#so idk somewhere between five and ten

[javaberrychip1998]

Idk how to put together a cute outfit that doesn’t make it look like I’m trying way too hard

[theemporium]

!! could you please write something where james is arguing with someone abt something or he’s just big mad but all reader can focus on is how FINE he looks?? like the tensed jawline? the curvature of his pecs from his heavy breathing?? running his hand through his hair from frustration and his bicep bulges LMAO idk but i’m just down bad rn

no because this reminds me of hockey boys and how hot they look when they get into fights and it just makes me😵‍💫anyways thank you for requesting! i’m a whore for james potter!!🖤

.

The sight shouldn’t have turned you on as much as it did.

It was nearing ten when you stumbled out of the pub, your arms wound around one of James’ as you used him as your personal crutch. The alcohol flowing through you numbed the pain of your heels but that didn’t make it any easier to walk in them. 

But you didn’t care. You were happy and buzzed and your big, handsome boyfriend was all but prepared to carry you to the club you were meeting the rest of the group at for a fun night out. 

Until someone all but shoved past you, their shoulder knocking against yours and making you stumble, though James’ quick reflexes saved you from busting your ass on the cobblestone floor. However, you laughed it off, not letting it ruin your mood as you held onto James and made a move to keep walking.

But James stopped you, his hands dropping to your waist to give you a soft squeeze and make sure you were okay before he turned to the man who barged past you. 

“Oi, dickhead! What the fuck was that?”

Now, somewhere in the back of your head, there was a voice telling you that you should intervene. You should pull James back and calm him down, reassure him that it was no big deal and that you were fine and it wasn’t worth the hassle. You should have stopped it before it escalated, before it broke out into something more serious and someone walking past on the street called the police.

You should have.

But you didn’t want to.

Instead, you stood there, still a little tipsy and buzzed, and you couldn’t help but admire how hot your boyfriend looked when he was angry. The muscles in his jaw that jumped and ticked every time he clenched his jaw, the way his broad shoulders tensed under his tight shirt and his biceps flexed with each clench of his fists. The angry little pout on his face and the crease between his brows that you just wanted to smooth out and kiss. 

Your boyfriend was a big guy, towering over the man with at least five or so inches in height. Add in his broad profile and the fact you knew he was fucking strong, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander. 

Imagining pulling him away from the man and the busy streets and into a quiet alleyway. Imagining pulling his face down to meet yours in a messy, sloppy kiss and you begged him to take his anger out on you instead. Imagining him hoisting you up with ease and fucking you against the brick wall withhout even breaking a sweat, pounding into you as you whined and moaned his name and scratched your nails down his back. Imagining the bruises he would leave on your skin as a memory of the way he manhandled you.

You hadn’t even realised the argument had ended before James was standing in front of you, frustrated and pissed off and running a hand through his messy curls. You bit down on your lower lip, watching him as you squeezed your thighs together.

“Are you okay?” he asked, the concern in his voice making his face soften as he cupped your face, glancing over you once again.

But you shook your head.

James’ frowned, and some of that anger returned. “What? What’s wrong? What hurts? Did he hurt you? Did—”

But you shook your head again.

Confusion painted over his expression, his thumbs brushing across your cheekbones. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I need you,” you whispered, your hands resting against his stomach and you felt his abs clench beneath the fabric of his shirt. “Need you so bad, Jamie.”

His brows raised slightly at the tone of your voice, recognising it instantly and something like a smirk grew on his lips. “Yeah? My princess needs me?”

You nodded. “Please.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he murmured as he leaned down, his lips brushing yours but not enough to consider it a kiss. You let out a whine and he only grinned wider in response. “Gotta be patient, baby.”

“James—” you started.

“Can’t fuck you here, princess, not when anyone can see how pretty my girl looks when she comes,” he murmured, his voice a little more stern this time. “You can wait.”

You gulped, nodding.

“Atta girl,” he grinned before wrapping his arm around you, ready to head back to your shared apartment instead of the club you were meant to meet the others at.

“What about—”

“They can enjoy a night without us,” James grunted, his eyes darkening as he took in the glazed look in your expression. “I have my princess to take care of.”

.

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

OmfffffGGGG the fun I had writing this chapter GUYS—

I mean start to finish, I've been giggling like an idiot the entire mfing TIME

Well, alternating between giggling like an idiot and snickering deviously like a witch huddled over a cauldron but that's neither here nor there

Of course we have banter between Garp's dippy ass and Bogard's far more poised and reasonable demeanor, but also

BUT ALSO—

No

i cannot

I can't spoil it I cannot I will not I must not I shan't it would be positively rude in all honesty i will not—

Just———muffled screaming

Look I'm sorry in advance I had way too much fun with this

even mihawk is done with my shit at this point

Flight Risk

Young!Mihawk x Marine!AFAB!Reader

Ch. 4 of who even fcking knows at this point honestly, five? Six? Fifty? Whatever just let me vibe

Brief summary of The Story So Far: Your mission, as a Marine and Zoan type devil fruit user (gray parrot), is to gather intel on Dracule Mihawk, a pirate on the Grand Line who has become a thorn in the Marines' side over a relatively short period of time. Your first recon mission, while more or less a success, left you wounded and your commanding officers more divided than ever over the operation at hand. You have since arrived at Marineford to complete your training for the mission, and gods only know where things might go from here....

Previous chapter, First chapter, Next chapter

SFW for now, but not in later chapters

No Trigger Warnings in this chapter. Possible future Trigger Warnings for imprisonment, mild torture (definitely psychological, maybe physical)

Tags: Enemies to lovers, eventually NSFW, idk maybe more later Word Count: 4,832

Taglist: @i-am-vita thank you so much you have no idea how much this means to me

♫♬Halloween Blues - The Fratellis♬♫

Well, I'm gonna make ya love me, gonna make ya wish that you'd never been born

Now ya wish you'd never met me, I could be the joker that you couldn't shake off

It was agreed upon by all parties involved that not a word would be spoken of your ill-advised “test” at Kuraigana Island to anyone but Fleet Admiral Sengoku. The brunt of the chastisement fell upon Garp and Bogard, as the commanding officers overseeing the mission; and while you were scolded yourself for getting far closer than your orders had suggested you should, you were still commended for providing valuable new information.

The Marines were now aware that Kuraigana Island was home to a population of large primates, of undetermined size or intelligence but with enough intellect to use basic weaponry.

The Marines were also now aware that the presence of Dracule “Hawk-Eye” Mihawk on the otherwise abandoned island was confirmed, and that the volatile pirate had most likely set up at least a temporary base amid the desolate castle ruins.

You were permitted to keep in contact with your mother over the following months of your training as promised, with the stipulation that your letters would be screened to ensure you didn’t relay any confidential information to outside parties. As such, you wrote your final letter aboard a small unmarked vessel bound to pass by Kuraigana Island perhaps four months after the first, and had handed it over to Bogard to scan over.

Hi, Mom!

I’m still doing great, I promise. Training has been exhausting but I’ve learned a lot, and it’s been a breath of fresh air to be among people that actually seem to like me. My commanding officers are a little annoying, but I guess they’re okay. I trust them.

This will be the last letter for a while since I’m being deployed. You don’t have to worry, it’s nothing serious and I’ll be fine, I just won’t be somewhere that I can receive any mail. You can still write me though, and I’ll be able to reply the second I get back to my base. I don’t know exactly how long that will be, but the tentative estimate is two months. It could be sooner, but it could be a little longer.

Love you, and give my love to all our feathery friends.

“Ten minutes out,” said Garp, sitting against the railing with a doughnut hanging out of his mouth as he finished filling out the remainder of the paperwork he had put off until the very last minute.

“‘Commanding officers are a little annoying, but I guess they’re okay,’” Bogard read aloud, lowering your letter to glance down at you with a wry look.

“She’s not wrong, you’re pretty damned irritating,” said Garp. Bogard lowered his eyes to the vice admiral sitting on the deck of the ship, lifting an eyebrow.

Garp only raised his doughnut with a nod and took another bite before returning to his report. Bogard huffed out a sigh and folded the letter, turning his gaze to you as you paced back and forth across the small deck. The vessel was little more than a sloop, designed for no more than one or two people to sail on their own, sturdy enough to withstand the unpredictable weather patterns of the Grand Line but far less advanced than the standard Marine vessel. You barely noticed his gaze upon you, staring down at your feet as you paced, counting the nails in the deck boards in a futile attempt to keep your mind clear from the quickly approaching start of your mission.

You stopped in your tracks the moment Bogard cleared his throat to get your attention, lifting your head sharply and standing at attention.

“A…at ease,” he said slowly, watching you shuffle your feet and fold your hands behind your back. “Your letter will be sent once Garp and myself return to Marineford,” he assured you. “Once you have left this ship, your own contact with the Marines will cease for a period of no less than two months, unless you are forced to make emergency contact. Emergecy contact will only be employed—”

“Under the circumstance that my own life is in immediate and unquestionable danger,” you responded immediately, to which Bogard gave a curt nod.

“Correct,” he agreed. “There will be a covert Marine presence at every island neighboring Kuraigana. Should you require rescue, the closest vessel will be able to arrive within twenty-four hours.”

“She won’t need it,” Garp chimed in through the last bite of his doughnut, and in a rare break of his iron composure, Bogard reached into one of his overcoat pockets and threw a pen at him in response. You watched as Garp caught it and used the implement to sign his name at the bottom of his paperwork before flicking it across the deck of the ship. “Have a little faith, Bogard. We have at our disposal a trained weapon of subterfuge.”

Garp wrapped his hand around the railing behind him and pulled himself to his feet, strolling over to your side and clapping you on the shoulder.

“Trained under our own supervision,” he went on proudly, while Bogard closed his eyes and heaved a slow, impatient sigh, waiting for him to go on. “Who has already provided us with more up-to-date information on the target than anyone else in our ranks—”

“—I’m still not saying your impulsive little test was anything but idiotic—”

“—and humbly declined to take credit for any of it,” Garp went on , ignoring his partner. You jolted as he gave you a sharp pat on the back. “She’ll be just fine. Won’t ya, kid?”

“I’ll—perform my duties as expected of…” You trailed off into a sigh yourself when Garp rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” you said stiffly. “I’ll be fine.”

“See? She’ll be fine.”

Garp gave a firm nod, as if your word was more than enough to affirm your fate as solid fact.

And then his brow furrowed as he stared across the deck.

His eyes narrowed into a squint, and he turned his head the slightest bit, his hand lowering from your shoulder and back to his side,

“No…that’s not…”

By the time Bogard turned his head, Garp was already striding across the deck, extending a spyglass as he leaned over the railing and stared through the scope. He gave a growl of annoyance as he held the scope out behind him for Bogard to take. Your heart raced as you slowly crossed the deck to join them, your already thin resolve faltering when Bogard slowly lowered the scope to glance at Garp.

“This changes—”

“It changes nothing,” said Garp, jerking his head to look at Bogard.

You didn’t need the spyglass to see the foggy haze around Kuraigana Island past the railing, no more than you needed it to see the small ship docked near its southern banks. You couldn’t make out much about it, but you could see the one thing that mattered—it flew a black flag.

“Red-Hair,” said Garp. “I knew he’d be trouble. I told Sengoku, I told him—”

“Why the hell would he be here?” Bogard said slowly, looking back out toward the island. He glanced behind him, and held out the spyglass for you to take. You moved to the railing between them, holding it to one eye and shutting the other to look through it at the distant ship. “There’s no chance any information has—”

“No, there isn’t,” agreed Garp, as your vision adjusted against the magnification of the lenses. You scanned over the small ship, which appeared to be empty, before lifting your head to focus on its flag—a jolly roger, decorated with a pair of crossed cutlasses and a skull with three slashes across one eye.

“Red-Haired Shanks…?” you said slowly, lowering the scope, glancing between Garp and Bogard as they stared out at the ship. “Ah—three hundred million, two hundred sixty-two thousand berry bounty.”

“Sixty-three,” corrected Bogard absently, glancing at Garp. Garp remained focused, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the ship, his grip tight around the deck railing. “Vice-Admiral.” He glanced over sharply when Bogard spoke up. “This does change—”

“It changes nothing,” Garp growled firmly.

You didn’t particularly like the way Bogard leaned over the railing, holding his hat in place as he shook his head, staring at Garp with no small degree of trepidation. Your eyes shifted to Garp when he turned around to face you, frowning down at you thoughtfully,

“Or it could change things for the better,” he said slowly, letting out a small chuckle. “Well, lass. This is your call. Seems more than just Mihawk might be docked at the island ahead of us.” You nodded shortly to show you were following, waiting for him to continued. “Not much is known about Shanks as yet…to the masses.”

“Garp—”

Garp held up a hand when Bogard tossed a warning look at him.

“—but I have on good authority that he trained under Gold Roger himself.” Your eyes widened, flickering back toward the ship in question, as Bogard let out a growl of annoyance and stormed back toward the opposite side of the deck. “This is an unexpected turn.” Your gaze shot back toward Garp as he straightened out, folding his hands behind his back and staring down at you. “We can head back toward Marineford and go through all the meticulous to-do’s of officially changing our plans, spend a few more months buried in paperwork, or—”

“I’m going.” He raised his eyebrows, his lips already twitching toward a smile at the firmness of your words. “The Red-Hair pirates would be no more aware of who I am than Mihawk. There’s no point wasting any more time.”

“No, I guess there isn’t,” he agreed, grinning. He cleared his throat, cupping a hand around his mouth and making a show of calling across the small expanse of the deck to Bogard. “You might just be able to gather us a little more intel than we expeced. Hear that, Bogard? No need to delay!”

“No need to pull a muscle patting yourself on the back, either,” Bogard grumbled, just loud enough to ensure Garp heard him.

“Alright, kid,” said Garp, happily ignoring him as he leaned against the side of the railing. “We’ve got under ten minutes, so here’s the rundown.” He turned his head, looking out toward the ship moored just off the edge of the island. “Shanks, as I said. Captain, pupil of Gold Roger himself. Primary weapon is a sabre. Straw hat, bright red hair, difficult to miss. There’s Yasopp, the first man to join his crew, at the time he was regarded as the sharpest shooter in the East Blue. Dark skin, dreadlocks, carries a pair of flintlock pistols.”

“So...that’s his first mate?”

“No.” Your brow furrowed. “That would be Beckman. Dark hair, ponytail, built like a brick shithouse. Carries a flintlock rifle. He’s a damn good shot himself but he’ll use the thing as a club in close quarters. Lucky Roux, the cook, bastard’s probably as wide as he is tall…”

You listened closely to Garp’s continued colorful descriptions of the crew officers of the Red Hair Pirates—and the potential dangers they could pose to your health should anyone discover what you really were.

“Red Hair isn’t the brightest match in the box,” he went on, “but there’s a great deal of evidence that he closely rivals Dracule Mihawk in swordsmanship. Should the two end up fighting, you keep your distance. Otherwise, be exceedingly careful around Benn Beckman. He’s the idiot’s first mate for a reason and probably accounts for ninety percent of the collective brain cells of the entire crew. You’ll have to keep a close eye on him while you keep up your act. There’s no telling why they’re docked here, and it would be in your best interest to figure it out. If they’re going to be around for a while, keep your distance.”

“I...sort of doubt any of them are ornithology experts,” you said, frowning.

“As much as one might doubt that a species of unknown primates could learn to use relatively modern weaponry.” You turned your head sharply at the sound of Bogard’s voice close behind you—you hadn’t heard him cross the deck. Your frown deepened as he gave a pointed glance at the scar spanning nearly the entire length of your right upper arm. Garp, gestured to the other Marine pointedly at his statement, and you couldn’t deny that he had a point either. “You’ll keep your distance. Fooling one pirate alone is going to be a great deal easier and safer than attempting to fool an entire crew of them.” He turned his head to Garp. “This is still the most ridiculous mission I’ve ever had the displeasure of being involved in.”

“Ah, girl’s got her act down fine,” he said dismissively—and Garp wasn’t wrong about that. Your favorite part of your training by far had been simply flying around the massive base at Marineford, taking tally of how many of the staff and officers you could fool. The only individuals privy to the exact nature of your mission were Garp and Bogard, a small selection of admirals and vice admirals, and Fleet Admiral Sengoku himself. Your performance had been enough to levy a unanimous vote to go forth with the mission. “Your persona, cadet?”

“Gray parrot, previously the pet of a pirate crew that perished in battle, therefore comfortable around pirates in general,” you said. “Able to repeat a number of sounds and phrases that might be heard aboard a ship, capable of learning new phrases and words faster than most other similar species of bird. Particular disdain for Marines and may fly into a frenzy at the sight of their vessels.”

“See?” said Garp, clapping you on the back hard enough that you flinched. “I’d say we’ve got this in the bag.”

Bogard stared between the two of you for a moment, frowning, before shaking his head. “God help us all,” he muttered under his breath, lifting a hand to rub his eyes.

The final few minutes of the voyage were spent with Garp and Bogard grilling you about the small amount of information known by the Marines about Dracule Mihawk, about the quick briefing you had just received on the Red Hair pirates, about your memorization of the den den mushi numbers you were to contact in the event that your life was in immediate danger or that you found any information useful enough to wrap the operation up early. Garp gave a resolute nod as you neared your destination, around a mile and a half off the shore of Kuraigana Island, and Bogard gave a heavy sigh and a short nod in silent agreement—no matter how little he approved, you were as ready as you were going to be.

“Alright, then, cadet,” said Garp, his wide grin a direct contrast to his partner’s pessimism. “Bird mode, activate.”

“Must you call it that?” said Bogard, tossing a weary look at Garp as you gave a quick salute and immediately shrank down into your devil fruit form on the deck. You fluttered your wings enough to hop up onto the deck railing in front of them, and Bogard frowned down at you. “Best of luck,” he offered. “Should all go according to plan, we’ll see you again in no more than two months.”

He cringed the slightest bit when you raised your wing in another salute, squawking out over Garp’s snort of laughter, “Wind in your sails!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Garp, waving you off. “Now shoo, bird. And no getting yourself killed.”

And once more, you found yourself flying out toward Kuraigana Island.

You made a high pass over the Red Hair’s ship, squinting down toward it as you soared overhead, and the cause of their mooring near the island became quickly clear—it appeared that there was work being performed on a few sizable cannonball holes on the port side of the vessel. You were surprised to see a handful of the crew on the beach near the edge of the forest, seeming to be laughing among themselves and having a grand time, the primates that had attacked you nowhere in sight. Lucky Roux was easy enough to pick out, exactly as Garp had described him—striped shirt and tinted goggles, easily as wide as he was tall, sitting against a tree and taking a bite out of what looked like an entire leg of lamb while another crewmate assisted in bandaging his arm.

Perhaps they had had a run-in with the local apes.

