#so write what I’d want to read is just. I guess that’s the only play left besides do something else
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How do you feel about the different styles of writing POVs?
Personally, first person is the most awkward to write and the most restrictive. It definitely has its place though, when the narrative lends itself to releasing limited info. I can’t bring myself to write in first person though, it feels so weird. I think I enjoy a level of detachment when reading and writing fiction.
I’ve seen people rag on second person but I find it the easiest to read, it seems more natural than say, first person. You’re understanding the narrator but you’re not physically in their shoes. You’re a silent observer, privy to character thoughts but also able to detach and view them as a whole. There’s a level of intimacy with the character but more detachment than first person.
Okay so google says third person can be split into two; limited and omniscient.
I find omniscient to be a funny beast, as it’s not a style that I write, often finding that if I give away what everyone was thinking, all the time, the element of mystery is lost. For me, it feels like showing everyone’s inner thoughts or motivations at the same time ruins the suspense, at least in the fiction I write. I think that’s a personal failing though because I enjoy reading fiction with omniscient POV.
Limited, I’d like to say, is more within my wheelhouse, but I have been known to switch character POV in different chapters. I wonder if by switching characters per chapter that actually means I write omniscient. Anyway.
I feel like I’m write in some weird, secondary-third person which feels very much like playing with dolls: X mutters quietly, stepping close to Y. Y responds with a remark, grasping X’s hand. X is overwhelmed, their thoughts racing. Etc.
Very reductive, but you get the point. One persons intentions are clear, the other is not.
I’m troubled as I think that my writing style comes across as unnatural, almost robotic. I find it hard to step into the mind of another person, especially if it’s a creation of not my making - how could I possibly know how this character would react in this situation? I can only guess and hope it reads as in-character. As such, I often find that I don’t spend a lot of time expanding on how characters feel and their inner thoughts on situations, which seems like a really big oversight! It’s difficult for me, though.
Do you have any tips or assurances about this kind of thing?
I apologise as well, brevity is not a strength of mine.
--
Oh god... the things I want to say, nonnie...!
I've promised myself no more really long writing meta on here. I write that stuff for my patreon, which I should be spending more time on.
The short version is: I loathe second person due to early exposure to CYOA books and just finding it clunky and mannered.
First makes it more obvious if your command of character voice is ass, but it's not actually more intimate or harder than limited third.
Limited third is often the most neutral and transparent of voices for English language popular fiction in modern times. It's the norm. It's what has all the conventions built up. Switching chapter by chapter is very common and is not omniscient in any sense, WTF, anon.
Omniscient makes more sense if you've been reading works that are actually in it. Golden Age mystery novels are a good example. No, it does not list every thought of every character. What? No good writing does that. Of course you withhold info.
What does "secondary third person" mean here?
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having a wretched day with a wretched sequel sure to follow tomorrow. michael shelley is going to be whumped about this
#the thing is that i miss him and no one else does anything with him that i want#losing control of my life and also my misophonia so it’s either read or write or play bg#like i would love to get invested in a good michael centric fic but it all just. it’s not what my soul wants#and im not a big fic reader anyway so it’s like. if I can’t find what I want then im not lowering my standards???#but the problem remains that I Miss Him#so write what I’d want to read is just. I guess that’s the only play left besides do something else#and I have a headache so none of it sounds good anyway#but I Miss Him#oh my god will this week never end. will this week never end and will my mom ever be not sick again im so tired#and it’s so shamefully clear that I do not have a caretaker’s soul and it’s just lumping on more shame and guilt to the anger and tiredness#I’m TIRED. im fucking tired and would like to be done with this#and would like to not have the Fucking Headache from Hell also#aster chat
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Confess the longing you are dreaming of
summary: Aemond thinks the woman he has to marry is the most impudent and unsufferable he’s ever met. He’s also never wanted anyone so badly. pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Martell!reader (third person, no mention of Y/N) warnings: bantering and teasing, mentions of unpleasant sexual experience, praise kink (guess who’s got it), a dollop of softness, mild smut (... for starters ;) author’s note: couldn’t get the idea out of my head and spent a few sleepless nights writing this. I imagine her brothers as Pedro Pascal and Oscar Isaac ✨ words: ~8000 song inspo: Hozier — Better love
>>> Aemond isn’t present when the idea is voiced the first time — he has a hunch that his grandsire is to blame for that. No doubt, Otto was the one to plan it out, come up with arguments served with his persuasive tone. He’s always loved to make arrangements and strike deals, each one of them to play into his hands, and Aemond hates the thought of being just another pawn of his.
He is blindsided at the breakfast but it’s made sound carelessly mundane — as Otto puts down his cup, he throws him the proposal, the way one would leniently throw alms to the poor. And Aemond thinks he must’ve heard him wrong.
“Marry me to... Who?” the prince asks, hardly covering his surprise.
His grandsire directs his gaze at him, the old man’s mouth twitching into a condescending smile. Since Otto isn’t keen on idle talk, he tells him plainly:
“You’ve long been of age, Aemond, you know that,” his knife scratches the plate as he cuts the meat, his eyes not moving from the prince. “House Martell holds power, and we’ll be fortunate to have such allies. Besides,” he pauses to take a bite, and Aemond gets annoyed at waiting; Otto chews, then adds, “I’ve only heard good things about your bride-to-be. Wouldn’t you confirm, Ser Criston?”
The mention of the knight is unexpected to them both — Aemond turns his head to meet Ser Criston’s puzzled look. But the brunet effortlessly copes with his emotions:
“We met when she was just a kid. But I knew she’d grow into a fine lady,” he easily agrees. Mayhaps, too easily for Aemond’s liking so he makes a note to talk about it later on.
His grandsire only lets out a pleased hum. “Well, I’m under the impression she will make a good match for our prince,” and Aemond feels that Otto carefully picks each word, “She’s said to be both beautiful and smart, and known for being quite independent,” he’s usually so stingy with his praise, it’s worth its weight in gold.
But that is not what Aemond hears. The choice was made for him, and his rejection of it makes him paint a portrait less alluring — a pompous wayward woman raised in the traditions that are starkly different from his; and yet, it is expected of him to accept it freely. His wounded ego simmers at the thought.
“I’d add another word to that,” Aegon chimes in, half-drunk already, “Everyone knows the Martells to also be promisc—”
“Look who’s talking,” Otto glares at him, and Aegon shuts his mouth.
The word is left unsaid, only the meaning of it isn’t hard to guess, and Aemond feels embarrassment creeping up his cheeks and weighting down his chest. He deems himself an educated man, well-read and eager to put his knowledge to the test, but he has yet to learn of carnal pleasures. A memory is clawing out: him, ten-and-three and plied with wine, laid on a bed that smelled of sweat, a naked woman next to him. Despite her tireless attempts, he wanted none of it, and the repulsion made him sick — and then it made him hate the act itself.
He did go to the brothel through the years, tried watching, touching, looked at bodies of all sorts, only it felt like putting paint over a rotten wall. He felt constrained, and lacking in some way (perhaps, in many), and more so awfully incomplete. Not once he sensed a spark, a pleasure he would crave, and no amount of effort could help him fill the emptiness inside.
He quells the feeling, pushes in indifference instead, and glances briefly at his mother. She meets his eye but only grants him a faint smile, her own gaze lacking any protest.
“Her brothers wrote that they would visit in a fortnight,” Alicent peacefully explains. “It is our duty to ensure a royal welcome.”
“Brothers?” Helaena blithely chirps. “How many does she have?”
“Four but only two of them are coming,” Otto tells her softly, then looks at Aemond, adding in a voice more wily. “I am convinced they really want to see whom their dear sister is about to marry.”
He doesn’t spell it out but the implication can’t be clearer — Aemond must play the part and make a good impression. As if impressing just one stranger wasn’t tedious enough.
As if he isn’t vexed already by how unsuitable he finds her.
>>> Frustration grows in Aemond with each day, takes roots, and clogs up all his thoughts. Some other man would’ve been glad — he often heard that the Martells are quite the lovers. He can’t admit it to himself how much he’s bothered by his own misfortunes on the love field.
He bottles his emotions up and doesn’t utter any word of discontent, nor does he ever speak of the awaited visit. Although he makes just one exception.
“My grandsire mentioned that you knew her,” he reminds Ser Criston one day after training.
The knight nods. “I crossed paths with Quentyn, he’s the oldest. She used to come to watch us train.”
“What was she like?” Aemond carefully wonders.
Ser Criston ponders for a minute, polishing his sword. “She was a quiet little girl, kept to herself. A lot of boys were always chasing after her, and she paid them all no mind,” he smiles at the memory. “But I remember one of them who was... particularly pesky. His charms didn’t work on her so he got offended, rude, followed her around. She tolerated him for over a month. One morning, he was hassling her in the training yard, and she just took a spear laying nearby — and smacked him with no warning,” he shakes his head but it’s apparent that he isn’t judging. “She didn’t use the pointy end but she got him good. And then she told him that next time he would think twice about his actions. She was impressive for a ten-year-old,” he muses and puts the sword away, then turns to Aemond, giving him a wistful stare. “Frankly, I think that you will like her.”
He does, for just a second, as his mind rushes to paint the image of a fearless little girl; and then he mercilessly wipes that image off. Maybe in other circumstances, he could’ve found amusement in that story, but Aemond only huffs and thinks back to the list of all her traits he prematurely made up. He adds “rebellious” to that list, and his self-doubt is a venom that clouds his judgment. He’s in no rush to find a cure.
>>> Their ship arrives a few hours earlier than planned — and after the dock watchers break the news, the bustle begins. Maids, servants, guards all run and faff about the castle, the dining hall gets filled with smells and noises, plates and dishes clanking.
Aemond is not excited in the slightest.
He dresses up reluctantly, each piece of clothes only dampening his mood that’s been already sour for the past two weeks. He all but drags his feet into the dining hall and by the time he reaches it, he looks so grim that one may think the prince’s preparing for his death, no less.
The minutes fly too quickly for his liking — they barely have time to sit, his mother nervously toying with the tablecloth already, and then the guards rush to announce the guests. Surprisingly, she’s not among them. The prince thinks he should be relieved; deep down, there is a splash of worry fizzling in him.
Her brothers walk in calmly in a cloud of servants bearing gifts. Their kinship is immediately clear — both tall, broad-shouldered, and dark-haired, self-confidence subsisting in their every step. The oldest is distinguished by a touch of gray in his short beard, his gaze more focused, a slight smile plastered on his face. The other one shamelessly stares at every maid his eyes can catch.
“Your grace, it is a pleasure to finally meet you,” Quentyn reaches their table first, and Alicent walks down to greet them. He keeps his distance and his smile, his tone is measured. “We were so sad to learn that the King has fallen sick. But I can tell the Kingdom is in great hands. And —”
“Women’s hands do have a healing touch,” Oberyn smoothly interrupts, his accent a bit thicker, his voice honeyed. “I will prefer a Queen over a King at any given day. Unless, of course, your husband can compete with you in beauty... I somehow doubt that.”
A shade of disapproval grazes Quentyn’s face but Alicent is too amazed to notice. The compliment may come off as blunt but she still takes it well, her smile embarrassed yet sincere.
“I hope you will enjoy your stay,” she tells them humbly, then looks over the crowd. “But may I ask where is the lady we’ve been waiting for?”
“She made a stop on our way to catch up with an old friend,” Quentyn answers, ready to explain, “It’s been years since we’ve met Ser —”
“Still can’t believe he is the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,” Oberyn chuckles. “I think it’s all the armor that makes it look like he poses a threat. But you may reconsider if you see him in the nude.”
This time, the older brother glares at him with warning, and there’s a lull in their conversation, while Aemond’s struggling to hear what made his mother’s cheeks so red, his mind nervously preoccupied with someone else —
her laughter enters first.
It’s bright and joyful, a sound so lovely it might be enough to crack up his restraint. But then he spots her, and it feels like his whole body flares up at the sight.
She’s walking with her hand under Ser Criston’s arm, and Aemond’s never seen a dress that covers so much but hides so little. It’s muted orange, floor-length, made of sumptuous silk, with two long slits along the sides, curves of her thighs beguilingly seen through. Her neck and arms aren’t covered, and the material is intricately stitched around her waist to show a few more glimpses of her sun-kissed skin. The waves of her long hair fall on her shoulders and frame her face, each feature of it striking but her lips stand out the most — full, plump, and reddish. Not once before Aemond found the thought of being kissed so tempting.
She doesn’t even turn her head to look at him. She’s talking to Ser Criston quietly, and he’s engaged in conversation, unusually relaxed. Their difference in age is obvious, and the knight seems like just another relative of hers, but an uneasy feeling still leaves a bite on Aemond’s chest. He can’t imagine her so carefree — so beaming and compliant — by his side. His jealousy tastes bitter like a stale wine.
He hears his brother let out a short laugh. “It’s not like they were fucking,” Aegon carelessly notes. “Please ease your outrage before she runs away.”
“I don’t remember asking for advice,” Aemond snarls.
“You do look like you need it,” the blond comments, then goes back to drinking.
She gracefully approaches them, her voice melodic like a murmur of a river. “Forgive me, your grace, for being late, I haven’t seen Ser Criston in some time,” she tells his mother. “He was once a dear friend of mine.”
“I only helped to shush away a few of your admirers,” the knight cackles, earning a smile from her.
“I hope you are making use of all his talents,” she says to the Queen, making her face flush right away.
She delicately moves on to another topic. “It is a pleasure to have you here, you must be tired from taking such a long trip.”
“We found it quite enjoyable,” Quentyn remarks politely. “The beautiful sights along the way are worth the journey, and your city has some great views too.”
