#so weird that only when i finally get round to watching fantasy high for the first time suddenly its all i see on my dash x)

[semisgroupie]

A FRIENDLY NEIGHBOR

pervert!karasu tabito x fem. reader

wc: 2.1k

warnings: noncon filming, slight stalking (kind of), unprotected sex, creampie, manhandling, thigh humping, spanking, praise, degradation, strength kink (kind of)

synopsis: he’s just doing the neighborly thing

a/n: this was requested by @qichun for my perverts make the world go ‘round event remake!

Karasu felt bad for this front that he held up whenever you were around.

Actually, he didn’t feel bad at all. He honestly enjoyed it a lot more than he should have.

He loved seeing the look on your face when he would ‘magically’ appear to help you with heavy groceries after you had been struggling with bringing them up the stairs to your floor. He had been behind you the whole time, fighting off a boner as he heard your little grunts and groans as you went up each step. But you would never know that, he was honestly surprised that you’ve never caught on. He kept track of the days you went grocery shopping, always in the middle of the month, then little trips here and there and you always bought in bulk. Maybe you did it on purpose. Maybe you wanted him to come by and help you out. Maybe you did catch on but wanted to play stupid. But he couldn’t let his mind wander too far with frivolous thoughts.

His favorite thing that he ever did was slip some hidden cameras along your apartment when you asked him over to help you hang up some paintings and photos you had. It was pretty easy to do and you were never suspicious of it. He had a full view of your apartment and he could see everything you did there. Especially when you couldn’t fight off the urge to touch yourself, it was like you put on a special show just for him. He even saved little clips of you onto his laptop for whenever he had to go away for a game, he always watched you. It only fueled his fantasies and made him wish he upgraded the cameras he got. If only he got the more high tech ones, then he could really hear what name you moaned when you touched yourself or hear the slick noises as you fucked yourself. Did you wish it was his cock or fingers inside you?

He wanted to feel bad, he really did. But you just made it too easy for him to do things like this to you, it just made him want to do more, see how perverse he could really get. He just had to wait for the perfect moment to make a move.

Or maybe you were going to open the door for a perfect opportunity.

He was in his apartment, pouring some chips into a bowl so he could have a snack while he watched a new show Otoya told him all about, when he heard a frantic knock at his door. He set down everything and rushed over to the door, opening it up to see you, only in a towel. His eyes widened at the sight and you looked at him. “I’m so sorry to bother you but I really need your help, Tabito.” He nodded and followed you into your apartment, watching some water droplets cascade along any inch of skin that wasn’t covered by your towel.

You closed your apartment door and moved closer to the bathroom before stopping completely. “There’s this weird looking bug in there and it’s really freaking me out!” He had to bite back his laughter as he nodded. This was just perfect, you clad in only a towel crying for his help was only something he fantasized about and now it’s his wildest dreams coming true. “I’ll get it out for you, don’t worry.”

He smiled and walked into the bathroom, you followed behind him and only peeked your head in to watch him. It took him a few minutes and he finally came out with his hands cupped together. You moved out of the way and he walked over to an open window and let the little creature out before turning back to you. “It was just a little centipede but I understand, those things get a little creepy looking sometimes especially when you least expect them.” You let out a sigh of relief and walked over to him, wrapping your arms around him to hug him. “Thank you, Tabito.”

He hugged you back and lowered his head to smell your hair, the scent of your shampoo filled his nose. It only took you a quick moment to pull away, as you were still clad in only a towel. Heat spread across your face and you looked at him with wide eyes, “I’m sorry. I should put clothes on and then I can make you some food as a thank you.” You adjusted your towel slightly before turning around and before you could take your first step he gripped your wrist and pulled you back around to him.

“You know, I really have to watch my diet for my games. I think there could be another way for you to thank me.” He released your wrist and slowly moved his hand up your arm, his fingertips gently grazing your skin as he moved them up to your shoulder then your collarbone before he dropped his hand. Goosebumps coated your skin and your heart pounded. You couldn’t deny the fact that he was attractive and with all the times he helped you, you couldn’t help but develop a little crush on him. Now that he was finally here, you couldn’t let the opportunity slip.

You took your bottom lip between your teeth and brought your hands up to remove your towel from your body, letting it drop to the floor while your nude body was completely on display for him. His eyes moved along your body with a predatory gaze, “fuck, I’d never thought I’d be able to see you this close.” He moved his hands out to your hips and pulled you close to him, he leaned in and smashed his lips against yours. You brought your hands up to his shoulders and his hands moved back to your ass, gripping handfuls of the flesh roughly.

The action made you moan and whine against his lips and he wanted, no, he craved more from you. He leaned in more and slipped his tongue into your mouth while he moved his hands lower, hooking them along the back of your thighs before lifting you up. He never broke the kiss and you moved your hands up to lightly tug on his locks as he brought you to your couch and sat down, adjusting you to straddle him. Heat and need coursed through your body with how easily he handled you.

He groaned against your lips as you started to grind your hips against him. The fabric of his sweatpants gave you the perfect stimulation you needed and you couldn’t stop yourself as you moved against him. He broke the kiss and bit his bottom lip as he watched you grind against his growing hard on. “Why don’t you straddle one of my thighs if you want to get off like a needy slut?” He held onto your hips and lifted you to straddle one of his thighs then started to move you against him. He flexed his thigh and it caught your sensitive clit, making you gasp and whine his name.

He was thankful that he had the cameras splayed along your living room, he could relive this moment from all different angles. You leaned in and buried your face in the crook of his neck, moaning and nipping at the sensitive skin there as you humped his thigh. His hands moved along your body, one hand moving to your front to pinch your nipples and his other hand moved to grip and spank your ass. Loud smacks and slaps reverberated through the living room and mixed with your yelps and moans of pleasure. His cock twitched more and more, he felt like he could cum with just the sounds of your whines and whimpers.

You held onto his shirt tightly before you slowly lifted your head from his neck. Your pupils blown wide with lust and need. “Tabito, please fuck me. I want you inside me so badly.” Your hips still moved along his thigh at a frantic pace, still trying to get that delicious release. “Yeah? But you’re still humping my thigh like a little bitch in heat, it’s just so cute. If you really want my cock then you have to stop moving your hips.” A pout formed on your lips and you finally slowed your hips. He lifted you off his thigh and laid you down on your couch.

He glanced down quickly and saw the large wet spot on his sweatpants. He quickly shed them and his shirt, showing you his toned body and he moved between your thighs. Now that he finally had you like this, he didn’t know what position he wanted to fuck you in. He licked his dry lips and gripped your legs, putting them over his shoulders as he lined his cock with your entrance. He dragged the tip through your wet folds and turned his head to press a kiss to your ankle before pushing in.

You felt heavenly around him and he couldn’t keep his eyes off your pussy, watching how you stretched around his cock. He was completely entranced as he continued to push into you until he was balls deep. He took his bottom lip between his teeth and started to thrust, bottoming out each time he pushed back into you. A creamy ring formed around the base of his cock and he finally tore his eyes away to watch your body as he fucked you then finally moved his eyes to your face. Looking at how blissed out you were, it was an expression he had seen hundreds of times since he placed the cameras in your apartment but experiencing it firsthand and knowing that he was the direct cause of it made him feel even better.

“This is so much better than watching you through a fucking screen. It could never capture your true beauty like this. Getting to hear and see you like this makes me so fucking hard. I won’t be able to get enough of you after this. We’ll just need to keep doing this, indulging in each other and our fantasies. We’ll never have our fill of each other, it’ll be impossible.” The words kept pouring from his lips along with shaky breaths and groans.

It was like he was drunk off of you and you were drunk off of pleasure. He looked at the empty look in your eyes and brought his fingers down to your clit, rubbing and slapping the sensitive bundle of nerves. That made you arch your back off the couch and made you tighten around him. He knew you were close, you didn’t have to say that and he was right behind you. His cock twitched inside you and his balls swelled and tightened, begging for release but he wouldn’t, not just yet.

He drilled his cock into you harder, his heavy balls slapped against the curve of your ass with each hard thrust. “T-Tabito, ‘m gonna cum.” He continued to slap and pinch your clit and moved his free hand to grip your face. “Look at me when you cum. I want to watch you fall apart from my cock, not from some plastic toy that couldn’t even come close to me.” He groaned out his words and you finally came undone. You shut your eyes as your release washed over you. You clenched around him tightly and your body trembled underneath his as he continued to fuck you through your orgasm. He thrusted a few more times before his hips stuttered and he started to fill you with cum.

He moved your legs down on either side of his hips and he hooked his arms around you to lift you up onto him as he laid back down. He rubbed your back and kissed your forehead then reached over to pull the blanket that was draped over your couch to cover you both. He didn’t want to pull out of you, not yet. He wanted to enjoy you for as long as he could, then he’ll enjoy you again when he’s in the privacy of his own bedroom, rewatching what just went down between you two. He’ll have a new folder to create for all the little sex tapes that he’s going to make.

He really had to thank his past self for putting up the cameras throughout your apartment. But maybe he’ll replace them soon, for ones with better quality and sound. Just so he could have better videos to save for his private viewing.

taglist: @suyacho @bluelock4life @benkeibear @satmitsuplanet @litepowee

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 8/29/2023

my ENTIRE SUMMER has been either worrying about moving or actually moving. ALL OF IT. however an incredibly hot butch milf on the gay community bulletin board/dating app lex has finally answered my piteous call for gun safety classes with an invitation to her private range. unfortunately she is a landlord who owns a VERY large apartment complex. houston is a land of contrasts

listening

more joywave! one of my favorite bands bc they are best listened to in full album format, and i did a fuck of a lot of driving this weekend. little lies you’re told has an opening like a big machine warming up while you are in a control room way high up on a gantry somewhere. spotify

-

reading (2x bonus round)

All The Trimmings by Tesni Morgan (published 2001 in the UK) is a gift from @believerindaydreams. it is “erotic fiction written by women for women” (debatable) and “the publishers recommend that this book should be sold only to adults”. also, “Black Lace novels contain sexual fantasies. In real life, make sure you practise safe sex.” idk i’ve ever seen that kind of notation on an american novel before? fascinating precursor to the saccharine little “stay safe kids” ao3 authors notes

i do find the premise genuinely fun and compelling— two divorced milfs opening a hotel/bordello with historically themed rooms. i have had to look up a lot of british purple prose and i refuse to believe anyone says “rogering” in real life.

im being edged with glimmerings of bisexuality. every time one of the milfs gets turned on and goes out roaming to distract herself from being turned on, i go “oh?” like at a pokemon go egg, but so far all the dalliances and encounters have been dudes.

had a very strange experience with cormac mccarthy's blood meridian. i don’t normally interrogate whether or not i am the intended audience for a work except when it’s literally made for children, bc i as a modern bisexual woman am the intended audience for vanishingly few works. for example, many entire genres (westerns) are very challenging to enjoy.

a western has never made me go "wait so why DO i like westerns at all" so hard. like, what AM i doing here in this genre that is often deeply fucking uncomfortable to consume as a woman, and where the most foundational american and european works of the genre often uncritically embrace the worst parts of the american mythos in the most violent way possible? i do believe critics when they say mccarthy is not embracing violence for the sake of, and in fact has something to say with his revisionist western, but my god is it hard to wade through. anyway, dad media will not fuck me and i still have only a tenuous grasp on why i try so hard to glean enjoyment from it.

i know what mccarthy is trying to do and the overall tone of “weird old maybe-uncle” spinning a yarn to a big group of you and your cousins around a fire somewhere is pretty effective. unfortunately I have less tolerance for mccarthy’s style now than when I read The Road thirteen years ago in high school. i was immediately super invested in The Road’s single dad and how he and his kid were surviving, which does not need a lot of interiority.

blood meridian also has very little interiority. the first five chapters are a teen falling in and out of various fights. i was not, and am still not invested. if im reading A Man Goes On A Journey western (as opposed to A Stranger Comes to Town western) i would like to know two or three things about the man, especially if it seems to be angling at a bildungsroman. i don't typically care for third-person objective narration when it is this closely focused on one guy, and i really don't care for loving descriptions of maggots. comforting to know a lot of critics were also squicked out by this book. so it goes.

-

watching

finished watching s1 of spy x family! a Legally Not West German spy in Legally Not East Berlin has to go into deep cover and pose as a family man in order to gain access to Legally Not Erich Honecker, because the only social events Legally Not Erich Honecker goes to are the ones at his son's elite prep school.

this man FLINGS himself into being the absolute best husband and father possible. for the mission, of course.

i found the first few episodes the best, which is generally the opposite of my normal anime experience. i think it does a really good job of balancing high-octane spy hijinks and chases and explosions with very domestic concerns (he PROPOSES. with a THE RING OFF A HAND GRENADE. AFTER THROWING IT), and once you're really hooked on these characters it turns into a bit of a curtainfic. curtainanime? i had fun with all of it and anxiously await season two, but the actual applied spycraft does drop off significantly as the series goes on.

-

playing

we're going to continue with out of context genshin screencaps for the duration. the watery land of fontaine has a neat smorgsabord of visual style-- freshwater but also saltwater but also the aquarium section at petsmart.

-

making

unpacking mostly. acquired this coffee table and its mother. needs a very deep cleaning and some touchups but is intact. the individual tables are a bit large for like individual party drinks tables but all six together are QUITE large. four tigether would be a comfortable coffee table size for many apartments imo but! bc everything truly is bigger in Texas including my apartment it works for right now. for the first time in my life i am considering a sectional sofa bc the living/dining room is that dang big.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Monsters of Rock 1998 Hair Metal / Hard Rock / Arena Rock /Heavy Metal / Pop-Metal

Good lord, this had to have been one of the most heavily advertised albums of all time, man. I don't know how much ad money the Razor & Tie label shelled out for all of their 'As Seen on TV' comps back in the day, but the commercials for Monsters of Rock and Monster Ballads were fucking inescapable throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, especially. Like, you'd be watching something on cable, and the commercial for this album would come on, so then you'd change the channel, and the same commercial would be playing on there too! And then you'd just force yourself to sit through it, and eventually, through repetition, the entire sequence of little song snippets that gets played throughout the ad would become a permanently etched medley inside of your goddamn mind, destined to haunt your soul for the rest of eternity:

🎶Cum on feel the noize, girls rock ya boys…my, my, my, I'm once bitten, twice shy, babe…poison!…*synths from Europe's "The Final Countdown"*…round and round, what comes around goes around, I'll tell you why…she's my cherry pie, cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise…we're not gonna take it, no! we ain't gonna take it…she's only seventeen, seventeen…here I go again on my own…I'm no fool, nobody's fool, nobody's fool…so hold on loosely…🎶

Now, the hair metal era may have been the dumbest and most ridiculous period of mainstream rock that we've ever borne witness to—and it's very difficult for me to think of another commercially successful subgenre in which rank stupidity has been such an inherently defining trait—but thanks to a combination of my own nostalgia for these damn Razor & Tie ads and my sometimes weird and ironic affinity for bad shit, after listening to this album, there is really nothing more that I want to do than hitch a ride back to 1990 so I can live out a super corny fantasy as a badass suburban high school senior who cruises through town in a boxy, red sedan with the windows down as these silly songs blare out of my speakers 😎.

But like I said, I am also under no illusion here; I'm fully cognizant of just how patently absurd so much of this music was. And when it comes to the pinnacle of pure trash, I really don't think anything ever quite managed to top Warrant's signature 1990 anthem, "Cherry Pie," which is obviously on this album. Like, have you heard or thought about this tune recently? It really might be the single-dumbest song that's ever been recorded in human history. And as the single-dumbest song that's ever been recorded in human history, it has thankfully and, I guess quite fittingly, been memorialized in some way, since…*checks notes*…you can currently go see the pizza box that its lyrics were originally transcribed on at the Hard Rock Cafe in Destin, Florida… 😭.

🎶I scream, you scream, we all scream for her Don't even try, 'cuz you can't ignore her!🎶

Also, Winger's "Seventeen." Yikes; you can probably guess what that one's about! Talk about songs that haven't aged well at all 😩:

🎶She's only seventeen (seventeen) Daddy says she's too young, but she's old enough for me🎶

Yeah… This one's catchy and all, but, um…no. 👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎 Really glad we've finally realized as a society that, at the very least, fully-grown adults singing lustily about minors is a very unacceptable thing to do. I mean, it took way too long for us to get here, but at least we've finally made it to this point, right? And I think "Cherry Pie" is probably about a minor too, by the way, but that's also up for debate 😑.

To be clear, though, not every song on this album is embarrassingly dumb and/or skeevy hair metal. I happen to think Living Colour's alt metal classic, "Cult of Personality," is a genuinely great banger. And I also dig the southern rock smoothness of a song like .38 Special's "Hold On Loosely" too; but most of the rest of these are just pure dunderheaded hair metal classics, and a key, overarching feature of this stuff was just how fucking maximally mindless it all was. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly allowed this madness to spread so widely and flourish for nearly a whole-ass decade in the first place, but thank goodness grunge came along when it did and dethroned this stuff from its perch as rock music's top subgenre in the early 90s, because, seriously, this shit was so excessive and outrageous.

All that being said though, and as good and necessary as grunge was back then, I can't help but imagine what a kick-ass time it would probably be to have almost any one of these Monsters of Rock songs come on at the bar while you and everyone else around you are in a highly intoxicated stupor; like, "Black Hole Sun," "Man in the Box," "Interstate Love Song," "Even Flow," etc., might be total jams in and of themselves, but songs like those are probably not gonna do the same trick as something like Alice Cooper's "Poison" can in that type of situation. I mean, when you're fully committed to annihilating some brain cells, it's good to have music that's way ahead of you in order to accompany your experience, right? 😅

Highlights:

Quiet Riot - "Cum On Feel the Noize" Great White - "Once Bitten Twice Shy" Alice Cooper - "Poison" Europe - "The Final Countdown" Ratt - "Round and Round" Warrant - "Cherry Pie" Whitesnake - "Here I Go Again" Winger - "Seventeen" Living Colour - "Cult of Personality" Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It" Judas Priest - "You've Got Another Thing Coming" Cinderella - "Nobody's Fool" .38 Special - "Hold On Loosely" Autograph - "Turn Up the Radio"

[diedbutterflies69]

Will you stay?- Bang Chan imagine.

Contains: friends to lovers au. , Divorce, smut, fluff, blindfolding, oral sex, explicit sexual stuff etc . Minors don't interact.

Never once on your life, you thought you could get your shit together and laugh genuinely at the worst in world. falling out of love is worse but it's even more worse if it's your it's not you who fell out of love. Married at 22 and the honeymoon phase hardly lasted for a year and by the age of 26 got yourself labelled as a woman who sabotaged her own marriage in thirst of money. Your ex husband was bitter about your success even before you got married. He thought as a woman, you just did bare minimum and got yourself a high positioned rank by sleeping with one of the rich rags. You tried hard enough to hold on to that rotten red string , but he had the scissors and just cut you off. You weren't willing to sacrifice your career just because of his Immature mindset, yes you loved him, but can't a women love her own hard achieved success more? That's the question you wished to ask everyone who pointed there fingers at you. After divorce you didn't feel pain just numbness. Your self-hatred coming more stronger than ever, even hating the job, you tried Saving since years, getting life on track seemed impossible and at the end just quitted. Moved out of the city just to move back to your home town, the root of your real pain. It wasn't really a town but rather a more flashy city, expensive shits which you were unable to afford in childhood but now it wasn't any big deal. Earth is round and sometimes precious people find you all by themselves. Your highschool friend, the only friend you had throughout your lifetime because of your anti social tactics.

Bang Chan, the social butterfly who almost knew every single student in whole school, he was the hottest guy you ever saw in your life and also the kindest. You had crush on him even before you both were friends, he was your senior,used to help you with those shitty math sums, crack jokes every now and then and scolded you whenever you procrastinated. He came to congratulate you even on your graduation day, even though there were many more students whom he met you were still glad atleast someone bought you a beautiful bouquet of tulips and bellflower. The last time you saw him was before you moved out in search of cheap collages without informing him, as you thought you were just one of many friends he had and won't ever notice someone like you existed.

But god, how much wrong you were.

You met Chan after almost 9 years in convince store and his reaction was almost priceless , like finding treasure. He was now more handsome, beautiful and god-like even after all this years his style of dressing didn't Changed much, he still looked like Kim Kardashian at 2021 met Gala. nevertheless his smile still had those healing properties with his Cresent moon eyes. He was absolutely stunning.