You took that as enough reason to remain vigilant as you flew high over the forest, scanning the treetops below for any signs of movement. It was a relief that there seemed to be none—if the Red Hair pirates had come in contact with the violent creatures, it seemed they had managed to beat them into submission. You considered how Garp had told you that no one had ever entered the island on foot and lived to tell the tale, and it sent a shiver over your spine to think that the crew might be that formidable.

The first signs of movement you witnessed came only once you neared the castle itself, and you nearly faltered in your flight.

Your target was directly below you.

Sitting on a broken piece of stone wall in the courtyard, clad in a white shirt with a ruffled collar and a pair of black pants, his hat sitting to the side next to him, his massive sword lying across his lap as he polished the handle. You slowly, cautiously circled lower, keeping a fair distance, your eyes remaining on the pirate. His mouth seemed to be fixed in a scowl, his posture tense.

You cautiously landed in one of the castle windows several feet away, side-stepping until you were perched in the very corner of the indentation, your gray plumage a perfect camouflage against the rugged stone, and the reason for Mihawk’s clear irritation became immediately evident as the sound of a nonchalant voice tore your gaze away from him.

“Nice place you’ve got here, Hawk-Eye.”

Shanks.

Garp’s description had once again been right on the money—his stringy scarlet hair was capped by a straw-hat, his hands tucked behind his neck as he paced across a pile of rubble that might have once been a wall, a long sabre tucked into his red cloth belt at his right hip. He hopped down to the ground as you watched, resting his elbow on the hilt of the sword as he stared up at the castle. “Be a shame if something happened to it.”

He reached over with his left hand, wrapping it around the handle of the sword, and you tensed immediately, prepared to take flight as he grinned and glanced over at Mihawk.

“Divi—”

Mihawk was on his feet in a flash, his sword extended out at arm’s length, the blade less than an inch away from Shanks’s neck, his sharp yellow eyes narrowing to threatening slits as Shanks lifted his hands up in mock-surrender, still grinning.

“Only kidding,” he said, taking a cautious step back from the edge of the black blade.

Mihawk eyed him with a venomous glare for a few seconds longer before pulling his blade back swiftly to his side and rolling his eyes, a growl of annoyance leaving him as he turned on his heel and stormed back over to the broken wall, sitting down once more. “Remind me of what the hell you’re doing here and precisely why you haven’t left yet?”

“Am I not allowed to visit my friends?” said Shanks, clutching at his chest dramatically in feigned offense. Mihawk ignored the redhead as he sat down heavily on the ground, grabbing a bottle of dark liquor propped up against the pile of rubble and working the cork loose. “Hey, it’s not my fault. This is where the Log pose pointed us. We needed to do a few repairs on the ship. Noticed your old rowboat moored nearby—”

“Rowboat,” Mihawk repeated under his breath, one of his eyes twitching the slightest bit.

“So what’s with the pissed off monkeys, anyway?” said Shanks, nodding toward the forest before taking a swig from the bottle and flicking the cork over his shoulder. “Few of them were damn near as good with a sword as you are.” Mihawk’s eyes shot toward him in a warning glare, and rolled away when Shanks gave a broad grin in response. “Train them yourself?”

“No,” he said shortly. “The humandrills were already quite capable with a variety of weapons when I arrived—”

“Aww, you named them?”

“I discovered the name among the historical documents in castle,” he said through his teeth. “It seems they learned to use weapons by watching their human neighbors before they managed to wipe themselves out. Perhaps,” he went on, before Shanks could speak up again, “your time would better be served overseeing the repairs on your ship so you can leave the moment they’re done.”

“Oh, the repairs are almost finished,” said Shanks, waving a dismissive hand. “Just waiting for the log pose to finish linking up.” He took a sip from his bottle, lifting his eyebrows. “Why? Aren’t you enjoying the company?”

“Oh, yes, immensely,” Mihawk responded dryly.

Your eyes darted between the pair of pirates amid their exchange, keeping yourself perfectly still in the stone windowsill. It was clear that Shanks, at least, was enjoying himself, and that they seemed to have some sort of history between them. It was equally clear that Mihawk would have very much preferred that his company take a long walk off the nearest short pier. He still kept his irritation in check, though whether it was out of any actual sense of camaraderie or he simply didn’t feel like wasting his energy fighting remained unclear.

Their exchange gave you an almost overwhelming sense of déjà vu, and you made a mental note to inform Garp and Bogard of it the next time you saw them.

“Oh, so grumpy,” Shanks commented, leaning back against the rubble behind him, stretching an arm out across one of his knees. “Why don’t you go take a nap, old man? I’m sure there are plenty of beds more than suited for someone of your positively regal manner.” Mihawk went on polishing the golden handle of his sword, not bothering to glance up. “Probably more than enough beds for any number of guests—”

“No,” said Mihawk coolly, still keeping his eyes turned down toward his sword.

“Oh, come on,” Shanks groaned in complaint, laying his head back. His mouth turned down into a despondent sort of pout, tilting his head to look over at the castle—and you tensed immediately, holding your breath, remaining still as a statue. “I’ve never even been in a castle before—”

“No,” Mihawk said again, louder this time, his yellow eyes fixing on Shanks with a firm gaze this time.

“You’re absolutely no fun at all,” Shanks huffed, lifting a small piece of stone from the ground and tossing it in his direction in a half-hearted manner. “You know, you’re going to die sad and alone one day in your desolate castle.”

“And what a peaceful end it will be,” said Mihawk disinterestedly, rolling his eyes back down to the sword across his lap as he buffed a rag across the gleaming blue gem at the end of the hilt.

“But not friendless,” Shanks added, completely ignoring him. He offered another broad grin. “I’ll always be your frien—”

“Would you just go away already?” Mihawksighed wearily, lifting his head and tossing the rag aside. “It’s abundantly clear what you’re attempting to do, and it isn’t going to work.”

“Oh, and just what am I trying to do?” said Shanks...and he seemed to bite his tongue for a moment, before adding in a cheeky tone, “...friend?”

“You’re fishing for a fight,” said Mihawk, gritting his teeth, briefly gripping the handle of his sword before releasing it from his grasp. “And I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh come. On,” Shanks groaned once more, leaning back heavily and pouting. “I’m bored. There’s literally nothing on this damned island except a pile of rocks and a bunch of trees and a particularly nice castle—”

“No.” Shanks gave a huff of irritation, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Mihawk. “Go off and play with the other monkeys if you’re so damned bored.”

“They’re already afraid of me,” he huffed, pouting like a child. He brushed a few unruly strands of hair away from his eyes, turning his gaze out toward the forest. “Stupid apes.” Mihawk only rolled his eyes, shook his head, and returned to the idle task of sword maintenance. “I’m frankly surprised you didn’t just slaughter all of them the moment you set foot here.”

“They make for a decent security system,” he said levelly.

“Or you’re secretly just a big softie—”

Shanks straightened out and gave another broad grin when Mihawk tossed a sharp glare at him...and then slumped back down in defeat when his supposed “friend” gave a heavy sigh and turned his attention back to his sword.

It went on this way for some time—Shanks continually poking and prodding, attempting to annoy Mihawk enough to coax him into a fight; and Mihawk persisting in the task of sword maintenance, running a whetstone across the already razor-sharp edge of the blade as he fought to keep his composure. The entire spectacle was rather like watching an excitable puppy yip at a surly cat.

You shifted your gaze to the edge of the nearby forest when Shanks looked over, the young captain waving once the rustling of the dense leaves gave way to a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black shirt, picking leaves out of his ponytail—no doubt Benn Beckman, from the description Garp had offered you. There was indeed a large rifle slung back across one of his shoulders, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He glanced toward Mihawk, before stopping just short of his captain, looking down at him.

“Repairs are finished and the Log Pose’s set,” he said, his brow furrowing when Shanks frowned in clear disappointment. “We getting off of this rock or are you still antagonizing the current inhabitants?”

“I am visiting with a dear old friend,” said Shanks, giving an indignant huff and crossing his arms. He rolled his eyes back over to Mihawk. “Isn’t that right, Hawkie—?”

“Call me that again and you’ll be leaving this island wearing your entrails as necklace,” said Mihawk coolly.

“See?” said Shanks, gesturing toward Mihawk. “We’re just catching up on old times.”

Beckman stared down at his captain for a long moment, frowning, his cigarette smoldering at the corner of his mouth. He finally shook his head and stepped back a couple paces, leaning back against a pile of stones and crossing his arms. “Alright,” he said. “Have fun.”

“Oh, I am,” Shanks assured him with a positively gleeful grin. He rolled his shoulders and took a drink from the bottle of liquor clenched in his hand, his eyes drifting back over to Mihawk. “Well, it seems our all too pleasant reunion may be drawing to a close, Hawkie—”

Shanks’s grin only widened when Mihawk lifted his gaze to glare at him, his hand gripping tighter around the whetstone.

Shanks seemed to bite his tongue for a moment, pursing his lips to suppress his growing amusement at Mihawk’s growing annoyance, before his expression spread back into a grin as he lifted his eyebrows.

“How about a little kiss goodbye—y’know, between friends and all—”

“That’s it—”

Mihawk was on his feet in a flash, tossing the whetstone away.

Shanks was on his feet just as quickly, a look of absolute glee brightening his features as he drew his sabre.

Beckman took a few casual steps off to the side, pulling his cigarette down from his lips to flick the ashes away, shaking his head, his hand tightening around the butt of his rifle almost imperceptibly.

And you, in spite of yourself, let out a tiny squawk of alarm at the entire spectacle...and quickly realized your mistake.

While Mihawk surged forward with his blade drawn, while Beckman kept his sharp eyes flickering between him and his captain, Shanks’s gaze flickered over toward the sound you had just let out.

And his eyes widened the slightest bit as his eyes met yours.

And he lifted his sword to block what would have been a deadly blow from Mihawk as he continued staring at you as you froze in the windowsill, your feathers ruffling out the slightest bit in response to the terror dawning over you.

Beckman also followed his captain’s gaze, lifting an eyebrow as he noticed your presence.

Shanks drew in a sharp breath, his eyes growing even wider, wide as the eyes of a child with a bottomless wallet in a candy shop. One single, almost breathless word left his lips as they spread into a delighted smile:

“Parrot.”

Next chapter link again, for your convenience

First chapter link again, for your convenience

[alphabetboyluvr]

throttle │ jjk - two

one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight / nine / ten / eleven

warnings - just a littleeee (read: mostly) smut... fingering, titty sucking (his fave <3), unprotected sex, multiple orgasms (female), creampie, post-creampie-pussy-eating, cum swapping, a little spitting i guess, titty worship, ?? more, maybe ??, idk, you get the idea. oh, and also dangerous driving and jk being down bad within like 5 seconds flat

word count - 13.4k

minors dni // posted to wp late 2021 // series masterlist

Jungkook's cheeks are red, his nose blushed from the chill of the wind by the time you reach his place. It's just on the outskirts of town, past the jewellers' district and out towards the station, and it has you wondering why he's always getting fuel from your neck of the woods. It seems inconvenient, and if you were sober, you'd be questioning it. 

Sober, you might have even made assumptions about it.

Hell, you know you would be making assumptions about it.

But you're not sober, and he's got a hold on your hand like you're one of the priceless jewels in the windows you've just walked past.

You're gold dust; a diamond in amongst the rough of downtown Daegu.

In fact, he's holding you so tightly that it's almost as if there's a price on your head, and he wants to be the one to reap the rewards. No sharing. His, all his.

He doesn't loosen his grip on your hand as he begins to punch in the code to his apartment door. It's steel, and robust, hiding everything that Jungkook is behind it. You don't know him, not really - not like you want to - but there's something so painfully intimate about being invited into his space. Has you thinking that maybe you'll get the chance to know him. For a few hours, at least.

The lock beeps, a mechanical whir sounding as the bolt retracts, but he pauses as he puts pressure down on the handle.

"Can you, like, close your eyes?" He grimaces, glancing back around at you. His tongue is tipsy, about to make admissions he never would do sober. "I left in a rush, and there are clothes everywhere 'cause I couldn't decide what to wear and I-"

"Wait, wait, wait," you grin, eyes centred on his. "Did someone get pre-date nerves?"

Jungkook presses his eyes shut, smiling as he rolls his head back. He's never nervous. Always cool, calm, collected - but he can hear your little drunk giggles, and his heart rate is up, and shit, he thinks he might be nervous.

He knows he was nervous before he left. 

"I just-" he says with a frustrated groan, too exasperated to finish his sentence before he starts laughing, too. 

You're both a little tipsy, swaying, drawing closer to one another. It's innate, the way your body leans into his, with zero resistance from Jungkook as your hands grip the front of his coat for support.

"Shuuuush," he whispers, all giddy and coy, holding his index finger to your lips. It's almost as if he gives a fuck about his neighbours.

He doesn't.

He's just using it as an excuse to get closer to you.

"You shush!" You whisper back, mirroring his actions and holding your finger to his lips, too. 

His smile is so big that his dimples are on full display. They're as deep as his eyes are dark, and you just know he must have broken his fair share of hearts in the past. His hands cup your jaw, thumbs resting on the edges of your smile as if he's framing a work of art. He'd argue that he is. 

You look so dainty in his hold, and he finds himself overwhelmed with the need to savour your pretty little laugh. It'll taste just like his, but he doesn't care. Thinks it'll be sweeter coming from your lips. 

And, so, somewhere between your simpering laugh and his darting eyes, as a flickering light in his hallway beats in unison with your hearts, his lips find yours. 

He's still telling you to shush as he does so, and you tell him it back -  but neither of you actually shush until your tongues are in each other's mouths. 

He fumbles the keypad of his door again, getting you both through the threshold and into his tiny studio before you can even look at the mess of clothes everywhere.

The nerves he once had are gone, because he's confident about this; about you.

The movements of your bodies bleed into one another, neither one of you taking the lead. Instead, it's as if you're a pair of figure skaters gliding through his apartment, eyes closed - not that it makes much of a difference. The lights are off, and a string of fairy lights left up since Christmas provides the only source of illumination. 

Jungkook hadn't entirely planned on stumbling home drunk with you, but he knew he'd be stumbling home in some capacity, so leaving them on had seemed like a good idea at the time. He's proven right.  

And even though this night hasn't gone exactly how he had planned, he's not complaining. Especially not when your hands begin to fumble with his jacket. You undo it, push it off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor. 

Casual arrogance graces his lips as he smirks against you, unbuttoning the top of your skirt.

"I don't fuck on first dates," you tell him, but you don't stop him as he pushes the black denim over your hips and lets it fall to the floor. In fact, you're kind of giving him mixed signals as you reach for his belt, sliding the leather through its buckle.

"We've had, like, 300 GS25 dates," he mumbles into your lips between kisses, so casually that it's almost believable.

He pulls his shirt over his head, tosses it to the floor, and grabs your face just to kiss you again as soon as he can. 

It's about now, just after he's finished evaluating your 'dating' history, that you notice the pressure of two small metal balls flicking against your tongue. They're evenly spaced across the centre of his own tongue, and the mere acknowledgement of them has your legs clenching together. The lip ring was bad enough, but a tongue piercing? Fuck. 

He smiles as you moan into his lips, and assures you: "I think it's okay if we fuck."

Your hands are in his hair, his gripping onto your waistline before he rids you of your sweater, and all you can do is nod. Playing hard to get is a game for fools, and you're not really sure why you tried it in the first place. You're gonna be winning either way.

"Yeah, you're right," you mumble into his mouth. "We're basically married."

He laughs, and for a second you think that he must have been made by the Gods. It's the only way to explain how a human could be created so heavenly, even when they're about to commit enough sins to send them straight down to the pits.

"Happy honeymoon," he smirks, assisting you as you begin to push his jeans past his ass and down his thighs. Teamwork makes the dream work, after all.

You're both in your underwear, yet neither of you have even looked at the other's bodies yet. Too preoccupied. Too eager. Too consumed by the overwhelming need to feel one another.

His skin is warm, but the ridges of his torso are so hard that you'd be forgiven for thinking he's carved from stone.

Nudging his parted lips against yours, you gasp as his fingers curl in your hair.  Jungkook just claims your breaths as his own, pressing his lips firmly shut against yours.

One hand clasps your throat, keeping you secure, as the other trails up your thighs.

"Sure you wanna consummate this marriage?" He asks a little breathlessly, playing on the narrative you built up for this moment, just checking before he does anything he can't take back.

But you're impatient, and you don't think you could be any clearer even if you tried.

"Oh my god," you whine. "Just finger me already." 

Your words have him laughing all over again. He likes this, likes that you're not afraid to ask for what you want. He hadn't expected anything less, but it's satisfying to have his assumptions proven right. He kind of gets why you like making so many of them, now.

He fumbles about a little bit, not bothering to turn on the lights. It's not his first rodeo, and he doesn't think it's yours either - in fact, he knows it isn't. You wouldn't be so bold if it was. He doesn't embarrass easy, and knows that there are lessons to be learned with every new woman he acquaints himself with. You're no exception. 

"Gotta tell me what you like," he notes as he presses a kiss against your neck, the smell of your perfume so divine that he thinks you must be some kind of lorelei. It's like a meeting of black cherry and vanilla, but when his nose nestles into your hair, he can smell gasoline - and he thinks it might just be the hottest thing about you. 

You hum a response, the anticipation causing your heart to beat a mile a minute. He pushes the lace of your underwear to the side, his middle finger running between your folds. You're slick from his kisses alone, but so is he is. As you palm at the bulge in his pants, you can feel the wetness of precum leaking from his tip. He wants this just as much as you do.

"You can do better, little miss clutch control," he teases you. "Speak up."

Part of you wants to kick him in the balls. He's so sexy but so fucking annoying - he can hear how much you're enjoying his touch. He doesn't need confirmation - he just wants the gratification of hearing you say it. It's a power trip for him. You don't like giving men power.

"I like it when you shut the fuck up," you reply, hands in his hair, pulling him in for a kiss. If your words won't do it, then at least your lips will. The vibration of his laugh hums into your mouth, before he pulls away - only by an inch or so.

"That's more like it."

His lips return to yours, as quickly as they left, while he continues to roam. His fingers stay in your underwear, the very tip of his index finger mapping you out. Your body shudders when he brushes your clit, the direct contact a little too much.

He dips down to your entrance, pauses, and says "been thinking about this since the moment I met you," and then pushes two of his fingers into your cunt.

Your walls are tight and hot, but oh-so fucking wet. There's nothing about your pussy that he doesn't love. His thick knuckles are celestial inside of you, just as cosmic as the reflection of his fairy lights in his eyes, and you find yourself thinking that maybe those tattooed hands of his are something special, after all.

"Bra off," he husks, and you do as you're told. He'd have done it himself, but his hands are a little preoccupied. 

He adjusts the pair of you as your bra hits the floor, encouraging your legs around his waist.  Hoisting you up before you really have a chance to comprehend what he's doing, you're pretty certain that this is just an excuse to display his strength. You're impressed, so it's working, but you're also unable to really think about anything other than the way he feels inside of you.