“Can’t say I’ve heard great things about your food,” Oberyn grins. “Hence why we took the liberty to bring some of our own,” he signals to the nearest servant, who runs to open one of the trunks they carried. “The dornish fruits are also my sister’s weak spot.”
“As if you don’t gorge yourself on them!” she jests, letting go of Ser Criston’s arm at last. “My brother is a glutton, your grace, please excuse his manners in advance.”
“You can call me Alicent,” his mother corrects her warmly. “Only seems fair to continue this discussion at the table,” she slightly moves away to let the girl go first.
Aemond unintentionally stiffens and only when he stands up from his chair to greet her, she finally does look at him. In contrast to her countenance, her gaze is dark and piercing, and the prince is staggered by how unreadable it is. Her brothers glance at Aemond briefly — Quentyn is pensive, while Oberyn looks like he wants to bite his head off; neither says a word.
She’s seated to his right, and she leaves behind a trail of scent — apples and plums, and he can’t help but catch the movement of her hips under the flowing dress. The words all mash and fall apart, and he can’t pick a single one to strike up a conversation.
Aegon is sitting next to her, and his patience only lasts a minute. “Never knew Ser Criston was such a ladies' man.”
“I’m sure he succeeded on that front but we are merely good friends,” she answers calmly, keeping her eyes on servants bringing fruits — blood oranges and pomegranates, robust grapes, and ripened cherries.
“You two seemed more than friendly,” Aegon presses, his tone evidently taunting.
She picks a golden apricot and runs her thumb over its fragrant surface. “Maybe it’s the wine that makes you see things,” she rebuts and takes a bite out of the fruit, a drop of juice risking to escape her mouth but she wipes it swiftly with her finger. She catches Aemond looking, and his cheeks heat up.
“We’ve never seen him in the company of a woman,” the older prince points out, filling up his cup once more.
She takes out the kernel and eats up the fruit, her mouth glistens. “Aren’t the knights of the Kingsguard forbidden to marry?”
“Never stopped them from bedding whoever they like,” Aegon remarks crudely, and Aemond is thankful that their mother is too preoccupied with Oberyn’s tireless chatting.
“Maybe some men have the decency to follow orders,” she responds, unbothered, taking a cherry and clasping it with her lips. Aegon doesn’t seem to notice and only gulps the wine and rolls his eyes. Aemond can’t look away.
“Aren’t you Martells known for not following the rules? I thought unruly was in your house’s motto,” Aegon argues, a corner of his mouth curled in a smirk.
She takes another cherry, the third in a row, her lips already stained with juice. “I think you keep getting your facts wrong,” she brushes him off, and Aegon goes to object some more but spills the wine right on his shirt. The displeased cry brings Aemond out of his trance.
“He tends to do that when he’s drunk,” the one-eyed prince coolly interjects.
Her eyes flicker to him, then she fully turns her head. “So you can actually talk,” her teasing comes off soft but her gaze still burns. “It’s good to know.”
“You seemed preoccupied with someone else,” he musters an excuse.
“Do you expect your wife to never speak to other men?” her voice almost betrays her disenchantment.
“No,” Aemond quickly answers, caught unawares by how strained his thinking process is. “She— you are free to choose your friends, of course.”
“I’m flattered,” her tone suggesting otherwise, “Not that I would ask for anyone’s approval,” she reaches for a plum; he closes his eye with a sigh.
Aegon comes to stand in between them on the pretext of needing another carafe of wine: “I didn’t mean to interrupt your friendly bickering, please continue.”
“It seems like Aemond isn’t in the mood for talking,” she doesn’t look at him, the tip of her tongue darting to lick her finger. “And I am never in the mood for begging.”
“My brother’s hospitality leaves much to be desired,” Aegon takes a sip. “So I regret the disappointment you are soon to suffer,” his hand falls on her chair. “But if you ever wish to be... well satisfied, all you have to do is ask me”.
It’s hard to tell if Aegon’s actually that drunk or merely provoking (or if he’s got a death wish, Aemond wonders).
She replies without much thought. “Well, if I ever find myself in need of...,” she trails off with a smile but her gaze gets harsh — her words then follow, “My choice won’t fall on you,” the smirk falls off Aegon’s face, and she glances straight at Aemond, adding, “I like them taller.”
But her straightforwardness is met with his resistance, with the deep-rooted unacceptance of his lurking needs. He adds “indecent” to the list, and they speak no more.
>>> Her boldness doesn’t pose a problem to anyone but him. To his surprise (or more so to his shock), his mother gives in first.
The morning can’t come fast enough for Aemond after he spends the night tossing and turning. A few hours later he rushes to the garden for a walk, overwhelmed by restlessness his training didn’t help him cope with. That’s when he sees it — a spot of yellow shining through the trees. He somehow knows it’s her without further confirmation but still, his feet carry him on.
Her dress is vivid like a field of marigolds, her hair plaited, wrists adorned with golden bracelets. He slackens pace and peers into her — and he wants nothing more than to drink her up, her whole appearance is the sweetest nectar... Until he hears another sound and realizes she is not alone, and it’s his mother sitting by her side, wrapped in her favorite green and, unexpectedly, in glee. He can’t remember when he saw her laugh like this — out loud, giggling, tears at the corners of her eyes are not from sadness but from joy.
“My dear, that is so improper! Did he apologize at least?” Alicent inquires with a smile.
“Oberyn rarely does,” she tells her serenely. “His lover looked way more ashamed. I hope each of your rooms has locks, gods know I don’t want to walk in on him again.”
Unlike his mother who is covered by the shade of trees, she’s bathing in the sun, the soft light caressing her skin, and Aemond’s eye greedily follows every ray. In barely a minute he feels warm all over.
“I hope that Aemond’s chambers got locks too,” she adds all of a sudden, a bit louder, and his chest is splashed with cold.
His eye moves to her face, and she’s already looking at him, direct and daring. He knows he’s hidden by the trees but there’s no hiding from her gaze.
Aemond turns away and steps back in haste, his abashment mixed with grievance at her implication. He believes someone like her would never lust for him, and her jokes at his expense not only hurt but prompt his resentment to grow stronger. He adds “deceptive” to the portrait of her he is so adamantly set on painting.
>>> She wins Helaena’s heart with ease. His sister fondly compliments her brooch — a little poppy made out of gold — and she gifts it to Helaena the same day. The silver-haired princess grabs at chance to show her own collection, and they spend the day looking through the jewels spread over the floor, sitting right there and equally amused.
And that’s how Aemond finds them. He only planned to see his nephews but hearing her voice coming from Helaena’s chambers makes him slow his step.
“... And this one he gave me for my latest name day,” Helaena babbles cheerfully.
“Aemond clearly spoils you,” she laughs without a shade of envy. “As he should!”
“He is very kind at heart,” Helaena eagerly assures her. “You will be happy with him, I am certain of it.”
There is a pause that makes him feel uneasy, makes him sneak up closer to the room.
“I do believe he’s not an evil man,” she finally says, “Maybe he just wasn’t made for marriage.”
Surely she can’t see him through the door but he can swear that he feels her gaze, like a silent challenge, a hidden mocking. He barges in without a knock.
Helaena beams. “We were just talking about you!”
His sister’s dress is milky blue, modestly pretty, and loosely fitted. It’s also treacherously pale compared to the liquid gold the Martell girl is dressed in. She’s sitting with her feet under her thighs, the bending of her back is bare and in plain sight. He should’ve walked away the second he heard the sound of her voice because not looking at her seems impossible.
“Oh, you came to see the twins? They are with Aegon but I can call— No, I will bring them back myself,” Helaena springs to her feet, rosy-cheeked and smiley, and leaves the room before Aemond can protest. And then it’s just the two of them.
He takes a breath and makes an effort, with his jaw tense and his blood rising, to drag his eye away from her. It feels as pointless as ignoring sunlight in an open field on a summer day. Only her beauty is more brazen — and so is her wit.
“I take it, gold isn’t your favorite color,” she speaks up with an impish tone. “Would be a bad idea to wear it on our wedding then.”
She never comes too close, always just a little out of reach, and yet he feels as if her presence grips him, weakening his will. He doesn’t want to be with her until he is — and then he has no wish to leave.
It scares Aemond as much as it spikes his anger.
“Why did you agree to come?” he bristles.
“You are not asking about your sister’s chambers, are you?” she clarifies, and he hears her smiling.
He tells himself he only needs to cast a glance to check.
He does — he meets her gaze — her earrings catch the sunlight and cast a trail of glares — the scattering of specks play on her skin, her neck and collarbones, sneak to her upper chest — his own is heaving. His struggle only lasts a moment but it leaves him short of breath. He isn’t looking anymore, his eye trying to discern the pattern on the drapes behind her.
“Our marriage, how do you benefit from it?” he hates how hard it is to control his voice.
And how she watches him intently without giving him a clue of what’s on her mind.
“I plan on visiting my family a couple of times a year. It will be easier to do on dragon back,” she doesn’t sound spiteful when she says it but her words still sting.
He can’t stop an image flashing through his mind: her on top of Vhagar, lungs full of air, pressed to him. It’s tempting — to have her in his hands, and yet the vision is too intangible to cling to. Instead, he thinks that in just three days she learned to play him like a harp, his years' worth of self-control is merely a sand castle against the tide of her sharp tongue.
He only snickers dryly at her reply, then they both hear the sound of running footsteps. Jaehaera and Jaehaerys rush to greet him — but almost instantly abandon, the kids' attention drawn to the shining golden dress.
He thinks “unruly” suits her better than does “pompous”. He comes up with a fake excuse to leave; the image of her stays with him.
>>> He picks more adjectives as the week goes on — she’s audacious, disobedient, wanton. She moves around the castle as if she owns every room she’s in. She wears less, and even on rare occasions when she doesn’t, her defiance more than compensates for it. She never shies away from a deep neckline, nor does she feel the need to hold back her resounding laughs. Her jewelry clinks, each of her dresses is brighter than the other, but it’s her wicked mouth his eye always falls on first.
More times than not, Aemond can’t tear his gaze away, each meal for him now both a torture and a feast.
He watches as she parts her lips, puts them around a luscious grape, a cherry, or a peach, she swipes her tongue to lick up every running drop, savoring its tang — and keeps eye contact with him. He barely can taste the food he’s eating, and no wine can quench his thirst, his body flooding with a feeling he can’t define, his heart adrift.
He tries to fight it off with all our strength. He scratches off “unruly” to write down “unabashed” instead.
But then the dinner comes, and even though he’s never had a taste for sweets, he thinks he’d eat them from her lips (deep down, he wants to). The lies he tells himself are brittle like the flesh of fruits under her teeth.
>>> He comes to think “insufferable” fits her the best. That thought rings in his head while he is standing in the stable, his eye on anything but her. He was informed she wished to pick a horse, and he begrudgingly agreed to come, only to keep up the pretense.
What turns out to be much harder is for him to keep restraint. The dress she’s wearing might as well be a chemise — it’s just as light and white, and much to his discomfort, it also tirelessly risks hiking up to expose more of her legs.
Discomfort, mayhaps, isn’t the right word for it.
He stays out of her way but, unsurprisingly, he ends up looking — at how she walks, spring in her step, swinging her hips. She gives each horse a piece of apple and feeds them by hand, strokes their muzzles, and then she mounts and rides them, one by one. She grabs the reins, her foot easily finds the stirrup, and as she swings her leg over the saddle, her dress slips up, showing a few inches of her skin.
He swallows thickly, glances more intently — over her dainty ankles, bending of her knees, he notes how smooth her skin is, soaking up the sun. Her dress then billows slightly, and his eye glides higher, hungry, follows up the contour of her thighs that bounce a little as the horse gallops.
He feels it blooming — a sensation with no name that travels from the lower chest down to his very navel, then spreads and tightens all that’s underneath.
He is so deep in his enthrallment, he doesn’t hear the steps approaching until there’s someone standing next to him. Quentyn stays silent for a minute, throwing him a sideways glance.
“My sister’s always been terribly picky,” the man says out of the blue, “And usually it’s hard to meet all of her demands,” — it doesn’t seem like it’s the horses he is talking of. The vagueness of it makes Aemond focus as he takes his eye off her but Quentyn doesn’t elaborate, giving him a smile instead. “I do admit, your patience is commendable. Some other man would’ve already interfered just to wrap the process up.”
“I was under the impression she doesn’t need anyone’s help,” Aemond replies evasively.
“You guessed it right,” Quentyn titters, his tone veiled with the same unclear meaning when he adds, “The only thing left for us all is to accept it,” and with that, he goes to join his sister.
When Aemond — tamely, almost yielding — takes a peek at her, his gaze collides with Oberyn’s who clearly watched them talk. Unlike his older brother, he prefers to stay away, but the mischief in him pairs really well with danger. He grants Aemond a nod, switching attention back to her, his threats unspoken for the meantime.
For just a second, it gives Aemond pause as he finds it odd that no one brings up their wedding, and no announcements have been made ever since she came. He doesn’t mull over it for long because her laughter interrupts his thoughts (or maybe he just yearns for any chance to look at her). She rides around the yard, her hair floating in the wind, a little breathless but breathtaking, her lips enticing and her curves making his throat dry.
He tries to ground himself, to look for explanations, for some reprieve from the entrancing spell he’s under — he’s never been so close to losing reason —
out of the corner of his eye, he sees a couple of guards dropping their gaze in poor attempts to stop themselves from gawking; it reins his passion, bringing back his jealousy instead. He’s way too used to seeing himself unworthy to even entertain the thought of having her, and his denial prickles. He wants to burn his feelings out, and anger helps with that — it breaks out and engulfs him fast, hardening both his heart and gaze.