The first sentence he spoke after confirming your identity was 'I missed you' and then tons of lectures and questions . Knowing how narrow-minded you were he gasped dramatically. Cheesiest ways of saying how could I forget my best friend and so on. That day was probably the best day of your life and maybe even the day after years you really smiled. You both exchanged numbers and addresses and his home was just 10 minutes away from yours. Destiny indeed.

Now it's been over 7 months since you met Chan again and he never made you felt like you were just one of his 109 friends. Chan made you feel special, after knowing what kind of disaster you faced he was even more supporting of you, you both used to spend weekend together watching variety of shows and movies going to stargazing, best friend goals. After many years you knew even if Chan had many people to confide with he never really did. He was alone, just a night owl obsessed with work. You were happy. And he was happy too. Being just friends was enough for you, but not for him . He was slowly trying to find courage to confess his love to you. He liked you fuck from highschool days. He found you once randomly staring at him across the room and when you suddenly disappeared all his fantasies were scattered, he knew your dreams and was willing to help you with your every step. knowing how messed up your household was from your neighbours he felt guilty for not being able to give you happiness. He loved you, but was helded by his own insecurities.

Not anymore though, he wasn't the same coward who just stared at the love of his life from distance. Being the extra human he was, he bought you one of the most expensive restaurant of the whole country, man was loaded. After driving for almost 5 hours you both finally reached there .

Now a nervous Chan sitting infront of you. You being oblivious to the fact that he has a beautiful diamond ring and a confession to make. Chan handed you the menu card and every single dish had an extraordinary name, without much thought you placed the order.

"atleast tell me now, why are we here?" You asked the man infront of you who was behaving extra weird today, he looked sick and was occassionally asking you random questions.

"No reason, I was in mood for long drives and... You know have a nice meal" Chan said fidgeting with his fingers he was acting like a flustered high school guy it was clearly indicating that he was lying but you didn't really care, Chan was weird sometimes.

"Sounds fake, but okay. By the way you aren't sick right?" You asked Chan out of pure concern as he was sweating profusely even in an cold AC room.

"I am fine, just feeling a little hot. Don't worry", Chan said it was more like he was convincing himself that he was fine and shouldn't worry. He wasn't a teenager but a human with responsibilities who once again fell for someone out of his league, he used to think that and he still sees you as a literal goddess. While he was lost deep in his thoughts, the waiter came with food , and this was his opportunity to shoot his arrow. You both started eating and talked like being in paradise.

"did you liked anyone in highschool?", Chan asked you out of blue making you almost choke on food. The only person whom you liked throughout your highschool days was the guy sitting infront of you and you didn't really remembered much guys and the best answer was probably saying a lie with little truth.

"no one lol", you answered trying to sound chilled but since highschool crush topic was out you weren't able to keep your curiosity with yourself.

"What about you, liked someone?", You asked trying to sound nonchalant and not desperate and bitter.

This was the Exactly the conversation that Chan planned in his mind. And here started his way to either heaven or pit of rejection.

"I loved someone", Chan said and you this time you really choked from the depth of your heart, you thought Chan was anti romantic type of guy as he never talked about of his female friends with you or bragged about his non existent dating life. Trying again to not sound jealous or bitter you spoke again.

" Who was that lucky bit-- I mean girl yes girl? Who was she?", You asked, almost letting out the bitch loudly. You weren't sure but you saw Chan smiling cheekily, he was really getting old acting weird more and more everyday.

"Well... Someone from our school",Chan said and you swear you didn't made a disgusting face showing pure jealousy. The best human in your life and your first ever crush had crush on somebody, you didn't knew why you were feeling so fucking bitter but you weren't able to handle the curiosity anymore.

"Tell me her damn name", you asked Chan in a frustrating tone not being able to keep jealousy to yourself.

"Why you being angry", Chan asked followed by his small laugh.

"I am angry, just the food was a little spicy you answer me now, her name?", You answered Chan with your defenses up and still sticking with your previous question.

Chan in response got a little serious now,you thought he was being childish now, he wasn't a kid who was given a dare to name out his crush yet he was acting like one.

"You won't leave me right, I mean after I answer your question?", Chan asked you and you didn't knew what to say in response you were now a little sus about him.

"fine don't answer, keep secrets", you said and continued eating. The next thing Chan said made you now choke and die on food.

"I loved you and I still love you" Chan said looking down at the table head hanging down like his teenage self just confessed he watched porn infront of his parents. You were shocked, frozen and the your heartbeat 10x faster, you didn't knew how to react and tried to find humor in this extraordinary situation.

"Chan, you kidding right?", You asked Chan with a nervous smile on your face. Chan looked up at you , his eyes trying to find yours but you avoided the eye contact.

"I am serious, I liked you from HighSchool times, I saw you for the first time in library when you were looking at me, I swear you were so beautiful and even now after all this years after seeing you I can't, I can't help but fall for you all over again, sorry"

Chan confessed, his voice filled with sincerity and vulnerability his sentences were scattered here and there and incomplete explanation but still you understood everything he really poured his heart to you, you felt like crying even if you both weren't such stupid cowards back then, then today you won't have turned out a divorced women and Chan a guy who grew out lonely even if he had a world for him.

"What should I say Chan?", You asked Chan you were sounding like a girl whose bf told her to breakup even if the situation was exact opposite. Even if you love Chan , you didn't think about him reciprocating same feelings back to you. You were beyond insecure with your love emotions. One thing was sure you won't be able to love Chan without being a bundle on him. Your emotion Baggage was too big and you didn't want Chan to get his heart too with your stupid emotions.

"I love you and I will be really really good to you. Please try staying with me I will try really hard to earn space in your heart, please?" His confession was like literally begging. You weren't able to believe if he was real or not, if it was a dream that will end as soon as cruel morning comes, this felt like fantasy. Chan was a amazing man, he had everything money ,honour ,beauty a nice heart. He was like a character written by women so perfect so delicate yet strong, and he loves you this fact was enough for to lose your mind. but you thought you were a taint to his beauty, you were a character full of inferior complexes and a person too easy to dislike thats what illusion you made about yourself. A random extra in her own story.

"I will pay the bill, let's talk later", you said and walked away immediately to pay the bill leaving a clueless and disheartened human behind. Chan was able to see how you stopped yourself from saying love you too and throwing yourself in his arms. He wasn't same from HighSchool a guy who gets overwhelmed by his own emotions and gets unable to see others. He knew you had atleast a small space for him in your heart and to make a big room for himself he had to throw out all your insecurities and self hatred. He followed you like a lost puppy and he wanted to pay for food but you already did and now you were already out of restaurant searching for his car to get back.

Chan sitted beside you, without doing anything silence and awkward air surrounding you both.

"start the car", you said breaking down the silence, you were extremely worthless and trash as you made the only one person whom you love feel like nothing.

"Just answer me, will you try dating me please", Chan said his voice again passing draggers into your heart. Trying to form any logical explanation you spoke again.

"I am not looking for relationship right now, see Chan you are amazing, but I can't make you happy now and did you forgot that I am divorced, please understand" you said expressing your real insecurities and fear, fear of not being able to keep a man happy.

"you don't want relationship because you divorced that fucking trash of a man?", Chan asked he was getting frustrated you thought but he just wanted to make you happy and not deny what your heart wants.

"my mind isn't stable, I might just irritate you everytime with my mood, you will will get tired of me and leave me -- I don't want to be alone again I will die if you leave me", you confessed tears threatening to fall out of your eyes there wasn't any doubt that you loved Chan he filled the void in you in just months made you happy but you didn't wanted to just take and take and give nothing in return. Chan's hand found yours interlocking your fingers with so much delicateness that you might cry.

"you think so low of me, just stay by my side I will make you so happy that you will hardly get time to think about your past, trust me", Chan said his fingers slightly lifting your chin up to look into your eyes, you looked in his eyes filled with so much care and this was your last straw before breaking down in his arms.

"I love you, I love you so fuckin much, you were my first love my only friend, my everything, please-- please love me", you confessed tightening your arms around Chan, his scent making you feel safe and like home, his one caressing your hair and other wiping away the tears. Even though the scene was more like a dramatic clique scene whatever emotions you both felt was unexplainable.

"So you my girlfriend now hmm?"Chan asked you for first time in night his voice containing pure happiness and excitement.

"I have a sexy boyfriend", you said smiling from ear to ear against Chan's chest. The label boyfriend making your heart flutter, you didn't knew happiness like this can even exist.

"My love", Chan said his voice sweeter than honey, suddenly the night was more starry."now can we go home?" You asked Chan finally breaking the hug, reality hitted you now Home was 3- 4 hours away.

"I made a reservation in hotel, we gonna spend night there", Chan casually said making your heart jump out of your chest.

"pervert, you planned everything seriously", you said dramatically and giving him a playful digusting look.

"I booked two rooms", Chan said now starting the engine making you feel embarrassed. "Who is pervert now~" Chan said in air teasing you more.

The rest of the ride you both talked about anything and everything. Confessing how you used to find ways to always be in each others vision etc. Both of you finding a new thirsty side of each other. Nothing felt uncomfortable, it was happiness those inhumane laughs crazy tricks you both used to pull everything was heaven. After some time you both reached infront of a gaint hotel , it looked expensive af but regardless Chan knew how to waste money and you were tired of lecturing him about savings.

"let's go", Chan said removing your seatbelt and getting out of car to open the door for ya. He was being so cheesy gentleman and you were enjoying every minute.

"room 42 and 43" Chan said to the receptionist and she handed two keys to him. Thanking her then getting on elevator, you were a little disappointed that you weren't sharing room with Chan, yes you were pervert and total simp for Chan, he was too hot and your sexual drive was getting higher each passing second. The elevator doors opened and you got off. Chan handed you the room key and softly kissed your forehead, both you wished it was your lips.

"if you want anything, just knock okay?" Chan said in his lovely tone, I want you you internally screamed, nevertheless you gave him a nod and got inside that expensive room .

Starring at the ceiling while lying on the bed your mind was full of Chan, you knew he wasn't probably sleeping and was wasting time in watching random shit on internet and you were hungry, hungry for Chan, it wasn't your fault that Chan was so hot. Trying to fall asleep and fidgeting here to there you finally decided to knock on Chan's room door. A danger zone. You noticed how the door flunged open in less than few seconds.

"Hi" you said scratching back of your head and trying to think what next to say.

"Hi..?"Chan said being confused.

"there is cockroach in my room, let me stay with you" you said a clear white lie. Taking impulsive action were never good for you.Chan sighed before opening the door fully and signalling you to come. This was your happiest day ever.

"whY you lying", Chan asked you as you plopped yourself on sofa besides bed. He asked the sentence in a sarcastic way.

"Do you you wanna kiss me?", You asked Chan with a straight serious face catching him off-guard, you didn't wanted to waste more time, you wanted to do everything with Chan, yes fucking on first day of dating was a little too early but you fantasized about this gorgeous man since ages, in your eyes he looked total dom but his reaction to your question was making you doubt your thoughts.

"Are you sure", Chan asked you clearing his throat.

"Are you virgin?"you asked Chan, he was being too nervous.

"Obviously not"Chan answered you in duh tone, rolling his eyes. And it was getting awkward.

"The cockroach must have gone by now I should go, bye", you blabbered and got up ready to leave, you were about to open the door but Chan grabbed your hand and before you knew anything his hands were on your cheeks cupping them softly and his lips so close to yours, Chan's eyes were looking straight in your orbs , your heartbeat stronger than ever.

"Can I?", Chan asked your consent his thumb softly brushing against your lower lip. This man had totally made you insane, something stirred inside you. Chan was perfect he was everything you wished. You gave him a small nod and slowly his lips touched against yours, you wanted to cry, his lips felt so good, he didn't rushed his movements everything was happening in slow motion, he holded you with such a vulnerability like he was afraid that you will go, your hand reached his head, fingers moving through his soft locks. You felt his tongue inside your mouth , you felt a electricity run down your body when the kiss deepened.

We kiss again. The next kiss is the kind that breaks open the sky. It steals my breath and gives it back. It shows me that every other kiss I’ve had in my life has been wrong.

Breaking the kiss Reluctantly in need of air, Chan rested his forehead against yours. He was hot almost like burning, sweating.

"Why are you so nervous, Chan?", You asked Chan hugging him tightly clinging like the last leaf to the tree.

"I am scared, I just love you", He said engulfing you in his arms. And you Finally felt, what real love feels like.

"Love you too", you replied softly.

"Do you wanna continue..?"Chan asked you his tone little less scared.

"Off course", you said looking at him with smile, something inside you told it was okay to let out your freaky side infront of Chan. Chan smiled back and suddenly turned you around , the large bed infront of you.

"Lie down there",Chan whispered in your ears , his low register sending shivers down your spine. This was exactly how you pictured Chan to be, your inner submissive almost died. You followed Chan's word and laid on your back on the bed, now you were feeling like a virgin. His eyes roaming through the room in search of something.

"Are you okay with being blindfolded?", Chan asked you as he came back with the tie he wore today and was rolling it slightly in his palms, and you swear you never saw a man so hot in your entire life. Getting blindfolded was one of your unfulfilled kinks.

"ye- yes", you replied your tone filled with thrill and excitement. Chan came back to you standing near you, his hand softly cupped your cheeks , before bringing the tie to use it in sinistrous way tonight. The cloth felt strange to your eyes, his cologne smell hitting you and Chan caught your shy smile, His heart felt so fluffy. Tieing a comfortable knot Chan sat on bed near your waist. His hands slowly crept near your stomach leaving a direct lingering touch on the sensitive skin, eventually going upwards while giving a little squeeze to add stimulation, his hands reached your boobs, you didn't wore bra, and he wasn't surprised maybe your nipples perked up enough to get noticed, his middle and index finger Rolling your sensitive bundle of nerves, the blindfold making his every touch more intense, your breath was heavy you let out a suprised moan when Chan gropped your right boob in an erotic way, this sole action increasing your wetness down there you were getting impatient. You moaned his name a little loudly when his lips came in contact with your sensitive neck, sucking in a painful way, inorder to leave a hickey.

"Should I touch you here", Chan asked you as his hand reached to your area where you needed him to the most, hands going directly inside your panties ,but not touching he was a teaser.

"yes please", you moaned almost breathlessly too tired of intense foreplay. You just wanted Chan to rip off your clothes and fuck you till sunrise. Getting satisfaction with your answer Chan finally removed every clothing of your lower body, leaving you completely bare, all at his mercy. His finger moved up and down on your opening , the wetness making Chan easily slip his one finger deep inside you.

" my baby is so wet, because of who?", Chan asked you as his finger was moving slowly inside of you and thumb rubbing circles on the bundle of nerves.

"because of.. you", you admitted without any hesitation trying to grind yourself on his hand, begging for more.

"Good", Chan said and without saying anything he added another finger inside you moving a little faster inside your cunt, rubbing your walls with a little pressure, scissoring them inside you painfully and making way for a third finger too and by then you were a complete moaning mess, his fingers were pleasure yet torture the blindfold making your senses weak. Mind full of whatever Cham was giving you. Your legs were shaking sign of your orgasm approaching you, by one hand Chan holded your thighs tightly to their place fingers now moving more faster to make you reach the peak of pleasure.

"Chan.. I--I-I-- wanna cum please", you moaned your little squeaks and begs almost making Chan's cock cum right inside boxers. With some final thrust of his fingers, you cummed the hardest you could imagine, squeaky sounds coming as Chan was fingering you through your orgasm, you almost crying from overstimulation. Moaning his name like a chant.

"you did well",Chan praised you finally removing his fingers from you leaving you empty, but it won't have last wrong. Chan removed your blindfold , the bright lights hurting your eyes, you adjusted your vision and the image of Chan sucking his wet fingers coated with your liquid came directly in front of your eyes. Letting out a helpless whine.

Chan plopped himself on knees on either side of your thighs, finally letting his cock out, leaking with precum, and he was big, thick , you didn't thought he could get even hotter.

"Ready baby?", Chan asked you as he fully undressed himself as well as removing your top, your mind hazey . The scene which you pictured since highschool finally happening.

"yes", you replied Chan, he came down to kiss you passionately and slowly entering inside you. You moaned painfully, tears pulling your vision, it was a painful pleasure. Chan kissed away your tears and hand interlocking with yours after finally being fully inside you he started to move at slow pace.

"you feel so good Chan", almost screaming from pleasure, your whines were fuel to Chan's ego and he increased the pace. Body slapping sound filling the room, his groans were most sexy thing you ever heard. Again and again his tip hitting your deepest spots.

"I am close", you moaned out breathlessly, pleasure becaming too much to handle .you released around his cock, reaching the peak second time at night.

After giving a few more thrusts Chan cummed at your stomach, he was still sane enough to not curse you with kids while being lost in pleasure."I love you", he said as he settled beside you hugging you tightly. This was heaven.

"love you too", you said , your voice a little hoarse.

"by the way I forgot that I bought a ring to propose you", Chan said, realisation hitting him, that he forgot to say the long ass paragraph that he was supposed to say while sitting on one knee. You smiled at his guilty face.

"don't worry, propose me after having shower", you said heart filled with pure joy and happiness . Happiness of knowing that You love someone who will always love you back.

[eunkimmie]

hi! I really liked your sal friends with benefits headcannons and I was wondering if you could do one for larry? :)

larry didn’t think of sex as something that was sacred or that had to be cherished, he just thought of it as a desire. if two people wanted to fuck, so be it. larry thought of himself as a relatively emotional person, even if he didn’t show it all the time. he also knew he wasn’t the worst looking guy out there, he definitely fit into a “type” though. with the long hair occasionally pulled up into a messy bun, the oversized and overworn shirts, loose fitting pants that pooled around his beat up converse with doodles all on the fabric. his tanned skin was even, save for a few patches of acne and some body hair. point is, larry was an attractive guy.

now, there weren’t a whole lot of people in Nockfell that were falling on their knees for him, especially since they knew him as a weird kid in high school, but y’know. tinder was a thing. sometimes he just wanted to chat, or sometimes he did use the app for hookups.

wasn’t much, really. he’d bring someone to his shared house, fuck, then he’d let them choose whether they wanted to stay or leave for the night. maybe if he took a shine to them, offer some weed and cook some shitty eggs for them in the morning.

one day, he matched with you. cute, interesting. and by the way you chatted with him, you didn’t seem too interested in a relationship at the moment either. he invited you over after talking for a day or two, and that was that. you stayed the night, waking to an offer of coffee, maybe some cereal? you agreed, and the two of you sat downstairs laughing. larry was an easy guy to chat with, and almost everyone found that they got comfortable with him and his laid-back nature relatively quickly.

“and what kind of move was that?” you snickered, moving the spoon around in your cereal bowl idly. “i mean, if you’re gonna throw someone on your bed, at least make sure you aim correctly.” he tilted his head back as he let out a boisterous laugh, fist slamming down on the table. “fuck, don’t bring that shit up! sorry for being eager.” the two of you joked like that before you decided it was well time to go home.

after that, larry gradually stopped hooking up with random strangers, and instead turning to you. the both of you were well aware of the relationship and had no issue. but, eventually, the two of you learned that, hey, you actually had some common interests. after a session, you say up in his bed and tried to fix your hair to the best of your abilities after being fucked senseless. “you have a switch?”

