we’re safe here?”
“Yes.”
Logan brushes past you and rounds Charles’s desk, leaning down to murmur something in the man’s ear. You can hear their hushed, hurried voices, but can’t make out what they’re saying, and the longer you stand there as an onlooker, the more out of place you feel. You shift your weight from your left foot to your right foot and look out the window as they talk.
The sun is setting outside — the late summer glow illuminating the office, warming your face — and you decide to clear your throat, drawing the men’s attention back to you.
“If it’s alright, I’d like to be alone for the night. I think.”
“That’s alright, yes,” Charles smiles, raising a hand and curling his fingers inward. The door opens behind you, and you jump. “This is a lot for one day, I understand. Logan, if you would show our guest to a spare room? One in your wing, perhaps, in case she is in need of anything.”
You glance at Logan and watch him nod, then turn and wink at you. You roll your eyes at him. He doesn’t know you, and the familiarity with which he interacts with you is unnerving, but at the same time, you find him intriguing.
It’s almost like the man you met at the bar and the man guiding you out of this room are two entirely separate people. The man from the dive was overeager, compensating for being the one thing there that was out of place. This man is relaxed. This is his home.
You wonder as you watch him if this is who he really is.
“Charles is telepathic,” Logan murmurs, almost as if he can also hear your thoughts racing. He glances over at you, holding your eye a beat too long. “He’s also telekinetic.”
“Hence the door opening on its own.” You pause. “And the creepy voice inside my head.”
Logan chuckles, shrugging and bending down to retrieve your suitcase from where it now sits at the bottom of the staircase. You watch the muscles in his biceps flex, your mouth suddenly going very dry. “You get used to it. People say he can read every mind within a two-hundred-and-fifty-mile radius of wherever he sits. Can’t imagine all that noise all the time.”
Humming your consensus, you follow him, gaze trapped between his broad shoulders. Even the back of his neck is enticing. “If he could read my mind, why wouldn’t that have been enough for him to know?”
“There’s something different about what you do,” he says, guiding you up the stairs to the second floor and down a long, carpeted hall. “It requires touch. Charles can read your mind, sure, but there’s more to your influence than just your thoughts. It’s baser, more animalistic.”
Finally, the two of you come to a dead end, and Logan opens the nondescript wooden door to your left. He walks inside without waiting to see if you’ll follow and places your suitcase down on the end of the twin-sized bed against the farthest wall.
“You need anything, I’m two doors down across the hall, okay? Seriously. Anything.”
You haven’t moved from where you stopped in the doorway to watch him, one fist pressed against the frame you’re leant up against. He brushes past you, so close you can smell his cheap aftershave, the whiskey on his breath still lingering, though he hasn’t once seemed drunk. The hint of something more pungent. You open your mouth — before he gets too far, you want to ask him the question you haven’t yet had the courage to voice.
“Logan?”
The man pauses, his face inches from yours. Your gaze flicks between his eyes, then down across mouth, to where his throat moves as he swallows. “Hm?”
“Why are you helping me?”
What you mean is, You don’t seem like a generous man. What you mean is, I’m not afraid of you, but I haven’t yet decided if I can trust you. What you mean is, Why me?
He pauses, considering your question, then places one hand on your bicep and squeezes. His eyes are wet, like someone who remembers too much and not enough. Before you can catch your breath, he’s moved on, that same hand now wrapped around the doorknob of his own room. A small smile graces the lower half of his face. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“I got a habit a’ pickin’ up strays.”
—————
The days pass by quickly, and they’re exhausting. There’s a war brewing, they all say. A war none of you had ever asked to be a part of, but have no choice in joining. You wake daily before the sun rises, called downstairs to do endless exercises to strengthen your control over your ability, you’ve come to think of it as. The problem is that you’re not sure you’re capable of the things they need you to be capable of.
“Can we stop, for today?”
You’re bent at the waist, arms dangling, both hands clutching the opposite elbow. It helps you decompress. This isn’t physically tiring work, necessarily, but the mental strain is undeniable. You’re avoiding Charles’s gaze, which you know will have a disappointed glean to them.
“What, can’t handle it already?”
You perk up at the sound of Logan’s voice, and when you turn your head towards it, you see him walking towards you across the yard, light wash jeans slung low on his hips once again. The sleeves of his white tee are rolled up, straining against the corded muscle of his biceps, the collar cut into a V at the front.
Since you first met him, you’ve learned a few things about Logan: one, he’s Canadian. Two, he can drink you under the table, and he will absolutely let you drink yourself to sleep, but he always makes sure you end up in your own bed at the end of every night. And three, his powers are more than just the claws: he has a regenerative healing power, alongside superhuman strength, and superhuman stamina. The thought of that last one makes you blush.
You spend most evenings with him on the floor of your room, drinking cheap whiskey while he chain smokes and deals you in after every round of cards he kicks your ass at.
“Need to work on your poker face, darlin’,” he always says, smirking and shuffling the cards again with his lithe, thick fingers.
And on the nights when you can’t find sleep, he sits up with you in your room, reading Hemingway and Steinbeck and Fitzgerald, even some Stephen King, while you curl up on your side and let the even sound of his breathing lull you unconscious.
You get used to each other’s presence. You don’t talk much while you sit together – is there really anything more to say? He’d clocked you that very first day. You were alone in the world, before, but not anymore.
He doesn’t do this with anyone else, you notice. Allow them into his small circle of trust, or whatever this is. You’re friends, you think. He hasn’t let himself have many of those.
You’ve also learned a few things about yourself, the most important being that with some practice you no longer get a splitting headache using your ability; that you can control when and how you use it; and that you’ve been meditating on some other, perhaps more enjoyable and creative ways, to make use of it.
Although you’d tried to deny it from the start, unfortunately — mostly for yourself — the attraction you feel toward Logan is unshakable. He’s rough, and sharp, and impermeable, but he seems to have a soft spot for you. You can’t tell if it’s the circumstances under which the two of you met that have him feeling that way, but you’ve developed a fun back and forth over the last few weeks.
“What, sweet cheeks,” Logan pokes at you, left hand on his cocked hip. “Is it that hard for you, still?”
Shaking your head, you grin at him, one hand cupped over your eyes to block the sun behind him. You turn to glance at the back of Charles’s chair, already heading away from the two of you. Your attention falls back on Logan.
“C’mere, then,” you murmur, standing up straight and mirroring his body language. One of his eyebrows arches and his canine teeth appear as his smile widens. “I’ll show you how easy I can get it goin’.”
As he crosses the remaining bit of yard between you, that smug look on his face, you channel fury. You push every ounce of attraction and good will you feel toward Logan out of your mind, and you think: anger. I’m angry. At my circumstances. At what the world does to people like me. At how much I’m underestimated — at how much I underestimate myself.
By the time Logan has made it to your side, hand already outstretched, you’ve made up your mind. And you place one hand on the side of his face.
Immediately, you feel heat, but the cracking headache from that first day you’d met never comes. Instead, you feel an ache deep in your gut, a wave of want, of assurance that you’re where you need to be, with exactly the right person. You hold your palm against him for another minute and his face falls forward, towards your chin, before he wraps his hand around your wrist and pulls it away, gasping with relief when you let him go.
Logan’s cheeks are flushed, and when he looks back up at you, chest heaving, you realize he hadn’t felt your anger. You didn’t have much to be angry about — sad, sure; scared, yes — so anger must have been the wrong emotion to pull from. You’d wanted to get him worked up, but not like this.
Instead, you worry you’ve just ruined any ounce of trust the two of you had built between you. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leans away from you, his eyes running from the top of your head, down to where your own hands now sit at your sides.
“I’ll talk to you later, kid, okay?”
Logan doesn’t let you respond, instead turning to leave you standing, heart falling, lost in your head in the middle of the yard, while all around you birds chirp and children play.
—————
“Well, well.”
You jump, the back of your head snapping against the top of the inside of the fridge, and you groan, pressing the heel of your hand to the now-tender spot, pulling it away to see if you’ve made yourself bleed.
“Burning the midnight oil?” Logan laughs, padding across the kitchen and rubbing a hand against the top of your head where you knocked it. “Sorry, bub. You okay?”
“I don’t know. Ask me in a few minutes when my eyes uncross.”
You’re too focused on the feeling of his fingers against your scalp to think about anything else. You glance down at Logan’s flannel pajama pants and his bare feet. He grabs you by the shoulders and steers you against the kitchen island behind you.
“Lemme get you some ice.”
You watch, back pressed to the edge of the counter, as Logan pulls a tea towel from one of the kitchen drawers and a tray of ice from the freezer, popping them out onto the towel and folding it into itself, wrapping the tail to give you something to hold onto. You prop it against your skull — instant relief. You eye him warily, accusatory.
“What are you down here for anyway?”
“Same thing as you, I think.”
Logan refills the tray with water and places it back into the freezer, and this thoughtfulness surprises you, you’re embarrassed to admit. You wouldn’t have thought him to be so considerate. Then again, he had just handmade an ice pack for you. Your eyes glaze over and your mouth goes dry just watching his fingers work.
You haven’t seen him for days, not since you’d accidentally let him feel…whatever it is you feel for him. Every day when you’d gotten out of bed, even when that was before the sun rose, he would always already be gone from his room, the door open and his duvet cover tucked neatly underneath his mattress. He hadn’t taken any of his meals in the dining room with the rest of your peers, hadn’t joined in on any sparring sessions like he usually loved to do. His bike had stayed parked outside — you’d kept an eye out for it every day. You’d begun to worry that something had happened to him.
The silence starts to dig into you. You can’t help it; you have to break it.
“Thought you died, I didn’t see you for so long.”
“Yeah, well. I had some shit to take care of.”
You scoff at that. “I saw your bike outside, Logan, you never left the school. What kind of shit did you have to take care of?”
Another beat of awkward silence, and you can’t stand whatever wall has come up between you. You want to knock it down.
“You remember what you said to me in that bar?”
“What’s that?” Logan looks up at you, a sharp look in his eye. A warning, almost, but unfortunately, you’re feeling a little bolder than usual. Perhaps you’re concussed.
“You said that we were drawn to each other because of our abilities. I think maybe that wasn’t the only reason we found each other.”
He leans back against the freezer and stands quiet for a moment, his chest rising and falling with each steady breath. His dark eyes regard you in the dim light of the kitchen.
You step forward into his space, one hand coming up to press against his chest, through his shirt. The other, the one holding his makeshift ice pack, lands at your side.
Logan’s breath catches in his throat at your touch and he swallows around it, his heart stuttering under your palm. He’s waiting for the feeling to rush into and overwhelm him. It never comes.
Logan exhales, then reaches up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. Your cheeks flush a furious red and he chuckles at the feeling of it against his fingers. You’re tempted to shift your hand over to touch his skin, to fill him with this rush of unexpected desire you feel, but you can’t quell your thoughts that that would be a bad idea. Even though the position you’re in right now might be regarded as a bad idea, too.
Since you met, he’s made it abundantly clear he doesn’t see you as anything more than a friend — if that. But you’ve been replaying the other day in the training yard in your mind, and you can’t shake the feeling that maybe he’s got the same desire you do.
“You know, you’re right,” Logan murmurs, and you cock your head, looking to his face for an explanation. He takes the towel full of ice from your hand by your side and holds it against your head for you. “What you think about me, it’s all true. I’m not a nice man.”
“I don’t know. You say that, but you seem pretty nice to me. You took me in. You’re helping me understand what I am, what I can do. Logan, fuck’s sake, you tuck me into bed when I drink too much.”
Logan laughs softly, tilting his chin to take you in from a different angle. Your heart squeezes in your chest.
“I just can’t figure you out. You act all mean and tough and scary, but I see the way you look at me, and I’ve only known you, what, a handful of weeks? I see how you are with some of the students. I see how you are with Charles. You got some deep, dark past you don’t want anyone knowin’ about, sure, but you’re a nice man, Logan. You’re soft on me. I can tell.”
Considering you for a moment, Logan’s lips parts to respond, then he thinks better of it. His eyes fall from yours to the way your chest expands with every breath. You’ve wondered about you and him, and that one look gives you all the courage you need to say it.
“Since I got here I’ve had this feeling, that with you and me, there’s something bigger. Tell me you feel it too, that I’m not goin’ crazy. And if you don’t, Logan, tell me that, then. Anything to stop this awful, sick feeling I get whenever you walk into the room.”
You wait to see if he’ll tell you to fuck off, that he doesn’t see you that way. That he’s soft on you, sure, but this is as far as it can go. Instead of saying anything at all, he surges forward to claim your mouth with his.
The kiss is hesitant, at first, before Logan can figure out whether you’re going to push him away or not, but when you open your mouth to deepen it, it turns furious. It’s all teeth, tongue, Logan’s hips caging you in and driving you back against the counter behind you. He’s got one hand wrapped around your waist, the other gripping the countertop, and when you carelessly bring a hand up to rest a hand against his cheek, Logan gasps against your mouth. The towel full of ice finds its way into the sink.
Shocked, he peels himself from you, panting. You hadn’t thought about whether you’d project or not when you’d touched him — and if his blown-out pupils are any indication, he’d felt it. All of it. The ache deep in your gut and the clench of your thighs. The flare of your nostrils as his scent hits you, heavy and earthy and masculine. The undeniable way you fit against him, your chest pressed to his, the shock of his hips aligned with yours, like you were made for one another. You want him to have you, have all of you, and with your palm still pressed to his skin, he knows.
“Is that really what you want?”
It’s practically a growl, and you pull your hand from him, allowing him to recover, but only slightly. He’s got himself worked up all on his own.
You can see in his face that he wants you, too. You nod, bring one hand down to clutch the waistband of his pants and tug him forward against you again. He groans, gathering some of your hair in one hand and gripping it tight.
“Sweetheart, I’m not exactly a — a gentle guy.”
“Somehow I don’t believe you.”
Logan laughs, breathy, and tilts his head back to take you in. He throws a glance down at your hand tucked into his pants, the backs of your knuckles pressed against the swell of his stomach. “I didn’t have you pegged for the fuck-me-in-the-kitchen type.”
“I’ll let you take me back to your bedroom, if you want.”
Whistling lowly, Logan leans his face in close to yours, the tip of his nose nudging against your cheekbone. “And if I told you I wanted to take you right here?”
“I’d tell you that’s fine, too,” you swallow, angling your face up to try to press your lips to his, but his grip on your hair stops you. He grunts, tugging a little harder, so you have to look into his eyes. They’re soft, wary. For all the talk he talks, he’s a man of few words when it matters, and you can tell he can’t believe you’d want a guy like him. You’re not exactly a gentle girl, either, but he sees how much more the world has gotten to him than it has to you. You’ve still got the potential to be someone who wouldn’t want him.
“You really want me?” You hear the unspoken emphasis. You could have anyone else, and I can’t see why you’d pick me.
“Since the day we met,” you mutter, his breath against your mouth driving you insane. “Logan, please kiss me.”
He brings his other hand, the one that’s been holding your hips in place this whole time, up to press against your cheek, and he closes the distance between you once again. The hand still gripping his pants tugs them forward, and you can feel his insistent cock where it’s now pressing against you. You moan into Logan’s mouth and this seems to drive him mad, holding your head in his hands like you’ll float away and driving his tongue against yours, languid and fluid but at the same time persistent.
“C’mon, doll,” he says when you break away to gulp down a breath, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I got a queen bed in my room.”
As Logan drags you out of the kitchen and to the wing of the mansion where the two of you live, practically a world of your own, you trace your fingers down his back over the top of his shirt. His body shivers under your touch and he laughs, turning to look at you as he pushes through into his bedroom.
“Hey, yeah,” you murmur, watching him drag his shirt up and over his head, exposing his bare chest and the patches of short, wiry hair growing there, the vein on his lower stomach that leads your gaze down to wonder at the bulge in his pajama pants. You tear your eyes away and meet his smug stare. “How come I gotta sleep in a twin?”
He laughs at you, reaching out to curl his fingers around the bottom of your sweater and lead you closer to him. He hums, muttering, “Don’t worry about it.”
Then he’s kissing you again, your eyes closing at the sensation of his mouth against yours. His hands are underneath your shirt, skirting across your bare back and now you’re the one shivering under his touch. His fingernails scratch gently against your skin and you moan again, sighing into his open mouth. He smiles before pulling away, only slightly.
“Feels good?”
You nod, flexing your fingers at your sides. You can’t remember the last time someone touched you so sweetly. He catches sight of your hands and runs the tips of his own fingers down your arms.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he says, mouth close to the shell of your ear. He tucks his teeth around it, too, gently, but you cry out at the surprising sensation. “You can touch me.”
