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twistedtummies2 · 3 years

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Adeuce, You Say!

Yeah, I couldn’t come up with a good title for this one, sorry. XD This is a birthday gift for a dear friend of mine, @belliesandburps. He mentioned he wanted to see Ace Trappola drinking a LOT of soda. I couldn’t think of a concept that featured JUST Ace, so I decided to throw Deuce Spade in for good measure. Hopefully he won’t mind this. ;) Happy Birthday, BNB! You’re one of the best friends a twisted whacko like myself could ever ask for. <3

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“I can’t believe you talked me into this…” “Aww, come on, don’t be a spoilsport!” You couldn’t help but blush a bit...and cursed yourself for doing so. The “fun” hadn’t even begun, and already you could feel your heartbeat with anticipation. “Don’t worry, Deuce,” you muttered. “The feeling is mutual, on my end…” Ace Trappola and Deuce Spade turned to look at you. The three of you were gathered in Ace’s room in Heartslabyul; you had cleared a table he kept in the room - which was designed to resemble a carefully-arranged house of cards - and now both he and Deuce sat at opposite ends of the short furnishing. On the floor directly in front of the table one of them had placed a recycling bin - litter was not allowed, per the Rules of the Queen of Hearts - and on the table itself were four large boxes. Two of the boxes, which sat nearest Deuce, contained twelve packs of Vanilla Cola. In contrast, the two boxes closest to Ace contained Cherry Cola. Ace smirked, tossing some of his carrot-colored hair out of his face, and winked his tattooed eye, the crimson heart shape around it flickering as his one visible cherry-toned iris twinkled with mischief-making glee. “Well, we all know why YOU agreed to this,” he teased. “C’mon, you can’t deny you’re a little...EXCITED, huh, Prefect?” “I hate you,” you droned, grumbling as you squirmed where you stood. “I hate you so much…” “Is this the reason you decided to have this contest?” frowned Deuce, his own turquoise eyes narrowing, the black spade tattoo over one of them crinkling slightly behind his dark blue bangs. “To make the Prefect a blushing mess? I think you could have waited till the next lunch hour for that.” “You are NOT helping,” you grumped, glaring at Deuce half-heartedly.

Neither of the Heartslabyul duo seemed to notice. Ace snorted and waved a hand dismissively. “Nah, that’s just a nice bonus,” he chuckled, and grinned roguishly. “Cater just told me this kinda thing is trending right now. I figure, with my talents, I’ve got a shot at getting some preeeetty good views. That’s why I asked the Prefect to film this.” He jabbed his thumb towards you; you fiddled with the cell phone in your hands, biting your lip and saying nothing. “And why choose ME to be your competitor in this?” Deuce droned. “Does humiliating me just make you feel better about yourself?” “It does. Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent,” grinned Ace. Deuce glared. He looked to the sodas, then back at Ace...then huffed and turned away. “No,” he stated. “I’m not doing it.” “Awww, come on, you’re already here!” Ace whined. “This won’t take long!” “He does have a point,” you spoke up. “Speaking with as little obvious bias as possible…” “I already mistrust your judgment,” Deuce muttered, while Ace snickered. “...You agreed to this and came here, so you might as well see it through to the end.” “And I don’t expect you to go easy on me!” snapped Ace, lifting a finger rather dramatically. “I want a challenge!” “Then you should have asked somebody else!” Deuce exclaimed. “Why not try someone from Savanaclaw, or one of the Leech Twins?” “I said I wanted a challenge, not a suicide mission,” Ace said, bluntly. You couldn’t repress a snort of laughter. You apologized under your breath as both frowned at you before looking back to each other. “Forget it,” Deuce said firmly. “I’m not engaging in something as infantile as a soda-drinking-” “Soda-CHUGGING, Spade. Get with the times, Mr. Delinquent.” Deuce glared violently. Ace lifted his hands and mouthed a quick apology. Deuce calmed down...but only VERY slightly. “...Soda...Chugging...Contest,” Deuce corrected, grinding his teeth and turning faintly red in the face at Ace’s taunt. “I’m not doing it for you, and you can’t make me.” Ace narrowed his eyes, frowning, looking Deuce up and down for a moment...then grinned anew. “Okay,” he said, slyly. “Then don’t do it for me. There’s other reasons to try.” Deuce looked suspicious and skeptical at the same time. “Such as?” Ace responded by opening one of his cases of cherry cola and pulling a single can free. He waggled it in one hand indicatively, raising an eyebrow in Deuce’s direction. Before either yourself or Deuce could comment on the actions and ask what he was doing - he popped the can open. It hissed and crackled as the pressure was released...then, without a hint of hesitation, he tipped his head back and quickly slugged down the contents of the first can. GLUG, GLUG, GLUG… You felt those familiar stirrings start within you, as your eyes immediately zeroed in on Ace’s strong but slender throat. You watched his Adam’s Apple bounce like a rubber ball with each gulp of soda. Internally, you couldn’t help but put yourself in the drink’s place...cascading down his throat, rushing down his gullet towards the ever-hungry black hole that was his belly… You shivered at the same time he finished the can. He crushed it in one hand with relish and pitched it into the recycling bin. It clattered loudly, making Deuce jump slightly. He opened his mouth to question what all this was about, and perhaps to protest again… ...And looked up just in time to find Ace leaning over the table, mouth wide open...burping four words out. Right in his face. “YYYOOOUUU...AAAARRRRE...AAAAAA...CHIIIIIC-KEEEENNNN-UUUUURRRRRP!” Ace smirked smugly, eyes half lidded as he rested his chin in one hand and licked his lips, eyeing Deuce expectantly. Deuce blinked fast several times, his expression stunned, face speckled with spittle after the messy, wet blast...then glared. “Alright, Trappola,” he almost growled. “Now…” He opened a box. “...You’re…” He pulled out a can of his own. “...On.” SNAP-CRACKLE-POP. The first can of vanilla cola was opened, and Deuce began to chug it down with relish. Ace laughed, and quickly pulled out a second can of his own. “I knew it would work!” he sang out, and popped his own can open, and began to drink down some more cherry cola as fast as he could, eager to catch up with Deuce. You sighed; you were a captive audience to this display. Not that you minded too much, you had to admit...especially given your current position. You decided to sit down rather than stand, but there was no third chair for you to use...so you simply crossed your legs and sat on the floor. This inevitably meant looking up at the pair, and some mean, self-shaming fraction of your submissive little brain couldn’t help but mock you as you watched Deuce hurl his first can into the recycling bin carelessly before moving onto another...imagining your own self being treated with the same nonchalance. Just fuel for a greater being. “I hate my life,” you muttered to yourself. “What - HIC-URP! - what was that?” Ace chirruped. “Never mind. Keep going. First to finish all 24 cans wins.” Keep going the pair did. Gulping and slurping echoed out almost non-stop, interrupted only briefly by the crushing of cans and the sound of them falling into the bin. GLUG-CRUNCH! GULP-SCRUNCH! GOLLOP-GRUNCH! Ace frowned as he hurriedly downed his sodas; his goading of Deuce had seemingly backfired, for Spade had quickly taken a surprising lead. He was only a can ahead of Ace, but one can was all it would take. He kept glancing to Deuce to gauge his progress, eyes burning hotly like crimson flames as he gulped down soda pop after soda pop. Deuce, for his part, remained focused on the sodas themselves, chugging them down as rapidly as he could; you could actually hear the fizzing and sizzling of the carbonation as it raced down their gullets at record-breaking speed. Naturally, all that air being ingested meant pockets of gas were building up inside of both students’ guts. Ace had no problem letting those pockets burst. “BRRRRAAAAAAP! Oof...oh - UUUURRRRRRP! Ha Ha...that was a good one wasn’t it...mph...PRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEFFFFEEEEEECT?” You had to fight yourself NOT to squeak, as Ace laughed and slugged down more and more soda, burping and belching like a crass pig between every single can, clearly delighting in showing off. You wanted to tell him that this wasn’t going to get him the lead back...but you were a little too loopy from the sickly-sweet smell of soda-scented stomach gas filling the air to care much. Deuce, meanwhile, handled things differently. He didn’t burp at all. Honestly, that was actually getting you even more excited; by now, he had finished six cans and was working on a seventh. (Ace was just starting his sixth can, in contrast.) The effect of so much bubbling cola pooling in his belly was starting to become obvious; he looked slightly green as his stomach audibly ROARED with all the gas building up inside...and he breathed heavily, panting almost like a huge dog in-between each can, starting with the fourth. Something had to give, and it wouldn’t be long till something did. Sure enough, after polishing off his eighth can, Deuce couldn’t hold it all in anymore. His stomach let out a lurching GRORBLE noise, and he grunted...before his eyes widened and his cheeks ballooned. He lifted a fist in a vain attempt to stifled the blast...but it was no good. His lips flapped as it bellowed forth with tinnitus-inducing volume. “GUUUUUYYYYYUUUUUHHHHHUUUUURRRRRLLLLLUUUUURRRRRP!” The explosive burp seemed to rock the room. Ace yelped, jumping in his seat just as he had finished his seventh can. He blinked with some alarm as Deuce covered his mouth. Spade hiccuped sharply and blinked, flushing red in the face as his other hand clutched his belly. The look of ripe embarrassment on his face was priceless, and you found yourself starting to giggle. “Good one,” you complimented, with a blush of your own. Deuce glared at you reproachfully. Ace began to laugh, slapping his knee. “HA HA HA HA! Wow, you’ve been holding back on us!” he cackled. “I bet even the lion would have a hard time matching that ‘roar,’ ha!” “Sh-sh-shut up!” Deuce stuttered, turning redder than ever. Ace was still sniggering as he grabbed his next can of cola and quickly swallowed it down. Deuce paused for just a few moments more, seemingly to catch his breath after that enormous eructation, but soon got back to drinking. Now the two were neck and neck. And as they drew nearer and nearer to the end of their first boxes, you realized that gas was not the only thing starting to swell and fester inside their guts. Each of the two were dressed in their Heartslabyul dorm outfits: black and white jackets lined with gold, white undershirts under color-coordinated vests - Ace wore strawberry red, and Deuce wore jet black. As they swallowed up more and more of the soft drinks, you could hear the fabric and buttons creak. The fluid and the carbonation it carried were causing both of their bellies to start to swell and stretch, growing rounder and more bloated...you bit your lip and fidgeted in place. It was so hard to stay focused on the video you were taking when real life was right before you...and ooooohhhhhh, how appealing it looked… Speaking of the video, you checked the time...and couldn’t help but whistle, impressed. “You guys work faster than I realized,” you said, with a slightly nervous chuckle. Deuce smiled almost sheepishly. Ace beamed proudly. Both cracked another can open at the exact same time. Nine cans, ten cans, eleven cans...it was no time at all before each reached the last can in their first twelve packs. You could actually hear their stomachs: their bowels growled and their guts “gulunked” as all that thick, fizzy, sugary stuff bubbled inside of them like a cauldron full of good ol’ fashioned witch’s brew. The difference was you didn’t have to worry about Mr. Crewel yapping at you about how you forgot a tablespoon of some ingredient...or the room exploding into frog zombies as a result… ...Potions class was hard… “BEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUURRRRRRRLLLLLLLLCH!” Two blasts of gas - simultaneously synchronized - sonorously blew forth, sounding out like a foghorn and causing the table legs to rattle. You blushed bright red as the abrasive sound caught your attention, and you found yourself looking up at the pair as they paused in their drinking. They had each polished off their first twelve pack, and were lounging back in their seats. Deuce grunted as he began to fiddle with the buttons of his vest, grumbling under his breath about how they had “shrunk in the wash” recently… ...Bless his heart… Ace, meanwhile, let out another crass, shameless belch out of the corner of his mouth - “BRRRRAAAACK!” - and sighed as he drummed his fingers over his swollen stomach. He winced with discomfort at the tightness of his clothes on his belly...but made no move to loosen anything. Instead he looked down at you...and smirked cockily, holding his head high. “Heh heh...havin’ fun down there? Enjoying the show?” he teased. “You know, if Riddle found you both like this, he’d have you both beheaded,” you answered. Deuce froze. Ace gulped nervously. “You wouldn’t,” both said at once. “If Ace here doesn’t stop kink-teasing me, I might,” you smiled oh-so-innocently. Deuce sighed with relief; that was a sure sign to him you weren’t serious. Ace, meanwhile, frowned and grumbled, looking off to the side with a pout. “If I was that lion, you’d be melting like ice cream,” he grumbled. You were about to respond to that when suddenly, Deuce let out a deep sound - somehow groaning and burping at the same time. “Grrrrooooouuuurrrrrrllllllph...mmmaaahhh…” You almost swore your heart skipped a beat as you looked towards him. He had undone his vest and his trouser buttons, and his eyes were fluttering. From under his plain white undershirt, his pale-skinned belly spilled into his lap, his shallow navel winking into view as it sloshed into place, freed of most restraints and sloshing full of soda. “Ohhhh...that feels so much better,” he sighed out...then blinked...and blushed bright red as he realized both you and Ace were staring at him. “Er...uh...I just...um…” “Well,” smirked Ace. “So much for the stuffed shirt Honors Student, huh?” ‘I-I am not a stuffed shirt!” exclaimed Deuce. “Nope. Just a very stuffed Spade,” you couldn’t help but quip. Deuce gave you a look that was best described as “Et tu, Prefect?” Ace cackled; his gut sloshed and bounced with his mirth. Then, a lightbulb seemed to go over his head, and he began to fiddle with his own buttons… GUBLORSH. “BRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOORRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIP! Whew...MAN, that feels good…” You were internally squeeing, and biting your lip almost hard enough to draw blood (almost) as you saw Ace’s belly spill into his lap. He sighed, eyes fluttering with relief...then gave a grin to Deuce, who was staring as if he didn’t know how to react. “There. Now we’re even,” Ace sing-songed. Deuce looked somewhat dubious. “Is that why you did that? Or just to try and make the Prefect’s ears steam?” Now it was YOUR turn to give Deuce the “Et tu?” look. Ace shrugged cheerfully, and patted his belly with pride. “Neither! Just wanted to relieve the pressure. But come on, even if I HAD been, would it be right to hide this perfection away?” “Do you ever think of anything but yourself?” “If you looked like this, would you?” Both you and Deuce shared a look as Ace grunted, stifling a burp with one fist before opening up his second twelve pack. “HHHRRRLLLMMMPH...well, twelve more to go...game’s not over yet. Unless you wanna throw in the towel…” “Not a chance!” declared Deuce, opening his next twelve pack up. “I’m getting you back for that belch in the face!” Ace just guffawed as he pulled another can free, popped it open, and began to drink again. GLUG, GLUG, GLUG… Deuce was quick to follow suit; once again, they were consuming soda almost at the same speed and time. The first can for each vanished within three seconds flat...then came the second...then the third...and then the fourth… It was as they began to guzzle down the fifth can each - which, really, meant the seventeenth - that you started to notice a few things. The first was that you could hear the soda pooling inside their bodies. You could actually detect the sound of it pouring down their gullets and into their massively swollen tankers, like twin waterfalls dropping down into huge basins. You felt your toes curl in your shoes; the heavy saturation of sugar was making them sound aggressively “grumbly,” gurgling and sloshing with the might of ocean waves. These sounds only seemed further amplified by the second thing you noticed, which was the view. Again, you were seated before the two, looking up at them...which meant those giant bellies looked even bigger and more looming than usual. You were NOT going to give either of them (especially Ace) the satisfaction of acting like a mouse, but it was so hard not to FEEL like one...especially as those massively rounded guts continued to swell and grow as they drank more and more. By the time they had begun their second round, their midsections looked as if each had swallowed a football whole. Now, they were inching out further and further, rolling into their laps and making their shirts ride up further and further, exposing more and more of their soft, tender skin… Forget the soda chugging; the real contest in YOUR mind was which belly you wanted to just bury your face and fingers in the most! You somehow held back, though your fingers twitched around the phone you held. The mixture of the noises and the continuing growth, however, led to a third realization: as the pair plucked up their sixth cans each, you abruptly noticed both were starting to slow down. They were huffing and puffing from the weight in their bellies, and once in a while would flinch as their guts “blurgled” sloppily around their hyper-saccharine contents. “Oooof,” groaned out Ace, as he cracked his can open. “I’m...mph...g-gettin’ kinda heavy…”

“Same - HIC! - ugh, same here,” hiccuped Deuce, and gave a determined glare. “But...b-but I’m not quitting yet.” His words were ruined by his stomach ROARING, and he winced, clutching it with his free hand. Ace just smirked, saying nothing, and the two clinked their cans together as if in toast before downing their sixth drinks. Eighteen down now, and only six more to go. GRORLP...BLLLRRRG...RRRRRAAAAAWWWWWRRRRRLLLLLB…! The sounds of gastric effort resounded through Ace’s room as he and Deuce continued to consume their sodas. Deuce was no longer holding back his gas; Ace certainly hadn’t started doing so. They hiccuped more than once, each letting out a BELCH or BURP freely in-between drinks as they downed their nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first sodas. The recycling bin, by now, was overflowing; you glanced back over your shoulder, grateful you had locked the door. With cans now just dropping to the floor in crumpled heaps, if Riddle Rosehearts were to walk in, it would be off with all your heads, you had no doubt. You were also glad Grim was out practicing his fire magic with Ortho; the loudmouthed imp might have caused problems there. It was a miracle all the gassy eruptions hadn’t roused much attention beyond the room, to begin with. Each of the competitors reached for their twenty-second cans; your eyes widened as you looked towards Deuce. Ace was panting and grunting, but his general motions hadn’t slowed down much. However, Deuce had clearly grown more sluggish: he had a lot more inner capacity than most folks realized (though certainly no match for the likes of some aforementioned students), but he was “out of training” on that front. It was obvious that he hadn’t consumed this much soda at once in a long time (if ever at all), and he looked both tired and a little queasy. He drank more slowly, and it looked like he was trying hard just to get it all down… Ace had pulled ahead at the very last minute: he was now on his twenty-third can of soda, and Deuce had just finished the twenty-second. By the time Deuce had started on his twenty-third, Ace was about to begin his final drink! Deuce let out a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a whimper - a difficult noise to describe, indicating sickly desperation - and tried to chug down his twenty-third cola as fast as he could… It wasn’t fast enough. Ace cracked open his twenty-fourth can - the last one in his box - and swilled it down so swiftly, you could have sworn he just inhaled it all in a single swallow. “Guh!” gasped out Ace, and hiccuped loudly - he bounced in his seat from the force of it, his gut sloshing like a water balloon against his thighs - and let the can drop from his grip. “Oooooh...ohhhhh, soooooo full...UUUURRRRP! Ah...haaaah, I f-feel like I’m gonna - HIC! - ohhhh, gonna burst…” He shivered; his expression still bore a smile - though it was slightly forced. You couldn’t help but imagine the phrase “hurts so good” applied to how he had to be feeling right about now. Lazily, languidly, he turned his head to look at Deuce as Deuce moaned with discomfort and tossed his second-to-last can of Vanilla Cola aside. “I win,” Ace grinned. Deuce looked at him in a slow, bleary way, as if he were struggling to stay awake. He hiccuped and groaned; his cheeks swelled, as if he were trying to keep his stomach’s contents in place. He didn’t say a word, just glared at Ace, sullenly. “Awww, don’t be...mph...like that,” Ace said, shifting his posture in his seat. “There’s...ngh...still one can left...g-go ahead. Finish it off.” “What’s the point?” huffed Deuce, and clutched his bare belly tightly as it “glarbled” in a nauseous way. “You already...ow...beat me..” “Well,” Ace cooed, “If you don’t think you can handle...just...one...more…” He started to subtly reach towards Deuce’s box. Something seemed to flare up, and Deuce’s aquamarine eyes flashed with newfound fire. He snatched up his final can of cola before Ace could grab hold of it. Ace smirked triumphantly as he watched his friend down the last of the sodas with gusto. “Gets ‘im every time,” he muttered to himself. You just rolled your eyes. Deuce threw his final can aside and groaned louder than before. He hiccuped and once again looked as if he had to struggle to avoid feeling sick as his breath became shallow and shaky. “Grrrrooooohhhhhh...wh-why...why did I...UUUUUURRRRRRK...agree to this…?” “Wimp,” mumbled Ace, only to quiver and let out a raspy breath of his own, as his stomach rumbled so loudly it visibly vibrated. “Hhhnnnaaaaahhhhhh...Chernabog’s horns, I’m - BRRRUUUOOORRRLLLK - soooooo STUFFED now...haven’t - URP - drank that much in my...m-my life…” You quickly turned off the video, stopping the recording...mostly because you did NOT want it to pick the inevitable “meep” sound you made as you openly ogled your two friends and their bloated bodies. It looked as if they had swallowed a couple of prize-worthy pumpkins whole, their sagging, sloshing stomachs as round and heavy as a pair of medicine balls. “I don’t feel so good,” moaned Deuce. “Speak for yourself,” Ace sighed. “This is AMAZING…” “You can say that again,” you gulped to yourself. “Huh?” both slurred out. “Nothing, guys, nothing,” you said, shaking your head. You got up onto your knees and shuffled towards them. Ace gave you a slothful smirk. “Hey, kneeling before my superior awesomeness?” he teased. “I always knew you would.” You gave him a bored look and responded by lifting a hand and jabbing at his stomach. His belly wobbled with a sound like a water bed. He hissed through gritted teeth before belching messily like a total pig. “BLLLLLLUUUUUURRRRRYYYYAAAAAOOOORRRRRRLLLLLLGP! Oof...okay, okay, sorry...ow, that one kinda hurt,” grunted Ace, thumping his chest with a fist and working up a shorter, softer after burp which you could barely hear. Considering how much your ears were ringing, that wasn’t necessarily a bad point. “You won the match,” you said to Ace. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna start treating you like some kinda overlord or whatever.” Ace grumbled unintelligibly. Deuce smirked with satisfaction, tainted only slightly by his clearly ill state. It vanished as his belly burbled noisily however, and he had to fight back a whimper. You smiled sympathetically. “Maybe next time you’ll beat him,” you suggested. “You’re insinuating there may BE a next time,” Deuce groused. “Never. Again.” You had a feeling Ace would find a way to push the not-so-stoic student’s buttons in another direction, but you didn’t say so. Instead, you started to stand. “I’ll get you something to settle your stomach,” you offered Deuce. “Uh...c-could you get me somethin’, too?” Ace asked, and let out an embarrassed, soft laugh as he winced courtesy of a loud gut rumble of his own. “I, uh...mph...I think maybe I’m gonna need it sooner or later...ouch…” You rolled your eyes, but said you would, and started to stand up, patting your knees… ...Only to freeze up short as, suddenly, Deuce grabbed hold of your arm. “Wait...um...maybe you...don’t have to go anywhere?” he suggested. You blinked at him, confused, and cocked your head to one side questioningly. Deuce bit his lip...took a breath...and then tried to elaborate. “You, uh...we both know you have those… ‘Magic Fingers’ of yours, so...maybe...maybe a little bit of that m-might help?” You blinked again, more slowly than before, trying to process what Deuce was asking. “...Are you saying you...want a...a belly rub?” you checked, cautiously. “Only if you don’t mind!” Deuce insisted. “Heeeey, you can’t hog the belly rubs!” Ace cried out. “Besides, we all know mine is a lot softer and smoother than yours!” “Is not.” “Is too!” “Is not.” “Is too!” “Is...this REALLY an argument we’re having?” “Yep. Seems that way.” You were blushing too much to remember how to laugh. “I mean...if you’re...SURE you want it,” you said, in a quiet, quavering voice. Deuce nodded, an almost pleading look in his eyes. Ace grinned and nodded as well, more enthusiastically. You took a deep breath to steady yourself - it was hard to believe you were this lucky - and directed the pair to move closer together. They did, pulling their chairs forward and sideways...and you scurried between them, biting your lip as you looked between their twin bellies, almost identical in shape, size, and apparent texture. Then...unable to repress a little happy shiver of your own...you placed one hand on each of their stomachs, and began to work them over. Your fingers kneaded into the flesh, feeling the soft, supple surface of each titanic tummy. You trailed your fingertips over the plumpened sides and across the curve of their silky-smooth underbellies. You patted them, making both guts bounce and jiggle, and even drew figure-eights around their navel areas. Both of your friends sighed deeply and all but melted at your touch, their arms going limp, heads lolling back, jaws agape as they savored the sensations. “Oohhhhh...oh, no wonder you like doing this,” Ace drawled out. “This is...mmmm, this is AMAZING…” “That’s...ahhhh...mmmmm, that’s soothing,” Deuce crooned. “Thank you, Prefect…” “My pleasure, guys,” you blushed, giving their guts a couple of smacks. “My pleasure.” The pair just grinned and made happy humming sounds as they were pampered and spoiled. You couldn’t help but smile wider as you gave their greedy guts a couple of jiggles, hearing the thick soda-fueled stew slosh and splash and swirl about inside their bodies, so close to you… You were unaware of the fact that, as you worked on both bellies, the two opened one eye each, and looked to each other. Ace grinned wickedly...and Deuce smirked with faint impishness as well… ...And then… WHURLMPH. You let out a muffled yelp as, without warning, the pair shifted their postures...and now, both bellies were smushing agaisnt you, the warm curves of each swollen stomach heating up your already nearly-steaming cheeks. You blinked up shyly as you pushed against both guts to try and find some wiggle room...and your friends smiled down at you with almost identical expressions of mischievous affection. “Beter enjoy it while you can,” whispered Deuce. “Yeah,” chuckled Ace, and winked. “It’ll only be a week till we have our eating contest!” “Eating contest?” Deuce scowled. “Who said anything about that?” “Well...if you don’t think you have a chance at winning…” “I can eat you under a table any day!” “I dare you to prove it!” You sighed and shook your head, the soft flesh sliding across your own as you kneaded and caressed the bellies of your best friends. “Friends with benefits,” you were discovering, was a phrase with more than one definition… ...You hoped their argument wouldn’t go too quickly, though...right now, there was nowhere else you wanted to be, as you nuzzled against Ace’s stomach and patted Deuce’s with a smile. One of these days, you figured, you’d need to see a psychiatrist. But it was not this day.