“is that a sex question?” he asked, and received a pillow to the chest. “yes, you wanna play something?” you shrugged, pulling a shirt over your chest. he rattled off some names of the co-op games he had, and the two of you had settled on mario kart, cliche as it may be. and of course you beat ass. larry wasn’t a sore loser, instead offering you a lazy smile every time you told him to “eat shit you fucking second place”

larry didn’t question it much, but eventually the two of you became friends. it was bound to happen, your chemistry was more than just sexual, and he was sure that if the two of you had met in person before tinder, you would’ve been friends as well. was it so bad that his fuck-buddy was coming over midday now to play games or watch movies? larry decided that it may be better not to question it. besides, the two of you had a good dynamic going here.

but here’s the thing—when two people spend that much time together in the day and are having sex at night, at least one of them is bound to grow feelings. larry would run his calloused hands up your waist, grasping for as much of you as he could get as his mouth placed sporadic kisses all down your neck. the way your voice sounded as you let out small whimpers made his heart beat faster and faster, but the best noise was when he was fucking you at such a fast pace that had your hands gripping tightly at the sheets, before suddenly he’d stop. he’d watch as you cried out and desperately tried to create some movement between the two of you, and larry would tilt your chin up and give you a lingering kiss, staring down at your tear-filled eyes before he’d finally move again.

every time you two had sex, he would pour all of his affection and feeling into it. he didn’t want to fuck up your friendship, so instead all of his pent up emotion would turn into multiple rounds of sex, sometimes rough, sometimes passionate. he didn’t think he would ever confess, he knew he couldn’t. it would be best to just ignore it, right? right.

so, he never did. he never uttered a word to anyone, not even his friends, about the feelings he harbored for you. and when he asked if you wanted to stay the night, his heart would leap as you nodded and cuddled up to him in bed. and how he felt such a surge of disappointment rush through him when you decided it was time to get going, and left. he fantasized about grabbing you by the arm, stopping you from leaving, and proclaiming that he did have feelings for you, that you were so much more than just a person to hookup with at night. that he wanted a real relationship with you, that he wanted you to stay with him and wake up to him every day, and how much it killed him to open his eyes first thing in the morning and not see your face, and that…

fuck. was he in love with you? was it more than just a crush? it didn’t matter, you didn’t want a relationship, and that was that. larry wasn’t going to push your boundaries, it wasn’t your fault that he had to go and develop feelings for someone he was just supposed to be having sex with. he was in love with you, and the thought made him embarrassed. he’d stay up at night thinking about how quick you’d be to reject him if he ever did confess. the thought of you reciprocating his feelings wasn’t even a possibility in his mind.

you bit your lip as you knocked on the front door to his house. it was strange. you were always attracted to him, of course, but lately you’d been having…thoughts. you spent so much time in his house, his room, that an image of you staying there, with him, had briefly crossed your mind the other night. how would it feel to wake up in his arms every day as the sun peeked through the curtains? to be able to walk over to your shared closet before tossing on some clothes and walking to the kitchen and make breakfast for him? you wondered if he’d help, if maybe he’d come up behind you and wrap his arms around your waist before kissing you softly. “the eggs might burn,” you’d say, but he would turn the burner off and kiss you anyways. how he’d lift you up on the counter and run his hands gently down your sides and plant soft kisses to your lips.

your fantasy stopped right there as he opened up the door, greeting you with a lazy smile. his hair was up this night, small strands falling from the bun he had loosely tied together. and then, the two of you were in his room. but it felt different somehow. maybe it was your imagination.

he closed the door behind him, pressing you up against the wood after it locked with a small click. his hands worked your shirt, pulling it off before tossing it aside. he ran his hand down the side of your thigh, your legs wrapped around him as he supported your body with ease. your hands had cupped his cheeks as you kissed him, his breath shaky as he pulled back for air for only a second.

you didn’t go home that night. you stayed, waking up to larry’s arms draped lazily over your body as your back curved against his chest like a perfect puzzle piece. you turned over, slowly as possible as to make little movement. now, you were face to face with him, his eyes still closed and lips parted slightly. you sighed, pushing a few strands of hair from his face and planting a gentle kiss on his lips. you mumbled out a strained, “fuck,” before you decided that maybe it was better to go back to sleep.

he acted like he was asleep. cheap move, he knew that, but when he felt your fingers softly brush his hair aside, his heart practically jumped out of his chest. he laid there as you kissed him once, and he swore that if you put a hand to his chest you would be able to feel just how fast his heartbeat was going.

for weeks, the two of you unconsciously pined over one another, both of you too afraid to say anything. you continued as you were, meeting up for either video games or sex.

his room was dark, dimly illuminated by his LED lights, your body reflecting a slight sheen of blue as the lights hit your skin perfectly. his hands grasped at your hips, his back against the wall behind his bed as you bounced yourself up and down on his cock, face to face. he supported your movements with his hands on your hips, eyebrows furrowed. you were so fucking tight around him, and your bodies seemed to come together perfectly, like it was meant to be. the way your lips were parted as you moaned his name, and how you almost screamed when he met your movement by thrusting upwards, and how he had to cover your mouth with his hand as to not disturb his roommates. he had moved you to lay on your back now, his body hovering above yours as he fucked you into his mattress. your hands intertwined above your head, and you could fe that all familiar feeling of a bubble about to burst in your stomach.

“f-fuck..fuck! im so, i’m so fucking—“ your sentences weren’t even coherent as he fucked you rhythmically. your back arched, letting him hit an even deeper spot inside of you that made you cry out his name. you removed your hand from his, moving up to cup his cheeks as you stared into his eyes. “fuck..don’t stop. please, don’t stop.”

“fuck…” larry groaned back. he was close, and the way you looked at him as if he was the only thing that mattered right then and there just drew him closer. it was all too much. the way you cried out his name and pulled him into kiss you. it just came out. he mumbled, “fuck…i love you,” and the way immediately after that you pulled him in for another kiss sent him over the edge. you could feel his cum drip out as he pulled himself out of you. you laid on his bed, chest rising and falling as you tried to catch your breath. he uttered that he was going to get you a towel to clean up with after he pulled on some sweatpants.

as you laid there, now partially clothed but still sweaty, you thought about it. you thought about what he had said to you, and how the words alone were enough to make you come undone. your face burned as you thought about it.

larry could really just kill himself. he was so fucking stupid. he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, fist clenched so tightly that his skin turned paler. he was going to act as if it never happened. it was for the best. it was always for the best.

as the two of you laid in his bed, you couldn’t help but think. and in an impulse, you blurted out, “do you really love me?” as soon as the words had left your mouth, your face heated up with embarrassment. you had meant to phrase it more carefully, but the sound of his voice kept repeating that same line in your head.

larry recoiled, barely visible, as he stayed silent. what was he supposed to say? he couldn’t even act cool in the moment as his mind scrambled for words, any words, to come to mind. “uh…” he said, gulping. he could feel his hands getting clammy. “you can, uh…you don’t have to feel obligated to stay if you’re uncomfortable. i don’t want you to feel like you have to pity me.” that came out a bit self deprecating, but he meant it. he was the one who had fucked it up. he was the one that couldn’t even keep his words to himself.

as you processed his sentence, you furrowed your eyebrows. you had been seeing larry for a few months now, was it? the time you spent together, you felt it had become more than just sex. you guys built a friendship, a bond. maybe it was soon, but life didn’t wait for anyone. “no, fuck..! no, i don’t want to leave, i just…” you paused, thinking about it for a moment more. “i think that i might, um. i don’t know, i can’t really think straight right now, i just…i know i have feelings for you.” and you left it at that. you didn’t know if you loved him yet, but you were sure of yourself.

larry’s brain stopped working for a split second in that moment. he took time to replay your words in his head, but only for a second, because before he knew it he was rambling. “wait, seriously? like, actually? you don’t have to say anything to try and make me feel better, know that. i don’t want to try and—“ you cut him off by shaking your head. “no, no! im not just saying this shit, seriously. im really sure of it, actually.” you laughed softly, half heartedly. it was hard to make eye contact.

larry let out an incredulous laugh as you smiled at him nervously. maybe this moment should’ve been more serious, but all he could think in that moment is that he felt happy. truly, genuinely happy. “let me take you out on a date,” he said, to which you responded with a bright smile and a nod. he couldn’t help but laugh again at the situation, and how unorthodox it all felt. he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

the two of you had stayed up late talking. just talking about life, about feelings and emotions. you two didn’t wake until late noon, but waking up to see your face snuggled into his chest was just about the biggest surge of serotonin that larry could’ve received.

[fandomsonrequests]

fake dates for a real wedding

fandom: ATEEZ

characters: kang yeosang; ATEEZ

reader: fem!

word count: 3.5k+

summary: Initially, you thought it wouldn’t be hard to find a fake date for the wedding. You could just ask one of your friends. But it seemed like fate was punishing you for your impulsiveness because all the people you were supposed to ask were busy with work or had their own affairs to deal with. All except one— which landed you on where you were now: on Yeosang’s couch begging him to come as your plus one.

a/n: fake dating au, some cussing

Based off on the songs: nangangamba - zack tabudlo, pretend - bad suns, drive slow - addie

You whine when Yeosang lightly shakes you out of his grip, pushing you away from him on the couch. “But Sangie..! You’re the only one I trust.”

“Well, it’s not my fault that you lied about your ‘relationship.’ Look where that’s landed you.” Your friend motions at you, eliciting another pleading whine from you. 

You see, this all started when your friend from high school was getting married. You weren’t super, super close but had a good friendship with each other. So when he invited you to his wedding, he asked if you had any plus one to bring along. You, not wanting to seem like a sad loner, panicked and said that you had a date to bring along. Your friend teased you for a moment, saying that he couldn’t wait to “meet the lucky person” before hanging you up and informing you that he’d send the invitation through an email. 

Initially, you thought it wouldn’t be hard to find a fake date for the day. You could just ask one of your friends. But it seemed like fate was punishing you for your impulsiveness because all the people you were supposed to ask were busy with work or had their own affairs to deal with. All except one— which landed you on where you were now: on Yeosang’s couch begging him to come as your plus one.

“You said you weren’t busy,” You pout and fold your arms like a petulant child. 

“Well I’m not, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to go and pretend to be your date.” He countered.

“And why not?”

“Because it’s lowkey weird..?” He suggests. In reality, it was because he had a massive crush on you. He had one since sophomore year of high school, he just couldn’t really bring himself to tell you then. He could probably tell you at this point in life but he wasn’t ready— not yet anyway. And he didn’t want to hurt himself by pretending to be your date during the wedding. Sure, it was a selfish move on his part, but he’s been hurt before. He didn’t want to be hurt again. Besides, you probably don’t see him as someone more than a friend just like in high school, and he’d rather not deal with the consequences of this seemingly one-sided love.

“It’s just for a day, pleeeaaasee,” you try again and put on your best puppy eyes.

The male sighed, knowing that he wouldn't be able to resist that, no matter how much he steeled his nerves. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he weighed over his options, which wasn’t much, come to think of it. Maybe he could just indulge in this fantasy for a while, even if it didn’t last forever; at least he could have that luxury. With a final sigh for the umpteenth time this day, he agreed reluctantly.

“Fine,” he replied and you rejoiced. “You’re paying me though.”

Your cheery deposition drops and you blanch. “What?”

“I’m only kidding,” Yeosang adds before you could panic, the corner of his lips quirking up in an amused smile, showcasing some of his beautiful pearly whites.

You grumble, lightly swatting at his arm and he chuckled softly. You couldn’t help but drop your annoyed act and smile in return, glad that things were working out in your favor. You look down to bring out your phone so that you could explain the details to him, missing the way he looked at you fondly, eyes full of yearning for you.

“Since it’s a ‘summer wedding’ it’ll be by the beach. So that means we can wear light but business casual clothes.” You tell him and hand him the phone. 

Yeosang takes it from you, fingers faintly brushing against yours as he reads over the email. You note the way his brows lightly furrow together as he takes note of the invitation’s content. You also note a cute little quirk of his, the way his lips would part slightly or pout just a bit when he was concentrating. You blink away from your trance when you realized that you were staring. Since when were you fixated on the little things about him?

“Have you picked out what you’re going to wear?” He asks and hands the phone back to you. “Because if we’re going to go as a ‘couple,’ we’re going to have to match a little.”

“Oh wow, you’re really going all out with this.” You muse, a light blush coating your cheeks. 

“I mean it’s not a usual thing to pretend to be your best friend’s date to a wedding. Why not make the most of it?”

You smile at the thought. “Yeah, let’s make the most of it.”

The smell of the cool sea breeze fills your lungs as you step out of the car and onto the warm, concrete beside the boardwalk. The wind gently ruffles your hair and pale blue sundress, caressing your skin softly. A content smile makes its way to your face as you take in the warm sight of the waves rolling onto the beach in front of you before looking over to Yeosang. 

His round-rimmed spectacles sat atop of his cute nose, his honey skin seemingly glowing under the sunlight. The outfit he donned, which was a blue button-up top and some white pants, matched yours. He looks over to you with a curious raise of his brow to which you respond with a dorky smile and a shrug. You walk over to him and loop an arm around his. He welcomes the action, even briefly squeezing your hand before walking with you down to the beach where the wedding was to take place. 

“You remember the plan?” He adjusts your sun-hat to keep it from falling off your head.

You nod in response and try to keep your cool. It only dawned on you how nerve-wracking it could be to fake a relationship; you wondered how Yeosang managed to keep calm. “We met in our junior year of high school, messed around a bit in college before getting together just recently.”

The blonde hummed in approval. Actually, the story you conjured up wasn’t too fake; you two did somehow skirt around your feelings for each other in your freshman year of college before you both decided it was best to stop messing around and focus on your studies. It spared both of you the dramatics of the “what are we” phase and allowed you to keep track of your goals in life. The only thing that you lied about was you two being together. But given your history with each other, your friends wouldn’t really question the backstory too much. 

“______!” Your college friends call out to you when they spot you heading down the beach. 

You let out an excited noise, to which Yeosang couldn’t help but chuckle at, and ran out to meet them. They joined you halfway, the strongest of the whole group lifting you into a bone-crushing hug and giving you a small twirl. The blond watches from a respectable distance as you exchanged pleasantries with your friends, talking about what was new and how life was going, the usual stuff. 

The little group was currently caught up in a story when you looked over to Yeosang. He was dusting off the hat that fell off your head, shaking his head in amusement. You motion for him to come join you with a small nod of your head, holding your hand out to him. This doesn’t go unnoticed by one of your friends and she follows your line of sight. A pleasant gasp escaped her lips when she saw him approach the group. 

“Well look who’s here,” She muses, taking note of the way he settled behind you and placed the hat back onto your head. 

“Oh, Yeosang you’re here!” Another friend greets. “Were you invited?”

The said man shook his head, a subtle but charming smile on his beautiful lips. “I just came here with _____.”

The group looks to you expectantly and you simply smile at them, a faint blush on your cheeks. “He’s my plus one.”

Small cheers and whistles erupted from the group, furthering the blush on your cheeks. Even Yeosang’s complexion grew a little rosier at their teasing. One of your friends slings an arm around your shoulder and smirks. “So, are you two a thing or just playing around?”

“We just got together recently. We’re taking this seriously.” You answer, trying not to stammer. 

Another round of cheers.

“That’s great. It's about time you two became a thing.” Your friend pipes up. “It was painful seeing you two pine after each other during freshman year and then just drop it like that.”

“Yeah, I lost 20 bucks because of that.” Another friend sighed, reminiscing the bet they had lost. 

The conversation eventually shifted onto other things, surprising you at how well they received the news. You relaxed a bit more at that, the nerves and anxiousness of pretending melting away as the day goes on. But a small thought lingered at the back of your head; you wondered how things would turn out if you did act on your feelings then. Back then, you weren’t so sure if it was genuine affection that you felt towards Yeosang or just pure infatuation. But now that your friends had cleared up a few things and that you could think more maturely, you realized that maybe… maybe you really did like him.

More guests soon poured in and people started to usher you towards the seats. Before you could though, Yeosang stops you by the shoulder. “Save me a seat, please. I’ll just place the gift on the table.” 

“Don’t take too long.” You reply and head over to a seat near the front. You place your hat down on the chair to your right while your friend from earlier takes a seat on your left. You smile at her, linking your hand with hers and giving it a small squeeze. 

“Hey Bora.”

“Hey, ____. Where's the loverboy?” She nudged your shoulder.

“He’s just placing the gifts down.”

She hums in acknowledgment, nodding her head along. “Since you and Kang are like, a thing now— I’m assuming he’s told you about his crush on you?”

“Uh Yeah. I mean, that kind of led to why we’re together now.” You play along, not knowing that your friend was being serious. 

“That’s great. The guy’s been whipped for you for ages. I think since sophomore or junior year in high school? Hasn’t stopped thinking of you since.” Bora muses and crosses her arms over her chest, looking over to the groom who was taking his place at the front. 

You on the other hand was surprised to hear what she had said. It was written all over your face no matter how hard you tried. Your friend, ever observant, sees this and guffaws. “Wait, he's never told you?” 

“I, I mean I thought like, he liked me in college. I didn’t know it’s been that long.” You stutter.

She shakes her head in disbelief, chuckling softly. “Wow… you two are really hopeless huh…” She pats the back of your hand when she sees Yeosang approach. 

You look over your shoulder to see the blond slide into the seat you save him. “Thanks,” he tells you, briefly patting your knee. 

You could only nod and smile in response, still trying to process what your friend had abruptly told you. Butterflies filled your stomach at the thought that he had liked you for so long, but at the same time, you couldn’t help but berate yourself for being so oblivious to it. Had he even dropped hints before? Come to think of it, he probably has but you most likely brushed it off as a friendly act. 

You look up at Yeosang again, as if looking at him would help you bring your thoughts together. He surprises you when he turns to you, raising a brow curiously. Your cheeks flush out of embarrassment and look away, clearing your throat to play it off. You pick up an amused sort of huff from the man beside you and if you hadn’t turned away, you would’ve seen the blush spreading from his cheeks to his ears.

The music is light and upbeat as it plays throughout the wedding-reception area. Soft waves roll onto the shore, eliciting some giggles from the few children that were brought by their parents. The sun starts to set, painting the sky in warm hues of gold, orange, and lavender. And if you listen closely, you could hear the faint sounds of cicadas warming up. Guests enjoy the food being served to them while some hit the sandy dance floor. The newlyweds of the hour were going around and greeting their friends and family, making some small talk here and there before moving onto the next people. 

You had already exchanged pleasantries with them, the groom being delightfully surprised that it was Yeosang who was your plus one. The two weren’t close, but you could tell that they respected each other. As you wave goodbye to the couple, you turn to the blond with your signature dorky smile. 

“What?” He muses, taking your hand in his and rubbing the soft skin of your knuckles with his thumb. 

“Nothing,” You hum and sigh blissfully. 

“That doesn’t sound like ‘nothing.’” He gently nudged your shoulder. 

You sigh again and cross your arms over your chest. “It’s just me being all emotional and sappy.”

The music from the nearby stereo shifts into something slow but no less upbeat, perfect for just swaying to the beat. Your expression changes into something more optimistic and an idea crosses your head. You beam up at Yeosang and start skipping towards the dance floor, tugging along at his hand. 

Of course, he was reluctant at first. But after some coaxing and your signature puppy eyes, he caves in and joins you. He could feel his heart beat rapidly against his chest as he pulled you close, both arms slung around your waist. He was glad that you weren’t holding hands because the minute you put your arms around his shoulders, he felt his palms grow clammy. He was also thankful for the fact that you weren’t so flush against each other, or else you’d have surely felt the way his heart rate sped up at the proximity between you two. You felt the same, thinking carefully about how to play out your idea; that is, to ask him about how he felt for you then and to just come clean to him now.  

It was a bit silent and awkward for the first few notes of the song, the both of you avoiding each other’s gaze and shyly swaying to the melody. After a while though, you eventually settle into a more comfortable but quiet atmosphere; it was just two friends dancing together.

“So…” You start, shifting a little closer.

“So…” Yeosang parrots and holds you a little tighter. 

“Would you have a beach wedding if ever you’d get married?”

The blond gets a little thrown off from your question, not expecting that you’d ask that, but thinks of an answer anyway. He hums to himself, contemplating the answer. “Not really— but outdoor weddings don’t sound too bad.”

You simply nod in response and the both of you lapse into silence again. You think of asking another question but that would be skirting around the whole situation again. You could see your friends looking at the two of you fondly from the corner of your eye, giggling to themselves. You decide then and there that the best course of action was to be straightforward.

The song shifts into something a little slower, perfect for actual slow-dancing. You take a deep breath and look straight into Yeosang’s warm brown eyes. “I have something to tell you…” 

He stiffens a little at that, his heartbeat picking up once again. He readjusts his hold on you, nodding his head for you to continue. 

“So… a little bird told me about your crush on me since high school.” 

Yeosang’s eyes widened at that and his grip on you tightened. He looks away from you, staring down at his feet as a massive blush covers his face and ears. You couldn’t help but smile softly at that but you didn’t want to be an asshole and push him to explain himself. Instead you gently lift your hand to cup his cheek, making him look up at you with nervous eyes. 