Your back is against the wall, the weight of his body keeping you pinned in position as he fucks his fingers into you. There's no real calculation to his movements, just an awareness that he absolutely cannot fuck you yet. He'll simply finish too quickly. 

It's not that he doesn't enjoy a quickie - truth be told, he finds them far more convenient - it's just that it would be mortifying. 

He's not sure he'd actually be able to show up at the gas station ever again if you heard him whine like a little bitch and unload himself in five seconds flat.

Equally, he doesn't want you to dread his car coming into the forecourt. 

He wants you daydreaming about him, all hazy-eyed, like you are when you're drunk, waiting for his car to roll in. He wants you musing about the way his tongue feels against your neck, and your coworker asking why you're smiling so much. He wants you blushing as you try to think of a justification, and he wants you excusing yourself to go to the bathroom to sort out the wetness pooling in your underwear. 

So, yeah. A quickie simply won't do.

He grips onto the side of your neck with his spare hand as he sinks his fingers into your pussy again. The way you gasp is like music to his ears, every single one of his senses overrun by the entity that you are. 

It's mutual though. You're consumed by everything that he is; his scent, the sound of his laboured grunts, the taste of his tongue and the feel of his hands all over your body. The only sense he isn't violating is your sight - but it's only 'cause he's making you feel so good that your eyes are forced to rest shut. 

Jungkook, on the other hand, exclusively watches you. He marvels at the way your head leans back against the wall, neck exposed for him to leave a trail of pretty purple bruises. He knows he shouldn't. Knows he shouldn't leave a single mark on your skin. Knows better than to leave evidence of his crimes, but it's a sin he thinks he'd quite like to commit over and over again.

You're pretty good at faking it. A string of careless lovers, of whom you used to entertain prior to learning your worth, had helped you to perfect a moan. You can manipulate your body, make your chest heave with exertion, your pussy throb around their fingers, their cocks. You can make it leak, get yourself looking like a fucking mess for them, as if it's because of them. It's a fine art. 

Botticelli would admire you, you think. His Venus couldn't compete with you. Femme fatal; a kisser of jaws, a killer of the men you have to let down gently because they fall too in love with you for your liking. Understandably, given what you can do. You've mastered it. Mastered men.

And it's for this reason, that you don't fake anymore. If someone isn't pleasing you, you let them know. You view it as a way of helping humanity - or their future girlfriends, at least. Why waste time letting someone else think they're getting you off, when it's you doing all the hard work?

You'd gone into this prepared; ready to remedy what would inevitably be a disappointing shag with a near stranger.

But you're not throbbing around Jungkook's fingers - you're trembling. There's no self-made stutter in your chest, but there's one a little lower down, one that you've got absolutely no jurisdiction over. Y'see, the way you're gasping, like you're struggling against a riptide, caught in the wave that is Jeon Jungkook, can't be faked. 

It's what has him smirking as he puts pressure behind the kisses he's placing on your neck. It's the fact that every time you try and speak, even if it's just a curse or the sound of his name, it's cut short. You've no control. Fuck all. It's all on him, on account of him being inside you. If he's learnt anything about you in the short time that he's known you, it's that you're never speechless. Always getting that last word in. 

But you can't even formulate one now, his fingers pumping into you at such a speed, that the lewd wet noise is almost louder than your moans. Almost.

Jungkook isn't a jealous kind of guy, especially not when it comes to casual hookups - but he kind of thinks he's jealous of his own fucking fingers. 

Every single part of him wants your pussy; his tongue, his cock. You feel so good around him that he regrets not making a move sooner. Should have asked to fuck you as soon as you started talking about his car on his first visit to the gas station. Lord knows he thought about it.

His lips are on yours, not really kissing you, resting open, his breaths heavy and laboured. The way he's pushing into you, deeper, deeper, has you mirroring his expression, small moans pouring into his mouth. He wants to eat them up, devour them, use them as fuel.

You loosen the grip you have in his pale hair, gripping onto his neck with one hand, the other falling to his bicep. He likes the scratch of your nails against his bare skin, but there's a distance between you both that he wants to close. He pulls his hand from beneath your ass, relying on his core strength alone to keep you pressed into the wall, and reaches for your fingers. Intertwining them, he places his hand, with yours beneath it, back against the wall, above your head. 

The change in position has your chest lifting, almost as if your tits are begging to have his lips around them - and who is he to refuse?

His tongue finds your nipple, flicking against the hardened nub before sucking it between his lips. The vibration of his studs against your sensitive bud has your back arching. He sucks you further into his mouth, tongue lapping against you, before he releases your nipple - but it's so puffy, and wet, and perfect, and fuck- he can't help himself, teasing at it again with his tongue. 

So fixated on how you feel in his mouth, he's forgotten that he meant to be fucking you. His cock throbs beneath his boxers, as his fingers are kept warm by your walls, slick wetness creaming around the base of his knuckles and dripping down his palm.

His apartment is small, so it only takes him a moment to move you from the wall and toss you down into his sheets. There's a waft of his fabric conditioner as he does so, floral and soft. It's hard to imagine a man so broad, so handsome, so god damn irresistible, paying any attention to laundry - but you suppose it must just add to his charm.

"C'mere," you whine, as he takes a moment to take in the sight of you. Missing the way he feels, you pull him down onto the bed -  but he's scared that even just rutting against you will have him spilling himself all over your stomach. Instead, he places himself beside you, and gets to work.

There's a familiarity now, his mouth taking your nipple again, wet and wanting, as his fingers toy with your pussy. He's not sure which he prefers, your pussy or tits, but he's more than happy to play with them both. His thumb presses on your swollen clit, and you writhe beneath him. "You like that, huh?"

You try and respond, but his thumb begins to rub languid circles against you. If you couldn't muster a word before, then like fuck can you speak now.

"Huh?" he teases, teeth grazing your hardened nipple, now. His finger strokes at your walls as he sinks into you once more, on the hunt for something that no one has ever been able to find, except you. The way your legs are tensing lets him know he's close. 

"I asked if you like that." He's only a knuckle deep, stroking pretty little circles against your walls. Closer. You whine. "Don't go all shy on me now, doll."

Your body writhes beneath his, toes curling, teeth digging down on his shoulder in a failed attempt at keeping quiet. He hopes you'll leave a mark. His thumb presses a little harder against your clit, encircling it with pressure so deep that you're almost certain you'll die from his touch.

"Don't stop," is all you can manage. "Don't stop- fuck."

"Better," he says, pressing a kiss into your neck. You can feel his precum leaking onto your thigh, and the idea of him dirtying you has you insatiable. He can tell you're at his level now, so close to finishing that it won't be embarrassing when he's done in five-seconds-flat -  but the way you're putty in his hands has him unable to stop himself. He's gotta make you cum. Needs to. 

He presses his thumb down, fingers up, as if he's pinching them together, and then he's stroking and - "Oh, fuck it. Right there. Right fucking there." - he's found it. 

He's fucking found it, the little ridge in your pussy that up until now has been just for you. You've lied before, told guys they've hit your g-spot and faked a little something that convinces them of it - but it's never been like this. Ever. Not even when you find it. 

Jungkook follows your commands. He won't stop, doesn't stop, not even when your nails grab at his wrist because the pleasure is so unbearable, so intense, that it fucking hurts. 

"Like that," you encourage, knowing your grip probably says otherwise. "Like that, fuck."

He does as he's told, and keeps like that, lips latching onto your nipple, sucking just as hard as his fingers are massaging. The slickness of your walls compared with the texture of your g-spot has him going insane. He doesn't think it's his first time finding such a sacred spot, but it's never been this easy, and the reaction has never been this good. 

You moan out his name, 'cause he's all you can think about. Any and all articulation of your pleasure goes on him.

"Yeah, baby?" he asks, forgetting that he doesn't know you nearly well enough to be addressing you like that, but he doesn't slow down. You just moan. He can call you whatever the fuck he wants at this point. It's too good. Too much.

"Kook, I-" you try, but your hips are bucking, and there's fuck all you can do to stop it.

"Just a little more, baby," he promises you. 

He will make you cum. Will do whatever it takes, if needs be. The tip of his cock is red and leaky against your thigh, ready to fuck into you, but he doesn't give a shit. Your walls are hot. Burning hot. And then they're throbbing, and your torso begins to tense. You whisper his name like a secret prayer, legs trying to close around the welcome intrusion of his hand. 

"That's it," he keens. "Cum for me, doll. All over my fingers. That's it."

You're fucking mewling as your body shudders against his. There's no dignity left in your body. It's pooling in the palm of his hand, slick and slippery, just where he wants it.

"You're unreal," he hums, drawing the last of your little death from you. "Fucking insane, babe. So fucking hot."

Turns out the Grim Reaper had made an appearance that evening, just in the form of a 6-foot adonis, who knows his way around a pussy like he does a bloody electric switchboard. 

You're panting, and so is he, his lips curving against your skin. Neither of you speaks for a minute, both casually aware that it - this, the night - isn't over yet. 

And then Jungkook just thinks to hell with acting coy, or playing it cool. You're naked in his bed, and so is he. No point in beating around the bush (unless you're into it).

"Wanna eat you out," he says as he presses a kiss into your neck, placing himself more centrally over you. Your chest is still heaving, and the thought of cumming again makes you feel all dizzy. His elbows are rested by your head, cock stiff against your tummy. You wrap your arms around his neck, toying with his pretty blonde hair. "Wanna fuck you first, though."

There's a logistical step to be taken there. You're on birth control, and the subject of regularly testing had come up during a particularly suggestive conversation over dinner. You both know he'll be fucking you raw - which means he's finishing raw, too.

"But-"

"I don't care," he mumbles into your lips, a little rough, claiming them as his own. He really doesn't give a fuck if it means eating his own cum. Not like he hasn't done it before. He's probably just gonna spit it into your mouth, anyways.

He pulls his hips back to line himself up. The tip of his cock nudges into you slowly, gently, and then he eases himself forward. It burns, the thickness of his shaft spreading you in a way that his fingers couldn't. It's bliss. Divine. Heavenly, and yet absolute sin. 

He revels in the way you feel, for a moment, letting your walls stretch before he sinks into you fully. You curse as he does so, the pain overridden by pleasure. His hips begin to pick up pace, eyes on yours to make sure that you're okay as he ploughs into you. 

It's like he's digging for diamonds, almost. Funny thing is, when you gasp, eyes all wide and focused on his, it's looks like he's found them in your eyes. It's just the reflection of his fairy lights, but the illusion fools him.

Looking at you is too much for him to handle, so Jungkook kisses you as his hips begin to stall. He really wasn't kidding when he figured he'd finish in no time at all. His brows are creased, moans muffled against your lips. His torso shudders, abdomen as tight as his balls.

"Gonna make me cum," he drowsily mewls, fucking himself into you like it's where he belongs. 

His body is clammy against yours, stamina impressive but dwindling. His thrusts are getting sloppy, and so are his kisses, but you kind of love it like this; Jungkook so out of control he isn't even trying to keep a pace anymore. The rhythm of your body beneath his, the way he fits inside of you, how soft and warm your tits are as they pillow against his chest, it's all too much for him. 

He's so deep he's practically kissing your cervix with the tip of his cock, and yet he still hooks your leg over his elbow. He needs to be deeper. 

"Gonna make me cum so much. You want that, huh? Wanna be the reason I cum?" he grunts, and then his words become needy. "Tell me you want it, doll. Tell me."

He licks into your mouth, toying with your tongue before you even get a chance to respond.

"Don't want it," you pant, his harsh thrusts interrupting your words. He's about to be offended, all needy and pouty while he's buried inside you, but you're biting down on your lip and - oh, god - he's obsessed. "Need it. Cum for me. Want it so bad."

He smiles against your cheek as his hips move languidly between your legs. One of his hands comes down to your hip to help him control himself, but he can't. Not when he can feel you smiling, too. He laughs a little, soft and mellow against your skin - and when you do the same thing back, Jungkook knows he's absolutely done for.

"I'm gonna-" he rasps, unable to finish his sentence. "Where? Where do you want me?"

You don't say anything, just tighten the grip of your legs around his waist. You're a fucking mess, mentally, physically. He's ruined you in every sense of the word.

"Sure?"

"Sure," you pant against his skin, before repeating your earlier claim. "Need it. Need you."

It's a lie. You don't. You barely know him - but you feel so in tune, so aligned, when he's inside you that it feels like your pussy is the only place his cum deserves to be. It'd be wasted on your tits (though Jungkook would definitely disagree).

"God," he groans. "Don't say shit like that."

Jungkook has severely underestimated just how much of a little bitch you can be.

"Like what?" you pout as his thrusts get even sloppier, his skin slapping against yours. "What can't I say? How much I need you?"

He curses your name, lips showering you in pretty kisses. His tongue finds its home inside your mouth, but it's just an attempt to shut you up. A pretty good one, in all fairness. The way his studs feel against your tongue has you dripping around the base of his cock.

You can hear it; Jungkook slipping in and out of your soaked pussy like you're fire and he's ice.

"Need you," you simper again, just to fuck with him a little more. "Need to feel you fill me up."

"You want it that bad, huh?"

He pulls himself back a little, sitting up on his heels, holding onto your hips as he fucks himself into you. Your tits pillow on your chest, bouncing in time with his thrusts, hypnotising him, almost. You're smiling as your forearms cover your eyes, a little shameful of being caught in such a compromising position, but loving it nonetheless.

"Looking a little shy, there," he says, but his tone is so low it almost sounds like a growl. You pull your arms away, and he's amazed that you can still manage to raise a brow and throw him a pissed off glare even when he's balls deep in you. Truth be told, it just makes him want you even more. He's fond as he smiles at you. "There she is."

Even if you can't fake your orgasms for him, you can still fake annoyance.

"You gonna cum, or what?" You sigh, and then he's laughing, sinking back down, elbows either side of your head as he kisses you. "All men do is lie."

"Not gonna cum," he says, and you're right - it is a lie. "Just gonna keep fucking you forever."

"I have work tomorrow."

"Fuck if I care," he sinks his tongue back into your mouth, briefly, just to remind you who's really in control here. "Said I'll fuck you forever, so forever it is."

There's a bell chiming in your tummy, and you're not able to convince yourself that it's just another building orgasm. It's still him, though, in a round about way.

"We're not allowed to bring our pets to work," you deadpan. "No can do."

Jungkook stops thrusting, and pulls his head back, almost to look at you in disbelief. He's smiling, and he's so desperately turned on that his balls fucking hurt, but he's never been more perplexed in bed. You're equal parts a siren and a little shit.

You're grinning too, pleased to have rendered him speechless. "What is it, huh? Cat got your tongue?"

He smirks, now. "Nah. Not yet. But it will."

And then he's back at it, hips erratic, building such a pace that you can't even think, let alone come out with some dumb remark.  

"Still need it, huh?" He recites your words back to you, voice raspy and hushed, so close it feels like his body could give out at any second. He's edging himself, trying to make it last just a little bit longer, but it's so wet, and you're so fucking tight, and he's throbbing, and grunting and - fuck - it's so fucking good he might just die. 

"You're gonna look so pretty when I fill you up," he moans, before correcting himself. "Already pretty. So fucking pretty."

His hips slap against yours, once, twice, and then it's happening. 

He buries himself in you, body tense as a shiver runs down his spine. Your nails dig into his back, a hushed whine escaping from his mouth and getting lost in your hair. 

His cock unloads thick creamy spurts with every stroke of your pussy, coating you with the very essence of everything that he is. It's overindulgent and unrestrained. Fuck if it isn't the most full you've ever felt, ropes of thick cum spurting into you like he was built to fucking breed.

He pumps himself gently inside you for a moment or so, just to ease the remainder of his hot cum into you. The sound is lewd as he adjusts, his job very much done.

Neither of you speak for a moment, hedonism taking heed. The way his heart beats in his chest is unlike anything you've ever felt before. In fact, you're almost in a state of shock, and so is he.

Only for a moment, though. He's not actually done yet.

Your first orgasm was cute - but there's no way he's letting you see him that pathetic, that weak, without making sure you end up in the exact same state. 

He presses a few kisses to your damp neck, laughing softly. "Get what you wanted?"

Looking at you, brown eyes all big and sparkling, he pulls his torso back up, ass resting on his heels, before checking the state of his cock as he withdraws himself. 

You're smiling as you watch him stare at where the pair of you meet with such devotion that it's hard not to feel a little enamoured with him. Even if it is just a casual fuck.

"Got what I wanted." Your voice is light and airy, like you're a Disney princess waking up from centuries of slumber. Might not have had true loves kiss, but you bet none of them has ever had a fuck like Jungkook. 

You pout a little when he finishes pulling out, sad to have lost the feeling of fullness. He catches your expression, and smiles. 

"Cute," he says a little mindlessly, articulating a thought that wasn't meant to be shared.

"Shut up," you reply, embarrassed, but he doesn't mind. Not in the slightest. In fact, he loves that you didn't want him to leave. Kind of wishes that he could have kept his cock buried inside you, instead.

But Jungkook is a man of convictions, and a firm believer that he'll simply die if he can't eat you out.

You sort of think the moment has passed, that it was something he said in the heat of the moment. Figure now he's orgasmed, he's finished - but Jungkook is an endurance athlete, not a sprinter. There's still a hurdle left to jump.

He presses your legs apart so that he can look at you. Your hole is creamy and fucked out, his load slowly seeping out of you with every beat of your heart. His fingers dip just beneath your entrance, collecting his cum on them, before he pushes it back into you. He doesn't look at you, just your cunt, as he says, "told you you'd look pretty full of my cum."

The way he's staring at you, like a man who hasn't eaten for days being presented with a three course meal, has you feeling all hot and bothered.

You're satisfied. The sex you just had was enough. More than enough - but you're getting weak at the knees again, his desire infectious. You can't remember a time you've ever wanted someone as badly as you want him. Not for any deeper reason than the selfish fact that he makes you feel good. It's pure lust, no romance about it.

His fingers continue to push his cum into you, stroking up and down your walls, applying just enough pressure to let you know he's there.

He moves his body back, keeping his fingers snug inside you - and then he lowers his body, just a couple of inches from you. His breath feels cold against the slick wetness covering your pussy. 

"Also told you I wanted to eat you," he adds, as if you need reminding.

His spare hand strokes down the inside of your thigh before it reaches your hot core, and he begins to toy with your pussy. He spreads your lips open, just like he did your legs, and then he's studying you. Figuring out ways he can get your squirming. 

The first initial contact is brief; the tip of his tongue licking across the top of your clit. A parched moan escapes your lips, and he smiles. "There?"

"There," you moan, eyes closed, head pushed back into his pillows. 

He does it again, tongue a little flatter, a little firmer. You feel his piercing against you this time, smooth and hard. Your clit is snug between the two studs, like it was made to be there. He does it again. Wetter, deeper. And again. Slower, harder - and then his speed builds. 