The End

#disney #twisted wonderland #fanfic #kink fic #stuffing #soda chugging #soda drinking contest #ace trappola #ace #deuce #deuce spade #heartslabyul #card guards #birthday gift #belliesandburps

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shotofire · 4 years

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There’s Just Something About Him

•SHOTO TODOROKI x READER

•Overview: having feelings for the icy hot boy just seemed like a lost cause

•Warnings: just some cursing, meantions of anxiety.

•Season: 3

You’d always found the split haired boy attractive, but nothing ever went beyond that. It seems that even if you wanted it to nerves would just be in the way. Besides, everyone’s working to become pro-hero’s, who has time for a relationship? With all the shit going on you were almost positive that Todoroki didn’t have you in mind at all. The constant sneak attacks from villains, not knowing when the next person is going to get hurt, it was all too much.

Atleast that’s what you tried to convince yourself. The sweet, quiet boy who’d caught your eye since the first day of school just couldn’t possibly like you. He couldn’t possibly let a thought like that even make it halfway into his head. You’d lost hope a couple months into school, realizing fate definitely wasn’t on your side.

The two of you never got partnered up or even in the same group. It’s as if something is telling you it’s not meant to be. Sure you’d taken your own initiative and made conversation with the boy, but it’s always short lived. He wasn’t the best at talking unless he was on an adrenaline rush during a practice scenario. You had never gotten the luck of him wanting to use your quirks together either.

It truly felt hopeless.

You tried your best not to dwell on these things. If it was meant to be it just would’ve happened by now. Right?

The thoughts left your mind as you walked with your fellow classmates. Today is an exciting day, it was time to move into the new dorms. It took way too much convincing with your family, but eventually they caved in. You knew it’d be hard, they’re just worried about you. At this point the whole world was worried about all of the UA students safety. But everyone can agree that dorms are the safest it can get with all of the new high tech security.

You all stopped, admiring the new tall building in front of you. Knowing Todoroki was going to be in the same building as you every night had your anxiety on edge. But you were also... excited? For what, you had no idea. It was just a swirl of emotions.

Oh no, he’s gonna see my puffy morning eyes.

The happy chatter was cut short when Mr. Aizawa started talking about hero licenses, something that seemed to slip everyone’s minds. He was rather intimidating, eyes stern and serious. It sent a wave of uneasiness throughout the group. He knew the whole class was aware of the plan to save Bakugou, and he wasn’t happy. You stare at him with legs beginning to tremble.

His words cut deep as he threatened the possibility of expelling the entire class. You definitely wouldn’t put it past him, he seems like the type. But, as he said, due to All Might’s retirement the need for hero’s was strong. He couldn’t just get rid of such potential.

You looked at Todoroki’s face and it was frozen, he seemed more worried than anyone else. His heterochromia eyes stayed fixed on Mr. Aizawa, and you couldn’t help but let yourself take in his features. Sure you see the boy almost everyday but it’s hard to get good long looks when you’re sitting in class, he’d easily feel your gaze. There’s already been a couple times where he’s caught you and the embarrassment was too much to handle again.

His jaw was cleanched and sharp as ever. You just loved it. You wondered if it was weird to think about running your slim fingers along the bone of his jaw, it was just so beautiful.

“(y/n), are you even listening to me? Or are you just going to stare at Todoroki?”

In that moment it felt like you were going to throw up. All eyes shot to you, including Todoroki. Mr. Aizawa was a real ass sometimes but this definitely was the worst thing hes ever done to you, and he’d made you fall on your face after taking away your quirk infront of the whole class. That was absolutely nothing compared to this.

“I- uh, I-I wasn’t, I just-“ you were totally at loss for words. You’d never been more embarrassed in your life. The heat on your face was hotter than ever, and you knew it was visible as well.

Mr. Aizawa rolled his eyes, no longer caring about the predicament, “Anyways, that’s all. Look alive, enjoy your new home.”

That statement didn’t help anyone’s nerves after his little intimidation speech, but you had it the worst. Your face was still red and you could feel your heartbeat in your ears. Today was not going the way you hoped, and you didn’t dare even peak at Todoroki. You couldn’t help but think he thought you were weird. A girl he barely talks to constantly staring at him, there’s no way he didn’t think that.

The speech about where the boys and girls were was given, including where everything else was. But you could hardly pay attention focus on anything, and you didn’t dare look up.

It was time to decorate your rooms and make it your own, and you couldn’t be more relieved. Finally away from that embarrassment, even though it was waiting for you on the other side of your closed door.

“damnit,” you cursed. No one was going to forget that and you knew it. And the girls were beyond nosey when it came to crushes, especially Ashido.

After a couple hours of getting things together there was a knock on your door. You immediately froze. It’s like you had forgotten where you were and what had happened for a little bit, but of course you were quickly brought back to reality.

“Who is it?” You asked.

“Its Uraraka, can I come in?”

Shes always the sweetest and you knew she wouldn’t bug you about anything. Especially after seeing the way you reacted. Uraraka always had her suspicions that you found Todoroki cute, your eyes practically lit up everytime he did something.

You granted her permission and continued to put your pillows neatly on the bed. She was in her pj’s but definitely seemed wide awake.

“Oh wow, your room is so cute (y/n)! Nothing compared to mine,” her smile was huge. You just adored her, she always brightened up your mood.

“Thank you so much Uraraka, you’ll have to show me your room later before that is confirmed,” you smiled back.

“Oh course! Actually, speaking of rooms, that’s what I came here for. The girls and I convinced the guys to show us their rooms and we kinda turned it into a little contest. Wanna join?”

Her request was extremely appealing. You immediately wondered what Todoroki’s room looked like, and now was your opportunity to see it. But the nerves were still there, and the embarrassment was even stronger. You just couldn’t face everyone right not, especially Todoroki’s. He probably didn’t want your creep self in there anyways.

“Thanks for asking Uraraka, but i’m very tired. I was just planning on finishing my room and crashing. But I still would like to see your room sometime tomorrow,” you said while trying to hold your smile. But she could see the said frown behind it, but she didn’t want to bother you any further. She could only imagine how she’d react and feel if Mr. Aizawa did that to her. She’d be completely horrified.

“You got it, see you tomorrow (y/n). Sleep well!”

She leaves, shutting the door behind her. Your smile quickly fades and your shoulders fall limp.

I really wish I could see his room, I bet it’s awesome.

In all honestly you figured Todoroki would be relieved you didn’t show. God, class tomorrow was going to be hell. You just knew it, there’s no way you’d be able to focus knowing the whole class knows you’re a freak who can’t keep your eyes off the icy hot boy.

You pushed your thoughts aside, ignoring them to the best of your ability. You attempted to sleep, but the constant stamper of footsteps above you and outside your door was keeping you from the world of dreams. The world where assholes like Mr. Aizawa didn’t completely humiliate you.

Just as sleep started to creep up on you, there was another knock on your door. It was soft, and you immediately knew it wasn’t Uraraka. You sat up in the darkness, reaching for your bedside lamp. It faintly lit the room with a yellow glow, and made a light buzzing noise. You were too tired to speak up and ask who it was, so you forced yourself out of bed.

Maybe it was Momo, she did say she was looking forward to seeing your room. You pushed your wild hair out of your face before opening the door. And when you saw who was standing there a sharp breath immediately got caught in your throat. You let out a light cough.

“Todoroki?” you asked confused. He was all alone, no one with him. The lights in the hallway were out, one could only assume the competition was over and everyone else had gone to bed. Yet here he is, standing before you.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he says as if it’s the most normal thing ever. You didn’t know what to say, he’d never even approached you first. But he can knock on your door late at night to talk to you?

You looked at him in disbelief. In that moment you realized how little you knew about this boy, and how odd this situation was.

“What time is it?” You asked, completely ignoring what he said. He huffed, he knew you’d be difficult. You two may not talk much but he’s good at observing. He knew you more than you’d think.

“Almost 12, not too late. Can I talk to you?” This time he asked, therefore making it harder to avoid.

“Uh, I-In here?” You asked.

You couldn’t help but think he was here to tell you to stop being a creep. He wasn’t interested in you and would really appreciate it if you could stop with the creepy stares.

“Anywhere is fine,” he answers.

At those words, you move aside. Widening the door so that he can come in. The smell of vanilla hit you in the face as he walked past, and his eyes immediately began to observe your room.

Todoroki is in my room... what the actual fuck is going on!?

His hand comes up to point at your wall, “Did you draw those?”

Your eyes dart to the colorful art pinned to your wall.

“Y-Yes.”

The constant stuttering was making you loose your mind. But when your anxiety is this high you can’t manage to think straight. Not even one word can come out without a struggle.

“I like them.”

You swallow, hard. He probably heard it. The room was so quiet without one of you talking, unbearably quiet. Without words the only sound was the faint buzzing of your lamp you’d turned on only a few minutes ago.

“Oh, uh, Thanks,” a blush began to creep onto your face. Your hand came up to cover your face as you looked down. You knew you looked odd in the moment, but it was better than him seeing how much he can effect you so easily.

Todoroki looked at you with sweet eyes, although you couldn’t see them due to your current state. He thought you looked cute right now, all bashful. That’s something he has always liked about you. Your cheeks got red so easily when you were embarrassed, nervous, flustered, even when you were tired.

He noticed these things because you interested him, you always had. You were way too cute and sweet to not catch his attention. He just truly sucked when it came to talking to girls. Especially pretty girls like you.

“I, um,” this time it was Todoroki at a loss for words. He had a plan before he came in, but now as he stood in your room it was much harder to think clearly.

You looked up at him, his hand was raking through his hair. He seemed almost... nervous.

Why the hell would he be nervous?

“I was uh wondering if you, uh, would like to,” he took a deep breath to clear his mind. He was stuttering too much and overthinking, it was just a simple question he was trying to get out.

He locked eyes with you, “Would you like to go grab some food after school tomorrow?”

Your mouth fell open, but you quickly covered it with your hand. There was no way, no damn way.

“You mean, j-just me and you?” You asked, making sure you were interpretating this correctly.

“Yeah, Yeah,” He nervously laughs, “Like a uh, date.”

Like a what now?

There was absolutely no way this was real, you had to be dreaming.

“is this a joke?” You ask, but you meant to only think it.

His eyes widen and he quickly began waving his hands, “W-What? No, of course not! I really want to go on a date with you, I think it’d be fun. Plus you’re super sweet and pre-“ he stops himself.

C’mon man, you’re gonna scare her off by being too forward.

“Yeah, i’d really like that Todoroki,” your smile was surpressed by your teeth sinking into your bottom lip. At this point you wanted to jump for joy, but you didn’t want to scare this chance away.

“Okay cool, so after school. Tomorrow, you and me,” his nervous laugh comes back, “on a date.”

You can’t help but giggle, you’d never seen Todoroki so nervous before. Not in this way at least. It was one of the cutest things you’d ever seen.

“You got me after school Todoroki,” you giggled again, “You and me on a date.”

And with that, the two of you said your goodbyes, which were a little awkward considering the two of you kept letting nervous laughter slip.

As soon at the door shut, you let out a happy squeal. It didn’t even bother you that he might of heard it, you really didn’t care. You were so overjoyed that nothing could kill your mood.

On the other side of the door Todoroki had the geekiest smile on his face. He walked to his room completely satisfied. He did it, he finally asked the girl he liked on a date.

“Hell yeah,” he whispered to himself.

This definitely was heading in the right direction.

#todoroki shouto #shouto todoroki #bnha todoroki #imagine #fanfic #anime #love #romance #x reader #todoroki shoto imagine #todoroki x reader #tordoroki imagine #tororoki fanfic #todoroki x y/n #tordoroki shoto x reader #boku no hero fanfic #boku no hero academia #boku no hero imagines #boku no hero x reader

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joontier · 4 years

Text

The King’s Guard | Chapter 3

–> Pairings: kim seokjin x reader; jeon jungkook x reader

–> Rating: R

–> Genre/warnings: implications of insomnia; implied infidelity; slight depictions of death of mc; slight angst; fluffy FLUff; humor smut (y/n is such a horndog tbh or maybe the author is too wink wonk; pool sex; masturbation; dom jk undertones; slight switch!jk too sHIt; fingering; voyeurism; unprotected sex; exhibitionism; fingering; boob play kookie jus like dem boobies mkay; thigh riding)

–> Word count: 10.4k

–> A/N: This has less drama and more dialogues than the previous chapters bc we all needed a break from all the angsty angst AMIRITE? Anywho, as usual Korean vocab used will be placed at the end of the chapter. TELL ME WHATCHA YALL THINK PEOPLE shsfskdjf

The King’s Guard - Masterlist || navi.

The King’s Guard | Chapter 3

With the Chuseok Festival just around the corner, the palace is practically buzzing, palace workers out and about the hanoks. You had also busied yourself with your own responsibilities and those of Seokjin’s. It’s been a fortnight since he’s left, and you’re partly thankful that the preparations for the festivities are constantly occupying your mind enough during the day so you don’t worry much about your husband.

Your days now consists of council meetings, classes with the children of the capitol, kitchen checks, palace inspections, village hearings. The list was endless. Admittedly, you had become less amiable as the days pass by, most likely from the doubled amount of responsibility you now have on your hands. It doesn’t help either that the people supposedly helping you with your duties are mostly useless. Just like the so-called ‘royal council’.

You had called for a council meeting today to raise your apprehension towards the new taxes imposed on your people. Needless to say, the meeting went terribly. Now you truly understood Seokjin’s distress after council meetings. And to think that was just the first agenda you had for the day. Just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get worse than speaking with selfish men, a guard suddenly reports to you that a corner of the kitchen had caught fire and that some citizens had caused another riot at a neighboring village.

You were already nursing a nasty headache by the time you had finished lunch. After a particularly stressful day like such, you had decided to retire to bed earlier than usual, skipping supper and your afternoon agenda for your much-needed rest.

You wake up in a cold sweat, panting heavily as you abruptly sit up in your bed. Your eyes look around, taking in your surroundings. It was just a nightmare. You begin to sob, emotions rolling off you in waves.

“Guards!” you call weakly, hoping they will hear you through your sobs. A few more cries and a royal guard, Yunho bursts through the door. “Jungjeon-mama!” he calls as he takes in your distressed state, running towards your bed.

“Lee…Astron…Lee…” the words fade on your lips.

Jungkook is the last thing you see before blacking out.

When you wake, eyes adjusting to the lack of light in the room, you see Astonomer Lee reading a book on your left and Jungkook sleeping soundly on a bench to your right. “Jungjeon-mama,” Astronomer Lee’s voice is soft as he notices you’ve awakened. You attempt to sit up, but a raging headache is royally preventing you from doing so.

“Careful, Mama. The royal physician does not recommend you getting up from bed anytime soon. You need to rest.”

It’s just a mere headache, you contest inwardly, but for the sake of it, you stop yourself from voicing out your argument. Instead, you rest your weight on your elbows and ask for Minho’s assistance in placing the rest of your pillows behind your back to elevate your torso for more convenience.

Another snore escapes from the man on your right catching both your attention. Jungkook’s neck is precariously bent forward, his chin already touching his collarbones. “Minho, could you please…” the astronomer thankfully doesn’t require any further instruction, scuttling to the other side of your bed to help Jungkook lie down on the bench he’d fallen asleep on.

“The Captain had been fighting sleep ever since you fainted earlier tonight, scolding everyone that tried to tell him to get back to his quarters but the poor lad fell asleep the moment I got here.” Minho chuckles, adjusting Jungkook’s position on the bench. The latter reaches his hands out, arms swatting Minho away who’s currently struggling with his task.

“Must…queen…awake,” the younger one mumbles in broken sentences, still blindly pushing the struggling astronomer away. By the time Minho finally manages to lay the captain down, you’re already in tears, your hand clamped over your mouth to stifle your laughter despite the tiny whirlwind in your head.

The fatigued astronomer returns to his seat after completing the arduous task while you reach for the steaming cup of tea sat on your bedside table. You take a whiff, letting the steam reach and fill your nose with the aroma. Ah, Taehyung’s signature brew. The royal physician has relatives from the east that own a tea farm, so Taehyung gets his leaves delivered fresh from the city of agriculture and brews the tea himself – one which the palace keeps in abundance, due to its taste and medicinal benefits.

“You’ve called for me earlier, my queen?”

Minho’s question drowns out the thoughts in your head. “Ah, yes.” A cold shiver runs through your spine as you recall the reason why you woke earlier during the night. “I had quite the nightmare earlier…” you start, “…I was hoping seeking your counsel would ease me of my troubles.”

“I will try my best, Jungjeon-mama.”

“You have my gratitude, Astronomer Lee. But first, I must rise, for my stomach is complaining.”

“Jungjeon-mama. I can’t let you do that. Taehyung strongly insists that you rest, I-“ You look at him, unamused. He stops mid-sentence, knowing there was no point in trying to convince you to do otherwise. “Don’t play innocent now, Minho. As if you weren’t sneaking hangwa off our table when you said you were feeling unwell during the new lunar year celebration.” The scholar chokes on his tea at your comment. “Don’t worry, I’m glad you like my recipe,” you add as you pat him lightly on the shoulders, causing the young astronomer’s cheeks to redden.

“Wangbi, what about the captain?” Minho questions, pointing to the younger man who’s still snoring away happily, face squished against the wooden seat.

“He’ll be fine. Come on, a hungry queen is a grumpy queen.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here, Mama.” Minho mumbles behind you, trying not to tug at the sleeves of your jeogori too hard. You both know he’s breaking royal protocol by touching you like this, albeit indirectly, but you don’t mind, not when his cowardice is starting to affect you as well, mumbling about tales of never-before-recorded creatures that lurk in the night.

You had forgotten to take a lamp with you at your haste to succumb to your hunger, and now you’re both suffering the consequences of your lack of preparedness. With darkness blanketed over the palace and the strong winds blowing, most of the candles inside the lampposts had burned out, only adding to your unnecessary fear. The thin fog surrounding the roofs of the hanoks were of no help either.

“Aren’t you supposed to be fond of the dark, ‘cause it’s when the stars are most visible?” You can feel Minho pursing his lips from behind you. “I only enjoy it when I’m actually outside in the field, or inside my office, with a lamp by my side,” the astronomer answers, pulling at your sleeve a little too hard when he hears a small noise nearby.

When you finally reach the kitchen, Minho breaths a sigh of relief, lighting up the nearby lamp by the entrance. As you raise the lamp to rack the shelves for a few snacks, you accidentally knock over cup from a low shelf, the contents pouring over an open teapot. “Oh!”

The astronomer jumps at the sound, quickly moving closer to you. “Mama! What was that? Do we have an intruder?” You calm him down, assuring him that there was nobody else in the kitchen. Having to lift the teapot as you wipe the spill, your nose catches on this certain aroma coming from the tiny vessel – a mixture that vaguely smells of Taehyung’s tea and…milk.

You bring the vessel closer to your nose this time, realizing that the pleasant smell was coming from the teapot. Brimming with curiosity, you grab the cup that toppled over and poured in a small amount of the concoction. Hoping that it tastes as good as it smells, you bring the cup to your mouth and try your accidentally discovery. You’re genuinely surprised at how it turned out to be, pouring more and sharing the same with Minho who’s already busy filling his mouth with biscuits.

As you both head out of the dark kitchen, snacks on one hand and drinks on the other, you both decide to rest by the steps of a neighboring hanok. The full moon seems brighter and bigger than usual – believed to be determinative of good luck, but you can’t ignore the unsettling feeling in your gut.

“What’s troubling you, Jungjeon-mama?”

“I had a nightmare earlier. It had the same full moon like tonight. Darkness has enveloped the whole palace, Seokjin and I were walking in our garden, just like the usual and as we were talking underneath the cherry tree, a snake slithers around a branch and suddenly attacks me. I don’t remember what happens after that but the next thing I knew Seokjin was in battle and for some reason I couldn’t come near him or help him at least, and somebody plunges a sword-“ You choke on a sob, inhaling deeply as you continue your narrative.

“And…and he looked so helpless, Minho.” Weeping, the astronomer gently rests your head against his shoulder, rubbing your back gently to calm you down. “My poor Seokjin…my husband,” it’s physically painful trying to breathe, like your heart is being tugged in all directions, crushed, and squeezed all at the same time. Your head betrays you one more time with a vivid image of your husband on the ground, lifeless.

You had taken your rest after your talk with Minho and decided to continue your even if it was already late in the afternoon, trying to push away the images of your dead husband before your eyes. You hear the doors slide open, the sound of wood scraping against wood ringing in your ears, the noise momentarily breaking you from concentration. Didn’t you just order the guards to keep the surroundings quiet? Or more specifically, to not let anyone in?

Paying your unexpected visitor no mind, you continue reading your husband’s past proclamations. “Wangbi.” You recognize the voice instantly. “Yes Captain? What sort of national emergency brings you here?” As much as you genuinely enjoy the company of your mysterious, newly-found acquaintance at the palace, you had plenty to catch up to due to Seokjin’s, hopefully, temporary absence.

You keep your eyes trained on the letters in front of you, still nescient of the captain’s proximity. “I must apologize for disappointing you, Jungjeon-mama, but my unlikely visit at this time of the night is not warranted by an emergency on a national level, but of a personal one.” His final words catch your attention, but you continue your reading. “And must I be the one to resolve your personal whims?” You look up from your work, eyes widening a little at the sight of the captain dressed in commoners’ clothes.

“I assure you, my queen. They are not my own.” What does he mean by that? Surely, he can’t mean you. You don’t have personal emergencies, do you?

“Should I presume your choice of clothing is related to this ‘personal emergency’?”

Jungkook says nothing, instead he grins widely in reply. He bends forward to pick something up and you crane your neck a little to see what he’s brought. In his hands is a silk pouch, golden dragons embroidered on the purple cloth. He places the same next to your desk. “What are you up to Jung?” You ask him, totally confused by his actions.