“Quentyn is the friendliest of the two, and you couldn’t hold a conversation?” Aegon appears out of nowhere, seemingly displeased despite the bottle in his hand. “Must you always be so gruff? I stayed behind in hopes you’d make it work!” he waves at Oberyn then glares at Aemond, waiting for a reply. “Are you pretending to be deaf or...?”
“Must she test my patience?” Aemond mutters, his tone not jealous but exasperated, his eye boring into her, “Putting herself out like that for all the men to see.”
Aegon being speechless is a rare sight. He cannot fathom it at first, looking from Aemond back to her, confusion sobering him up. And then he grins, realization creeping up on him; there are some things he’s always quick to notice.
“It’s funny that you say that,” he leans in to tell him and catches Aemond’s gaze, “Since it’s just you who’s staring,” Aegon pats him on the back and leaves to greet her brothers.
Aemond tries to choke it down — his irritation and his shame combined, but it’s too much for him to handle, his head and heart clearly in conflict. He doesn’t wait for her to make a choice, retiring without sparing her a glance (a fear nibs at him that if he looks at her once more, he will stay rooted to the ground).
He doesn’t leave his chambers for the remainder of the day, dining all alone and fuming all the same. He’s usually good at curbing his emotions but he is having trouble understanding them, wanting nothing more than to erase all memories of her. But even in his solitude, he catches himself thinking — about her cunning smile and swaying hips, her eyes on him, his hands wanting to roam and touch and —
Aemond shoves unwanted thoughts away and goes to bed earlier than usual. He remains steadfast in his resolve to find some peace, he makes a conscious effort to shift his focus to all the boring, random things his mind can come up with until he is too tired to care.
But then he falls asleep, and his subconscious welcomes her. He sees her right before his eye in that obscenely short white dress, there are no people in the yard, her tantalizing moves all meant for him. She hops off her black horse and walks to him without a single word — anticipation makes him drop his guard and hold his breath — and then he feels her lips on his, her body pressing into him, his hunger for her ruining his self-control, the kiss is searing, suffocating, driving him insane, his fingers pulling up her dress —
he wakes up painfully aroused.
He lays in bed, his heartbeat rushing, his breathing ragged, and vision blurred. While he’s still grasping for the remnants of his dream, he sneaks his hand into his breeches, wishing he could rip her dress off and sheath himself inside her, spread her on his bed, and drink every salacious sound she makes... It only takes him a few strokes to spill over his fingers; he can’t remember if he’s ever reached his peak so fast.
And only then, as he comes down from his high, it hits him, like lightning in the dark — in spite of her remarks, her audacity, her dresses, and every cruel adjective he’s found for her, he’s never wanted anyone so badly. Aemond sits up abruptly, his sleep gone, giving way to stubbornness that comes hand in hand with reticence. He persuades himself that he’ll suppress this — the spark, the pleasure that he craves, and he won’t be a slave to his desires.
He’ll rid himself of feelings, of this lust. Inevitably it will wane.
>>> It doesn’t.
Desire is a guest that never leaves, unwanted but demanding space, attention, time. It slips into his thoughts the moment he wakes up, it whispers in his ears, never giving up, it’s layered in between his clothes and his skin. He hides it well from everyone; it lodges deeper into him.
Desire is a cherry in her mouth, each fruit she bites in, savors, drinks the juice from. He doesn’t want to watch — he can’t take his eye off her, caught in his fervor like in undertow, the flavor of her lips the only one he truly yearns for.
Desire bruises more than does a hit, cuts deeper than a blade, and there’s no weapon he can fight it off with. His training brings him no relief, and he can’t sweat it out or wash it off him, and even while he soaking in a bath, it feels like longing only rises back with steam.
Desire waits for him at night, stands by his bed, slides right under the covers with him. He dreams of her, and in those dreams, her body sings under his every touch, trembles from his praise, his hands and mouth paint her with marks and kisses. He wakes up with his chest aflame and out of breath, and then it takes all of his willpower not to crawl to her.
It staggering how much he really wants her, and he hates himself for it.
>>> It’s been three weeks and they have barely shared a word. He does his best to cut down their encounters and avoid her, he doesn’t argue and takes no offense, he hopes that if he pulls back just enough she will give up and let him be.
Aemond spends his evenings in the study, his table piled with books, and for a couple of hours, it does help to take his mind off things. The night already steals in while he’s searching through the shelves for scrolls, too caught up in the process to pick up the creaking of his door.
Her gaze nearly scalds him. He only looks up out of surprise — and then he freezes at the spot, his heart a stone that plummets to his stomach.
Out of everything she’s worn, this dress might be the one to bring him to his knees — the cutting out the front so low, his eye falls in the hollow between her breasts; he envies fervently the golden chain that rests there. He takes in her whole body, bare arms, and flaunting forms, all clad in deep dark green. He’s never seen her pick that color (and he can’t help but think she put it on for him).
He’s brought back from his stupor when their eyes meet — and startled by the determination in her gaze.
“Ser Criston told me that you missed your training,” she stately starts walking toward him, “Quite a few times this week.”
“I found myself preoccupied with other things,” he clears his throat and clasps his hands behind his back, the scrolls forgotten.
“With reading, I assume?” she almost sounds aggrieved (he wants to ask what else she’d rather have him do) but then her tone gets jaunty. “Would you mind if I join?”
“Actually, I would,” Aemond takes his eye off her, his coldness feigned. “I’d like to avoid distractions.”
And more than anything, he would like for her to leave; she’s not the one to give up so easily. “Maybe we can learn some things together?” she nonchalantly insists, and that ambiguity — deliberate or not — leaves his face suffused with pink.
“I highly doubt you take interest in the things I study,” he manages, his crudeness biting his own tongue.
She only sneers, already nearing his table. “You surely rush to judgment.”
“And I am never wrong.” (Although he’s been wrong once before.)
“That’s very humble of you.” (And she’s tenacious with her intent to prove him wrong again.)
“I am surprised you know that word,” he replies too hastily — and instantly regrets his outburst.
And his attempts to get away from her could’ve been valiant, but only left him feeling like a coward.
She’s got enough courage to spare. “Oh, my apologies, did I strike a nerve?” her hip grazes a stack of books. “You sound so displeased with my behavior,” she puts her hands right on his table, her cleavage in full view.
“You interrupted my studies,” he’s looking only at her face.
“Just this one time,” she clears up, her sly smile is a dare, “Sounds like you have quite a few complaints.”
Damned be her dress and the day he laid his eye on her. “It’s clear as day that we have nothing in common,” he hisses, her persistence molding his anger. “From your bawdy humor to your reckless behavior and your...,” he struggles to push the word through his mouth, “vulgar dresses — everything suggests that we will never make a good couple.”
He catches a gleam in her gaze but it’s not threatening nor hurt — and when the corners of her mouth curl up, her face expression actually looks amused. “I didn’t realize my presence tormented you that much,” she crosses arms over her chest, her hands under her breasts; he looks away that very instant. “So will it please you if I take my vulgar dresses and go back home and leave you be?”
He wants to say it will — he’s thought of it for days — but now he isn’t sure. The dreams he has of her will hardly be enough as every image he collected has got nothing on the real form.
“Is there anything that does?” she asks him suddenly and takes a step in his direction, and then another one.
Belatedly, he realizes that he’s backed against the wall. The air in the room heats up, and Aemond moves back to his table, fingers holding to its edge to find some balance. “...Does what?”
“Please you,” she swiftly clarifies, now standing at arm’s length.
“That isn’t any of your concern,” he wants to glance away and yet, his eye is drawn to her.
“I am inclined to disagree,” her lips stretch into a smile. “Shouldn’t a wife know how to make her husband feel good?”
“We are not married yet,” he tries to argue weakly.
“I’d like to learn beforehand,” but her assertiveness works quicker than his doubts.
The time is still, and seconds drag like hours. His heart leaps at the thought of being all alone with her, his concentration crumbling, his self-restraint already hanging by a thread.
“The way you look at me suggests you aren’t averse to the idea,” she tells him in a low voice, her eyes two glowing embers. Aemond gulps, she deftly rounds the table. “You act so cold and so collected,” she muses, coming closer, and he helplessly steps back. “But I am yet to meet a man who would deny himself the pleasure of laying with a woman,” her voice is warm and warming; his legs bump into the chair, prompting him to sit.
He hesitates for barely a moment but his quick reaction fails him because the next thing he knows, she’s standing next to him, her golden chain casting a blinding glint — he blinks — and then she’s straddling him, her thighs on either side of his.
Aemond’s mouth falls slack as he becomes aware: to lift her he will have to touch her. He glances down at her legs that sneaked out through the long slits of her dress, all bare to the very hips before him.
“I wonder if you are too spoiled by the attention of the ladies? Mayhaps you’ve got so satiated, the intimacy doesn’t bring you any joy,” she runs her fingers up his chest.
He only finds it in himself to shake his head. She isn’t satisfied with that reaction. “Or do you simply find it boring and have a taste for something else?”
Objection bubbles in his throat but he gets no chance to voice it — he barely registers a clinking sound before he feels cold steel pressed under his chin, her fingers wrapped around the hilt of his own dagger. He meant to leave it at the training yard but it completely slipped his mind.
“Does this work better? I’ve heard that you Targaryens have peculiar tastes,” her other hand lands on his shoulder, his chest is stirring with emotions he can’t read.
“That’s not— No,” he mumbles, his voice raw, the weight and feeling of her body overwhelming.
She cocks her brow at him in disbelief. “No? So it’s just plain old satiation then?” she makes no attempt to press the blade but her questions do get pushy. “Must be so hard when women throw themselves at you ever since you were... What was it, ten? Twelve years of age?”
He would expect her to sound teasing — instead, he hears disappointment. That’s the reaction he is used to getting.
“My brother took me to a pleasure house when I was ten-and-three. He said it’s time to get it wet,” he forces out, “And it was...,” awful and humiliating, something he wishes to forget, “...Not what you are describing.”
Her face expression changes — first surprised, then splashed with sadness, and her every feature softens. Aemond sees her opening her mouth to speak but he averts his gaze, abasement scrabbling at him. His eye falls closed, and he keeps thinking that now she will get up and leave, and there won’t be any wedding, and he’s got no reason to get so overly upset already, and —
she sheathes his dagger without a word, the unexpected movement making him breathe out.
And then she dips her head down, and her lips fall on his jaw. Aemond inhales sharply. Her mouth feels softer than it was in all his dreams, and she plants kisses down his throat, moving to the part of it the blade was pressed to. He doesn’t know where to put his hands while hers lock nimbly around his neck.
She pulls back slowly, and he dares to look at her again, trying to catch the merest shadow of pretense but there is none.
“I am truly sorry that you had to go through that,” she tells him quietly. “Have you tried some more since then?”
“I did,” his answer comes off hurried, blank, “I... I am aware of how the act is done.”
“How the act is done? Aemond, that doesn’t sound enjoyable at all,” she pouts, then gently caresses his face, her voice a tender whisper when she adds, “But it should be.”
He stiffens, waiting for the discomfort to wake up, for the aversion to coil his guts, to trigger the jarring need to move away. None of that happens. Instead, he feels her fingers running through his hair, a calming motion bringing only comfort, her every touch relieving tightness in his chest.
“You seem too tense... We have to work on that,” she joyfully murmurs. “Unless, of course, my worry causes you distress,” her fingers stop, “Do you want me to leave, my prince?”
“No,” he rasps, he almost pleads, “D-don’t.”
She hums with satisfaction, bringing her hands down to unclasp his leather doublet, knowing she won’t meet any resistance. He should resent her for this but he doesn’t (he didn’t and he won’t). The air lays cold over his shirt, and Aemond shivers; she moves her fingers down his firm chest with an unspoken admiration.
“Tell me how it usually goes,” she inquires, one of her hands finding its way back to his silver locks. “Do you find pleasure in undressing them?”
Her warmth envelopes him, scented with cinnamon and peaches. “They come without much clothes,” Aemond blurts out, earning another hum from her.
“And what about you?” she glances curiously at him.
“I don’t... I don’t like them touching me,” he timidly avows, and saying it to her does bring somewhat of a relief.
With both of her hands, she cradles his face, thumbs gently contouring his cheeks — he all but melts into her palms. “And yet you are so responsive to the touch,” her voice praises, “So pretty.”
She leans in again, leaving a kiss at the hollow of his throat — and then her mouth travels up, ardent and steady, and he squirms in place. Not out of discomfort.
“You are not supposed to rush it if you want it to feel good,” she whispers in his ear and moves back to catch his gaze. “You never rush into fighting so why love making should be any different?”
Astonishment brightens his face, and she chuckles lightly. “I must confess, I did enjoy watching you train, even though you never noticed. The way you move and twirl your sword,” she’s recollecting breathy, “You are so lithe and fast and so resistant... An infatuating sight.”
She holds his gaze and lifts her hand — he follows it, unblinking, until it finds one of the straps — she hooks it with her fingers. “Fairly soon it made me wonder how would your hands feel... on me,” his heart jolts at her words.
Slowly, she moves the strap aside, baring her breast for him; Aemond’s breathing hitches. She takes his hand in hers, planting a kiss over his knuckles — and then lets his fingers graze her naked skin.
“It was so cruel of you to rob me of my pleasure,” she laments, but he can barely hear a thing, his eye wide as he fixes on the soft swell of her breast, on how her nipple peaks so eagerly under his touch.