He licks up and down across your clit, rolling it beneath his tongue, once, twice- and then you lose count, so lost in ecstasy that all you can think about is his tongue lapping at your cum-filled cunt, plugged with his fingers.

Occasionally, he sucks gently on your clit, just to earn a little extra moan from you. It works every single time.

You're leaking around his fingers at this point, so close to cumming again that it's impossible to keep your legs open. He feels the pressure of your thighs against his head, and it only serves to encourage him. His speed builds, both his tongue and his fingers meeting with your pussy at such divine speeds that you're sure you'll cum in such an undignified manner that'll he'll perhaps regret his choices.

As your muscles begin to tense, his head in a literal death grip, he smiles, dimples deep and lips pretty against your pussy. Jungkook is utterly enthralled with how it feels to have his face between your thighs. 

He keeps his eyes closed, letting himself experience the sensations of your body completely unadulterated. If he could see you, he'd be so obsessed with the view that he might not savour you in the way that he wants to. He wants to taste you, to smell you, to feel how soft and warm you are. If he wasn't obsessed before (which he was), then he definitely is, now.

The pressure builds, his tongue lapping against you, one of your hands tangled in his messy blonde hair, the other holding one of your boobs for a little moral support. 

You're too far gone to even let him know you're about to come undone all over again. He knows, though. He can feel you pulsing, and then you're gasping, and panting, and mewling and fuck, he loves the way you sound.

Your muscles throb as he brings you to orgasm. It's so undignified that you're certain you'll never cum like this again. Your abdomen flexes involuntarily, making sure your orgasm is signed, sealed, delivered to you. He pushes your legs apart again, glancing up towards you as he licks one final stripe up your exposed mess.

You ignore the slick on his fingers that's now coating your thigh as he spreads them apart, too busy with the fact his chin is soaked, hair a mess, nose blushed. He's watching your entrance seep; a mixture of himself and you. 

It's hard to know what belongs to who, but as he dips down and licks it up with the tip of his pointed tongue, the ownership is clear. It doesn't matter whose is whose, because your pussy belongs to him, now. 

It's all his. 

He gathers the creamy slick on his tongue, and then he pulls on your hand to encourage you into a sitting position.

You're putty in his hands, doing whatever he tells you, which is albeit very little. In fact, he doesn't say anything - just looks at your lips, then your eyes, and clasps your jaw. 

He opens his mouth and pools his tongue, letting the mess that you've both made sit prettily in his mouth, dancing over his studs. He nods gently, moving his thumb from your jaw to your pillowy bottom lip, pressing down on it. 

Open. 

He's insatiable. Wants his cum on your tongue, but wants yours on his, too.

You spread your lips apart, eyes exclusively on his. Your tongue flicks against his thumb.

And then you nod.

Please.

Jungkook is slow in his approach, tentative as he holds your jaw, bringing your closer to him. His tongue licks into your mouth, swiping against yours, swapping his cum between the pair of you. It's a languid exchange, slow and sensual, neither of you caring for the boundaries that are being crossed. 

He pulls away from you, hand gripping your jaw again. You open your mouth instinctively, just like he wants you to. Neither of you pay any attention to his phone, which is flashing on the floor next to his bed. 

Spit gathers in his mouth, rinsing himself of the pair of you as he draws you closer to him, your mouth still resting open. He spits directly into it. You whimper a little as he does so, his grip on your jaw keeping your mouth open for him to observe just how messy it is; all thanks to him.

"Swallow," he tells you, easing his grip, and so you do. 

Lips closed, you swallow everything; his spit, his cum, your cum, all of it. When he grips your jaw again, you know the drill, but it doesn't stop him from commanding you. 

"Open."

He's pleased when you do, mouth all pretty and clean for him to ruin again - but instead, he just kisses you softly, hands on your cheeks, pushing your bodies back down into his sheets. There's a tenderness to the way in which he touches you; as if he realises you sacrificed a little dignity for him, so he's trying to restore it.

He's hard again - had never really softened, in all honesty - but he's too sensitive to do anything about it.

"Stay," he mumbles against your lips. Your hands are in his hair, keeping him close, as your legs wrap around his waist. "Stay the night. Wanna wake up to this."

You moan into his lips. His cock is firmly pressed into your stomach, his naked body warm against yours. 

There's something about the weight of his body, the firmness of his muscular chest against the soft pillow of your own, that is unrivalled by any other sleeping arrangement you could think of.

And despite knowing exactly what he's saying, and being far too skeptical to think he means anything other than sex, you still choose to toy with him a little.

"Wake up to what?" You purr into his lips, aware that your hips are languidly rolling against him again. 

He kisses down your neck, laughing softly to himself. His smile vibrates against your skin, and, for a moment, it's your favourite feeling in the whole entire world.

"To you."

You're pretty sure he can feel the way your pulse skips a beat in your neck. But again, you're difficult. And this arrangement definitely isn't anything more than just sex.

"You mean to my pussy, right?"

He presses pretty little kisses back up your neck, along your jaw and into your lips. They're cute. Kind. Romantic, even. 

"Oh, a hundred percent," he grins against your lips, and then you're laughing too.

"You're so mean," you pout, as if you weren't the one to put the words into his mouth. There's a dimple etched into his cheek, eyes all hazy and sparkling as he shakes his head. He thinks you look adorable when you pout. So damn cute. He steals another kiss, and protests.

"Made you cum twice," Jungkook says, and has the audacity to scrunch his nose, acting all cute and shit. You're embarrassed, bringing your hands from his hair to cover your face, which you just know is flaming red. "I think that's actually pretty nice of me." 

He pulls one of your hands away from your face, and kisses your knuckles. His smile matches yours - because while yes, you're embarrassed, you're still riding the post-fuck high, too.

"You also spat in mouth," you remind him, and then he's cringing. Jekyll and Hyde have nothing on Jungkook when it comes to him and, well, him in bed. "That's not very nice."

He covers his eyes with his hands, but his teeth are still on show, smile prevailing. "Shut up."

And then he's kissing you again, 'cause fuck it, he just can't stop himself. 

It's been a while since he last got like this. In fact, he probably hasn't been this giddy post-fuck since he was a teenager. He's normally in the shower by this point, ridding himself of whoever he's been inside - but he doesn't have the compulsion to do that with you.

He knows that when he breaks from the spell you've cast upon him, he'll be back to reality. The fairy dust will settle on the ground like ashes, and the magic that once was will become nothing but malice.

There's a bridge to be crossed.

Jungkook has been fixing it up - repairing the cracks, making it sturdy - but he's not sure he wants what's on the other side, anymore. Not when you're in his bed, not when he can feel your chest wobble with every little laugh you do, and not when your nails are tenderly scratching at his scalp.

See, he likes being on this side of the bridge. Likes being with you.

But if he doesn't cross it, the trolls beneath it will inevitably come for him.

And so he asks you to stay again, but this time he says it like he means it.

"I want you to stay with me," he speaks quietly, rolling off of you and curling up beside you, reaching for the duvet that ended up at the end of his bed. He brings it back over your bodies, as if he's locking you in. You have to stay now.

You turn to face him, curling up too, mirroring him. Your fingers delicately tuck strands of his beautiful blonde hair behind his ear, ignoring the way his eyes are focused on you. Instead, you watch your hand as it moves, curiously touched by the fact he wants you to stay. You don't peg him as guy who often wants a girl to stay.

You're right to assume that.

Right to assume that he normally doesn't do this.

One night stands? Yeah, sure. He's had a handful - but never at his place. He doesn't like inviting people back to his apartment. It feels too personal. He likes being able to leave. He doesn't do the whole waking up together thing - no matter how much he likes morning sex (of which he does ( a LOT)).

But Jungkook's thinking about that bridge again.

He's thinking about the fact he knows shouldn't be at home right now.

He's thinking about the fact that you should be at home right now.

He's thinking about the fact his phone is on silent, and that Namjoon is probably cursing him out on voicemail right now.

But then you kiss him, and for a moment, he forgets again.

"I get grouchy when I'm hungover," you warn him, giving him an out, just in case he wants to retract his offer.

"Mhmm," he hums, pulling you into his chest. Your legs intertwine as he squeezes you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "You're grouchy when you're not hungover."

You laugh, cheeks plump and full, resting right where his heart is pumping a little faster than usual.

"You're lucky you're a good fuck, or else I'd be out of that door ASAP."

It's a lie, and you both know it.

"Thank god for my cock," he says, grinning like an absolute twat. 

He decides that he's still really drunk. It's the only way to explain how his body feels all disjointed but perfectly together at the same time.

"Thank god for your cock."

────────────

You're still awake as the sun begins to rise. He's mumbling, saying something about how a town in Alaska has a cat for a mayor, while your head rests on his bare chest.

He's a little clammy, the smell of sex stuck to him. Neither of you have showered yet. You enjoy the way your bodies are a little sticky, skin on skin, as if you're made for his bed; for him.

Every now and again, his hands roam out of the realm of safety, and you find your breath hitching, toes curling, lips parting. It's always accompanied by the sound of an airy smirk from Jungkook.

You learn that he's obsessed with your chest. Your tits, more specifically. So pillowy, so soft. A gift bestowed upon you from Venus herself, he thinks, or at least he would, if he knew who Venus was.

He just wants to hold them forever. In his hands, in his mouth, he doesn't care. He'll put his dick between them too, eventually. Another time. He's too sensitive right now. But definitely one day, and definitely soon.

A little sunlight pours in, and you watch speckles of dust as they dance around in the air. When he laughs, soft and serene in the hazy atmosphere of a post-fuck come down, it's nice. You imagine that you'd quite like to do this again. You hope he feels the same.

"Just think it's funny," he says, toying with your fingers. "How a cat can do a better job than fully grown men."

"Pussy power," you smile, and so does he, before he presses a kiss into your hair. It still smells like gasoline and he still thinks it's the sexiest thing in the world. It's funny, 'cause if you knew it smelt that way, you'd feel insecure about it. It's why he doesn't mention it. Doesn't want you withdrawing from his touch.

He nestles down, shifts his naked body beneath his duvet but keeps you close. His legs interlock with yours and his lips find a home on the curve of your shoulder. "I'm really glad you said yes."

The comment seems out of the blue, but it's not. Your thoughts have been echoing in his mind, too. It sounds a lot like vulnerability. To him, it feels more like he's laying down a safety net. Making his intentions clear. Doesn't want you second-guessing. Not this, at least. He knows the way you like to theorise.

"You didn't really give me a choice," you rib, as if that chime isn't back in your diaphragm.

He squeezes you tightly. "Don't say that. You could have said no."

You shuffle down, tilt your head, and press a kiss into his chest, just between his pecks. Sweet like honey, your lips trail across, placing delicate kisses in pride of place.

His firm muscle; one, two. His dark nipple; a flick of your tongue, one, two. Just above his beating heart; one, two, three.

Your lips feather across his collarbone and land where tattoo leaks ever so slightly onto the top of his chest. You sign the art with your kisses like the ultimate thief. Stolen. Yours, now.

"You'd have still shown up regardless."

And you're right, he would have done.

Not for any grand romantic gesture, nor to coerce you into something you didn't want. He's just got a job to do, that's all.

He doesn't respond, but you don't really notice.

By the time you're dressed and leaving his apartment, the 503 is running. He offers to pay for your fare, but you tell him that it's fine, and hop on the bus as if your insides don't burn. It's been a while since you had a workout that vigorous.

There are a few old women and a middle-aged man in a business suit taking the same journey as you.

Your cheeks flush crimson when you start to think about the ache in the pit of your stomach, right beneath that little chime that likes to ding every now and again. That feeling? The one that made you quietly gasp as you sat down? That's Jungkook.

The acknowledgement ruminates. It's insidious. Has you feeling all dirty.

You wonder if they know. The people on the bus, the one's sat around you. They couldn't possibly know, not really, but you brood over the notion that you give off an aura; one that says you've just been fucked by the most beautiful man you've ever laid eyes upon.

You wonder if the old ladies glance at you and long for the days when they'd go home with strangers.

You wonder if the middle-aged man is responding to the pheromones you're releasing without realising it, cock a little plump in his pants.

It's a morbid curiosity, but one that makes you feel all hot, and sticky, and sordid. Makes you feel good, too. A little dangerous. A little bit like you wanna get off the 503 and leg it back to Jungkook's place.

It has you reaching for your phone, pulling up kakaotalk and clicking through on your most recent contact. There's still a message at the top of your thread, warning about spam, or fraud, or whatever it is. You don't read it. Too busy typing away.

You're about to press send on a poorly thought out message when your phone vibrates in your palm. You pause. Cringe. Are aware that Jungkook will have seen how quickly you read his own message that's just come through to you.

꾹:  i wanna do that again.

You: the galbi or the sex?

꾹: both.

꾹: mainly the sex, though.

꾹: the galbi i can take or leave.

Your legs press together, and realise you're squirming in your seat. It's subtle, but anyone who's looking at you must know.

You: funny, im the opposite.

You:  id die for the galbi.

You:  sex was alright.

꾹: wow, a glowing review.

꾹: can i add it to my tinder profile?

Like fuck you can, you think to yourself. If he's still active on tinder after the night you had together, you'll do the reasonable thing and learn witchcraft just so you can hex him. You tell yourself you're just joking, but honestly, the idea is tempting.

You: uh-huh.

You: you can put it right beneath a bullet point where you let them know how much you like eating your own cum :)

꾹:  technically, you ate it.

꾹: i just delivered it :)

You: thank you for your services.

꾹: any time.

You: tonight?

꾹: please.

And so he arrives at the gas station just before nine, hood up, angelic strands of blonde hair tickling over his eyes. He's got a mask on, like he usually does, a black turtle neck resting prettily around his throat. An earth-toned flannel shirt peeks out from the bottom of his jacket, where the hem meets a pair of black jeans. He has a charm about him that makes the world stop turning for a moment when you first look at him.

He's not really sure how to greet you. With a kiss? A high five? Neither of these seems like a good idea, so he just does an awkward half-bow, which leaves cringing.

"Just gotta cash up," you smile from behind the kiosk. "You walked?"

He shakes his head. "Parked around the corner again. Didn't wanna block the forecourt."

It's a reasonable enough excuse, even if a little weird. You finish what you're doing, cash up, give Jieun the keys (and ignore the way she's grinning at you) and then toss your jacket over your shoulders. He walks beside you as you leave the store, popping your hood up again just like he did the night before. "It's windy."

The forecast said it would rain, too, but Jungkook doesn't know this. Doesn't actually give a shit about the weather. Just needs excuses to put your hood up.

"So I've been thinking," he says as you make your way to the side lane.

"Dangerous," you quip, but he ignores it - though he does nudge you a little. You let your body move in accordance with his, swaying back into him slightly. Like a swinging pendulum, you're about to recoil, but Jungkook's arm drapes around your shoulders, keeping you close. The scent of his clothes is a mix of fresh cotton and WD-40. It makes you laugh, how much a walking juxtaposition he really is.

"I've been thinking," he reinforces, and pauses just in case you're planning on interrupting again - but you don't. You want to hear his thoughts. All of them. No matter how big or small. "What if... What if we skip the sex tonight?"

You don't respond immediately, walking around to the passenger's side of his car. He clicks down on his key, opening up the locks. The lights flood your features, illuminating you in warm hues, reds and oranges, as if to send Jungkook a warning: she's dangerous.

"Skip the sex?" You raise a brow, ignoring the butterfly atrium that has spontaneously constructed beneath your ribs. "You lured me here under false pretences, Mr Gimbap."

He doesn't question the nickname. Figures he'll find out its origins this evening. After all, all he wants to do is talk.

Talk about you, where you come from, where you plan on going. He wants to know more; what makes you tick, your favourite chocolate bar wrapper joke, if you really meant what you said about not fucking on first dates. Wants to know if he's special. Wants to know if he gets to you the same way you do to him.

He'll ask you about your favourite Shakespeare play, and he'll hope that you'll say Romeo & Juliet. It's the only one he's read.

You'll tell him that it's not a representation of love, and he'll say he knows. He doesn't - he just won't want you to think that he bases his idea of romance on such ill-fated endeavours. Thinks it's about stars-crossing, illicit affairs, love that prevails. Shit like that.

He isn't really sure what it all means, but he's seen the Baz Luhrmann adaptation, and that's enough.

You'll say that Romeo is an ass, and he'll feign offence and tell you that you'll never be his Juliet. It'll earn him a laugh from you. That's fine; you never wanted to be her.

You're a Beatrice in search of her Benedict, after all - and the way that the pair of you bicker, it seems like you might have just found him - even if he does think he's a Romeo. Twat.

"I didn't," he laughs in response to your earlier statement. "I just like to know the girls I'm sticking my dick in, that's all."

"Ohh, romance," you whistle through pursed lips, throwing him a coy smile.

He nods towards the buckle by your seat and tells you to do the belt up, as his key turns in the ignition. There's a small rumble, his exhaust rattling as fumes begin to bluster around the end of the pipe. He's listening again, revving the engine ever so gently, foot on the throttle.

The way he cares for his motor makes you laugh. He's so temperate, so careful - but you know he abuses the engine like no tomorrow whenever he races it. He treats it almost as if it's a racehorse; something with actual feelings.

You do as you're told, clicking the belt into place, and remind him to do the same.

"The girls?" You question as he passes you the aux. "Multiple?"

There's a static click as you plug it into your phone, before your playlist starts up again. His hands move like machines, smooth and automatic as he slips into first gear.

"The girls," he echoes, eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror, and then over his shoulder to check the blind spots, before easing onto the main road.

"Charming," you say dryly.

It's not like you hadn't assumed this already. You had already decided that he at least had a friend with benefits lurking about (even if she had become too clingy (actually, no, especially if she had become too clingy)).

You'd figured that it was where he had been on the night that he was a no show - but then he'd shown up all apologetic and shit. You had let his innocent eyes win your skeptical mind over.

"Guys aren't really my thing," he follows up, sensing your discomfort. He knows he's beating around the bush, not giving you the answer that you want - and he also knows that you're getting in your head about it. Knows you'll be questioning what he means, and if he's sleeping with anyone else. He'd be within his right to. You barely know each other. Where he sticks his dick isn't really any of your business. "And I'm hardly a virgin, am I?"

"Gasp," you say. "You're not?! Could have fooled me."

He's smiling again.

You like how much he does that around you. Wonder if he's like that around other girls, too.

"Was I really that bad?" He flirts.

Jungkook knows how to fuck. He's been given enough positive reviews to know that he's anything but bad. Although... he kinda is. But in a good way. In the way that you want him to be bad.

"I've had better."

Liar.

"Ouch," he laughs as he presses down on his indicator for the next left. "Guess I'll just have to keep practising."