“Mama, it would do me a great honor if you could open the bag.”

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then the emergency won’t be going away anytime soon, and for all you know, it could turn into a national one.”

“Need I remind you that you’re speaking to your queen?”

“Exactly why I’m giving you the choice if you want to open the bag or not, Jungjeon-mama.”

Doesn’t seem like it. With the way he speaks of the pouch, it seems as if you don’t have that much of a choice. You narrow your eyes at him and revert them back to the pouch. “It’s getting late, Wangbi. I think it’s best for you to continue your reading tomorrow,” the captain adds a suggestion to his proposal, sliding the windows open to reveal the night sky dotted with stars.

“How am I supposed to know there is no animal inside?” He doesn’t answer one more time, just sending a toothy smile your way. You too are suppressing a grin, knowing you’re both reminiscing how just a few days ago, he’d successfully coaxed you into opening a box with a frog inside, shouting hysterically as the slimy animal jumps in your face as the whole class erupts in laughter at your reaction.

“Perhaps,” Jungkook shrugs his shoulders, “But see for yourself, Mama – the sun has already set and the darkness of the night is upon us.” For once today, you finally agree with someone. Heaving a deep sigh, you set the scrolls aside for tomorrow and reach for the bag to place it on your desk.

Under Jungkook’s watchful eyes, you gingerly check the pouch – sniffing, poking, prodding, and attempting to hear what sort of object, or creature, might be inside. The captain resists the urge to laugh at how you warily pry the bag. His chest constricts at the sight, your childlike innocence this very moment too adorable for his heart. He hopes that this moment will last forever, that you find wonder in the simplest of things and rid yourself of the sadness clouding your heart.

You untie the knot with no hurry, fingers still holding the two ends of the cloth together just in case something from the inside tries to jump on you again. Once you deem it certain that no animal is inside, you gently open the package. Neatly folded commoners’ clothes similar to Jungkook’s choice of clothes are sitting inside the bag.

“What am I to do with this?” you ask, taking out the garments that are of the same colors as the captain’s.

“Uh, wear it perhaps?” The man retorts, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Now is not the time to fool me, Captain. I know what you’re supposed to do with clothes. Now, tell me why do I have to wear this?”

“Because we’re going to visit the city – your city!”

“Excuse me? Not at this time of the night! I still have-”

“Please, Jungjeon-mama? If I’m not mistaken, this was included in one of your plans anyway! And you really look like you need a break from taking over the king’s duties, on top of your own. I assure you; we will only be the two people who shall know of this!” He whispers the last words conspiratorially, like he’s telling you something that is tantamount to committing treason.

You can’t deny that he’s made a valid point. Now that you’re in charge of the whole palace, your responsibilities had doubled in number and you rarely had time to just take a breather, your days and nights spent working and attending to your duties. Without further encouragement from the captain, you push him out of the room, telling him that you have to change first.

Jungkook does a victory dance at your affirmation, swaying his hips from side to side as he scurries towards the door, reassuring you that he’ll be waiting outside and that you will not regret this choice. You sure hope you won’t.

With the amount of time you’ve spent with him recently, you had discovered plenty of things about the captain: that he has the eye for the arts, that he completely adores children, and that he is definitely one to think on impulse. Jungkook would do anything that suddenly pops up in his mind, regardless of what the outcome of his actions might be. You realize that was the defining trait that definitely makes Jungkook and Haesoo look great together.

Once you slide the doors open, the captain places a finger on his mouth, silently ordering you to stay quiet. You nod, following Jungkook as he walks on the tip of his toes, wincing when his next step makes the wood below him creak. He looks back at you with a funny face that almost made you laugh out loud, reprimanding him with a light slap on his arm, shushing him.

After having traversed almost halfway across the entire palace, you had one last hanok to cross before reaching Jungkook’s supposed ‘secret passage’ by the west gates. The captain peeks his head from a corner, checking any surrounding guards by the small open space while you rest your back against a lamppost.

“It’s clear, Mama.”

You join him where he’s stood, watching the same guards he’d been observing just now. With your shoulders almost touching, the captain is now fully conscious of your current proximity, his breathing getting shallower by the second. The captain hadn’t really expected you to say yes, and now that you’re here with him, he’s practically jumping in excitement, completely giddy at the fact that you’re spending time with him out of your official duties.

He’d initially meant to go with Haesoo tonight, but had lied to her that he’s been feeling unwell all day and wanted to get some good night’s rest. Now you’re here by his side, sneaking through the guards, as guilt eats at him for lying to such a sweet girl like Haesoo. What Jungkook won’t openly admit though is that spending time alone with you seems to alleviate the guilt he feels for his misdeed to another.

The captain glances sideways to glimpse at you. How is it that you always manage to be effortlessly beautiful? Even when you’re in your royal garments, in commoners’ clothes like tonight, or even without clothes, you always seem to have this aura that simply magnetizes people towards you, no matter what the time, place, or occasion may be.

He wasn’t – isn’t – supposed to develop feelings for you – not for a married woman, and especially not for the queen of Korea. This wasn’t part of the mission. He hadn’t gone through so much in the past just for his plans to ricochet at him like this. Was he really willing to throw away all those years of training just because his heart was always beating faster than usual around you?

Jungkook shakes his head as if to rid himself of his thoughts of self-doubt. He turns his head to look at you at look and puts a smile on his face. “Ready, Mama?” he reaches his hand out for you to take which you accept gladly as he informs you that you both had to run across the open square to reach the secret passage.

The captain gulps when you slip your soft, small hand into his. There’s a small part of him that suddenly regrets his offer, the small action seemingly seeping him further into the fatal void of his emotions. But, undeniably, there’s that larger part of his conscience that celebrates during moments like these with you – his heart triumphs once again.

He can’t fail this mission, not when he’s so close to finishing it. But the more he tries to concentrate, the more he falls and it’s so difficult to accomplish something when his heart and his brain are constantly at war with each other, even if they’re fighting over the same thing.

Jungkook counts to three and you two bolt from the corner of the hanok and run towards the trees. Halfway through the square, one of the guards catches you and orders you two to halt at once. “Quickly!” Jungkook whispers, giving you a hand with carrying your skirt so you could run faster. As the guard sprints after you, you run as fast as your feet could carry you until the both of you reach the bushes and hide beneath the thick shrubs.

The both of you hide beneath the shrubs, breathless. When the guard arrives at the spot he’d thought you two were supposed to be, he finds no traces of you or any other intruder lurking around, the guard goes back to his post. You let out a huge breath you don’t realize you’ve been holding back for so long.

When you realize you still had your hands intertwined with Jungkook, you release yourself from his grip gently, dismissing the awkwardness in the air with a small cough. You let yourself fall onto a nearby heap of leaves, letting out a breathy laugh. Jungkook soon joins you on the heap, laughing along.

“I haven’t run like that in such a long time!” you squeal, clapping your hands in excitement. Jungkook revels in your enthusiasm as he pushes himself from the heap. “Where to now?” As you finish dusting yourself off, Jungkook looks at you expectantly. “Please don’t tell me you’re planning for us to go over the wall.”

“I promise you, it’s safe, Jungjeon-mama.”

“How would you know that?! I don’t even see a ladder here for us to use!” Your shoulders slump and you slowly back away. “No, no, no, no! We’ll be fine!” reassures Jungkook, attempting to calm your agitation due to the literal obstacle in front of you.

“Wangbi, look, it’s not even that high, see?” The captain pushes his back against the wall and uses his hand to compare his height to the brick partition. There may be a relatively small difference, the wall being approximately a head higher than Jungkook, but the captain easily towers over you, so how exactly does he suppose you to reach all the way to the top?

You look at him like he’s eaten your expensive collection ceramic bowls for breakfast. Maybe he’s had too much milk tea to drink? You’d learned that he’s enjoyed your newly-discovered concoction way more than others in the palace. Perhaps the mixture didn’t yield as much benefits as you initially thought it was? You make a mental note to lessen the frequency of the production of your specialty drink.

You think this through one last time. All this trouble would have been for nothing if you’ll decide retire to your room now. Plus, you badly wanted to see the Chuseok preparations going on outside the palace. You let your fingers rub heavily against your forehead, weighing the possible outcome of sneaking out of the palace in the middle of the night.

You take one look at Jungkook, who’s silently pleading you to continue your journey with his titillating doe-like eyes, then you let your eyes linger over to the wall and what sort of sight it might hide beneath it. You let out an exasperated sigh, knowing that the captain has once again triumphed in dragging you to his acts of impulsiveness.

“Captain Jung Jungkook, you will be the death of me.”

The captain claps his hands with an intense amount of vigor at your statement. He doesn’t falter even with the look of aggravation on your face. You gasp inwardly, maybe he found out where you hid your secret vessel of makgeolli in the kitchen and drank it all for himself! That little bast-

“Come on now, I’ll lift you up.” Jungkook laces his fingers together, hands forming a makeshift pedestal for you to step on. He lowers his knees for your convenience and bows curtly, gesturing you to come closer.

Grabbing onto his shoulders for support, you ease a foot onto his woven hands. He lifts you up with no trouble and you latch onto the top of the wall, swinging your legs over one at a time, eventually perching yourself on top of the brick panel. “See that wasn’t so hard after all, right Mama?” Jungkook should be grateful he doesn’t see you roll your eyes.

Jungkook, on the other hand, agile body and all, practically springs from the ground and hooks his hands easily on the wall, jumps over the partition and lands gracefully on the other side with ease. “How did you manage to do that?!” Your still at awe at his dexterity, eyes wide at the realization that he’d done such a strenuous feat without exerting much effort. “Tell me, Jung Jungkook, were you a thief at some point in your life? A bandit perhaps?”

The captain chortles at your sudden judgment. “No, I wasn’t, Mama. But you’d have a lot of training when you live in a pala-“Jungkook’s eyes widen slightly, “w-when you live in a place where there are plenty of walls to climb over.” He’s grateful when you don’t notice the slip in his words. “Now what do I do?” You tap your fingers at your thighs, anxious about what might happen next. You look around. There doesn’t seem to be some spot soft enough for you to land on.

“Jump. I’ll catch you, Jungjeon-mama.”

Once again, you find yourself questioning your life decisions. Perhaps you were the one who had too much milk tea to drink? You’ve never even tried, not even once, tried sneaking out of the palace like this before and now here you were, a grown, married woman, climbing over a wall at nighttime like it’s some daily chore.

As you push yourself off the brick wall, a villager shouts something in your direction, making Jungkook look away from you the same time you jump. You instantly close your eyes in fear, yelling out the captain’s name as you fall.

When Jungkook manages to catch you in his arms, you recite prayers of gratitude to your ancestors for having blessed Jungkook with vigilance, that is, until he falls backward, losing his stepping on a small stone with your startling leap, the sound of his back hitting the ground muffled by the soil beneath him.

As you pry your eyes open, you find out your face is almost touching his. The captain’s usually inquisitive face is contorted into one of grimace because of the pain. You shamelessly take advantage of this opportunity to gawk at the faded scar that sparked your curiosity more than you can admit.

You shuffle on your feet as the proximity of your faces finally dawns on you, your faces so near to each other that you feel his warm breathing fanning your cheeks. “Sorry, Jungkook,” you blurted out, sitting on your knees as you gently shake him by the shoulders.

Panic arises from you when he doesn’t budge at your prodding, especially now that you’re shaking his body with a reasonable amount of fervor, your eyes already brimming with tears. You don’t see his chest moving, nor do you feel any breathing under his nose or mouth. He couldn’t possibly have died from that could he?! Checking your surroundings, you look for something that might have caused damage during his landing. “Jungkook! Wake up, please!” you let your head fall to his chest as you feel a single droplet of tear roll down your cheek.

“Aww, are those tears for me, Mama?” the captain coos, eyes twinkling with mirth under the moonlight.

Your head shoots up in surprise. “Y-yes!” you stammer out, trying not to show any other expression other than annoyance on your face. “And for the record, those were tears of joy because I thought the only person in this world who makes me do the most ridiculous things has finally breathed his last!”

Instead of being threatened by your indignation, he doubles in laughter, body quaking as he does. You quietly stand there watching him, and soon enough when the captain notices your silence, he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth to stop his amusement. He shuffles to his feet and bows from his waist. “My deepest apologies, Jungjeon-mama. I did not mean to worry you.”

When he looks up, he sees your face just as stoic as your stance, guilt eats at him and he starts to fidget with his fingers. “If- if you’d like to go back-“

“Ha!” Jungkook jumps at your exclamation, your hands clasped together in delight. “How does it like being fooled now, hmm?” he pouts at the sight of your face, your perfectly shaped brow taunting him as he bows again.

“You’re scary, Jungjeon-mama,” the captain grumbles, kicking at a few fallen leaves.

“And so I’ve been told. Come on now! You’ve still got plenty to show me, and the night is still young!” As you tug on his sleeves, the smile that etches on Jungkook’s face is as warm as his heart, your eagerness way to infectious for him to ignore your pleas.

The two of you wander through the streets of the village just outside the capitol’s palace, in awe of the hustle and bustle of the villagers’ Chuseok preparations. Well, you for the most part. The captain had just discovered that this was you first time to witness festival preparations outside the palace. He isn’t surprised though, as he knew each city’s palace is equally as busy as yours during the festival, so he hadn’t wondered how you had never gotten out during the festivities.

Your facial expressions are nothing short of wonder, Jungkook notices, as you practically marvel at everything, like a little girl seeing a doll for the first time. The captain trails behind you silently as you move from one side of the dirt road to the other. You occasionally bump into some villagers on the way who complain about your walking, which unnecessarily alerts the captain side of Jungkook, ready to fight anyone who dare messes with the queen, with his queen.

Jungkook watches as a halmeoni merchant’s stall catches your eyes, orbs widening in marvel when you take a closer look at the accessories she’s put on display on a table. The old lady watches Jungkook’s eyes trained on you fill in with adoration as you check nearly every single piece of hairpin on the rickety piece of wood. She wants to coo at the sight, but she doesn’t want to ruin the moment, so she quietly beckons Jungkook to come closer.

She reaches a slightly shaky hand out, gesturing for the captain to give her his palm. She hands him an earth-colored hairpin with a pink flower situated on top. “Give this to her,” she whispers, voice trembling as much as her hand. “To whom?” the young man replies, looking around for the girl the old lady is pertaining to.

“Silly boy,” she extends a hand and pinches his ear, “to her, of course, the girl you love over there,” the old lady motions to you, who’s still busy being enamored by the jade hairpins. “O-oh, we…we’re not…” the halmeoni dismisses him with a wave. “Go on now.”

As the captain takes a step towards you, you turn around, showing him the green hairpin you’ve clipped beside your ear. “Kookie! How does it look?”

He’s momentarily stunned at your nickname you’d called him – a nickname he’s been called exclusively by one person only during his childhood – the same person who’s calling him Kookie tonight, even with the number of years that had passed.

“Kook-“ your words falter as you see the hairpin the captain holds in his hands, captivated by its beauty. “It’s a carnation,” the old lady points out nodding her head towards the accessory you’ve now taken from Jungkook’s grasp. She continues speaking, “they say it’s the queen’s favorite flowers and…” her voice comes down to a whisper, “…rumor has it that the king has tended a garden full of carnations just for her, what a truly lovely man the king is… but don’t tell anyone that!”

Your chest constricts at the mention of your husband, whose presence you yearn for the most. You wish he was here to witness the festivities outside the palace not as royalty but as commoners, just like you and Jungkook tonight.

“It’s beautiful, halmeoni,” you say, touching the pink carnation settled on top of the pin. “Take it, please.” The old lady offers but you decline, telling her that you didn’t bring any coins with you as payment. Jungkook reaches for a few from the pouch tied to his pants but the old lady won’t have it, insisting that she give it to you for free.

“You’ve got the face and the heart of queen, young lady. Take it as a gift from one grandmother to her beautiful grandchild.”

Giving her a bow of gratitude in return for her kind words and the lovely gift, the captain helps you attach the hairpin on your head. The both of you greet the halmeoni with a happy Chuseok and she responds with her own best wishes for the both of you.

As you walk away from her stall, Jungkook notices the loneliness lingering in your eyes. He won’t allow you to be sad now, not when he’s brought you here to be the opposite, so he speaks up, avoiding touching the subject of your husband to mollify your emotions.

“So…Kookie?”

“Oh sorry about that. I just thought it would have been strange if I called you Captain, or Jung…” That he understood, Jungkook doesn’t know what could have possibly turned out of a situation where you blew both your covers.

“But Kookie?”

“I…It’s just that you remind of a friend I had during my childhood who was called that, or at least, that’s what I called him. You know, it’s strange that I actually never knew his real name, or who his family was, or where he truly lived. We had met in the woods once when I got lost trying to follow a butterfly and he helped me back to the palace that afternoon. All I knew was that he told me to call him Kookie, so there’s that,” you shrug as you glimpse at Jungkook, whose facial expression looks like he warrants more explanation.

“Since then, Kookie and I would meet at the same spot he’d found me during the afternoon and we would talk, or rather, I would talk and Kookie would just listen to me talk. On other days we would just play until the court ladies would call me back and we’d have to part ways again.”

“Ah, he was a good listener and a good friend too…Kookie. One day, he just didn’t show up, and I waited there in our old spot the whole day. But he never came, nor did he arrive on the next day, or the day after that. I miss him sometimes, you know? I miss having friends. Occasionally, I wonder how he’s doing, what he’s grown up to be, if he has a family, or children even! It’s a shame really that I never really got to know his real name… for all we know, he could’ve been a Jungkook too, or a Jikook, or a Taekook, or a Namkook, or a Yoonkook!” Jungkook laughs at your endless combinations. “Ah, if I only knew his name, I would have already invited him over for supper at the palace…”

The captain nods absentmindedly, your sentiments reeling in his mind. You were there that day, you waited for him. The captain wanted to sing in joy. In fact, he even more elated that you remember. You remember him. He thinks to himself, ‘Oh Jungjeon-mama, Kookie is closer to you than you will have ever imagined.’

Exhaling as you rest your head against the edge of the pool, you move your focus from the task at hand to the wooden ceiling. You miss Seokjin terribly. It’s been far too long without his touch.

Whether it be a quick relief from the stresses that root from ruling a nation, or sensual moments of intimacies like the night before he’d left, you had a particularly sexually active lifestyle with Seokjin and now with your husband away, the reality of his absence has finally taken its toll on you. You used to wonder how your husband had his libido up and running no matter what the occasion, but he’d always counter with you being far too desirable to resist his primal urges. Now that he’s away, your struggling with the thoughts of missing Seokjin, and dealing with an even greater struggle of trying to pleasure yourself.

With another exhale, you close your eyes as you sink your torso farther down where you’re seated on the pool steps. Your fingers find the sensitive nether bud between your legs, imagining it was Seokjin’s fingers ghosting over your body and not yours. When his face comes into view beneath your closed eyelids, you slide your hands across your chest, your palms knead the supple flesh of your breast. You let the hardened nub of your nipple get tweaked and twisted between your two fingers.

Once again, the royal captain finds himself in another compromising situation. He doesn’t know how long he’s been hiding behind the post with your back facing him, his eyes watching your third failed attempt today at pleasuring yourself.

Earlier this afternoon, as you had retired to your bedroom to take some rest, he heard a moan slip from within. He thought he was mistaken by another questionable noise and tried to shake it off, thinking that his hearing might’ve inevitably worsened after watching over the royal band that rehearsed in the palace’s square the day before. However, as another whimper reached his ears, he knew he wasn’t mistaken this time around, so he ordered the guards situated inside the hanok to do their rounds outside.

Unfortunately, he knew his orders were called a little bit too late as Chaeyoung slides your doors open just as he was about to stop her, and they had both found you on your bed, the covers lazily draped across your body as your hands worked between your spread legs. The pair poorly averted their gazes as Jungkook scurries to close the doors at your orders.

The captain remains still as he watches you from behind. Even with your back facing him, he can vividly picture out what you look like right now, as if he’d just been taken back to the night he watched with sick fascination you and Seokjin in middle of lovemaking. He badly wants to help you with your predicament – the king’s parting words ringing in his head.

“Captain Jung?” Seokjin calls out to the younger man, who’s busy with the final checks on the straps of the saddle atop the king’s white steed.

“Jeonha?”

“Come walk with me.”

The captain is confused by the king’s sudden call for his presence but he complies nonetheless. Seokjin takes a few steps forward, waiting for Jungkook. When the latter catches up, Seokjin begins talking, glancing sideways at the captain.

“I am leaving the security of the capitol in your hands, Captain Jung. I expect that you will protect the city with your life, just like I have. During these trying times, the country needs a protector – someone who will give them security even when nothing is seemingly going right.”

“Yes, Jeonha. You have my word.”

“Also, I knew you were there, you know.”

“Jeonha?” The captain repeats, baffled by the king’s words, absolutely clueless as to what the king was pertaining to. “I knew you were there last night, Jungkook. Outside our room.” The captain visibly pales at Seokjin’s statement, but the former keeps his silence as he racks his brain for an appropriate response. Seokjin hears Jungkook’s profuse apologies next, penitence evident in the captain’s every mention of ‘sorry’.

“I admire the genuineness behind your confession. And that’s why I need you to do one more thing.”

“Anything you ask of, my King.”

“I need you to take care of my wife.”

“Of course, Jeonha.”

“No, no… What I mean is I need you to be there for her. This journey I have to take…it’s too risky, too much peril is involved in this mission that I honestly don’t think I’ll make it out alive.” Seokjin feels lighter at his confession, like some heavy weight has been taken off his shoulders.

“I need you to be there when she needs someone to talk to, when she needs someone to eat with, when she needs an honest opinion on something, when she needs me. My wife… she is very headstrong and independent – traits that I admire most about our queen. But at the end of the day, behind the façade of her unwillingness to yield to anything that is possibly beyond her control, she is but my wife – a woman who needs her husband, just as much as I need her.”

“I know you and I both share the same degree of affection towards _______.” Jungkook opens his mouth to speak, but Seokjin beats him to it. “Understand that I am one with your emotions. It’s alright. I am but a man too, you know, after you strip off the crown and the royal garments,” the king remarks, “Surely, you witnessed that too last night. Must’ve been a spectacle,” Seokjin adds, letting out a small whistle, without forgetting to attach a roguish wink at the end of his sentence towards Jungkook, who shies under the older man’s gaze.

“Sorry for my lack of formalities, Jungkook. It must be my wife’s secret stash of makgeolli speaking, but don’t tell her that! I was asking a personal favor from you anyways, from one friend to another. So… will you comply with my request?”

“O-Of course, my King. I’ll do my best, but please understand that I have no intentions of interfering with your relationship. The queen is a married woman after all…I mean…she’s married to you, Jeonha! I couldn’t possibly compare myself to what you have provided for her.” Jungkook is still unable to grasp the absurdity of it all. Yes, nearly every word the King said is without a doubt laced with nothing but the truth. But he still doesn’t understand what the King trust him with such great task.

Does Seokjin even know who he truly is?

Sure, the king is well aware of his feelings towards you, but was that enough? Does Seokjin trust him that much? If Seokjin only knew who he truly was, would the king even let him stand in the same room as his wife? Let alone attend to her…private needs?

“The moment I had planned of this journey, I had already accepted the consequences of what I am to do. I understand, and she will eventually understand. She always does.”

The captain continues contemplating behind the post. This is wrong, on so many levels. He isn’t even supposed to be in the royal baths now, but the rumored news he had just heard from an informant absolutely warrants your attention. At the same time, he feels a strong calling to help you with your present helplessness. Rumors be damned.

Jungkook takes a deep breath. It’s now or never.

“Can I help you with anything, Mama?” Jungkook is relieved as his voice comes out less shaky than he anticipated.