She guides his hand over her chest, down to her ribs and waist, letting him brush her every curve, placing his fingers firmly on her hip. And then she reaches for his other hand and lowers the other strap; his body trembles. The layers of his reticence are all peeled at once, leaving his desire raw and undisguised, unshackled. He’s drawn to fondle, clutch at her plump breasts but her grip is tight and taunting, not letting his fingers roam free.
Still, when both his hands sink into her hips, he realizes that he’s getting harder by the second.
It doesn’t go unnoticed by her. With a controlled, torturously slow move she drags her clothed core over his straining cock. His mouth stays closed but there’s a sound — a muffled moan caught in his throat.
“Doesn’t this feel good?” she teases, lightly tugging on his hair, her lips reaching the column of his neck. “With how much you read, I hoped you’d be more generous with words,” each of her kisses weightless like a drop of rain but then her mouth finds a spot below his ear and suckles at it, pulling a whimper from his chest.
He thinks he should... his mind goes blank after another movement of her hips, and she picks up the pace, merciless and sensuous. He tries biting down his moans but only hurts his mouth. She notices, her rapt eyes on him, and puts her finger on his lower lip:
“Please, don’t be shy with me,” she coos, her gentle touch soothing his bitten flesh, “Our desires coincide,” she earnestly affirms him — and the spark erupts and drags him into pure bliss.
He feels that his arousal leaks, his breeches way too tight to hide it, his fingers dig into her supple skin, but she gives no complaints. He watches breathlessly through his hooded eyelid as she grinds against him, then looks over her bouncing breasts, her nipples pebbled, and the pressure curls somewhere down his spine. She peppers him with kisses — the angles of his face, neck, everything that she can reach, except for his desirous mouth. And yet the softness of her lips and hands, her skin that’s draped with the redolent scent, the rhythm of her hips all bring him closer to the edge.
Her forehead is pressed to his, their lips an inch away but never fully touching. “Let go for me,” she says against his mouth, “My handsome, fierce dragon.”
That does it for him. He harshly presses her to him, then shudders with a strangled moan and comes undone, his eye squeezed shut as her name quivers in his mouth. The pleasure whirls him in and leaves him drained and stunned, a little bit light-headed.
It takes Aemond a minute to recover before he finds her gaze again — and in another minute he discerns her shallow breaths, her parted lips, brows slightly furrowed. He wants to ask her if she reached her peak, if he can help her with it —
but she pulls back.
She stands up and only briefly grabs his shoulder, steadying herself, then promptly puts the straps back on, fixing her dress. He wants to lend a hand but she moves it away, leaning in to lightly caress his face. “No, you don’t get to have me yet. I want you to admit it first, to say that you want me,” her words are laced with dignity but cooling to his mind.
She steps back, cruelly fast, the only consolation is her naughty tone. “Until then, I have to satisfy myself some other way. But I will think of you while doing it, my dear prince,” she promises, a ghost of a smile on her lips, and then walks out without looking back.
The silence feels unwelcome in the room and hangs over the ceiling like a cloud, but Aemond he is too dazed to move, spent and perplexed to wrap his head around it.
Desire, it seems, has come to stay.
But it’s not the only thing he’s feeling.
✧... YES, there will be a second part, it’s already in the works! ✧ and yes, I didn’t bother to rename Pedro’s character 'cause I adore Oberyn sue me
✧ just to clarify, I usually age Aemond up to 20 (or however old Ewan looks to you ;) ✧ I got inspired after watching the video for ROSALÍA’s “La Fama” (give it a watch, she is soooo 🥵) but I only found it because of this gorgeous gifset so shout-out to OP for giving me inspiration
✧ my recent fic (couples who kill together, stay together 🔥) ✧ my masterlist
thank you @amiraisgoingthruit for letting me tag you in every silly story of mine, hope you’ll like this one (if anyone else wants to be tagged, don’t be shy)
English is not my first language, so feel free to message me if you spot any major mistakes. reblogs and comments are very much appreciated!
#aemond targaryen#I was supposed to post this LAST friday but chickened out for whatever reason idk pls give me a chill pill (((#my stuff#aemond targaryen fanfiction#aemond targaryen x you#aemond targaryen x y/n#aemond targaryen x reader#aemond targaryen smut#aemond targaryen fanfic#aemond targaryen fic#aemond x you#aemond x y/n#aemond x reader#hotd fic#hotd fanfic#hotd smut#aemond the kinslayer#aemond one eye#aemond one eye x you#aemond one eye x y/n
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Cupid doesn’t gamble
Summary: Leon, a mafia boss whose empire dominates all casinos on the west coast, meets a young girl amidst a game of poker. What would happen if he threw all his chips and gambled his love for you?
Warning: Mafia!Boss!Leon x Female!Reader. Eventual smut (I know y’all want this so bad). Slow burn. Romantic. Leon is a gentleman. Characters are 21+ (makes sense for casinos). Researched topics. Mentions of violence. Read at your own discretion.
Word Count: 6,620
A/N: So, I’d like to start off with saying that being in the Mafia is not okay. Al Capone was NOT a good guy. But, this is fiction. None of this is real so before I get myself canceled (pls don’t) trust that I did my research. I thought of Salvatore by LDR writing this lol.
[II] [III]
“The summer's wild and I've been waiting for you all this time I adore you, can't you see, you're meant for me. Summer's hot but I've been cold without you, I was so wrong not to doubt your Medellin, tangerine dreams,” - Salvatore, Lana Del Rey
Poker isn’t just a game of gambling and betting your money away. It’s intimate and personal, in order to win you must read your opponent. Strip each other bare until the other shows a sign of vulnerability, only then will you find a loophole and win.
But nobody seems to understand the arts of chips and card decks. To be given an awful hand and turning the game to your favor is powerful and uplifting. There is great danger with gambling but there are also great rewards.
Leon was a famous man, known for establishing the most successful casinos of, dare I say, the nation. He’s a businessman, driven by the need to make a statement of himself. To hold power over people’s head with a flick of the wrist. He’s ambitious, cunning, but also respectful.
Coming from nothing but rags and the slum, he swore to his parents that he will earn everything he ever wanted in life. To provide for his family, to become one of the richest and notorious men of America. And he did.
He easily became a member of the mafia after being taken under the care of a kind man. When his parents died and he was shunned away by society, he never expected a man from a dangerous world to take him as a child and teach him to become the man that he is today.
And now here he was, engaging himself in a long hour of poker with a rookie player. You’ve never been keen on gambling your savings away, you deterred yourself from gaining the addiction. But, you did like to play every once in a while, especially since the casino you were in was quite lavish, courtesy of the man who built the casino in the first place.
You didn’t know anything about it, you didn’t even know that the man in front of you was the very own man who built his life step by step.
"You're good with your hands," he said in a rich and low tone as he stared at you from across the table.
“Thanks,” you muttered as you moved on forward with the game. You glanced at him, narrowing your eyes as you tried to guess what he was going to move with tonight.
A low, amused chuckle escaped his lips as he continued to watch you analyze him. He knew damn well you had no clue how to play, yet you were trying your best. It's what drew him to you.
He noticed you stealing glances his way as you thought of a plan. *Adorable.* He leaned back into his seat, eyeing you closely as he waited for you to make your next move.
"You're a bad bluffer," he pointed out with a smirk.
“And you’re a talker,” you quipped back with sass. You were silent for a moment before you decided to either go big or go home, “Raise,” you said to him.
Your eyes were glued to him, watching for his reaction. Was he going to fold or call? Either way, you believed you had a better hand than him.
"And you're cocky, too," he returned with a hint of humor in his voice. He raised an eyebrow slightly, surprised by your bold move. Even if you didn't know how to play, you had some guts.
He studies you for a moment, his eyes lingering on you before returning to his cards. After a moment of contemplating, he pushes a stack of chips forward, adding to the pot.
"Call. Let's see what you've got," he challenges you with a sly smile.
You turned your cards over, revealing a Diamond Queen and Clover King. You put them down and crossed your arms over your chest as you looked at him with a smirk.
The bet was a high number of money. Probably worth more than your limbs being sold in the black market. But you were here for a reason, to earn some quick money. The man in front of you looked quite wealthy, wealthy and rich men weren’t uncommon in this place but it still made you feel a bit inferior with everyone wanting to show off.
Leon leaned forward, inspecting your cards closely. The smirk on your face said it all. You thought you had a good hand, and he wouldn't deny that you had a decent one. But, it wasn't enough to beat him. He leaned back into his seat once more, his expression unchanging, as he revealed his own cards. A Spade Queen and a Diamond Ace. A straight flush. His eyes met yours, his smirk turning into a cocky grin.
"I'm afraid you've lost this round, darling," he said in a teasing tone.
Your smirk immediately fell as you saw his straight flush. Wow, you lost again. You didn’t even notice him calling you by a pet name. Did you owe this man money now? How did you not see it coming? That bastard was cocky and confident as hell! You should’ve known he had a good hand.
Leon chuckled once again. The look on your face was priceless—a mix of frustration and disbelief.
He loved it.
"Looks like I win again," he said teasingly, gathering up the chips on the table, "And don't worry, darling, you don't owe me anything. Just better luck next time."
He leaned back in his seat, his gaze still fixed on you as he smirked. He found your reaction absolutely adorable.
You furrowed your brows confused, you didn’t owe him anything? “Wait, are you serious?” You asked confusedly. He was different from other guys around here. Was he really willing to forget about your loss and even wished you better luck?
Who was this guy? There was something about him, though, that seemed dangerous and suspicious, “Why?”
Leon tilted his head to the side as he observed you, noticing the confusion on your face. You were clearly surprised by his words. It seems like you’re *not* used to men like him.
He chuckled softly at your question. "Why? Because I'm a gentleman," he responds with a smirk.
He leaned forward slightly, his gaze never leaving your face, "And I'm not in the business of taking money from pretty young girls like yourself. I'm not that heartless."
Your cheeks flared, did he just say you were pretty? You’ve never met a man so… straightforward. You cleared your throat and nibbled on your bottom lip, “Thank you,” you muttered quietly. Leon's gaze softened as he watched your cheeks flush and saw you bite your bottom lip. *Adorable.*
He’s a gentleman, he’s not *that* heartless? You didn’t understand him. He wore expensive clothes and his aura was confident.
“Is there anything else you’d like in return?” You asked as you looked at him, your arms on the table, “I’d feel guilty if you went back home empty handed.”
He leaned back in his seat, a smirk on his lips. "There is... one thing," he replied, his voice low and smooth.
He paused for a moment, his eyes locking with yours once more. "Your name," he said simply, his smile widening, "I'd like to know your name."
You stared at him for a few moments before you nodded slightly, “Okay,” you muttered. You extended your hand towards him, “My name is Y/n,” you said softly. He was truly a gentleman, wasn’t he? He doesn’t take money from girls and he was respectful. He’s one of a kind.
Leon looked at your hand for a moment before taking it gently in his own. His rough, calloused fingers wrapped around your small, soft hand. He loved the contrast between your skin and his. The way your slender fingers fit perfectly in his grasp.
"Y/n," he repeated quietly, as if he was testing the way the name felt on his tongue. He let out a soft chuckle before bringing your hand to his lips. He placed a gentle kiss on your knuckles, his eyes never leaving yours.
Your cheeks flushed even more red when he kissed your knuckles. Did he come out of a book or something?! You’ve never met a man that screamed rich and respectful man. It was attractive. You were a bit speechless. Most guys met wouldn’t even be bothered to know your name and yet, here he was, treating you like a lady. Did he time travel or something?
You didn’t even try to move your hand away, it was like you got stuck in a trance. He was an enigma, who knew your poker opponent was so… you didn’t even know how to describe it. He chuckled softly at your reaction. He wasn't surprised, after all, most men don't have manners these days. Not men like him.
He slowly released your hand, though he couldn't bring himself to completely let go just yet. He continued to hold onto it, his thumb gently caressing your knuckles.
“Can I know your name too?” You asked a bit hesitantly, you wanted to know but you didn’t want to seem disrespectful. He felt so fancy, like a true gentleman. The kind of man you read in romance books where you could only dream of being treated with such care.
"Of course, darling," he replied in a low tone, his gaze still fixated on your face. He could tell that you were completely taken by him, though he couldn't blame you, most girls were. He could tell that you were captivated by his mannerisms and demeanor. It seemed like you appreciated his old-fashioned actions and chivalry, not that he was surprised. But something told him that you were different than the others. You weren't just after his wealth or status, he could see it in your eyes.
In the game of poker, it was easy to fall and lose. But for some reason, you like playing with him even if it means losing most of the rounds.
You didn’t even notice the two bodyguards approaching him from behind since you didn’t know what his occupation was like. You were strangers. The two bodyguards were ready to jump into action if you tried anything suspicious. But what could you do? You were completely harmless.
As his bodyguards approached from behind, Leon glanced over his shoulder at them. He held up a hand, silently signaling for them to hold off. The bodyguards stood a few feet away, far enough to not listen to your conversation but close enough to jump to him if he got into a dangerous situation. Leon's lips curled into an amused smile as he watched you realize the presence of his bodyguards. They were there to protect him, after all.
"My name is Leon," he finally replied, his voice just above a whisper. "Leon Kennedy."
“Leon,” you repeated, tasting the way it rolled off your tongue. It was a fancy name, suiting him very well.
“Nice to meet you, Mister Kennedy,” you said politely. Leon suppressed a chuckle as you repeated his name, the sound of it on your lips was like music to his ears. It was as if you were singing his name, rather than simply saying it.
He smirked when you called him 'Mister Kennedy,' finding your use of a formal title both amusing and endearing. "Please, call me Leon. 'Mister Kennedy' makes me feel old," he teased, his voice low and smooth.