He swallows down his anxiousness and reaches up to take your hand on his cheek. “Did Bora tell you this..?” He teases lightly, mostly to not make things so awkward again. 

You giggle and nod your head. He smiles a little, still a bit nervous but smiles nonetheless. A shaky sigh escapes him and he squeezes your hand, linking his fingers with yours. “...well, she’s not wrong,” He whispers. 

This wasn’t the way he wanted to tell you about how he felt about you but it was now or never— especially since the secret was out in the open. 

“______, it’s probably selfish of me to say but, I still like you. Like, really like you. That was why I said no when you asked me to come with me as your ‘date’ here to the wedding, because I just didn’t want to pretend. I wanted us to be the real thing. I wanted to embrace you without thinking it’s too weird or kiss you without things being awkward for us after.” 

Yeosang takes a deep breath and meets your gaze firmly. “I wanted to tell you that I loved you without feeling hopeless after.” 

You were stunned into silence at his confession, not expecting him to put out all his feelings like that. You blink slowly and try to process his words. Yeosang must have interpreted your silence as some form of rejection and he starts to let go of you, but you instinctively gripped him and pulled him closer before he could.

He looks down at you and you see the vulnerability behind his gaze. You, on the other hand, soften yours. “First of all, I want to apologize for how selfish of me it was to ask you to come as a fake date,” you say, eliciting an amused snort from the other. “Second of all… I’m… thank you for telling me this. It makes it a lot easier.”

“Easier for what..?”

“You know how back then when we messed around and stuff? I did actually like you too but… I wasn’t brave enough to tell you then and just fell back to what we had.” You bring his hand up to your lips and lay a gentle kiss on his knuckles. “But now that we’ve come clean to each other, it makes it easier for me to tell you that I like you too.”

Yeosang breaks into a smile at that, relief crashing down on him. He couldn’t help himself when he brushes some stray hair away from your flushed face, eyes flitting to your lips. His palm was warm against your skin and you leaned into his touch, closing whatever space was left between you two. Yeosang’s thumb runs over your lip, several thoughts running through his head, one of them is how your lips would feel like against his.

“Can I kiss you..?” He whispers. You nod, already gravitating towards him. 

Yeosang leans in, both hands cupping at your cheek, and you meet him halfway. The kiss didn’t feel like butterflies or fireworks. It was more like a wall finally being torn down after several years of helpless pining and lingering glances at one another. You couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, pleasant butterflies tickling your stomach. Yeosang does the same and eventually leads to you two bumping against each other's teeth.

“Ow—“ You pull away laughing. 

“Sorry about that,” He kisses your nose and leans his forehead against yours. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll live.” You hum. 

You two had eventually pulled away from each other and headed back to your table where your friend group was waiting. They cheered at the both of you, joking about how you two were trying to steal the romantic spotlight from the newlyweds, which led to some banter and teasing. You two didn’t mind though, it actually felt kind of nice. 

The night goes on and the wedding comes to a close. The newlyweds still had an after-wedding party at a nearby club for the legal-aged guests, but you and Yeosang decided to pass on that, congratulating them once again before heading back to the car, ready to end the day. 

As you and Yeosang walk along the sand, the moon hovering in the dark sky and the night breeze tickling your skin, you couldn’t help but smile. You squeeze Yeosang’s hand and looped your arm with his, leaning your head against his shoulder. He kisses your temple and whispers sweet nothings into your hair.

Who would’ve thought that a wedding invitation and a fake date ploy was what you two needed to get together? It’s a silly kind of story to tell to others, eventually, you’d have to come clean to the others, but it was no less special. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[tinyboxxtink]

“Sharky” *Part 2*

Don’t hate me because Barba is kind of a dick right now. We all know he’s not-- but we need the drama. <3

Part 1

Part 3

Tag List:

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@gibbs274

@dumauier

@wanniiieeee

@objection-argumentative

@word-scribbless

@aprildecker-blog

---------

“So he actually asked you to dinner?” 

“Yeah, but it’s probably some weird tactic to get inside my head,”

“Is he cute?” 

“Why does that matter?”

“Honey it always matters.”

Alright, so you had one friend. One best friend. One very best friend that you’d known since law school. But nobody needed to know that.

“....Yeah, I’d say he’s pretty attractive,” You finally admitted as you reheated your leftovers.

“Oh my God you’ve had sex dreams about this man haven’t you?!” He squealed.

“HOW do you do that?!” You stared at the phone in disbelief.

“It’s a gift,” He laughed. “I can hear the lust in your voice,”

“Whatever,” You grabbed a beer from the fridge.

“So what are you going to wear?” 

“I don’t know, I’ll decide in the moment,” You sat down on your couch and started catching up on your shows with your food and beer.

“Oh no no no, you need to wear your silver dress with those platinum earrings I bought you for Christmas,”

“Seriously, Charles? Are you going to come over and do my hair and make up too?” You chuckled sarcastically as you shoved low mien in your face.

“Do you want me to?” 

“I’m hanging up now,”

“Wait wait wait,” He pleaded and you listened.

“Be nice to him, honey,” 

“I’m always nice,” You stated in an offended tone.

“You’re cordial. Be nice-- Smile, flirt. Have a good time,” You heard his sweet intentions through the phone; it was like he was actually being a caring best friend.

“You make it sound like a date,”

“Well that all depends if you fuck him after,” There he was.

“I’m really hanging up now,”

“Call me after!”

-----

You went with the silver dress and black pumps-- just because Charles had put the idea in your head, not because it was the outfit you looked best in. You stepped out of your Uber in front of the restaurant: 

“Forlini’s” You read out loud. “...This place better not be expensive,” 

You went inside and noticed Barba was already at the bar so you walked over to join him.

 “Hey, Sharky!” His greeting caused an eye roll from you. 

“Seriously can we drop the name? I’m a woman not a fish,” You took a bar stool next to him.

“...Well then you probably shouldn’t have worn that,” He nodded.

“Excuse me?”

“You look like a shark to me,” He gestured to your silver dress; it was tight on the top and kind of flowed down your legs, like a fish tail. You had never noticed it before, but him pointing it out made it suddenly glaringly obvious.

“Alright guppy, what are you drinking?” You smirked, slipping into the bar stool next to him.

“Guppy…” Now he rolled his eyes with a smile. “Scotch, neat,” 

“I’ll have what he’s having, only stronger,” You instructed the bartender, causing an even bigger eye roll from Barba.

“You’re something else, you know that?”

“Thank you,” You beamed proudly.

The bartender returned with your drink; you noticed that he was very young and very good looking. You slipped him a $20 with a sly smile. 

“Keep the change, handsome,” You gave him a wink. He looked between the two of you, confused as to why you’d be flirting shamelessly with him in front of Barba.

“We’re not together,” You said very loudly.

“Wow, don’t say it so eagerly,” 

“Hey I might need some stress relief after this interrogation, I’m just covering my bases,” You smirked, still eyeing the bartender.

“Is that what you think this is?”

“What else is a first date if not an interrogation?” You suddenly realized what you had said and to your dismay you saw Barba caught it too.

“Ah so this IS a date,” He smirked.

“..I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant--” You stumbled over your words as Rafael just smiled at you in amusement. 

“Just shut up and ask your questions, I know you have a list of them” You shook your head dismissively. 

“Not a list…” He nodded to the bartender for another round. “Alright well why did you choose to be a defense attorney?”

“Money,” You replied without a pause. 

“Money? Really?” He asked with a judgey tone. 

“Hey you try growing up dirt poor and see how much you appreciate having money,” You snapped.

“I did, and I do; but it doesn’t run my life,” He shook his head disapprovingly.

“It doesn’t run my life,” You knocked back the rest of your scotch, ready for the new one.

“Really? Then tell me, how do you pick your cases?” He raised an eyebrow.

“My boss gives them to me,” You didn’t see the big deal.

“Uh huh and how does he order them?” He was making a point, you knew he was.

“...By the biggest paycheck for the firm,” You finally admitted.

“Uh huh,” He nodded smugly, sipping his new scotch.

“Look Barba I already told you this, defense lawyers are unfeeling monsters. What else do you want me to say?” You scoffed. 

“Is that the only reason you became one?” He smirked at you.

“No, actually it’s not,” You replied as you sipped your own scotch.

“Really? Why else?” He raised his eyebrows curiously.

“Because any law student out of night school can defend a good guy,” You inched closer to his face. 

“Defending a bad guy is a challenge,” You pulled back and noticed he was still smirking, and he added an approving nod.

“Fair enough,” 

“Really?” You raised an eyebrow.

“I mean you make a good point,” He scanned you up and down. “Everybody loves a challenge,” 

You felt yourself blush as his eyes ran over you, your own eyes surveying his entire body. You would never admit it to anyone, but you did always have a thing for the ADA-- not like “doodle hearts in your notebook” thing, but when he’d do his crosses in court you’d always stare at his perfect ass in those chinos and wonder what it would be like to take a bite out of it. 

Some other days, particularly when he wore the black and pink suit, you’d imagine what it would be like to just shove him onto his little offensive desk and fuck him right there in the courtroom, with everyone watching. You were so lost in your own fantasies that you didn’t notice people approaching you-- 

“Rafa?” An all too familiar voice came from the side of the room. You turned to see Rafael’s rag tag bunch of misfit detectives staring at you.

“Olivia,” Rafael said softly like a kid caught out after curfew.

“So this is why you couldn’t come out with us, because you were taking HER out?” Olivia spat.

“Um excuse you, I’m taking HIM out,” You grabbed Rafael’s hand and put it on your knee.

“NOBODY is taking ANYBODY ‘out’,” Rafael snapped his hand back and gave you a dirty look. 

“Liv it’s just a friendly dinner, and I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to have this conversation,” He gave her those pathetic apologetic eyes, like a puppy who had just peed on the rug.

“Why do you care anyway, detective?” You asked innocently. You knew she had cream in her panties with his name on it, and you weren’t afraid to call her on it. 

“Excuse me?” She scoffed with a laugh. “I care because he’s my best friend, and he doesn’t need to be manipulated by you,”

“Really? Me manipulating him?” You smirked and stood up off your bar stool and got real close to her face. “Then why did he ask me out?”

Olivia stared in horror at you, then Barba, then threw up her hands and stomped off. Carisi, Rollins and Fin all muttered goodbyes and dashed out behind her.

“Why would you do that?!” He looked like he wanted to go after her, but he was staying to have it out with you.

“Why would I--? Are you serious, Barba?!” You continued standing, now crossing your arms. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“What?” He looked confused but you weren’t buying it.

“You asked me here on purpose,” You narrowed your eyes.

“Well obviously it was on purpose--” He tried playing it off.

“No no, don’t be cute. You asked me here with an agenda,” You inched closer to him.

“What? Oh come on Sharky not everyone is you, with your ulterior motives--” He glanced around nervously.

“MY ulterior--?! You asked me here to make your little work wife jealous!” You were making a scene now, but you didn’t care.

“What? I most certainly did NOT--” He tried defending himself.

“Then why did you ask me to come to the same restaurant you knew they were going to be at? I mean if you didn’t ‘want’ to be caught. I know you’re not that stupid,”

“I forgot,” He muttered softly.

“You FORGOT? Do you really think I’m that stupid? I’m not Olivia,” You crossed your arms again.

“DON’T talk about her,” He growled.

“Oh my god are-- are you on something?!” You threw your hands up. “You clearly have a thing for that woman, and yet you asked me out to parade me in front of her, for why?” You threw your hands up in frustration. 

“I didn’t ask you out for that Y/N, I swear--” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Then WHY did you ask me out?”

“I-I don’t know…” Now he turned those apologetic eyes on you, but you weren’t falling for it like his little detective.

“You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that?” Tears were forming in your throat against your wishes; you would not let this fucker see you have emotions.

“You know you offense lawyers, you sit up there on your moral high horses, judging all of us “bottom feeders”. But I would never fuck with anyone’s emotions or their heart, Barba. That’s just cruel,” 

“I thought you didn’t have a heart,” He was still going for the quips, he had some balls you’d give him that.

“Oh so that’s what this was,” You sucked back the tears as you tried to laugh it off. 

“You wanted to fuck with the big bad Sea Witch, see if she had a heart?”  You really couldn’t believe he was this vindictive. This whole time you thought, maybe....well, you didn’t know what. But you were clearly mistaken.

“No, I’m sorry I was just--” He stood up and tried to put his hand on your shoulder but you jerked away.

“Well guess what, Barba? You win! You made the shark cry. Are you happy?” You couldn’t hold the tears anymore as you yelled. 

“Y/N I’m sorry, I really am--” He tried going for your hand, but you slapped him across the face.

“Don’t follow me,” You warned him as you turned and stormed out of the restaurant.

How could you have been so wrong about him? Why did you even care?

[allsassnoclass]

okay so re: smutless long fics, I’ve tried to compile a list of fics as close to 50k words as possible since that’s the wordcount the anon cited and tbh my friends there really are not that many that I personally have read but I did my best.  All fics under the cut are over 30k and have either been verified good by me or my trusted friends

delete this transmission by @anxietycalling: 67k mashton sci-fi. I reread this one recently and it’s just as amazing the second time around I very highly recommend it

“Yeah,” he says, catching sight of his reflection in the dimly reflective surface and running fingers through his hair to fluff it up. And instead of getting on the mag-train home like he wants to, he catches the northbound train to the greenlawn with Calum. “You know, I think I might not go through with it,” he tells his best friend, meaning his activation. They sit together across from the back doors of the car and watch the adverts for an upcoming showing of ‘Titanic’ at the interactive theater. While Calum sits beside him silently he gnaws on a thumbnail and wonders whether it’s too late to get his money back.

“You can’t go back on it now,” Calum tells him.

And it’s true: His payment has already been processed, the credits removed from his profile. The invoice showed up in his e-net overnight and he’d added it to his encrypted folder. “It’s just - weird,” he says, weighing each of the words on his tongue before he speaks. “To be in charge of another person like that. I don’t want that responsibility.”

I’m a Falling Star by @pixiegrl: 55k lashton fantasy, very cute and sweet

A philosopher once asked, “Are we human because we gaze at the stars or do we gaze at them because we are human?” Pointless really. “Do the stars gaze back?” Now that’s a question.

Or: Ashton’s a shop boy setting out on a adventure to find a star to help grant a wish. Luke’s a star crashed to Earth looking for some help to get back home. They’re both in for more adventure than they bargained for.

I Wanna Sleep Next to You... by milecgv: 54k malum college au.  I read it over a year ago but I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it then

"Cuddle buddies, how can I help you?"

Pausing, Calum thought, he could just hang up. Get over the moment of weakness and face the rest of the night alone. He could do it. But the idea of spending one more second alone, brought a fresh pang of hurt to his heart and really, he couldn't bear it. Before his thought process could spiral out of control, the calm voice repeated itself.

"Um, yeah. I-, I need someone to-" He cut himself off because really, how was he going to phrase this?

Chuckling softly, the man on the other line interjected. "Sir, do you need someone to cuddle you?"