You’re shocked beyond belief at the voice that comes from behind you, nearly losing your footing on the pool steps. “Jungkook! What are you doing here?!” You pant, covering your chest even if they’re barely visible under your milk bath. Regret fills you as you stare at your forlorn robe, too far away to sheath yourself with at least an ounce of modesty.

Jungkook stills, unsure what to retort. He’s meant to bring you rumors of an informant from outside the palace, but now, it seems as if his initial task was long forgotten. ‘It can wait,’ he thinks to himself, your welfare is always his priority. “I-uh. I was doing my rounds…and I heard the water splashing inside… so I had to check.”

Shame floods through you. Fortunately for you, the captain doesn’t see you liken to the shade of a tomato. You’re unsure what pushes you to pour out your emotions to the captain – whether it be the fact that the captain has earned your trust that you’re comfortable enough to be completely honest with him, or that you are left with no other choice but to tell the truth as to why you’ve decided to spend your night in the royal baths. You could care less at this point, whatever the reason might have been, because the words are already spilling out of your mouth.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Jungkook. I am beyond agitated – in fact, I think I have been since my husband’s leave. And on top of that I miss Seokjin. I really do, and it’s not just the kind of feeling that you can temporarily disregard by preoccupying yourself with other things, its…I…I miss him so much because I need him, Jungkook. Now it’s all the more frustrating because the only way I know how to instantaneously relieve myself isn’t working either because like I said… I, I need my husband.”

“Use me then Mama, for your own pleasure. Imagine I am the king, imagine me as your husband,” he pleads.

“What?! I-I can’t ask that of you Captain, that is beyond your royal duties.”

“I’m not asking, I’m offering you my assistance… as a friend, as someone who genuinely wants you to help you relieve yourself of your stresses even just for a short while.”

You sit there silent, contemplating. You hate how he always catches you off guard, easily pointing out the truth that you thought you wonderfully hide. Sitting up straighter, skeptical at the thought of this proposal, you turn around to face Jungkook. “Doesn’t this seem strange to you?”

“Jungjeon-mama, it’s only strange if you think about it that way. I really just want to help you. If you desire so, I can just leave now and forget this ever happened,” Jungkook offers and you already hear him standing from where he’s seated.

“No!” you yell abruptly, taking Jungkook by surprise. Well you didn’t explicitly say ‘yes’ but your answer wasn’t exactly a disapproval of his offer, was it?

“How are we supposed to do this then?” Your voice is small, if he’s not mistaken, he could tell you’re slightly embarrassed because of the whole situation. Jungkook’s mind goes blank. Then again, he really wasn’t expecting you to agree.

“Uh… I guess I could guide you through it? I… I don’t have to go there, I won’t even look at you, I’ll just stay here…while I uh, talk you through it?” The captain inwardly cringes at himself, grimacing at how much he’d stammered at such a short period of time.

“Are you sure about that…”

“Yes, I’m okay-”

“I meant, are you sure you’re going to stay there the whole time?”

The captain’s eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. What? Are you implying that he move somewhere he can see you? Were you even aware of what you’re saying? Jungkook tries to reassure you and himself that he’ll gladly stay back, watching you from behind. Besides, he doesn’t even know how you’ll react if you make him move nearer and you’ll eventually realize that he’s already half-hard just imagining you naked. Jungkook hums in approval.

“Okay, show me how you touch yourself, Mama.”

“But you can’t see me?”

“I’ll be fine, I can see your arms moving from here. I’ll just try to imagine what you’re doing…” ‘That sounded awful,’ Jungkook thinks, biting his fist at the realization of him not being articulate enough.

“O-okay,” comes your answer as you sink yourself lower on the pool. He sees your arms create tiny ripples on the water with your movements. Perhaps, this wasn’t so bad, after all.

“Imagine it’s the King massaging your breasts slowly as he cups your cunt with his other hand.” Jungkook sees you comply instantly, good girl. He sees you sink even further as you enjoy yourself, soft whimpers escaping your lips. “Now, play with your clit, Mama, slowly rub it in circles with your fingers.” The captain’s chest swells with pride as your head slightly lolls backwards until you suddenly sit up straight again, this time looking at him straight in the eye.

“I can’t Jungkook…this is too difficult. You have to be here.”

Jungkook nearly falls off his seat.

“Mama- I…”

“Take off your clothes, Captain and get your butt here in the pool with me.” Jungkook gets rid of his clothes with the same sense of urgency laced with your words. “Quickly, before I’ll have you dismissed from the royal guards.” You let him undress for a moment, fidgeting with your fingers as you wait for him on the pool steps.

“I’m here, Mama.” Turning to face him, Jungkook takes notice of your bloodshot eyes. He delicately wipes a tear that rolls down your cheek. The gentle action spurs you to hug the captain, the frustration coming off as tears pouring out of your eyes.

He attempts to ignore the fact that your chest is blatantly pressing against his, your pert nipples cold against his torso. Jungkook likewise wonders if you’re aware of his fully erect dick now, which is painfully and uncomfortably wedged between your bodies. You both stay like that for a moment, relaxing in each other’s arms, or just you – at least, from Jungkook’s perspective. There are already beads of sweat glistening on his forehead despite the cold breeze that entered through an open window.

Ever so gently, he presses a light kiss on your forehead, then on your cheeks and on your nose. “Are you okay, Mama?” the concerned captain asks as you silently rest your head against his chest. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” You nod, pushing him forward and making him sit on the steps of the pool.

You pull his thighs apart, making room for you to sit on the meaty muscle. As you lower yourself on his thigh, Jungkook lets out a breathy exhale, feeling your core hot and wet against his skin. His hands shoot out to grab at your hips as he squeezes you lightly, desperate to confirm to himself that this isn’t just the loveliest dream – that you aren’t seated on his lap, gloriously naked as a newborn baby.

He wants to kiss you like this, to show you how beautiful you are, how strong his feelings are just for you. But he controls himself, as you’d probably reserve those lips for your husband alone, and he’s willing to wait it out, as long as you’re comfortable and you don’t feel pressured to do it.

His large hands are warm against your cool skin, gaze steely as you grind yourself against his thighs desperately. He gropes the supple flesh of your breasts, rolling your already hardened nipples between his fingers. Jungkook gives them a pinch before enclosing one in his mouth, tongue swirling all over your areola. Your hands reach up to tug frantically at his hair. “Ah Jungkook, please…”

Jungkook nips at the skin by the valley of your breasts, lips moving south to more time to take one of your tits inside his mouth while he keeps his hand busy kneading the other. “You’re so wet, Mama. And it’s not because of your bath is it?” He observes, swiping his fingers against your folds, shallowly dipping two and removing them from your cunt. “Please call me ________.”

Jungkook slides two fingers inside of you without warning and you quickly clasp a hand over your mouth, letting out a whimper. He lets out a low groan at the sound, clearly just as aroused as you are. He sped up his fingers, circling your swollen clit with his thumb. As your hips jerk, you feel yourself slowly sliding forward, your core coming in contact with his cock. Your thighs tremble at the sensation.

You’re so close, finally! Letting out a satisfied exhale, you urge Jungkook to go even faster as you arch your back, shamelessly undulating your hips on his fingers. You hear Jungkook whisper praises on your skin as you cum on his fingers, squeezing and pulsing around his digits. As you pant heavily, you let your head fall onto his shoulder. You hiss as he pulls his fingers out and trail them across your back, before situating them on your back and pulling you into a hug.

Jungkook unabashedly ogles your tits, completely mesmerized by how they slightly jiggle as you breath. He takes one of your breast in his mouth again, while the other gets groped and abused by his hand. As you squirm beneath him, he suckles on the skin for a moment, teasing you even further. He pulls away with a pop and tilts his head, grinning at you. “Use your words, my queen. I need to know what you want, what you truly need.”

“I need you.” Jungkook nearly sings in elation, heart soaring as he hears the words escape your lips.

“I’m all yours, _______. Take me.”

With his arms shifting underneath the water, you figure Jungkook has taken his cock in his hand, jerking it off a little before adjusting his seating. He lets the hard flesh press against your core, making you gasp at the contact. His eyes fall close as he slowly rubs himself back and forth the wetness of your folds, catching his bottom lip between his teeth at the feeling.

Getting impatient with his incessant teasing, you take hold of his cock and position it near your entrance. You lower yourself on his cock slowly, mouth falling open at the burning stretch of being breached after quite some time. “You…feel…so…good,” Jungkook says breathily as your pussy squeezes every inch of him until he bottoms out.

You grab him on his shoulders for support, your arms entwining around his neck as you let your fingers get tangled in his hair. You raise yourself until only the tip of his cock is left between your folds and you sink back down onto it with a long, loud moan.

It had proven to be quite the challenge to fuck in the pool because of the water resistance, but with Jungkook’s equally fervent desire to give you your release, his hips start moving in a steady rhythm, matching yours. You were getting close, but not enough to reach your high.

“Kook, gods…floor now.”

“Can I, ______?” Jungkook asks, dark eyes looking at you almost pleadingly. He places the tip of his cock at your entrance, pausing as he gazes at you one more time. You squeeze his arm beside your head that has you caged beneath him. Jungkook lets out an exhale, grabbing onto your hipbones and slamming inside you without further warning. He fucks you relentlessly, thrusting so deep that your body is jolting forward, his cock hitting your cervix with every snap of his hips. Just then you realized, the water in the pool was clearly holding him back.

His pace doesn’t waver even with his breathing getting more ragged by the second. “Fuck, you feel so good, _______.” He lifts himself, stretching his elbows out to take a good look at you. Jungkook had never thought he’d be able to get blessed again with such a sight. You’re mewling beneath him, his name repeatedly falling off your swollen lips like a prayer. His eyes get trained on your breasts one more time, watching them jiggle with every thrust he makes. The sight only makes him pound into you harder than before, taking one of your nipples into his mouth and sucking on the hardened bud.

You’re already far too gone to care about the cold wind hitting your skin or the slight burn of your skin sliding against the wooden floor as Jungkook fucks you against it. With your orgasm building up for the second time tonight, you push your hips upward, angling yourself so he hits that sweet spot inside you with each movement of his hips.

“Come on, Mama,” Jungkook encourages through gritted teeth, all too aware that his own high is coming to him at breakneck speed, but he collects himself, holding on until you cum first. Your relief is his priority. He slides his fingers between your bodies and finds your nether bud. That seems to do the job. As he continues to rub at your clit, your moans get louder and this time Jungkook is glad that you no longer attempt to hold in your cries, carelessly mewling out the sounds of your passion. Your whole body convulses as your orgasm washes over you.

The captain follows suit, cock going rock hard inside you as he spills his release and throws his head back, grabbing onto your hips and groaning louder than you’ve ever heard him before. You let him ride out his high with a few more thrusts, watching his face contort into pleasure. Wincing as he pulls out, Jungkook falls to your side, panting just as heavily as you are.

“Thank you, Jungkook.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Jungjeon-mama.”

You can’t sleep, again. But this time, it’s not because of your own doing. You hear horses neighing and a few yells here and there. There’s something going on outside – a commotion, one which only seems to get worse as you hear the guards attempt to keep the noise at the minimum at this ungodly hour.

Grabbing your robe from the dresser, you tiredly rub at your eyes as you head out of your room. You spot Yunho looking out from the windows of your hanok. “What’s going on? Why is there so much noise?” Dragging your feet across the wooden floor, you walk sluggishly towards the guard who bows curtly to acknowledge your presence but returns his vision to the ruckus below.

“It seems we have a visitor, Jungjeon-mama. Please continue your resting, we will take care of this.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m already awake,” you respond, joining him by the window. As you squint your eyes to see better, an all-too-familiar emblem printed on a handheld flag standing tall and proud, seemingly waving at you as the wind blows.

“Jungjeon-mama!” Yunho calls out as you rush outside. His calls fall into deaf ears, letting your feet carry you down the stairs and towards the palace gates. You’re getting a sick feeling from their unexpected arrival, their presence not settling properly in your gut.

The royal guards get in your way, attempting to stop you from taking another step nearer your visitors. “Mama, please get back to your room.” Jungkook steps forward, shielding you from seeing your unexpected guests. “Move, Captain. It’s only right for the lady of the house to greet her guests herself. So make way, Jungkook. Don’t make me tell you twice.” Jungkook lets out an exhale, hesitating on his actions. He makes a small step sideways, and you look at him. “Do you not trust me?” The captain looks away and takes a larger step to your right, making way, but not before getting closer as he whispers in your ear, “They’re dangerous, Mama. It’s them I don’t trust. Just give me a sign and I’ll behead this man in one strike.”

You nod in agreement, thankful that his bravery seems to add up to the courage you’re lacking at this very moment. You haven’t had a proper look at your guests and now that you do, you’re taken aback by the mop of blonde hair that catches your eyes, the man’s hair unusually matching that of his horse’s.

The man with the pale-yellowish hair alights from his horse, your eyes trained on his every movement. He nods to one of his guards to take care of his steed. Was this man a foreigner? From overseas perhaps? But why does he hold the emblem of the south with him? Had history already repeated itself? You’re starting to get a headache with the number of questions swirling in your head right now, all of which are answered when the man finally looks at you.

“Yoongi?”

You’re rendered speechless. You’re well aware that the present king of the south has a scar on his face, inflicted by none other than Minseok, who had paid for the facial wound with his life, but you never thought it would be this…terrible. The wound is healing, but the scar cutting through his right eyebrow until his cheek was an injury too deep to heal fully. That you knew all too well with the similar mark you have on your side from your childhood.

You gulp, taking another step forward. “What are you and your men doing here?”

“Ah, Jungjeon-mama, surely that’s not how the capitol greets its guests?” You maintain your glare but the present king of the south looks the least bit unfazed. “Don’t worry, my Queen, the pleasure is all mine.” Jungkook was about to wield his sword when Yoongi takes one of your hands in his and placing a gentle kiss at the back of your palm.

You’re startled by the gesture, quickly withdrawing your hand and wiping it discreetly against your robe. “I’m going to ask you again, Yoongi. What are you doing here?”

Yoongi huffs, glancing sideways, “Fine, since you asked so nicely. We’re here to celebrate Chuseok.”

“It’s not until a few more days.”

“Is there anything wrong about arriving a little earlier than expected?”

“Don’t you have your own city to celebrate with, and take care of?”

“The queen is always in charge of the celebrations. But you already knew that. Besides, it’s not unusual to visit your friends during the festival, right? Especially when a southerner is celebrating all by herself in such a big palace.”

Both ticked and apprehended at his words, you clench your jaw as you decide. Yoongi isn’t entirely wrong; the festival isn’t an exclusive commemoration of your ancestors, but it is also considered a time of communal gathering – one celebrated with your families, distant relatives, and friends.

Albeit you and Yoongi don’t share the type of friendship that he implied, it had also been tradition for royalties to visit each other’s cities during Chuseok, but the prideful south was never really one to partake in dealing with simple ethics. On top of that, it was considered bad luck to refuse guests during festivities, especially one as big as Chuseok. And you wouldn’t want to push your luck, not when Yoongi’s arrival is enough bad luck as it is.

“Yunho,” you call, taking your eyes off Yoongi, “ready our guests’ hanok.”

The king gives you a lopsided smirk in return. You turn on your heel after that, unable to take any more of his presence. Yoongi nears Jungkook who maintains his steel gaze at the unexpected visitor and says lowly,

“Pleasant to see you again after so long…brother.”

[taglist] : @aretha170

#bangtanhq #ficswithluv #btsgoldnet #btswritingcafe #ksmutclub #hyunglinenetwork #bangtanarmynet #bts smut #bts angst #jeon jungkook #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook x reader

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iwanttobeyourwonderwoman · 4 years

Text

I can barely breathe when you are near.

I’m just gonna say I totally loved the show. Mad love.

And in case you haven’t figure it out yet, or watched the show to get it, I’m talking about Ginny and Georgia.

So many important topics touched on so many feelings and oh so many love triangles.

So join me as i dissect the whole show hehe .

Alright basic plot-

Young single mom Georgia and her teenage daughter Ginny, and younger son Austin, are always on the road and have now moved across the country to the small town of Wellsbury, Massachusetts from Texas, where they encounter a whole load of quirky characters. Ginny, who never had friends, slowly starts fitting in with the popular sophomores, mainly her neighbour Maxine, who also has a twin brother Marcus while Georgia befriends their mother Ellen. The series follows their attempts and struggles of fitting in with the town, all while developing their own love triangles (square in Georgia’s case). And the best part is, the unfolding of Georgia’s dark past filled with teen mom struggles and a little bit of murder mystery as to how she has gotten to where she is now.

Teen mom and daughter combo again? Been there done that!

Well yes, as everyone compares it to Gilmore Girls (my personal favourite show ever) here are some similarities and differences as well as other show references.

*SPOILERS!!

It does explore that close relationship that Ginny and Georgia have, but obviously the kind of bond that Rory and Lorelai had were a lot stronger and had their own personal quirks and wit. There were often rifts in G&G’s relationship caused by the secrets of Georgia’s past as well as Ginny feeling inferior to her own mother in terms of looks and her ability to be a chameleon to fit in anywhere. Rory was more focused on her grades and was comfortable just having her few friends. Ginny on the other hand wanted to be liked and wanted to fit in with her school friends and eventually becomes part of MANG and the boys. And in the case of the mothers, Lorelai focused on raising Rory and worked her way up to eventually owning her own Inn while Georgia snuck and tiptoed her way around swindling money wherever she could but all in the best intentions of her kids more than herself, desperate to give her kids the life she never had.

Also in a way I feel like this is also similar to Jane the Virgin except of course Jane’s character is older, but if you take the standpoint of the mother-daughter relationship and love triangle(Jane/Rafael/Michael) as well as a little psychotic Murder mystery Petra vibes.

, I feel like G&G is a good mix of Gilmore and JTV.

When it comes to love interests, Ginny was stuck between boyfriend Hunter and neighbour Marcus. Sweet, innocent Hunter (my favourite character in the whole series because if you know me you’d know I’m a hopeless romantic) was pretty much Dean to Rory, while cool skater and stoner guy Marcus was Jess. And honestly I see a similar trend here where most people are Team Jess/Marcus whereas I’m team Dean/Hunter for the main fact that Dean and Hunter both treated the girls really good and I like that.

Georgia, as I mentioned was more of in a love square than a triangle, because why the hell not right? There’s Joe, the owner of the cafe where everyone spends most of their time, then there’s Mayor Paul, who Georgia pushes her way to work for to get on his good side. And then of course, Zion, Ginny’s father. Sounds a lot like Luke, Jason and Christopher doesn’t it. I love that Joe had a more interesting and different story, where it was depicted in the flashback scene where homeless young Georgia, just found out she was pregnant at a gas station and comes out to a crowd of high schoolers, which is when she meets Joe. She says to him “I’ll look you up if I’m ever in Wellsbury” Joe was already attracted to her as a teenager and doesn’t realise it’s the same Georgia he met years ago till the last episode whereas Georgia has known all this while. I don’t know about you but I feel like now Georgia has the funds to move to somewhere she aspired to be, where she knows her kids will get the best and where she received “a sandwich and a pair of raybans that changed my life” Also let me just add that Raymond Ablack (Joe) is INCREDIBLY HOT.

Moving on to Paul, Georgia is attracted to him but there is that underlying greed because Paul can provide her stability and security and power. And that is when she will finally feel like she has achieved wheat she needs to. Towards the end, she almost chooses Zion because of her deep affection for him as ‘her penguin’ as she refers to him as. Being with Zion also means she can let her guard down and relax a little, and obviously is a great father to Ginny and even Austin who isn’t even his biologically. Which also makes both guys equally good contenders for Georgia.

Another thing I love about the show is MANG. Their friendship is real, it’s not just Abby and Norah accepting Ginny because of Max. Yes Abby did throw her under the bus in the beginning but they soon became really close and never singled her out after the shoplifting incident. It wasn’t a whole case of Regina George and the plastics all over again. They didn’t care that she was different.

So I feel like Abby is a very interesting character also. I read that her character was created based on a friend of the writer. So abby puts up a very strong front when actually she is feeling quite distraught from her parents ongoing divorce as well as her own issues with body image. Abby is very petite but still is not satisfied with her body so she tapes her thighs to make them look smaller and wear tight jeans so that she can look slimmer. I the Halloween episode, Press even calls her “whale legs” and she obviously gets upset and you can see it affects her because she’s striving for such a perfect image all the time but also I feel like she has a thing for Press so that really messes her up. You can also see she does get a little jealous of Ginny and Max’s friendship but that’s mainly because she feels lonely and unheard and she ends off being estranged from Norah and Max feeling like her whole world crumbled. I really hope MANG gets to patch up. They were the ideal friend group along with the guys.

“Oppression Olympics, let’s go.”

I don’t know guys, this line really stood out to me.

Basically this is the scene in episode 8 where Ginny and Hunter argue about racism and why Ginny deserved to win that writing contest with her unique style (girl used slam poetry for goodness sake that essay was amazing!!??) But Hunter won and he is clearly the favourite of their teacher. He talks about how he is half Taiwanese and the Asian stereotypes he faces here as well as the White remarks he gets from the Asian side of his family. Ginny too says she can’t fit in because she is half Black and how this town had a very small black population and people are not sure how to look at her. I feel like touching on these topics of race was really vital to not only the show but to the actors as well. From the bts, I read that Antonia (Ginny) and Mason (Hunter) were in a room with the writer and jus spoke about the kind of remarks they have personally faced which helped develop the argument scene because it was so real and raw and quite upsetting to watch. It’s something very relatable to the audience which also just amplified that whole episode overall.

I mentioned earlier my favourite character is Hunter. I admit I have a major crush on both the actor and the fictional character. Ok so I think Hunter was a great character, a very good boyfriend too, I mean look at the way he cared for Ginny, supported her, just that unfortunately she was more attracted to Marcus in the end but also that ugly oppression olympics fight just gave his character more depth to show that Hunter wasn’t as perfect as he seemed. I think girls watching the show deserved to see what a good guy looked like. He was smart, in a band, a very caring boyfriend, popular but not cocky. If you compare to let’s say the character if Peter Kavinsky, I think Hunter made a better boyfriend. DO i also think Kavinsky is a damn dream boat? Of course I do. but then again, I thought John Ambrose was a much better guy in the TATB series. Kavinsky was originally dating another girl before the whole fake couple thing started. Whereas going back to Hunter, he already admired Ginny from the first episode and stayed truly respectful until the end of the show. And that’s something girls should see and aspire to have.

Yes I loved the song I loved the fact that he sang it for her, I am such a hopeless romantic and I absolutely hate that poor Hunter/Mason has been getting a lot of backlash for the song/character. I’ve rewatched a lot of the Hunter/Ginny scenes multiple times just because. Hunter was a good guy. Period.

So looking forward, I think a lot of important topics were touched in this show, slightly different from let’s say 13 Reasons Why, and I hope that they can continue to delve into those stories such as racism,self harm, body image and so on which really hit home for me. Important discussion topics, important for kids to see like oh hey this character is kinda like me, and if they are facing these issues, how can they get through it?

Also I need answers to all my questions - Where did Ginny go? How does Georgia get away with everything? Will MANG get back together? Does Abby have a deeper story to tell? Do Marcus and Ginny end up together? AND WHAT ABOUT MY POOR BBY HUNTER??? Lots of unanswered questions, lots of stories to dig deeper into, and so many secrets. I loved the mother l-daughter relationship, the same way I loved Lorelai and Rory’s relationship too.

I obviously totally enjoyed the show, I’ve recommended it to many friends and I hope they enjoy it as much as I do, and get more people on my Hunter Chen bandwagon hahahaha! Let’s hope for a season 2!!

Another super long post, finally done. I can move on to watching other shows now (and still constantly wish I too had cool stuff like Sophomore sleepover)

Hate you, kidding! Love you, mean it!

(just gonna leave these here because why not????)