You couldn’t help the small smile from reaching your lips, just minutes ago he beat you in a game of poker and yet, he didn’t make you feel bad for losing. You nodded at him, “Alright, I won’t.”
Then, one of the two bodyguards approached Leon, leaning down to his ear to whisper, “Sir, your presence is being requested on the tenth floor,” he whispered. Leon's expression, although unchanging, darkened at the bodyguard's words. He knew exactly what it meant for his presence to be "requested" on the tenth floor. But he didn't want to leave just yet. He was enjoying the time he had with you, he was enjoying your company and your sweet demeanor. If only he could stay a little bit longer.
He nodded at the bodyguard, silently signaling that he understood. He looked back at you, his expression softening once again.
"I have business to attend to," he said quietly, a hint of regret in his voice.
“Oh, right, yeah,” you muttered quickly under your breath as you stood up, fixing your outfit that you were wearing, “I shouldn’t take more of your time,” you said softly and politely, “It was nice meeting you, Leon. I hope to play with you in the future.”
Leon looked up at you as you stood up, his gaze following every movement. He could feel his heart skip a beat, he found you truly adorable. He felt a pang of disappointment when you mentioned not taking up more of his time. But he understood, he had responsibilities to take care of.
"The pleasure was all mine, darling," he said quietly, his voice slightly strained. He didn't want you to leave, but he had no choice.
“Sir,” one bodyguard spoke up from behind him, “Should we keep an eye on her?” He asked as the bodyguard’s gaze remained on your form, you were already standing by the bar drinking a damn fountain drink.
It was clear that the bodyguards were good at their job, they wanted to keep Leon safe since he was a mafia boss and enemies could be everywhere. Leon's gaze shifted from yours as he focused on his bodyguard's question. He could sense the slight tension in the air, the bodyguards were always cautious. But that was their job, to protect him at all costs.
He shook his head slightly, "No, that won't be necessary," he replied coldly, "She's harmless," he added, his eyes fixated on you once more.
“Yes sir,” the bodyguard said before the two bodyguards began to escort Leon to the elevator to get to the tenth floor. As Leon walked towards the elevator, escorted by his bodyguards, he couldn't help but glance back one last time, his eyes settling on your form at the bar.
He felt a twinge of something, was it concern? He wasn't sure. The thought of you being approached by someone else made him uneasy. But he had to remind himself that you weren't his responsibility.
He stepped into the elevator, his mind still occupied with thoughts of you.
"Watch her," he muttered to his bodyguards, "make sure no one goes near her."
The bodyguard nodded before stepping out of the elevator and went over to watch from a distance to not scare me off.
He was left with the other bodyguard and as they reached the tenth floor, the doors opened to reveal a very expensive suite, “Ah, Leon,” the voice of a man rang as he approached Leon.
The man was no other than a guy that went by an alias, “Kyle”, for safety reasons, “Glad you could make it,” he was dressed in nothing but a bathrobe, the belt tight around his waist to keep him from flashing anyone. Kyle was a character, that much was clear. Greeting Leon as if they were old friends.
"Cut the pleasantries," Leon replied coolly as he strode past Kyle, into the extravagant suite. Despite his cold exterior, his mind was still occupied by thoughts of you.
Kyle laughed and followed after Leon, “Always cutting to the chase, huh, amigo?” He said the Spanish word in a terrible accent, he didn’t even know Spanish.
Kyle was truly one of a kind but he was an ally to Leon’s mafia. Matter of fact, he provided Leon with the newest weapons from an Italian manufacturer. Illegal weapon trafficking.
“Got some new ladies you might want to see,” he said as he walked in front of Leon, guiding him to his room. As he entered his room, the sheets were messy and two naked women laid on the bed. With a flick of his wrist, the ladies stepped out of the room, giving Leon a wink.
As they entered the room, Leon couldn't help but roll his eyes at the sight of the naked women on the bed. Was this really necessary?
"I'm not interested," he said bluntly, his cold tone sending a clear message. Despite his outwardly tough demeanor, Leon disliked the lifestyle that Kyle embodied.
Kyle definitely had a typical lifestyle of a play boy, always finding girls to sleep with as he spends money on expensive champagne and clothes. But he was a good provider for the mafia. Kyle was needed; a necessary evil.
But Leon wasn’t a womanizer like that, especially with the way he treated you. Kyle chuckled and shook his head, “Oh, I think you will,” he muttered before I retrieved a box and opened it. Leon's expression changed. The sight of the new weapons in the box piqued his interest.
“Got these new ladies fresh from Rome,” he said, revealing new manufactured guns, “These are in beta testing but their purpose isn’t like regular guns—no. These babies hold up to thrice the ammunition and can fire double bullets at the same time.”
He could already see the potential these guns held. The extra ammunition and the ability to fire double bullets at once could give his men an advantage in a dangerous situation.
"Interesting," he said quietly, his eyes fixed on the guns. Despite his dislike for Kyle's lifestyle, Leon had to admit he knew how to source the best weapons.
"How did you get your hands on these?" he asked, his voice now lacking any hostility.
Kyle shrugged and leaned back, “I sent a blueprint last month over to my manufacturer in Italy. Said he’d give it a try. He experimented here and there right before he sent me these prototypes.”
“But I don’t recommend using them yet,” he said as he walked over to stand next to Leon, draping an arm around Leon’s shoulders as if they were best friends.
“Something about them probably not working and backfiring. Blah, blah, blah. You know the nerd stuff,” he said.
Leon's brow furrowed as he heard Kyle's words. Using untested weapons could be risky, especially if they had the potential for a devastating recoil. He pushed Kyle's arm off his shoulders, his expression turning cold again. He wasn't fond of being touched, especially by someone like Kyle.
"Then why show them to me if they might not work?" he asked with a hint of irritation in his voice. He preferred to focus on proven weapons, not experimental ones.
As his arm was pushed off his shoulders, Kyle wasn’t a bit ashamed, “Well, before we proceed with the testing, we needed your approval.”
Then, Kyle grew a bit serious, which only ever happened once a fortnight. He leaned closer to Leon to whisper in his ear, “I’ve heard that there’s been recent suspicious activity up north where the colony is. This is just a precaution because I don’t want anyone stealing my guns.”
Ever since Leon became the new mafia boss, which was years ago, many other bosses have tried to take him down. Even if it meant stealing his resources. Despite his disdain for Kyle, Leon couldn't ignore the serious look on his face. He knew that when Kyle spoke like this, he wasn't messing around.
"Suspicious activity, you say?" he replied, his voice low and calculating. He didn't appreciate being targeted, especially by other mafia bosses, "Any idea who might be behind it?"
He shrugged and shook his head, “No, there’s no idea who it might be but I’ve heard rumors that it’s someone who’s after your territory.”
Kyle sighed and stored the guns away once more, “In any case. Call me up if you change your plan, I’ll send word to Italy to keep producing and testing. Until then,” he said before he patted Leon on the shoulder and walked out of his room saying, “Alright, ladies, who’s ready for some sexy time on the jacuzzi?”
Leon watched as Kyle left the room, rolling his eyes at the man's behavior. Despite Kyle's eccentricities and playboy lifestyle, he couldn't deny that he was an asset to the mafia. As the sound of laughter and splashing water came from the jacuzzi, Leon turned his attention back to the matter at hand. The possibility of someone targeting his territory unsettled him.
With a deep sigh, he ran a hand through his hair, his thoughts once again drifting to you. He couldn't seem to get you off his mind.
“Do you want to go back to the main floor, Sir?” His bodyguard asked. Leon's eyes went to his bodyguard, and he nodded.
"Yes," he said simply. He had to go back to the main floor. He knew that his bodyguards had been instructed to keep an eye on you, and he was curious to see if you were still there.
As he stepped out of the room, he couldn't help but glance over at the bar. He could see you sitting there, sipping on a Dr. Pepper. Despite the presence of his bodyguard, he took a subtle step closer, watching you from a distance.
Now the three men were watching you, Leon with his two bodyguards behind him. They were no longer on the tenth floor and instead were on the main floor where you were.
“Who is she, boss?” One bodyguard asked. They had seen Leon play with you for a few rounds but they didn’t hear your conversation. Of how he forgave your debt and asked for your name, but they did see him kiss your hand. Leon's gaze never left you, his eyes watching your every move. He could feel the curiosity of his bodyguards, they had clearly noticed his interaction with you.
“Do you know her?” The other bodyguard asked. They still kept professional but their curiosity was high. They’ve never seen Leon talk to a woman before, he’d usually brush them off because he knew they were after his money.
"She's nobody," Leon replied, his voice cold and distant. Even though he had shown you a rare moment of humanity, he didn’t want his bodyguards to think he had a “soft spot”, especially towards a stranger.
"She's just a poker player, that's all," he added, dismissing their curiosity. But his eyes told a different story, he couldn't tear his gaze away from you.
“A terrible one,” one commented, “A Diamond queen and clover king against your straight flush… she’s got confidence.”
“Or maybe she didn’t know. Our boss holds a really good poker face,” the other replied. Which was true, Leon was a damn good poker player but you also didn’t play like a professional. You barely knew what you were doing.
You turned around to get your bag from the stool next to your standing form, seemingly finished with your drink and getting ready to pay for it.
Leon's eyes followed your every movement, his mind racing, "She was a challenge,” he said quietly, his voice betraying a hint of amusement. Despite your lack of skill, he had enjoyed playing with you, it had been surprisingly fun.
As he saw you turn to retrieve your bag, he felt a strange pang in his chest. He didn’t want you to leave yet. He took a step forward, his bodyguards following closely behind him.
You were too busy looking through your bag, pulling out your wallet and counting the bills you had to pay your tab. Would it even be considered a tab if you got non-alcoholic drinks? You didn’t notice Leon returning at all, his bodyguards didn’t say anything. They knew better than to prod at his life choices. If anything, they’d just keep a more careful eye on you to make sure nothing bad happened.
“Hold on—“ you said to the bartender as you counted your coins to give him the exact number of your total.
As you began counting your coins to pay the bartender, he couldn't help but step forward and reach into his pocket, "I'll cover it," he said, his voice firm and commanding. He felt strangely compelled to take care of you, even in this small gesture.
You straightened up at the sound of his voice, your heart jumped and beat quickly as you whipped your head to look at none other than Leon. Always a true gentleman.
“I—“ you said as yoi looked at him and the bartender before you looked back at his blue eyes, “No, it’s okay. I’ve got this,” you said quietly. He’d already forgiven your debt and now he wants to pay for your drinks?
Leon's expression remained stoic as he heard your protest. He didn't expect you to be so modest and determined to pay for your own drinks. But he found it endearing.
"It's not a problem," he replied, his voice firm. He could sense your guilt, but he didn’t want you to feel like a charity case. He genuinely wanted to take care of you, even if it was in small ways. He slid a few bills to the bartender, paying for your drinks and closing the tab before you could argue further.
Your cheeks blushed again as you looked away, you’ve never had anyone take care of you like he has, “You’re too kind,” you muttered in a flustered tone.
He was already breaking his own rules because the bodyguards seemed to have picked up on some details. It wasn’t common for them to see Leon be so… interested in a woman. Much less someone like you but they found it oddly endearing. Secretly cheering for their boss.
Leon was taller than you so you had to look up at him, “Did everything go well with your business?” You asked genuinely. Leon's expression softened slightly as he saw your flushed cheeks and your sincere question. He was unused to caring about someone’s well being, but he found himself wanting to share a bit with you.
"Yes, business went well," he confirmed, his voice remaining cool and collected. But there was a hint of tiredness in his eyes, the stresses of being a mafia boss often taking a toll on him.
He studied you for a moment, his gaze calculating but not unkind. "And how have you been?" he asked, surprising himself with his own question.
“Oh, you know,” you faintly shrugged your shoulders as you pointed towards the bar, “I stayed there the whole time. I don’t like wandering on my own. Lots of… creeps out here, y’know?”
But he wasn’t a creep. He was far from it. Leon was a gentleman, a man who knew how to treat women right.
Leon chuckled, a rare sound coming from him, at your straightforward answer. He found it refreshing how honest you were, unlike the fake smiles and flattery he usually received from people.
His eyes swept the casino floor, full of various people, men, and women. He knew you were right about the creeps that roamed around, especially with a pretty face like yours.
"You're right about the creeps," he agreed, his voice low and protective. "A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be out here alone."
Your cheeks blushed again when he said you were pretty, why was he so casual with the compliments?! But nevertheless, you couldn’t stop the smile forming on your lips, “Yeah… I was about to leave since it was getting late, actually,” you said as you quickly remembered what you were doing.
“I was going to get an Uber and go back home. I should probably practice my poker skills too,” you said with a small smile. Leon's gaze darkened slightly at the mention of you leaving. He didn't want this night to end, not when he'd enjoyed your company more than he thought he would.
He took a step closer, shortening the distance between you. "An Uber?" he repeated, his voice taking on a hint of disapproval. "With all the creepers out there?"
He paused, seeming to consider something before speaking again. "Let me give you a ride home," he offered, his eyes never leaving yours.
Your eyes widened a bit and your breath hitched when he stepped closer to you and offered you a ride home. You should’ve said no but for some reason, you felt safe in his presence. You slowly nodded your head, feeling like you shouldn’t reject his offer. He’s been kind to you and you wanted to be kind as well, “Only if it’s not a burden.”
“I’d hate to shift your plans for the night. I don’t want to be an inconvenience,” you said with a nervous laugh as you played with your hands.
Leon couldn't help but chuckle at your words and the nervousness in your laugh. You were clearly unused to being cared for like this, but it was almost endearing to see you flustered. He shook his head, his expression serious. "It's not a burden," he reassured you. "And you're not an inconvenience. I wouldn't offer unless I meant it."