You nod and place an open palm against his sternum, his bare skin heating beneath your hand. You want him to feel the way your mouth has dried at the thought of being beneath him in his bed. You want him to know just how far you’ll let him go. When you open your eyes to look at him, a different beast entirely has crossed his face. His mouth curls into a self-satisfied smile.
“Hm,” Logan grunts, nostrils flaring, teeth baring further. “I can smell how bad you want me, baby. Could down in the kitchen, too. I can feel how tense I make you. Do I still scare you? Huh?”
You shake your head, whisper, “No,” your voice hoarse. “You don’t scare me, Logan.”
“No, I didn’t think so. I don’t even think it scares you, how much you want this. I think it excites you. Think you been wonderin’ what it’d be like for a while, huh?”
Logan’s arm tightens around your waist and pulls you flush against him, your hand trapped between your chests. You gasp, the warmth of his body flooding yours, filling you with heat, with want, which then rushes into Logan, his eyes rolling back at the sensation.
“I wasn’t sure about you when I first met you,” he bites out, tilting his head to meet your eye again. “But fuck if I wouldn’t move heaven and earth for you now.”
Your heart stutters at the admission, the reassurance that you’re not alone in the way you feel about him. You peel your palm from his skin and sigh in relief when his gaze softens. Logan pushes his face into your neck, lips pressing tenderly to your pulse point, forcing a soft groan from your mouth. You feel him smile against you and when his teeth graze that same spot, your knees buckle beneath you.
Tucking your hands back between your chests, you push Logan gently away from you and he goes willingly, a sharp contrast to the man who was rooted to his barstool the first time you’d tried to touch him. The look on his face would frighten you if he hadn’t spent so much time convincing you he wouldn’t hurt you. His expression is dark, contemplative.
Logan’s eyes watch, hooded with desire, as you back away from him, your knees buckling when the backs of them hit the edge of his bed. As soon as you sit, he begins stalking toward you, your heart racing against your sternum, and you meet his eye just as he reaches you. Taking your cheek in his hand, he angles your face up and watches as your eyelids flutter closed. His hand travels down, fingers running over the side of your neck and cupping the warm flesh where it meets your shoulder.
“I can feel your pulse,” he murmurs into the warm air between you. “It’s racing.”
You gasp when you feel his hand search out your heartbeat through your chest. Opening your eyes to meet his again, you see that the desire in his face has been replaced with something that looks frighteningly close to affection.
He grasps your wrist, thumb rubbing against the soft, sensitive skin above your pulse there, and guides your hand to press against his own heartbeat, a mirror to yours, thundering in his chest, too.
“You do this to me. Not because you want me to know what you’re feeling, sweetheart, because this is how I feel.” He swallows, voice thick in his throat. “I want you so bad.”
The confession comes out rasping, like the words had been ripped from his chest. Your hand trails down his bare stomach, the backs of your knuckles dancing along the planed ridges there. The skin beneath your fingers jumps when you skirt across it. Pushing your fingers into the waistband of the flannel pants, you groan at the sensation of the heat coming off of his skin. “This okay?”
“Fuck, baby, you’re askin’ me if this is okay?” Logan’s hand comes up to cup your cheek once again, and you glance up at the grin on his face. It lights up his eyes. It’s like Logan’s fighting two different parts of himself: the very human desire to be gentle, to be careful, and the beast inside of him that wants to tear you apart.
Laughing, you tug down on the elastic, cheeks heating when you don’t feel another waistband. He’s bare beneath, and as you’re eye-level with his hips, you come face-to-face with his flushed, heavy cock as you strip the fabric from him. The tip of it weeps as you palm him, stroking him gently so his foreskin pulls back and reveals the crimson tint of it. You can’t say you’re shocked by the size of him, considering how large a man he actually is.
“Fuck, Logan,” you breathe, mouth watering, and you know the way you’re looking at him would be a bit embarrassing if he wasn’t looking at you the exact same way, his lashes fluttering as you push the adrenaline coursing through your veins into him. He wraps one big hand around yours and squeezes, groaning at the sensation.
“Here, baby,” he says, pulling your hand from his cock and placing it into your lap. He laughs when you whine in protest, stepping out of his pajama pants entirely and leaving himself naked. You’re still fully clothed and it almost pains you. “Plenty a’ time for me to stuff myself down your throat later.”
The way he says it has a low, fuzzy warmth rushing into your gut, but you quit your protesting when Logan kneels on the floor at your feet. “Lean back.”
You do as he says and inch yourself further up the bed, knees still hanging over the side of the mattress, anchoring yourself to his bedspread with your elbows. Logan crooks his fingers into your own pants, kissing the skin he exposes as he pulls them down, down, leaving you in only your tee shirt and soaked-through panties. He eyes them as you unconsciously angle your knees outward, but ignores your desire completely, instead leaning up to bite the hem of your shirt and drag it up and over your stomach.
Gasping, you rush to pull the fabric from the grip of his teeth and pull it over your head, tossing it to the floor beside the bed and cupping the back of his head in one hand, fingers tangling themselves in the hair at the base of his neck. You ease him upward, his palms pressed into the bed next to your waist, and pull him into a searing kiss, hoping to communicate how you feel without saying a word. Logan pants into your mouth and squirms out of your grip, pupils once again blown wide. He leans down to press his lips to the base of your throat, your elbow falling back to the bed to hold yourself up.
Your gaze follows his descent down your torso, watching as Logan drops a kiss to your breastbone, to the areola of your right breast, then to the one of your left. His lips engulf your nipple and you moan softly, biting your bottom lip when he flicks his tongue across it. He drags his lips down your stomach, settling against the knot of one soft peak of your hip bone. He bites gently and your stomach clenches at the feeling. When you place a hand against his cheek, his eyes flutter shut, his nostrils flaring at the feeling flooding his body. The pleased, humming warmth he’s making you feel.
“Logan,” you whisper, watching him continue down, mouthing at the skin on the inside of your thighs, kneading the soft flesh there. “Please.”
“Please what, honey?” You can feel him smirk against you. “Gotta use your words.”
“Please put your mouth on me.”
“Am putting my mouth on you,” he says, smug, and you gasp, tossing your head back when he bites you again, this time enough to make your delicate skin bruise. “Whaddaya want?”
“Want you to fuck me.”
“With my mouth?” Logan tuts, bringing one hand up to pull your panties to the side and expose your warm, wet flesh to the cool air of his bedroom. Your hips twitch. “You sure?”
You angle yourself up, trying desperately to find his mouth and claim it yourself. He laughs at the desperate want plastered across your face. “Oh, fuck off, you god damn tease, just fuck me.”
Logan shakes his head, leaning in to lick along your wet cunt and a sharp, bright cry rips itself from your chest. Your thighs try to close around his head as he presses his thumb into your pubic bone and holds you open, laps at your clit, but he growls and grips one in his hand, wrenching it away from him. His eyes shine up at you from between your legs.
“Why’d’ya wanna do that, huh, baby? You want me to fuck you so bad, don’t make it hard on me,” he murmurs, wrapping his lips around your clit and suckling gently while you cry out. He carries on like that for quite a bit – just his mouth against the most sensitive part of you, fingers pressing into your thighs. Your legs shake and you cover your mouth with your hand; you worry about coming too quickly until he eases up, pushing one finger inside of you to fuck you with.
Your hand grips the hair at the top of his head, and Logan groans at the pressure. Hissing, he presses his palms flat against the insides of your thighs to wrench them further open, encouraging you wordlessly to hook your feet across his back. When he’s satisfied, he crooks a finger around your panties and pulls until they tear, the shreds of fabric no longer an obstacle in the way of seeking out your pleasure.
“Want me to make you come?” The question is asked with his mouth pressed against your cunt, and you gasp, back arching, at the feeling of his words. “You wanna come on my tongue?”
You nod furiously, writhing as a second finger works itself inside of you, curling upward to meet head-on that spot inside of you that sends sparks behind your eyes. Your heels dig into the skin of his back and you reach down, blindly fumbling for Logan’s hand. He smiles wide and takes it, tangling his fingers with yours as your hips rut against his face.
He talks you through it between strokes of his tongue against your clit, his fingers pumping in and out as he tells you how good you are for him, how good you feel for him, how he can’t wait to feel you around his cock. You throw an arm across your eyes and whimper, hips twitching as you come down, pulling his hair and crying out for him to let up. He places one last kiss above your cunt, smiling as you gasp, and leans back to admire you.
Logan places your feet on the floor and plants his hands beside you, using the mattress as leverage to hoist himself up above you. He grins down at you and for however fucked out he already looks, you know you must look a thousand times worse.
“Hi, gorgeous,” he murmurs, leaning in for a kiss, giving you a taste of yourself by easing his tongue into your mouth. You can feel his cock, weeping and solid and insistent against your hip. Fuck.
You groan against him, your lips stretching into a smile as he kisses you languidly and reaches out to help you wrap your arms around his neck. “Here.”
Standing, Logan holds your body close to him. Your head notches into his neck and suckles there while he pulls you up the bed, settling you against the pillows underneath him. He props himself up on one hand as his knees push against the insides of your thighs, opening you up for him.
One hand on your flushed cheek, Logan fists his cock, smiling down at you. “Y’alright there, sweet cheeks?”
“Head’s fuzzy,” you murmur, reaching out to grip his hips with your hands. “Want you.”
Logan smirks, leaning back on his heels and running a hand through his hair, scalp sweaty. Your own fans out behind your head. He gawps down at you. “Look like a goddess like this, you know.”
Your blush deepens and you push a hand against his stomach. “Stop.”
“You do,” he smirks, leaning down to plant kisses across your face, down your jaw, to your neck. “Mm, so fucking pretty when I’ve just made you come. Smell so good.”
You gasp when he presses his mouth right behind your ear, gripping your hips. His cock drags across your stomach, a heavy reminder of his own neglected desire. You reach down to fist a hand around him and tug, pulling a groan from him.
“My girl want me to fuck her proper? Hm?”
Open-mouthed and with a heavy gaze, you watch as Logan sits back and fucks himself up into your fist, hips stuttering when you tighten your grip. His chest glistens with sweat, heaving as you push the burning feeling in your veins through to him. He gasps, stretching a hand down and holding your wrist still.
“Hey,” he growls, head thrown back. “Play fair.”
“Why should I?” He’s glaring down at you now, which only eggs you on. You shrug. “S’fun to watch you come apart like this, big strong man.”
Logan groans, pulling his hips back, and his cock falls from your grasp. “I’ll show you comin’ apart, baby.”
Sitting back on his heels, Logan wraps his hands around your hips and jerks them forward until your cunt is close enough to him that he would barely have to move his own hips to fuck his cock into you.
“You got a condom?”
“It’s okay,” you whimper, shaking your head. “Don’t need one. On the pill. I’m clean.”
Logan looks down at you, trying to gauge what headspace you’re in, if he should grab one anyway – and you shake your head. “Don’t need it, please.”
“It’s okay, it’s fine,” you repeat. He smiles, squeezes your hips tight. He nods, bringing one hand down to grip himself and ease toward you. Runs the head of his cock down your cunt, getting himself nice and slick, up and down and up again until you’re a panting mess, wiggling your hips. It’s torture. “Please, Logan.”
“Oh, now you’re askin’ nice?”
You groan, wild-eyed, and he wants to laugh at the look on your face but he chokes it back. You need him – bad – and he can’t say no to you.
“Alright, baby,” he says, hushed, gripping your thigh with the hand not currently around his cock. Guiding himself to your entrance, Logan pushes his hips forward, groaning as the head of his cock disappears inside of you. Despite how wet you are, the stretch burns, your body unattuned to his size. He presses forward, bit by bit, licking the tip of his thumb and pushing it against your clit to ease your discomfort, and you gasp at the feeling, eyes rolling back. “Shh, shh, it’s okay.”
Once he’s fully seated inside of you, he pulls your hips flush to his, leaning down to press himself to you completely. Hand still pressed to your clit between you, Logan circles his hips, watching your face, how you react. He watches your eyelids flutter, watches you pull your bottom lip between your teeth. He gives a shallow thrust to gauge your readiness, and you moan, low, in the back of your throat.
“S’okay,” you grunt out, hands braced against the outsides of his thighs, eyes trained on his lips. “Fuck, please. I’m so wet, Logan, please, please fuck me.”
Logan groans, your words going straight to his cock, twitching inside of you. He grips your waist in his hands and gives another exploratory rut, this time short, puncturing. Your breath is pushed out of your lungs. He rocks his hips back once again, pressing forward slow before punctuating the thrust with a sharp jolt, shocking the air from you once again.
Your nails dig into his thighs and he nods, his forehead rubbing against yours. “Okay baby, okay. I’ll fuck you, yeah. This what you want?”
His hips ease back, pulling his cock from your warmth almost all the way, before thrusting back in, deep, to the point. Then again, and again, and again. Your head has fallen back, Logan having to hook an arm around the back of your neck as you’re forced up the bed.
“You’re so warm, pulling me back in, sweetheart, so fucking wet for me. I’m gonna fuck you so good, you’re so tight, god, like you were made for me.”
“Fuck,” you whisper, mouth pressed to the side of his face. Your cunt tightens around him and you whine. “Already fuckin’ me so good.”
“You gonna come for me, baby? Yeah?”
“Yeah.” And you are. Again. You’re gonna come for him again. His cock is driving into you so fast you can’t escape the warm sensation in your gut – and you don’t want to. It feels so good, it’s like your whole body has turned to goo beneath him. You press a kiss to the underside of his chin, his beard scratching at your lips, but you don’t care.
“Yeah, baby? Can feel your cunt tight around me, can feel you ‘bout to come.”
“Gonna come, Logan,” you gasp, reaching one hand up and gripping the headboard as tight as you can, but your elbow still folds, your arm putty with the pleasure. He brings his other hand up from your hips to hold you by the top of your head, to keep you from slipping further up the bed, and your hands instinctively come around to clutch his shoulders.
Immediately the pleasure coursing through you lights every nerve ending in his body fucking alive. You feel him tense beneath your fingers, pulse quickening.
His hips snap down onto yours, his cock dragging up against that rough spot inside your cunt, as your orgasm floods through you. You hardly register the deep rumbling coming from his chest as you cling to him. Logan’s breath comes gasping as the feeling of your orgasm floods through him, too, hands gripping the flesh of your ass to hold you in place while he fucks down into you.
His eyes are closed tight, stomach clenching, and when you drag one hand down to rub circles on your clit, he buries his cock deep inside of you and holds himself there.
You scratch your nails gently down Logan’s back as he basically whimpers into the air between you, leaning up to catch his lips with yours as he rocks his hips, stuffing himself deeper, until you feel him come. He groans and spills himself into you, hips glued to yours, occasionally quavering with the aftershocks of his own orgasm.
“Fuck,” he huffs once he’s back in his body, one hand against your cheek, brushing your hair away from your mouth so he can press a kiss to them. His eyes search for yours, bright and enlivened. “You okay? Huh?”
You nod, your head loose on your neck, and he laughs. “Fuck,” he repeats. “That was fucking crazy. Is that how it feels every time?”
At that you sheepishly shake your head, eyes coming up to meet his. No, that’s not at all how it feels every time. You can tell by the look on his face he’s trying not to seem smug about that.
“That was good, though,” he murmurs, his face softening, “fuck, that was so good.”
He seems more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him. You cry out when he pulls his cock from you, still holding your face and whispering sorry, baby, sorry. He presses a kiss to your mouth between apologies.
He unfolds himself from you and stands, running a hand through his hair. Pulling his pajamas back up over his legs and his shirt over his bare torso, he tells you he’ll be right back, and you must fall asleep after that because the next thing you know you’re curled up on your side while Logan runs a warm, wet washcloth across the inside of your thighs. You hiss at the sensation and he nudges a hand against your hip until you roll over onto your back.
“You sure you’re okay? I didn’t hurt you or nothin’?”
“Mhm,” you murmur, reaching for him and he obliges, dropping the cloth to the floor and crawling up the bed to wrap himself around you, slinging your leg over top of his. “You just wiped me out, s’all. And who thought you’d be so fuckin’ talkative in bed.”
He laughs and presses his lips to the end of your nose, his nose grazing your forehead.
You pull at his shirt and kiss him square on the mouth, a thank you for making you feel so good. So safe with him. Your bare chest is pressed to his, and you know he can probably feel how fast your pulse is racing, arms wrapped around your back. You still in his grip when you feel something pressing against your bare stomach.
He’s hard again. A fire reignites somewhere low in your belly, your mouth watering, and when you catch his eye, he grins, like he can read your thoughts.
“You wanna put that mouth to use now, sweetheart?”