#gituuuu #ginnyandgeorgia

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blushing-starker · 4 years

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Having a boyfriend that's a natural rule breaker becomes even more tedious because now it's two people conspiring together, itching to shatter social norms. Sure, they won't pull the fire alarm stunt to get out of a quiz (that's more Rocket and Groot's style), place mirrors on front steps to confuse Fury and nearly give the principal a heart attack (Loki with an exasperated Thor and cackling Hela) or hire a mariachi band to follow hall monitor Alexander Pierce (Steve had joined Bucky and Sam in that one); they'd never sneak into the air vents, fill them with glitter so the haughty board of directors would be covered in pink sparkles when they cranked the ac (Clint and Nat).

Ok, they did help with that last one, buying the shimmering stuff from T'Challa's sister and slipping five jars into Clint's backpack, but they didn't actually go into the vents.

But that's not the point. The point is there are limits to their rule breaking; Tony's spot on the football team and Peter's participation in the art club too important to risk on something as silly as skipping a quiz. No, they thanked their best friends, unhooked the window lock and slithered out only after finishing and handing in the quiz. They weren't amateurs.

Still, Peter knows Tony literally couldn't have chosen a worse time for their impromptu lunch date. (Luckily, he'd expected this exact situation.)

"Tony, they don't even have bad food today. We could just wait until the bell rang to meet up and eat at the bleachers. Like we always do a day before a big game."

His boyfriend swivels around, hooks nimble fingers into his belt loops to pull Peter closer, never once stumbling even while walking backwards. The grin he shows is manic, just this side of wild to let Peter know this isn't about haunting nightmares and bouts of anxiety. This is normal, too high on a feeling Tony Stark. Which means he won't head back to school unless Peter pulls out all the stops...

He's too exhausted from last night's art project to use up energy on the puppy eyes. So he sighs, tugs on the blue varsity jacket Tony loves to show off, kisses a dimple before turning this untamed creature around.

"Come on, I found a new route to that shawarma place with MJ and Ned last week." It sounds exasperated, but Tony knows Peter will do anything to keep him happy. Well. Not anything. There's only so many times they can discuss Star Wars before simply agreeing to disagree on whether Han and Luke are pan or bi.

"What, and you tell me this now?", Tony squawks indignantly from Peter's left side, freezing nose nuzzling into Peter's neck as revenge.

Like a robber caught sneaking into a vault, he raises his hands instantly before shoving Tony away.

"Hey, you were focusing on practice! If I told you, you'd bring Rhodey, he'd bring T'Challa and then Shuri would pop up and who goes where she goes? Bucky, which means Steve and Sam, who'd already be there thanks to Rhodey and of course Clint would somehow appear with Nat. We'd be together so Ned and MJ are gonna be teasing with Betty and half the guys in our grade have a crush on Nat, or MJ or Shuri or Betty or you. So what's the end result? The entire football, soccer, basketball and swim team eating shawarma a week before the games. I am not hearing Coach Coulson scold me for you guys breaking diet again. I'm already on his list, another situation like that and I'll have to run fifteen laps around the field."

"Oh come on, you can do those in your sleep." He could, but again, not the point.

"With a weighted backpack, Tony."

"Yeah, I can see why you wouldn't want that."

"Before cycling fifteen laps and then swimming fifteen laps."

"Jesus, why would he even do that?" Tony looks at him then, disgruntled at the thought of his boyfriend doing all that.

He shrugs, doesn't want to explain Peter had done it once when it all got too much and he'd needed to release the pent up energy. He hadn't noticed Coach watching him, ready to come help if he hurt himself. They'd talk afterwards, Coulson making him promise to never do that alone. Now it became a reward and a punishment. Peter won the art contest? Fifteen everything to focus his mind and not go jumping off walls in his excitement.

His students wolfing down a thousand calories before a game? Fifteen everything so Peter would at least "time it so it's not during the season, Jesus". To be fair to Peter, Tony participated in almost all the sports teams so scheduling was hard.

"Listen, just don't eat a whole animal, ok? We can split it, eat enough," he glares at Tony, pushing through even as the puppy eyes come out, "and then head to the movies. They're showing Aliens for a few days cuz of Halloween and I already texted the guys to come during lunch."

His boyfriend, smart and sharp and witty, just blinks at him. "But we have class after lunch."

"Technically, but I convinced Mr Pym to let the class out of lab so we could all hang out. It's the one class we share so now the whole group can see it together."

Tony stops, eyes wide and mouth open.

"You, what, planned this?"

"Yeah, something fun before tomorrow to take it off your mind for a while. Or, you know, not make it stand out as much. I know how focused you get, and it's really great, having that as a goal, strategizing and taking it seriously. But I also know it can be a lot, so I thought we should all hang out since each of us has something coming up and we aren't spending much time together. Which I get, responsibilities and family and school; I just missed it and I can't be the only one, right? So yeah, this was planned. Like, two weeks ago. When MJ found the new route, it was like a sign. And I really want you to relax and enjoy the whole, I have friends that care for me and a boyfriend that loves-"

He slaps a hand on his mouth, eyes impossibly wide and cheeks flaming. Tony and Peter stand immobile, the world reduced to beat up sneakers breaking the simplicity of yellow lines on black, a flickering neon sign telling them the shawarma place is open and two hearts slowly starting to beat again after that confession.

Ned would say it's romantic. MJ would bluntly remind them it's a bad idea to stand in the middle of the road even if they're saying I love you. And with good reason, since there's the telltale roar of a car bursting with teenagers, voices howling out the lyrics to an AC/DC song. And of course Peter notices the noise of rubber swerving against gravel, the screeching of old brakes and a few terrified shrieks harmonizing with a sharp wind blasting into him out of nowhere. Before he can react, Tony is there, wrapping his arms around Peter and shoving them both into the little patch of grass that grows from a crack in dirty pavement.

There's a moment where his whole world flips, tumbles until he screws his eyes shut and prepare himself for whatever the fuck caused that noise. But nothing comes. Only a sigh blowing a stray curl away from his forehead. But a sigh? Why would?

Tony.

He gasps, jolts upright and apologizes when that just serves to jostle his boyfriend further into the ground. His boyfriend who'd flip them so Peter wouldn't be hurt. Tony is peering at him through half shut eyes, discomfort clear on the grimace he tried to transform into a sheepish grin.

"So, you love me, huh?"

It's the stupidest thing Tony Stark has ever said.

"What the fuck were you thinking? You could have gotten hurt, you could have shattered a wrist, dislocated a shoulder, torn an ACL, bent a leg-"

"This is not what I expected. Also it was a three foot leap forward on grass, I'm fine, Peter."

"Or bashed your head, or busted an arm and then what would you do for the game tomorrow? Who the hell does that?"

"The guy you love, apparently."

"That's not the point, Tony, that's unimportant because you nearly got hurt. Christ, Coulson will slaughter me if there's a scratch on you, and then your mom would be sad and I'd be sad because, what would I do without you? And don't you ever do that again, I can't take it. I am not losing you, Tony. God, why would you do that, risk so much on-"

"On you? Babe, I'd do it again. Ok, not the right thing to say based on the whole face thing you got going on right now. But just hear me out. Don't, stop hitting me, ow, why are you hitting, how are you this strong, Jesus. Ow, stop it. Peter, for fuck's sakes, I love you, you animal. Now please let go of the jacket, it'll get wrinkles."

His hands unclasp the soft cotton, Tony falling back with a groan and Peter's unhinged jaw snapping shut after fifteen seconds of letting the flies in.

It's a wonderful thing, hearing the guy he's loved for so long say it back, say he loves Peter.

It's also fucking stupid since there's even more reason to not do stunts like that.

"You're an idiot. I'm in love with a guy that has one shared brain cell with Steve. You could have been hurt, Tony. And what would that have done, huh?"

His boyfriend sighs yet again, wraps an arm around Peter to push them from the ground and heads to the car where their friends are gawking. He waves them off, offers a "Yeah, I know I'm amazing, no, I didn't break anything, T'challa, yes, I can play, Jesus, Rogers, I can read you like a book. I appreciate the worry, Bruce; Nat, thanks for calming him down. Rhodes, excellent driving. No need to hog the seats, Sam, we need to settle in. Peter, you can keep cursing me out if you, yeah, see how it's nice being fun size when you fit in my lap in a car full of people. What, I'm not walking after that, I don't care if it's til we reach the parking. Let's go, Rhodes. Pepper, I'm fine. "

Clint offers a high five. Tony responds and that's that. Out of sight, Ned gives him a fist bump and MJ keeps on reading her book. It could just be his imagination, but Tony's sure she's smiling, approval clear on her face. He preens, glad to have her blessing, and settles his head on Peter's fluffy hair.

-----

When they're all laughing in a booth, smashed together and picking food off of everyone's plate, Peter nuzzles the crook of his neck, holds his hand and squeezes it. Tony smiles, lights up and shoves at Sam's face when the trio of best friends tease him for puffing his chest out when his boyfriend ever so softly says, "I love you."

"I love you, too." The table whoops and calls for another round of food and Coca-Cola, their family grinning at them and fondly teasing the new couple. Tony grins back, high on this feeling of warmth and happiness and safety and love.

And then Peter presses ice cold lips onto his neck and he lets out a shout, pain coursing through him when a knee slams into the table. His eyes water and through the haze of agony he sees their friends exchanging cash, some grumbling and others smirking. Rhodey and MJ, he notes, are the ones that win the most. They high five before pocketing the cash and ordering dessert.

Peter kisses his cheek, smile innocent and eyes wicked. It's his own fault Tony snatches an ice cube and slips it below his Nirvana shirt. He only has five seconds to lord his victory over Peter before there's ice cream being smeared on his cheek. They battle then, accidentally sending food into Wanda's lap, Clint's hair and Bucky's face.

In less than a minute they are all covered in shawarma and participating in the fight. Peter shrieks when Tony pulls him into his lap, gets chicken on the varsity jacket and tries to wriggle away. But Tony kisses him, tastes ice cream and joy, thanks whoever decided to give him a break and find this incredible person dozing on the roof of the school with Ned and MJ one spring afternoon. Peter kisses back and, at the same time, they say, confidently, honestly,

"I love you."

This is dedicated to @drarryismyshit07

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keig-hoe-takami · 4 years

Text

Chapter 1

‘Ichirou, wait for me!’ Mina yelled to her furry eared friend who seemed to have completely forgotten she existed.

‘huh- oh! Sorry Mina I’m just super brain dead at the moment,’ she muttered, grey eyes looking down at her black school shoes,

‘Thinking about the entrance exam?’ Mina questioned, the UA entrance exam was tomorrow and despite wishing with all her heart that the two of them would make it to the elite hero school, Ichirou knew how hard it could be. Still, a girl could dream.

‘How’d you know,’ she replied somewhat sarcastically as the girls headed out of the front doors,

‘Don’t worry about it ‘rou- we just have to do our best! Besides, your quirk is crazy awesome, any hero academy would be happy to have you.’

‘Says you- your quirk is so cool,’ the girl lifted her hands, making pew pew sounds to mimic the alien queen’s quirk as the girl beside her giggled.

Two strong hands suddenly began to ruffle the two poor girls hair, Ichirou’s ears folding in irritation,

‘Hey if it isn’t pinky and puppy!’ The black haired boys arms dropped to their shoulders as he squeezed himself in between the best friends.

‘Hey Kiri, you ready for tomorrow?’ Ichirou asked, fixing her charcoal grey ears

‘You know I am, you feeling those biceps?’ He exclaimed,

‘We sure are.’ Mina rolled her eyes at the boys show of confidence, not that the girls didn’t enjoy the slightly insane things Kirishima came out with during the displays of manliness he saved just for them.

‘Well, I’ll see you guys tomorrow okay?’ Ichirou said, breaking from the group to catch her bus,

‘Bright and early.’ Mina replied, throwing up a peace sign,

‘Later puppy!’ called Kiri as she turned down the neighbouring street.

The walk to the bus was refreshing, finally able to think without hearing Mr Ito drone on about quadratics. As long as the practical test was close combat, she’d be fine. Her quirk didn’t do very well at long distance, despite her heightened senses making it easy for her to sense things coming, her claws were only useful during one on one fighting. Her increased strength and speed also lending to the fighting style. As she reached the bus her swaying tail wrapped itself around her leg politely, as it often did in crowded places.The bus ride was long, Ichirou lived pretty far out of the city and unlucky for her, her mum was often too busy to pick her up. But still, the alone time was appreciated, she thought back to Mina’s words, her friend had been right, mutant quirks were often accepted at a pretty high rate, just lower than those with power up quirks, so even if she didn’t get into UA, the chances of achieving her dream and becoming a hero were still high.

‘Holy shit, we’re actually here!’ The red head exclaimed as the three friends crossed the gates to UA hero academy. Ichirou was nervous, rightfully so, but she also knew that there was no point in worrying- she just had to battle through the nerves and do her best!

‘I’m getting anxious- what if we haven’t revised enough?’ Mina fretted, despite her sunshiny demeanour, the pink girl often worried about academic skills- relying on Ichirou to help her with homework every other week.

‘Don’t panic Mina- we’ve been working so hard all year- its going to be fine.’ Ichirou tried to reassure her, squeezing her hand and sending a confident smile her way.

‘Yeah exactly, and even if we don’t do great in the written test- there’s still the practical exam! The perfect place to show off your manliness!’ Kirishima chimed in,

‘I don’t have any manliness Kiri!!’ the stressed girl cried in exasperation,

‘Pinky come on, you’ve got more manliness than me- you’re awesome!’ the boy wrapped an arm around his friends shoulder, pulling Ichirou with her. The three fell into each other, breaking out into giggles before realising exactly where they were, the steps to the entrance. This was it. They were going to make it!

The written exam ended up being easier than expected for Ichirou, but the same couldn’t be said for Kiri and Mina- the two wannabe hero’s had struggled and were hoping to do better in the practical part of the exam. Ichirou was pulled from her thoughts by the enthusiastic yelling of Present Mic, pro hero and teacher at UA as he explained the battle ground that would contain the practical segment of the exam.

The exam seemed like it would be pretty easy for Ichirou, being short range fighting, and the girl began to think that she might just actually get into the Hero Academy. The unlucky thing for Ichirou, was the fact that she wouldn’t be with Kiri and Mina for the exam, apparently being with people you already knew was an unfair advantage, so the girl would have no one to lean on.

Ichirou looked around her group for the exam, everyone looked pretty strong and kind of unapproachable, which was understandable considering the stakes. She was pretty sure she looked scary too, surveying the crowd and trying to figure out her opponents weaknesses. Her eyes met those of a boy with ashy blond hair who had been stood confidently near the front of the pack, his muscles flexing as he crossed his arms and scowled at her. Ichirou felt her face heat up as she quickly looked away. Now was not the time.

‘And the exam begins!’ Present Mic’s voice sounded round the arena as the ten minute countdown began.

Letting in a deep breath, Ichirou felt the change come over her, enhancing her senses as she feels the people around her start to move forward. She set of at a run, faster than her average speed thanks to her elevated wolf form, her puffed up tail swaying behind her as she picked up the pace. If she was going to get into UA, she was going to have to tap into her wolf senses more than ever before.

Her vermillion eyes spotted a villain at the end of the deserted street she’d been running down, sometimes it was best to get away from the pack. Directing all her attention towards the approaching bot, Ichirou extended the dark claws at the ends of her fingertips, aiming carefully for the perfect weak spot She found it, claws grabbing at the metal body of the machine and pulling the surface away to reveal the wires that she quickly cut through, claiming her first three points. The sweating girl was almost to busy rejoicing to sense the 2 point robot sneaking up behind her. Almost. At the very last minute, she turned, stretching her leg out with all her might and breaking off the head of the robot. Understanding now that there was no time to enjoy her quick victory, the girl hurried off in the direction of her other contestants, taking out robots on the way and slowly increasing her score.

As she reached the Main Street of the urban battleground, a loud booming noice filled her sensitive ears (an irritating downside to her quirk) leaving them ringing. She looked around for the creator of the horrible sound, almost giving up until she saw the blond boy from earlier surrounded by bots. Another explosion sounded from the vicinity and by the looks of things, they were thanks to the boys quirk. Great. Still, he looked like he needed help so the wolffish girl ran over, grabbing at the head of one of the robots that was advancing on his back, kicking at its body and effectively splitting it in two. She turned to another bot that looked worryingly close to the overwhelmed boy.

‘Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing!’ The boy shouted aggressively as he aimed another ear bleeding explosion toward the oncoming bots.

‘I’m helping you out!’ Ichirou was shocked at his tone, but still sent him a smile as she scratched at her bots wires.

‘You’re stealing my bots, you extra!’ the boy directed more of his attention towards the girl as the onslaught of bots became easier to deal with,

‘Seriously? You think you could have finished this without me?’ She took a deep breath as her final bot fell.

‘Of course I could have, did you see my fucking quirk?’ All his attention coming to face the irritated girl beside him,

‘Yeah I saw your fucking quirk, heard it too.’ Ichirou replied, his red eyes finally meeting her own, she looked him up and down. Fuck. He’d looked hot before they’d started but now, with his hands smoking and sweat soaking his vest, he looked- well, shit, he looked even hotter.

‘Whatever, runt.’ The blond boy replied, turning down the street and leaving her behind,

‘I’m not a dog!’ She shouted after him, a blush forming on her cheeks. What the hell was wrong with her brain, to find someone that brash and irritating hot? With no time to think, she set off in the opposite direction of the aggressive boy.

The ten minutes seemed to last a lifetime as Ichirou racked up points, sticking with a larger group of wanna be hero’s to protect them and herself. All was going well and good until suddenly a loud crash was heard from around the corner and a building began to tumble into the road. The cause of the huge destruction rounded the corner. The robot towered over the students, an unexpected obstacle that they hadn’t been warned about by Present Mic.

‘What the hell is that thing!’ A girl with strange tentacle like objects coming from her ears said what everyone was thinking.

‘Just run guys!!’ A tall, bulky boy cried out, already turning on his heals. Ichirou would have turned with him, deciding that her quirk, or anyone’s for that matter, would be useless against the machine, but before she could, her sensitive ears picked up on a whimpering from underneath the rumble. And without even realising that she’d started running, she was sprinting toward the sound to see what she could do. Fucking hero complex. She neared the rubble that the cries were coming from, there was at least two voices both seeming to be male. The threat of the robot still loomed above her, but Ichirou could only hope that she would make it in time.

‘Ouch- you’re crushing my arm!’ the higher voice cried, they were close,

‘Hey! Are you guys okay?’ Ichirou kneaded down, trying to find the boys but it was too dark,

‘What do you think?’ the high voice from earlier questioned in exasperation,

‘Dude, chill.’ A calmer voice rang out, ‘Do you think you could help us out?’

‘I cant really see much but I’m going to try move some stuff first.’ The huge robot was searching the area, Ichirou knew she couldn’t bring attention to herself, but she also knew one wrong move would result in the two boys being even more crushed. This was going to be tricky.

‘I think I could give you a hand with that- hold on’ For just a few seconds, light filled the tunnel the boys seemed to be stuck in, thankfully it was enough for Ichirou to gain her bearings.

‘Cool, give me one second.’ The girl reached for a large piece of metal that would hopefully clear an exit for them to climb out.

‘Thanks a lot, couldn’t have made it out without you.’ the boy who had managed to light up said appreciatively,

‘Yeah…’ the other, smaller boy with balls for hair said slowly, drool practically running down his chin as he definitely wasn’t looking at Ichirou’s face.

‘It was no problem, are you alright now? I just want to go see if I ca-’

‘TIMES UP!’ Present Mics voice rang around the arena, cutting the girl off.

‘Huh, guess we better head to the entrance.’ The blond boy looked worried, the rubble incident had lost all three of them precious time.

‘Yeah, I’m Ichirou Sato, by the way.’ She replied smiling at the boy next to her,

‘I’m Denki, Denki Kaminari. Nice tail.’ Denki replied as the three made their way slowly towards the larger group.

‘I like your tail too,’ said the purple headed boy, though somewhat creepier than Denki had been.

‘Thank you, your quirks really cool Denki, but um- I haven’t seen yours yet.’ Ichirou gestured toward the strange boy, giving him a tight smile.

‘Yes, I just-‘ there was a pause as the boy pulled one of the purple balls from his head, ‘I just do this.’

‘Oh, that’s pretty neat.’ Ichirou said raising her eyebrows at the slightly strange quirk.

‘Yeah that’s real cool buddy.’ The two shared a look, knowing that with a quirk like that, it would be surprising if the poor guy managed to get into UA.

“Chirou!’ Mina cried, running towards her tired friend and throwing her arms around her, ‘How do you think you did?’ the question was much more serious, Mina pulled back to stare into Ichirou’s eyes,

‘I think I did pretty well, my group was really good though, how did you guys do?’ She replied, now noticing a somewhat bummed out Kirishima standing behind Mina and scuffing his feet,

‘I worked as hard as I could, but Kiri here,’ the pink girl turned to poke him in the chest, ‘seems to think he did bad.’

‘What, why Kiri?’ the two girls turned their attention to their beat up looking friend,

‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged, turning on his heal ‘come on lets head home.’

‘Oh hell no, tell us what’s wrong.’ Mina was adamant to understand why Kiri was so annoyed at himself. He got like this at times when he didn’t think he’d done his best, all closed off and anxious to change the subject. Ichirou had been friends with him long enough to know that he needed to talk, but didn’t want anyone thinking he wasn’t manly.

‘Kiri, you can talk to us, you know that.’ Ichirou said, linking their arms together as Mina did the same on the other side, ‘If you don’t want to its perfectly fine, but we are right here.’

‘I know where you are, puppy. I just, I don’t know, I just think there was some guys in my group doing better than me, I mean there was this guy literally bulldozing through stuff, all I can do is block!’ Kiri replied, sighing in exasperation smiling and squeezing the two girls arms tight as they headed out of the gates,

‘Don’t worry about what other people can do, Kiri, your quirk is so awesome-’ Ichirou reassured him,

‘Its got pro hero potential.’ Mina chimed in, reiterating the words that Mr Ito so very often used to describe Kirishima,

‘Yeah exactly, you’re gonna be the manliest hero there ever was.’ The other girl finished, smiling up at the blushing boy,

‘Thanks guys, it- it really means a lot.’ There was a lull as the three friends now wondered what it would be like if they all managed to reach the next step of their dreams

‘Do you guys just wanna crash at my place?’ Mina asked, looking other at the two hopefully,

‘Hell yeah!’ Ichirou replied, ‘But I don’t know how much fun I’ll be- I’m so tired.’

‘Me too, don’t worry, that was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.’ Mina reassured her,

‘It was so awesome, it felt like I was a real hero.’ Kiri chimed in,

‘Yeah same! I felt so cool!’ Mina agreed,

‘Everything was so insane- did you get a huge robot?’

‘Uh-huh it was massive, I thought it was just supposed to be zero points!’

Ichirou smiled as her two friends shared their stories but her brain was just too tired to chime in, god she hoped the three of them made it.

#bakugou x reader #bakugou x oc #bakugou #bakugou matsuri #bnha #mha oc #mha fanfiction #mha bakugou #kirishima #kirishima fanfic #mha eijirou #eijiro kirishima #mina ashido #mha mina #mina fanfic #mha denki #denki kaminari #denki fanfic #bnha fluff

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phanfictioncatalogue · 4 years

Text

Monthly Follower Recs

Links Last Checked: September 18th, 2022

Monthly follower recommendations for the month of August

Anonymous

7 Letters. (ao3) - Thirdtimelucky

Summary: During a worldwide pandemic Dan decides to revive the dead art of letter writing.

And your penpal can be the person you live with, actually.

all this broken bone (ao3) - parentaladvisorybullshitcontent

Summary: "People touch me and they die, that’s it.”

The words seem to hang there in the air between them, heavy and impossible.

"You're kidding," Phil says, faintly.