He motioned for his bodyguards to follow as he put a hand gently on your lower back, beginning to guide you towards the exit. You gathered your things, which was just your purse, and let him guide you towards the exit. His bodyguards were shocked to say the least. They knew Leon didn’t like to be touched or touch other people but here he was, gently putting his hand on you to guide you out of the building. They were in for a fun ride.
As you made it out and stepped outside, you were met with wind. The wind blew over your form, goosebumps on your skin as you wrapped your arms over your chest to give yourself some heat. Leon noticed your body shiver, the cool night air obviously getting to you. He was so used to suppressing his own physical needs that he had briefly forgotten that you weren’t built for the harsher elements like he was.
"Here," he said gruffly. He removed his black jacket and gently placed it around your shoulders, his fingers lingering for a moment on the fabric.
The black suit jacket was big on you but it was so warm, it even smelled like his cologne and you felt your cheeks flare up. He smelled good, “Thank you,” you said as you looked up at him.
A black car pulled in front of you, it was fancy and the black was matte. No doubt, the latest car. Just how rich was he? One of the bodyguards moved towards the door and opened it for the two of you. Leon nodded in acknowledgement of your thanks, his eyes never leaving yours, "After you," he said, gesturing for you to get into the car first. His voice was gruff, but there was a warm undertone in it.
He waited, standing by the car door, until you climbed in, before he slid into the seat beside you, closing the door behind him. The bodyguards climbed into the front seat, the engine purring softly to life.
No one would’ve believed them if they said that Leon was warm and kind. They’ve seen the type of ruthless man he could be, he was a mafia boss! Hence why the bodyguards were shocked. They’ve never seen him act this way with anyone.
You sat next to Leon, your thighs pressed together and your form still wearing his black suit jacket, “Thank you,” you said before you climbed to sit next to him. You were new to the whole taken care of thing. Leon felt a pang of something unfamiliar in his chest when you thanked him again. It was as if you weren’t used to being treated like this, but he found himself wanting to give you more. He felt the strange urge to wrap you in his arms, to keep you close and away from the world.
He let out a low hum of acknowledgment. "You don’t need to keep thanking me," he said quietly, his voice low and rough.
You softy laughed at his words despite his low and rough voice, “Sorry, force of habit. I’m not used to people being so kind to me. Especially after playing Poker with me,” you replied with a small but genuine smile.
“Most guys would either just get mad at me for beating them or they would humiliate me further for beating me,” you said quietly, your hands laying on your lap as you looked down at them.
Then you glanced back at him, “But you’re different. I think… I like to have you as my opponent… if you’d let me,” but it was more than just Poker, right? It was about connecting, about seeing him again. His expression softened as you spoke again, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips, "You like having me as your opponent, huh?" he said, his voice holding a hint of amusement.
He reached out, his hand gently resting on top of yours, his touch calloused but surprisingly gentle, "You don’t even know what you’re asking for."
Your breath hitched and you looked down at his hand on top of yours. Even though he’d held your hand and kissed it, you still got flustered.
But he was right. Essentially, you didn’t even know him. You met him today and lost a poker game. But something in you wanted to keep seeing him, you didn’t want to let such a kind man go.
“I can learn,” you whispered. This went beyond poker, even though you spoke about it, hidden words were conveyed. You didn’t know what you were asking for, not knowing he was in the mafia. Leon's smirk grew at your words, a hint of something more behind it. He could hear the double meaning in your words, and it sent a thrill through him. Here you were, this timid, pretty thing, wanting to get to know him better.
His fingers gently squeezed your hand as he spoke, his voice low. "You’re a fast learner, I bet," he said, his eyes never leaving yours.
But then his expression darkened slightly, the reality of his world intruding on the moment. He was a mafia boss, and you… you were innocent and pure.
You nodded, “I like learning things. Knowledge is power, is what George Orwell said once,” you muttered. Leon's smirk turned into a half-smile at your mention of George Orwell. This girl was full of surprises. It seemed to him that you were more than just a pretty face working as a pit boss.
His grip on your hand tightened slightly, as if reflexively trying to keep a grip on you. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, he should let you go before you get swept into the dangerous world he lived in.
But something about you was making him greedy. The Mafia Boss never had to worry about letting go before, now, he didn’t want to.
You felt his hand tighten around yours and you didn’t want to let go yet. Once you reached your apartment, you looked at him and leaned towards his face to whisper, “Think it over,” you whispered, your brows furrowing a bit before you let go of his hand and got out of the car.
Leon's eyes widened slightly at your whisper, your unexpected boldness sending a jolt of surprise, and something else through him. You'd just told him to think things over, as if it was a date that you were asking him on. But before he could open his mouth to reply, you had already slipped out of the car, leaving him a bit taken aback.
He stayed sitting in his seat for a beat, his fingers clenching the leather, his eyes fixed on your figure. You were playing with fire, and you didn’t even realize it.
You were about to walk into your apartment when you realized you were still wearing his suit jacket. You quickly ran back towards the car and slipped it the jacket off, giving him an awkward smile, “I, uh…”
“Almost forgot this,” you muttered softly, the pink hue on your cheeks not leaving any time soon. Leon took the jacket in his hands, his gaze lingering on you as you handed it to him. He took in your flushed cheeks, your awkward smile, and it sent a pang through his chest.
He wanted to reach out, to touch your cheek, to do something to keep you from leaving. But instead, he simply folded the jacket over his arm, his fingers tracing the fabric.
"Keep it," he said, his voice rough. "It looks better on you."
Your eyes widened a bit and your lips parted into a small ‘Oh’ when he gave you the jacket once more. To which you slowly took, you didn’t want to be greedy but you loved the way it smelled.
“Thank you,” you whispered sincerely, “For tonight.”
The offer still stood. You were willing to throw yourself down into a fire if it meant getting to know him better. Isn’t that what Poker is about? To understand your opponent? But this wasn’t about Poker anymore.
Leon clenched his jaw as he watched your expression, your sincere thanks only making it harder for him to let you go. Your naivete was like a double-edged sword - it drew him in but also made him hesitant.
But he wasn’t some saint. No, far from it. He was a Mafia Boss, and he wasn’t used to denying himself.
He leaned forward slightly, his eyes locking with yours, his voice a rough, quiet murmur. “When can I see you again?”
You stared at him through the window, a bit surprised that he wanted to see you again. You were just some idiot poker player and yet… was he actually considering seeing you again?
You stood there in shock for a few seconds like an absolute idiot before you realized you hadn’t said anything. Your cheeks flushed and you quickly cleared your throat, “Uh—“
He paused, his eyes roaming over you, taking in your flushed cheeks, your uncertainty. It was a new sight for him, having a woman so clearly out of his world be so... vulnerable.
“You want to see me again?” You asked unsure. Leon’s lips quirked up into a small smirk at your reaction, your surprise and confusion only endearing you to him more. You were just so damn endearing. He leaned back in his seat, his eyes never leaving yours, his gaze sharp, “Yes, I want to see you again.”
“Well, I’m free this Saturday… if you want to—I dunno—go out…?”
“Saturday it is, then. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
This time, you couldn’t help the smile that reached your lips. Was he truly taking you out on a date? You nodded your head at him, your lips curling up into a genuine smile, “Alright…” you muttered quietly, “I’ll see you then. You know where I live anyway.”
He offered you a ride and now knows where you lived, but somehow, you felt comfortable with him knowing, “Goodnight, Leon.”
You walked backwards, looking at him for as long as possible before eventually turning around to get into your apartment. Leon watched as you retreated back into your apartment, his gaze following your every move. There was a strange flutter in his chest, something that he hadn’t felt in a long time. Something that he thought he had lost.
When you disappeared from sight, he let out a low, rough exhale, running his hand through his short hair. This was dangerous, getting close to you, but he couldn’t seem to find it in himself to care.
“Goodnight, doll,” he murmured, watching your door close behind you.
#leon kennedy#leon s kennedy#leon scott kennedy#resident evil#leon kennedy x reader#leon kennedy x y/n#leon kennedy x you#leon s kennedy x reader#re4 leon#re leon#leon#resident evil leon#re4r leon
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At one point he was down in between my legs, fingering me, and he made a throwaway comment about probably being Autistic.
I leaned back, trying to relish what pleasure I was getting. “Well, we can talk about that subject, if you like,” I said vaguely, not really wanting to bring my professional life into things.
He kept working away at my body, kissing between my lips and thighs. “Oh I know who you are,” he said suddenly. “Your book changed my life. In a way, I guess this is me thanking you.”
I made him exit my body and we went to the kitchen to hash it out. It turned out he was a big fan of many things I’d written.
“I’ve seen you around the neighborhood many times,” he confessed. “But you posted online that you don’t like when people come up to you, and so I always decided to leave you alone.”
He said, “Your book is the reason I got divorced, actually. My ex-husband was a therapist, and when I showed him your book and said I thought I might be Autistic, he didn’t believe me. We have been separated for a year.”
He asked, “Did I just make this weird, telling you when I did that I was a fan?” I told him that if he’d said it sooner, I would have never fucked him at all.
People never realize that when they approach me, what they are doing is dragging me into work. It doesn’t matter whether I was at breakfast, or an orgy. I was just some guy standing there, enjoying his beer, but now they have made me the known scholar and author. And sure, my job might be meaningful, but that doesn’t mean I like to work.
I tell my friend that I no longer want to be a public figure, and that I am planning how to make it all end. She tells me, “You’ve got to do what is the best for you, even if it’s something that the rest of us wants and can’t imagine giving up.”
I ask myself, did I want this? It would be more flattering to say I didn’t, and play the role of the hermetic author whose work developed its own life purely because it was so good. But that isn’t true.
From the moment I got a Myspace account in high school, I was publishing essays about my political views. I serialized multiple novels on Tumblr, guerilla marketing them with giveaways and custom-made images until they hit the Kindle sales charts. I have made memes, tried starting viral trends, coined phrases, and given hundreds of hours’ worth of media interviews. I write prescriptive nonfiction, for Christ’s sake. Of course people seek guidance from me. I offer it up!
I have been strategic about how I dress, and my video backdrops, and retaken clips of myself speaking over and over again until they sounded right. I’ve hosted debates with my most vicious critics while I’m in the shower, started public beef with creators who had larger accounts than I did, and rushed to my keyboard when upsetting news broke, because I alone was possessed of the most correct take on it.
I wanted this. I didn’t know what this was, this internet fame I was chasing, but I did all I could to make it mine. I thought that by writing so much, I would one day be able to escape myself, maybe really feel connected to other people. Instead it has meant never being able to stop thinking about myself: how I am seen, what I am working on, how it all fits together, what comes next. It has also meant being spoken about, theorized about, and criticized, and developing a firm exoskeleton of disdain between myself and the world.
I believe now that that it is immoral for any person to be listened to by ninety thousand other people. Holding authority and status like that runs counter to my anarchic ideals. I am not more important or correct than anyone. I should not be trusted to tell people which commodities to buy, which companies not to support, what to read, what to think, what words to use, or how to conduct their lives.
All the other animals know there is no one way that a creature “should” live. There is only the way that it does. The world has no consciousness, no beliefs. It cannot pass judgment. We only feel so watched and evaluated because we have covered the planet with so many millions of our eyes. But we can stop performing dignified human goodness at any moment.
I think that celebrity is an evil, corrupting force that pits the human instinct for bonding against itself. Instead of appreciating the singing of our friends around the fire, we stream Chappell Roan until stalkers break into her house. Rather than playing card games together, we stan Twitch streamers, filling up their chats with highlighted messages until they acknowledge us. We long to be famous novelists because then we would have the social permission to write, and we don’t have the money or time to enjoy the activity on its own.
I wrote about Chappell Roan, stalker stans, and how turning art into content creation ruins the work, and the creator's life. It's free to read in full (or have narrated to you by the app!) on Substack.
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How They’d React to Your Secret Fear of Thunderstorms
It’s raining here and this may or may not be a self insert.
Headcannons for Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Karlach, Minthara, and Jaheria. The reader is gender neutral.
I tried to write the men but I just don’t know how.
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Shadowheart
She’s praying when you come in. She opens one eye slightly when she hears you enter, motioning over to the bedroll.
She thinks you’re just coming in to get out of the rain at first; you are the only one without a tent, afterall.
It isn’t until she’s done praying that she realizes you seem to be hiding inside the bedroll.
“Are you… looking for something in there?” She asks, pulling back the top of the bedroll.
The look on her face lets you know you’ve been caught.
She sighs and scoots into the bedroll next to you. She’s not much of a cuddler, but this counts as an extenuating circumstance. You snuggle up next to her and thank her.
[Tiefling] She won’t even say anything when she feels your tail around her waist.
Lae’zel
Lae’zel also fucking HATES thunderstorms. She wouldn’t dare say she was scared but she doesn’t care for them at all.
She already pissy by the time you get to her tent. “I don’t understand why the sky in your ‘faerun’ finds all this noise necessary. If I wanted to listen to insolent shouting, I’d talk to Shadowheart about the Selunites again.”
She makes fun of you if say you’re afraid, but you see her jump a little bit every time a particularly violent crash rings through camp.
She won’t try to hug or comfort you in anyway, but she inches closer to you every time the ground shakes.
Ya know… for you protection
Karlach
She is somehow asleep despite the all the noise.
You move into her tent with Scratch at your heals and gently shake her awake.
“Hey Solider,” she says, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Is everything alright?”
“I… um… Scratch is actually afraid of the thunder,” you say, pointing accusingly at the confused dog.