Shit, it was now or never. "Yeah. I-uh, I do." His voice came out so small, and he really hoped the man on the other side wouldn't pick up on how desperate he was.

~~~

Calum gets the opportunity to live out his dreams in New York City but it proves too much for him, and on a lonely night he ends up calling the professional cuddle service he swore he'd never call.

those are the only three completed fics over 50k that I personally can vouch for, but here are a few more longer ones I’ve read and I’ll link some over 50k that have gotten good reviews from my friends after those.

Destination: Perth by onlythevoid: 34k lashton 

The stranger swung into the seat next to him and sighed contentedly. Luke stole a glance from under his hat. It was a boy with light-brown messy hair, reminiscent of surfers Luke saw on the beach in Brisbane - he had a t-shirt on and black jeans, and fade-tint round-frame sunglasses propped on his straight nose.

The stranger caught Luke’s eyes.

“Hey?” The stranger asked. Shouldn’t have looked at him, Luke thought. Too late.

The stranger had set his sunglasses on his head and was peering below Luke’s cap. “Dude. You look terrible. Are you okay?”

Oh, so the stranger was one of those guys. Too friendly and ever-inquisitive. Yes, Luke looked like shit; he’d been crying for an hour at a time, every few hours, and all he’d had to eat in the past two days was some wet broccoli at the hospital and a bag of chips he’d bought that morning in Brisbane, and there were bruises all up and down his right arm from a car crash he wished he’d died in.

Luke didn’t say any of that. He prayed his voice would be steady and said, “Yes. Thanks.”

The messy-haired boy did not seem convinced. After a pause, he offered, “My name’s Ashton, by the way.”

hello, hello by @clumsyclifford: 30k lashton

For one long, blinking minute, Luke stares at Ashton and wonders if he’s hallucinating. Because that’s definitely Ashton. That’s Ashton Irwin, his former best friend from Sunny Days, the show they co-starred on as children.

But it’s also definitely Ashton Fletcher, professional film actor worth many millions, possibly hundreds of millions, of dollars, standing on his doorstep, wind ruffling his hair.

Now for the fics that I haven’t read but can confidently say are good through a rigorous peer review system (aka I have friends who read them/I have read and enjoyed other works by these people)

home is wherever you are tonight by @lifewasradical: 72k lashton. this one is on my tbr, I have only heard good things, and I’ve read other things by Amanda and trust her as a writer

Life has become so mundane in the past few years that there’s very little that sends a thrill up Luke’s spine anymore. It’s that idea that had him saying yes to the idea of moving out here for a few weeks anyways: the knowledge that this was a completely new place where no one knew his name. He could be anyone he wanted to be here, within reason. He wouldn’t be seeing any of these people again after May, so what’s the harm in becoming a new person for a bit? Someone not so bogged down by the shit in their head that they can’t get out of bed some mornings. Maybe this is a step in the direction of the person Luke wants to be in the future anyways.

Or, Luke inherits a beach house on a tiny costal island that needs some work. He didn't plan on falling in love with the guy at the hardware store.

world war series by prettyluke: 58k lashton historical au. Megs really likes this one and I trust her judgement

Even after months of seeing bodies ripped apart by bullets and bombs, Ashton still isn't prepared to be ripped apart by the fragile German soldier who has seen far more than any child should.

and

Luke shows up in Britain after 25 years right in time for World War Two to start, and Ashton has been waiting for someone to yank him from his melancholy since Christmas of 1914.

i’ll keep on fighting (just to make you believe) by @squishmichael: 33k muke I have heard good things about this one, have read other works by Taylor and trust them as a writer, and also I did skim this one when it first came out and it’s good I just need to sit down and fully read while paying attention

“Hi, Mike,” Luke says softly.

Michael might have cried from hearing his voice so clearly, not through a phone line, but instead his smile just gets bigger and bigger until his cheeks hurt.

“Hey, Luke,” he replies before throwing himself at Luke, arms looping around his neck and holding tight.

“Easy there, tiger,” Luke says with a chuckle, but he hugs Michael back.

It feels so different, all the shapes and sizes wrong, yet Michael has never felt so at home, melting right into the hug. Luke still fits so perfectly against him despite everything. Because it’s them, and they’re meant to be, and Michael never wants to let go.

*

In which Luke is finally coming home to Australia for the summer after two years, and everything should be perfect. Michael quickly realizes nothing is.

Under the High Low Lights I See You There by @pixiegrl: 33k lashton 90s bar au. I have heard a lot of good things and I have read and enjoyed Emily’s writing

Luke moves onto cleaning the glasses, sneaking glances over at him, admiring the open blue flannel he’s wearing with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his chest in the white tank top he’s wearing and the pull of it over his muscles, the acid wash denim pants straining over his thighs. He’s attractive and Luke knows he shouldn’t be looking, shouldn’t be so obvious in his stares, but he can’t help it. The man was made to be admired.

Or: It’s the summer of 1996 in New York City when Luke meets Ashton at his bar. Things aren’t always as they seem.

He Did Ballet by @kaleidoscopeminds: 34k cake. people love this one and meg is a great writer

Like the way he danced, everything in Luke's life was perfectly placed, an allegro exercise all on beat, an enchainment with no mistakes. The last thing he needed was a distraction, something to pull his attention away and make him stumble, like losing your spot during a series of fouettés. He glances back towards the bar and sees Calum still looking in his direction. Luke catches his eye again by mistake for just a second too long and Calum smiles slowly and winks at him. Luke shivers slightly and already feels slightly unbalanced. Calum is definitely not a good idea.

Luke's life is perfectly on track. He is about to get everything he's ever wanted, to become a Principal dancer for the Royal Ballet. He's focused, determined and nothing will get in his way. Then he meets Calum, a smooth-tongued barman with dangerous eyes, and suddenly not everything's so simple.

The Sun Is Burning Down Los Angeles by @burstingsunrise: 40k cake. have heard good things and Molly is a good writer

Calum probably signed a form saying he wouldn’t fall in love with the lead singer of the band. And he really doesn’t want to. What a cliché. It’s just…people get famous for a reason. This guy got famous for all the reasons.

***

Calum moves to LA to work for 5SOS.

[misscrawfords]

For the AU mashup list: Neighbours and Not A Date for Edmund and Fanny of Mansfield Park?

Well, here's the Mansfield Park High School AU I never thought I'd be writing. And I'm afraid it's rather got away from me!

Edmund and Fanny have been next door neighbours all their life. Fanny's family being... well... numerous (to put it in the kindest way), Edmund's parents have been something like an aunt and uncle to her. Fanny has always adored him in that mindless way that children do until something comes to challenge the adoration. Edmund has always noticed her when she's been invisible to everyone else.

But then, final year of school, Edmund suddenly decides to do the school play. He's never been interested in drama before and frankly Fanny is surprised. But she nods and believes him when he explains at great length to her in the car as he's driving them home that he's interested in the obscure German play they've picked. He is doing German A Level after all. It's sort of plausible. If only it didn't sound like he was trying to persuade himself, not her.

So Fanny volunteers her services as backstage crew. She's never done drama either, getting up on the stage is her idea of hell (she thought it was Edmund's too but hey, it's fun to discover she doesn't know everything about him), but where Edmund goes, Fanny follows, two years younger and still in her school uniform, A Level choices not yet made, like a little ghostly shadow.

It's quickly clear that it wasn't the quality of the play that attracted Edmund. The play is literally the worst. And she's not really sure it's all that suitable for a school but Mrs. Grant, the Head of Drama, has never cared much for things being "suitable".

No, the attraction for Edmund is Mary Crawford. Prefect Mary. Music scholar Mary. Mary with the bright eyes and the peels of laughter. Mary who had once stood up for Fanny back when Fanny was in Year 9 and Mrs. Norris was picking on her again, so Fanny can't hate her much as she wants to.

Soon Fanny and Edmund's drives to and from school, previously the highlight of her day, are torture. She hears nothing but Mary, Mary, Mary. And then she's forced to watch them in rehearsals together after school, sitting high up in the auditorium, taking notes on props and lighting. She's pretending not to see them but even if she's hunched over her notepad, she can still hear them, the whispers indistinct as they bend their heads together over their scripts. Then Mary's laughter cuts through every other sound and pierces Fanny to the core.

Sometimes she isn't needed for rehearsal. She could go home at the normal time. Get the bus like she used to before Edmund passed his driving test. But she's too masochistic for that. She will sit at the back of the auditorium and nominally do her homework waiting for him to finish rehearsing, observing them over the top of the text book, waiting for another heart-sickening car ride home.

Mary looks up and notices her and her face splits into a grin and she waves. "Hey, Fanny!"

Fanny waves back weakly. Her eyes slide to Edmund. He has his hands shoved into his trouser pockets, slightly hunched, a rueful, half smile on his face as if he is trying to make himself smaller, not that he really needs to try too hard, next to Mary's brilliance and vitality.

Don't betray my secret, his expression seems to tell her, you're the only one who knows.

Oh, Edmund, you dear fool. What secret?

And so it goes on. They get closer. Fanny watches, hating every minute and unable to stop herself.

"I want to ask Mary out," says Edmund one day, driving down the dual carriageway after rehearsal, as if this was an original statement that should come as a surprise to Fanny.

"So ask her out," Fanny replies evenly as her heart flops and plummets through her stomach and into her knees and she feels like throwing up.

Edmund navigates a roundabout before replying.

"It's really hard. I don't have much experience in dating."

I know. You've always been with me.

He starts to ramble. "I've got to choose my timing because it should be at rehearsal but not when everyone else is around. If she says no, I don't want anyone else to see... I've got to make it something she'd like and she's so much more, I don't know, fancy than you and me, right, Fanny? I can't just take her to Starbucks. Maybe that independent place across the square, Parsonage's, but I have some memory she had a bad experience there... What do you think? And then what do I do about paying? I'd want to pay but perhaps she'd be offended because she's always talking about what a feminist she is and I want to respect that but will it seem like it's not a date if I don't volunteer to pay? I'm just not sure what the etiquette is."

The car has stopped and Edmund finally stops speaking. It takes Fanny a moment to register because she is staring hard out of the passenger window, her throat choked and her hands white as she clenches the pleats of her school skirt in her fists.

"I don't know, Edmund," she manages to say. "I've never been on a date either."

"Hey! You know," continues Edmund, seeming not to notice her tone, "if this does go well, we can double date. You can come with Mary's brother - you'd like him, he's very into Shakespeare."

"Isn't he already at uni?" protests Fanny. "I don't think that would be a very good idea... He's four years older than me." But she spoke very quietly and Edmund does not register her objections, too caught up in a rosy and romantic future.

"A double date would be a really good idea," he continues. "I get so nervous around Mary, I really don't know what to say - having you and Henry there would really help."

Fanny wonders in passing why Edmund is so set on dating someone who makes him so nervous he wants other people with him on the date but what does she know?

"Hey, Fanny, are you free now? You don't have homework?"

She does, but she shakes her head anyway.

"Let's go there now and get a coffee. Like a dry run."

Fanny swivels in her seat till she faces him competely. "You want to rehearse your date?"

He doesn't meet her eyes. "Yeah, is that weird? You could pretend to be Mary. Just so I can think through what to say without putting my foot in it."

"Oh! I can't do that! Edmund, I can't pretend to be Mary! We are so - so different."

He laughs. "Oh, I know that. I know you don't do acting. I just mean that you'd be there and you'd tell me if I'm saying anything stupid. You're always honest with me, Fanny."

He gives her that sweet, lop-sided smile and her heart contracts again. She can refuse him nothing. She shruggs awkwardly. "Well, I guess..."

He immediately turns the engine back on. "That's great! Come on, let's check out Parsonage's."

They are in silence for the drive back into town. Fanny's heart is pounding. She and Edmund may be best friends but they don't do things together. They ride to school together and they wave at each from their bedroom windows like the leads in Drive Me Crazy (Fanny used to think that similarity Meant Something but she knows better now) but they have their own friendship groups at school and apart from the school play they don't hang out together at school or go anywhere together at weekends.

But now they are going to a coffee shop together.

It's not a date but when they walk into the coffee shop together and Edmund holds the door for her, she cannot help pretending to herself that it is. That this is what going on a date with Edmund would be like. They approach the counter. Edmund asks her what she wants and orders for her which feels like a very important thing. Perhaps Mary, president of the school's Feminism Soc, would have a lot to say about it, but to Fanny it just feels as if Edmund is taking care of her. She digs her purse out but Edmund waves it away and pays for both of them.

"I'll pay you back," she murmurs to him as she follows him to a table with only two chairs.

He waves it away again and protests that she's doing him a favour, not to worry about it.

A favour? Is that what she's doing?

They sit opposite each other. Edmund is relaxed, but she sits stiff and straight, her knees pressed together. Her eyes glance round the coffee shop.

She leans across the table. "People probably all think we're on a date right now," she hisses at him, half anxious, half proud.

He laughs with a bit of a scoff in it. "Wow, you really sound cut up about it; I'll try not to be offended! Anyway, we know it's not a date and who cares what anyone else thinks?"

True, but Fanny does care because if everyone else looks at them and thinks they are a couple then perhaps one day he will also think that. It is a justification of her fantasy and her hopeless hope.

She knows it is not a date.

But it is the best she is going to get.

[spuffybot]

Walk Me to the Graveyard

Summary: Buffy walks through the graveyard alone at night, contemplating the past few months following the fall of Sunnydale. She reflects on her relationship with Spike, her friendships, and her future before receiving a shocking phone call.

Characters: Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Spike (mentions of Giles, Xander, Andrew, Kennedy, Faith, Wood, Angel, and Fred)

Warnings: Some adult language

Word Count: 4515

Author’s notes: If you read this, thank you. I’ve been chipping away at it for the past few weeks and I’m just glad I was able to finish something I started. “Ghostface” is a reference to the Scream movies, which Sarah Michelle Gellar had a cameo in. The high tea spot with the egg shaped bathrooms is Sketch, a place I didn’t get to visit this year due to the pandemic. I hope you all have a safe holiday season and new year. Hopefully I’ll finish the second part of this story in 2021.

Walk Me to the Graveyard (part 1)

Buffy’s joints creaked as she stood up from her crouched position. She’d been staking out this grave (no pun intended) for hours and dawn was slowly approaching. In the last few minutes the air had started to change, and she could hear the telltale rustling of birds in the trees. If this vampire was going to rise, it wouldn’t be tonight.

Stretching her arms up over her head, she rolled out her stiff shoulders, feeling strangely relieved by the lack of action.

Buffy had been coming to this cemetery every couple of nights for weeks, sniffing out even the barest hint of vampire activity. Technically she could have assigned graveyard duty to any of the Potentials, but she craved the silence and the normalcy of the activity.

She chuckled to herself. How far she’d come that she could relish a few hours of graveyard haunting and call it normal. If only her sixteen-year-old self could see her now.

The truth was she was tired. After the fall of Sunnydale, she’d been fueled by an insatiable need to just keep moving. Giles had suggested they hole up in LA and take refuge with Angel Investigations, but Buffy refused. She wanted to get started on rebuilding as soon as possible. They couldn’t afford to waste time in LA, on Angel’s turf, killing time as his sidekicks while thousands of girls woke up with powers they couldn’t explain. So instead the Scoobies had moved to London, taking on the role of de-facto Watchers Council. They’d rounded up the few surviving members of the former Council and had started reaching out to as many activated Potentials as possible.

They recruited the ones they could and provided support (emotional and financial) to the ones they couldn’t. It was rewarding and it kept her mind off things.

Things like telling a man she loved him only to have him choose death over a future with her.

Buffy kicked a crumbling headstone, cursing when she stubbed her toe.

She knew that wasn’t fair. Spike died saving the world. It was a sacrifice she’d made more than once, and she knew how much she resented the people she left behind for not understanding the weight of that choice. She didn’t want to sully the memory of his heroics with her bitterness. She just couldn’t help it. Besides, focusing on missing Spike was easier than accepting she didn’t know how to function now that she wasn’t the “one girl in all the world.” The irony of having an identity crisis over getting the one thing she’d always thought she wanted was not lost on her. She should be grateful that she wasn’t the only Slayer. Grateful that her future was finally hers to shape. Instead she just felt lost.

It didn’t help that everyone around her was adjusting to this new life and mission like they were born to it. Dawn was training to be a Watcher, and frankly, they needed as many as they could get. The Slayer to Watcher ratio had been drastically tipped and it was only a matter of time before things got out of control.

Faith and Wood had stayed behind in America, taking up shop at the Hellmouth in Cleveland. It was weird to think of Faith as the reigning defender of the Hellmouth, but it felt right. With Wood by her side she would stay grounded and on track. He understood the mission better than most.

Giles was in his glory. He’d vetted the surviving Watchers, firing some gleefully and taking others under his wing. Between them they’d established a kind of Watchers Hogwarts, training Watchers by day and guiding Potential Slayers on field missions by night. He was happy, which was something she’d never really seen him be before. Their relationship had taken a hit in the last few years and while she wasn’t ready to forgive him for everything, she didn’t begrudge him his success. Her Watcher had floundered ever since he was fired, unable to find purpose while she and her friends had grown up around him. Seeing as she suddenly found herself in a similar position it was hard not to understand how he’d gone off track. Besides, she’d lost enough people to know she wasn’t going to lose anymore. She’d fix things with Giles, eventually. For now, she’d just settle for on the same continent and on polite speaking terms. 

Xander and Andrew led the Potential Identification and Retrieval Taskforce. They came up with the name. Obviously. They spent their days traveling the world, chasing down leads and giving their best “join team save the world” sales pitch to scared and angry girls.

Buffy smiled thinking about them. The last time they’d video chatted, Xander had looked better than she’d seen him in years. He’d lost the chip on his shoulder that he’d been carrying since they graduated high school. For the first time in his life he was the best person for the job, and he knew it. Trustworthiness and warmth radiated from him and his knowledge of tactics and the cost of the fight lent him an authenticity the girls were drawn to. He never bullshitted or misled them, but he did inspire them. Like he’d inspired all of the Scoobies over the years to keep on fighting.

The sun was starting to peak over the horizon, and a misty fog enveloped the graveyard. She knew she was dawdling but she couldn’t bring herself to rush home. The alarms would be ringing any second now, Potentials and Watchers scrambling to the mess hall for breakfast before a day of study and training.

Technically she didn’t have any classes to teach until the afternoon, but Giles liked the staff to be present in the morning. He said it communicated solidarity and responsibility. Personally, she thought Dawn had just made him watch the Harry Potter movies one too many times.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she let it go to voicemail. It was either Willow calling to say she had another hit on the Potential alert locator spell or Giles calling to ask where she was.

Either way it could wait.

She just wanted to be in the quiet for a little bit longer.

That’s what she missed the most about Spike. Having someone she could be in the quiet with. He had always seemed to know what she needed, anticipating her every mood and desire.

She’d never met anyone she could just be alone with before him. He never expected anything of her other than to just be. In this chaotic mess of a life she now led she craved his company and his silence. Since she couldn’t have that she came to the cemetery. The dead kept her company in a way the living never could. The occasional scuffle with a vampire didn’t hurt either. The familiar comfort of a stake in her pocket, grave dust on her shoes, her breath quickening for the thrill of the kill, reminding her that even though everything had changed, some things never would.

Her phone buzzed again.

She frowned, wondering why she couldn’t even get a few hours of peace before the sun was fully risen.

Flipping it open she saw two missed calls from a number she didn’t recognize. No voicemail.

It was probably someone trying to sell her something.

Technically her phone was spelled against telemarketers, but magic was fickle. If someone really needed to reach her, they would call the office and leave a message with her secretary.

God. How had she ended up here?

When they’d first arrived in London she’d panicked. Back in California it had seemed so clear. Get to London, find the Watchers, find the Potentials, save the world. Simple.

Except once they arrived there had been bureaucracy and red tape to get through. The surviving Watchers had needed convincing and playing nice with morons wasn’t Buffy’s strong suit. After one particularly eventful meeting that ended with some snide British dude’s head slamming into a wall Giles and Willow had pushed her to take a back seat on the negotiations. Much to everyone’s shock, she listened.

As soon as she stopped leading she felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders. Without meetings and planning sessions to fill her days she’d found herself wandering the streets of London with Dawn, playing tourist.

They were having high tea at this ridiculous spot with baby pink furniture and weird egg-shaped toilets when it hit her. She could walk away. The Hellmouth was gone, and there were more than enough Slayers to pick up the slack. Her friends would be disappointed but eventually they would understand. As she sat there watching Dawn sample pastries, no fear of imminent death getting in the way of her fun, Buffy couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like. This could be their every day.

They could finish out the summer backpacking through Europe then head home to America to finish school and settle down. She was pretty sure she’d heard somewhere that there were hardly any vampires in New Jersey.

She was so wrapped up in the fantasy that she almost missed what Dawn said as they were walking home to their flat.

“Sorry, what with the what now?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “I said, it’s crazy how there’s this whole world out here and no one was helping keep it safe before.”

“Ummm excuse me, Slayer here, has saved the world, a lot. Even got a nice shiny headstone for my troubles.”

“Obviously but...you were always in Sunnydale. And sure, most of the big bad world endy guys ended up there too but...what about all the other regular level baddies hurting everyday people? I mean, look at them all.”