In which Dan can't touch anyone without killing them, and Phil has a crush on him anyway.

and they were (not) roommates (ao3) - AimiTachibanana

Summary: dan wakes up in the hufflepuff dorms

Cool Down (ao3) - blissedoutphil

Summary: "shove an ice cube all the way up my ass"

- actual Dan on twitter

Follow Your Dreams - succubusphan

Summary: Dan is writing his wedding vows.

let me make it up to you (ao3) - aswegcalong

Summary: Phil wrapped his arms around Dan's waist, pulling him back down to start another kiss, slowing them down almost like they were relearning each other as their tongues brushed against each other. They kissed slow yet heavy, exploring each other's mouths almost as if it was their first night together all over again. Both boys were burning with desire and passion yet neither of them wanted to move fast, they never wanted it to end.

linger on (ao3) - dizzy, waveydnp

Summary: A recent loss has ground Phil's life to a halt. At 33, he's static in his grief and living in the house he grew up in - until his mother kicks him out.

In a fit of indignation and with nothing to lose, he answers the first listing he finds for a room to rent in London... a listing posted by a guy named Dan.

Meet Me In The Hallway (ao3) - CanDanAndPhilNot

Summary: Dan is seven years old when he meets Phil Lester and friendship comes easy for them. Over the years they meet each other in the hallway despite what life throws at them.

Ripple - cafephan

Summary: Phil has a cheating boyfriend. Dan is a poet, facing an ultimatum.

slutville, population two - dayevsphil

Summary: Dan and Phil both have reputations for sleeping around. Their friends don’t think they could hold down a relationship if they wanted to. Sounds like a challenge to them. In Dan’s defense, tequila makes anything seem like a good idea.

Strictly Come Dancing but make it GAY (ao3) - natigail

Summary: @danielhowell: maybe i’d actually consider doing @bbcstrictly if they allowed same-sex couples. who wouldn’t want a sexy man spinning you around? it’s not just a girl’s dream. c'mon people let's see some pretty and fierce girls pair up and handsome and strong boys get it on. i dare you.

Dan Howell calls Strictly out on Twitter for not allowing any same-sex couples and accidentally volunteers himself to be one of the contestants if they were to change that. It was a joke. It had so clearly been a joke. Why did they take him up on it?! He’s sure he’ll trip over his own feet and hate every second, but then he meets his partner, the endearingly clumsy dancer Phil Lester.

the fundamentals of human existence (ao3) - awrfhi

Summary: phil's just beginning to get the hang of conquering his grief and starting his life again from scratch. unluckily for him, the past has a way of never quite staying in the past.

The Phase of the Moon (ao3) - ThoughtaThought

Summary: Phil Lester is just your typical 15 year old boy. Who is training to help the Slayer fight vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. Then he starts having dreams of strange symbols and a (totally not attractive) vampire. Explosions and ghosts and creepy guys in cloaks show up and ruin multiple days.

they grew up so nicely, didn't they? (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Cornelia doesn’t just get a boyfriend when she starts dating Martyn, she gets a whole second family too. Kath and Nigel welcome her with open arms and she becomes a pseudo older sister to Phil.

She is there watching from the sidelines as a boy bolts right into Phil’s heart and sets up camp. She gets to watch as Dan and Phil build careers and an internet community and all the trials and tribulations, as well as the pride and happiness, it brings along.

Third Degree (ao3) - sierraadeux

Summary: Dan sets fires. Phil puts them out.

too far to walk alone (ao3) - chickenfree

Summary: “The hazelnut stracciatella,” he says, as always. They might or might not have a bet in the shop about whether he’ll ever vary.

you fill my head with you (ao3) - basl

Summary: Most days Phil is chill. He doesn’t overanalyze every interaction he has with Dan, he doesn’t think about the missed opportunities and the big secret he’s keeping from his best friend. Most days he lives his life without focusing too much on the things that make him sad.

#phanfictioncatalogue #phanfiction #phanfic #phan #masterlists #recs #followerrecs

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poppy-pelican · 4 years

Text

Holding Out (Makes It Better) - fic

Rating: Explicit (because of course it is)

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Summary: “Why don’t we make a…competition of it?” Roy said, standing up like he was going to give orders. “A…team building exercise, if you will.” His eyes drifted to Hawkeye, giving her a meaningful look that he hoped conveyed: back me up on this or else.

Mustang's team bonds over who can keep from touching themselves the longest.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021110

“While I trust my team, I have been noticing…” Roy hesitated, adjusting the phone against his ear.

“A lack of cohesion?” Hughes offered.

Much more diplomatic than sibling rivalry. Roy had recently been granted permission to choose officers for his own team—a sure sign a promotion was on the way this year. But the last time they had to work together as a unit, Hawkeye and Havoc disagreed on tactics, Falman kept piping in with more information than necessary, Breda was too easy going and let the others walk all over him, and Fuery hunkered down like a child whose parents were fighting.

It felt wrong to go to Hughes for help, but Hughes had a way of forming tight-knit groups with ease. While Roy could say his team members trusted him, they certainly did not trust each other.

“Yes, exactly,” Roy said.

“It can take time,” Hughes said. “But you could try some team building exercises?”

“Is that what you do?”

Hughes was muffled for a minute. It sounded like he was kissing Gracia. Again. Roy sighed. The man was impossibly shameless.

“Ah, yes, that’s what I do. Something that loosens them up—you have to get them comfortable with one another.”

“Can you be more specific?”

More suspicious giggling and kissing noises again. “I dunno, play a game. Have a friendly competition?”

A team building exercise. Roy was going to have to sit on that one.

Another giggle. “And that’s my cue, you crazy exhibitionist! Goodnight!” Roy yelled, hanging up the phone forcefully.

A couple weeks later, Roy had almost forgotten about Hughes’s idea. The office was silent except for the quiet hum of his officers at work. Then Hawkeye excused herself, and suddenly the men were talking and joking. Oh. His intimidating lieutenant. The men were afraid of her.

He couldn’t blame them. Hadn’t she terrified him a little even as a young girl? She’d always been a little too serious, watchful and quiet. But of everyone in his team, he trusted her the most. Maybe he should consider Hughes’s idea again. He wanted them all to trust her as much as he did, and see the fun side of her that made him like her so much.

Then he tuned into what his men were actually saying.

“And you’d just had sex the night before? What’s wrong with you?” Falman said, laughing.

“It’s relaxing!” Havoc insisted. “It’s a daily ritual kind of thing. Takes the edge off.”

“Daily? I can manage once a week, easy, especially with a woman in my life,” Falman insisted.

Breda chuckled. “I’m not like Havoc, but I prefer more often, even with a girlfriend helping me out.”

“See, Breda supports me!”

“I still wouldn’t be doing it the morning after a night with my girlfriend!” Breda said, slapping the desk and laughing boisterously.

Roy’s brow furrowed. Were they talking about what he thought?

“I don’t think I’ve been able to go more than a week since I hit puberty,” Havoc said. “I’m a healthy young man.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Roy finally interrupted.

“Havoc’s girlfriend—now ex-girlfriend—walked in on him…you know,” Fuery offered, his face bright red.

Roy snorted, happy to ignore his paperwork to tease Havoc. “What? You forget how to lock a door?”

Havoc turned red. “It was early in the morning! I thought she was asleep.”

“Clearly, she awoke frustrated. Did you even take care of her needs, Havoc?” Roy couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“I always leave my woman satisfied,” Havoc growled.

“Maybe if you weren’t molesting yourself every day, you’d have more passion for your girlfriend,” Breda pointed out. “Pace yourself, man.”

“I could go without it if I needed to. You all would crack long before me if it were a contest.” Havoc crossed his arms, the picture of perfect confidence.

“You think so?” a feminine voice challenged.

Hawkeye stood in the doorway, her face expressionless.

“How long have you been standing there, lieutenant?” Roy asked, noting he wasn’t the only man in the office vainly attempting to play it cool. While Hawkeye was as good a soldier as anyone, probably better, this kind of crude conversation always starkly reminded everyone she was a woman as much as a soldier.

Hawkeye strolled over to her desk. “Long enough to know I shouldn’t set Havoc up with any of my friends.”

The men guffawed and cheered, except for Havoc who collapsed on his desk. And that’s when Roy realized he had an opportunity.

“Why don’t we make a…competition of it?” Roy said, standing up like he was going to give orders. “A…team building exercise, if you will.” His eyes drifted to Hawkeye, giving her a meaningful look that he hoped conveyed: back me up on this or else.

“What do you mean, sir?” Hawkeye asked, everything from her eyebrow to her stiff shoulders giving away her heavy skepticism.

“Who can hold out the longest?” Roy said, tapping his chin. “Havoc has made quite the challenge to the rest of us.”

Havoc sat up straight. “I could definitely outlast all of you. I am a disciplined sniper.”

“So is Hawkeye,” Falman said.

“Is Hawkeye participating?” Fuery asked, his cheeks now the color of a strawberry.

This was just more evidence Hughes was right. The team needed to get more comfortable with one another—particularly with their lone female officer. They needed to fear who Hawkeye was as a soldier, not as a woman.

Roy turned to his lieutenant, gesturing for her to answer. All eyes were on her. She gave Roy a steely look before rolling her eyes. “Sure, I’m in.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Is that fair?” Havoc asked. “Women can naturally hold out longer than men.”

Roy told himself not to think about how often Hawkeye was pleasuring herself as he answered.

“All right, not holding out the longest, but who can hold out until a certain date,” he amended.

“How long?” Breda asked. “And does sex count?”

Roy began to pace the floor, his mind flowing with ideas. He was going to have to make up a chart. And they needed strict rules. It could be very unofficially official. Hughes would be proud.

“Sex will count. What seems a reasonable goal?” he asked, tossing the problem out for his team to solve. He could admit he was more like Breda and indulged himself several times a week. The idea of holding out for more than a week sounded like a small torture, but just a week wouldn’t be challenging enough.

“Two weeks,” Havoc proposed.

“Two weeks? What a flimsy challenge,” Falman said. “I’ll crush you.”

“Three?” Fuery suggested, though he made a face as he said it.

Breda looked around, studying his teammates and superior officer with a critical gaze. Roy wondered if he was sizing up the competition. Roy was already sweating at the idea of two weeks. Three would be unbearable.

“Three sounds reasonable,” Falman agreed.

“But perhaps a tad too easy,” Breda said, rubbing his hand over his short hair. “A month would be a challenge for everyone, wouldn’t it?” Gazes flickered to Hawkeye, who sat primly with her hands folded on her desk, like this was any old team meeting. She would destroy them all.

“A month it is,” Roy said.

“What do we get if we win?” Hawkeye asked, still diplomatic. Her lips pulled into a tiny smile. “It needs to be worth the trouble, right? But not so much that anyone would be tempted to cheat.”

“So money’s out,” Breda said decisively, and the others agreed with surprising speed. A soldier’s pension was laughably meager, especially for anyone lower on the totem pole. Roy knew he was fortunate to have a state alchemist’s funding, but it had come with strings attached.

“I’ve got it!” Roy said, grinning. “We have two teams. And we do it for the honor of winning.”

“That could work,” Hawkeye said thoughtfully.

Then began a debate that lasted twenty minutes on who would be on which team. Everyone wanted to be on Hawkeye’s team, but the competition needed to be as strong as possible. Based purely on personality, rather than any real data, it was finally decided that Mustang’s team would have Falman and Breda, while Hawkeye’s opposing team included Fuery and Havoc. If she thought it was unfair, she didn’t say so.

Riza thought the entire competition was unfair. She knew what her ridiculous superior was thinking. The men were uncomfortable with her, and her participating in their stupid contest would help. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, but she was annoyed.

Perhaps she was different from other women because she touched herself every night to help her fall asleep. It started a few months after returning from Ishval when she discovered her nightmares improved if she relaxed with happy—dirty—thoughts before bed.

But she was a disciplined sniper, she could hold off for a month. She just didn’t want to.

She slipped into the t-shirt she wore to bed and then did a few stretches she’d read would help her maintain her mobility despite the extensive scarring on her back. The tightness of her skin across those two patches had become as normal as the tug of her hair clips, but she needed to have full motion whenever she acted as Mustang’s bodyguard.

She finished with a few last neck stretches before she rolled into bed, turning off the lamp before she snuggled under the covers. Realizing this would be the last time to touch herself until the competition ended, she decided to take more time with it than she usually would. Tugging her underwear down, she slipped one hand between her thighs, the other hand crept underneath her shirt.

If she were honest with herself, she wanted to replay Mustang’s passionate, definitely inappropriate, brainstorming session. How he could sound so calm and professional while discussing masturbation in front of his team, she didn’t know, but even with the almost clinical nature of it, she’d felt warm and achy listening to him speak.

She wondered if he was a dirty talker in the bedroom, and she found herself falling over the edge much too quickly, thinking of what he might whisper against her ear while he thrusted in and out of her.

With a pleased sigh, she wriggled her underwear back into place and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

The next morning at the office, Riza was horrified to find a chalkboard had been rolled into the room. Mustang’s sharp handwriting had filled in a surprisingly vague chart with two columns for each team. Beside each team member’s name was a place to mark them out. At the bottom of the chart he’d written out the end date in bold lettering. She pressed her lips together. Thirty days had never seemed so long.

But as the men started arriving, she put on her poker face. She had to pretend this wasn’t a hardship whatsoever.

There was very little discussion about the competition. The first day should be a breeze, so no one expected anyone to crack so soon. They had a meeting about a possible money laundering case coming from Grumman, which would be a great opportunity to prove themselves as an efficient new team. Then Riza left for a committee on recruitment she attended as Mustang’s representative. It was such a humdrum, typical day that by the time work was over, she almost forgot about the competition entirely. She went to the library, cooked dinner, called Rebecca to chat, began reading one of the books she borrowed…

It wasn’t until she was dressing for bed that she remembered. She groaned, flopping onto the bed in frustration. The fact she shouldn’t touch herself just made her want to even more. Cursing Mustang under her breath, she turned off the lamp and lay stiffly in the dark, failing to relax.

It was hours later before she finally fell asleep.

The second day of the competition and Roy already had regrets. He woke up with an erection, as often happened in the mornings, but this time he had to wait for the damn thing to go away on its own.

His regrets grew when Falman came into the office, red-faced and staring at the ground. He strode straight to the chalkboard and drew an X beside his name.

“What! You’re already out?” Havoc crowed.

“Really, Falman, I’m disappointed in you,” Roy said, shaking his head. Now it was just him and Breda. “Do you at least have a good excuse?”

Falman saluted. “The new neighbor next to my apartment must have had her boyfriend over, sir. She was…very loud and enthusiastic.”

Roy grimaced. “Dismissed.” He could understand why a man would be tempted, but with his discipline as a soldier being tested…it was disappointing. He glanced over at Hawkeye and Havoc who were sharing a laugh—probably at Falman’s expense.

Falman was at his desk, determinedly reading a report. Roy look over at Breda who raised a fist in solidarity. Just the two of them against Hawkeye, Havoc, and Fuery. It was going to be a long month.

By day seven, Roy spent every morning talking down his erection, and giving himself quick, cold showers. The temptation was growing intolerable. What kind of stupid team building exercise was this! Certainly the dumbest idea he’d ever had. Rather than fostering teamwork, everyone, except Falman, was snappy and irritable. Even Hawkeye, which Roy found wonderfully intriguing. No, he definitely couldn’t spend time dwelling on that can of worms.

“I’m going to the shooting range if anyone wants to join me,” Hawkeye announced suddenly. “Havoc, Fuery,” her lips curved upward, “A gun is a good way to…release some tension.”

Chairs squeaked and knocked around as the men dropped everything to join her, everyone laughing as Falman waved them off good-naturedly. The smug bastard.

Hawkeye was fierce on the shooting range, only Havoc coming close to her level—and still well below it. Roy took a turn, but found himself stepping back to watch as the men cheered and clapped whenever she hit another seemingly impossible target. Roy knew Hawkeye took little pride in her skill after the war, but it was good for the men to respect her ability. Judging by the way young Fuery gaped in amazement, maybe the team building exercise wasn’t a total bust.

Roy stayed quiet on their walk back to the office, listening to the men pepper her with questions. Hawkeye answered them succinctly, without boasting, about her skills and how she had honed them growing up shooting cans and one time, a rather rotten pumpkin.

Roy remembered the pumpkin story as her father had told it, and he noted that Hawkeye didn’t mention him—or Roy for that matter. It gave him pause. Did she not want the men knowing of their history? He supposed as his subordinate, she probably preferred to put forward her merits rather than her connections. Funny, because Roy would never have become a state alchemist without her, and he likewise kept that a secret—for different reasons.

Riza was exhausted, which she would’ve thought would help her fall asleep. Instead, she tossed and turned, body restless. As soon as she found the edge of sleep, she jerked awake.

“Mustang, you idiot,” she groaned, punching her pillow. She couldn’t lose this competition, even if it meant a month of sleep deprivation. Twisted in her sheets, she was oh-so-tempted to give in, especially as she remembered the way Mustang had removed his jacket at the shooting range, only his white button-up shirt on. Thank goodness she was already at the range, she had had a lot of tension to release.

Punching her pillow again, she gave up an turned on the light, pulling out a book. She read until she passed out.

Riza wasn’t the only one on edge that night, and in the morning Havoc did the walk of shame to the chalkboard, scribbling an angry X beside his name.

Mustang hadn’t arrived yet, it was just Hawkeye and Fuery.

“What happened?” Fuery asked. Hawkeye noticed he was gnawing his fingernails raw.

Havoc covered his eyes dramatically. “My girlfriend wanted me back. How could I say no after—after—”

“Oh we all know after what,” Hawkeye said darkly. “I’m sure you lasted two seconds.”

“Hawkeye!” Havoc gasped, appalled.

Fuery collapsed on his desk, giggling helplessly.

“You deserve it,” she said. “Some of us are still suffering.”

“Come on, are you really suffering?” Havoc asked sarcastically.

Riza crossed her arms, giving him a hard look. This could really backfire on her.

She sighed, giving an embarrassed shrug as she focused on the notes in front of her. “I…use it to relax and fall asleep.” A timely yawn escaped her.

Havoc and Fuery each looked equally incredulous.

“Hawkeye! You were supposed to be a sure thing!” Havoc moaned. “We can’t lose to the boss!”

“You’re the one who claimed to have so much restraint and brought this whole thing down on us,” she reminded him.

“That is true,” Fuery agreed.

“Well, you could’ve worked your Hawkeye magic and talked him out of it,” Havoc muttered.

“I don’t have magic. If I did, the lieutenant colonel would get his work done more efficiently,” she said, feeling flattered despite herself. “And don’t worry. I have no intention of losing.”

Suddenly Havoc gawked at her. “Damn, you do look really tired. How—how often do you use it to sleep?”

Hawkeye realized she wouldn’t get any work done until she answered.

“Every night!” Havoc’s outburst was the first thing Roy heard as he walked in the door. He almost dropped the files he’d been carrying.

“Shh!” Hawkeye and Fuery frantically shushed, and Roy was immediately suspicious.

“What’s every night?” he asked. He was already on edge. It felt like once an hour his cock was at half mast, but hell if he was going to lose so quickly.

“Just talking about Havoc and his failure as a disciplined soldier,” Hawkeye said smoothly. Her eyes were playful, but Havoc looked betrayed—no, overwhelmed. Hawkeye was a good liar. Havoc was not.

Deciding to pursue it later, he set to work. The money laundering case was their first big assignment, and they needed it to go smoothly. Grumman had given him an early morning briefing, plus a stack of files, with instruction to investigate as Roy saw fit. Any other time, he would’ve been positively gleeful—except for the fact his mood was apparently controlled by his dick.

After teasing Havoc mercilessly, Roy settled down at his desk, plotting how to end this competition. None of them would have to go for the full month if one team gave up first. But of course, Mustang had too much pride. He didn’t want to purposefully lose.

He’d just have to figure out how to crack his adjutant, whose mood had been notably altered by the competition, too. Maybe she wasn’t an insurmountable challenge after all.

Fuery would be easy.

“This is for you,” Fuery said, dropping a packet of papers on Riza’s desk. His cheeks were red, and he spoke very tersely.

Riza looked at the packet closer and saw there was a note scribbled on top: THESE ARE SAFER WITH YOU. FOUND THEM IN MY DESK AFTER LUNCH. I THINK WE ARE BEING SABOTAGED.

Riza picked up the packet and realized it was actually a selection of raunchy photographs of mostly nude female models. She narrowed her eyes, her gaze drifting over the men of the office. It was rather obvious what was happening. Mustang and Breda were struggling, and they wanted Hawkeye and Fuery to go out first. And young Fuery was hanging on by a hair. She couldn’t guess what they thought would work on her. She did a quick search of her desk, not finding any naked pictures of men.

Well, she could play that game, too.

She wrote a quick note to Fuery, telling him to make an excuse and step out for a break. It was time to retaliate.

As soon as Fuery was gone, Riza shuffled the photos, clicking her tongue. She walked over to Mustang’s desk and fanned the photographs across his desk.

“This contraband has turned up in the office, sir,” she said. “Should I write up an official report and turn it in?”

Mustang’s dark eyes grew piercing. Ah, he hadn’t expected this. Good.

“I’m sure something as small as this isn’t worth your time to make a report about,” he said smoothly.

Riza nodded, watching from the corner of her eye as Falman paled. Yes, as she thought. Breda and Mustang wouldn’t go near any kind of temptation. They sent the man who was already out.

“It would be a long report,” she said agreeably. “I’d have to catalogue each photograph, describing each one. What if any of these women are soldiers? This could be blackmail.” She made a show of appearing conflicted. “I don’t think we should skip reporting this, sir.”

Mustang glowered. He knew she knew. He just didn’t want to back down.

“See this one?” she asked, pointing to one she’d left displayed most prominently. “Doesn’t she look a little like Private Jennison?” A young soldier whose breasts were so large, Riza pitied her a little. Jennison had to have all her uniforms specially tailored. But Riza also knew every man in East City’s military knew the woman by name.

“Who looks like Private Jennison?” Havoc asked eagerly.

Mustang tried to hide the photos too late as Havoc rushed over.

“Holy shit, these are amazing.” Havoc roared, grabbing the pictures. “These must be killing you, boss.”

Mustang tilted his face to the ceiling. “I am being punished for trying to strategize.”

“What?” Havoc looked between Riza and Mustang.

“Fuery found these in his desk after lunch.” Riza turned on her heel, smiling deviously at Falman and Breda.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Havoc said, studying the photos like they were critical pieces of evidence.

“The sooner it’s over for one team, the sooner it’s over for everyone,” Breda pointed out.

“Well, good luck getting me to crack,” she said, turning on her heel. “I doubt you two will even be able to hold out another week.”

Hawkeye was right. Roy and Breda were both reaching their limits. It was all well and good at work, but the minute he was alone…

Roy nodded at Breda as the other man walked out the door. Maybe he was taking this too seriously, but there was something tantalizing about getting Hawkeye to give in first.

A few minutes later Roy packed up, said goodnight to his adjutant who was furiously assembling some kind of information packet some higher ups had requested, and then he met up with Breda outside the building.

“What’d you find out?” Roy asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Hawkeye’s more vulnerable than we thought,” Breda said, chuckling. “Havoc could not resist telling me that she—she does it every night. To go to sleep, apparently.” Breda covered another laugh, slightly awkward and uncomfortable. “I can hardly believe it.”

Roy understood the feeling. Every night? He wanted to shout, just like Havoc. While he knew women could be very sexual—he’d grown up in a bar where pretty women entertained men for a living—he hadn’t seen Hawkeye that way. He’d always seen her as a woman he would need to coax an orgasm from, kiss her blush away as he slowly undressed her…

He’d thought about it so many times, and now…the reality was threatening to overcome his self-control. He wanted nothing more than to take this information home and stroke himself until he came, thinking of his gorgeous lieutenant touching herself.

“Maybe we should strategize over a drink?” Roy offered.

Because he really needed a damn drink.

The next Monday, Roy arrived an hour late to the office. He’d stayed awake pouring over the money laundering case—he suspected a local paint supplier had something to do with it. They might need to do an overnight search of their warehouse, which was much larger than a business of their size required.