#wolverine#logan howlett#james howlett#wolverine fanfiction#wolverine fanfic#logan howlett fanfiction#logan howlett fanfic#james howlett fanfiction#jame howlett fanfic#x-men#x-men fanfiction#x-men fanfic#wolverine x reader#wolverine x you#logan howlett x reader#logan howlett x you#wolverine smut#logan howlett smut#the sex scene alone is 3000+ words i need to be put down#i'm soooooooo nervous to post this pls be nice i hope u guys like <3#i love to write men who run their fucking mouths lkjbndfjkb
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— 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐃𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄
PAIRING: loki laufeyson x f!asgardian!reader
TAGS: bestfriend!loki, idiots in love, loki using magic, canon divergent, fluff, some cursing
A/N: oh man i wrote this sooooo long ago too. it's an old one that i deleted bc i was revamping my acc but i went back to reread it and realized i just had to bring it back! happy reading <3
WORD COUNT: ~1.3k
masterlist || request box <3
"Loki?"
He hummed in response. "If you could go anywhere in the Nine Realms," you started, "where would you go and who would you take with you?"
After a long day, the two of you had settled in the grass behind the palace, taking the time to relax, enjoy each other's company, and stare up into the sky. He turned to face you with a small grin already painted across his face. "What are you smiling about?"
"You already know my answer. Well, half of it anyway."
"Oh come on, don't be like that! Just tell me."
He took a second to think about it. Another grin grew on his face. He leaned in as if he was going to whisper it to you and said, "Why don't I just show you?"
With that, he shot up and put out his hand. As soon as you took it, he pulled you close to him. "The Bifrost is quite far for a walk, why don't I just..."
As he spoke, suddenly the two of you already seemed to have made it to the entrance of the Bifrost. "There."
"I don't think I'll ever get used to you doing that."
As time had passed over the years, Loki had become better at controlling the magic that Frigga had shared with him. One of the things he learned was how to conjure fireworks which he always used to make your day. Teleportation was his latest feat and he took advantage of it. When you both entered, you were greeted by the gatekeeper, Heimdall. "Your royal highness. My liege."
"Let me guess, you saw us coming?"
He hummed in response. "What can I do for the two of you today?"
Loki turned to you and gave you a quick smile before he approached the gatekeeper, whispering something into his ear. Heimdall quickly nodded and inserted Hofund to open the Bifrost. As you moved towards the entrance of the portal, Loki turned to you, grabbing your hand. "Hold onto me, love. I don't want you to fall out by accident now, do I?"
Before you knew it, the two of you were gliding up through the Bifrost, the colors glistening all around you. A look of astonishment growing on your face which made Loki's heart swell in his chest. Suddenly, you were on solid ground again, burn marks from the Bifrost scorched into the ground beneath you. "Loki," you started, taking in the new environment. "Where are we?"
"Midgard," he replied, a small smile on his face. You were speechless. You never imagined Midgard to be this… beautiful. When you learned about the Nine Realms, Midgard had been described as a place unappealing to visit and that the Midgardians were rude creatures that don't know how to do anything but create chaos. You always joked that it was the perfect place for Loki with him being the God of Mischief and all. But this? Wherever Loki had taken you seemed to be the complete opposite.
Unlike Asgard, the seemingly end of their world wasn't just space, it was water and in the distance was a beautiful skyline of orange and blue. As you took in the sight before you, Loki couldn't help but admire how amazed you looked. He had taken a trip here once before with his brother, Thor, so he was less taken aback but seeing the look on your face made this visit feel more meaningful—not that it wasn't already. Breaking the silence, Loki leaned in and whispered, "Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Loki, this is-"
As you turned to face him, he offered his hand, asking for you to take it once more. "Come on," he insisted, "There is so much more that I want you to see."
The second your hand met his he quickly turned around and set off in a sprint, dragging you right behind him. Over the sounds of the crashing waves, you yelled, "Loki! Where are you taking me now?"
"Do you trust me?"
"What?"
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course I do but what does that have to-"
Before you could finish you found yourself in another environment once again. "Fuck, Loki!"
All he did was laugh back at your shock at the teleportation. He continued to run with your hands still interlocked but as you took in more of the sights of the new area you realized it resembled the area behind the palace just immensely larger. A field of grass with flowers everywhere, only a massive tree in sight. Both yours and Loki's hair flowing in the wind as you sprinted through the field.
Once you came to a stop, the both of you took a second to catch your breaths. Taking a seat next to the tree, you took a similar position like how you were laying back on the field in Asgard, Loki quickly following suit. Suddenly, he turned and took you into his arms and began to violently tickle you. "Loki, stop! No," you squealed.
Coming to a stop with the tickling, he continued to hold you in his arms. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"Just for being my friend for so long and allowing me to bring you here. I thought you would have left me when you found out that I was, well, not Asgardian."
"Of course, Loki. You think I'd pass up the opportunity to be friends with a prince of Asgard?"
He sat up, jokingly displaying a shocked expression on his face. "Is that the only reason you're friends with me?"
You quipped, "Why else would I be?"
As he took his place back onto the ground next to you, you went on to say, "I'm glad we're friends too, Loki. I can't imagine being best friends with anyone else."
"Not even my brother?"
"Not even your brother," you ensured.
Staying in silence for a second, he quickly broke it and said, "I know we just got here but there is one more place that I want you to see."
Taking your hand once again, you expected him to teleport immediately but he quickly added, "Close your eyes."
"Hmm and why should I?"
"Just trust me."
Reluctantly, you shut your eyes and you felt the two of you teleport. Immediately new sounds and smells filled your senses. With your eyes still closed, he helped you up and guided you to his desired location. "Just a little bit further and... there. You can open your eyes now."
Once your eyes opened, you were met with buildings and lights underneath you. "Wh- Where are we?"
"This is something the Midgardians call the Eiffel Tower. It's this triangular shaped structure similar to the palace but much less attractive."
"Oh, please," you laughed as you lightly shoved his shoulder. You leaned over the railing, further taking in its beauty, Loki taking his place next to you.
"You asked if I could go anywhere where I'd go and with whom," he started without breaking his gaze downwards to the buildings. When you turned to look at him he continued, "I don't care where I end up as long as it’s with you."
"You sap!"
"Hey," he retorted. "I'm being serious."
"I know," you whispered, blush creeping into your cheeks at the sentiment.
You took a second to take in the sight before the two of you before Loki spoke again. "How about you?"
"Hm?"
"Where would you go and with whom?"
Meeting his gaze, you leaned in, closing the space between you. "Anywhere as long it's with you," a smile growing on your face as you basically repeated his answer back to him.
"Oh, who's the sap now!"
The two of you laughed it off and continued to look onto the city in front of you. "Hey, the sights here on Midgard are fascinating but just you wait until you taste their food."
Your eyebrows raised in intrigue. “Really?”
He nodded and offered his hand once more, already glowing in green with magic. "Can't we just walk down?" you whined.
A mischievous grin grew on the god's face. "Now where's the fun in that?"
#loki laufeyson#loki laufeyson fic#loki laufeyson fluff#loki laufeyson x reader#loki laufeyson x y/n#marvel#marvel fic#mcu#mcu fic#mcu x reader#loki#loki fic#loki fluff#loki x reader#loki x you#loki laufeyson x you#tom hiddleston
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your name has echoed through my mind
Summary: "You find a camera full of pictures of you from every angle, clearly taken by a stalker left in your backpack. Your left in shock as you consider who possibly could have done this. Certainly it couldn't be Lottie Matthews who has the exact same backpack as you."
nsfw warning
A/N: stalker lottie takes photos of you idk how much clearer i could be lmao. gotta be honest i wrote the plot around the smut sooooo.
You'd noticed before that you and Lottie had the same backpack. It was never something you'd paid all that much attention to, beyond wondering why Lottie Matthews would carry a nondescript black Jansport, but you'd noticed it in passing. Needless to say, it wasn't all that surprising when people mixed up your bags; The two of you would share a smile and just laugh it off.
That was until Misty had doubled back to the locker room during practice and noticed Lottie's camera had fallen out of her bag in her rush to get to the field. Misty, as helpful as ever, slipped it back into Lottie's bag and zipped it up on her way out. That would have been the end of the story, had that been Lottie's bag.
You were in a rush to leave practice– having barely enough time to make the dentist appointment that your mom had ever so helpfully scheduled 20 minutes after practice on the other side of town– and didn't end up checking the contents of your bag until much later.
You stared curiously at the camera as you pulled it out of your bag, never having seen it before. It looked expensive, you knew that much, and well cared for. You wanted to return the well-loved camera to its owner so you spent some time fiddling around with it until you found the saved pictures hoping to find a hint as to who it belonged to. You found some beautiful pictures, it was clear whoever this belonged to was an extremely talented photographer, but you didn't pay much attention to that.
No, your attention was drawn to something very different indeed. You stare in shock at hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of yourself in various locations, and states of undress. You send a horrified look at your window, storming over to close the blinds immediately: that seemed to be a favorite location of your stalker.
Who the fuck owned this camera?
…
You were noticeably paranoid for a few days following your discovery. You’d carefully watch anyone whom you passed in the halls, looking for any hint of your mysterious stalker. Certainly, they’d have to notice that their camera was missing by now, right? You hadn’t seen anyone looking at you suspiciously, or staring for just a moment too long before they looked away. You’d believed that your stalker would end up exposing themselves in a moment of panic looking around for their camera, but whoever it is was careful not to react in front of you at the very least. The only truly suspicious thing you saw was the amount of yearning stares Shauna and Jackie exchanged when the other wasn’t looking, but that was par for the course.
You even went as far as to stop by the school's art show, intending to find out who had any talent for photography at the very least. You had almost given up hope when you saw it: a blown-up version of a picture you knew was taken by your stalker. It was a beautiful shot, admittedly, and you’d spent a lot of time looking at it. It was nothing truly scandalous, just a shot of nature, but there was just something about it that made it utterly captivating. You couldn’t take your eyes off of it, causing irritated members of the crowd to grumble as they moved around you. There was so much more detail in this blown-up version, you could almost hear the ripples in the water and the way the wind blew the leaves off the trees. You were so captivated that when someone placed a hand on your shoulder you nearly swung at them. You clear your throat awkwardly, sending Lottie an apologetic look as you turn to face her.
“Hi,” Lottie says shyly, rocking slightly on the balls of her feet. You smile genuinely, always happy to see Lottie outside of practice.
“Hey, Yourself.” You greet fondly. You gesture vaguely around the room. “I didn’t know this was your type of thing.”
Lottie shrugs as she takes a quick look around the room, turning back to face you. “Kinda has to be,” She admits with a touch of amusement. “I’m a photographer. That’s my photo you’re looking at.”
Your eyes widen as you visibly fight off the anger. Lottie fucking Matthews was your stalker? Your teammate Lottie Matthews? Your blood was practically boiling at this point, but you fake a shocked look as you look back and forth between her and the photo.
“You’re really talented.” You admit honestly, choking back your rage. Lottie blushes as she looks over at her photo, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. She seems to be incredibly pleased at the compliment but doesn’t quite know how to react to it. She must have gotten a lot of practice taking pictures of me, you think darkly. Never in a million years would you have suspected Lottie to be capable of such a thing, but you figured you could hide a lot of things behind a smile. Even one as undeniably charming as hers.
“Thanks.” She says softly, smiling widely down at you. She holds eye contact for a fraction of a second too long, seeming to realize her mistake as she glances back up around the room. “Do you want to look around with me?” She asks, looking a little unsure. You’ve already looked at every other piece here as you tried to nonchalantly work your way to the photography section, but you figured this would give you a chance to learn more about your stalker.
You finally got to do some watching of your own, staring intently at her as you follow her around the art show. You take perverse pleasure in the way she fidgets uncomfortably under your watchful gaze. She keeps trying to sneak a peek at you when she thinks you're not looking, flushing every time as she pretends to look at something behind you. Lottie Matthews I almost feel bad for you, you think in amusement. You’ve never realized how obsessed with you she seemed to be, but it was undeniable in the way she couldn’t stand to keep her eyes off of you for any significant period of time.
You could work with this.
…
You’ve spent a significant amount of time watching Lottie at school lately. You’d feel bad about practically stalking the girl, but you figured it was fine since she never felt bad about literally stalking you. You weren’t sure if you had just grown paranoid with everything going on, but you swore you saw flashes of brown hair whip around a corner when you turned around suddenly. You never had more than a gut feeling, but you were almost positive that Lottie had resumed stalking you again. You wondered idly if it was different without her camera to photograph you with.
You’d lost a lot of your initial disgust the more you watched her. There was something intriguing about having someone like Lottie Matthews obsessed with you. You’ve been walking on cloud nine ever since; You’ve never felt less insecure in your entire life. You grew to enjoy how responsive she got to your attention, no matter how little you gave her. You smiled at her in the hallways a few times, and she’s since taken to trailing after you like a lost puppy. She paid such close attention to the smallest little comments you made– she even started bringing an extra jacket after you offhandedly mentioned you tended to forget yours. She claimed it was for her, of course, but you knew that she was desperately waiting for a chance to offer it to you.
You keep getting stuck on that thought. What does she get out of seeing you in the jacket? Is it just seeing you in her clothes, or is there something more perverse she’s looking for? You spent many a late night thinking about what she’d do with the jacket if you wore it. Still, you refused to give in to something she obviously wanted desperately. You couldn’t let her get off scot-free for stalking you, after all. Even if you’ve decided you were more into it than previously thought.
…
You're nearly jumping for joy as you slam the door of your car shut. You normally waste your Wednesday nights babysitting your cousin, but thankfully he was too sick for your aunt to leave him alone. Obviously, it wasn’t good that he was sick, but you found yourself happy enough to have the free time anyway. You eye the unfamiliar car parked across the street curiously, not expecting to have any visitors. No one was usually home at this time, your parents were out working and you were normally at your aunt's.
You're about to open the handle to your room when you suddenly become aware of the sound of something bumping against your creaky closet door. You’ve spent enough time living here to familiarize yourself with the noises of the house settling, so you knew for sure that someone was definitely in your room right now. You're filled with an intense fear, shaking terribly as you try to pull your phone out of your pocket to call the police. You pause suddenly as you hear a distinctly feminine moan coming out of your room. Your eyes narrow in anger. Lottie fucking Matthews.
You slam the door open, startling Lottie who pops up quickly out of your hamper. The first thing you notice is the look of immense guilt and fear on Lottie’s face as she stares back at you. Her big brown eyes are wide with terror with her mouth slightly open in shock. Her outfit is nice, a little too nice to be rummaging around in someone's hamper in all honesty. Leave it to Lottie to overdress for her creepy stalking activities. The last thing you notice is your underwear clenched firmly in her hand. She follows your eyes and guiltily worries her lip between her teeth as she realizes what you’ve seen.
“Give them here.” You say firmly. Lottie whimpers, actually whimpers, as she holds them out to you. You snatch them out of her hand, feigning a look of disgust as you look at her. She can’t even look you in the eyes, face going bright red as she stares down at her feet. You reach up to grab gently at her chin, jerking it up and forcing her to make eye contact with you.
“What were you going to do with these?” You ask sternly.
Lottie sputters, actually speechless, as she tries to come up with something that couldn't possibly excuse her actions. “I think you were going to go home and touch yourself, pervert.” You say mockingly. Her face burns with the evidence of her shame, fruitlessly trying to lower her head again to avoid your forced eye contact. You drop her chin and she immediately zeroes in on a stain in your carpet as she tries to pretend she isn’t there.
“Look at me.” You say gently. Lottie slowly looks back up, looking lost and a little unsure. “Do you want them?” She eyes you wearily as if she’s wondering what kind of trick you're going to pull on her as she slowly nods. You hold them out towards her as they hang off of one finger. She raises a hand out to snatch them, but you yank them back before she can. She gives you a pathetic look as her eyes follow them even as her body can’t. You enjoyed your power over her even more knowing that she let you have it. Lottie Matthews was a big girl, and if she wanted to overpower you you weren’t sure you’d be able to stop her from taking them from you.
“I’ll give them to you, but you're going to show me what you’re going to do with them.” You offer smugly. Lottie's eyes go wide as she blushes scarlet.
“You… You want to watch me…” She trails off unsurely. You nod encouragingly for her to finish her sentence. “You want to watch me touch myself?” She asks quietly as if she can barely force the words out.
Not quite so easy when you're the one being watched, is it? You think vindictively. You’re self-aware enough to admit to enjoying her humiliation as she looks back and forth between you and your underwear with a mix of desperation and embarrassment. She nods after a long moment, glancing around your room awkwardly. You slip your underwear into the back pocket of your jeans as you resist the urge to celebrate your victory too soon.