Dawn stopped and looked around, forcing Buffy to take it all in. The couples strolling along, groups of friends, kids in strollers. The street was flooded with people going about their day. As soon as that sun went down, they’d be joined by all the things that went bump in the night.

“I just think it’s kind of amazing what we’re about to do. For the first time we’ll be able to protect people all over the world. These people will have a chance like they’ve never had before. Like everyone in Sunnydale got because you were around. We can give that to them. I’m just...glad.”

Buffy’s heart warmed even as dreams of running away slipped from her grasp. Dawn was right. This was her calling. She’d find a way to live with it. Normalcy would never be available to her and the sooner she embraced that, the sooner she could start working towards happiness.

At least that’s what Willow was always saying.

Willow who saw a therapist three times a week and a substance abuse counselor twice a week.

After the battle she and Kennedy had parted ways. Their relationship had run its course and Kennedy wasn’t interested in staying on Team Scooby. Instead she took her slaying act on the road, traveling town to town looking for monsters to hunt and people to save. Occasionally she’d run into a Potential and send a heads up their way. She seemed happy. Everyone seemed happy. Buffy just couldn’t seem to find her groove.

Ironically, Willow was the only one to notice how out of sorts Buffy was. Maybe it was all the therapy or maybe it was just that she was more herself than she’d been in a long time, but Willow had become Buffy’s sole confidant these past few months. If she thought about it too much she knew she’d cry. It hadn’t occurred to her how much she’d missed her best friend until she got her back.

At first when Willow tried to reach out, Buffy had been cold and distant. Willow understood, even writing Buffy a letter to explain that she respected her need for distance after the way she had torched their friendship and Buffy’s trust. The letter had melted something in Buffy’s heart. It was the first time Willow had really acknowledged the fact that their sisterhood had been a casualty of Willow’s addiction.

The first time they sat down for coffee together felt like coming home. Willow seemed lighter, more like the girl Buffy had met her sophomore year of high school than the all-powerful Wicca she had come to know lately. She seemed shy, hesitant to take too much from Buffy, a reticence that allowed her to give more than she had intended to when she agreed to meet.

By their third coffee date it was clear that they were going to push through this. When a third turned into a fourth and fifth they decided to just make it a standing girl’s night. Every Tuesday for the rest of their lives.

Last Tuesday they’d finally broached the subject of Spike. Buffy had been dreading this, afraid to pick at the scab only to be met with judgment and condemnation. She wasn’t sure their renewed friendship could handle it. As much as she loved having Will back, Spike was a sensitive spot and she was afraid of how she’d react if Willow said something she didn’t like.

“Buffy, I tried to end the world. What’s a little bumpin of the uglies between former enemies compared to that? I am judgement free Willow of the no judgies zone.”

Willows face scrunched up like it did sometimes when she was trying to find the right words, her nose crinkling and her eyes rolling skyward.

“I just want you to be ok. And if that means loads of tasty mochas and squishy details about Spike sex, I am all ears. I’ve even got marshmallows.”

Buffy saw the sincerity on her friends face and felt something crack deep inside her. She’d been prepared for judgment at worst and stoic acceptance at best. Being met with such openness and warmth took her by surprise and she found she couldn’t hold back anymore. Her eyes welled up and before she could reign it in and full body sobs shook her.

As she cried, Willow rubbed her back and let her get it all out, careful to avoid pushing her to talk. It was exactly what she’d needed to be able to open up.

And open up she did. It was like the levies broke and all the confusion and hurt came pouring out. She told Willow about what happened in the Hellmouth. About her last days with Spike, how he supported her and strengthened her when no one else could, or would. This last part she said without any venom, all her anger and resentment at Willow long gone.

She even spoke about their last night together. How they’d made love in the basement, on that shitty cot. The first and only time they’d ever been truly intimate, Buffy’s walls fully down, her heart totally exposed.

“I know having sex with someone isn’t like, a big deal or anything. Especially when you’ve had sex as many times as we did.”

Buffy cringed as the words left her mouth. The familiar guilt over her physical affair with Spike flaring up.

“No!” Willow exclaimed.

“Buffy no. It is a big deal. It’s like, the biggest of deals. You and sex haven’t exactly had the most copacetic relationship, no offense.”

She smiled apologetically, eliciting a soft laugh from Buffy despite the anxiety that was clenching her gut.

“If you let yourself feel something good with Spike, even just that one time, it’s important. Special. You shouldn’t downplay that. He loved you and you let him show it to you. It’s romantic.”

At that Buffy really laughed.

“God Will. Spike. Romantic.”

Willow laughed too.

“You know...it’s not that weird. Remember when he kidnapped me and Xander? He wanted me to do a love spell for Drusilla. I think he’s always had a romantic streak. In a weird, murdery, vampire kinda way”

Buffy shook her head in amusement.

“Did I ever tell you Spike was a poet when he was human?”

Willows eye widened, and her hands flew to cover her cackling laugh.

“A poet? Oh my gosh. That’s...that’s too good.”

Buffy took a sip of her mocha, relishing the warm caffeinated goodness before adding, “he would kill me for telling you this but, the best part is the whole “William the Bloody” thing? That’s because he had a reputation for being such a terrible poet.”

At that Willow dissolved into full on giggles, hands clutching her stomach

“Ugggggh ok ok, I’m done laughing. Promise. Also why is that so cute? That’s so cute. Little Spike the poet.”

Buffy sighed. “The thing is Spike has this immense capacity for love. Even as a violent serial killer he was still driven by love. It scared me. That he was so willing to throw himself headfirst into love without a shadow of doubt. I’ve never...I’ve never been like that.”

She looked up at Willow, trying to read her reaction. The witch just nodded encouragingly for her to go on.

“I just...I told Giles once that I didn’t know if I could love. I was worried I was broken, like all the slaying made me cold and loveless or something.”

“Buffy, no,” Willow cut in, but Buffy held up a hand to stop her.

“I know it’s not true. I died to save Dawn, to save all of you, weeks after I said that.” Buffy’s eyes filled up again but this time she swallowed it down and wiped them clean.

“He really loved me Will. And I don’t know that I was in love with him but that last night we spent together...I kind of thought that I could be, someday. You know? I wanted him to know that. To know that there was a chance for us. I figured we’d have all the time in the world after...”

Buffy trailed off, suddenly tired. She didn’t need to explain the rest. How Spike had died, believing she’d never love him. How all the time she thought she’d have to figure out if she could evaporated in a burst of fire and ash.

—————————

She’d reached the cemetery gates just as the sun broke through the horizon. Her car was covered in dew, glistening in the hazy morning light.

She still couldn’t believe she had learned how to drive. And on the wrong side of the road! Her mom would die of shock if she were still around.

The thought of Joyce made her wistful. If only her mom could see her now. In her heart Buffy new her mom would be proud of the choices she’d made. She’d encourage her to let go of the past and focus on the future. She’d be overjoyed to know that Buffy had a future now. Sure, it still involved a massive amount of slayage but for the first time in a long time, the fate of the world didn’t rest solely on her shoulders. Her mom would tell her to embrace that and to live this new life to the fullest.

I’m trying mom.

Her phone buzzed again, and this time Buffy yanked it out in annoyance and flipped it open.

“What do you want?”

The silence on the other end only ticked her off more. If it was so important for someone to call her three times before she’d even had a cup of tea they could freaking respond when she finally picked up.

“Hello? I’m hanging up in three seconds if you don’t get all un-ghostface on me and just tell me what you want.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. Her annoyance bled to curiosity and she willed herself to be patient.

Infusing her voice with a level of calm she didn’t feel, she asked “Do you need help or something? I don’t know how you got this line if you’re not part of Scooby Central but…you got me.”

The silence eked on for seconds that felt like minutes before the caller sighed. Buffy’s pulse shot up, anticipation making her antsy. She shuffled from foot to foot, fighting her instinct to hang up. If this was a Potential calling for help she needed to wait it out.

Finally, a voice broke through the silence.

“Slayer?”

Buffy dropped the phone on the ground, her fingers losing the ability to function along with her brain, which had gone fuzzy and staticky at the sound of the all too familiar voice on the other end of the line.

She stared down at her phone, the call still connected, wondering if she had fallen asleep somehow.

A muffled “bloody hell” came out of the fallen phone, causing Buffy to gasp and jump back. She crouched down low, getting as close to the phone as she could without actually picking it back up.

“Shit. SHIT. Spike?”

The muttering and cursing stopped.

“Slayer…yea. It’s a long story. But yea.”

Buffy felt her limbs turn to jelly and she sat down on the cold gravel, her head falling into her hands. A sob bubbled up from her chest, turning into a laugh that she couldn’t control. She giggled for a solid minute before gingerly picking her phone up and pressing it to her ear.

“How? You better explain yourself right now.” Her voice was edged with steel, anxiety and adrenaline giving way to nervous anger. If this was someone’s idea of a sick joke she was going to get murdery.

She could almost hear Spike roll his eyes.

“Good god woman, can’t I come back to life without brassing you off?”

She bit her lip to stop a smile, not willing to let hope overrule a protective layer of skepticism.

Rocking back on her heels Buffy gulped down the crisp morning air, willing her body to calm down so she could take stock of the situation. Her dead ex sort of boyfriend was calling her…she looked at the phone number quickly…from LA. Ok. She could handle this. She was the Slayer, queen of things that go bump in the night and let’s face it, this wasn’t her first ex to come back from the great beyond. If Angel could do it…Angel.

“Spike, why are you calling me from LA?”

He sighed again and she could picture him rubbing the back of his neck, a grimace on his face as he debated the best way to tell her what was going on.

Despite the rush of anger, her heart warmed at the thought.

“Eh look, I said it was complicated. I just thought it was right. Telling you I was alive. Thought you should know is all.”

Whatever ice had melted in her heart immediately froze back up. No way was Spike going to call her from beyond the grave and then immediately get shady and secretive.

“So, is that your weird dodgy British way of saying you’re not going to tell me why you’re calling me from LA? Where Angel lives? Are you with Angel?”

She heard Spike mutter something to himself that sounded an awful lot like “bloody bint”. She rolled her eyes and stood up, pacing the lot in an attempt to keep her temper in check.

“Yea. Alright yea.”

His voice had changed, his accent becoming sharper, and she knew he was starting to get worked up.

“I’m in LA and I’m with Angel. If you want to talk to him you can damn well call him yourself. I don’t know what I was thinking. Bloke comes back as a sodding ghost, gets himself corporealized by a nice scientist bird and calls his girl up and she wants to know about Angel. Figures.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, not even bothering to interrupt his tirade. She knew he’d run out of steam eventually.

“Are you finished?”

Spike sighed again and Buffy felt the fight go out of her. She sat down on the hood of her car, overwhelmed by the emotions swirling within.

“Yea Slayer. I’m finished.”

Buffy’s shoulders slumped and she laid back, gazing up at the sky. It was going to be a cloudy day.

“How?”

“That’s the million-dollar question love. Seems no one can answer it.”

“Wait.” Buffy sat up; brow furrowed in concentration as she started to put together the various odd things Spike had said so far.

“You were a ghost?”

She tried to picture that. Spike all floaty and haunty. The image made her chuckle, which she quickly tried to suppress.

“Yea, yea, yea, laugh it up. I don’t know if I was a ghost. I was a something. Couldn’t touch, couldn’t feel. Just trapped at bloody Wolfram & Hart with your beloved Prince of Brooding.”

“Wolf ram and what now?”

“It doesn’t matter. Done what I set to do. You know. Guess I’ll let you get back to it then.”

Buffy felt white hot anger burning in her chest. Did he really think he was going to call her up, say hey, and then leave? Maybe forever? Who did he think he was?

“Fine,” she spat out.

“Fine,” came Spike’s huffy reply.

They’d reached a stalemate and Buffy did the only thing she could think of doing.

She hung up.

She stuffed the phone in her pocket, unlocking the car door and sliding into the front seat. She stared out the frosted windshield for a moment before screaming at the top of her lungs. When that didn’t calm the storm she felt brewing inside she slammed her hands repeatedly into the steering wheel. The metal and leather began to crunch and warp under the weight of her blows but she didn’t care. She felt like someone had set her insides on fire. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry, couldn’t do anything but scream and rage into the void.

Eventually she ran out of steam. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed but her throat was raw. Rubbing her face she switched into Slayer mode. Something was up and she was going to get to the bottom of it. Cagey Spike and his caginess be damned.

She forwarded the number he’d called her from to Willow and Andrew. Between the two of them they’d be able to trace it and dig up some dirt on where Spike was. As for how he got there, she was going to need boots on the ground. Luckily Kennedy had last checked in from Arizona a couple of days ago. She couldn’t be far from there and she owed Buffy more than one favor. She might not be Spike’s biggest fan, but she would do some recon and get Buffy the answers she needed. Once she knew what was going on, she could show up in LA and punch Spike and Angel in the face herself.

Buffy felt calmer. She had a plan. It wasn’t perfect but it was a start.

She’d let Spike get away once before. This time would be different. She didn’t know why or how but it seemed the Powers That Be had given her a second chance.

She wouldn’t waste it.

—end—

[nepenthendline]

Tendou - Insecurity

The two of you had a friendship like no other. You had met in your first year of high school and hit it off after being paired together for a project. During the first couple of weeks of school you already noticed the biased against Tendou - how he looked ‘scary’ like a monster, or how he was weird or creepy. You hadn’t spoken to him so you couldn’t comment much, but a monster? The monsters you knew of where the ones from fantasy stores: ghosts, werewolves, mysterious beings with 3 legs. He certainly couldn’t be characterised into one of those. Maybe there was a species of monster you’ve never met?

You had to admit it though, he was a little odd compared to some of those in your school. No, not odd, just different. There was never a dull moment when Tendou was around; he was loud but considerate, teasing but supportive, aloof but so detailed and precise in his actions. That’s what drew you to him in the first place, the way he could be so kind and caring, dealing with you in your worst times yet acting like nothing was going wrong. It was as if he was telling you ‘no, we are going to be happy’ whenever your mood dropped or the stress got too much. He was the life of the party - at least in your little party.

As you became closer, you learned more about each other and how you showed your affection. Tendou loved to hug you, throw his arm around your shoulder or ruffle your hair whenever you were nearby. It was comforting to you to have a friend you could be so free and doting towards. You occasionally had heart-to-hearts with the boy, spilling your thoughts, experiences, traumas to each other. He was your safe space, and you were his. You learned all about his past will bullying, but he never seemed to be bothered or upset by it. Well, not in the body language he forced out anyway, but you could see the dullness in his, usually, fiery eyes and the grit in his voice. He was hurting but he never wanted you to see it - he wanted to be your paradise, your saviour like you always were for him.

Tendou believes the only way he got through the last three years was because of you. You never once treated him differently or judged him, and you remained his biggest support system no matter what. You were perfect. It didn’t take him long to realise that he had fallen for you, for your kindness, your sincerity, your humour and your radiance, both inside and out. You let him show you the things he was interested in that no one else did, you let him indulge in the love you two shared that was never spoken and he could never repay you for that. He loved you, truly. For the past two years he knew he would go to the ends of the earth to make you happy, to see you smile. Even if he wished for a fairytale ending, the monsters were always the ones who got slaughtered.

No matter how much Tendou did to take care of you, or douse you in the love you deserved, he always knew the one in distress would only be saved by the prince. And he was no prince. He was a beast, a creature, that you shouldn’t be associated with - he didn’t want to taint you with the unholiness of his being, but he was too selfish to let you go. You were the first person who understood him and truly enjoyed his company. You were the first one who accepted him and let him inside your heart where he felt he belonged. He wanted so much more than to be just your best friend, but to be able to call you his, and tell you and show you just how he felt for you.

You both loved anime, something you bonded over a lot, so the two of you were cuddled up in Tendou’s bed with popcorn and his laptop sat in front of you playing continuous episodes of Ouran High School Host Club. This had become a normal thing for the two of you: cuddles, hand-holding or saying a quick ‘love you’ before heading your separate ways. Most people thought you two were already a couple by the way you clung onto each other in the hallways, or how he would run at you making obnoxious kissing noises. Hell, you even thought you were a couple sometimes too. The only thing that held you back from crossing that line was those confessions you both stored in your hearts.

“Satori, if he loves her so much why doesn’t he just tell her?” You whined in his chest, throwing a piece of popcorn at the screen. He let out a laugh that rumbled in your ears.

“Hmm, maybe he’s too scared. Maybe he thinks she wouldn’t love him back? Or maybe because it’s all just a big ploy to invade the commoners to finally irradiate them all and let the rich rule the world!” He exclaimed, pumping his fists in the air. You stared at him in utter bewilderment.

“...Yeah I don’t think its the last one,” he gasped with drama as you continued,

“I mean, sure, they have very different lives but if they love each other they can work it out, right?” You looked up to him, waiting for his reply. His face had fallen from his grin before as he stared back at you, before turning he gaze to the screen in front of him.

“I don’t know if its that easy sometimes Y/N,” his voice was low and firm, nothing like you had heard before.

“What do you mean? If you loved someone, wouldn’t you do anything to make it work?” you asked with your head tilted to the side. His lips formed into a slight smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“I would. I would do anything in the world Y/N. But I don’t know if that would be enough,” you furrowed your brows at his words, trying to understand the meaning behind them. You wanted to ask him to continue, to tell you what he mean’t, but he didn’t seem to want to talk more. His eyes were back to fixating on the screen, reciting the lines of the show that he had watched over and over in the past.

You tucked your head down onto his shoulder and watched him. You watched how his jaw tensed and released with every word he said, how the screen reflected in his red eyes, how his skin looked so soft in the dim glow. Without thinking, you reached up and brushed your knuckles against his cheek. His skin really was soft and so warm.

His words had stopped immediately when your hand reached him. He was too afraid to move - nervous that the slightest movement would scare you away. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and relax into your sweet touch.

“Satori,”

“Hmm?”

“I love you,” you muttered, so quietly he almost didn’t hear. His head whipped round to face you. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open a little - he was in complete shock.

“Like, really love you. Not just what we normally say to each other,” you continued, looking him in the eyes.

He didn’t respond or move in the slightest. These where the three words he had been waiting to hear for three years, and yet he couldn’t seem to accept them.

“Why?” he whispered, his voice barely leaving him.

“I...just do. You’re so kind and funny, and we get along so well. You’re smart too! You always know what I’m thinking and whenever I need you, you’re there for me. I think you’re perfect Satori,” you stumbled across your words as you emptied your heart to him. His jaw clenched as he looked away from you. “It’s ok, if you don’t feel that way about me you can tell me,” you went to get up to give him some space, but he pulled you back onto his chest.

“No. I do. I love you so much, more than you could ever imagine,” his eyes were glassy as tears formed, and his throat wobbled as he spoke.

“Then why-”

“Because I’m not right for you. You deserve so much more Y/N. Someone who isn’t so weird, someone who isn’t scary. God, even someone who people will even choose to look at without wanting to run away. You are so perfect, so pure and I want you to stay that way. Not be with someone so ugly and...and...unnatural as me.” You could tell he was trying so hard to hold back from letting the floodgates of his mind from opening, but he was so wrong. You sat up on your knees and held his face between your hands,

“Satori, you better listen to me. You are not ugly. You are not scary or unnatural. You are you, and I love every part of you. I love that you’re weird, I love your crazy red hair and those beautiful, beautiful eyes. I love how well you read me and know how I’m feeling. Don’t you ever say those words about the one I love,” you pleaded, brushing your thumbs against his skin and searching his eyes for his reply. He pulled your hands away from his face and looked away, letting out a sarcastic chuckle,

“Everyone says it, that I’m a monster. I know you’ve heard it too. I’m nothing more than a hideous monster.” He raised his voice a little. His words almost sound like a threat. You were both silent for a few seconds.

“What if I want that monster? If you really are the monster you say you are, then what if I love that monster? I love you Satori, not what you, or others, think you are,” you placed you hand on his chest over his heart and leaned your forehead against his, “ I love you for the loving, kind, intelligent man that I know is in here, and if that makes you a monster, then I must be a monster too.” No matter how distraught or nervous you were, you kept your words firm. You need him to see that you were speaking the truth.

“Give me a chance and let me know you that I mean it, that I love you and that I’m not going to run away. I’m not scared Satori, I could never be scared of you. Let me make you feel loved, and happy, and beautiful. Give me that chance and I won’t ask for anything more,” you were close to begging him at this rate. Your eyes were squeezed shut at you spoke. After a few moments, you felt him nod gently against your head.

Your hands reached back up to his face, settling them on his cheeks. The heat of your palms stung his skin in the most pleasurable way as he stared into your eyes. Slowly, you leaned forward, slotting your nose besides his and waited as if asking for permission. He met you half way, gently pressing his lips to yours. His lips were shaking and chapped, and you could taste the salty tears that made their way down his face, but you had never experienced something so sweet. After a few, hesitant seconds, you pulled away,

“You’re my angel.”

Taglist: @togasknifes​

[cotton-tails]

They talk that night, after the celebratory ‘we-survived’ party, after the kids go to bed. They find their old spot up on the roof; where they would sneak up to as children when they needed to get away from it all, and they talk all night, until the sun peeks over the horizon and they can barely keep their eyes open anymore.

It takes some adjusting, but life somewhat settles down after that.

It’s still weird though.

He loves having Della back, but there’s one teeny-tiny thing that bothers him.

The kids.