All thoughts of the case evaporated as he saw two more had been knocked out of the competition. Hawkeye’s name was still blank.

“Still holding out, sir?” she asked.

“Yes, I didn’t get this promotion without a good dose of discipline, you know.”

Fuery and Havoc groaned as Breda and Falman cheered.

“You got this, boss!” Breda said.

“You think you can last the whole month?” Hawkeye challenged.

Roy grinned. “What about you, lieutenant? You look…tired.”

Her eyes widened before she quickly recovered. “Nothing a little coffee won’t fix,” she said, holding up a cup. “But you don’t have anything keeping you…up at night, sir?”

She was a little bit evil, he decided.

“So insubordinate,” he said lightly, returning to his desk. “Breda, what the hell happened, man? You’re leaving me against the lieutenant by myself?”

Breda saluted, then hung his head, even as he laughed at himself. “I got a little too drunk and forgot about the competition. I will do everything I can to support you, sir. Our honor as men is at stake.”

Mustang covered his face with his hands.

“And you, Fuery?”

“Do I have to say?” he moaned, slumping pathetically against his desk.

“Of course not,” Roy said amiably. “We are all entitled to our privacy. Uh, or as much as a game like this allows.”

“I bet he was done in by Private Jennison. Damn, she was about to bust out of her—” Havoc cut himself off, giving a sheepish look to Hawkeye.

“Probably best not to bring it up—even though she totally was, poor girl,” Hawkeye said, shaking her head. “She’s actually a very good soldier, and she struggles for anyone to see beyond her—endowments.”

Roy shared a look with his adjutant. Hawkeye’s skills as a soldier were unmissable, but she had to rise better than the best of the men to earn the respect of their superiors. It was harder being a woman in the military, and in ways Roy often didn’t notice.

“I guess it’s like how no one can see past my handsome face,” Havoc said, fluttering his eyelashes. Hawkeye aimed a rubber band at his back. “Ow!”

“If you had real discipline, you could’ve dodged it,” she said, swiftly blocking his retaliation with a folder.

Roy would’ve thought that Hawkeye was truly unbothered by the competition, that he had no hope of winning, until he saw her leave for the shooting range again. While she kept her skills sharp, it was unheard of for her to go on Mondays when they were usually busiest.

He rested his chin on his hand, he was going to need to have another meeting with Breda and Falman.

“Uh, so why are we meeting here?” Fuery asked, peering around the smoky, crowded bar with suspicion.

Havoc released a puff of his own smoke, eyeing some of the beautiful waitresses bringing drinks. “Isn’t this the place Mustang likes?”

Riza smiled. “Oh, the same one. I’m sure he’s brought you all here before, right?” She knew her superior well. He trusted these men, and if he had their trust, they must have been vetted by Madame Christmas’s girls. While Chris operated out of central, she had girls posted at bars around the country. With Roy in East City, she had sent one of his favorite “sisters” to watch out for him.

“He brought you here, Hawkeye?” Fuery choked out. “If my mother knew I was here, she’d skin me alive!”

“I’ve been here a time or two,” Riza said casually, waving Vanessa over.

“Elizabeth!” Vanessa squealed, and she dropped practically into Riza’s lap to hug her. “What are you doing here?” She looked to Fuery and Havoc. “Are you two-timing my brother?”

Riza laughed, fighting a blush. She hoped they didn’t know Vanessa meant Mustang. Vanessa and all the other girls had been teasing them since the first time Mustang brought her to Madame Christmas’s bar in Central—not long after he’d burned the array off her back. The girls kept up the teasing probably because Mustang had squawked at them not to scare her off.

“These are some of Mustang’s other men—Jean Havoc and Kain Fuery.” Riza put her hand to Vanessa’s ear. “We need some dirt on the Flame Alchemist.” She pulled back, forcing a giggle the way Vanessa and the other girls had taught her.

“Oh, you are bad,” Vanessa said. “Want some drinks before we chat?”

Riza nodded. “Put it on you-know-who’s tab.”

“You have gotten positively cheeky,” Vanessa said, slipping off behind the bar.

Havoc and Fuery turned to Riza, both patiently awaiting an explanation.

“Vanessa and the girls have mentored me in the art of…persuasion.” Riza couldn’t think of a better word for it. “I go by Elizabeth here.”

“Is that your full name?” Fuery asked.

“No.” It was her middle name. “But Vanessa might have some ideas on how to get one over on our boss. He’s probably plotting something—and we need to try and get a step ahead of him if we can.”

Havoc stubbed out his cigarette. “Yeah, he didn’t seem bothered by those photos at all. Is he even human?”

“It’s been almost three weeks. I was dying at one,” Fuery confessed.

Vanessa returned to the table with drinks, and she genuinely laughed as the three of them explained their predicament.

“So this is for the pride of women everywhere, is it?” Vanessa concluded.

“And these two,” Riza added, sipping her cocktail.

“Hmm, Roy is a tricky one,” Vanessa said. “He’s been taught to ignore the usual ploys girls use.”

“So you’re saying he’s immune to the obvious feminine charms?” Havoc said glumly.

Vanessa nodded. “I truly believe a woman could strip naked in front of him and he wouldn’t bat an eye.”

“Even after weeks of…abstaining?” Riza asked, feeling a little desperate. She was wound up with tension, and so, so tired. Another nine days of sleeplessness—no. She had to crack him.

“I couldn’t say,” Vanessa said. “But when he sets his mind to do something, he does it.”

“Well, I suppose a stalemate is almost as good as winning, right?” Fuery offered weakly.

Vanessa shook her head. “Winning is always better. I do adore Roy, but—” She hugged Riza tightly. “We have a sisterhood. Now come with me, I’m going to tell you something the boys can’t overhear.”

Vanessa played up the girly act, giggling and holding Riza’s hand as they darted through the dimly lit bar.

Vanessa led them to a private room in the back, finally dropping the giggling act, though even without it Vanessa was a very cheery person. She flopped on a loveseat, tossing her hair back.

“You and my brother are almost painful to watch. He came by earlier. Said he needed to know how to drive a woman mad with lust without doing it himself.”

Riza blanched. “He what?”

“That tells me he’s very close to his own limits. He wouldn’t come begging for advice from me otherwise.” She smirked. “It also makes sense why he wouldn’t tell me any more detail than that. I wouldn’t have helped him!”

Feeling encouraged that Mustang was reaching the end of his rope, Riza was back to business. “So what did you tell him? I need to prepare for whatever he’s going to try to do.”

Vanessa—carefree, shameless Vanessa—blushed. “I had no idea he meant you, okay? Remember that.” She sucked in a breath. “I told him to…take you for a bumpy drive. Or anything else that might…stimulate things.” She erupted in giggles.

“He’s a terrible driver!”

“A perfect excuse, I told him,” Vanessa said, snorting into her hands.

“I’m only doing this stupid competition because he wants me to get along better with the men on the team,” Riza said, feeling cross. “I haven’t slept properly since it began, and now it’s just that idiot between me and a good night’s sleep. I need to crack him.”

“Maybe that’s all you need to do,” Vanessa said thoughtfully. “Tell him just how much you are dying for it. His noble self won’t be able to resist. Especially if you play it up like Elizabeth would,” she finished, wiggling her eyebrows.

“I could never do that.”

“Why not? It could work!”

“Because—he’s my superior.” It sounded flimsy when she put it that way.

“Your superior who started a very questionable competition that could get you all a court martial.”

She had a point. “Well…I’ll sleep on it.” Or not sleep, as usual.

The next morning, armed with extra strong coffee, Riza confronted her superior. She wanted him to squirm. She leaned on his desk, taking a small sip of the terrible coffee from the break room. Conveniently, the other men had left to finish preparations for the money laundering case.

“I can’t believe you went to Vanessa for advice,” she said, hoping she sounded like the scolding adjutant she aimed to be.

Mustang threw his pen down. “What? She told you?”

Riza let him stew for a few moments longer than she should have. “Yes. Because I also went to her for advice.”

His eyes narrowed. “What did she tell you?”

“She told me to prey on your more noble nature,” she said, adding the lilting tones of Elizabeth. “Please, sir, I need to sleep. I’m tossing and turning all night, so tense—”

His hands slammed down on the desk.

“Lieutenant, that won’t work,” he said. Riza’s heart pounded in her chest. She was very sure it was working. His breathing had subtly picked up—and he had shifted forward in his chair very deliberately.

She couldn’t call him out on it though. It seemed…unsporting. “Well then, don’t even think of offering me a ride anywhere, sir.”

He spluttered, avoiding her gaze. “I wasn’t going to!”

She threw her head back and laughed before returning to her desk, waiting for the others to arrive before she deployed her next tactic.

Roy was in trouble. If Hawkeye had gone to Vanessa for advice, Hawkeye would know a little too accurately how to take him down. Hawkeye was the only girl he’d ever brought to the bar, and during some of the “lessons” the girls did with her had been far too effective on him—and Vanessa knew it, even if Hawkeye hadn’t picked up on it at the time. And Vanessa knew they were only so effective because it was Riza Hawkeye teasing and flirting with him.

He avoided looking at her as he discreetly adjusted himself beneath his desk. Under normal circumstances when he wasn’t a few strokes away from losing his pride as an officer, ignoring her was easy. It was a protective habit to see her as a soldier and friend, nothing more.

Now he saw her as he once did when she was nothing more than his teacher’s daughter: a forbidden fantasy.

His life would be simpler if he just gave in, bowed to his lieutenant’s stronger discipline. But some embarrassing part of him wanted to go longer—show her that he was more than capable of holding off. As long as he needed to.

Roy reined himself in, forcing himself to do another once over of his formal request to search the warehouse of the paint supplier. He was quite pleased with the details Hawkeye had added. Grumman would surely approve. Deciding it was good enough, Roy passed the form off to Hawkeye who promptly left to deliver it to Grumman’s office without even a teasing word. Suspicious.

The other men trickled in, and Havoc walked in especially smug. Roy’s suspicions grew.

“Boss, I had a question for you. I was chatting with my girlfriend about our competition,” Havoc began. Roy put on a purposefully disinterested look. “She’s rooting for Hawkeye, obviously, but she wondered if under the conditions set, if they weren’t a bit sexist.”

“Oh?” Roy asked.

“Well, a woman can have sex without orgasming—it’s just a matter of biology, isn’t it? So if Hawkeye wanted to have some fun without the satisfaction, so to speak, couldn’t she do that?”

He heard Fuery strangle a laugh.

“Just as much as any of us could, I guess,” Roy said flatly.

“I’ll be sure to pass that on to Hawkeye, sir,” Havoc said.

Roy sighed. “Don’t blame me if she shoots you.”

He wanted to shoot Havoc himself. Roy knew what the bastard was doing—and Hawkeye probably had something to do with it. Because what Elizabeth had been taught was to seduce with suggestion. Now Roy was thinking about her, wanting to feel wrapped around her while she came apart. It felt like a whole other challenge, making her come in the middle of sex. He wondered if any of her lovers had managed it before. He suspected not. They didn’t have the restraint Roy did.

Roy dropped his head to his desk, indifferent to how it looked. He was ready to walk to the bathroom and have one off like a horny teenager.

“Boss, no!” Breda said. “Be strong! This is about our honor as men—as soldiers!”

“Havoc, that was cold,” Falman said.

Havoc shook his head. “The sooner this is over, the sooner Hawkeye stops breathing down my neck about my overdue work. She’s much more vicious lately.” He shuddered.

“Forget this, I need—I need to step out,” Roy said, gathering what was left of his dignity and standing to leave. He didn’t care. It had been almost three weeks. He hadn’t gone this long since the war.

“Falman! Plan B!” Breda yelled.

Falman jumped from his desk, a bucket materializing from behind it.

Abruptly, Roy was drenched in cold water.

“What the hell?” he snarled, turning to Falman who was still holding the empty bucket.

“Sir!” And of course Hawkeye would appear, and while her face gave away nothing, her eyes were definitely laughing at him. “What happened?”

The men couldn’t explain over their laughter. Roy slicked his hair back with a wet palm. “Plan B, that’s all, lieutenant.”

“Well, you are useless when wet,” Hawkeye said, dropping her eyes respectfully to the floor.

“Insubordinate, disloyal monsters,” Roy grumbled under his breath, taking his soaked jacket off and tossing it at Falman. The jacket had taken the brunt of the attack and droplets sprayed across the room. “Find me a dry shirt, Falman!” Typically he would ask Hawkeye, but he was trying not to look at her at the moment. His erection had finally retreated, but he wasn’t risking anything yet.

Falman went digging in the closet where they kept odds and ends—such as extra shirts—and appeared with a clean, dry shirt. Without thinking, Roy began to unbutton his current one to change.

“Avert your eyes, Hawkeye!” Havoc hollered, and Roy looked up to see the man diving in front of Hawkeye who had been waiting in front of Roy’s desk expectantly. Holding the search warrant, he realized. It had been approved!

“What are you doing?” Hawkeye yelped, as Havoc covered her eyes with his hands.

“I think their Plan B is to seduce you with the lieutenant colonel’s abs. What’s he doing just stripping in front of a female officer so boldly!”

Roy felt a flush creep up his neck. He’d thought nothing of changing in front of her.

“Havoc, what do you know about my abs?” he asked, diverting attention from himself.

“Don’t change the subject,” Havoc said, still trying to cover Hawkeye’s eyes as she struggled to bat him away without dropping the paperwork in her arms.

“Stop being stupid!” she said, elbowing him hard enough to release her. “I have the approval from General Grumman, but he insisted we go tonight. We have arrangements to make, so stop clowning around!” Thoroughly scolded, Havoc hurried to his desk, while Roy changed in record time.

As the team went to work, Roy noticed something—they were arguing less. Breda was consulting with Havoc while Fuery and Falman bounced ideas off Hawkeye. Maybe the team building had done more than frustrate the hell out of them. There was a comfort between them that had been absent before. And at the end of the day when Hawkeye fell asleep sitting straight in her chair, Havoc picked up her work and continued where she left off.

Like clockwork, the team’s search of the warehouse began. Havoc covered Breda while he searched the office, and Falman watched over the entrance. Fuery was stationed with the communication system up the hill from the warehouse, connected to Falman so they could be forewarned of any activity outside the building. Roy and Hawkeye would search the rest of the warehouse. If anything looked hidden or questionable, Roy wanted to be able to use his alchemy to flush it out.

The warehouse was an out of the way building with little security. If they were hiding something here, they weren’t concerned it would be found. The rows of shelving before Roy and Hawkeye looked perfectly ordinary in the small amount of light illuminating the room.

“There’s a strong…chemical smell,” Hawkeye said. He didn’t need to see her to know she was wrinkling her nose.

“Yes, I think it’s paint thinner.” No flames then. He tucked his gloves away. “Let’s split up. You go left, I go right. Meet in the middle?”

“Got it, sir.”

Gradually, Roy wound his way through the aisles, occasionally inspecting things physically. Across the silent room it was easy to hear Hawkeye doing the same. He was beginning to think the area was a dead end when he noticed some unusual etchings on the ground at the bottom of a shelf. Instincts coming alive, he started emptying the shelf of heavy buckets. And there it was, a secret entrance. The grip to pull the floorboards up was nothing more than a divot in the concrete floor.

“Oy! Hawkeye, come here!”

She was at his side in moments. “That looks promising,” she said mildly. “You want to do the honors?”

Roy nodded, squatting and heaving the slab up on its side. “Shit, that was heavy,” he grunted. He turned on his flashlight and was rewarded with the sight of a few dozen bars of gold, stacked in neat little rows inside the hidden pocket beneath the floor. Gold he was certain the company had not claimed as income that year.

“Perfect,” he said, dropping onto his stomach to see if anything else had been hidden with the gold.

“Careful, sir,” Hawkeye said. “Maybe let me look. I’m smaller.”

“You’re right,” he said, shuffling backward. The way the shelves were, he couldn’t even stand on his knees without hitting his head.

Once he was out of the way, Hawkeye wriggled under the shelf, and Roy couldn’t stop himself from watching her behind. He loved when she dressed down for assignments like these. The uniform was so boxy, it was difficult to make out her curves. Not that he should be wanting to check out his subordinate, but it was inevitable.

“Huh, there might be a stack of papers stuck under one of these stacks, but it’s too heavy for me to move like this.” She dropped to her stomach. “Can you come hold the flashlight?”

Roy squeezed in beside her—and promptly kicked over a tin can.

“Shit! What is that!” he hissed as something cold and wet soaked through his shirt. “Not again!” And it smelled very potent.

“What did you knock over?” Hawkeye asked, turning on her side. “It reeks!”

“I think some paint thinner,” he admitted, scrambling to turn the can upright. Stupid thing definitely hadn’t been secured properly.

Then suddenly it was like Hawkeye couldn’t escape fast enough.

“Oh no. Uhh, sir! It’s burning!” she gasped, almost a whimper.

Roy took action. He grabbed her arm and hauled her out. “There was a washing area this way,” he said, practically dragging her to where’d he’d seen it.

The corner he’d seen had a drain and a basic hose for washing up paint spills, he suspected. There were buckets and mops littering the area, but he haphazardly kicked them out of the way.

“How much did you get on you?” he asked her. The smell was thick in his nose, but that was probably his own clothes stinking up the place. And shit, it was really starting to burn. What kind of chemicals did they use?

“All down my side,” she said tightly.

“Here, you rinse first,” he said, turning on the hose. He turned to pass it to her and almost dropped it. He was the luckiest man alive, covered in paint thinner, but still the luckiest man alive, because there was Riza Hawkeye stripping in front of him. He only got a quick glimpse before he averted his eyes, but he’d seen toned muscles and curves—and a plain black bra that was unduly sexy.

He didn’t have long to savor the sight before the skin irritation began to override everything else. He searched around for soap, trying not to look at the lieutenant. He swallowed. She had stripped down to her bra and underwear and she was dripping with cold water…

Burning skin brought him back to reality again. He found some soap and offered it to her blindly while looking off in the other direction.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Roy busied himself taking off his shirt—the same one he’d changed into earlier in the office, so at least it wasn’t one of his good shirts.

“Sir, you can share the water with me,” she said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “It’s best to wash it off as quickly as you can. I’ll lather myself up while you rinse off.”

“I—uh—should probably—"

“Do what you have to do,” she said, answering his question before he could fumble for the words.

He willed his erection to behave as he took a deep breath and undid the button on his pants.

Riza wished the water was a bit colder—something to remind her that she was in the middle of a stealth assignment with her superior officer, not half naked with a very attractive man. Why was he so muscular anyway?”

She felt him step closer, the heat of him radiating against her side. She let herself look at him briefly as she passed him the hose. His face was dark and tense, but he gave nothing else away, concentrating on washing himself.

Her eyes dropped lower, skimming down the lean muscles of his chest, darting quickly to the very prominent tent in his boxers. They were already wet from the cold water, and the cloth clung suggestively to his erection.

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and returned to cleaning the chemicals off. Her side was pink where the chemicals had soaked through her clothes—her hip and thigh had taken the worst of it. There was no room for lustful thoughts when they’d made a mess of an otherwise very simple investigation. Already she wasn’t sure how they were going to explain this to the others.

After she had passed the soap to him while she rinsed hers off, he finally said something.

“The scarring doesn’t look as bad as I expected,” he whispered. “It’s healed well.”

Self-consciously, instinctively, she twirled to hide her back from him. It was a mistake. Now she was a few inches from him, looking up into his regretful dark eyes. All she wanted to do was close the gap and kiss him. Her hand clenched tightly on the hose as she talked herself down from doing anything foolish. He was her superior officer, and they both had goals more important than whatever feelings simmered between them.

“Don’t forget what relief those scars bring me,” she said. “I can see you torturing yourself about it again.”

He sighed. “That’s not the only thing torturing me.” He grabbed the hose from her, letting the water wash away the cheap soap he’d found. Her eyes were drawn below his waist again, this time unable to stop herself from inspecting the impressive bulge. She shivered, goosebumps dancing across her skin.

“You’re staring, lieutenant,” he said, his voice husky.

She had no excuse. “I was just wondering how much longer you’ll be able to last,” she said, summoning her courage. She thought about what Vanessa had told her. “The sooner you give in…the sooner I can, too. And I am so tired, sir. It really is the only thing that helps me sleep.”

“So you’re saying, as your superior, it’s my duty to lose this competition so you can sleep? Because…” He paused to look her over, and boldly, she let him. She was proud of her body—it was strong and capable. “You’ll get more work done if I do, right?”

“I’m really at my best when I’m well rested,” she agreed, the words coming out breathless as she watched his hand dip down into his underwear, somehow managing to grab his cock without pushing the wet fabric out of the way. She wished fervently for a better view.

The moment he gave in to the first stroke, he let out a desperate, quiet moan. The relief of finally giving into it seemed to hit every part of him—his head fell back as the tension left his shoulders. And it was that word—relief—that brought to mind what she wanted to do for him.

“Sir,” she said, retreating to familiar patterns as she braved the unknown. “Permission to help give you some relief?” She dropped to her knees so there would be no mistaking her meaning.

In the dim light, there was nothing to see in his eyes but burning lust. “Please. Fuck. But I’m not going to last—” the rest was cut off in a gasp as she gently tugged his boxers out of the way, their hands lacing together across his cock as she held it steady and let her lips stretch across the head ever-so-slowly before she sucked him against her tongue, fighting not to gag as his hips thrust involuntarily forward. The taste of precum was salty and bitter on her tongue and told her this would be over too quickly. Strange, she’d never really wanted to spend much time like this with others, but with him…she wanted to worship him.

Shaky fingers traced across her hair and she allowed herself to look up at him. It humbled her, the look of trust and bliss across his face as he watched her movements intently. She wanted to smile. Instead, she swirled her tongue around his tip playfully, and listened to him groan as she focused on getting him to come.

She learned that when Roy Mustang came it was with the same quiet intensity he used while drawing arrays.

There was no time for awkward conversation because barely a moment after finishing washing up, Havoc and Breda came looking for them. Mustang immediately threw a tarp over Riza while he hurried off to explain the situation. Their laughter was short-lived, as Riza heard the muffled sound of Mustang barking orders at them.

He returned with Breda and Havoc—both of them shirtless, but Mustang was slipping on Breda’s shirt which was at least long enough to give him a bit more modesty. Riza dressed beneath the tarp, grateful that Havoc was tall enough that his shirt fell to a very modest length.

Even accounting for the paint thinner incident, the team managed to pull together all the evidence needed for a solid case to present to General Grumman.

Finished, they all packed into one car for the sake of being inconspicuous. As they all crowded in, there was a quiet moment where nothing was said.

“Maybe Fuery and Falman should take off an item of clothing each too. Just to be fair,” Havoc joked.

“And roll down the windows. That paint thinner smells poisonous!” Breda added.

The laughter from the team eased Riza’s nerves. No one had said an unprofessional word about her or her body, or the fact she and Mustang had been alone in their underwear.

Her thighs pressed together remembering the feel of him in her mouth, even as embarrassment flooded her. What had she been thinking? She hadn’t been thinking. Weeks of poor sleep caught up to her. And Mustang had undoubtedly been on his last ounce of willpower.

It could never happen again.

She drove them back to their meetup point, anxious to get home and sleep. It was now past three in the morning. It wasn’t until she was trudging up the stairs to her apartment that a painful realization struck: she still couldn’t fall asleep her usual way. Her crutch was still out of reach. At work the next day, Mustang would have to mark himself out. It would raise the men’s suspicions too much if she marked herself out the same night. Especially after they’d spent the whole evening working late. She would have to wait until tomorrow night.

She cursed under her breath, deciding to take a long shower to wash the remaining smell of paint thinner away. It would be a cold, lonely shower.

Despite his exhaustion, Roy lay awake, torn between elation and guilt. Finally, finally he’d had a sample of what it would be like to be Riza Hawkeye’s lover. Of course, it happened in less than ideal conditions. He was so disoriented from his orgasm, he’d forgotten to so much as kiss her. He was a cad.

But he was dying to return the favor.