You step forward and lead her back to your bed, crawling up after her as she scoots up your bed. She sits unsurely in the middle as she looks up at you for guidance as you hover over her. You eye her outfit decisively for a moment before you lean forward and slowly unbutton her blouse. Her eyes are blown wide in disbelief as she intensely tracks your movement as your fingers nimbly expose her chest to the room. She whines quietly as your fingertips brush ever so slightly against her stomach as you untuck the bottom of it from her skirt, letting it fall uselessly against the bed beside her.
You scrutinize the exposed skin closely, reveling in the way it makes her fidget uncomfortably. Your eyes inevitably get drawn up to her nipples and how they firmly poke their way through her bra. “Cold, Lottie?” You ask as just a hint of a smirk graces your lips. She pouts as you tease her, but doesn’t otherwise comment on it. She looks at you with a look of utter adoration, as if she couldn’t believe she got the chance to be teased by you. It was undeniably pathetic, and yet you found yourself growing hot at the thought regardless.
Lottie jumps slightly as your cold fingers slide down her sides, arching her back towards you as you reach behind her to unclasp her bra. You greedily take in the sight of her newly revealed breasts, barely resisting the urge to take one into your mouth. You pull her bra slowly down her arms, gently pressing your hand against her chest to push her into laying flat on the bed as you toss it off the edge.
You slide your hands up the outside of her legs slowly. Lottie’s hips jerk up against nothing as your fingers finally curl around the waistband of her panties. Lottie’s breath stutters as you slowly drag them back down her thighs, exposing her to your gaze once again. She curls her legs to help you get them off. You murmur praise at the action, carefully noting the way she worried her lip between her teeth as you did. Seems you found something else she enjoyed. You drop her panties off the side of the bed, not wanting them to get lost, as you take her in. You’ve kept the skirt on, enjoying the way she's just barely dressed as she’s spread out in front of you.
You spread Lottie’s legs as you shift up to kneel between them. You drag her down the bed slightly so that her hips rest on the bed near the front of your knees, her long legs forced to spread around your hips. She gasps at the action, eyes blown wide in arousal. “Well?” You ask expectantly. Lottie slowly moves her trembling hand to her stomach, inhaling sharply at the feeling of her own fingertips brushing against her. She presses her palm flat against her stomach, staring up at you to make sure you’re still watching, as she drags it up her torso teasingly slowly.
She moans softly as she cups her breast, squeezing none too gently as she moves her other hand up to mirror the touch. You watch the action intently, almost shocked by how rough she’s being with herself. She doesn’t immediately go for her nipples, carefully avoiding them even as she plays with the rest of her breasts, which gives you a sneaking suspicion that they must be pretty sensitive. Slowly, ever so slowly, does she finally slide her fingers up to start circling her nipples with her thumbs. She gasps at the touch as her eyes slam shut, confirming your suspicion of her sensitivity.
You’re almost salivating as you gaze down at her. Her eyes flutter back open as she looks up at you, breathing heavily as she starts to get rougher under your constant supervision. She whines as she pinches her nipples between two fingers and tugs, back arching off the bed in response. You press your hand against her stomach, pressing her flat against the bed. She moans all the more at the pressure, almost struggling against you to avoid the pinch she’s given herself. She lets go as she reaches her limit, fingers gently circling her nipples again.
“Are you always this rough with yourself?” You ask curiously. She blushes shyly as she shakes her head, squeezing herself even rougher at the sound of your voice.
“I like to be rough when I’m imagining you touching me.” She admits breathily, head thrown back in the pillow as she enjoys her own stimulation. You gasp at the admission, not quite expecting that answer. She’s breathing so heavily she can hardly get the words out, completely overwhelmed with the entire situation.
“Am I always so rough with you?” You ask quietly, eyes fixating on how red her nipples are becoming. She shivers as she moans out a yes, chest quivering at the touch. Her rough touch is just making herself even more sensitive, seemingly becoming more and more painful the longer she goes on. Just like she imagines you’d like. You wonder how much time she spent imagining your touch, imagining what it would be like to lay under you. You hope she touched herself like this in her car as she sat outside your house all night watching you. The thought of her getting herself off like this while you were innocently sleeping inside is almost too much to bear.
“Tell me how what I'd do, Lottie.” You demand. She looks down at her hands on her breasts as she imagines they are yours. She stutters slightly as she tries to find the breath to answer.
“Fuck.” She breathes out, her heart racing against her chest. “You’d be gentle with me at first, making it so much better when you started getting rough when you realized how badly I wanted it.” She moans at the thought, getting distracted as she pinches her nipples between her fingers again. “You… Your fingers. They’re so big. So rough with me.” Her voice breaks a little as she gets lost in her imagination, her cheeks flushing at the thought.
“Tighter.” You instruct, the corners of your lips quirking up as she whines painfully at the pinch. You watch the tears prick the corners of her eyes. She’s so sensitive now that she can barely stand it, but she’s so desperate to please you. Every brush of her hands against her breasts leaves her twitching and moaning. “Such a good listener.” You praise gently. “You can let go now, Lottie.”
She sags back down against the bed, smiling weakly at the praise as she catches her breath. She gives you a questioning look when you shake your head as she starts to touch her breasts again. You reach into the back pocket of your jeans and pull out your underwear, making her eyes go wide as she watches them intently. You hold them out for her and she snatches them greedily, almost as if she couldn’t stop herself. She looks a little apologetic as she holds them, but quickly brings them up to her nose to breathe the scent of you in. Your eyes widen slightly at the action, not entirely sure of how you feel about that. Still, the effect they have on Lottie is undeniable.
Her face slackens as her entire body relaxes back against the bed. Her fingers curl in the fabric as she brings it down to her lips to lick them intently. You breathe out shakily at the signs of her obvious enjoyment. She almost seems to forget you were there for a minute as she goes to town on them, her legs trying to shut around you as she's desperate to get some friction. She whines as she finally drags her eyes away from them, eyes blown wide in arousal. “Show me. Show me what you’d do with them.” You remind her shakily, unable to take your eyes off of her.
She releases a muffled moan as she slides her hand down her stomach, bunching up her skirt around her hips so you can see her better. She inhales sharply when you place your hands on her knees, spreading herself for you as you lean closer.
Lottie has strong thighs, the muscles clenched tight like they're begging to be touched. It takes everything you have to resist the urge to slap her hand away and do it yourself. “Can you see it?” She asks, nearly begging. “Can you see how much they've made me want you?” You give her a jerky nod, unable to tear your eyes away from her. She's so wet that it's dripping down her thighs. She's made a real mess of herself on your bed. You wonder what she tastes like, what she would feel like in your mouth. Your mouth waters as you imagine the way she'd twitch against your tongue, how she'd feel clenching around your fingers.
“All for me, Lottie?” You murmur. She whimpers in agreement, nearly sighing in relief as her fingers finally make contact. You can hear how wet she is as she slides her palm down, thighs tensing as she grinds up against her hand as if she can't stop herself. She maintains eye contact with you as she slowly slides two fingers inside herself, whining greedily at the stretch. Her legs squeeze against you as she instinctively tries to close them, once again forcing her to remain spread open before you.
She throws her head back with a loud moan as her hips chase her own thrusts. You can't bring yourself to even blink, not wanting to miss a second of watching her pleasure herself in front of you. She whimpers when she starts grinding up against her palm, too sensitive by far but unable to resist the urge. Her hips jump back but she powers through her own sensitivity, so desperate to show herself to you.
She's got her other hand clutched around your underwear, periodically bringing it up to her nose as she writhes against her touch. You watch for a long while as she revels in her pleasure, her motions getting jerkier and jerkier the closer she gets. Finally, you decide to interrupt.
“Is this what you do when you take your little pictures, perv?” You taunt, enjoying the look of shock as her eyes flew open. She looks at you guiltily, hand never stilling, as if she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Eager for the treat, but embarrassed at being caught red-handed. “Oh, Lottie. Did you think I didn't know?” She nods her head shamefacedly, unable to maintain eye contact with you.
“I'm sorry,” Lottie murmurs shamefully, looking at a spot behind your head. You might believe her if it wasn't for her pleasured sighs and the way her fingers had sped up their motions as her legs started shaking against you. You knew it was turning her on to be caught like this. The humiliation only made her wetter.
“Close your eyes, perv. I think you've seen enough.” You command gently. She whimpers at the name but obediently closes her eyes again. You watch to make sure she's going to keep her eyes closed tight as you reach for something you've kept hidden behind you.
…
Lottie clutches her camera to her chest the entire ride home. She'd felt so lost without it and was so relieved to finally have it back, despite how surprised she was that you had given it back to her at all. She dove into her gallery the second she got home, hoping against hope that you hadn't deleted all of her pictures of you. She flushed slightly knowing she would have deserved it for how creepy she's been, but she just couldn't stop herself.
She nearly drops the camera in her shock, whining at the sight that greeted her. She wondered when you'd managed to take those pictures of her without her noticing. How long were her eyes even closed? She wonders, taking in the view of her back arched as she ground up against her hand. Was this how you saw her?
She grins as she puts her camera down, reaching for your underwear in her bag as the other sneaks back under the waistband of her skirt. She has a desperate hope that you'll consent to let her take more photos of you in the future, but for now, she'll have to make do with what she has. If you didn't consent… Well, there was always your window.
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remember summer days !
"i love summer because i love you.."
synopsis: forever going beaches, aggressive seagulls, brain freezing ice cream, many many shots, summer vacation is simply two months where you can be as reckless as possible without scathing schoolwork and the crushing feeling of student loans on your back, your two months to be an idiot without the worry of missing your morning classes due to hangovers, but there's something different about this summer. why didn't anyone tell mark that he could've possibly fallen in love with his best friend over the course of two months? who knew that you were really the one the whole time?
pairing: mark lee x male!reader
genre: university au, summer romance, childhood friends to lovers, fluff, light angst, humor(?), mutual pining, kinda sort of kinda suggestive, mainly mark pov
warnings: swearing, explicit language, sexual jokes, implications of sex but no smut, mentions of sexual harassment, smoking & alcohol consumption, complicated feelings, pathetic best friends are in love with each other but are dumb and don't realize until 15 years too late
word count: 15.9k
notes: the way i convinced myself i was never going to finish this and itd just become send in the clowns pt.2 😭 after the trials and tribulations of life, and hospital visit after hospital visit, i have finally posted something above 10k words!! applause!! (crickets) this has been in the drafts for FOUR MONTHS.. since march 10th ive been pressuring myself to finish, i literally finished endless nameless before this.. what kind of work ethic is that? also this was supposed to be sooooo much sadder and the og ending was supposed to bring tears BUT i am a saint and decided to not put you guys through torture bc most of my mark works are angsty anyway and because user junjiie would block me if i ever put him through another mark angst fest again 😁 speaking of user junjiie, thank you for listening to everything that i spout in your inbox.. your the best 🫶 and if youve ever wanted to kiss mark, your in the right place 👍
THE RUSHING OF THE OCEAN BEFORE him is all that's present in marks ears. the sand in his shoes don't register in his mind, nor do the seagulls eating bread right in front of him, just the ocean. the ocean is beautiful, a serene endless reservoir, one mark wishes he could just jump into and never leave. he can't focus on anything else around him, not the upcoming sunset, not the squawking birds, not the people muttering about the eventide, not even how beautiful his surroundings are, the ocean is his main center of attention, and mark spends so much time admiring it. the ocean is beautiful, it's monumental, mark can't exactly put it into more words, he might run out almost immediately. in moments like these, it doesn't matter the words he uses, it's just being immersed in the scenery that matters.
"hello? earth to lee minhyung!"
mark flinches, but his shoulders quickly relax when he sees who the yeller was. it's just you. annoying, absentminded, angel faced you, a small smile makes itself present on your features as you finally catch the formerly spaced out male's attention.
"thank god, for a moment there i thought you were gone".
mark doesn't find himself snickering at your words, he instead gives you that 'really?' stare, it's not that your joke wasn't funny, he just doesn't have the energy to laugh. "why are you even yelling? were on a public beach, idiot".
mark mutters the last word, but he knows you heard it anyway because you put your arm around him and pinch him in his shoulder as payback. he winces at the pain, you and your unusually strong fingers, you just smile in victory.
oh you, always so eager for revenge.
"you were staring at the ocean like it was your one true love, what? were you imagining hyuck or something?"
mark doesn't even know when the two of you began walking, but he isn't exactly focused on that, or your teasing words which hint at something that is completely false, he's more focused on how breathtaking you are.
mark would never say it's..anything not platonic. sometimes, though, he can't help but focus on just how amazing your features compliment you. you always look beautiful like this, in lightings like this is what he means.
mark isn't an idiot, he can acknowledge how attractive you are, even if you always tease him whenever he compliments you.
"i was just admiring it, why does there always have to be something more with you?" his quick rebuttal doesn't make it past you so easily, but you decide to go easy on mark, you can't just tease him the whole time, or you'll just start going back and forth.
"because, you're always so extra, there's no reason you should be staring at the ocean like you want to kiss it or something".
mark rolls his eyes, you're so stupid, you always have something to say, your mind must be so full of things, considering you constantly have a reply for mark locked and loaded, ready to go. "you can't even try to go easy on me?"
"nope, you know me, annoying you is the best part of my day!"
mark does know, it's like you've made it your life mission to never let him live anything down the moment you two met at a random park in vancouver when you were just little kids trying to figure out how to navigate the world. whether it was you following mark home, teasing him after beating him at basketball, or you were making fun of the way he styled his hair that day, you've never allowed mark lee to exist peacefully since you two decided to cross paths.
even as adults, adults who are studying to get bachelor's degrees, who pay their own bills, who can now legally drink, and who don't need parental consent to do anything anymore, you'll still never let mark live anything down.
it's fun to annoy you! you always tell mark, a tormenting on your face as giggles escaped your lips.
"i wish i didn't know you".
you manage a gasp of fake offense, placing a hand on your chest in pure shock. mark seems pleased, he shakes out of your hold and begins walking forward, leaving you and your dramatics behind.
you snicker, raising an eyebrow. you quickly catch up to him, hands shoved into your pockets as you give your best friend that familiar taunting smile, the one you know that he can't stand. "you're so mean to me, minhyung".
mark just scoffs, trying his best to ignore you. you don't take that, though, instead walking right up to him and lacing your fingers together. "don't ignore me".
please, mark wishes he could.
"you're annoying".
that familiar taunting smile comes to your lips, a soar of victory in your chest. "i know" you reply simply, squeezing his hand. "now do you wanna watch the sunset or what?"
it's only now that the realization dawns on mark, the sunset, how could he even forget?
to be fair, it's hard to focus on the sunset when your gorgeous best friend is holding your hand staring at your lips—
"you dummy" you say almost immediately. "you were the one who kept pestering me about the sunset and you forgot?"
"i was focused on other things.."
"let me guess" you pretend to think, fingers still intertwined with marks as you pull him and the two of you begin walking back towards the beach you'd walked away from. "you were too focused on my alluring beauty?"
mark shoves you with his shoulder. "you wish".
"i don't have to wish, you think i'm the prettiest boy in the world".
you do have a knack for the dramatics. mark doesn't know how many more eye rolls he can do before you realize he isn't exactly lying about finding you attractive, he just would never admit it to your face, one: because he doesn't want to stroke your ego, and two: he truly doesn't have the balls to.
"please, get over yourself".
"it's not my fault you want to kiss me so bad, you have the perfect opportunity to anywa—"
mark immediately shoves your face away when you pucker your lips and try to lean closer. "ew no, you probably taste like cigarettes".
mark finally snakes out of your hold, walking ahead of you and back towards the beach. his face is red, only heating up more as he hears your tormenting giggles.
how do you even have an affect like this on him? he'll never know, but he'll continue standing his ground.
mark lee will never admit to your face that he's attracted to you, or that he wants to kiss you, or that you're probably the prettiest boy he's ever met.
mark lee doesn't have the confidence to admit any of that to your face.
MARK ALWAYS MAKES THE MISTAKE OF UNDERESTIMATING your alcohol tolerance. back to back drinks seem to be your thing, and he has no idea how you can even do that without even feeling like you're going to throw up. mark feels nauseous just watching the whole thing go down, but he's gotten used to the unpredictability of your character, so the idea of you being this "crazy drinker" isn't exactly a far fetched kind of claim, you don't even get offended when people say it anymore. you seem to enjoy fully embracing the insults you get from people, it's kind of admirable.. in a sense? mark doesn't know how to explain it, because it sounds stupid when put into words.