City lights cascade over the pair of you as his car rolls through the quiet streets, splintering like refractions of a mirror ball. He hates that he has to keep his eyes on the road. Wants to drink in the way you look almost as much as he wants to drink up the way you taste again. The night is dark, the moon hiding behind a fluffy cloud that looks like charcoal cotton candy beneath its radiant light. Jungkook loves nights like these; likes them even better with you in his passenger seat.

Green flashes over your features as he passes beneath a traffic light. You cross your legs, adjusting your posture. It's so subtle that you don't even realise you're doing it - but Jungkook does.

"On your other girls?"

There she is, he thinks. It's what he's been waiting for. Confirmation that the idea of him fucking other girls irritates you. He reaches across and taps your knee. He enjoys the predictability of you.

You resist the gentle nudge of his hand, the pads of his thumb and fingers resting on your kneecap. Your legs remain crossed, just as his hand remains on your knee. The stretch of road you're on is straight, requiring no gear change for a little while. He can play this game, if you really want him to.

"No," he says. There's pressure beneath his fingertips now. "Be a waste of time, wouldn't it? Everyone's different. If I wanna get better at fucking you, specifically, then I gotta keep fucking you."

He's not wrong. You can't fault his logic, and in all honesty, the way he's talking is so abrasive, so raw, that it's got you feeling all hot and bothered again. He may as well be stroking your pussy, not your knee, with the impact he's having on you.

His grip tightens, then pulls your knee back over. Commanding, not requesting. Your legs part for him, because of course they do. There's something about knowing he has options, knowing that he could be with someone else, but is choosing to be with you that gives you a little ego boost.

"Maybe I've changed my mind," you feign indifference, but Jungkook knows there's a handful of feelings beneath your words. "Maybe I don't wanna fuck you anymore."

He strokes his broad palm along the inside of your thigh. It's warm, wrapped in the sheer nylon cover of tights, and he'd obsessed with the way they feel. So smooth, so soft, so perfectly pristine. He wonders if you're making a mess of them. Hopes you are.

"I don't like maybes," he says. "Either you wanna fuck me or you don't."

"I don't like fucking boys who fuck other girls."

"Who said I was fucking other girls?" he smirks, and lets his hand trail a little further up. He squeezes the flesh of your thigh, getting a feel for you.

"You did."

"No," he corrects. "I said I've fucked other girls. Past tense. Never said I'm currently fucking other girls. You really gotta stop making assumptions, little Miss Clutch Control."

"I hate you," you say with a smile, and you really do mean it.

"I like girls who hate me. Makes the sex so much hotter."

"Despise you."

"Ugh," he grins, as he lets his hand reach the top of your thigh. He squeezes again, and you hum a little moan for him. "Doesn't sound like you hate me."

You giggle, soft and serene in the safety of his car. Reaching a junction, he pulls his hand back to change gear. You're at a four-way intersection, the light only just hitting amber, so he reckons he has a least a couple of minutes to toy with you.

When his hand returns to your thigh, just like you hoped it would, it's beneath your skirt. Right at the top. Right where it belongs. The pressure beneath his palm is firm, fingers sinking into the softness of your leg.

"But I do," you say, voice quiet, anticipation lacing your breath.

His pinky finger stretches out a little, just to stoke over the mound that rests between your legs. He can already feel the heat, but what surprises him - and excites him - is the slick that's seeped through your panties and onto the outer side of your tights.

"Doesn't feel like you hate me, either."

"No?" You toy. "Feel again."

And so he does. He points his index and middle finger, and holds them flat against you. They're instantly met with a slippery mess. He slides them up and down, once, twice, three times, and then cups your pussy with his palm. You're fucking pulsing in his touch.

"See?" You speak as if you don't wanna whine his name. "Loathe you."

"So you do," he mumbles as he presses his palm tight against you, inhaling sharply as he does so. One glance at his lap and you can tell he's just as turned on as you are. His cock is solid beneath his trousers, jeans tight, keeping him concealed. Part of you feels a little bad. Looks painful. He's too big to be confined by such unforgiving material.

"Still wanna skip the sex?"

Jungkook presses in index finger against where he can feel your entrance is. You're so wet that his fingers are already coated in everything that you are. He wants more. Wants your tights gone. Wants his fingers inside you.

But he's a stubborn asshole, and hates being proven wrong.

"Sex?" he pulls his fingers back, and rests the heel of his palm on the top of his steering wheel. They're covered in your juices. He considers licking them clean, but figures that might be a bit too brash - and then thinks fuck it, and does it anyway. There's a sweetness to your taste, one that has him holding back a moan. Absolutely fucking divine. You don't even realise that you're staring at his hands - the way they sink into his mouth - until he pulls them back out. He looks at you. Shrugs. "Yeah. Not really in the mood."

"Thank god," you say, not skipping a beat. Even when your need to fuck him is so intense that it manifests into a physical form and leaks onto his passenger seat, you're still able to bicker with him. It satisfies him like nothing else. Makes his cock so hard. "Me either."

The light turns to green, his hand is back on his gear stick. You stick to looking out the window, not favouring looking at him. The temptation to palm his crotch is overwhelming, but you're just as stubborn as he is. If you've said you don't wanna fuck, then you're damn well gonna act like you don't wanna fuck, until you simply can't take it anymore.

"Glad we agree," he says. "So let's talk."

You half wonder if this was his plan all along. You actually do think you hate him - but only cause he makes you feel weak. You don't enjoy that feeling, but you enjoy him.

"I'm an open book," you lie.

He flicks his eyes to the rearview and mutters under his breath, "shit."

"What is it?" you glance over your shoulder, noticing a pair of headlights flashing Jungkook. You can't make the car out. Its lamps are on full-beam. Blinding.

Jungkook leans over, the fingers that had been stroking against your pussy now pressing down into your buckle. There's a click as it releases, before he moves down and pulls up on the lever by the front of your seat, dragging you forward.

"Get in the back," he says, as if he isn't still driving. You go to question him, but he cuts you off. "In the back. Now. Middle seat."

You stare for a second, until he glances over to you, jaw tense, with no hint of a smile. "Don't argue with me, now. Middle seat. C'mon."

"Kook-"

"Now."

And as unsafe as it feels, you find yourself twisting, hands gripping onto the back of the passenger seat as you bring your legs up to crouch.

"Quickly, babe," he says, his hand reaching over to tap your ass gently. Your back is to the windshield, and Jungkook's terrified that the fucker behind him isn't gonna wait for a respectable start - but he's also anxiously aware of the fact he isn't explaining himself to you, and that it's gonna make you hesitant. "Please. Trust me."

And so you do. You wobble a little as your leg dips over the centre console, his hand still on your ass to keep you stable.

"That's it," he encourages. You make your way into the back, a little squeal as you leap soundtracking the move. "Seat belt. Now."

The leather of the backseat is cold against your tight-covered thighs, legs pressed together, feet firmly on the raised centre of the footwell. You do as you're told, all rather quickly.

"Hands on the seats," he tells you again, and you don't question it, even though it's all that you want to do. There's a time and a place for bickering with him, and while it's the perfect place, the urgency of his commands suggest that now isn't the right time. You grip onto the seats in front of you, and Jungkook reaches up to feel your hand, just to make sure it's where he wants it. His hand is clammy and warm, safe against yours. He lingers for a second, not wanting to lose the way your feel against his skin. "Hold tight."

He slows to a near stop, and you almost laugh when you realise where you are. That fucking bridge, again. The car behind you pulls up beside him, but it's hard to make it out through his back windows. They're so intensely tinted that all you can figure out is the rough shape. "Is that-"

"Yep," he cuts you off, knowing what you'll ask. "Car from the last time. It's cool. I got this. I will warn you, though, he's a little pissed with me at the moment."

"A little?"

You can hear the engine revving. Sounds more than just a little pissed.

"We're friends. It's okay."

Friends is a loose description. It would have been the right term, once. Jungkook thinks of him more as a colleague these days. A pain in his ass.

"Doesn't sound very friendly."

"I'ma need you to be quiet, babe," he says, voice soft. He isn't trying to be rude, he just needs to concentrate. Needs to win this. Needs to get Namjoon off his back. Needs to get you away from, well, here.

"Noted."

Jungkook watches the lights. It's how races like these work; the impromptu kind that first got him acquainted with Namjoon. They wait for the lights to shift, throttle teasing on amber, rubber-burning on green.

His gaze is on the lights and the lights only. The leather binding of his wheel almost squeaks as he grips against it, shoulders rolling back ever so slightly. Glancing over to the black SsangYong, he nods, and then his eyes are back on the lights. The lack of a flagger has never bothered them. In fact, Jungkook prefers racing without one. Fewer variables. Less chance of things going wrong. He knows the time of the lights. Trusts them. Trusts his muscle memory to do the hard work for him.

You can feel that chime in your stomach again - but it's different this time. It's a warning bell. The kind that tells you to get out of the situation you're in. Fat fucking chance.

There's a purr as the lights flicker into amber, Jungkook's rev count building. The sound of the SsangYong rips through the windows, letting you know just how powerful it is. Ain't no way Jungkook's fucking Pony is beating it. His grip adjusts, foot sinking further down onto his throttle. He builds it, 2, 3, 4 - and then the light is green.

The way Jungkook moves is as if he's at one with his car.

His movements are slick, well-oiled.

There's no hesitation, just an innate understanding of what needs to be done. His car tears from the starting line, and you forget all about the SsangYong he's racing.

It's hard to think about anything at all, in all honesty. Hard to comprehend the speed he's built so quickly; the control he has. There's a rush pulsing through you that you haven't felt since, well, ever. You don't enjoy racing, not really. You hate it whenever Yoongi rags his car about, but you trust him.

And you find yourself trusting Jungkook, too.

Maybe it's because you've already seen him tame his car when it's been out of control, or maybe it's because you've already trusted him with your body, so what difference does your life make?

His tyres are almost silent, moving at such a pace that there's no chance for anything to reverb. He grunts a little, pushing the car up to fifth, building, building and then -

"Corner," he braces you.

You're pretty certain you're going to throw up.

It's a route that Jungkook knows well, just a short circuit, over the bridge, sharp left out along the riverside road until they reach Kang's. Same every time. Hasn't yet thought about what he's gonna do when he gets there. Just knows he has to get there first to buy himself a little time.

He knocks the car into neutral, clutch down, brakes too, and then he's turning the wheel just a little. Not too sharp. Doesn't wanna oversteer. He coasts it round the bend, knowing better than to be in neutral, but he isn't thinking about that right now. He's thinking about the fact that Namjoon's car is fucking faster, and he needs every gain he can get.

Your hands grip into the padding of his seats, desperately trying to stop yourself from toppling over. Elbows locked, it's hard to determine the sheer amount of force you're putting behind your bones.

There's a screech as the tyres burn against the road, no doubt leaving thick black streaks on the tarmac. You're so used to seeing them on your way to work that you never really consider how they get there. Now you know.

He pummels the car forward, knocking it back into third, and then up into fourth. It's a miscalculation. Should have jumped right up into fifth - but he can lament that later.

He corrects his mistake. Strikes it into fifth. Namjoon is trailing. Jungkook has got this.

Eyes hard against the horizon line, Jungkook has no time to think. He flicks his eyes up to the rearview, catching sight of the SsangYong's bonnet. He's miles ahead.

Well, no. Not even a metre - but it may as well be miles. He just needs to keep up this pace.

Foot to the floor, he's tanking it. The shops you dart past become a blur of neon lights, nothing for your eyes to absorb other than the chaos of light beneath a dark sky. In the distance, you see Kang's.

"Shit," he hisses as the light at the intersection ahead begins to flash amber.

"Hold on," he says, as if you've even thought about letting go. Hands clammy from nerves, you adjust your grip. Tighter. So tight, your nails will leave prints in his leather.

He pushes further, further, further, but the lights are flashing quicker, quicker, quicker. "C'mon, beauty. C'mon."

He hits the junction line.

The lights are still amber.

And then he switches from gas to clutch. Easy does it.

Jungkook pulls the handbrake up. Clicks it into place. Pulls the car round with a single hand on his steering wheel.

He has full control over the vehicle as it roars into position right in the middle of the cross-section.

There's a blaring horn sounding behind you - but it's not directed at the Pony.

It's directed at the SsangYong, which has screeched to a halt. The oncoming traffic has been set free, lights fully changed. Jungkook made it just in time.

"He's stuck," you tell Jungkook, head over your shoulder, making sure that the SsangYong hasn't moved. "Can't get past the traffic. You're good."

You expect Jungkook to ease off the throttle, but he doesn't. He takes a sharp right instead, and begins to tunnel down back allies. Right, then left. Then left again, and another right. Takes so many rogue turns that you don't even know which direction you're facing in by the time he comes to a stop. It's been nearly five minutes since you lost the SsangYong - and yet he just won't ease off the gas. Not until he's certain Namjoon isn't lurking in the shadows of his exhaust fumes.

By the time he does eventually stop, his chest is heaving. Breathless.

You're down a back alley, across the other side of town. You don't recognise it.

Pressing down into the buckle, you undo your belt and clamber forward into the passenger seat again, feet up, body facing towards him.

He doesn't look at you for a while. Just stares ahead. Inhale, exhale. You can see his jugular vein beating.

"Hey," you reach out to his wrist, and stroke on his arm gently. He doesn't respond instantly. Just lets his eyes close. It's nice, the way you're so gentle with him, he thinks. So nice. So soothing.

And then his body acts before his mind does. He pulls on your wrist, grip firm, as his other hand pushes down the lever by the front of his seat. Weight on his feet, he pushes himself back, making space for you in his lap.

The way you clamber over the centre console is less than elegant, but he doesn't care. Just needs you on his thighs. Needs to suffocate in the scent of your gasoline tainted hair, and taste the sweetness of your tongue in his mouth. Needs to remember everything that you are, so he can forget who he is.

His hungry lips find yours, a hand in your hair, the other on your cheek.

There's really not enough room, your legs straddled over his, trapped by the door on one side, the gear stick on the other. It's tight and claustrophobic, but he likes it. Likes how ensnared he is by you. Wants to be even more trapped.

He licks against your lips and begs for permission to enter - as if you'd ever refuse. His tongue strokes against yours, the studs you'd (somehow) forgotten about making you whimper. He's rough and aggressive with his kisses, the adrenaline manifesting itself in the form of intimacy.

"I lied," he says breathlessly. "About the sex. I want it. Let me fuck you."

He wants to lose himself in you. Needs to.

"Backseat?" you moan into his lips as he begins to encourage the movement of your hips against his painfully hard crotch.

"Backseat."

minors dni // posted to wp late 2021 // series masterlist

[2012aura]

progression !

summary : cont of free treats, this is part 3!

wanring : marijuan use, cursing & idk what else

pairing : college!ellie williams x black!reader

the thing that you heard when you woke up was giggling, which wasn't unusual, dina and jessie were always laughing at some silly stuff. but when you moved around and realized that one, you were practically still cuddled against ellie and two your phone wasn't where you left it.

you touched everywhere, your boob, behind your back, even under the pillow, dina then came near you and saw you freaking out. "looking for something?" she said holding your phone with two fingers. these sneaky girls, jesus christ what kind of trouble did they get you into today? "real funny dina, can i have it back now?" you asked, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. she threw it to the empty space on the couch, and you swiftly grabbed it. you instantly went to instagram to see the post and you laughed.

you honestly thought it was gonna be a thousand times worse than them posting some pics of you and ellie cuddling. you laughed along with them, once they realized you weren't upset, rather you found it amusing. as long as ellie didn't see anything wrong with it, you would just leave it up. there wasn't anything bad about it, it just looks like friends cuddling, right? you yawned as you started to get up from the couch, letting the pads of your feet hit the cold floor. "damn what time did you guys come in?" you asked as you finally got up and made your way to the small makeshift kitchen, "around five i think, i honestly can't remember, me and dina were wasted." jessie said sitting on one of the chairs. "shall i make us my famous dish, es scrambled eggs and thee finest turkey bacon?" you said in a fake french accent, using your hands to pronounciate the words. "YES WE ARE STARVING!" jessie and dina yelled in union, and that woke ellie up.

"shit whatever it is, me too." ellie laughed, quickly adjusting to the setting in the room. you got started, using the last four eggs they had and the seven pieces of bacon they had, you made enough for everyone to eat once and have a leftover baked good from last night. well, the ones that were still left over, and once you were done chefing it up you served everyone. you all sat on the floor and joyed the silence between each other, speaking ever so often to mention something irrelevant. once everyone was done you did the dishes, the shorts you had on yesterday were rolled up because it became hot in the room quickly but you couldn't tell if it was because of ellie or the heat from the sun outside.

ellie was definitely checking you out the whole time and the other girls took notice, telling jokes within themselves about the obvious pinning. it was around eleven am, meaning you had to clock in to work in about an hour, and you decided to say goodbye to everyone. "guys i gotta go, duty calls! how about you guys come around and maybe we can hang out on my break, or even better after my shift and we can do something!" you said excitedly. they all gave you some form of agreement except for ellie, "sorry i can't make it, i have practice." that made you upset, you were looking forward to seeing ellie today but that was okay! you knew things came before you because you both were barely friends and not even CLOSE to dating so why should it affect you? "that's alright ellie, maybe next time!" you said cheerfully, knowing somewhere deep down it kind of hurt.

you left out the door with your pants from yesterday placed onto of your shorts and simply just left after the final goodbyes. you felt like you were missing something but you brushed it off, not remembering the bag that you had brought with you. but ellie definitely remembered, it smelt like pure weed and vodka and she just had to return it to you. it took you only around thirty minutes to get ready and you were off to your job. the walk wasn't too far, just around ten minutes so you took the short stroll and admired the outside life. it wasn't long before you arrived at one of your favorite places, this place felt like home to you. you opened the door and the little bell rang letting them know someone entered.