Karlach smiles a tired smile “well then I guess I’m left with no choice.” She opens the bedroll to welcome you in. The dog happily trots to her feet and curls up.
“Hey um, Clive’s actually pretty scared too. He could probably use a nice tight squeeze,” she says handing you the stuffed bear.
You happily snuggle up to her warm body with the bear wrapped tight in your arms.
You instinctively bury yourself in her chest when thunder booms so loud it sounds like the sky may crack. Your face runs hot, and you refuse to lift your head.
She kisses you gently on the top of the head. “I adore you, ya know?” You can feel her ‘you’re so fucking cute I’m gonna explode’ smile.
You decide you’re actually just probably gonna melt right there from the embarrassment.
Minthara
Minthara doesn’t like the rain at all. Something about her feline nature. But she doesn’t mind the thunder and lightning. She actually finds it sort of calming in a way.
When you come into her tent, she’s reading on a pillow. She doesn’t look up. “You can take the bedroll. I don’t mind.”
You hurriedly take the invitation, shoving yourself as quickly as possible into the bedroll.
She continues her reading for a few minutes before looking up. “You’re shaking the whole tent. Are you cold?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. She unfolds a blanket and moves to throw it over your shaking body. That’s when she realizes you’re trembling, white-knuckling the blanket.
“Oh,” she pauses, unsure of what to do. “Something has you frightened?” It doesn’t occur to her that the thunder could be scary.
“It’s the storm. I don’t like it,” you say weakly, refusing to meet her gaze.
She silently moves her reading pillow closer to you, sitting down cross legged right above your head. She drags your shoulders so that your head is in her lap. She plays with your hair, hands moving protectively over your ears at the start of each rumble.
Minthara thinks it’s kind of silly and juvenile at first, but her attitude changes as she watches you visibly calm. It actually makes her feel kind of powerful. She’s protecting you from the sky itself.
Jaheira
She’s lounging just outside her tent, still covered by the awning. “It’s a beautiful night, no?” She asks as you approach, staring up and watching the lightening crack across the sky.
You look at her aghast, standing in the rain like a drowned rat. “Oh, come in, of course.”
She gives you some rags and helps dry you off. She helps you out of your soaked clothes and into something dry.
She notices the way you jump at the thunder and close your eyes when the lightning flashes.
“Do not worry, cub. This is nothing to be afraid of. It is just the *explains in science terms how the thunder and lightning works*”
She seems to notice that her extensive explanation did little to soothe you. She doesn’t really know what will soothe you though.
She ends up sitting down next to you on the bedroll, allowing you to rest your wet hair on her shoulder if you so choose.
She settles for telling you stories of the Harpers and other heroes. Her tales serve as a distraction enough to get you through the night.
#baldur's gate 3#bg3#shadowheart x tav#shadowheart#shadowheart x reader#bg3 shadowheart#lae'zel#laezel#lae’zel x tav#laezel x reader#bg3 lae'zel#karlach#karlach x reader#karlach x tav#bg3 karlach#minthara x tav#bg3 minthara#minthara#minthara x reader#Minthara is mommy#and kinda soft too??#jaheira#bg3 jaheira#jaheira x reader#Jaheira x tav#bg3 tav#Jaheira is really trying her best#bg3 scratch
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you should write something where reader is a primary teacher, and ellie is a volunteer/fill in music teacher :D they meet and romance happens or something (i’m bad with words 😀) <3
Play Date | E.W.
content warning:: fem!reader, I guess dealer!Ellie but not really?, bad writing
AN:: not proofread because i’d rather shoot myself than read my own writing. I’m so sorry if it’s bad but i’ve tried my best😔 also no idea hot to tittle things
Whoever told you that being a daycare volunteer is a good idea was wrong- on many, many levels may I add.
You always thought that kids were just cute tiny humans but that changed with your first day at the daycare in Jackson. Most of the kids were boys, there were maybe three girls total. And you never even took into consideration that fall just started, so did every kind of colds and sicknesses possible.
What’s worse than a snotty, nasty seven year old boy tugging on your shirt with his grimy hands? A whole room of them. You only took this job because Maria asked you to. She said something about you ‘wasting your potential by going on patrols’. And by potential she meant the fact that you can read, write and do basic math… sometimes.
·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·
You pushed the door of the daycare building open, furrowing your brows softly at the scratchy sound they’d made. It was almost winter, thankfully. Maria said you wouldn’t have to work once the snow falls, something about patrols not going out as often in bad weather. You shrugged off your jacket, hanging it on the wooden coat rack.
Before you could do anything else you’ve heard a knock on the door, immediately rolling your eyes in annoyance. You took your sweet time getting to it, muttering profanities under your breath.
“Daycare isn’t open until 7:30, sorry.” You opened the door with a sigh, your tone as cold as the outside air.
“Uh- Maria asked me to help you? She said to come here after 6:00 but- I uh, overslept.” Your eyes widened slightly, seeing the girl before you.
Ellie Williams. What the actual fuck?
You stared at her in disbelief, finally noticing the guitar in her hands. She scratched her neck nervously, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other.
“You gonna let me in?” You slapped yourself mentally, stepping away from the door. She walked in, muttering a quiet ‘thanks’.
Ellie placed her guitar against one of the many chairs, curiously looking around the daycare. She traced all of the drawings on the walls, wondering about the stories behind each of them.
“Why did Maria want you to help me?” You asked her after a while, sorting through all of the pencils and sharpening dull ones.
“That’s a funny story… I did something she didn’t like and this is my punishment, I guess- not that I don’t like you! I’m just… bad with kids.” Ellie stumbled over her words a little, looking everywhere but at you.
“Well, what did you do?” You raised your eyebrow, even if she wasn’t facing your way. You sighed softly before adding. “And don’t worry- this feels like a punishment to me too… and I volunteered.”
Ellie snickered before circling around some tables and sitting down next to you, grouping all the pencils by color and placing them in their assigned little boxes.
“She found out I was dealing.” She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, though you could hear the nervousness in her tone. “Weed, you know? Said ‘I’m corrupting Jackson’”
“Shit, you’ve been dealing?” You unintentionally raised your voice, turning your head to look at her with furrowed brows. She raised her head slowly, nodding with an anxious expression. “Why didn’t you tell me anything? I felt bad for nagging Dina and she didn’t want to tell where she gets it from.”
Ellie’s jaw dropped as she looked at you baffled, the pencil she was holding almost falling out of her hand.
“I didn’t know you smoked, sorry.” She muttered, not expecting the way you reacted.
“I don’t look the part, huh?” You looked down at your clothes, the white collar peeking out of your beige sweater and your brown pants cuffed nicely, even if it exposed your ankles to the cold winter air.
Ellie shook her head to the sides with a chuckle, taking the opportunity and looking you up and down. After a moment in awkward silence she spoke up, fiddling with her fingers nervously.
“So why don’t you go on patrols? I mean, you’re really smart and stuff. You could be useful.” The way she said it sounded almost like an invitation, raising her brows slightly while glancing at you.
“Well, Maria said that I’m too smart for patrols. That I’ll be more useful as a teacher.” You giggled, rolling your eyes at the memory.
“That’s a shame… There’s this spot on one of the routes, you can see whole Jackson from there.” Ellie frowned softly, smacking her lips in disappointment.
You hummed in agreement, understanding what she was getting at. Maybe once winter comes Maria will let you go on a patrol with Ellie, just maybe. You placed a few sheets of paper in front of her, handing her a black pen.
“You can draw, right? Make some coloring pages, I gotta clean up before the kids come.” You said with a smile while standing up from the little table you were sitting at, not waiting for her answer.
·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·
The kids came in earlier than usual, the room filling up an hour after you opened. After some discussing Ellie decided to take care of the arts&crafts corner, playing a song on her guitar whenever she got a request while you taught the older kids how to multiply. You couldn’t help but steal glances at Ellie, looking away quickly when her eyes meet yours.
“Miss, why are looking at Ellie like that? Do you like like her?” You hushed the girl with furrowed brows, your cheeks burning slightly.
“Keep your eyes on your paper, Maya.” You muttered, tapping your finger against the worksheet you prepared for her. Why were kids so nosy?
You glanced at Ellie only to find her already looking at you, rolling her eyes annoyed. You giggled quietly, nodding your head in agreement. You quickly made sure everyone understood their assignments and walked over to Ellie, a smile appearing on her lips once she noticed you.
“How’s it going? Any troublemakers?” You asked jokingly, looking suspiciously at every kid with a smirk. Almost every one of them shook their head, letting you know they were on their best behavior.
“They’re all good, don’t worry.” Ellie said with a smile, admiring the way you quietly praised the boy who showed you the drawing he made today.
“That’s good to hear.” You nodded your head, stepping away with Ellie to a more secluded place. “They’re usually so much worse, maybe you’re a good influence.”
“Tell that to Maria.” Ellie snickered, tucking her short hair behind her ears. She scrunched her nose, glancing at the kids a little disgusted. “One of them sneezed into his hand and then grabbed mine though, have you ever thought about teaching manners?”
“Thank you so much for that idea, I’ve never thought about that!” You said sarcastically, pointing your finger at her while nodding your head. “But seriously, I’ve tried. They just don’t care.”
You sighed in defeat, dropping your hands to your sides. Ellie hummed in acknowledgment, looking at the kids coloring the drawings she made for them earlier.
“You play beautifully, by the way.” You nodded your head awkwardly, the words leaving your mouth before you could even think about them.
Ellie blushed lightly, biting back a grin that was threading to spread across her lips. “Thanks” She muttered quietly, looking away from you sheepishly.
She opened her mouth to add something but was cut off by some kid calling your name, asking you to help them with something. You shot her an apologetic smile before getting back to your space, leaving her with a bunch of prepubescent boy that already had teasing smirks on their faces, ready to poke fun at Ellie.
·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·
You waved goodbye to the last kid, their parent giving you a grateful smile. You closed the door with a sigh, turning around to face Ellie. She was ready to leave, guitar in one hand and the kids’ drawings she received in the other.
“Can I walk you home?” She asked quickly, looking at you with a hopeful expression. You nodded your head with a smile, putting on your jacket.
“So, how would you rate your first day here?” You locked up the daycare building, stuffing the keys into your pocket.
“Well… it wasn’t bad. I thought it would be much worse.” Ellie hummed, walking right beside you. You bumped your shoulder into hers, smirking softly.
“I gotta say- you being there made it a lot better than usual… and I’m not talking just about the help.” She looked away sheepishly, unable to stop her lips from curling into a smile.
You walked in comfortable silence, stealing sneaky glances at each other when the other one wasn’t looking. Your hand brushed up against Ellie’s, making her gasp softly.
“Wow, you’re freezing.” She grabbed both of your hands into hers, standing in place. She rubbed her palms against the back of your hands, trying to warm you up.
“Yeah, it’s really cold today.” You giggled nervously, your cheeks heating up at her touch. She kept her grasp on one of your hands, swinging them softly between you as you walked. Smooth.
After a few minutes you finally got to your house, a little bummed out that your little trip is over. You stood before your front door, looking at Ellie shift from one foot to the other. She sighed, fiddling with her fingers nervously.
“How about I pick you up tomorrow? We could walk together.” Ellie suggested, taking a deep breath between her words. She rocked on the balls of her feet slightly, waiting for your answer impatiently.
“Okay.” You nodded your head with a grin, your hand resting on the doorknob. Ellie’s shoulders relaxed almost immediately, her own lips curling into a smile.
“Alright, cool… does 6 sound good?” You hummed in agreement, your eyes locked onto Ellie’s.
You stood there for a moment, in awkward- but not negative- silence. Ellie tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, breaking the eye contact by looking around nervously. You took your chance, standing on your tip toes and pecking Ellie’s cheek. She froze up, her eyes widening. Fuck, did you read it wrong?
“I’m sorry- I dunno why I did that.” You started apologizing, waving your hands around. Ellie grabbed both of them, shaking her head to the sides.
“It’s okay! You surprised me, that’s all.” She tried to hold back her smile but failed miserably, her ears and cheeks turning beet red. “I’ll uh- I should head back.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” You nodded your head, sighing in relief at Ellie’s words. You gave her one last smile before walking into your home, closing the door softly.
You really hope the snow won’t come soon.
I HATE THIS SO MUCH IM GONNA RIP MY HAIR OUT😭
#the last of us#ellie williams fluff#ellie williams imagine#ellie williams x reader#ellie williams x y/n#ellie williams x you#lesbian#wlw#ellie williams#ellie williams headcannons
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our beloved summer | jjk (7.5) (m.)
You made a vow to hate Jeon Jungkook ever since he packed up and left you without a single explanation, but when he shows up at your door after years of radio silence, it turns out that maybe your resolve isn’t as strong as you thought.
pairing: producer!jungkook x songwriter!reader rating: 18+ (minors dni) genres/warnings: exes au, fluff, Angst, smut; THE REASON™️, crying because obviously there's gonna be crying, mentions of hobi leaving :(, cursing, uhm she hits him; kissing (well, of course 😂), br*ast play, t*tty s*cking, oral s*x (f. receiving), f*ngering, unprotected s*x, r*ding, cr*ampie, uhm idk i think that's it word count: 6.9k (poetic, i know) note (1): holy fucking shit i am literally shaking like a chihuahua as i'm writing this a/n. what the hell it's finally here. we've been waiting for this for almost a year and a half. TREMENDOUS thanks to Jo @daechwitatamic, Ari @/wintaerbaer (edited 2024: crossed out but not removed bc even tho she plagiarized obs afterward, she did beta this for me so i guess i still gotta give her that lmfao), and Jazz @jeonwiixard for beta-ing this for me and for reassuring me that it's not a load of crap (probably) and especially Jo for telling me if i back out she'll come kick me. frick! gaaaah. okay i'm gonna let you read or i'll go out of my mind
series masterpost / playlist ; moodboards ; taglist
as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡
I want you to smile, to feel like enough 'Cause you deserve yellow and lions and love I hope you come back when you're doing well Forgive me for being the worst of myself
New Recording 28 - Chelsea Cutler
The second the door is closed, his mouth is on yours again.