"sir can i have one mor—"
"oh no! no no no! no more drinks for you" mark immediately cuts you off, putting his arm around your shoulder to support you. he smiles politely at the man behind the counter, and he helps you stand up, ignoring your disagreeing whines. "my apologies, we'll be heading out now".
"mark!" you whine, stretching the letters of his name whilst letting your body fall against his. "you can't do this to me, i wasn't done yet" your drunken complaints fall deaf on mark's ears, and he pulls you back up once again, your arm coming up to wrap around his waist. he's basically supporting your whole body, as you can barely even walk yourself.
"it's two in the morning, y/n" mark states, but you don't really care, you just pout. "you can't afford to drink anymore, you're going to die if you keep drinking like this".
"if i die at least i'll die beautiful".
your words slur together in an idiotic way, and you laugh like you're the most hilarious person in the world. you lean against mark, letting him carry you through the streets of jeju, closing your eyes. "yeah well, if you think i'm letting you intoxicate yourself to the point of blacking out, you're out of your mind".
"because you are so in love with me?"
"no, because you're my best friend".
and maybe i am just a little in love with you, but that isn't important right now.
"sure, keep telling yourself that mark lee".
mark hates when you get drunk like this, because it's like the moment the alcohol sinks into your system, you become a mind reader. you can always seem to tell what's going on with mark when your drunk out of your mind, like you just reach into his brain and pull out his biggest secrets.
he never knows how you do it, or how you just magically forget everything you say when your sober (he's actually grateful you do, because the kind of stuff you say when your drunk should stay like that, drunk remarks).
"i can walk on my own, you know.." you mutter, clearly very out of it. the words only make mark's arm tighten around you, he cannot afford to let you go, because you're going to collapse onto the street and never be able to pick yourself up. he doesn't care about your complaints, your whining, or how you're trying to separate yourself from him, he only has one goal, to make sure you get back to the house, and get to bed. "you don't need to carry me".
"your legs are practically useless right now, y/n, don't argue with me" mark somehow manages to hold you up with one arm as he rummages through his pocket, looking for the keys to the house. you clearly want to argue with him, but you can't, instead slumping to the side and pouting.
finally, mark finds the keys to the house and unlocks the door, hoisting you up and helping you step in. "you're like my prince charming, you know that markie?"
you sound like your going insane, you always get like this when your drunk. mark thinks he doesn't mind that much, your extra hilarious when drunk, even with how annoying you are when your wasted (not like you aren't also annoying when sober).
"that's nice, y/n" you whine once again when mark lets go of you, but you let yourself fall back onto the couch, curling onto it and wrapping your arms around your own waist, suddenly chilly.
"are you cold?"
there's a certain tone of disbelief in mark's voice, and you guess he has a point. it's mid-july, the two of you are on an island, and all temperatures are high right now, how could you even be cold?
"just kinda chilly.."
"in the middle of july?" mark questions, focused on his mission of searching for cups in the kitchen cupboards. he needs to help you sober up, or maybe he'll just let you go to sleep like this (actually he can't, you'd complain all morning if you woke up with such a hangover).
"i can't control the random chills i get, mark" you seem to enjoy whining about stupid things. you tighten your own hold around your waist, as if trying to heat up your own body yourself. "it's like elsa's living here or something".
"okay you big baby" mark responds, walking up to you and handing a glass of water. you stare at the cup for a good minute or so before finally taking it, though you can't exactly stomach water at the moment, you appreciate how much mark is doing for you. "get better and go to sleep".
you still feel just a little nauseous, and you realize back to back drinks for hours probably wasn't the best idea. you cover your face with your hands, yet another complaining whine escaping your lips. "it's not as easy as it sounds, minhyung".
"you could at least drink the water, appreciate my efforts".
"i do appreciate your efforts, i just feel like i'm about to throw up".
"that's what you get for doing all of that drinking".
you have no more energy to argue with your best friend, instead turning over and making yourself comfortable on the couch, your head placed on his lap. "yeah yeah, whatever smartass, now let me sleep.."
mark chuckles. "you don't want to go to your room?"
"no, your my pillow now, you legally have to stay here".
mark raises an eyebrow, amused by your sudden change of heart. "legally?"
"yes legally, now be quiet and let me sleep".
mark shuts his mouth, not only because he doesn't want to argue with you, but because you did really need this sleep.
he doesn't mind this, he decides.
"WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING?" MARK LOOKS UP UPON hearing your inquiry, his eyes finally moving away from his computer and focusing on you. your hair is messy, he assumes from the roughness you used when drying it, and your clothes look comfy. it's that pajama set yuta got you for your birthday that you swore you hated and would never wear ever. he laughs in his head at the fact, but then he focuses back on you, realizing he indeed does have a question to answer. "grey's anatomy" he answers just as unnaturally as he thought he would, he internally cringes at the fact. you raise an eyebrow, clearly questioning the show choice, but you make your way over to him anyway, the closer you get, the better mark can see you, your features practically glow in the dimly lit room.
"grey's anatomy? i didn't even know you liked that show.." you make space for yourself beside mark and prop yourself up on your elbows, eyes narrowing at his laptop screen. mark just lets you, it's been a long day, despite it being summer, mark still has so much to do, he never truly gets breaks.
"i don't really like it, it's kinda just a guilty pleasure" he replies, gesturing towards his computer. "cristina's the best character.."
"your just saying that because she's the only characters name you remember".
mark snorts, lightly nudging you. "are you really going to stay here with me?"
you give him a dumbfounded look, as if that was possibly the dumbest question he could've asked ever. "why would i not? would you prefer for me to ignore you while we're on vacation together? i wanna spend time with my best friend.."
mark hums, clasping his hands together. your words have an unchecked effect on him, a small red hue spreading across his cheeks. the words are so simple, so they shouldn't be having him react like this, he feels like he's going insane.
why do you make him feel like this?
mark never gets it with you.
you're just his best friend, you two have been together since you were six, it's crazy how even through all the crazy stuff that's happened in your lives, the two of you have somehow managed to survive, even with all odds stacked against you.
mark has to admit, you two aren't the most.. normal of a pair? there are times the two of you didn't talk for months, times where you couldn't even stand each other, but then are also times like this, times where you two are just regular best friends who do regular best friend things.
best friends hold hands.
best friends match jewelry.
best friends occasionally share a bed and wrap themselves in each other's arm whilst sleeping.
and best friends look at each other with the same kind of love admiration mark looks at you with.
when have you ever been anything more than friends? there has never been a romantic element there as far as mark knows. yeah you always make stupid jokes about the two of you being a couple, but you've never said anything which could imply that, and even if you are in love with him, you've never tried to act on those desires, not physically at least.
mark's never seen the way the two of you act to be weird, he could never get why other people always looked at you weird, like they knew something the two of you didn't.
and it's even weirder because your guys' other friends do the same thing, the shifty glances, the unnecessary eyebrow raising, and the stupid giggles.
mark remembers this one time jungwoo said this thing, and it's stuck with him ever since.
"what's with you and y/n?"
the question came out of nowhere, mark had been focused on some writing assignment he'd left to the last minute, sitting at the kitchen counter as he tried to figure out what huge words he could use to make himself sound sophisticated. "what do you mean?"
"you and y/n, you guys are weird, i can't tell if you're trying to look your dating or are actually a couple".
the statement came off as shocking to mark, why would he even begin to think that? when have you two ever come off as a couple? he has no idea..
"you're ridiculous, y/n and i aren't trying to look like we're dating".
mark said those words with confidence, but he doesn't even know if he's genuinely sure about that.
"yeah, sure" jungwoo scoffed, he has no faith in mark at all. "maybe you think you aren't, but he's surely trying to, he's literally so in love with you it's insane".
mark paused, thinking about it. maybe he just doesn't pay much attention to it, or maybe jungwoo was just making stuff up, he does really enjoy lying. "you might be crazy".
"i'm not! excuse my language, mark, but it is so obvious that y/n likes you, he wants to fuck you so bad it's disgusting!"
marks eyebrows furrowed, and he gave jungwoo that familiar 'are you serious?' look.
"y/n wants to fuck me?"
"oh he definitely does! he isn't even trying to hide it".
mark thinks all of your guys' friends must be crazy, experiencing a shared hysteria or something. you two don't act weird, your just how you always are.
"so?"
mark remembers this other thing as well, it was about a month before school ended, and he was sat on johnny's living room floor, flipping through the boring tv channels, trying to find anything interesting to watch. "so what?"
"what are you doing this summer?" the older asked, there was a clear annoyance in his voice, mark guesses it's because he had to ask the question like seven times. "any good plans?"
mark's fingers continued to click the remote, he doesn't remember what channel he was looking for, but he remembers shrugging in response to johnny's question. "not sure yet, y/n said he wanted the two of us to go somewhere together, but he hasn't really gotten back to me on that".
at the mere mention of you, a small laugh sounded from johnny, and mark noticed it enough that he paused his channel flipping. "y/n?"
"yes y/n, as in my best friend y/n, whose also your friend?"
"jesus that guys like, obsessed with you".
the words caused for mark to respond with his signature weird glance, he looked at johnny as if the older had just placed a curse on his entire family. "where is this coming from?"
"i just have eyes, mark, are you two really best friends? or have you just not discovered how you actually feel for each other?"
that was so strange.
mark immediately wanted to deny all of it, his eyes moved away from johnny and back to the tv, but he wasn't really focused on the tv, trying to find a response to the words that struck him like a punch to the gut. "i have no idea what your talking about".
"well i'm just saying what everyone else is saying".
and yeah, maybe mark's an idiot for not taking any of those words into account, but he doesn't really have to! if you were so in love with him like everyone assumed, you'd tell him, right? you two always tell each other what's going on in your lives, and that's to like, a concerning rate.
if you were in love with mark, you'd tell him, because what use is there in keeping such a big secret?
there's a lot of them, actually, mark, but you know y/n would never do that to you, he'd never.
MARK IS SLEEPLESS, LIKE— VERY. for the past few hours, all he's done is toss and turn in the same direction for who knows how long. his blanket is on the floor, but he doesn't exactly remember putting it there. he probably threw it off his bed during one of his many tossing fits a good couple hours ago. he groans, just accepting that he's not getting any sleep tonight. after hours of refusing to leave his bed, mark stretches his limbs, finally sitting up and swinging out of his bed since he got into it like four hours ago. no one whose on vacation sleeps early, but mark had assumed the exhaustion in his body would aid in helping him doze off, but his body is a weird one, so he hurriedly makes his way out of his room, suddenly craving water.
mark regrets choosing the room with the huge window right in front of the beach, yeah it's nice and everything but in the middle of the night, waking up the sound of the rushing ocean is just the slightest bit anxiety inducing, especially when he's in the middle of some horrible nightmare.
mark's feet take him directly where he wants to go, the kitchen, he needs a glass of water, maybe two, maybe three, heck— maybe seven. he doesn't think much about not seeing you, he just assumes you had better luck than him in the sleep department.
he only gets distracted on his walk when he hears a small sound, the sound of something hitting against the wall. he pauses in his steps, listening in to see if what he was hearing was actually real. it's silent for a few seconds, but then mark hears it again, the sound of something slamming against the wall.
it's coming from your room.
mark furrows his eyebrows, puzzled. now totally unfocused on his current goal, mark turns around and heads in the direction of your room, anxieties amping up as his mind begins thinking of horrible things.
god please don't be hurt please don't be hurt please please please please—
when mark peaks his head through your door, he's met with a strange sight. a clearly asleep you, muttering nonsense to yourself as you continuously weak into your dresser, bumping against it, then causing for it to bump against the wall. oh, mark gets it, your sleepwalking.
he sighs in relief, at least you aren't injured or something. he steps into the room, making his way towards you, he makes sure that he doesn't make too much noise walking, he doesn't want you to have some visceral reaction.
he gently taps your shoulder. "y/n".
no answer, you just walk into your dresser again.
"y/n" mark calls out again, but you don't answer him, just continue muttering to yourself as you walk into your dresser again, bumping roughly against it, causing for mark to wince, as if he was the one to collide with the dresser. he places both hands on your shoulder, turning you around to face him.
"y/n".
that seems to do the trick, because you startle out of your state, a gasp accompanying your actions. your startled state startles mark as well, whose hands quickly remove themselves from your shoulders. "okay okay, calm down, it's just me" his voice does calm you down, nothing else can be heard in the room besides the breathing of you two and the faint running of the ocean outside.
"oh, holy shit, what did i— what was that?"
mark has been through this with you many times before, he knows how to deal with stuff like this, he's gotten very in tune with your habits. "you were sleepwalking, y/n" he replies, and a look of disappointment settles on your face.
"again? ugh i thought i got rid of that stupid habit" you cover your face with your hands, stressed. "i didn't do anything crazy right? like.. turn on the oven? start the car? unlock the door?"
"no no, none of that" mark is weirded out. seeing the usually energetic, playful, joking you be so stressed, your voice so low compared to your usual shouting. he worries about you, a lot, so he puts his hand on your shoulder again. "seriously it's fine, you were just walking into your dresser and mumbling some unintelligible shit, that's all".
you don't seem to enjoy the sound of that, seeing as how you freeze at the words, only frowning once again. mark, like always, notices your change in behavior, and he instinctively carts his hand through your hair. he originally doesn't know why he does it, but you don't seem to mind, you settle into the touch even, comforted by it.
"do you?.. maybe we should go on a walk on the beach? just to clear your mind, you know.."
he continues to run his hand through your hair. mark loves your hair, it's pretty, soft, and you never really dye it, so it always looks as good as new. you consider his words, taking in a breath. "no i just— i just need water".
water, that's all you need.
mark can do that, it's not like your asking him to bring the stars to you (but mark would, he would go thousands of miles, travel galaxies to make sure you were happy), you just want water. mark stops his hair caressing, his hand moving down to yours, where he intertwines your fingers. you give a small smile as he does so, but mark doesn't see it, he's much too focused on making sure you get your water.
you stay silent, which is so strange to mark. you talk a lot, you love talking, talking mark's ear off is on the list of things you have to do during your day. "just water? that's it".
you frown when mark lets go of your hand, missing the small act of affection. "yeah" you whisper. "just water".
mark gets you exactly that, water, and the two of you sit in a comfortable silence at the kitchen counter. none of you talking. the sound of the ocean waves crashing against each other meet both your ears, but none of you say anything, just sit there with a now empty cup between you two.
"everything good now?" mark asks, he just needs to make sure, seeing you like this is so unfamiliar, it makes him overly anxious.
"yeah yeah everything is fine".
"you sure?" mark needs extra confirmation, extra reassurance from you that you're okay, he wants for you to talk to him, tell him what's going on with you, because mark is your best friend, and he has to help you with these things. "you can tell me anything, you know".
"mark" you say softly, and mark doesn't know why, but his stomach flips. the way you say his name suddenly makes his cheeks go red, eyes widen, and lips part lightly. you shouldn't be affecting him like this, but you do, because it's you, you always do this to him. "yes i'm sure, if something was going on with me, i'd tell you".
of course, because the two of are best friends, you would never hide something serious from him, you know he can always help you, he will always help you.
"alright, i'm holding you to that".
you hum at his words, picking at your nails. "you better".
"THAT GUY IS CUTE" THE WORDS MAKE MARK'S HEAD shoot up, and the moment he glances at you, that uncomfortable feeling comes to his stomach. you aren't looking at him, making mark assume that you weren't saying the words to him, but to yourself. like you meant to say them in your head but ended up muttering them out loud. mark's eyebrows immediately furrow, trying to figure out what guy you're talking about. when he looks in the direction you're looking, he notices the guy your referring to. he narrows his eyes at his figure, and while he can agree, the guy is what he would consider conventionally attractive, he has no idea why you're calling him cute in the first place. "which guy?"
you deadpan at him, lightly smacking his arm. "the guy right there mark, the one wearing the white stripes shirt".
mark blinks, rubbing the place in his arm where you hit him. he doesn't know why he feels so weird, this has never happened to him before, you talk about cute guys all the time, this shouldn't be shocking to him at all.
but for some reason, the guy is really starting to piss him off, just even staring at him is irritating mark. the guy isn't that hot, he isn't even that attractive, his hair is messy, mark thinks that's gross.
"yeah yeah, he looks okay".
"okay?" you stare at mark like he just personally offended you with that statement, and you get furrowed eyebrows as a response. "he's gorgeous! a ten out of ten guy!"
"i mean— i guess he's kinda hot?" mark says those words in that questioning tone he always uses when you show him guys you might be into, he never gets your taste in men, because they're all either crazy, or they all look they just crawled out of a ditch. call him shallow or whatever, but he can't tell why a guy like you likes guys like that, you deserve someone more.. fitting.
someone like him preferably.
when his mind whispers the thought to him, mark struggles to jump from his chair. now why would he even think that? why couldn't he suppress that thought? why does he think he could be the perfect fit for you? it's not like he likes you or anything, so why did he even conjure up that thought?