"we don't open for another ten- oh hey good morning [name], what good?" cameron said. his ginger fro sticking up, and glowing from the sunlight outside. "ah i see you listened about oiling your scalp, how does it feel?" you asked while you grabbed your apron from the hanger. "bitch it feels the same bye." he said jokingly before returning to preparing the baked goodies presentations, you laughed with him as you tried to stifle it. the owner of the shop came out from the back, flour all over his black apron. he was an elderly man, and it was his families bakery for years, and he loved what he did. he smiled at you both as she took a seat at one of the tables closest to you both, "good morning team, how are you both?" his low voice echoing because of the silence. "I'm good sir, spent the night at a friend-" cameron cut you off, "she means GIRL friend, sir," you hit cameron over the counter dividing you two.

that started a small and childish hitting battle between you both that your boss found amusing, "enough you two, but a girlfriend? I'm happy for you sunshine, if she hurts you in any way you know where to find me." he said laughing to himself, causing you to laugh along. "yes sir i know, thank you." you said walking your way behind the counter to finally start your shift, today was gonna be good, you could feel it in your bones. the shop started to fill immediately and you were on your feet at a fast pace, taking orders, making drinks, and serving them right up. one of your favorite artists came on, mac miller, the way featuring ariana grande. it was an absolute hit in your opinion, and you loved the song, it got you in such a happy mood. you were so wrapped up in work that you didn't notice ellie waiting to the side patiently. you told cameron to take over the register for a second so you could walk over to her, and he did. you walked over to her and looked at her for a brief moment before asking, "hey ellie, what did you need?"

she pointed to her back and you saw your bookbag, your sunflower-themed bookbag on her back, and that's what you had forgotten. "oh my lord, thank you ellie! i must've forgotten it on my way out," she handed you her bag, and you held it for a second. "well i should go now, i've got soccer practice, see you later!" she said as she walked out the shop. you were honestly left starstruck, and it took a second to get back to your sense. when you did you went back behind the register and threw your bag through the open kitchen doors and left it in the corner somewhere. you saw cameron and mr. anderson speaking secretly and you just knew cameron was spilling everything and anything he knew. the day went on and the customers were coming in nonstop which didn't bother you, and near the end of your shift, you saw jessie, dina, and ellie sitting down at a table. why was ellie here, didn't she have practice you thought to yourself as you finished your last drink of the day? you said goodbye to cameron and mr. anderson. taking off your apron and hanging it back up where it was first put this morning, you fixed your hair slightly and grabbed your bag from the back.

you walked up to their table and spoke, "seems like i have some stalkers today, hm?" you jokingly said as they got up from the table. ellie smiled at you as dina and jessie said hello to you by attacking you with bear hugs, you were still confused as to why ellie was here. "hi guys, i missed yall," you said into the tight hug. once they let go you asked ellie, "i thought you had practice today?" you said softly as you all were leaving out the door. "yeah i did but the coach's daughter got hurt pretty badly and she goes to a different university so he had to go to her, which means no practice till he comes back." ellie said joyfully. that was good news, you really wanted to see her pretty face again today. "alright folks lets go smoke in a park, first, we have to stop by my dorm to grab the goods," you said as yall started walking that way. it didn't take long for you all to arrive and you instantly unlocked the door with your keycard and let them all in. you all went up to your room and grabbed the weed and some snacks for the travels. the park wasn't too far and the whole time was spent talking and joking around so the walk was way shorter than it seemed.

ellie made sure to let you stand on the safe side of the street while she stood near the traffic. she came close to holding your hand a couple times as the other girls were wrapped in their own conversation. you guys arrived and went to your usual spot in the park which was a little beyond it in the near woods. well it was rather a walkway for couples but it had a lot of wooded area, and you all settled down on top of the "wood blanket" and opened the book bag. in it sat a bong, some weed, and snacks and that's all you guys needed, ellie started to pack a bowl for herself as you scrolled on your phone. as she started to hit it you took out your phone to take photos of her for instagram, once she was done she passed it to you. she has hit the whole thing so you had to refill it and hit it yourself, feeling the plant hit your lungs, you breathed it out. you started to subtly feel the effects as you all were talking.

it was no joke with this stuff, a little really does go a long way with these. you laid back onto the blanket and ellie lay beside you, you both were very starry-eyed and zoned out. ellie then pulled out a small joint from her pocket and lit it up, taking a hit and then passing it to you. you took a hit and then another and passed it back to her. until you got up and handed dina your phone and told her to take a picture of you with it in your mouth. she did and you laid back down once again, seeing your body drifting off like the wind blowing against you guys. you reached your hand to the side and you felt ellie's and you grabbed it. it was really warm so you kept holding it, and in ellie's dazed state she didn't mind, she found it comforting. the rest of the night was spent with you all goofing around and taking so many pictures to post later.

at one point you and ellie took a little walk down the path, holding hands and just enjoying the outside. the trees were beautiful and so was the moonlight. it hit you both so beautifully, and you both were now staring at each other with nothing but adoration and affection in your eyes. one thing led to another and now you both were very handsy making out behind a tree, but dina and jessie still had a very clear view of this. your lips hit ellie's with a powerful force, making her stumble back into the tree, your teeth slightly biting down on her lips as she moaned into it. she flipped you guys over so now your back was against the tree and she started to attack your neck with these bites. they weren't so painful but they made something inside you crave more, maybe it was the high or maybe you were genuinely enjoying it. but it all came to a halt when jessie and dina snuck up on you both and gasped loudly.

making ellie take her teeth off your skin and you cover your face in embarrassment, not that you were kissing ellie but that you were caught. after that, you all decided the responsible young adult thing to was head back to your dorm and sleep the high away, and that's exactly what you did. you and ellie shared and bed while dina and jessie shared the empty one in your room, but before you went to bed you had to post about your night.

blackmacmiller

liked by elliewilliams, dinawina and 13 others

blackmacmiller the key to happiness is good weed, good company and late night adventures. i love you guys, @dinawina @ elliewilliams @jjessiemessy! my hearts in human form!

view all 34 comments

dinawina i love you, way more ⭐️

> blackmacmiller lying again? wowza

jjessiemessy i hate you all

> blackmacmiller we love you too baby

> dinawina facts

elliewilliams thanks for the super awesome night, hopefully we have more of these

> blackmacmiller anytime you want, els

> dinawina FLIRTING I SEEE

cameronwalker & you say she not yo gf … bye GIRL!

> blackmacmiller gtfo cam, i’ll see you tmr

and with that, you were out like a light, hoping that your morning tomorrow could outshine the amazing day you had today. but you knew deep inside, nothing could ever top this bonding experience with your favorite people.

-

how we feeling ��� how we FEELING!

[reluctanttrabbit]

HERE :)

vanessa goes and also smuggles Freddy to one of Gregory's soccer games

vanessa or gregory has a nightmare and the other is there for them

vanessa had a bad day yesterday and Gregory with the help of freddys head attempts to make her breakfast in bed the next morning

vanessa and Freddy help Gregory out when he gets freaked out about his amnesia again

tony ellis and Gregory hang at the fazcade but it drags back old memories

HOPE I HELPED YOU OUT A BIT VANNY✌

YAY THESE R SO CUTE AUGHHHH thank you... for saving me! i was so thirsty!!! /ref

will definitely do more of these prompts buttttt i want to go to bed lmao so this is all u get for now :3 idk idk let me know if you want me to tag you when i update this!!

2.

Fluttering in and out of consciousness, a very comfortable Vanessa hears commotion from somewhere inside the apartment.

Her eyes were heavier than Freddy's head, and her mountain of blankets weighed her down. Why was she awake, again?

I think.... I heard something. Maybe it was Gregory.

That works like a charm. She can slowly feel herself gain more energy to shift out of bed and sit up. Nail polish and clutter fall off of her side table as she reaches for her phone. Vanessa groans.

Fine, I can just walk without a light. I should know where all my furniture is from memory.

Her feet immediately catch on a pile of laundry she'd been neglecting. "Shit," she whispers as she hops until she regains balance. Vanessa steps more carefully this time, successfully feeling for the door frame and switching the light on.

There's a faint.. sniffing kind of noise. Then it goes quiet.

"..Ness?"

Her heart beats faster as she jogs to Gregory's room, feeling for the walls. It's right at the end of the hall.

Gregory's 'room' (a room she once used for art and sewing crafting, now containing just a makeshift bed and spare furniture) was pitch black; save for Freddy charging on the desk beside his bed. The beam of his eyes allowed her to see just half of Gregory's face.

"Are you okay? Did anything happen?" she runs a hand through her untamed bedhead.

"Oh. Um, I just heard.. you walking around, so I wanted to make sure, uh, it was you. I'm a light sleeper, sorry." Vanessa noticed how Gregory sniffed in between some of his words. Her limited view of him appeared as if he was on edge. Scared.

"..You sure?"

He fidgets with his sweater sleeves.

"Yeah."

It had only been a week since Vanessa took in this stubborn, brave, creative kid. After five days of going through hell together in that mega mall. A hell that she took part in, god, maybe even orchestrated--

That wasn't me. It was never me. I got him out. We're safe.

She couldn't blame him for being so guarded. Especially towards her.

Ness leans on his doorframe. "Look, I um.." she pauses, unsure of where shes going with this.

"I would never want to discount how brave you are. You have ten times the courage I did at your age. But that doesn't mean... you're never scared."

Isn't that kind of contradictory?? She thinks. Gregory's eyebrows furrow; he's just as lost as Vanessa.

"Okay, I'm really sleep deprived. Crap." she mumbles. "What I mean to say is that I don't want you to be scared of being scared. You can.. talk to me about nightmares and stuff. You don't have to push down your fears anymore."

He doesn't respond, looking at the wall for a bit. Vanessa fidgets with her hair.

"It was about the animatronics," Gregory breathes out. "but y- Vanny wasn't there. I don't remember.. seeing her." He motions for Vanessa to come closer. She doesn't hesitate, sitting at the edge of the mattress.

"They chased me out of the pizzaplex doors, and then we were on that hill. But Roxy dragged me back and then I was in some kind of.. mirror maze? It was on fire, and I had to get low to the ground."

Vanessa listens intently. "But Monty started crawling after me, and he got my leg. Then they all started... Um. And then I saw that other rabbit in the mirror right before I woke up."

They both freeze.

"I don't know, the locations didn't make that much sense. But I could see every single detail of the characters. I could feel everything." His voice shakes, right before tears start to form.

Vanessa felt a pang in her heart. She had no idea whether to comfort him or let him come to that decision himself.

"...Could you stay in here for the night? Like, bring an extra mattress maybe.." he trailed off, wiping his eyes.

"Uh- of course. Yeah, I have a sleeping bag somewhere." she takes off to the hallway closet, leaving Gregory to sit and wait.

He stares into the corner of the room. Into the shadows. Something looks like it's there, but his brain knows it's nothing.

With nothing to do with his hands, he hugs one of his pillows. I wish Freddy didn't weigh a million pounds. He glances at the Glamrock Freddy plush sitting on the floor.

Gregory sighs, leaning over to grab it and fitting it into his arms.

----------

"Is this good now?" Vanessa asks, sitting up in her sleeping bag and attempting to read Gregory's face in the darkness. He nods, seemingly content and burrowing back into his blanket.

Vanessa smiles and makes herself comfortable.

"Tomorrow I could go out shopping for your room, if you want." She stares up at the ceiling, envisioning where she would go. "Maybe some glow in the dark stars? My ceiling was full of 'em when I was younger."

Gregory made a sound that seemed like "mhm." He sounded ready to fall asleep right there and then. Vanessa wondered if her being here made him feel more safe.

"Night, Nessa." he mumbled

"Night, Greg."

[this-is-a-dystopian-parable]

Part One!

Song-by-song synopsis and review of Dave Malloy and Lucy Kirkwood's The Witches.

Preface I guess with the fact that I enjoy a more lighthearted and spectacle based show sometimes, it can work! This show I'd say is somewhere between Matilda and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory in tone; they definitely wanted to make it another Matilda and though it's just as dark, it doesn't lean into the introspection as often. This doesn't feel like a Malloysical, so don't expect it to, but it's a good show nonetheless.

1. A Note about Witches (The Witches)

Like Matilda, Witches opens with an exposition song taken directly from the book! The witches tell us how they've learned to hide as nice, well-mannered ladies so that no one will suspect them. And how much they hate children, there's even a trick where a child in a cage gets turned into a dog. This song takes place in front of the curtain, and there's a big screen that features animations for a couple segments. Don't worry, you won't see much of it.

Right off the bat, the ensemble is pretty big and they're killing it. There's at least a dozen witches. This song is fun and dark, plays off of the different solo lines well and feels appropriately chaotic at times.

Favorite line: "A nudge to Mr. Shakespeare / Some hints to Brothers Grimm / In Salem we made scapegoats / And you tore them limb from limb"

2. Ready to Go (Luke, Young Company)

First real set of the show, in his house Luke argues with his parents about wanting a pet. I think the choice to include his parents in this is strange, since the book begins after they've been dead for a while and there isn't anything particularly interesting about this scene. The parents aren't really likeable so idk how to feel when they die.

Luke sings about how he's ready to grow up and be on his own and do all the stuff no one lets him do. This number is kinda fun because the ensemble are all dressed like him but with big masks representing each thing, and I like the object head vibes. But I think the additional motivation added to Luke here feels like it's trying too hard to engage the kids in the audience, or be like Matilda, and it almost never comes up again.

At the end, his parents swerve off the road and crash their car.

Favorite line: Don't have one :/

3. How to Recognize a Witch (Gran, Young Company)

With his parents dead, his Norwegian grandmother Gran comes to take care of him. She's bonkers and we love her dearly. She shows up witch crates and crates of objects (and animals) that were once children who had been victims of witches. They sing a song about all the warning signs: wigs, gloves, and pinchy shoes.

This is the first use of children popping up from inside boxes that look too small. It's fun. The costumes are kinda cheap and simple which is strange considering the ridiculous budget of the rest of the show which I will touch more on later. But the song is really fun and Gran gets really into it.

Favorite line: I love that they kept in the girl who turned into a painting. The witch trapped her inside a landscape painting in their house, not able to move, and all the parents could do was watch her as she slowly died. Dark! This is also the second use of the screen.

4. Heartbeat Duet (Luke, Gran)

Aaaaaaaaaaaa

After Luke had a run-in with a witch, Gran comes to his rescue but she has a heart attack. She's rushed to the hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses, for an operation, while Luke has to wait outside the room.

This is such a good song. I love the way the heartbeat monitor is the defining instrumental and the movement on stage is synced to it. While Luke says that everything is happening too fast (the one time we get reference to his opening motivation) Gran sings about her heart beating too slow. The way their two experiences overlap is really beautiful, and the relationship between a little kid and his grandmother was my favorite part of the book.

Favorite line: "I'm just ten years old" "eighty-five years old" "and my heart is beating so fast so fast so fast too fast" "too soon"

5. Magnificent (Mr Stringer, Hotel Staff)

WOOoOOooOOOO

The doctor tells Luke and Gran he booked them a seaside vacation for her recovery. Which means it's time for the hotel manager, MR STRINGER. BIG HAND FOR THE HOTEL MANAGER.

Big oom-pa number welcoming them to the hotel as the set changes behind them. This song is so FUNNY it's so FUN and there's like TWENTY ENSEMBLE in it. The hotel staff uniforms are all in magenta and baby pink we are so BACK.

The second curtain raises to reveal the full depth of the set, a lavish hotel of pink marble and fancy wallpaper with turquoise trim. Right now, a concierge deck takes up the center.

Favorite line: "At the hotel where you'll never feel alone / fill the howling void of your dark and lonely soul"

6. Bruno Sweet Bruno (Bruno, Company)

While they're being checked in they meet Bruno!!!!! The perfect child. We love him. He sings a HUGE VEGAS NUMBER with TAP DANCING. Ans once again, so many ensemble members in yet another costume change.

LOOK AT MY BOY GO.

Okay this is getting REALLY long and we're not even at the act break so I'm going to split it up into multiple parts. See you soon!!

[slowandsteddie]

So, um.

I know I had y’all vote to help me decide what I was going to write.

But a thing happened.

That this is called “I have been binge watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit for months and now I’m on season nineteen and I cannot help myself.”

A few weeks ago (a month??), I took a break from SVU to binge watch Stranger Things in like 2-3 days before going back to Olivia Benson. (When will Elliott, my love, return from The War??)

But, um. Doing so made my brain come up with a lot of ideas and this SVU!au (crossover? Idk what to call it, it’s four am and I am SLEPY.) kind of just happened. Without my permission, it took over. Which means I ended up writing this one (that had the least votes, my bad friendos!!) instead.

So, to make my brain happy, I will be posting a sneak peak of “No. No. It can’t be you. I trusted you.”

I’m going to write the winner of my poll, “You’re going to make me fall in love with you.” / “Keep it in your pants.” and I’ll post that before I actually post my AU that is nearly ready.

But, uh. Yeah. Sneak peak time.

Steve and Eddie had been dating since about a month after Nancy had dumped him, after a party where she drank so much, called everything bullshit, and confessed that she was just pretending to love him. He had been in a pretty dark place and happened to know someone who sold weed. It turned to friendship almost instantly. Then one night, when they were both pretty high, one of them had leaned in and the other hadn’t moved again.

It was electric.

It was everything.

It was the eighties and they lived in a small town. So, they were stuck having to pretend that they were just friends. Stuck having to express their love in secret because of all the small minded hicks that they couldn’t wait to get away from.

“We’re going to graduate this year, Eddie. And we’re just going to disappear to somewhere no one knows our names.”

It became a countdown.

Nine months.

Eight months.

Seven months.

Six months.

Five months.

Four months.

Three months.

Two months.

One month.

Three weeks.

Two weeks.

One week.

In between each line of the countdown, there is a little snippet of their lives where they are talking about where they should move to. After the one week, it cuts to ten years later when they find each other again (that’s all I’m going to say. It’s all I can say without giving away the plot).

Because this one is an SVU based idea, I hope it goes without saying that y’all need to read the CW before continuing when I do eventually post it.

Okay. I love you and I’m incredibly sleep deprived so I go night night now.

[kradogsrats]

Hello, I had a question for you about the Katolis army.. do you think it is meant to be a standing army? If Opeli says they could take on all the other human kingdoms (and Aanya was worried about losing a million?) that would be a very large army to maintain on a permanent basis? But they seem to just.. be there.. ready to go.. and food, housing, equipment - this would be super expensive, especially if there’s been ten years of relative peace? I don’t really understand why they would have it set it up this way.. surely magma Titan could have been averted if some of these soldiers were farming…

OKAY SO uh ha ha well I am not actually a historian, much less a military historian, but I will do my best to convey my largely-unsupported thoughts

Basically, this would be a much, much easier question to answer if we didn't have Queen Aanya's line about a million men and women being sent to war against Xadia. That's just like... a staggering number of people, even if she's referring to the combined total forces of the Pentarchy and not solely Duren's contribution or the expected casualties.

If we take the size and population of Xadia according to the old reddit post that put it at roughly the size of Mongolia and 40 million, just so we have some kind of ballpark numbers to attach to this, a force of one million from the 20 million humans would be 50 people per 1000 being in the military.

Like, just grabbing some random numbers from the internet, around 200 CE the Roman military was about 450,000 strong for a population of something like 70 million. Only men could enlist, so we’ll knock that population number down to 35 million, which puts us at only 12 men per 1000 being in the military. Just for fun, if we estimate 20% of the Roman population as citizens (free men, essentially) and eligible to be legionaries (rather than auxiliaries), we still get a comparable 13 citizens per 1000 in the military.

(Side note: here in the modern world, only North Korea has an estimated 50 people per 1000 in active military duty. Israel, with compulsive military service, has about 33 per 1000. Just to give a bit more insight into those proportions.)