She’s their mother. Of course she is, and she deserves to be their mother, and do all the things a mother should be able to do for her children.

And he hates himself for the way he’s feeling.

That first night, she’d told him he can step back now. She’s ready to take over, to raise the kids the way she’d been wanting to all these years.

And he knows she should. God knows she’s fought hard enough.

The only thing is, he’d spent the past ten years raising them himself. He’d given up everything for the boys. He’d fought tooth and nail to keep them safe, fed, clothed and happy. Even at the expense of his own wellbeing. There were some particularly rough months were he’d barely eat one meal a day, and some days where he’d lived off caffeine and caffeine alone. But they never went without. Not once.

Even when they’d moved back to the mansion, and he’d entrusted their safety to Scrooge (after some mishaps and a lot of careful negotiating with his uncle), Donald was still the one they looked to, the one they couldn’t wait to tell all their stories of their adventures to.

And he always, always, had the final say in everything they did.

Now that final say falls to Della.

So, the question now is; just who is Donald Duck without all that?

He briefly considers going back to college, getting his masters and actually going into a career he enjoyed rather than one that was convenient. Then considers the cost and what would happen if he asked Scrooge for help. That thought gets a half-fond snort and then gets shut down almost as quickly as it formed. The idea of re-joining the navy goes the same direction. He’s got enough trauma from his first stint.

The answer comes when the kids are off adventuring with Scrooge; Della opting to stay behind for some quality time with her twin. They end up in their old rooms, pulling dust sheets off old furniture and digging through old boxes of belongings that have sat, untouched, for over ten years. They’d opted for their own rooms once they’d gotten a little older, but had never moved further than across the hall.

The morning is spent darting between rooms as they rediscovered photographs, knick-knacks and some shameful fashion choices on both sides. When it goes quiet for a little too long, Della investigates to find Donald kneeling on the floor, staring down into a box. She sits down next to him and peers inside, eyebrows raising almost impossibly high when she sees what had silenced her brother.

“Is that what I think it is?” she whispers, snapping Donald out of his stupor.      

He swallows thickly and nods, reaching down and scooping up the neatly folded material. It’s a little musty, and well worn, but even folded, both twins knew exactly what it was.  

“The original Duck Avenger suit,” Della says, her voice full of awe as she pulls it from his slack hands and unfolds it. “Wow, I remember seeing this for the first time when you ended up on the news.” She snorts. “I spat my tea all over Uncle Scrooge.”

“Bet he loved that,” Donald smiles. “Still impressed no one figured out that it was me.”

“I did.”

Donald playfully shoves her. “You don’t count.”

“Rude,” Della tries to glare, but her grin wins out and gives her away. “Thank god you’re not running around in this flimsy thing anymore.”

“Hmmm,” Donald hums, not quite agreeing.

Somehow, Della knows exactly what his hum means.

“No,” she says, her smile dimming as she turns to him and sees the speculative expression on his face. “I really hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

Donald obviously hesitates a second too long.

“Are you kidding?!” Della squeaks, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him round to face her. “Don, please tell me you’re not considering this?”

“I-” Donald starts, then falters at her hard gaze.

Because he is one hundred percent considering.

“Could be fun,” he murmurs, breaking eye contact.

“You could get hurt,” Della reasons.

Donald just levels her with a dry look. He really wasn’t actually expecting Della; self-proclaimed queen of running headfirst into the most dangerous situations she could find, to be actually arguing against the idea. Maybe her stint in space really had made her a little more sensible.

She opens her mouth to retort, then thinks better of it. “Fair point.” She sighs, sagging. “I just… I just don’t like you running around with no one watching your back again.”

He stays silent, mind running a hundred miles an hour.

It’s a crazy idea. She’s right on that point. It’s absolutely insane to even consider.

But Donald can’t help but think back to the eight years he’d spent leaping around as Duckburg’s only vigilante. And yeah, he got himself a bit hurt. He was sixteen when he started. Sixteen and awkward and with some of the worst luck in the world. But he persisted and eventually became a hero.  

“You could?”

Della blinks. “I could what?”

“You could watch my back,” he clarifies.

“I’m not gonna be the sidekick in this little fantasy,” Della retorts with a pout that reminds Donald so much of them as kids that he has to hold back a snort.

“Since when were you against grand adventures and insane ideas?” he asks; cause yeah, Della might have yelled at him when she had first found out, but ultimately, she’d never stopped him.

(Actually, she’d tried once, when he’d ended up sneaking back in through her window, barely seventeen and bleeding out on the floor. She had attempted to ground him. It lasted about three days and she’d threatened to out him to Scrooge when he’d gone back out. She’s all for a bit of risk, but not at the expense of her twin brother’s life.)

(She never told Scrooge. She’s about 98% sure he still doesn’t know.)

“Since that insane idea that got me stuck on the moon?” She shoots back. The awkward silence that blankets them is palpable; they’d talked about it, sure, but it’s still something of a tetchy subject at the best of times. “Look,” she sighs eventually, “you know what’s out there, this family has a whole list of sworn enemies, and that’s just the one’s we know of. You’ll be fighting alone, and… I… That stupid suit isn’t gonna give you any protection.”

Donald takes her hand, shuffling a little closer and holds her gaze with determined eyes. “Look, ever since you came back, I’ve been lost.”

Della looks somewhat defensive, but Donald cuts her off before she can speak her mind.

“You want to be a parent, and I’m not going to deny you that,” he sighs, “but I dropped everything for those kids. My life, my career… my sanity,” he adds with a wry grin, “all I’ve known for the past ten years is making sure they’re safe and happy. It was hard enough letting Scrooge look after them occasionally. I’ve completely lost who I am without them, and… I don’t know, maybe it’s crazy, and maybe it won’t come to anything, but I think I’ll regret it if I don’t try!”

Della is quiet. Too quiet, and for a moment Donald thinks he’s said something completely wrong and she’s just going to yell at him. Then her face changes, a small smile pulling at the corner of her beak and he feels the knots in his stomach loosen just that little bit.

“We gonna need to upgrade that ridiculous costume of yours.”

Donald grins. It’s not a glowing endorsement, but it’s a start.

“I know a guy.”

[minavalentina]

Motion Thickness / Chapter Two

The night air was cool - a welcome relief from the hot California summer. Jake and Amber walked in the middle of the road, enjoying the breeze and not saying much. At 1:30 in the morning, the streets were empty, and it was nice to feel the space around them after the stifling atmosphere of the party. As Jake moved over to some bushes near the side of the road to relieve himself, Amber found herself wandering, head still spinning from the alcohol she'd had earlier and enjoying the brilliant stars pulsing in the calm, still night. She rounded off the main street to explore down a back lane, a shift from the expensive area they were in. Garages edged the otherwise wood-fenced street, and power lines dipped low across from one side to the other. Amber continued strolling, one foot landing messily in front of the other until she noticed something, and stopped dead. Kneeling in the small one-way street was a man, lit by the streetlight above. She jumped for a second, before she realised that she recognised him. He went to her high school. They didn't run in the same circles, but she knew his face. Could probably even come up with his name if she thought hard enough. She had been more arty, more popular, and he had been the type to smoke behind the gym. He must have come down from the party to get some air as well. "Hey." She said lightly, a fraction of a second before she saw the body. A second guy, laying on the ground near whats-his-face, a dark, thick pool spreading out from beneath the head. Amber's blood turned cold. The gun was fired before she even realised he'd heard her. A bullet, frighteningly loud and real, hit the tall wooden fence to her left, and all the muscles in Amber's body contracted. She was frozen, eyes wide and body trembling. He paused after firing the first shot, and studied her face in the dim light. "I know you. You that bitch from art class." He said, voice cold and furious. He whooped out a chilling, abrupt laugh. "Hoo, you in it now." This time, Amber did see him aiming the gun at her. The first shot had been on instinct. This one had intention. He didn't want to miss. The bottom dropped out of her stomach and Amber was running frantically, weaving side to side as she sprinted down the road to make herself harder to hit. Thoughts of regret and 'what if?' flooded through her and mixed with her panic as she heard one, two, three more shots ring out from behind her. She'd just graduated, literally just turned eighteen. She had plans, big dreams. She was going to be famous. She was supposed to become a star. Terror jumbled her thoughts, but not too much to stop tears from escaping her eyes before being whipped away by the wind hitting her face. Amber felt a fourth bullet whistle by her, and she screamed, forcing her legs to pump faster.

“Run, bitch!” She heard him screaming behind her as she tore away down the empty street. “Doesn’t matter though, I seen you before! Best believe I’ll find you.”

Sprinting out of the side-street, she found Jake already running towards her. Clearly he'd heard the shots, she thought. Somewhere in amongst all the feelings rushing through her in that moment, she recognized a tiny grain of warmth, noticing that he had run towards the sound and not away from it. But there was no time to dwell on it, as Amber barrelled into Jake and forcibly spun him around with her hands to face the direction she was running. "We gotta go!" She yelled, giving him a few panicked shoves to get him started. "We gotta go, we gotta go!" He ran with her, the two of them hurling down the road until they were a few blocks away and closer to the main road. The road was still deserted but the taillights flashing by on the highway nearby, as well as the illuminated windows dotted around the surrounding houses made them feel like they could stop for breath. "What happened?" Jake asked, rubbing her back as she bent, gasping for air. "He tried to kill me!" Amber wailed, straightening up and throwing her hair from her face. "He killed someone else! There was someone else there. Dead."

"It's okay." Jake was shaken, but he tried to calm her. "We got away. He didn't follow us."

"It doesn't matter." Amber said with tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. "He knew me. He goes to our school, Jake. He said he was gonna find me and he can!" She sobbed, shaking, and wrapped her arms around herself. "He was going to shoot me dead right then. He tried. He'll be able to find me if he wants to."

She sniffed, cheeks wet with tears, looking completely distraught. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "I don't know what to do. Everything was about to be so good. I don't want to have to move away, I love this city. This is where I'm meant to be." As she spoke, the night's events began coming together in Jake's mind to form a scrap of an idea. It was out there, strange, and he wouldn't have dared come up with it at any other time, or to any other girl. The more he thought it over, he began to breathe faster as Amber turned away, holding her hair back and fanning her face in an attempt to calm down. It was a wild plan, that was for sure, but the exciting secret she had shared with him not even two hours earlier fit strangely well into her new predicament. And suddenly it all became so perfectly clear, that Jake was speaking before he even realised it. “Amber, this is your chance.” He said, quiet. Confident. “Chance for what?” She asked, despondent. “He saw your face. He threatened your life. Clearly you need to disappear.” Jake said. “I don’t wanna leave L.A!” Amber cried. “I begged my parents to move here from Ohio when I was fourteen, this is where I’m meant to be! I can’t give that up just when I’m about to start my career, just because of one fucking assho-“ “Amber.” Jake took her by the shoulders, cutting her off. "That's not what I meant. He knows what you look like. So you could either leave... or you could change." She was listening now, the certainty that he spoke with seeming to calm her enough to let him get his idea out. And he was excited, the more he thought about it the more he fell over his words in his haste to get them out. “Think about it. You don't want to hide away in Albania for the rest of your life, and despite what seems to work in the movies, dyeing your hair just isn’t enough of a change to gamble your life on." Jake levelled his eyes on her, speaking slowly, landing each word with impact. "But you told me, only a few hours ago, that you wanted to change the way you look and now that’s-” Amber's eyes widened when she realized what he was talking about. "No!" She exclaimed, face reddening. “Oh- no, no, no.” “Amber, get fat.” Jake held her by her petite waist and looked deep into her frightened eyes. He could feel her shaking. “It makes sense. If you put on even a half of the weight that you told me you wanted to, I bet you'd be damn near unrecognizable.” “I-- I can’t!” She stammered, not meeting his eyes, embarrassed by her earlier admission. “I can’t do that.” “Why not? You said you wanted to.” Jake said. “You do want to, don’t you?” She hesitated, clearly embarrassed. “...I was drunk.” “I know you were.” He said. “But were you telling the truth?” A long pause hung between them. She was sober now, stone cold sober. Time, shock, and fear had wiped away any trace of inebriation. She’d have no excuse for anything she said now, no way to explain it away if she regretted letting him in on her most private, darkest fantasy.

“Yes.” She said, finally. It was a half-whisper, she barely made a sound. Heat rose in her cheeks as the realization of what she had just admitted hit her. She closed her eyes. “Yes.”

Jake’s eyes were dark when she looked back at him, pupils blown wide and whole body seemingly vibrating with excited energy. “Then do it now.” He said. “This timing, it means something. You can pile on weight, as much as you like - you can transform yourself, and it might just save your life.”

“But… it doesn't happen that fast, Jake! It won’t be much of a disguise if they’re watching me slowly f…” Amber wet her lips, still not used to saying the words anywhere other than in her own head. “F-fatten up. He'll have enough time to kill me before I look any different at all.”

“Then we’ll leave.” Jake rushed his words, excited. “Just for a while. We’ll take my car and we’ll leave town tonight. And from the second we reach the city limits until when we return, we’ll stuff you full of so much fattening food that the Amber who comes back to L.A. will be in no danger of being recognized.”

She took a step back, more out of surprise than anything else. What was that word he had used? “We?” She asked. “You want to… be a part of this?” “Yeah.” Jake admitted. “Desperately.”

Amber studied him carefully. For the first time that night, he was the one under scrutiny. And, considering the night she’d had, he supposed that was fair. “Do you like this?” She asked. She sounded half accusing and half intrigued. “I thought you were just interested earlier because it was a crazy thing to say but it's more than that, isn't it? Come on. After what I’ve told you, if you don’t think it’s weird, then fucking put me out of my misery and tell me!” “I don’t think it’s weird.” Jake said, before he could stop himself. “I like it. I... I-I want to see you get fat, too. I think it’s really hot that you wanna do that to yourself.” Amber’s mouth had fallen open, and for a moment she was just silent. Jake let her process. They were still standing out in the open, barely a few blocks over from where they had run from. There was an urgency to move, but this revelation of their shared understanding caused a sudden calm to fall over them as well. ”Okay.” She said. A small smile crept onto her face, and her eyes twinkled as excitement swelled inside her. “Yes. I want to.” Jake sucked in a breath. "Are you serious?" Amber nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! Yes, I want to do it. I need to live in Los Angeles, I'll regret it forever if I don't. And I won't risk my life, I have so many plans. A reason like that to get big... it's... it's perfect."

It made a kind of sense. It sent chills of excitement through them both to think that such a hedonistic act could save her in this way. It was permission. The moment Amber had said okay, reality started setting in. Her head swam with questions, thrill, fears. Despite the years spent fantasizing, she had no idea what it was like to be fat. How it felt, not only to be fat, but to become fat - to grow a thin body fatter. Did it hurt? Was it uncomfortable? And what about the embarrassment? Her face would change, maybe after enough weight no one would be able to recognize her. Maybe not even herself.

[twokinkybeans]

Daddy Ain’t So Tough [Starker]

Summary: Sometimes, the word Daddy doesn't necessarily mean you're the one in charge. Or: In which Peter and Tony explore their new little fantasies. Warnings/tags: Nff, smut, incest play/kink, daddy kink, daddy!Tony, bottom!Tony, sub!Tony, top!Peter, dom!Peter, restraints / light bondage, begging & teasing. Notes: HI DEARS! This idea has been in my head for quite a while now and I am so excited that I finally wrote it! PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS/TAGS CAREFULLY. There's some kinks in there not everyone might enjoy. If you do like it, please do continue :) :) <3 And thank y'all for your neverending support! -Kim

Read here on AO3!!

-

“Daddy,” Peter giggles as he straddles Tony’s hips. He trails his fingers down the man’s gorgeous chest. It’s everything Peter could’ve ever dreamed about- even if he hadn’t done it consciously so. The arc reactor is fascinating to him, as are the scars scattered around it. Obviously, the hard lines of the man’s abs are very welcome too. God, he looks so handsome and strong.

“Peter, fuck-” Tony mutters under his breath. Peter simply smirks and he lowers his full weight onto the man’s crotch, causing Tony’s lips to part in a silent gasp. Yeah. Handsome, strong, and entirely Peter’s

It’s only very recently that they made this, eh, discovery. It’s a weird power shift. Contradictory, even. Yet, the shared pleasure shortcircuits their minds more than they’ve ever experienced before. Nothing’s ever been missing, but this? This is a whole new layer Peter aches to delve into.

“‘M gonna fuck you so good, Daddy. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To be ruined by me?” “Yes, baby boy,” Tony lets out a breathy moan. “I’m so ready for you.” The older man tugs on his restraints in a desperate attempt to lay his hands on the striking, youthful body on top of him. With his 22 years old, Peter is absolutely breathtaking. Strong, ripped muscles to hold him down as no one else ever had. His legs tremble at the mere thought. “Petey- please.”

“Mmmmmh- that’s more like it.” Peter puts his hands down right next to Tony’s head and leans in to kiss the man’s warm lips. Peter moans when Tony is eager enough to immediately take a chance and suck Peter’s lower lip into his mouth. His cock twitches against Tony’s stomach and a hot surge of arousal courses right through him. Fuck. Fuck. Tony - ever-in-control-I’ll-handle-this-myself-Tony - is the neediest sub Peter ever imagined possible. “Nu-uh, Daddy, don’t get ahead of yourself now-” Peter murmurs and pulls back, smirking at Tony’s subconscious attempt to sneak in one more chaste kiss. Peter sits up straight, his hands finding their way to Tony’s hard chest again. His fingertips brush past the man’s soft nipples, earning him a loud groan. “So hot,” Peter whispers gently. He scoots down a little, now sitting on the man’s thighs, and he leans in again. “Bet you’ve been thinking about my dick in your ass all day, uh?” He sucks Tony’s right nipple into his mouth. No longer soft, nor gentle, but sucking harshly. Tony’s hips buck up wildly.  “God-fucking-” “Now, now,” Peter laughs, letting go of the nipple and hovering over the left one. Still awfully untouched. “Didn’t think you’d be this filthy when you raised me.”

There. He did it. He crossed the line again.

Peter looks up and swallows, checking quickly if Tony’s still up for- well… This. Tony’s cheeks flush a bright red and he bites down his bottom lip. He stares right back at Peter- also checking up on the younger boy. They’re still treading new grounds, new fantasies, something neither of them dares to admit out loud just yet. “Well? Did you think you’d be laying here, legs spread wide, for me? What would people think uh?” “Peter-” “Well?” “Fuck- fuck fuck fuck.” Tony babbles, his fingers trembling as he clenches them together. Tony is aware that he has to cue Peter to go on. That he wants in fact pretend to be Peter’s actual Daddy. It’s so hard to say it, though. It’s so awfully wrong and yet his dick aches with want. Peter looks down at him, eyes dark and expectant- waiting for a sign.

“If I raised you so well,” he breathes shakingly, “-then why aren’t your fucking your old man just yet?” Peter scoffs, cocking an eyebrow at him. His eyes are twinkling though, teasing and cunning and Tony whimpers quietly.  “You need it that bad, eh?” “Yes. Baby yes.” 

After that everything turns hazy for Peter. He growls low in his throat and crawls even further down, kneeling in between Tony’s legs and spreading them apart until the tip of his cock brushes against Tony’s already slick and prepped hole.  “All those times you punished me,” Peter rushes out, not knowing where the words come from but they feel so right. “Now you ain’t so tough.” “Just take me, kid.”

Peter doesn’t waste a damn second and he pushes inside without remorse, replacing the heat his fingers had been at a few minutes before. Tony’s eyes screw shut and Peter relishes in the feeling of this handsome, powerful man becoming such a proud bottom underneath his touch. He digs his fingers into Tony’s thighs, lifting his boyfriend’s legs up until they’re wrapped around his waist. God, Tony’s so warm and soft and tight and Peter bites back a pathetic whimper as he inches forward even more- the new position allowing him to slide in deeper.  “Call me that again,” Peter groans demandingly. “Wanna hear you lose it for me.” He draws back slightly, now gripping at Tony’s round ass and pushes in again with such force that Tony shifts upwards in the sheets. Peter’s still holding back, not using all his Spider powers, but some. Enough to make Tony’s eyes roll back. “Please, please kiddo, fuck your Daddy.” This time, Peter can’t help the high-pitched noise escaping his throat. He thrusts forward harsh- again and again and again. His movements accompanied by the loud and suspicious creaking of his small single bed and Tony’s choked off moans as pleasure washes over his lover’s face. Peter’s cock almost hurts with how badly he wants to release himself. Fill up the man’s ass with his cum. He wants to claim him, take charge.

Every single drag back and forth has him see stars. Peter’s breath hitches in his throat and he ignores the light burn at his knees where it creates friction with the sheets. It only makes him more feral. More possessive. More… In charge. Nothing else matters right now. All that matters is the sweet melody of Peter’s name falling from Tony’s lips over and over again. The burning pit deep in his stomach grows higher and bigger- warning Peter he’s going tip over that very edge soon. “Daddy, f- ah! Look at you, legs spread wide for your own blood. Fucking filthy, and you even like it- don’t you?” Peter chokes out. “Does it feel good knowing that you no longer own me?” “K-kid-” “Not anymore, not anymore. Tony.” 

Peter reaches down and curls his fingers around the thick, hot shaft of Tony’s cock. He squeezes, wants to drag his hand down and- “Aaah! P-Peter! Fuck don’t stop don’t stop dont-” Tony’s words turn into an incomprehensible string of syllables as white-hot come rains down onto his own chest. Peter watches in awe how the man’s face contorts with pleasure and a hint of blissful shame. His tight hole clenches around Peter’s still aching cock- and every fiber of his being wants to enjoy the same overwhelming euphoria. He quickly scans Tony’s face once, not sensing a hint of discomfort as he speeds up his thrusts. Not in the slightest. “Peter yes please fuck me through it. Show your Daddy how it’s done.”

Peter whines and drops his head forward. Curls stick to his forward where a sheen of sweat had gathered. He’s gonna burst. He can’t hold it back. Not even if he wanted to. His primal instincts have taken full charge of his body and he pounds into the slick heat beneath him until finally, his mind blanks out when filthily sweet sensations shake him to his core. He spills inside of Tony, feels how his cum mixes with the now warm lube. How Tony clenches around him to not lose a single fucking drop.  Peter lets out a shaky laugh, in complete wonderment of how good this can feel. How much better this is than his own hand ever had been. And when finally, after what seems to be infinity, his eyes flutter open; he’s met with the deep, loving brown eyes of the man he’s been able to call his lover for the past three and a half years. 