"you have a horrible taste in men" you respond, but you don't even try to look at mark (which upsets him much more than he wants to admit), your attention is focused on the quote unquote, cute guy across from you, who seems to catch your eye, because you loudly gasp, hitting mark in the arm again. "did you see that!? he looked at me!"
no mark did not see that, he was much too focused on trying to calm down his flipping stomach. he hates that he feels like this, it's always with you isn't it? you don't pick up on how uncomfortable he is, though, because you're too busy freaking out over a "cute" boy glancing over at you.
"so what? you're overreacting".
mark realizes how harsh his words must've been when he sees your face fall immediately at his irritated tone. you finally look over at him, eyebrows furrowed together, and mark feels like he just committed the worst of crimes. there's an awkward silence that spreads between you two for a moment, but if you were upset, which you clearly looked like you were, you didn't say anything, you just shook your head and let out a snicker. "okay, fuck you, i'm freaking out because a cute guy just looked at me and—"
"that same cute guy whose checking you out?"
"HES WHAT!?"
your screech is enough to make mark almost fall out of his seat, he says those words with distaste, but you don't catch his tone, fortunate for him. you begin slapping his arm like crazy, excited out of your mind over this random guy staring at you. the idea annoys mark much more than it should, because why are you focusing on him so much? he isn't even that good looking, he hates it.
"oh my god! oh my god, mark! can you believe this? i might actually have some potential for an important romantic connection this summer!"
mark raises an eyebrow at the comment. "is that all you cared about when deciding to come on vacation with me?"
you look oddly offended at the inquiry, clearly weirded out by mark's sudden change in attitude. you tilt your head, mind immediately swaying away from the guy you'd been rambling about. "no! hey what's with you?"
oh no.
"what do you mean? i'm fine".
"no, you're using that tone with me".
mark curses you for knowing him so well, he knows exactly what you're talking about, his certain tone of irritation is one you'd grown accustomed to when you were children, as mark would use it all the time when he got especially annoyed by your antics. still, he gives a chuckle of disbelief. "what is that tone?"
you pause for a moment, thinking about your words, but then you straighten in your seat, lightly scoffing. "that tone of irritation you use when your annoyed by me, what? you hate your not the only guy who has my attention?"
mark prepares another snappy response to that, but he can't do that because you lean closer as you say those words, a smug grin playing on your lips as you do so. mark allows for himself to get engrossed in the sight of you close up. he then narrows his eyes, trying his best to act like he's unaffected by your stare. "no, oh my god get over yourself!"
mark is quick to push you away, stubbornly crossing his arms as he hopes you don't notice how pathetic those words sounded. you snicker, clearly feeling victorious as you were able to get a shout out of him. mark would punch you if he wasn't so distracted by your pretty laughter.
"uh huh, sure, you dream of me".
"you're so annoying, if you think the guy's so cute just go talk to him".
mark regrets saying that.
why did i say that? why the fuck did i say that?
he doesn't want you to go talk to him, why would he even bring that up? he sees the expression on your face change, and mark immediately knows he messed up because you seem to be very on board with that idea. you look back over at the guy you'd been staring at prior, a smile coming to your face as you catch him looking back at you, watching the whole thing transpire just makes mark stomach flip uncomfortably.
"fine then, you told me to do it myself".
mark wishes he hadn't.
"good luck" he croaks out, trying his best to steady his voice as you blatantly ignore him to continue staring at the guy you're seemingly so infatuated with.
mark wants to throw up.
MARK TRULY UNDERESTIMATES HOW MUCH CAN happen in a week. life has always surprised him, strange things constantly transpire that he can't exactly explain no matter how much he tries. he also made the mistake of underestimating just how much you were into this "cute guy" (mark learned his name is kunwoo, a name he feels uneasy about), because after he stupidly told you to go over and talk to the guy you had been making eyes at, you two hit it off, a fact that made mark want to claw his own eyes out, to his very own confusion. he can't figure out why he's feeling so.. weird? it's not like he hasn't watched you hit it off with several guys during previous summer outings, or just in general, so why is it different now? it shouldn't be different now, nothing should be different.
but it is different now, for some unknown reason that mark can't think of no matter how much he tries to conjure it up in his mind, he doesn't like the guy you've now found yourself parading around. even with how into him you seem, mark can't help but gives his best tight lipped smile every time you bring him up.
mark won't tell you anything, he doesn't want to upset you, you genuinely seem so happy talking to him, who is he to tell you to not like a guy that he feels weird about? you're an adult, you can make your own decisions, he can't make you do anything you don't want to.
so what if mark has bad vibes about this guy your into? he's not going to tell you that or anything. he knows better than to spoil your fun, you deserve to have fun after your train wreck of a school year.
he doesn't want to be a bad friend.
"y/n? where are we going exactly?"
the minute the clock struck 12 (in the afternoon, mark has to clarify), you told him to get up because you were going to take him out. "out, mark, i told you this thousands of times already".
mark's eyebrows furrow, he has no idea why you would just drag him out of the beach house for no apparent reason. hand intertwined with his, merely muttering something about going out.
"so abruptly?" he inquires, your hand squeezing against his, lurching him closer towards you with a small tug.
"yes, take it as my apology for leaving you in the dust for all these days".
mark pauses at your words, they take him by surprise. it's not that he expected you to not notice he was down, you usually notice something's off before mark himself does, but he assumed you'd be so blinded by love that how he feels would be the furthest thing from your mind.
but who is mark kidding? you know him like the back of his hand. if he was upset, even if you were miles away, you'd be able to sense it. no matter how many men you attempt to court and date, none of them could really get you to forget about him.
your hand against his is soft, your tugs are nothing short of playful, and your smile is hidden, but it's there. "won't kunwoo be pissed?"
you narrow your eyes, face twisting into a puzzled expression. the look you give mark makes his stomach drop, but you don't pick up on that, because your focused on the mention of your newest boy toy. "why would he be?"
mark pauses, throat going dry as he feels your thumb grace his palm. "i don't know, he doesn't really seem to like me.."
your eyebrows furrow, then you giggle. "are you kidding? everyone likes you".
the words make mark pause, and he stares at you as if you healed all of his injuries with just your voice. maybe you couldn't see what he saw, but it was such a genuine response that he couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. "i mean i guess you do have a point about that.."
mark looks down at the cemented ground, and you snort, nudging him with your shoulder.
"don't think about stuff like that, i have a date tonight anyway".
a date. mark's jaw almost clenches. that's terrific! he couldn't be anymore happier for you! his eye isn't twitching because he's pissed! it's not!
"oh" he croaks, suddenly feeling the need to squeeze your hand. if you suddenly notice his heightened emotions, you don't say anything. "a date, that's nice".
"mhm" you merely hum, lips pressed together as you turn around and again begin walking with mark by your side, hand in hand.
"where are you going?"
you scoff, playfully rolling your eyes. "enough about the date mark, it's just us now, let's focus on that okay?"
see? this is why mark lee doesn't get you.
you can't say things like that then just expect him to be fine. you can't stare at him like he's your entire world and not except for him to think you harbor something romantic for him. you can't just do all of that and just expect for mark to be okay.
because he isn't, and it's all because of your soggy looks, your pretty voice, your pretty smile. you make mark feel things he shouldn't feel for someone whose just his 'best friend'.
he looks down at your intertwined fingers, listening to your silent humming as you swing your laced hands back and forth. "alright, i can get behind that".
you snap out of your little zoning out session, your lips turning up at the reply. "good, now make me some guesses".
"what?"
"where do you think i'm taking you?"
mark again pauses, a soft breeze rushing past you two as the crashing ocean waves sound in your ears. "to some forest to murder me?"
you scoff, you'd give another roll of the eyes if not worried for seeming like a broken record. "no, stupid, if i wanted to murder you i would've done it ages ago".
mark responds with an incredulous gasp, tone full of feigned offense. "you would murder me? your best friend in the whole entire world with no pushback?"
"i don't know, guanheng seems adamant on stealing that spot.."
mark again gasps, but this time there's a little more genuine emotion there, floored at the idea of you replacing him. "hendery? really?"
"don't say that! he's cooler than you!"
a frown tugs at mark's lips, and he nudges you much harder than he intends to. you grunt in just the slightest, childishly sticking out your tongue. "you get jealous sooooo easily".
"shut up".
and of course, you don't.
MARK CAN BARELY FALL ASLEEP THAT NIGHT KNOWING your going on a date. the look in your eye really communicated to him that you weren't about to change your mind, when you're determined, you're determined, and nothing will ever deter you. he could barely control the bile threatening to force it's way up his throat as he wished you good luck, but he found it much easier to contain his feeling of irritation when he saw your smile, your smile is so pretty, mark wanted to become kunwoo in that moment, because the idea of him being the one who got to see it for the rest of the night was just ridiculous. oh right. he had no idea how long you were going to be gone for, what if you come back and he's already asleep? what if you stayed over at his place? what if you—
never mind, he doesn't want to think about that.
when you say bye for the night, you unexpectedly step forward and wrap your arms around mark. it's not like hugs between you two are rare or anything, it was just a tad bit surprising how sudden the embrace was, but it was still special, mark almost wanted to fall asleep in your arms.
"how long are you gonna be gone for?" he asked after you pulled away, brushing your hair out of your face as you thought about it for a moment.
you shrugged, lips pressed into a thin line. "i'm not sure, but you can go to sleep without me around, can't you?"
mark's face went red at the question, he looked guilty as a charged. "yes i can, i was just wondering".
you hummed, grabbing the keys from the kitchen counter, not saying another word to him as you began whistling a tune he couldn't exactly recognize. "be safe".
you blinked at him, eyebrows furrowing. "i will, mark".
"swear?"
"i swear".
mark smiled at you, taking a needed breath of relief. "okay, i love you".
those words came out of nowhere, mark still has no idea why he decided to say them, why he decided that would be the correct thing to say at the moment, but you didn't question it, simply snickered. "i love you too".
mark will forever keep that response in his dearest heart.
he tossed and turned for a while, the large window behind his bed greeting him to the harrowing sounds of the ocean. he doesn't remember how long it took for him to slip off into his slumber, but all he remembers is that he was still thinking of your smile when sleep took him away.
he must've been having an insanely good dream, because he didn't even hear the resounding whispers.
"mark".
nothing.
"mark".
mark grunts, but doesn't open his eyes. his lips part slightly as he feels a small tap land on his shoulder, he still doesn't answer though.
"melk".
he looks so into dreamland, you feel bad for trying to lift him from consciousness. he stirs, settling into the feeling of your nail dragging over his arm.
"markle" you drawl. "markie, mark".
cracking one eye open, mark finally looks at you without turning his head. "is the house on fire?" his words are sloppy, syllables all shuffled around.
"not yet, but i can keep trying if you want".
mark's mouth twitches, suppressing a smile, and you let out a sigh. "what time is it?"
"just past one".
"hm" mark rolls over with his eyes barely open, bumping into your sitting figure. he again opens his eyes, scanning you up and down. you're still in the outfit you left in, your thin sweater simply removed, eyes a noticeably red color that has his brows furrowing. "how was the date?"
you chuckle, and it's bitter enough to have mark's eyes now fully open, his body barely rising from his laying position. "fucking terrible".
mark blinks, rubbing his eyes as the exhaustion now doesn't seem to matter. "woah, what's that supposed to mean?"
you roll your eyes, somehow successfully hiding your sniffles along the way. "the guys i'm into always turn out to be such.. bastards".
mark is going to kill kunwoo.
"what did he do?"
"nothing, that's the problem" you reply, but then you laugh again. what exactly do you laugh at? your circumstances? your situation? the fact that you hate everything?
mark pauses, letting his exhaustion fester elsewhere as he sits up. "y/n.."
"i don't know, i guess i shouldn't have expected much from some cute guy i met while on vacation" you humor yourself with those words, snickering at the look you receive from mark. "don't look at me like that, i'm okay".
"your eyes are red" mark snaps his head towards you, almost pointing at your face with his finger.
a frown tugs at your lips. of course he noticed that, you were hoping he wouldn't bring it up. "it's fine, i'm alright".
you give your best smile, and though it would usually make mark smile, his face instead drops at the display. "don't say that, please give me a real smile".
the reply gets a small laugh out of you, which also gets a genuine smile out of you. a few giggles slip from your lips at the words, which, in turn, make mark's lips turn up. "okay okay, you got me".
oh mark loves seeing you smile.
mark hums, reaching his hand over to tuck your hair behind your ear. "you have a pretty smile".
you pause, lips threatening to turn up again at the words. it's not like mark doesn't say this all the time, he always compliments your smile, it just feels.. different now. you snort. "says you".
"let me compliment you".
"you do that all the time already".
the two of you slip into silence, mark's fingers still busying themselves in your hair. you stare, and he stares back. his eyes glance everywhere, you've always been pretty up close, your features are striking, mark could stare at your face for hours, ticking off each of your little facial features in pure admiration.
the tension in the air could be cut with a knife, but you two stay silent, as if in a competition to see who'll break and speak first.
then, in an uncharacteristic move, you speak up.
"what do you want to do mark?"
"hm?" he glances down at your lips before his eyes quickly snap back up to stare into yours. he guesses that you're intently watching the movement of his eyes, something that mark probably would've noticed himself if it was you doing it.
"you want to do something".
mark sucks his teeth. "i want to kiss you".
the words fall from his lips much too quickly, and mark almost feels like a robot saying them, but he couldn't contain his honesty anymore. you raise an eyebrow, cheeks dusted red. "do you?"
your smiling again, and mark can't decipher what might be going through your head. he nods, suddenly rendered speechless. "..yeah, so much" his voice almost trails off into a whine, god how pathetic is that?
you hum, shoulders slumping. "what's stopping you?"
mark's mouth feels bitter, and his tooth sinks into his bottom lip. "kunwoo".
you snort, rolling your eyes as you scoot closer to mark, your hand graces his arm, and mark is quick to relax into the touch. "you shouldn't care about that".
your whisper festers into the air, and mark simply watches the movement of your lips.
then mark leans in, fulfilling his newfound itch of the night. he feels you smile against his lips, his hand moving up into your hair. he lets out a small sigh of relief, a sigh that makes you chuckle.
maybe mark had originally wanted to start slow, but then a switch seemed to have flipped. his fingers tangled in your hair, he can't get over how your lips feel. they're soft, plush, his frenzied presses driven by his pure eagerness, want, desire.
how did it take him this long? how couldn't he realize this is what he wanted the entire time?
you two break apart to breath, but it's only a few seconds before mark leans forward again to chase after yet another taste. his aggressiveness makes you go down, your back softly hitting his mattress as he crawls on top of you, a small giggle leaving your lips at his enthusiasm.
you scale your hand up his arm and under his shirt, drawing shapes into his shoulder as the tiniest hint of a whimper leaves your lips. his hands were still messing with your hair, maybe that's one of his favorite hobbies.
you chuckle again, bringing your hand up to hold his jaw, and you keep your hand there when you finally pull him off you. "oh, how long have you wanted to do that?"
mark can barely control his bated breaths, cheeks a rosy red and lips kissed the same color. "like forever— fuck i can't.. i can't believe i actually got to do that".
you hum, thumb caressing the underside of his jaw. "ah, you were thinking about it".
mark's words get stuck in his throat, and his blatantly red face must be embarrassing. he stares at you as if your the only person in the world, splayed under him in all your gorgeous glory. yes, he did think about this, it got to a little bit of an unhealthy rate. "i thought about way more than just kissing.."
"woah, slow your roll there, lee, what are you implying with that?"
mark stares down at you, cheeks red, hair messy as you begin humming. it makes no fucking sense. you look pretty doing everything, and he rolls his eyes. he responds to you with yet another kiss, except there's less of that prior aggression and more of gentleness.
mark tugs at your bottom lip, your hands slipping down towards his hips, keeping him in his place. he gives a slight squeak of response, obviously not expecting that.
"you gonna tell me what you were implying?"
"can't i just show you?"
"ooooo" you can't contain your snicker, your best friend is sort of pinning you down on his bed, the crashing ocean waves make a red color spread across your face. "i see, look at you being bold".
mark merely hums, diving down to begin sucking bruises into your neck. "you need to be quiet".
"and what are you gonna do if i don't? hm?"
mark sends you a look, the kind of look you expect to see in situations like this. "i won't tell you, i'll show you".
"you're doing much more telling than showing right now".
mark glares. "brat".