So we’re already looking at an army more than twice the size and composed of  quadruple the percentage of the populace as Rome, literally notable for it's crazy huge standing army and the society-wide logistics that went into supporting it. Flash forward to a more medieval conflict like the Hundred Years' War, where you get numbers like the Battle of Agincourt having somewhere around 6,000-9,000 English defeating probably 14,000-15,000 French. (For reference, France had a population of about 14 million at the time.) That French number varies depending on whether you're counting an armed, armored military servant to a knight as a combatant, which the 14-15k estimate does not but like... idk, man. Including those dudes, it's more like 24,000... but even if you imagined each of the five kingdoms of the Pentarchy fielding an army that size, you wouldn't even break 100,000.

Now Aanya, bright, forward-thinking young queen that she is, is probably actually estimating based on the assumption of a campaign against Xadia being potentially years-long (if she’s not being entirely figurative). I'm way too lazy to pore over battles of the Hundred Years' War, but we can look at something like the Crusades, instead: the notably "successful" (in that it captured Jerusalem and established a kingdom there, after which everyone went home because their pilgrimage was complete) First Crusade was fought over three years with total crusader forces of 160,000-180,000. The significantly less successful Second and Third Crusade (and we're ignoring like four unnumbered ones in-between) were four years with 35,000-ish and three years at 36,000-74,000 (yeah that's a big estimate range, blame Wikipedia).

Getting into some much... vaguer... numbers, military casualties of the Hundred Years' War (including wartime disease, starvation, etc.) are estimated at 2.3 million-3.3 million. Over the course of *checks watch* 116 years of on-and-off fighting. You just couldn't kill people all that efficiently, back then. Now, granted, a war with Xadia would have a) magic, and b) FUCKING DRAGONS, but... Opeli estimates the casualties of an immediate war between Katolis and the Neolandia/Evenere/Del Bar forces to have an upper end of “tens of thousands,” which really, really suggests that we are not talking about a combined million people, even if Duren was included.

ANYWAY that was a lot of fuzzy math to kick this off, so let's talk about Katolis and realistic-ish possibilities for its military.

First of all, a standing military is not really unheard of even in the actual real-world medieval Europe, it just looked a bit different. Professional soldiers did exist, perpetually equipped and ready to fight, and they made up a large portion of most military campaigns. However, they were broadly dispersed among the nobility, so if you wanted to have a war, you had to wait for everyone to show up. Because of the nature of the feudal society, you kind of had a trickle-down (trickle-up?) standing military--the king could call on his vassals to fight, who would call on their vassals, etc. etc. down the chain until you had an acceptable force of dudes who came with their own armor and could kill each other with a decent amount of skill. (There were also non-professional peasant militia infantry forces, but generally they were not worth the logistical burden of fielding them.)

You also could have mercenary forces, which fell in and out of favor over the medieval-renaissance eras. On the one hand, you then didn't have to be paying the salaries of a whole-ass army during peacetime, but on the other hand... once you stop paying the mercenaries, nothing stops them from getting frisky with all your nice, safe cities to take a bit extra off the top, because they know you don't have an army to stop them. It was found to be more cost-effective to just have your own dudes with some degree of loyalty to king and country, and then pay them on the regular.

But right, Katolis. With the slant that this is a faux-medieval setting with heavy emphasis on the faux, because everyone is wildly over-fed, over-healthy, over-cleaned, and over-educated, I'm willing to fudge things like period-accurate agriculture techniques to allow for feeding a decent-sized group of people being paid to stand around and train for war. Maybe wandering dark mage hedge wizards routinely zing up everyone's fields, or they're all using fertilizer from fancy Xadian livestock with Earth primal poop. Whatever. At some point (which to be fair is probably post-industrial), having more people working the land doesn't actually produce any more. Same kind of deal for housing, we’re just gonna assume much more advanced understanding of and techniques for sanitation and waste removal than would be “realistic,” which removes a lot of the problems with having a bunch of people all living close together. Because let’s be real, none of us really want to think about how much literal shit is just sitting around in the open at any given moment or running into the water supply to give everyone dysentery. (I’m pretty sure it’s only in the post-antibiotics era that you stop having at least as many of your casualties be from disease as from battle.) I personally haven’t decided whether I think the setting has running water and sewage systems for the sake of my own fic purposes, but I kind of lean toward “yes,” because it’s the kind of thing that honestly isn’t that far out of place with all the other modernized incongruities going on. My main problem is how you run indoor pipes through a stone castle, but I also don’t know anything about plumbing.

Katolis also shares the vast majority of the border with Xadia, and controls the Breach--the one place you can march an army through from either side. It makes sense that they have an entire subsection of their military (the Standing Battalion) devoted to guarding that one point, but I would definitely expect there to be at least small fortified outposts along the entire border. I mean, dragons can fly. The only other kingdom that shares any part of the Xadian border is Duren, and it's a pretty small slice north of the Breach. So since Katolis is everyone's primary defense against the persistent threat of Xadia, I would bet they regularly collect some kind of support from the other kingdoms that goes toward maintaining the forces necessary to keep up that security. Whether that's food, other war materiel, straight-up money (it can be exchanged for goods or services), whatever. In a sense, Katolis is acting as a mercenary army for the rest of the Pentarchy. (Though they also have a non-mercenary stake in not fucking around, since Katolis is also the most threatened by Xadia due to proximity.)

We also see that towns in Katolis seem to have fortifications and military presence based on proximity to the border, so in addition to general border surveillance/security, you'd also have forces dispersed for that. It's likely that even the more interior towns have small forces of military ("guards") for general security and law enforcement, since there doesn't really seem to be anything else filling that role. So my general assumption would be that there are some large concentrations of military forces in places like Katolis City, and/or maybe there's some other military-centric location for large-scale training and mustering that isn't on the map or mentioned anywhere, and then you've got a spread-out force across the other population centers, maintaining the security of the major roads, keeping an eye on the borders shared with the other kingdoms, etc.

An alternative could be having a complex rotation of reserve forces in effect, where Katolis has the capacity to muster a large number of troops but only a portion of them are on active duty at any time and the rest go home and maintain the general labor force. That does make things a little more complicated in the “making sure everyone is actually armed when you call them up for war” area and having to suddenly increase your supply logistics by however many times over, but it’s something you can at least plan for. I would assume that in addition to the higher level of discipline and training the Katolian army has (according to Opeli), it also has a more coordinated and robust supply infrastructure. Like I’m sure it’s there somewhere in the force Viren marches with. Way at the back. Out of sight.

We’ll leave what exactly Viren’s plan for an extended campaign in Xadia beyond “reach the Storm Spire, eat the dragon prince” was as an exercise for a later time. Like good lord, dude, if Aaravos hadn’t thrown the Sunfire elves as a whole into complete disarray as a casual side effect of chowing down on the Sunforge, was he like... going to lay siege to Lux Aurea? Did he imagine that once the dragon throne was empty everyone would just capitulate?

Basically I do think it’s possible if you fudge a lot of setting stuff that is honestly already fudged, so I’m willing to allow it. However I will remain almost as salty about the “million” thing as I do about Star Wars claiming that a three-year, galactic-scale war was fought by fewer than half as many soldiers as the US alone served in WWII.

[outsidereveries]

— le sserafim’s upcoming comeback: achievements and individual success/activities in “unforgiven” era

disclaimer: my readings might be inaccurate because of changing energies and misinterpretation.

>> twitter request <<

achievements:

three of cups, six of cups, queen of cups, the hermit rx, five of swords rx • ten of swords

i’d say high amount of sales. good achievements, might get into billboard hot 100, will do well on music charts. however, the hermit rx might show less music show wins bc of competition. it might show instability in their fandom when streaming in music platforms. they might not do that much well as expected from hybe. hermit rx might show the youtube bugs they occur recently, so idqk what it might indicate.

chaewon // the high priestess, the star rx, ace of cups, five of cups • four of wands + sns content + fashion shows + songs

she could be forced to do anything in the upcoming “era”. i think she don’t want to do anything currently. i see disappointment. is there something she actually wanted to do and soumu just said to her “fuck you, no”???

although she might be forced, there will be some activities she will have apart from the already announced ones.

apart from being active on sns, there are “fashion shows”. will she become brand ambassador? or there will be photosessions? outfit changes?

for songs category, maybe she’ll sing fearnot somewhere🤷🏻‍♀️

sakura // nine of pentacles, six of pentacles, the empress • four of swords + brand ambassador + (voice?) acting + podcast/s

she’s chill. there might be less activities individually for her and she’s actually quite happy with it.

she might also become brand ambassador, might act somewhere in the nearby future and could be in podcasts in the upcoming comeback. these activities might transform in different way.

yunjin // the world, seven of swords rx, queen of wands • knight of pentacles + photosessions + sns content + voice acting + songs

yunjin. honey. who’s that fucking queen of wands?

did she treated you bad? are they still working under the company? what the hell is going on, girl?

okay, idk what this might mean about activities but it looks like someone got fired😭

about solo activities - content in social medias with photosessions here and there. might do voice acting in some way. about songs, i think she might talk about fearnot🤷🏻‍♀️

kazuha // death, nine of swords rx, the chariot • two of pentacles + sns content + fan meetings + photosessions

she’s decided to do something new and i see her trying to balance things between this new activity and her being an idol.

i can see her meeting with fans for some reason. is she having in mind to suprise the people who bias her?

apart from that, nothing special. sns content and photo sessions from time to time?

eunchae // judgement + nine of wands + the lovers • the chariot + photo sessions + sth they did/own + sns content + called out + unordinary content + scandal/s + streaming + mistreatment from soumu + rumor/s

she’s trying to not act emotionally. it looks like she’ll have to take a choice. unfortunately, i don’t see nothing more with these cards.

about activities, there are the usual ones. however, the “something she did/own”.. it could indicate to scandal/rumor of her watching/knowing someone controversial. perhaps streamer/bj person? soumu mistreating her is possible here too. she could have scandal and a rumor too but i don’t know🤷🏻‍♀️

hope you are satisfied. /gen

[bi-demon-ium]

Constance Contraire and the no good very bad terrible day.

i mean there's the obvious place to start which is Constance Is Having A Bad Fucking Day, Man. but i think it would be about a) her relationship to the other kids, and how she often feels isolated from them even as she pushes them away herself (her antagonism with sticky, her fragile budding mutual respect/friendship with kate, and reynie's earnest but clumsy attempts to include her that sometimes do more harm than good--i imagine she sometimes sees them as more pity/just him doing it for himself "to feel good"/"be a goody two shoes" rather than actually liking her, so she might feel it's condescending--etc) and b) her relationship to mr benedict (who she genuinely has grown to like and feel safe with, but also is in the unique position of him being both a paternal figure and someone she's very, very aware of like. the flaws/issues he has, how he himself is a hurting, imperfect person. + her attempts to distance herself from him, too, like refusing the adoption, despite the fact part of her wants to stay, and how he reacts to that differently than the kids do)

so like. i think first it would start with her having a bad day in little ways--little, stupid things going wrong--and then it just builds and builds, she ends up first getting into fights with the other kids unintentionally (they think she's fucking with them and she's genuinely not and really annoyed) and then just sort of picking fights because she's upset and tense and it's all built up and she ends up storming off and then--there's mr benedict. and he tries to help, and maybe normally it would have worked. but constance is just. she is having the worst fucking day. (i think maybe it's even an anniversary no one else knows about--like the day her parents left, or something.) so she ends up snapping at him, and not just her usual mildly amusing rudeness. something really meant to hurt. and his eyes go wide and. i mean. constance is psychic. even if his voice hadn't gone a little wobbly before he forced it calm she would have known he was hurt. but fuck. it's so much worse when you're Literally Psychic bc she can almost feel it. and it's like. fuck. he's very good at pretending to be fine and keeping his face and voice steady but she ends up... well, does she quietly, while backing away, stutter out an apology? (uncharacteristic but she is extremely upset) or does she just run out right then and there? or does she keep up the uncaring facade a little longer, arms crossed, and calmly excuse herself? maybe he actually collapses, falls asleep, and she's gone when he wakes up. (does she leave him a pillow under his head, or does she just run?) whatever the case, she flees, and feels. even more awful.

maybe it's then she talks to one of the other adults--milligan's a great choice, or perhaps rhonda. or maybe she ends up talking to reynie (great choice) or sticky (to continue that theme of their relationship being a little rocky and him, now with more confidence, basically telling her while her rudeness has its charms, she can be genuinely hurtful, and she has to come to terms with that--but that it doesn't mean they want her to change entirely or suddenly be a reynie clone in braids. although... i think reynie would be too nice to tell her the first part but sticky is too close to it tell her the second part. hm.) (also i want to be clear i adore constance and her mean poetry and bluntness and contrariness, and i don't think she should change, but she can be genuinely hurtful or cause unnecessary tension, just like the other kids have their own issues. but also she's like twelve i'm not saying she's a bad person she is a traumatized isolated orphan and a whole child 😩)

anyway. constance introspection time. interiority and all. thinking about why and maybe even how she developed these coping mechanisms. she's not going to suddenly be super nice or anything, but like. she quietly slips into mr. benedict's study. maybe he's talking with one of the other adults, maybe he's silently reading or taking notes, but he stills when she comes in, even though she was silent. and then he looks up and--he's not mad. he greets her like always does, and she can feel that he's tired but genuinely glad to see her. she doesn't get it. maybe she confronts him about this (oh, constance, my dear. i'm not angry with you. and a little shouting like that certainly isn't enough to drive me away.) or maybe she just. sits. quietly next to him. he scoots over a little to give her more room, gently nudges her shoulder and offers her a biscuit. when she--very quietly, almost reluctantly--says i'm sorry, it's not reluctant or begrudging or angry, but almost a little ashamed. very unlike her. mr benedict (desperate desire to hug her vs respecting her boundaries: fight) says it's alright, my dear. it's alright. maybe one of them quietly moves forward one of the pieces on the chessboard--i think mr benedict, eyes twinkling, and constance says i will destroy you, old man, and then winces, but he only laughs, loud and delighted, then collapses back for a moment. it's nice--no longer overstimulating, in the quiet of the study. none of the others to deal with, although she isn't sure if mr benedict has somehow asked one of the adults to keep them out.

and--it's not such a bad end to the day. playing chess together quietly. maybe, after a few games, when it's a little late, constance even begins to talk.

[gossip-girl-of-middleearth]

Rings of Power, First Look (+ my shitty thoughts in between):

Click for better quality

(child, where are your parents and whomst the ever-living fuck are you. Why do you look like Frodo if he read Huckleberry Finn on repeat)

(*Peter Parker voice* that thing doesn’t obey the laws of physics at all)

(The reason why Legolas worked so well was because he wasn’t only a jock, he was also a Theatre Kid. Bro needs some more pizzaz — a little ✨jazz hands✨ action every now and then whilst surfing on a shield)

(*nature documentary voice* and here, in the flesh, we have our one and only token long-haired elf of the male variety — perhaps the last of his kind, and very endangered)

(beard’s a little unbraided in an almost virginal manner, especially for one who’s supposed to be married, but he reminds me of a ginger chihuahua I grew up with, which is exactly what Gimli reminded me of. I can appreciate that, as that’s how I want all dwarves to make me feel)

(his haircut looks the exact same as my gender identity crisis hair cutting episode in the mirror yesterday. Maybe he’s working through some stuff too, idk. Maybe they’re gonna grow his hair over the five seasons as a show of character development. Either way, I’ve got the Hots™️ for him, but then again I have daddy issues so there’s that. He looks like someone who had a lot of arguments with Maedhros. In fact, the more I look at his hair, the more I’m convinced Friends is a sitcom in Middle-earth now, and he’s kinning a little too hard with Chandler Bing)

(this is totally a “*gasp*, you’re an ELF” scene via pushing the hair back to reveal the silicone Etsy ears, but briefly I thought “oh fuck they’re cutting Galadriel’s hair off too no one is safe” which says a lot about the elves’ hair choices so far)

(okay, I’m laughing a little too hard at us as a fandom right now if this is the nudity we were all worked up about. Then again, there’s five seasons all together, and I’m aware Bezos always seems to have the last laugh, so I’m gonna shut up now about Meteor Man’s butt hanging bare in case I jinx us)

(who the fuck are you and why are you crying. Ten bucks it’s somehow Thranduil at the Battle of the Last Alliance watching Oropher die. 20 bucks says I’m wrong about the nudity and we’re gonna have to endure a scene of watching Legolas get created in an archery armoury somewhere)

That’s all, folks. Sound off.

[uglypastels]

the Greatest Adventure // Eddie Munson

a/n: I´m just trying to cope and wanted to write out my feelings a bit. This has nothing to do with the show in all honesty, just pure fluff comfort. I still don´t think I´ll be able to make a proper comeback to writing yet, but this is an attempt. let me know what you think :)

word count: 788

warning: weed, fluff, no spoilers for the show. (also, it might be a mess, i wrote this in like ten minutes and just wanted to post it so idk if it makes any sense)

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.” ― Herman Melville,

The room was small, and thus the smoke-filled it up rather quickly. Even with the window open, the air inside became stuffy and overridden with the incense of the bitter delight that came from the joint in Eddie's hand. He put it against his lips, inhaling harshly. The feeling burned at his throat, all the way down to his lungs, and he let it sting for another few seconds before casually letting the breath out in a cloud of grey. The release that his body got as he let it all out of his system just added to the bliss of it all. 

He passed the blunt to you and watched as you did the exact same as he had just done. He was enamoured with the sight of you in his arms, the smoke passing your lips silkily, like ribbons in the air, wavering off to the clouds that dispersed in front of him. 

'Can´t believe this is the last week of school,' you sighed out, passing him back the joint. He took it between his fingers but didn't attach it back to his mouth. Instead, he just watched as the tip slowly burned off.

'Yeah, it's crazy,' he chuckled, in disbelief himself. Seven years it took him to finally get to this moment. All those years had felt like the longest stretch of a marathon, and now, finally, he could see the end mark. The finish line was clear in sight. He just had to survive those last five days, which he could do no problem. There were no more exams, no more real classes, just formalities of attendance and, for once, he felt excited to be there. 

'So, what do you have planned once you get up on that stage?' You asked, looking up at him. Eddie's eyes had glazed over, but not in that usual manner that weed would get him. More in the "thoughts were miles away" type of way. He stared out ahead of him at the wall of his room, the spines of countless novels blurring together. 

'You know, I'm probably gonna flip Higgins the bird, maybe give dear O'Donnell a big ol' smooch on the cheek.'

'I meant more like, afterwards. What are you gonna do after all this is over?' 

He had seen that question coming for years but never had actually cared to give it much thought. All this time, whenever it came up, he had known it didn't matter since he was never any closer to actually reaching that point of his life. While all his friends had been considering colleges to apply to, he knew he would be back at the exact same lunch table after summer was over. 

But not this time. 

Now, the world was his oyster, finally opening up to him. The possibilities were endless. 