“Peter,” Tony whispers, body limp and soft and spent. Arching into Peter’s warmth. Peter cracks a smile and carefully lets go of Tony’s legs, leaning down to cover the man’s body with his own. Their legs tangle together while Peter’s cock softens inside of the man. He doesn’t care it’ll make a mess. Peter hums quietly and grabs his blanket to pull it on top of them.  “Tony,” Peter whispers back. Tony smiles, suddenly shy. A feature that will always leave Peter amazed. “Was that too much?” Peter asks. Not out of insecurity, but because he wants to gauge how his boyfriend has experienced it. Tony chuckles, turning his gaze sideways. “No.” He pauses and shakes his head. “That was… Perfect.” “Yes,” Peter agrees. His hands gently massaging their way up Tony’s arms to undo the restraints. “I really, really, liked it too.” “The whole kid thing hit home, uh?” “Fuck yes,” Peter grins. “It’s so… You. But also a good different. It makes it feel natural even when it’s play.” “Agreed.”

Tony groans when he finally lowers his arms now that he is no longer tied to the headboard. His arms wrap around Peter’s shoulders, gently caressing him. Peter smiles, his cock now slipping out of Tony fully, and he nuzzles his face against the man’s neck to nib at the skin there. “You sore?” “If I say yes, will you treat me with a back rub and hot chocolate later?” “Of course,” Peter teases along. Tony beams and nods. “Yes. Very, very sore.” “Turn around then.” “Yes, kid.”

[prettywordsyouleft]

To Be Continued - Part 3

Summary: As an author, you had created Brian Kang for your current trilogy series to represent the ultimate man that everyone would love, along with Charli Evers - your female protagonist. What you hadn’t expected was for him to find a way out of the story and begin shaping up your world instead

Pairing: Brian Kang x female writer (ft. Park Sungjin)

Genre: writer au / romance / fantasy

Warnings: fictional characters coming to life / a bit of angst here and there / Sungjin as a cop (or does that only affect me?) >_>

Word count: 2288

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue

“I know it seems ridiculous,” you stated as you led the constable to your home office, pointing at your desk where both the pen and message waited for him to inspect. “However, I didn’t hear a thing and yet this is all here.”

Sungjin quietly investigated the space, looking to the window and then went over to jiggle the catch. He stepped all around the room, searching for clues, his hand rising to his mouth to cover it as he processed his thoughts.

And then he turned to you. “I don’t really know what to say. This makes no sense.”

“I feel like I’m going insane!” you admitted emotionally, dropping to a crouch and holding onto your legs. “How could someone get in and out without my knowledge whilst everything is still locked?!”

When you glanced up at Sungjin, who came to your side, you noticed the look of scepticism within his eyes. There was nothing factual aside from the second fingerprints, which in your mind, was enough to convince you that someone else had been here. For a moment, the trained professional looked at you and assessed something before smiling gently. You realised then Sungjin was questioning your well-being.

Standing up suddenly, you took a step back from his proximity and looked out the window. “I might have proclaimed just now about feeling as if I’m going insane, but I can assure you, Constable Park, that I’m not already insane.”

“I know,” he answered, trying to catch your attention. When he gained it, he nodded genuinely. “I’m sorry, my brief thought was too brash.”

“I can understand why,” you breathed out with a sigh, shaking your head. “It would be easy enough to plant such evidence, right? I’ve watched enough spy movies and read enough novels to know that it’s relatively simple enough to obtain someone’s fingerprint.”

“Yes, but I believe you haven’t done this on purpose either, Y/N.”

There was comfort in the way he spoke your name and you nodded softly, tears spilling down your cheeks. Sungjin stepped into your space again, patting your shoulder gently. “What do I do?”

“We need to catch the person in the act,” Sungjin suggested and you stared at him curiously. “Have you tried messaging the person back?”

“No… I mean, how does that work? It’s not a social app they’re writing on but Microsoft Word. Even with a cloud sharing system, it would show me that another user is signed in.”

Sungjin shrugged. “Still. Worth a shot, don’t you think?”

“Do I try it now?” you asked and Sungjin shook his head.

“Nothing will happen with me here,” he guessed and you sighed, defeated. You kind of liked that nothing would happen with Sungjin here. But he had a job to do and you did want to solve this issue too.

If it was simply a fan, you would thank them for nursing you back to health that night and ask them to stop this. That seemed simple enough to request. Surely, if they cared that much about you, they would comply.

You didn’t want to consider that their fan status was anything more than just that. Once again, movies and books you had perused with obsessive stalkers cropped up and you shuddered.

Sungjin noticed and rubbed at your shoulders to relax you. “You’re going to be okay. You have my number and I’ll make sure to check in on your regularly too. Let me know if anything happens with the messages, okay?”

“I will.” Leading the constable back out to the front door, he turned and rubbed at his wrist.

“Did you need a lift to get your groceries?”

“Is that allowed in a police vehicle?” you wondered and Sungjin grinned.

“I could write it off as protection services.”

“I’m touched, really,” you responded, trying to rein in the smile you knew was splitting your lips all too obviously.

Sungjin nodded and chuckled back. “Knowing you would take the offer if my car wasn’t government-funded is all I need, Y/N.”

“You best get back to patrolling the streets for proper crime,” you suggested and he nodded. You then laughed. “And I have a date with the fruit and vegetable section to help improve my immunity after dealing with this cold.”

“Take it easy. First dates can be hard to deal with.”

You grinned. “I will. And if I’m in trouble from it, I’ll know who to ring.”

You could tell Sungjin wasn’t usually one for this type of banter, and despite his ears turning red, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Which was no doubt why he was reluctant to step off your front porch right now.

However, he finally did so with another wave and you stepped back inside, locking the door before going to write out your list. It felt weird to use the pen that reappeared so you put it away before reaching for another and jotted down the groceries you needed.

“Have you tried messaging the person back?”

Sungjin’s suggestion lingered in your mind as you prepared to stand and fetch your bag. Relenting, you looked at the screen and inhaled a deep breath before you began to type.

Thank you for returning the pen. And for helping me with my illness.

It felt odd to type anything more and you shook your head to loosen off the feeling, getting to your feet and taking the list out with you.

The words you had written then disappeared without your knowledge, reaching the person they were intended for.

You had almost forgotten all about the incident that led to the constable ending up in your house again today, but the interaction by your front door had replayed so much in your mind that you were too giddy to focus on anything else. As you put away your groceries, you contemplated what Sungjin was like to go grocery shopping with.

It was juvenile. You felt like you were back in high school crushing on a student you liked. You entertained the idea, all the same, slipping further into more domestic actions, swooning over your hypothetical relationship with the man.

You were destined to be a writer. You were far too much of a dreamer for any other profession.

By the time you had eaten a late lunch, you had already jotted down on your phone’s notes app more information to add to your police officer document once back at your desk. You did some house chores before stepping back in there, and before you could even sit down, there was a knock at your door.

It wasn’t Sungjin, however, but your mother, armed with an arsenal to help your illness improve.

You grinned even though you whined out loud. “Mum, I’m basically over it now.”

“You had me worried sick about you. Especially when you mentioned someone broke in!”

Taking what she held and helping the woman inside, you shook your head. “Well, there’s no evidence that’s solid enough to say someone broke in.”

“Should I stay with you tonight?”

“Why tonight when I was more frightened last night?” you asked with a teasing tone and the older woman swatted at you in distaste.

“I’m your mother! I’m allowed to be worried.”

“I’ll be fine! I’ll have the doors all locked, and my favourite police officer’s number saved into my phone. Besides, I’ll no doubt spend my night writing and-”

“Forget I’m even here. Yes, I know how you get when you step out of reality, Y/N.”

You grinned again at her understanding and then were gathered up in a hug. “At least let me cook you dinner. I’ll leave before it gets too late for your creative juices to start rolling out.”

“You’re the best, you know that?”

“Of course I do. I have to be the best to be your Mum!”

After watching two feel-good movies from your childhood and your mother had fed you your favourite dish for dinner before wrapping the night up with fussing over you sufficiently, she headed back home and left you to your own devices.

So it surprised you to finally sit back down after hours away from your laptop to find the screen still active.

Peering closely at it, you blinked slowly at your message or lack of it. Where had it gone? You knew you written the two sentences and pressed enter.

Just as you were about to close the document, your eyes rounded with shock as words began to appear on the screen before you.

“I’m going insane after all,” you said jarringly, reading the sentence as it was typed.

I hope you will stop fearing me and calling that police officer. I’m really not that scary. You know me.

Instead of reaching for your phone, you felt compelled to reply.

Do I?

Again words started to appear before you. Of course. You know me better than I probably do.

How?

You created me.

“Maybe I’ve had too much coffee,” you tried to rationalise but it didn’t make any sense. Looking around yourself to see if someone was remotely plugged in somehow to your laptop, you even searched the connection settings before coming up blank.

So you challenged the writer of the messages.

If I know you and created you – which sounds absolutely absurd by the way – why won’t you show yourself?

You laughed when there was no immediate response and hovered the mouse pointer over the exit button to Microsoft Word, intending to then power off the device. The screen flickered then and you looked back at to see new words forming.

Don’t turn off the laptop.

“What would that have anything to do with this?” you murmured, feeling exasperated from chatting with some strange person within a word document in the first place.

More words appeared. Because the world you created was made on this.

“Okay, it’s getting too late for me now. I’m going to save this document and-”

The screen went blank and you sat back in your chair then, watching it to see what would happen next. Nothing did and you hit the power button on and off, laughing at the predicament. “My battery must have died. Great.”

Searching on the desk for the power cord, you plugged it in and the machine brightened up instantly, blinding you a little with the sudden change.

And then it opened Captivated again.

You watched as the story scrolled down at an unbelievably fast rate, reaching the bottom of the manuscript where you had changed the words back to The End for the third time. They disappeared and were replaced with To Be Continued once more, infuriating you.

“Leave my work alone! This is an intrusion on my intellectual property! You have no right interfering with--”

You weren’t sure if you were hallucinating or not. You weren’t even sure how it happened. One moment, whilst you were ranting to whoever may be listening in about your rights, you were all alone.

The next, a man was leaning against your desktop beside you.

“What the… how did you get in here?!” you cried, not looking up at him properly, reaching into your pocket to retrieve your phone.

“I really don’t think you need to call for him. But if it makes you feel safer, by all means, ring your hero.”

His voice, although you had never heard it before, felt familiar, as if you had imagined that’s how someone would sound. You glanced at his hand resting on the table beside you, wondering why it looked as if you had written about this hand so often it almost felt intimate. Following your gaze up his arm, you ran your focus along his shoulder and up to his face, hearing your phone clatter to the floor beside you.

As you looked intensely into his warm brown eyes that watched you back, and then took in the sharp slant of his nose that was definitely a characteristic point, before finally moving to his lips, you knew exactly who you were staring back at.

Brian Kang.

He grinned, scrunching up his nose a little in the process and it made you gasp. This seemed to please the man. “Well, I guess it works on more than just Charli Evers, huh?”

“You’re… wait… how can you… I mean, this is exactly how I pictured you but… it’s impossible.”

Brian nodded, glancing back at your laptop and tapped on the screen. “I guess it would seem like that to you since my world is created from your imagination.”

“Sungjin’s right, I’ve gone mad.”

“Darling, you’ve been mad for some time but I wouldn’t go thinking this is a hallucination.”

“You’re not real.”

“Well, I guess I’m not meant to be real. I’m not really sure how I figured this all out either. I’m still learning about the outside world so forgive me for scaring you with all this.”

“The outside world?” you repeated incredulously, grasping your head as you felt faint. “Why am I talking to my imagination?! This is an all-time low for me; even I have to admit it.”

“Y/N,” Brian stated, capturing your attention once again. His expression was resolute. You knew without him saying anything else that he believed in what he was about to say wholly. “Whilst you are my maker, I do exist. I’m real.”

“I bet I can’t even touch--” A whimper left you then as he reached out to take a hold of your wrist with the same hand you had inspected. And then he slipped it down so he was holding yours, marvelling at the connection.

And like any normal, logical person who just met their creation in the flesh, you completely blacked out from the experience.

_________________

Part 4

All rights reserved © prettywordsyouleft

[DAY6 Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

[troubatrain]

sober - m.barzal (pt. four)

a/n: hello this is the last repost until the new part!!

Three - Five

Mat Barzal was completely and utterly fucked. There was no way around it, you had him in the palm of your hand and you didn’t even care. Sure, the first time was an accident, and Mat definitely didn’t regret it but he wasn’t sure if he had your number he would have called you again. But, when he saw you running through the halls at Madison Square Garden - Mat was focused on you and you only. The marks he left on her that were uncovering themselves while you power walked past him. In a pencil skirt that was living rent free in his dirtiest dreams. Even then, the second time he tried to get you, it was because he had just lost a rivalry game for the team you work for and your friends were barely twenty feet away. He wanted to be the best, and there wasn’t much that could stop him when he set his mind to it.

After that, things felt different. Mat liked a chase, he was competitive as hell and if you were a prize he was going to win it. He’d never let you know that, especially because if you knew he referred to you as a prize - Mat would be a dead man. You were the poison Mat was dying to drink, and you were intoxicating. You were all the things Mat loved to hate, wrapped up in a bow addressed just for him.

“Let me take you out,” Mat mutters, his lips pressing kisses into your back, still inside you while you both let yourselves relax for just a moment, basking in the glow of a sunny Sunday afternoon. You’d both landed late the night before, Mat from Arizona and you from Toronto, making a Sunday afternoon in bed tearing eachother apart a necessity.

“I will pay you to never ask me that again,” You sigh, internally gathering the strength to push Mat off you so you could leave. A nap and a second round sounded like a dream, but staying too long would mean something - and that wasn’t allowed.

“What if there’s some stakes?” Mat tries again, pinning your arms above your head, much like he’d done when he was balls deep in you ten minutes ago. You hummed in response, waiting for whatever dumb idea Mat had up his sleeve, “We can play a game.”

“I’m listening,” You muse, letting yourself enjoy the feeling of Mat’s lips ghosting over your skin while he spoke.

“We go out, whoever gets the most numbers at the end of the night wins,” Mat suggests, “I’ll go down on you if you win and you’ll give me head if I win.”

“What if I meet someone I want to go home with more than you?” You ask, turning around and giving Mat a smirk.

“You won’t,” Mat smiles confidently, as if he was so positive he really was the best.

“What if you meet someone you want to take home more than me?” You counter, turning around in his arms, “What if you meet someone I want to take home more than you?”

“That big brain of yours works way too hard,” Mat chuckles, his laugh bouncing off the walls of his bedroom.

“Someone’s gotta think around here Mat.”

**

You were going to win, you were sure of it. It didn’t matter if Mat had years of playing an extremely competitive sport under his designer belt, he’d never met you. You were competitive by nature, maybe it had something to do with your family. Maybe it was because you’re one of three women in your department with the Rangers, and there were only a handful of others. Maybe it was because Mat was smug and you wanted him to just shut his mouth for once. Either way, you were in the zone. Your heels were high, and your head was held higher while you strutted down the street to a bar that was only a few blocks away from your apartment.

“I would have had my Uber swing by you,” Mat suggests, giving a once over while you walked over to him, “I don’t know if we would have made it here though.”

“Like I’ve said before, you’re not going near my building-” You start to remind him, a condensing tone to your voice that was hushed by his hand waving you off.

“I know, I know. Damn,” Mat cuts you off, his voice lowering while he grabbed your hand, “You’re really trying to win, am I that good in bed?”

“You’re one to talk,” You scoff, internally trying to stop the heat you could feel rushing to your cheeks when the words slipped from your mouth. Mat looked good, a pair of jeans that were showing off his incredibly toned thighs, reminding you of the filthy dream you had about riding them. A button down that was missing a few buttons on purpose, a shiny silver chain hanging down that you’d yet to see.

“Was that a compliment? Do you think I’m hot?” Mat laughs, a wide smile on his face that he finally caught you.

“Objectively, yes, I think you’re hot,” You roll your eyes, crossing your arms as if it were your armor from letting any other nice things about Mat that you did enjoy to slip out.

“Wow,” Mat says, pulling you into his chest, “You’re pretty cute when you’re nice.”

“And what about when I’m not nice?” You ask, your cheek pressed against Mat’s chest. 

“You’re hot as fuck,” Mat whispers, “You going to lose tonight.”

“You’re on Barz,” You say, wagging your finger at him while you disappeared into the crowd to find your first victim.

By the time a few hours had passed by, you had almost fifteen new numbers in your phone, five drinks you didn’t pay for, and a confidence that you were winning this stupid game. You look around the bar, the man in front of you droning on about whatever basketball game was on TV, and you spotted Mat. Mat who had a girl practically hanging off him, but his attention had been directed at you.

“Hey, I’ve got to run,” You excuse yourself, ignoring anything the guy in front of you was saying and walking back over to Mat.

“Oh hey look it’s my girlfriend,” Mat announces, like he’d been surprised to see you. The girl next to him was giving you daggers, as if you were the one who stopped her from her chance with Mat, who’s eyes were begging you to just go along with it, “Babe, we should head out?”

“Yeah we should,” You agree, letting Mat grab your hand and lead you outside.

The moment the cool winter air of Manhattan hit you both, you turned to each other and smiled. Mat’s laugh came first, the laugh that echoed even outside because it was so loud, followed by yours while you both doubled over in laughter. Mat finally stops, catching his breath and staring at you intently for a moment, like he was thinking for the first time in his life, “I think you won.”

“How do you know?” You ask, wondering how long his eyes had been on you.

“Because I got two numbers and then I couldn’t stop watching you,” Mat admits, “It was impressive.”

“I know,” You say simply, it was your turn to be the smug one, “You going to hold up your end of the deal or what?”

The ride back to Mat’s apartment was quiet, at least on your end. Mat spent the entire ride talking about the Isles to your Uber driver, who was over the moon to have Mat Barzal himself in their car. You drowned out the noise, scrolling through your phone until a text came through from Chris.

Are you going to meet us out or are you still with your secret boyfriend?

It was supposed to be playful, not the guilt tripping text it was. Mat wasn’t your boyfriend, not by any means, but he was a secret you were hiding with a lock and key. Chris was probably the only one smart enough to realize something was off, especially when you’d come into work with some awful story about a date to remind Chris just how bad dating was. You sigh, leaving it on read and just ignoring the icky feeling that was in your stomach.

“Something’s wrong,” The words fell out of Mat’s mouth the second you stepped into the elevator to his apartment.

“Nothing’s wrong,” You deny it, but it was clear that text had soured your mood. You’d usually revel in the fact that you beat Mat, and there would be no way you wouldn’t have been a little bit of a sore winner. 

Mat sighs, leaning his head against the elevator. His hands were in his pockets while he bit his lip, thinking for a minute, “Okay.”

“Okay?” You ask, because there was no way that Mat, who in the small time that you’d known him, hasn’t just accepted anything you said.

“Okay,” Mat shrugs, opening the door to his place and letting you in, “Listen, you don’t owe me anything, and that’s cool. Besides you’d die before you told me what’s bothering you, so how about you come into my room. I’ll make you cum, and whatever’s bothering you won’t matter until tomorrow.”

Mat was right. Ew, don’t ever think that again. But he was right in the sense that he didn’t mean anything. Mat was a distraction, and you could put anyones head on that beautiful body of his and it would still mean the same thing - nothing.

“I did win tonight,” You say, dragging out your words.

“Anything you want in particular winner?” Mat says, dropping onto his bed and pulling his shirt from behind his head.

You bite your lip, a small fantasy that always lived in your head was pushing its way through your brain. Mat smirks, as if he could read your mind, “There’s one thing, it’s dumb, you know what nevermind let’s just fuck so I can go home and-”

Mat’s eyebrows furrow, “I don’t want to be your fuck buddy Y/N, I want to be your fuck soulmate.”

“Barz, I’m really going to stop coming over if you keep saying weird shit like that,” You threaten, given it wasn’t the first time since your little fling started that you’d said that. Mat told you the weirdest things, and you never knew if it was on purpose and meant anything or if Mat was just a little dumb.

“I mean it, I want to know all the kinky shit Y/N,” Mat says gently, knowing he probably crossed some weird unspoken rule by mentioning the word soulmate to someone he was just fucking on the low.

“I want to sit on, uh, you know,” You say, any bedroom confidence you’d gained over the years went right out the windows in Mat’s apartment. 

“You want to sit on my face don’t you?” Mat smirks, crossing his toned arms across his chest.

“Yes, I told you it’s dumb-” You rush out, a blush creeping up your cheeks while you tried to find some invisible shell in crawl into and never have to look Mat in the eyes again.

“Get over here,” Mat chuckles, “I told you, fuck soulmates Y/N.”

And so you did, Mat had somehow managed to take a term that should have disgusted you to your core and made it mean something that was weirdly intimate. Mat was your secret, and that secret was finding new ways to break down the walls you spent so much building around you. You slipped out of Mat’s bed like you did every night, turning around to give him one more look before you headed back to your place. A part of

you screamed to just stay, tuck your head into that broad chest and play with the chain hanging from his neck. The other part, your logical side, was telling you to run away and never come back - but something told you that you weren’t going to do that either. You woke up the next morning with a guilty feeling in your stomach and a text from Mat staring back at you.

You looked so good on top of me babe, couldn’t keep my eyes off you.

You were screwed.