"you love it".
mark eyes the bruises he sucked into your skin, purple blemishes that stand out against your empty neck. "you're so pretty.. so pretty".
you are also about to lose your sanity if he doesn't do anything more, you're quite literally about to snap his neck if he doesn't just fucking do it. "as you say all the time.."
mark clicks his tongue, finger ghosting your collarbone. "it's deserved".
mark is going to make sure you hear everything he had to say tonight, he's going to show his appreciation for you through and through, he'll get his point across through any means.
maybe he'll figure out his feelings in the process, too.
"YOU KNOW, YOU KIND OF REMIND ME OF DONGHYUCK.." THE moment mark utters those words, you snap your head towards him, eyes narrowed and lips parted. he takes your reaction as a bad one, your judging look washing a weird sense of fear onto him. you can be strangely scary at times, and the look mark receives just strikes the weirdest amount of fear in him. "what the fuck is that supposed to mean?" you ask, a hint of offense in your tone. you are clueless as to what he could possibly mean by that, and mark realizes those words seem pretty vague in hindsight. he stares at you, your messy hair, the same pajamas he changed you into after you two had finished your.. activity. you look adorable, mark can't help but giggle as he observes you, and you scrunch your nose at his actions.
"you two are kinda the same, like twins".
"twins?"
"yeah, you're both insanely annoying" mark says, walking past you and ignoring the other look you share with him. "and besides, you two are both my best friends, your bound to have some similarities, you guys even share some moles in the same place".
you trail behind mark, lips turning downward. "so you just.. usually make out with your best friends?" you ask, hands naturally trailing down towards his hips.
mark turns around just fast enough to meet your eyes, leaning back against the kitchen counter as your hands stay steady on his hips. he hums, staring at your lips. "no, it's just you".
"oh? am i the exception?"
"mhm" mark sees the way your eyes seemingly light up at the words, a small squeeze to his hips. you get giddy so easily, he has to resist the urge to giggle. "it's only you i have my eyes on".
your cheeks flare up, and you chuckle as you look down. you really like the sound of that. when you look back up, mark is quick to press his lips to yours. you squeak out of surprise, but your quick to melt into his touch.
mark's newfound obsession is kissing you, your lips are always so fucking soft. how much chapstick do you use? or are they just naturally like that? he'll have to kiss you more to find out (that's his new excuse).
"you're so enthusiastic, where was this energy when i flirted with you before?"
"that was different".
"was it?" you lean away when mark goes back in for another kiss, smiling at the way his face drops. he scrunches his nose, tongue poking against his inner cheek. "how different was it?"
mark sucks his teeth, hand coming up to the back of your neck to pull you closer. "see? you are annoying".
"you didn't answer my question~"
"can't i just kiss you as my answer?" he breathes against your lips, unsuccessfully fighting a smile.
you pretend to think about it, tilting your head to sell your bit. "you just want to kiss me more".
"is that so bad?"
you stare down your best friend, but then you sigh, you can't resist him. "no".
and that's all mark needs. he pulls you back down towards him, sighing in contentment as he feels the soft plush of your lips against his. you lose your composure rather quickly, pulling mark as close as he could get, as if you'd die if you weren't touching every single part of him.
small (but intelligible) whimpers spill from your lips, sounds that have mark wanting to giggle and kick his feet in joy. he is doing that to you? oh he feels so proud of himself.
mark lee might just be addicted to kissing you.
"okay okay enough, your kiss amount is up".
"what? hey!"
your hand slips from his, and mark blinks, absolutely dumbfounded. you smile, expression full of cheek as you watch mark's drop. "since when did we have kiss amounts?"
"since about two seconds ago!" you yell as you make your way over to your room, mark for being from where you left him desolate at the kitchen counter. "you lose control too quickly".
"as if you don't like that.."
mark crosses his arms over his chest, following you to your room to give you a piece of his mind. "but i love kissing you dude!"
you give a weird look. "you can't call me dude after we just made out!"
mark scoffs. "what do you want me to call you then? baby?"
you pause, a bright red color spreading across your cheeks. you also like the sound of that. for some reason, it feels so right. you can already hear the word 'baby' fresh on mark's lips, and in reference to you to?
it sounds pretty cute.
"yeah no i think i prefer dude.."
you don't notice how mark's face drops at those words, he knows they're feigned, but the fact that you felt the need to lie just makes his stomach hurt. that's nice y/n, that's fine, i can totally get behind that, my feelings for you aren't complicated at all!
mark hates his thoughts.
but he doesn't disclose any of them, he gives a fake smile and forces out a strained chuckle. "fine, dude, don't get mad with me again though".
you can't even fight your smile anymore, because it comes to full force when you face mark, who is busy staring at the marks he sucked into your neck. maybe those are too obvious, you'd have trouble trying to cover them.
you snap your fingers in front of mark's face. "hey, you alright?"
mark blinks, locking eyes with you. he thinks he's dreaming, did you two really get to this point? mark assumed he'd wallow in his own jealousy forever, never getting the opportunity to really feel these things around you. "yeah, sorry.."
"mhm" you press your lips into a thin line, and mark steps closer to bury his face into your shoulder, an action of affection that is now regular for you two. "no need to apologize, what's going on in your head?"
mark doesn't answer that, simply lets out a deep breath. "don't wanna talk about it".
"that's fine" you whisper, you can wait until he's ready to talk about it.
MARK'S EYES PRACTICALLY BURN BY THE TIME he can finally see again. he almost inhales a gallon of ocean water, he can still taste the salt of it on his tongue. how you managed to convince him to get into the ocean with all of his clothes still on? he has absolutely no idea, but it had no right being so fun as it was. he wipes his face as best he can with his hands, and he hears your titular laugh sounding close by, so loud that not even the rushing ocean water can keep it silent. he shivers, jumping when he feels your wet hand grace his shoulder. "i'm never doing that with you ever again" he scolds, unable to sound serious with the way his lips refuse to turn down. you giggle, quickly grabbing a towel for you two to share, wrapping it around both you and mark as you sit on the other towel you brought to the beach. "i'm sure i could convince you easily enough if i tried" you reply, resting your head onto mark's shoulder.
"that's only because i let you get away with things" mark responds, pressing closer to you, as close as he can get with the lack of space already between the two of you. you let out a sigh of contentment, feeling good in the current place you are.
it's always been comfortable like that with mark.
"keep telling yourself that".
"it's true" mark bites back, and you hum as you again let out a sigh. "you only get a pass because you're my best friend" he drags his finger down your arm, smiling as you relax into the touch.
"aww, is it not because i'm so cute?" your lips turn downward into a pout, and you lean into mark as you feign sadness at his previous words.
"nope" mark pushes you back with only his pointer finger, and you chuckle against his touch once again.
the beach wasn't your original destination, but it's much too difficult to avoid the beach, and by proxy, the ocean. mark didn't really want to swim, because you two weren't planning on going to the beach, but you were somehow able to convince him to get into the water, he has no idea how you even got that to happen, but you did, your striking smile is much too difficult to ignore.
you two spent so much time just messing around, acting like the idiots you were supposed to be when you originally decided to go on vacation together. yeah all the drinking, seagull chasing, and cooking attempts were fun, but just being idiots on beach? this is what going on vacation is about.
you couldn't have stifled so many of your giggles today, and mark, mark just made it so much better. you feel so much around mark, you don't know how you hid such feelings for so long. "you really are something.."
mark blinks, admiring your smile, he's cut off by a sudden rush of wind, which sends a shiver down both your spines. you snicker, grabbing his hand. "let's go back, yeah? it's getting cold now".
mark nods, wrapping his arm around your waist as you wrap your arm around his, the two of you laughing as you trip over your feet to make your way back to the beach house. "tomorrow, we need to check out that ice cream parlor".
mark gives you a look. "the one with the.. what is it? fucking amazing waffle cones?" he inquires, recalling jungwoo's words when he was telling you two about the place awhile ago.
you snort. "that one, yes".
mark simply gives a small smile, you think he looks especially cute with his wet hair. blue was really the move, you love it.
"you gonna pay?"
"woah! why do i have to pay?"
mark nudges you, almost rolling his eyes. "you made me deal with kunwoo for a whole week, that man did not like me".
"that's ridiculous".
the other look you receive from mark is full of the incredulity you except, mark looks at you as if you just punched him in the gut and spat on him as he doubled over. "ridiculous? you should've seen the way he stared at me, you would've thought i robbed his mom or something".
"it's ridiculous how he didn't like you".
mark scoffs, a cold shiver running down his spine as he thinks of his next response. "think it was pretty obvious why.."
it's a simple mutter, but you know what he means by those words. you hum, getting out the keys and unlocking the door, mark feels a sense of déjà vu as he lets you take him in, letting him rest half his body weight onto you.
you suck your teeth as you hear mark yawn. "don't get so sleepy, we still have to dry our hair".
mark hums, looking up at you.
and mark can't exactly grasp why it's so romantic. why the giggles are full of much more love, why the acts of affection mean so much more, why he doesn't want all the lingering touches to stop. he rolls his eyes at your complaints when he cleans the sand out of your hair, and he smiles softly at the sight.
you look mesmerized by everything mark does, your eyes tracking him and every single action he performed like he was the single most important being to ever grace the earth. your eyes held a love you had never once showcased for another human being before. it couldn't just be platonic.
you practically stay glued to his side the whole time, an act that isn't as surprising to mark, it's kind of your whole thing to become super affectionate so randomly. he just likes it more this time, maybe it's the way you fingers grace his waist that make him feel safer.
you giggle when mark changes into those cute pink pajamas you usually never see him wear, but he only gives you a dirty look, one which makes you stop talking in fear of pissing him off.
and that is how you end up here, listening to mark's heartbeat as he runs his fingers through your hair, his eyes closed, but him not yet being asleep. sharing beds have never been unusual to you two, it's just.. different now.
"i can still taste the ocean water, dude".
you chuckle, feeling the rise and fall of mark's chest. you are so comfortable here, a sense of warmth easily envelopes you with mark. nothing could ever compare to how you feel around him. "maybe you shouldn't have done that dive then, dude".
mark narrows his eyes at you, taking in the tone of sarcasm in your words. you lift from your place on mark's chest, leaning your elbow onto the bed, and your head against your hand. you use your free hand to take mark's and intertwine it with yours. you stare at him from your place above him, lips turning up by just staring at his face.
"you are so fucking cute".
mark rolls his eyes, a small smile showing on his face. "are you really saying that? look at you".
"don't try to flatter me".
"dude, have you met yourself?"
"don't call me dude, dude" you argue, eyes shining with feigned rage when you hear a correspondent giggle from mark.
"you said you prefer dude!"
"okay well— i lied! don't call me dude, you call random men on the sidewalk dude, not me".
"what do you want me to call you then?"
god you're frustrating.
"anything but dude".
mark sighs, watching the way your cheeks dust red at just having to disclose this information to mark with pure honesty. he stares at your intertwined fingers, leaning forward and pressing a kiss onto your knuckles. the act is much too simple, but it leaves a lasting impression.
"i hate you".
"okay dude".
you snap a glare in mark's direction, but you also can't hide your budding smile. he's just so hard to be mad at, he shouldn't be allowed to harbor such beauty while simply lying down. "fuck you".
"i'm sure you want to" mark teases, leaning his head against the pillow, his hair falling down prettily behind him.
you choose to not answer that, instead letting go of mark's hand to grab his jaw and pull him in. your first time being the one to initiate, and it's just as messy as mark expected for it to be.
you can taste the remains of mint toothpaste on mark's tongue, and there's a certain frenzy that puts you on, your hand sliding down to the middle of mark's chest, again feeling the beating of his heart. you allow for your hand to journey under his shirt, exploring the warmth of his bare skin.
"slow that hand down dude.."
"if you fucking call me that again—" you grit your teeth, an empty threat dancing on your tongue. mark doesn't try to move your hand, just lets you do your thing.
mark stares up at you, waiting for the eventual threat, but it doesn't come, that's strange for you. he smirks, and you glare as you catch it. "come on y/n, threaten me".
you suck your teeth, instead pulling a mark by shutting him up with a kiss. it's again messy, a clash of the teeth and a mini fight in between all the chaos.
give me your best shot, mark says, tugging your bottom lip to truly sell his words. of course you bite, not hard enough to draw blood, mark finds it funny how you hold back during this moment out of every other one.
your hand again ventures, seemingly having a mind of it's own. you fiddle with the buttons of his pajama shirt, caressing the soft fabric between your fingers. when you pull away for breath, you simply stare, an indecisive look in your eyes.
"can i?" you ask, simply dragging your finger across what's exposed of his neck.
mark presses his lips together, staring at you as if ppl you're the only person in the world. he then gives you a lazy smile, a hand carting through your hair. "you're sacrificing sleep for sex?"
you snicker. "but it's good sex".
"and how are you so sure?"
"just let me prove it to you" you sing, tapping a finger onto his cheek. "and besides, we could always sleep in.." mark closes his eyes, humming as he feels your other hand press onto his chest, it's such a strange feeling, but it's foreign in a nice way.
"what about the ice cream?" mark's question is breathy, but he still finds a way to give you that tormenting smile. how annoying.
"you can't possibly be thinking about ice cream while i'm on top of you in your bed right now" you quickly counter, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt.
"i like ice cream, though".
"and me?"
mark opens his eyes, smile lazy and expression soft. "maybe you're just a little better than ice cream".
"a little?"
mark decides not to answer that one. "knock yourself out".
you roll your eyes at how he decided to grant you permission, but you chuckle anyway. "might knock you out after were done.."
"i'm looking forward to it".
you swear your going to wipe that smile off mark's face (that's a lie, you actually really enjoy seeing it).
"THE AMOUNT OF SPRINKLES ON THAT SHOULD BE illegal" the remark makes you choke around the tiny plastic spoon you tried to chuckle into. you purposefully bite down on the sprinkles to piss him off, lips turning up as you catch his eye twitch. it's so easy to rile him up, annoying him really is one of your best qualities. "how do not like sprinkles?" you ask, looking at him incredulously. mark takes a huge bite of the waffle cone in his hand, ignoring your question and instead replying with an interested hum. "these are fucking amazing waffle cones.." he mutters, and you scoff, shoving his shoulder. he gives a satisfied giggle at your irritation, your face dropping immediately when you see how joyful he seems. "what?" he asks, feigning idiocy as you scowl, crossing your arms over your chest and rolling your eyes. he can't even stifle his laughter anymore, barely containing his chuckles behind his hand.
"i fucking hate you".
mark seems pleased by your annoyance, grimacing as you eat yet another scoop of those sprinkles. "okay you sprinkle enjoyer, they're too sweet anyway".
"but i like sweet things".
"yeah cause you're basically a toddler" your lips turn down at the words, and mark runs a hand through your hair, suddenly very interested in the soft strands. "don't get mad, i'm just saying".
you scoff, looking down at your chocolate ice cream, your sprinkles are running out anyway. "i am mad, and i'm going to go get more sprinkles" you grumble, but your smiling as you walk off to go ask the person at the counter if you can add more sprinkles to your ice cream.
mark again laughs when he remembers the sight of your irritated face, you always look so cute when you're mad. he can practically hear the scowls from you when you realize he's been laughing.
he just can't help it.
"oh, you".
mark glances up, letting go of his spoon and letting out a strained chuckle. the one person he did not want to see. fucking kunwoo of all people.
"hi" mark tries his best to be civil, but all kunwoo does is scoff.
"cut the bullshit, what? do you think you can just influence y/n's actions now?"
mark scoffs, so much for being civil, all he wants to do is get more waffle cones, but of course someone has to ruin his fucking day, and of course it has to be the guy he was wrongly jealous of. "i have no idea what you're talking about".
"y/n isn't texting me back, and i know you have something to do with it".
mark almost rolls his eyes. "i don't influence y/n's decisions, if he isn't talking to you, than he's probably doing it on his own accord".
kunwoo laughs. what's so funny? mark inquires in his head, his ice cream is beginning to melt. "do you really expect me to believe that? you've always been such a jealous prick—"
"see? told you i got more sprinkles" you pause when your eyes gaze upon the scene before you. "oh! hi.. kunwoo" you grit your teeth, eye twitching in the slightest, mark almost laughs at the sight.
"oh you've gotta be kidding me, you two? give me a fucking break".
"oh please, don't start".
"i will, actually! you never seem to stop y/n, how long until you go off to the next guy—"
"you can't just say that.." you place a hand on mark's shoulder, making him go quiet.