The first thing that came to mind was California. LA specifically. Or maybe New York. Somewhere where all the creative people hurdled. Or maybe even Portland, that's where all the freaks went to. He wasn't sure. It seemed like the places where he could get something out of his music. It would be difficult, but maybe if he worked hard enough he could make it. Get into contact with the right people who would get him what he needed to break through the surfaces of stardom. 

Or maybe travel. Go on the road with no destination set in mind. Get the cheapest plane ticket on the go and see where he would end up. There was so much more to see outside of boring old Hawkins and he wanted to experience it all. All the way from South America, to Europa, to Australia– right through Asia. 

All his life he had spent reading books and stories of heroes going on epic adventures, slaying dragons and finding their princesses. It was goddamn time he got an adventure of his own. 

Well, he had found his own princess already. She was sitting right next to him, wrapped up in his embrace, warm to the touch, most likely getting sleepy as you always happened to be after smoking. He smiled to himself, thinking of everything the two of you could do once you finally escaped this town. 

The freedom would be overwhelming at first, but you would figure it out. Take it one day at a time, creating a lifetime of memories.

Tomorrow, he decided, he would go out and buy a new photo book, and maybe some extra film for his camera. He wouldn't want to forget a single day from now on. 

'Well,' you nudged him in the chest, awaiting an answer.

Eddie hugged you tighter, kissing the top of your head, before mumbling out: 'I have no idea.' 

The End

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[butterflyyeo]

lollipop

pairing — minho x reader

genre — fluff

tw — none

wc — 1262

—————————————

it was a friday night and you were relaxing in your room when you were interrupted by your phone message tone. it was minho.

minho: i miss youuu

you: it's 11pm. what do you want me to do about that?

minho: idk, let's go somewhere :)

you: fine, i'll be there in ten

minho: okayyy see you then

you smiled at your phone like an idiot. although it was late and you were tired, you didn't mind going out to see him. he ways always busy these days as a trainee at jype, so when he wanted to see you, you didn't miss the opportunity. luckily, he only lived a short distance from you, a mere five minute walk around the corner and you would find yourself at his doorstep. you quickly put on some grey sweats and a plain shirt, followed by the closest pair of shoes available. locking the door behind you, you began your brisk walk to minho's apartment.

“coming!" you heard him shout as you knocked at the door. he swung the door open and immediately grabbed your hands and pulled you in close, placing a kiss onto your lips. he spoke in a quiet voice, "i've missed you so much, y/n."

"i know, i know. i've missed you too, i guess." you chuckled.

"you guess?" he replied, "i didn't call you over here at 11pm for you to 'guess' that you miss me." he sassed you.

you laughed, leaning your head against his chest, "i'm joking! of course i missed you."

"good." he smirked, "now that we've got that cleared up. where do you wanna go?" he asked as he closed and locked the door behind him.

"to the supermarket? let's get some food or something and go watch a movie at my house." you suggested.

interlocking his hand with yours, he responded with a smile, "sounds good to me."

the two of you walked peacefully down the street, hand in hand. it was quiet for a friday night, the occasional car drove past you, probably on their way out to a club or bar. the streetlights lit up the sidewalk which bordered a park and the road. you had spent many hours at the park with minho, just relaxing with each other.

thankfully, the supermarket was close, and even better, it was open twenty four hours. you both waltzed right in and began meandering between isles. you two joked around as always, you were so lucky to have someone who shared the same type of humour as you. he clicked so well with you, and you just knew he was your soulmate. he thought the same about you too, and although being your boyfriend, he wasn't someone to vocalise how he feels. whether he said it out loud or not, you knew he loved you.

soon, you had picked a fine selection of food out and you made your way over to the checkout.

minho chuckled to himself. "what is it?" you asked.

"ah it's just, if chan saw all this crap he'd freak out. we're supposed to be staying really fit y'know." minho answered, still laughing.

"i'm sure it's fine, plus, you could eat ten times this and still be super fit." you said, attempting to hit his stomach.

as the last few items went through the checkout you grabbed two lollipops from the shelf next to you and placed them behind the last items. you saw minho jokingly roll his eyes, like you didn't already have enough food.

wishing the cashier a good rest of their night, you walked out of the store, each of you carrying a bag. you only made it to the first streetlight before stopping and reaching into the bag for something. a second later you pulled out a lollipop, removed the wrapper and placed it in your mouth. you grinned cheekily at minho, who, despite was giving you a questionable look, actually thought that you looked like the cutest human ever in that moment. "you're ridiculous, y/n." he laughed while shaking his head.

"oh am i?" you toyed.

he threw a sarcastic glare your way, "you know you are." he joked before poking his tongue out at you, like a kid would.

you copied him before gasping, "minho!"

he looked shocked for a moment, "what? what is it?"

"let's go sit at one of the park benches for a while, it's nice and quiet tonight." you pleaded.

he sighed, "okay, anything for you, y/n." he said in a joking tone, but deep down inside he meant it. he would do anything for you. the both of you strolled over to the bench and sat down. you began chatting quietly about things, as if you didn't already know everything about each other. but, nearly the whole time, minho couldn't stop glancing at your lips and that damn lollipop.

instinctively, he pulled it from your mouth while you were mid sentence and he stared into your eyes teasingly. you knew what he was thinking, "don't you dare-" but it was too late. he popped the lollipop into his mouth with a mischievous look in his eyes, satisfied with his efforts. he laughed lightly to himself, but you weren't going to let him have all the fun. you leaned in closer to him, your face getting increasingly close to his.

the look of mischief didn't leave his eyes for a second, he knew where this was going, and he had full confidence in it. his eyes never left yours, however, your eyes were focused on that lollipop. centimetres apart now, you raised your hand to remove the lollipop from his mouth, and instead, you replaced it with the taste of your lips. minho lifted you onto his lap and you placed your hand around his neck, gently running it through his hair at the nape of his neck. his hands sat comfortably at your waist as he let himself melt into the kiss. it was sugary and sweet, and he wasn't sure if it was because of the lollipop or if your personality shone through the kiss.

he knew he always wanted this, the taste of your lips, the way you teased him, the way you willingly would leave the house at 11pm on a friday night just to see him. he never wanted to let you go.

breaking away from the kiss, the mischief left his eyes and a genuine look of love appeared in them. you scooted back to where you sat on the bench before, tangling your fingers with his. he enjoyed playing with your hands and he began to trace lines on them. "y/n?" he asked quietly.

"yeah?" you replied.

he paused for a second, looking at you seriously, "i love you."

you felt your face blush, you knew he didn't always express how he feels, but this quite literally said it all. "i love you too, minho." you replied, quickly kissing his cheek.

"i just thought i should tell you because, well-" he began but you cut him off.

"enough said, i've heard everything i need to. you don't need to explain yourself." you said as you smiled. "now, come on, let's get home. surely it's nearly 12am?"

"okay, okay, damn... you still up for movies at your place?" he asked as he stood up, grabbing the bag full of food next to him.

"i don't care what we do, as long as i'm with you." and with that, you placed the lollipop back into your mouth, and followed the dimly lit sidewalk home.

[starpeace]

okay, so, kamino. it’s not even like kamino had produced clone armies for anyone in the galaxy before, because nobody has ever heard of kamino at all. so one (1) jedi shows up, and they’re like you know what, yes, sure, we WILL devote all our resources to developing a clone army for the next decade, despite never having even operated on this business model before. and this one (1) jedi, right, he’s not even really on the council, he has zero government authority. he is straight up lying and the entire planet buys it, and then a sith shows up to make a few evil modifications to that order, and they’re like, sure

did sifo-dyas put down a deposit? because otherwise kamino is doing this, for ten years, with zero republic funding or communication. (yes i know sidious stepped in but at the very least, this is what they are pretending they did, and this was sifo-dyas’ plan that he thought would work fine.) did sifo-dyas fucking embezzle the jedi order treasury without them ever noticing? where else would he get that kind of money for a deposit for millions of human beings? and it seems to be canon that sifo-dyas WAS literally just a jedi who was having visions that the jedi needed an army to avoid perishing so he just, you know, went out and ordered one, because fuck the council i guess, and sidious found out about this, or maybe inspired it in the first place with spooky sith powers, and only then did sidious intervene in the GAR’s creation. first of all pour one out for sifo-dyas who invented creating his own problems but the reason i’m bringing this up is not because it’s a canon detail that makes me hysterical, but because sifo-dyas was not knowingly in league with palpatine so palpatine could not have given sifo-dyas the deposit. where did you get the money sifo-dyas???

who paid for the clone army? in tcw the kaminoans talk about contracts and it’s obvious the republic is nearly bankrupting itself to pay for the clones. so can we be clear that in aotc the kaminoans did not show up like hey, here’s your free army, bought and paid for! the republic had to cough up the entire cost in like the two seconds between finding out kamino existed and the first battle of geonosis. which nobody questioned apparently. not to mention, where the fuck did the republic get an entire GAR’s worth of warships with five minutes’ notice of the fact that they even had a GAR, so i assume they had to shell out for those too. do the kaminoans produce the clone armour? where is the food for the clones coming from, who’s paying for that? because i don’t feel like i’m reaching when i say kamino is not an agricultural centre.

anyway the point of this post got lost in here somewhere but i think the point is i’d love to see an au where the republic finds out about the clone army in aotc and they’re like. you know when you see something really nice you want to buy and then you see the price tag and it’s suddenly not looking so nice? that. kamino and sidious spend 10 years developing a clone army to destroy the jedi and the senate is like hmmmmm idk man it’s a little out of our price range. and then they just draft an army like in every other war which they were presumably planning to have to do anyway! and the clones are just. there. like oh. there goes our life purpose. like where does the galaxy even go from here

[ifmywishescametrue]

omg now im jealous about all of the breaking up and making up stories!!! they're all so wonderful but is it okay to ask for a steve/tony one? i know you've made one inspired by ts (amazing) and this time, maybe they meet/bump in a coffee shop? idk angst potential but also hopeful/happy ending aahhh. your stories are amazing esp ivy!!! thank you! <3

thank you so much!! it ended up being more cute than angsty, but I hope you like it!

Steve's pencil drifts idly across the page of his sketchbook with no end vision in mind. He's killing time until Nat shows up, which could be anywhere between the next five minutes and the next two hours with her vague text that simply said running late. When he looks up to reach for his near empty coffee cup, he freezes with his hand in the middle of the air.

At first he thinks it might not even actually be him. Tony's hair was never quite this well styled before, always a tangled mop on his head that sometimes fell into his eyes. Steve used to spend hours sometimes running his fingers through those wild curls while Tony slept on his chest. It's been tamed since then, cut shorter and held into place by some type of product. The facial hair is new, too. He remembers a time when it would always come in patchy and uneven, and Tony would pout as he shaved away the latest attempt at looking older than he was. The eighteen year old boy in oversized hoodies and stained jeans he met years ago has been replaced by a man in a well-pressed, expensive looking suit with a leather briefcase, like he just stepped out of a boardroom a minute ago. From what Steve has read about his life since they broke up, he probably did.

Steve stares without fully meaning to and for much longer than he would have if it was intentional. He watches him order his drink and smiles when the barista’s eyes widen at what he knows is an overly complicated order, wondering if Tony ever did finish his quest to find that perfect combination of syrup flavors, sugar, and cream that only he would ever like.

He catches the double take when Tony notices him there, right as he’s taking his first sip of the iced drink, and the cough when he chokes on it is anything but subtle. Steve looks away with red cheeks and tries to pretend he wasn’t staring, but it’s a futile effort. He can’t say he minds, though. Not when it means Tony walks over to him and unceremoniously drops himself into the chair across from him.

His mouth forms a familiar smirk, and he says, “You seem to have a staring problem, Rogers.”

Suddenly, Steve is nineteen again, falling hopelessly in love with the boy in his introductory chemistry class. It felt sort of like fate at first when they were paired together for the final project, and Steve remembers thinking that his chances were shot to hell when Tony sat down next to him and said those exact words. He never was any good at being discreet.

Back then, for that first time, all he could manage was a stuttered apology in response. But eventually it became their thing. Something just for them that no one else could ever understand. When Steve would watch him from across the room at parties, because he knew how much Tony loved having his eyes on him, and Tony would saunter over with that same smirk and those same words, there was only ever one reply.

“Guess I just really like what I see,” Steve says, and Tony’s face splits into a grin that matches Steve’s own. He’s still beautiful, even if it’s different now. Less softness to his appearance and more defined edges and sharp lines, but heart stoppingly beautiful nonetheless. He doesn’t quite say as much, but he does comment, “You do look good, by the way. Different, but good.”

Tony’s smile softens into another familiar one. It’s his smile for compliments, when he’s thinking self-deprecating thoughts that he won’t voice. Instead he’ll turn the attention back around, shifting the spotlight.

“So do you. The good part, but not really the different part.”

Steve runs a hand through his hair, contemplating if not looking different contributes to the good or not. He should look different somehow, shouldn’t he? After two and a half years not seeing each other in person and what feels like a lifetime’s worth of heartbreak in between then and now, he should look as changed as he feels. As changed as Tony looks now, like he’s someone new entirely. He’s pretty sure the t-shirt he’s wearing now is one he owned back then.

“Thanks,” Steve says anyway, for lack of anything better.

Just before it has the chance to fall into awkward silence, Tony says, “I didn’t know you were in New York these days. I would’ve called or something if I’d known.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Would you have?”

“I don’t know, maybe. I would’ve thought about it, at least. You know, stalked you online, found your number, dialed and hung up a few times.”

Steve laughs, fiddling with the straw wrapper from earlier to give himself something to look at other than Tony. “I moved back last year. Thought about calling, but I figured you were busy. Didn’t want to waste your time.”

It’s only a partial truth. He did think about calling when he came to Brooklyn after his year-long internship in London ended, but he didn’t want to know what Tony would say if he did. If he would have some sort of transparent excuse to avoid seeing him or if it would be an outright rejection.

“I would’ve made time for you,” Tony says, so painfully sincere that Steve has to look up again to meet his eyes.

He wonders if Tony is thinking of that last fight, if it’s a purposeful or coincidental reference to some of what Steve said. It was by far the worst fight they’d ever had, all over the phone with an ocean between them and so many things that Steve still wishes he could take back. Accusations flew on both sides until the entire thing was blown so completely out of proportion, yet impossible to reel back in. He should have just hung up the phone before it went that far. Before he could tell Tony that he always felt unimportant compared to everything else in his life, which was sometimes true but entirely unfair. Before Tony could say that Steve talked about Peggy in the same way he used to talk about him, and he didn’t have to finish the thought for Steve to understand the implication.

“Are we talking about it?” Steve asks.

Tony shrugs, feigning casual, but just the corner of his lip is between his teeth in that way that means he’s nervous and trying to hide it. “I guess that depends on what this is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we said back then that maybe it was just bad timing. You were in London, and I was in Boston until graduation, and it was always going to be a bit of a mess, but there was always that someday chance, right? So maybe this is someday, and we talk about it, and try to get it right this time,” Tony says. “Or maybe that was just something we said and didn’t mean, and I ask you about your life, and you ask about mine, and we talk and laugh and pretend that we’re friends again for the next half hour or so before we go our separate ways.”

It’s an easy choice, really. If there’s one thing that Steve’s sure of, it’s that it’s always been him and always will be.

“I don’t want to go separate ways,” Steve says. “The first time was hard enough, and I never really moved on. I got better, but I don’t think I’ve been more than just fine in a long time.”

Tony nods slowly, “I kept thinking you would call, you know. Back then. I thought you would call and tell me that it was a mistake and it would be okay again, but you never did. Although, I guess I could’ve called, too.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“For the same reason as you, probably. I couldn’t risk it if you didn’t want me again. Couldn’t risk getting back together just to break up again, either. We weren’t exactly the poster children for making long distance work.”

“We were terrible at it, weren’t we?”

Tony’s smile is tinged with the pain of the past. “It’s kind of funny because I remember thinking that it might be a good thing for us when you told me about London. Can’t get sick of somebody if they’re not always around.”

“You thought I would get sick of you? You never told me that.”

“Why would I?” Tony laughs. “Just put all my insecurities on display like that? Come on, Steve, that doesn’t sound like me, does it?”

Steve laughs with him briefly, “No, but I could’ve told you back then that it wasn’t possible. Told you that I wanted you around all the time and I missed you every second you were gone. I might’ve even stayed if you had told me. I was thinking about it, you know? I almost turned the internship down. Probably would’ve if you’d asked even once for me not to go.”

“It was your career. I never would’ve asked you to give that up for me.”

“There would have been something else. Another job somewhere closer to you.”

“I still wouldn’t have asked,” Tony says. “And I would have told you to go if you’d said you were staying.”

Steve knows that, which is why they never talked about it much before he left. Tony pretended to be happy for him, and Steve pretended to be happy for himself, when really it already felt like the beginning of the end. A year apart is longer than it seems, and it didn’t take more than a few months to realize it.

“I never…” Steve starts, trailing off when he doesn’t quite know how to finish the sentence. “There was never anyone else. Not while we were together, and never with Peggy.”

“I know. I knew back then, too, that you were never that kind of person. Jealousy’s just a real bitch sometimes.”

“There’s really not been anyone since, either,” Steve adds, and Tony’s mouth quirks into a half smile. “I mean, a couple of people here and there, but nothing like what we were.”

“There’s not a whole lot out there like what we were, is there?”

Steve smiles, leaning back in his chair, “No, there’s really not. But I do remember reading a rumor that you got engaged.”

Tony groans, and it’s so much like he used to sound when he was nine pages deep into a ten page essay at three in the morning that Steve has to laugh.

“Don’t you dare laugh. That rumor haunts me, Steven,” Tony says, belied by a grin that he seemingly can’t control. “Do you know how I found out about my supposed engagement? When my mother called and asked why I hadn’t told her I was planning on proposing.”

“So I’m still the only person you’ve ever proposed to,” Steve teases, just for the way he knows Tony will get indignant about it.

“How many times do I have to tell you that one didn’t count?”

“You were on one knee, you asked a question, and you had a ring. All the boxes are checked, sweetheart.”

“It was a blue raspberry ring pop, and you ate it,” Tony argues. “Not to mention that I actually asked you to marry me someday in the distant future. That’s not a proposal.”

Steve laughs again, thinking about that day in the middle of their living room, just a few weeks before Steve got the call that would take him to London and change everything. It was almost like a joke, and for anyone else it would have been. Not for them, though, because Steve remembers the look in Tony’s eyes when he dropped down in front of him, spur of the moment and impulsive like almost everything was back then. He remembers how it still felt like a promise, even if it wasn’t the real thing.

“But I said yes, which I think technically means we’re still engaged.”

“Absolutely not,” Tony scoffs. “It’s going to be a production when we get engaged. Elaborate and planned and romantic as hell.”

“When, huh?” Steve grins.

Tony’s cheeks pinken a touch, but he doesn’t take it back. He reaches for Steve’s hand on the table. “Yeah, when. Is that alright with you?”

Steve threads their fingers together, holding on tight. “That’s alright with me.”