He toyed with the idea of leaving her alone, writing off the incident at the warehouse as the result of fumes and hormones. From what he knew of Hawkeye, she’d accept this without question. It would be the wisest choice. The idea also sent a wave of regret through him. He couldn’t stop this thing between them before it was even fully off the ground. Before he kissed her properly.

He decided to leave it in Hawkeye’s hands. She knew how to keep him on the right path better than himself. Though he might nudge her in the direction he desired.

The team assembled in the office slowly, all armed with coffee. Roy was the last to arrive, and upon seeing Hawkeye his mind immediately reminded him of how she had looked half naked and wet. Something about her proper, professional demeanor at the office made it so much hotter that he knew what amazing things she could do with her mouth. It was a dirty secret between them—and he loved it.

“Does anyone else still smell paint thinner?” Breda asked, stifling a yawn.

Roy strolled over to the chalkboard slowly, delaying the inevitable ribbing. “I’m pretty sure I’ve become desensitized to it,” he said.

“Me too,” Hawkeye said. “I think something was off about it, too. I looked at my shirt from last night and it seemed to be eating a hole through the fabric.”

Roy made a note to take a look at his own clothes when he went home.

He studied the chalkboard, brow creasing as he saw there was no mark beside Hawkeye’s name. Even after she knew he’d lost…

He drew the “X” with pride, knowing that he had lost this challenge the best possible way.

It took only a second for the team to notice. There was an immediate uproar.

“Our fallen leader,” Breda said, wiping a fake tear away.

“So what brought you down, boss?” Havoc asked slyly. His eyes flickered to Hawkeye. Havoc wasn’t stupid enough to say it out loud, but he knew Roy and Hawkeye had both been in their underwear—sharing a single hose with only moderate water pressure.

Roy had prepared an answer. “I just needed some…relief.”

The men all laughed, but Hawkeye crossed her arms and wore the smallest of smiles, ever the humble champion.

An idea came to Roy then.

“Now, by the rules of the competition, Hawkeye is the last one standing. But to truly win…maybe she should try to last the rest of the month.”

Her expression turned horrified for a fraction of a second before she smothered it.

“Really?” she asked flatly.

Havoc and Fuery each gave her nervous looks. Everyone was especially tired today, and Hawkeye was already tired.

“What, not sure you can hold off another week?” Roy asked lightly.

She clenched her jaw. “I can make it.”

Checkmate, Hawkeye.

Roy finally got a moment alone with Hawkeye on the way to a meeting together.

“So you really didn’t…indulge at all?” Roy asked lowly, trying to ignore the wilting of his pride. He reminded himself that women had moods, and just because a mood arrived, didn’t mean it lingered. While she’d definitely looked willing and debauched on her knees in the warehouse, she’d been all business the moment Breda and Havoc arrived.

And though he was awake for an hour replaying the vision of her mostly naked, it didn’t mean she was compelled to do the same.

“No. I didn’t want them to suspect something happened between us,” she said matter-of-factly.

Right. She was too honest to lie, even for a ridiculous team building exercise.

“I see,” he said.

“I would have indulged tonight, but someone suggested I see this competition through to the end,” she said coldly.

He glanced back as he heard her yawn. Her eyes were puffy, her skin a little paler than normal. Maybe he shouldn’t have goaded her into holding off another week.

Riza attempted going to bed early that night. She took a warm, relaxing bath with a few scented candles burning. She did her stretches for her back slowly, willing her body to relax, turned the light off, and crawled into bed, aching for sleep. And something else, if she was honest with herself.

Her mind refused to shut off.

How bad would it be to give in? She was so tired. Any teasing would be worth the rest. And she was thinking about her superior again, the quiet intensity as he lost himself to pleasure, the soft touch of his hand across her face…

She rubbed her thighs together, biting her lip. What good would she be at work tomorrow if she was half asleep? Her fingers edged toward the waistband of her underwear, craving that rush of heat that would spread through her body, leaving her blissfully relaxed.

The phone rang.

Cursing powerfully, she jumped out of bed to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hawkeye!” a drunken voice yelled into her ear. There was a lot of laughter and voices in the background.

She covered her face, twitching in annoyance. “Havoc! What do you want? I’m trying to get to sleep!”

“Exactly! I made a bet with Breda that you would make it through the rest of the month! Don’t be—don’t be doing anything you shouldn’t, young lady!”

“Excuse me?” she growled into the phone.

“You heard me!”

There was the sound of a scuffle, and a loud clanking as the phone was probably dropped.

“Hawkeye! Don’t listen to him! You do what you need to fall asleep. You deserve it!” Breda’s voice said, equally drunk.

“I’m hanging up.”

“Be strong, lieutenant!” Havoc bellowed, loud enough she heard it even holding the phone away from her ear.

It was another very long, restless night of little sleep.

Riza made sure to drop the stack of books onto Havoc’s desk as loudly as she could. She gave him a vengeful smile as he winced and massaged his temples. He didn’t show up at the office until after lunch.

“So, you and Breda went drinking last night?” she asked conversationally.

“Sorry, Hawkeye. I have fifty cenz riding on this!”

“I’m going to the range,” she said. “You are going to take care of all of my duties while I’m gone, or I will make sure you lose that bet.”

“Fine,” he agreed, sullen.

She stalked out of the room, arguing with herself about the immorality in their team. Masturbation competitions. Gambling. Fraternization. She flushed with guilt. How could she keep Mustang on the right path if she wavered at temptation?

Roy followed Hawkeye, telling the team he was going to make sure she didn’t fall asleep at the range and shoot someone on accident. And she really was dangerously tired—she didn’t notice he was following her until he called to her.

“Hawkeye, you’re dead on your feet, come with me,” he said, nudging her away from the gun range.

“Sir, I’m not going home—”

“I’m not sending you home. Come on, I know a place,” he said, bestowing her with his most dazzling grin.

She looked at him, and he knew her temper was boiling beneath the surface. “What kind of place?”

He lowered his voice. “A very quiet and private place.” He had taken countless naps there himself.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Is this where you disappear to some afternoons?”

“I admit nothing,” he said. And he had more than one napping place, but this one he was willing to share with Hawkeye.

“And you’re showing it to me…why?”

He thought about how worn down she was, looking as if she’d fall asleep in her chair. He hadn’t been thinking when he’d challenged her to continue holding off. He only hoped a nap could see her through the day.

“I owe you one,” he said.

She jutted out her chin for a moment longer as he waited for her temper to either burst or simmer down. His eyes landed on her lips, thinking of what they might be able to do in such a quiet place together…

Her expression softened as she smiled at him.

“All right. Just this once,” she said, falling into step behind him.

He led them toward the accounting department’s storage room. Unlike other departments, they had to store files for ten years before they could be destroyed. Roy had come poking around for a corrupt official’s spending records when he discovered the accountants maintained a room with a cot for their annual audit. It was apparently an arduous event, and many of them pulled all-nighters. But the rest of the year, the room was unused—except by him.

Around a row of cabinets, out of view from the door, was a simple cot. No blankets or anything, but comfortable enough for some sleep.

“It’s not much, but it’s very private,” Roy said. A strange thrill ran through him, the same kind he got whenever he cornered a criminal, or was about to put his opponent in check. He turned to Hawkeye, and his mouth fell open. She was stripping in front of him for the second time in less than a week. She hung her jacket carefully across a cabinet, then began unbuttoning her pants.

He stared.

“You better look while you can,” she teased, revealing her long, bare legs. “Just this once, remember?”

Roy struggled to breathe, replaying the conversation they’d had in the hallway. He’d said—and she thought he meant—

Well, he always was quick on his feet.

“Right. Just this once,” he said. He’d set himself on fire before correcting her mistake. “Do you want me to—?” He gestured to his own jacket. He wasn’t sure, but if this was a quid pro quo thing, he didn’t need to undress, although they had both been mostly naked back at the warehouse...

“Maybe just your jacket,” she said, confirming his assumption.

He slipped his off quickly, throwing it haphazardly to the ground while Hawkeye folded her pants carefully.

“Sir, it will wrinkle,” she scolded him with a flirty smirk, moving toward the jacket.

“Sorry,” he said distractedly, taking in the exposed skin of her thighs. He couldn’t look away as she bent down to retrieve the jacket, laying it neatly atop the cabinet beside hers.

If this was his only opportunity…

He strode forward, his hands palming her hips and pulling her flush against him. She peered up at him, her breath as shallow as his.

“Is this okay?” he found himself asking, aware that his cock was misbehaving, but he would control himself. It was her turn now. He owed her so much—more than a hurried tryst in a storage room. He would do whatever she wanted.

“Yes,” she murmured, melting against him. It felt so good, so right, to have her in his arms.

“Last time, I didn’t even get to kiss you and—and—that’s just unfair,” he said, eyeing her parted lips with desperation.

She took mercy on him and stood on her toes, pulling him down by the nape of his neck to crush their lips together. She kissed with the same thoroughness she approached her job, and he responded with everything he had—a vain need to show her what a good, considerate lover he would be. He was overly eager to impress her.

He let his hands wander across her ass, giving a quick squeeze that made her gasp deliciously into his mouth. Then he worked his thumbs into the soft fabric of her underwear, tugging them off until there was nothing but skin below her waist. Tracing his hands lower, he squeezed again at the top of her thighs and was rewarded with her moan.

He nudged her back until she reclined on the cot, her legs trembling. Her eyes watched him carefully, half open but full of lust.

“Open your legs for me,” he said, the words more a command then a request.

She let her legs fall apart, gifting him with a surprisingly dainty whimper. One hand covered herself shyly, and it about broke him. His lovely, confident lieutenant afraid for him to see her—when she had to know what he planned to do.

Resting a hand on her thin ankle, he waited as she took a few gasps. He leaned down to kiss her knee, dragging his lips toward her inner thigh where he felt the heat radiating from her center. Her breaths grew ragged with anticipation.

“Roy—no one has ever—” she whispered, panting, still blocking his view with her hand.

“I don’t have to,” he said, choosing his words deliberately. It made sense now why she was being uncharacteristically shy. “But I am fucking dying to taste you and feel you come on my tongue.”

She made an unintelligible noise. “Okay,” she choked out. She moved her hand, and he let his fingers explore her first, caressing them over her folds.

“Let me know if I do something you don’t like,” he said, before slipping two fingers straight inside her. She was already so wet, he imagined if it was his cock, she would’ve taken it beautifully. She moaned as he pumped his fingers in and out of her, but her eyes remained watchful, expectant.

He understood. She wanted to know when he would use his mouth.

He took a moment to consider what she might like best, then he lowered his head slowly, keeping his gaze locked on hers. His tongue found her clit immediately, and he pressed hard against it.

She cried out, quickly muffling it with her hand. He grinned against her, then began licking and sucking interchangeably. Her legs shook violently around him, her encouraging, high pitched gasps seemed connected by a string to his erection, making him painfully hard. He began thrusting his fingers into her rhythmically, the same pace he would fuck her if he could. If he wasn’t her superior. If he had nothing to atone for.

He matched his tongue’s pace to his fingers, and she clenched down around him.

“Oh god. Just like that—don’t stop,” she sobbed. He was shocked at how close she was already. Then she was pulsing around him with a final blissful moan. She grasped the collar of his shirt and pulled until they were close enough to share a sloppy, passionate kiss.

He watched her eyelids flutter shut with sleep, so he surreptitiously adjusted his erection so that it was more comfortable before cramming in beside her in the cot meant for one. She snuggled into him like it was something they had always done, her head tucked under his chin. His heart twisted realizing how fleeting the moment would be.

Even after she fell asleep, he could still taste her on his tongue.

Riza woke up in a haze of perfect contentment until she realized her head was resting on Mustang’s chest. Oh no. How could they have been so reckless? And on military property. The sleep deprivation was affecting her reasoning.

Still, she didn’t move. Mustang had fallen asleep as well, and his arm was across her back. She peeked down and saw his jacket draped across her naked lower half. Her body throbbed with the memory of what his tongue had done. Oh my—if she had known what it would be like…

No. She couldn’t go down that path. The only reason she had stayed in the military was to support his goals and work toward whatever atonement she could grasp. She couldn’t help him as a regular citizen, and as long as she was in the military, a relationship was impossible.

She chided herself for such a leap—Mustang hadn’t mentioned a relationship. It was just raging sexual tension burning out of control once they had no other outlets thanks to that stupid competition.

Or so she wanted to convince herself.

“Lieutenant, I’m surprised you haven’t marched me at gunpoint back to the office,” he said, startling her.

She pushed up on her elbow. “At this rate, I think it’s best we lie low. We’ve been gone too long.”

“I’ll think of some excuse,” he assured her. “I also…wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have pushed you to go the rest of the month. You won fair and square.”

Riza smiled. “I appreciate that—but why the hell did you do it in the first place?”

He gave her a sheepish look. “Mostly to watch you squirm.”

She reached out and pinched his arm.

“Ow! You are becoming very insubordinate, you know that?”

She shrugged. “Someone has to keep you in line.”

“Better a pinch than a bullet, I guess,” he grumbled, exaggeratedly nursing his arm.

“Want me to kiss it better?” she found herself asking—quite without her more sensible side’s permission.

Immediately, the atmosphere changed. Her heart thudded loudly in her ears, and she was aware of every point their bodies were touching. She was completely naked below the waist, and now that she knew how good he was with his mouth…

“Riza,” he whispered, resting his forehead against hers. “Do you want this as much as I do?”

“Probably more,” she said. No matter how much she tried, she never stopped wanting Roy Mustang.

“But we shouldn’t,” he said sharply. Reprimanding himself or her, it didn’t matter. He was right.

“No. We can’t risk it.” She inhaled, relishing his scent. He always smelled so good, even back during his apprentice days in her father’s house. “Maybe…one day,” she said, her voice thin with the barest of hope for that future.

“Holding out makes it so much better, doesn’t it? The longer we have to wait to be together…” he trailed off.

“We’ll still be together,” she reminded him. “Not like this,” wrapped together like happy lovers, “but together.”

She shifted, preparing to stand and dress, when she felt something irresistible pressing into her abdomen. He had taken care of her needs, ignoring his own. Like always.

Suddenly she didn’t want to wait around for the timing to be right. Holding out was overrated.

Under normal circumstances, Roy thought of himself as a logical man. He wanted to be a man of honor, a man who could walk the straight and narrow no matter the obstacles. A man who would never seduce his female subordinate.

He had never considered his subordinate would seduce him.

“Sir, you really can’t go back to the office like this,” Hawkeye said softly as her hand wriggled between them to cup his erection.

“Ah, yes, a consequence of being pressed against you—” he couldn’t finish his thought. She twisted herself until she hovered over him, straddling his hips.

Dimly, he saw her kick his uniform jacket onto the floor. “Won’t it wrinkle?” he asked, voice strained.

“Do you care?” She pulled her shirt over her head. Her glorious breasts momentarily distracted him as her bra went next.

“No. But I’m confused. We just said—”

“You really think we can ignore this for however many years it takes to reach your goals?” She countered, working on the buttons of his shirt.

His hands, moving with a mind of their own, glided up and down her thighs. “I thought you’d keep me in line.”

“If your insane brainchild has taught us anything, our team works best when we are satisfied and well rested. And you and I both know we already get distracted by one another.” She leaned down to kiss him, and her naked breasts, soft against his chest, sent him a bit farther into madness. She sucked on his tongue, doing such obscene things with it that he nearly forgot to keep up his feeble argument.

“You’re all about efficiency, is that it?” he asked. “Fraternization be damned?”

“I’m not saying we do this all the time. Just whenever the tension gets to be too much, and we need…relief.”

He swallowed thickly. “I really like this idea.”

“Me too.” She ground down on his erection, her lips near his ear. “If I had known how good it was to have your mouth between my thighs, I would never have lasted this long.”

His mind toyed with a devious idea. His sweet, delicious lieutenant was asking for him to make her come with his mouth again. And if she had never experienced that, surely she had never…

“You up for a little…adventure?”

“What did you have in mind?” She nibbled at his neck, each touch zinging to his cock. He knew she would probably need some enticement, so he slipped his hand between her legs, her core already slick. He sank two fingers into her, grinning like an idiot when she thrust her body down onto them. His thumb rubbed circles on her clit as she squirmed on him.

Her breaths accelerated in time with his own. Willing himself to slow down, he changed the pace to lazy circles.

“Turn around,” he whispered. “I want to be inside your mouth while I taste you at the same time.”

He waited, gauging her reaction. He felt his heart constrict at the foreign shy expression on her face.

“That seems…tricky,” she said after a beat.

“You’ll be on top, so you can stop anytime.”

“Oh. If you were on top—” She squeezed down on his fingers, her eyes a dark amber. So she liked that idea? Maybe another time. He wouldn’t last long with her eager mouth beneath him. He wasn’t going to last long as it was. And the thought of having her another time was too much to think about.

“You seemed to really like my mouth on you earlier,” he reminded her, hoping to provoke her into bravery.

With a determined huff, she pulled away, his wet fingers sliding across her legs as he helped her flip around, one knee landing gracefully by his shoulder. He was dying to taste her, dying to have her helplessly moaning around a mouthful of his cock. She made short work of his pants, and he grunted as she wrapped her hand around him. He grabbed her hips, positioning her a bit roughly into place so he could tug her down and clamp down on her clit.

Her thighs quaked around him and just as he hoped, she moaned wantonly as she sucked his erection as deep as she could, her tongue teasing him.

But he didn’t want her focused on him. Sure, she was a goddess with that sharp tongue of hers, but he wanted her mindless with desire. He needed to see her fall apart before he finally claimed her body.

Roy couldn’t deny her trust in him was half the turn on, her beautiful folds spread out for him to see. He spread her legs apart farther, enjoying her gasp as he angled her just a bit differently and plunged his fingers into her again. He knew she liked that extra stimulation, and with this new angle he could do a lot.

In retaliation, she added more suction and his answering moan, vibrating against her, made her grind gently against his mouth. Her inhibitions were gone, her groans gaining almost too much volume, and her focus on him faltered to sporadic licks as she distractedly worked him up and down.

He filled with pride as she finally had to release him, her breaths high and labored.

“Oh god. Roy. Please—”

He almost shushed her she grew so loud, but he would risk the end of his career to hear her cry his name while she tipped over the edge.

“Roy,” she whimpered, her head falling onto his thigh as she went limp, perfectly relaxed.

He eased her onto her side, trying to give her a moment to catch her breath even as his cock begged for attention.

Then Hawkeye looked at him, and he realized he was now the focus of all her discipline and strength as a soldier. She twirled around, licking her swollen lips as she climbed over him, a lithe and seductive predator. She dragged her wet folds along his stiff hardness, and he reflexively bucked his hips, needing more.

She kept teasing him.

“Lieutenant,” he groaned. “Are you trying to torture me for information?”

She laughed softly before kissing him deeply. “What information would I be looking for?” she asked, finally—finally—inching her way down his erection.

Busy exploring her body, paying particular attention to her breasts, he forgot to answer. Then he could think of nothing else as she slid down his cock, wrapping him tightly in wet heat. He loved how confident she was, more in her element as she took control of his pleasure, finding a rhythm that made him tense from his stomach to his toes.

“I always thought you’d be a dirty talker,” she said, brushing the tips of her breasts against his chest as she spoke into his ear.

He was intrigued. “Oh? You think about this a lot?”

“Most nights,” she said, letting her hands roam. He sighed when they combed through his messy hair.

“I thought you’d be more shy,” he panted. “And here you are—fuck—yeah, I can’t talk much when you do that.” He groaned, rock hard inside her, as she began to thrust faster.

“Whatever fantasies I’ve had of you…this is so much better,” she said, drawing him into another kiss.

And that’s when he knew he was in trouble. She was right. This was better. Better than anything else in his life. Because he was in love with her. There was no doubt she loved him too.

He shuddered under her attentions, knowing that he was undeserving of her loving touches, but not caring. Whatever she would give him, he would take.

A grunt escaped him as she quickened the pace, his own thrusts jostling her.

“I’m—I’m close,” he warned her, his balls tightening in that pleasant way it always did right before he came.

“Go ahead—if you want,” she moaned, sinking all the way down, unmistakably giving her permission.

“Almost,” he said, sneaking a hand to her clit and circling it until she came around him with a cry of elation that he stifled with his lips.

And oh hell, it was euphoric, fusing their mouths together and holding her waist in place as he came deep inside her, pulsing over and over. She held still as he softened inside her, and he treasured the sticky mess connecting them.

They broke apart and he kissed her shoulder, damp with sweat, as they rearranged themselves into a more comfortable position on the cot.

“Well, if anyone heard us, they are too afraid to interrupt,” he said at last. He was going to have to find an excuse to top all excuses to give the rest of the team.

“I tried to be quiet,” she said, a hint of petulance in her voice.

“And I tried to make you scream,” he countered, grinning ear to ear. It earned him a shove that almost knocked him out of the cot.

Later, they dressed in companionable silence

“Maybe…we can do this again when you get your next promotion?” she offered with a smirk. “Would that motivate you?”

It really would. “Unless you ask for it sooner,” he challenged, buttoning his shirt.

“I’ll hold out as long as I can, sir,” she said, her dutiful adjutant persona reappearing. “You get that promotion as soon as you can.” She sidled up to him, making his heart race. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Riza arrived early to work, marking herself out on the chalkboard with a barely suppressed smile. Then she waited for the others arrive. Havoc shuffled in first.

“What! Hawkeye!” Havoc yelled in disbelief, dropping his bag to the floor. “You couldn’t hold out a little bit longer?”

Riza paused her reading. “No.”

“Damn it, I never should’ve bet against Breda.”

“If it’s any consolation, I already finished the report you left half done. Thanks for covering for me yesterday.” She looked back down at the document, aiming for casual. But she could practically hear Havoc making the connection.

“Right. Where did you and Mustang disappear to all afternoon?” Havoc scratched at his chin.

“The accounting department,” she said crisply, following Mustang’s carefully crafted excuse.

“You were there for ages. Did it not go well?”

She couldn’t resist. “No, it went very well. Mustang was just very thorough.”

“I did hear a rumor yesterday—I can’t wait to tell the boss.”

“A rumor?” Mustang asked, as if he could appear whenever anyone mentioned him. He swept over to his desk, plunking a briefcase on top.

Riza tensed, afraid there were rumors of a certain lieutenant colonel and his adjutant brazenly breaking fraternization laws.

“Some of the secretaries were talking—including Grumman’s. Rumor has it a certain Flame Alchemist is being put up for a promotion to colonel.”

Riza felt her body flush pleasantly as Mustang’s eyes darted to her. He looked incredibly smug.

“I wonder when it will be official,” Mustang said. “I should drop by Grumman’s for one of our chess games—see if he talks.”

“Until it’s official, it doesn’t count,” Riza said, although she was already anticipating celebrating his promotion in a proper bed…

“I’ll be sure to ask Grumman for it to be expedited,” he said, staring at her a little too intently. Havoc watched with amusement.

“Good idea,” she said. She returned to her work.

“Boss, have you noticed Hawkeye seems well rested today?” Havoc asked, still watching them closely.

Mustang’s grin could not have been more arrogant, but he played it off like it was because she gave in before the month was out.

“You know, she does. Release a little tension, lieutenant?”

Riza didn’t look up, acting absorbed in her work. “Yes, sir. Four times, in fact.” Three with Mustang, and once before bed.

It was worth confessing just to watch him and Havoc practically swallow their tongues.

“Being a woman means not only can I hold out longer when I choose to, I can also…” she searched for the word, “produce more. It’s a pity the military doesn’t utilize women more. We are very efficient.”

“Is that a challenge?” Mustang asked, popping his knuckles.

“No, no, no, you get your evil ideas under control!” Havoc said. “No more!”

And while Mustang assured Havoc he was joking, Riza heard the promise in his voice. Round two between them was going to be unforgettable.

#royai #lieutenant colonel mustang #FMA #fanfic #Fullmetal Alchemist #riza hawkeye

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