"are you still angry with me for yelling at you?" you question, tone suddenly growing much more irritated. "sorry i don't enjoy when people try to force themselves onto me".
kunwoo scoffs, and mark has to bite his tongue, he might say something he isn't proud of. "for the last time, it was a joke, he always acts like that—"
"well then maybe you can see why i don't want to talk to you!"
mark sighs, clearing his throat. "anyway, i don't exactly appreciate the company of someone like you.. and my ice cream is now melting, maybe sort things out with your.. friend first".
and then mark is being dragged back into the ice cream parlor, his hand being tugged by yours. you sigh as you make it inside, peaking to make sure kunwoo didn't follow you in. "bastard".
mark blinks, noticing the way your shoulders slump. "y/n.. are you okay?"
you suck your teeth, immediately displaying a fake smile. "of course i am, kunwoo just sucks, he doesn't deserve my time".
mark scoffs. "if you really think i'm gonna believe that, you must be crazy".
you knew mark wouldn't believe that in the slightest. you drop your smile and simply hum, taking in a deep breath. "i just don't want to think about what he said, it'll take away too much of my attention and then i'm gonna start taking it personally which will never get us anywhere!"
mark is about to open his mouth again, but you cut him off. "can we get more ice cream now? ours has become like.. liquid by now".
"get as much as you please" mark shrugs. "i don't really want anymore".
you glance at him, narrowing your eyes. "come on, get as much as you want, i'm paying!"
mark can barely stop his lips from turning up, the interaction with kunwoo is still rubbing him the wrong way, but he guesses he can let it go for now. "your sprinkles look sad, good for them".
the comment gets a flurry of giggles out of you, you get nothing but absolute amusement from those words. "what is it with you and sprinkles? why do you hate them?"
"they're too sweet".
"oh, so you hate me?" you rebut, scooping chocolate ice cream into your cup and laughing at something in your head. "sprinkles are my pride and joy".
"i'm not your pride and joy?"
"you don't compare to sprinkles".
mark gasps, sticking his tongue out at you. now he's the one that's irritated, how funny. "i can't believe i'm losing to sprinkles, i feel insulted".
"it's the truth, sorry".
mark frowns, you know he isn't genuinely offended by that, because he keeps fighting his life whenever he glances over at you. "see? i hate sprinkles".
you lick your spoon again, nudging mark with your shoulder. "stop pouting, can you forgive me?"
you gently take his jaw and turn him towards you, a red color spread across mark's cheeks as he stares you in the eye. he avoids your gaze, cheeks still dusted red. "i guess so.."
you smile.
"just don't compare me to sprinkles again, i mean much more than they do".
"okay mark, i'll make sure not to do that next time".
and maybe mark smiles much too widely at that.
MARK REALLY LOST TRACK OF TIME AFTER YOUR GUYS' first kiss, because he feels like he blinked and it's suddenly his birthday. the best thing about summer birthdays is that he can party to his heart's content, drink till he passes out and wakes up with a terrible hangover. sometimes he forgets birthdays exist, because it feels like his birthday takes ages to come around with the amount of stuff he's busy doing during the school year. you neglected to mention what you'd be doing for his birthday, but you usually do that every year, you love to simply announce surprises out of the blue, you do that with all of your friends. mark has always thought he's good at reading you, but reading you as the second of august steadily approaches has become much more difficult.
mark already knew everyone was coming, he had mentioned it in passing way before you two decided to go on vacation, but he still finds himself startled when the doorbell rings and there are two giants standing on the doorstep (jaehyun's look of offense at being called 'giant' really brightened his mood).
"y/nie!" jungwoo surges through the front door and practically lifted you from the floor when he wrapped you in a tightening hug. "oh i thought mark would've killed you by now".
"trust me i tried".
your face falls at the words from mark, jungwoo attacking your cheeks with kisses. "he loves me too much to actually kill me".
"why are you lying?"
"he's probably telling the truth! knowing you anyway.."
mark's jaw drops, it's always donghyuck going after him isn't it? he crosses his arms, grimacing. "you can't insult me, it's my birthday".
"it's not insulting if it's true!"
mark again frowns, but then he snaps his fingers as soon as you're released from jungwoo's grip and stumble towards donghyuck. "johnny, dude, don't they look like twins?"
johnny blinks, narrowing his eyes. "woah! no they kinda do!"
"see!?"
jaehyun tilts his head. "i see two donghyuck's.."
you and donghyuck exchange glances, both displaying the same emotions on your face. "i do not like this comparison, hyuck is not that great—"
"hey fuck you!"
"no fuck you actually! how do you think i'm anything like him—"
"okay okay, calm down" mark steps in between you two, but his touches linger on you more than they do on donghyuck. "not on my birthday, please".
you don't say anything more, simply snicker and look away from mark. donghyuck stares at you two strangely, but he doesn't comment on what he sees. "i'm going to be singing for you, though!"
"oh god not again".
you snort, and donghyuck frowns. "i will pierce your eardrums—"
"okay! let's not threaten anyone! mark is twenty four! let us celebrate!"
mark couldn't have heard too many piercing shouts that day, which quickly turned into night. by the time the clock strikes eight, jaehyun is passed out on the couch, but mark can't figure out if it was the alcohol or simply the exhaustion from being endlessly dragged around by everyone.
where the fuck did all the booze come from? mark has no idea, but he can't push down the sudden anxiety he feels. it's nice to be around everyone again, though he would never admit it, he missed renjun and donghyuck's annoying fights, missed jungwoo's drunk escapades, missed the annoying complaints from yangyang, yes he missed his friends.
but mark suddenly has a realization when he doesn't see you around. that's strange. you should be on your fifth cup of shitty alcohol by now. it isn't time for presents yet, but he still misses your presence anyway.
it's hard to not miss the person you've been spending pretty much all of the past month with.
"xiaojun, have you seen y/n?"
dejun blinks, patting yangyang's back, the younger sobs about something mark can't exactly get. "uh.. no, sorry".
mark smiles. "it's fine i.. whatever thanks".
"you really haven't told him yet?" dejun raises an eyebrow, and mark immediately gets what he means, face going bright red.
"i'm working on it okay? i just.. you know what, thank you dejun".
dejun giggles, simply muttering a small 'your welcome' and waving his hand forward.
mark sucks his teeth, he avoided drinking in case no one sober was left, but the only thing he's focused on is making sure you're alive. you're much too impulsive, maybe you'll fall off the roof or something without anyone knowing, or maybe a bunch of aliens are going to come abduct you and no one will be there to witness it.
mark drags his feet everywhere, trying to catch sight of you, but you seemed to have disappeared. he almost calls out your name, but he stops himself in fear of sounding like an idiot drowned in desperation.
"there you are" make startles, but relaxes the moment he catches sight of you. your eyes light up when you see mark, and you extend your hand forward, offering it for mark to take. he sighs in relief, intertwining it with yours.
"you aren't drunk".
you chuckle, caressing the soft of his skin. "is that surprising to you?"
"..kinda".
you roll your eyes. "okay fuck you, i just don't feel like it today".
mark stares at you for a moment, then tightens his grip on your hands and tugs you forward, taking you away from the loud music of the hallway. "woah, where are we going?"
"somewhere.."
you don't get the meaning of that, which makes your nose scrunch. "slow down, do you not want to be around other people?"
"we just.. can we talk?"
mark leads you outside, anxiously picking at his own skin as he awaits your response. he doesn't turn around to see your smile, but you give him a squeeze of the hand. "of course, that's what i'm here for".
you don't often go on the balcony, because you two spent so much of your vacation out doing random things, but it's a good place for privacy when the rest of the house has everyone else in it.
"you know.. um— i'm confused, on what we are? i don't want to just be.. i don't know your kiss buddy? i want to be more than that and i know you sometimes dislike labels but i've literally been in love with you like— forever and oh my god it pains me to think about it because then i think you don't feel the same way so i.. overthink everything".
you blink, and mark covers his face with his hands to avoid your eyes. you laugh, looking down at the rushing ocean, it appears beautiful from this view. "hey, look at me please".
mark groans. "don't say please".
"mark".
mark doesn't fully remove his hands from his face, but he lowers his hands in order to see you. "what makes you think i don't feel the same way?"
mark sighs. "i know you".
you nudge him, that same pretty smile tugging at your lips. "not well enough, i thought it was obvious?"
mark bites into his inner cheek, he feels just a bit stupid right now. "i don't really get how you think these days".
you look down at where your hands stay laced together, and you abruptly tug him forward, eliciting a yelp from mark. "i'm just as in love with you as you are with me".
"tell me you're not joking".
"mark".
"sorry" he's quick to squeak. "i'm just trying to grasp this situation but i really can't because.."
mark pauses, letting out a well needed breath. "because?"
"you love me too" mark whispers, as if he couldn't believe such a thing could be possible. you laugh, so amused that you'd probably fall over from how hard you were laughing.
"mark, was that confession last week not an indication?"
"well some people just randomly do that during sex i didn't really think about it like that! i just thought you were being.. you".
you roll your eyes. "my god i love you".
mark pauses, those words striking him in a way only your words can. "say it again".
your lips turn up, tease on the tip of your tongue, but you giggle softly and take his other hand in yours. you lean closer, eyes laser focusing on the curves of mark's own. "i love you, mark, so much".
mark is about to jump off the balcony in pure joy. "you should kiss me".
you feign confusion, tilting your head. "should i?"
"yeah, it's my birthday, don't withhold something like this from me".
you hum, rolling your eyes at the words. how funny, you guessed he was going to say that. you feel his hands squeeze against yours, and you simply snicker. mark can't stare at you without exponentially heating up, but you don't say anything, just sigh.
mark lets go of one of your hands to gently take your jaw and press his lips to yours. your lips are always so soft, and they still taste like cherries. mark isn't the biggest fan of cherries, but he can't get over the taste when it's on your lips.
"you're lips are always so soft" mark chuckles against you. "you stack up on chapstick?"
"no mark i literally apply it regularly".
mark snorts.
"hey, ask me".
"what?"
"ask me out, stupid".
mark rolls his eyes. "will you be my boyfriend, y/n?"
you pretend to think about it, whistling as your thoughts run in circles around your brain. "sure, i guess!"
mark punches you in the shoulder, making you squeak and jump back, avoiding his touch. "you guess? i'm breaking up with you".
"we've been dating for two seconds! take me back, please!" you wrap your arms around mark and rest your head against his back, lips turned downward in feigned sadness.
mark can't even stifle his laughs anymore. "fine, but only because it's you".
you giggle in joy, taking mark's hands and turning him around. "it's probably time for gifts now, come on, before jungwoo starts thinking the worst".
"the worst?"
"he probably thinks we're fucking up here or something".
mark scrunches his nose, not even making a noise when you lurch him forward with a tug of his hand. "how would that be bad?"
"he'd probably like.. scream and then make a big show out of it".
mark stares at you incredulously, and you stop to ruffle his hair. "you're going to like my gift the best".
"oh? how are you so sure about that?"
"i know you".
mark doesn't respond to that one, because he can't deny the fact that you do.
THE FINAL DAYS OF AUGUST STEADILY APPROACH, AND with that also comes the end of your summer vacation. mark's birthday was as enjoyable as it was magical, maybe birthday love confessions are tacky to some people, but mark giggled over it for so long that by the time he stopped giggling over it, almost three weeks had passed. the weeks after mark's birthday were filled with idiotic love adventures that you can only describe as purely out of this world. kissing in the ocean is one thing, and drunkenly sobbing over stray cats is most definitely another. mark writes infinitely obscure sentences into that journal of his, and the bed sharing becomes much more regular. it only started growing normal after sex started growing a little normal, you two couldn't even make excuses for falling asleep in each other's arms anymore.
you two don't even really sleep most nights though, you spend them walking the beach and daring each other to jump into the ocean, knowing full well it's too cold to be doing that.
there isn't much of a change, even with the boyfriend titles being bestowed upon you two. you still go on dates, attempt to cook (mark really needs to work on that), belt exo songs at midnight, and dance in the living room.
wine nights and journaling make themselves regular guests in your daily routine, paired with you chiding mark to take care of himself. the romantic connotations may have been hidden before, but they're bright as day now with how unashamedly mark stares at your lips while you literally do anything.
the pure domesticity of the whole thing makes you feel warm, mark relays his true thoughts to you in the cool whispers of the night, you remind him it's important to talk about how he feels, and you always manage to coax him into it with tickles to his stomach, practically making him die with laughter so he gives into your incessant demands.
it gets to the point where you almost run out of things to do, spending every waking moment together just makes the act of leaning against each other enough to pass time. you don't even have to talk to have a good time with mark, just being around him is fine.
the door to your room swings open, and mark steps in, falling directly on top of you, no words said. you sigh, turning off your phone. "well hello to you too, baby".
mark almost freezes, he doesn't know how long it'll take for him to get used to being called that, but he really likes the sound of it. "y/n.."
"yes?" mark rests his head onto your chest, listening to the sound of your heartbeat, smiling as he feels your hand beginning to go up and down his back, the ministrations bringing him a feeling of solace.
"my mom called" he begins, his words merely a low mutter. "i told her about us and.. well, i was thinking we could go to vancouver this coming winter break?"
you snicker. "you planned ahead?"
"i always plan ahead, and besides, my mom misses you! you aren't about to deny an opportunity to see my mom are you?"
you roll your eyes. "no mark, i love your mom she's an angel, i'm just a bit surprised".
mark takes your hand, intertwining your fingers. "it'll be a good trip, like.. the nostalgia and stuff? that's where we met!"
he's so excited about it, his pure giddiness makes a smile form on your lips. "i love the idea of that, mark, and i also miss your mom too".
mark narrows his eyes. "okay well now you're steering off track".
"seeing your mom is like a plus one! what do you mean steering off track?"
mark frowns, rolling off you and landing right beside you on your mattress, a small thumb accompanying his movement. the faint sound of the ocean rushing begs a smile out of you. "can't believe summer vacation is over, i've become attached to this place".
mark slings an arm over your waist, and he tucks his face into your neck, pressing a small kiss to the skin. "you like living by the beach?"
"yes! i'll miss my stupid room with the huge window in front of the water!"
you snort. "you baby".
mark turns over, resting his arms onto your chest and staring down at you, biting his bottom lip. "you look so.. easy like this".
"is that how you tell me you want a kiss?"
mark presses his lips together. more or less is his silent answer, and he leans forward to capture your lips, fingers caressing the skin of your collarbone. "no more kissing while swimming, huh?"
"we could always just hijack chenle's pool".
mark stares at you, and then you both burst into laughter. "chenle would never!"
"it's funny to think about, though".
mark clicks his tongue, taking your bottom lip in between his teeth. he's never going to get tired of this, it's insane how addicting your lips are, they fit perfectly with his, as if you two were molded for each other.
there's only a few seconds of pulling away for air before he's on you again, and your hand slides up his shirt, feeling the bare skin of his side. he gives a breathy chuckle against your lips, as if amused, but he's gotten used to your tricks by now.
"you are so unbelievable" he remarks, nipping at your jaw then slowly starting down your neck, taking the skin between his teeth and giggling as he feels you suddenly grip his hip.
you scrunch your nose, successfully hiding your whimpers by holding in your breaths instead. "mark, we have to go watch the sunset".
your voice is raspy, wrecked from the assault on your neck. you feel mark's lips turn up on your skin, his resounding chuckle sending vibrations through your body. "you just remembered that.."
"yep".
mark frowns, pretending to think it over. "sunset doesn't matter right now".
you feign shock at the words, widening your eyes. "so you're just disregarding our evening plans now?" you inquire, hissing when he again latches himself onto your neck, god he really does like doing that.
"this is better, trust me" he whispers, and you close your eyes, a small sigh escaping your lips as you bask in the feelings mark gives you.
"you totally sound untrustworthy when you say that".
mark again laughs, his nail scratching at your thin shirt. "just.. let me do this for you, okay?"
you pause, finally shrugging as mark smiles, it's just a little addicting, his smile. he then leans down and kisses you again, unable to contain his excitement when he got yet another taste of that cherry chapstick.
ocean waves crash against each other faintly outside your window, but all you can think about are mark's lips on yours.
#mark lee#nct#nct 127#nct dream#nct u#mark nct#nct imagines#nct drabbles#nct scenarios#mark lee imagines#mark lee drabbles#mark lee scenarios#mark lee x reader#nct x reader#mark lee x male reader#𑁍 ࣪˖ 𓂃 isa's works!
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Also can we please talk about the animation in ep. 13?????? It’s just sooooo beautiful
This new perspective of Tantiss was a surprise but a welcomed one
Also these two shots show really well how the kids are literally in the middle of the whole base
#star wars#the bad batch#tbb#tbb spoilers#the bad batch spoilers#tbb omega#the bad batch season 3#tbb tantiss#the bad batch season 3 spoilers#tbb spoiler#tbb s3 spoilers#tbb season three spoilers
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