His hand on your waist, yours in his hair, it’s similar to how it was mere minutes ago, just the urgency has increased tenfold. You want his suit off as much as you want your dress on the floor.
Jungkook detaches from your lips to let you breathe as he cages you between his body and the door, but it’s not like you can focus very well on breathing when he starts kissing down your neck, sucking bruises into your skin. His hands travel south, one palm curving around your hips to grope your ass, the other settling on the back of your thigh to lift it up, opening your legs wider so he could better slot in between them. With your leg lifted, it makes the slit in your dress ride up, exposing your core to the cool air of the room. You can feel his growing bulge pressed against you, right over your panties.
You whimper his name when he sucks on the sweet spot on your neck, his hips grinding against you slowly.
“Yeah?” You can hear the smirk in that one simple word and the honey that drips from his voice. “What is it?”
“Want you…”
“I’m right here,” Jungkook says. His slender fingers rub you over the pink lace that you’re wearing underneath your dress, teasing your opening through the fabric for a few beats before he pushes your panties aside. “Fuck, you’re so wet.”
His breath is hot on your neck. He presses his lips against your skin absentmindedly, the tip of his index circling you but not pushing inside just yet.
“Tell me you want me too,” you pant, your arm hooking around his neck to hold him close.
“I want you.”
Truth.
You pull him in for another bruising kiss before you blindly push him further into the room, your hands roaming the broad expanse of his clothed chest. He stops when the back of his knees hit the bed.
“Hey.” Jungkook breaks away from the kiss to look at you. “Are you sure?”
If Jimin knew what you’re doing right now, he’d say that you have zero self preservation instincts.
He’d be right, though. If you had any self preservation instincts, you wouldn’t be doing this.
Your stupid, battered heart has only ever wanted him.
“I’m sure,” comes your immediate reply. It’s desperate, but you don’t have it in yourself to even care. “I’m sure. I want this. Please.”
“You were drinking.”
“I’m not drunk. I promise.”
Maybe it’d be better if you were drunk. Then you could at least blame this lapse of judgment on a pathetic state of inebriation and not on your stupid self who’s always weak for him.
He stares at you for a minute, searching for any sign of your willingness being driven by alcohol. He seems relieved when he finds none, and it isn’t until then that he shrugs off his jacket, before helping you take off his dress shirt and trousers.
You haven’t seen him like this in so long.
Every defined line on his body, accentuating every detail that you could spend hours running your fingers over.
He looks different but at the same time, not really. A tad more muscular, but still the same lean frame. Hard chest and abs on full display for you. God, your fingers are fucking twitching with the need to touch him.
Once he’s been stripped down to his boxers, he leans down to kiss you before you stop him with a hand on his chest. The lone tiger lily on his arm catches your attention.
Your fingers reach out to trace the black ink on his body, the lines delicate, your touch feather light. You’re suddenly curious. When did he get it? You can’t remember if you two ever talked about getting tattoos.
“What does it mean?” you ask. It strikes you with the realization that this is just one of the thousands of things that you missed, a reminder of your lost time.
“Please love me,” he says, bringing his hands up to cup your face. He looks at you, just for a few seconds, before clarifying, “It means ‘Please love me,’” then kissing you again.
Jungkook clumsily and blindly searches for the dress’ zipper on your back, giving it a few impatient tugs until it finally starts gliding down your body. Your lips never part from one another as the dress falls to the floor, pooling at your feet. But once you step out of it, he does pull back to look at you from head to toe. His eyes fall to your chest, clad in a lacy pink bra that matches your panties. The look he gives you is the same one that he did when he saw you in your dress earlier today. But there’s something else in his eyes - realization, pride, perhaps a question too.
His hands are back on your body instantly, throwing you onto the bed, crawling over you like a predator. He discards your bra with ease, flinging it to the floor with the rest of your clothes. You shiver when the chilly air meets your bare chest, but the sensation quickly goes away when he takes your breast into his warm mouth. You let out a delighted sigh, arching your back to push yourself further into him as his tongue flicks over your stiff nipple. One of his hands comes up to squeeze your other breast to make sure that it isn’t neglected, rolling your pebbled bud between his thumb and forefinger. He switches to sucking your other tit after a while, then pawing at the one he just had in his mouth.
“Jungkook,” you whine his name when he makes out with your tits for too long, because there’s somewhere else that desperately requires his immediate attention. “Need you…”
He releases your nipple with a wet pop, and he looks pleased with himself when he sees that they’re thoroughly glistening with his spit. “Sorry,” he says with a chuckle. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” He starts making his way down your body, kissing every inch of your skin that’s on display for him, before you put a hand on his shoulder when his face gets close to your thighs.
“What are you doing?”
He looks up at you as his fingers ghost over the fabric of your panties. “Can I?”
You lick your lips, contemplating whether or not you have the patience to wait for him. But alas, you decide, “Okay.”
Jungkook makes quick work of sliding your underwear down your legs and letting it join the pile on the floor. Even in the dim light, he can see just how wet you are, practically glittering with arousal, looking so utterly inviting that it makes his mouth water. All of this, just for him.
He doesn’t waste another second, diving right into you to lick a stripe up your dripping folds. Swiftly burying two fingers into your heat, he doesn’t stop until he’s knuckles deep. Your lips part in a silent but delighted moan. You forgot how good he used to make you feel. Your fingers could never feel as good as his, not thick enough to stretch yourself open and not long enough to reach deep inside of you.
“Fuck,” you drawl, your eyes fluttering shut when the tip of his tongue meets your throbbing clit, teasing it until you’re practically grinding against his face. You thread a hand into his hair, gripping his dark locks until he’s groaning, sending blissful vibrations all throughout your body. The figure 8’s that his tongue draws on your clit sets you alight, sends you into a whole other dimension completely as pleasure courses through your veins.
“So good,” he mumbles. To you? To himself? You can’t tell, but that doesn’t really matter. “Still so good.”
You hear it, just how soaked you are, as he begins thrusting his digits in and out of you. He strokes your walls delicately with each press of his fingers, scissoring you open for what you know is to come.
His tongue dips into your entrance then, teases your dripping hole as you pant heavily,
Your legs close in on his head as the orgasm nears, but he keeps your thighs apart, firmly holding them open as he makes you unravel.
This is fucking unreal - Jungkook with his whole face tucked between your legs, desperate to make you come with his talented mouth. You never would have anticipated this when you woke up this morning.
No, just a while ago you were crying by yourself down at the beach. Now you’re crying out his name as he smothers himself in you.
Once he starts curling them inside of you, it’s embarrassing how fast you come. You clench hard around his fingers as the orgasm washes over you, dripping down his fingers and he uses the added wetness to carry you through the high.
“Jungkook…” you whimper, sounding completely fucked out even though it’s only just beginning. After a while, the heightened pleasure fades into the background, and he presses soft kisses against your inner thigh.
He crawls his way up your body until he’s facing you again. You watch his fingers and the way they’re coated in your juices, wondering what he’ll do with them next. Jungkook languidly smears the wetness all over your lips like he’s carefully painting them, only to kiss you afterward. When you moan against him, he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. Your hand finds its way into his boxers then, wrapping your fingers around his hardened length, pumping him in your fist until he’s shallowly rutting against you.
The kiss gets broken when he suddenly pulls away, realization dawning on him. “Shit,” he exclaims. “I don’t have a condom.”
“Oh.” You blink at him, then you both just look at each other for a while. This isn’t a problem with no solution, even if the solution is a disastrous one in hindsight. You just want him, so badly that you can’t think of anything else.
He waits for you, doesn’t dare say anything else until you do.
Yet again, the opportunity presents itself for you to stop.
But you’ve already gone this far, and though it’s damn near impossible, you want him even more than you did before.
“Are you clean?” you ask.
It’s evident that he’s surprised by the way his eyes widen, and his silence that follows for the next half a minute. “Yeah,” he tells you.
“Okay. Then we don’t need a condom.”
He says your name once, his fingers brushing your hair away from your face sweetly. You always did like your name best when it used to fall from his lips so softly. “Are you sure?” he asks.
“I’m sure. I promise.”
Jungkook sucks in a breath, like he’s steadying himself, before he rids himself of the remaining piece of clothing on his body, then settles between your legs again. This time, his cock rests directly on your bare pussy. The anticipation makes it harder for you to breathe, makes you squeeze your thighs around his waist to not let him leave.
“How long has it been?”
Your answer is vague. “Too long,” you say. You don’t want to tell him that there’s been no one else since him, but you have a feeling that he understands it anyway. You think that he’d be pleased with your answer, that maybe it would boost his ego in a way, but there’s only a certain sadness that settles in his eyes.
“Okay.” Regardless, he pushes past the sudden gloom that befalls his features, blinking away the disheartenment swimming in his irises, to align himself with your entrance. He rubs his cock against your pussy to coat you in his precum, even though you yourself are certainly more than wet enough for him to slide home easily. “Ready?”
“Yes,” you confirm, bracing your hands on his shoulders as he eases the tip into you, making the both of you moan at the contact. You feel him, all of him.
For a second, you wonder if he has ever forgone protection with anyone else, or if it’s only ever been just you.
Jungkook takes one of your hands off his shoulder to lay it flat on the bed next to your head, lacing your fingers together, giving your hand a slight squeeze. “Breathe. You can do it.”
“Give me a minute.”
“We’ve got time,” he says, his voice smooth like velvet.
“Can you kiss me?” you ask, almost like you’re shy even though he’s balls deep inside of you.
He chuckles lightly, so endeared by you and your silly question.
His lips meet yours sweetly, like doing so would help make the stretch less painful. Maybe it does, at least a little bit.
You can feel his cock throbbing inside of you, and he’s probably trying so hard to hold back, but he keeps kissing you nonetheless.
“You can move,” you say after a while.
“I’ll go slow, okay?”
“Okay.”
He rears his hips back, slowly, then thrusts forward again. You whimper from the slight burn, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. His movements are gentle for the next couple of minutes or so, and it isn’t until you start opening up more that he sets a steadier pace. Even when he starts to fuck you faster, one of his hands is still on your hips, rubbing your skin soothingly.
“Fuck,” Jungkook grunts out, followed by a sigh of your name as he pumps into your cunt, every ridge and vein of his cock dragging deliciously in and out of your walls. “You feel so good.”
He gazes down at you as he moves, and there’s just something so intimate about it that it makes you want to cry again.
You know what it’s like to have him fuck you, and this isn’t it.
No, this is something else entirely.
I love you, you think. I love you so fucking much.
“Missed you.” His words come out hushed, caught in half a moan, half a whimper. “Missed you so fucking much.”
“Did you think about me?”
“Always,” he says, without even missing a beat.
“No,” you clarify. “When you were sleeping with other people, did you think about me?”
“I only thought about you.” His hips stutter as he tells you this, like he’s confessing to something that he shouldn’t. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
You never admitted this to anyone, not even Taehyung even though he probably sensed it, but you used to feel like you could be physically sick just looking at the photos on his feed every time you’d lurk on a drunken night. They were never flashy, just subtle enough for you to know that there was someone. It made you nauseous, because the place next to him was always supposed to be yours.
You just stare at him, not knowing how to process this bit of information. Sure, it’s an ego boost. There’s some pride in knowing that you were the one on his mind even if you weren’t together.
He’s so utterly gorgeous like this that you can’t form a single coherent thought, too lost in the way his eyes bore into yours and in the blossoming warmth that spreads all over your chest from hearing his words.
How did he manage to get even more beautiful? Sculpted by the gods. The standard for all men.
“What is it?” he asks when you stare at him for too long.
“I…” You blink away the daze. “I wanna be on top.”
“Okay.”
Jungkook slips out of you just long enough to get seated with his back against the headboard and pull you into his lap. You hover over him, letting his tip rub against your dripping hole for a moment before you sink onto him. You tip your head back and sigh as you envelope him fully again, the only difference is that you can feel him so much deeper like this.
He grabs your ass with both hands, kneading your skin as he helps you ride him. The sounds that you make together are downright obscene, bouncing off the walls, ringing in your ears.
“Harder,” you tell him shakily. “Don’t wanna hurt you.”
“I want it to hurt,” you say, holding onto him like you’re bracing for impact, because you know he’ll give you what you want. “Make it hurt.”
Jungkook sighs once, then digs his heels into the mattress to steady himself before his hips go wild, thrusting into you with such force that it nearly has you sobbing, your head falling onto his shoulder. It makes you burn with pleasure, like a star before it becomes a supernova. When the tension starts building quickly, you can’t help but slam your hips down harder to meet his thrusts, to chase that high.
You press your lips against his skin, any spot you could find - his jaw, his neck, his shoulder. “Tell me you love me.”
The words are ready on the tip of his tongue, like he’s been waiting for an opportunity to say it. He doesn’t miss a single beat as he tells you, “I love you.”
“Mean it.”
“I do mean it. I love you.”
Truth.
For some sick and twisted reason, his words send you crashing over the edge, falling into that abyss of pleasure that you’ve been searching for. You say his name, over and over again, like you’re making up for all the years that he wasn’t around to hear it.
Your walls convulse wildly around him as you cry out, your toes curling, your thighs shaking. He holds you close, thrusting into you through your orgasm until you’re dizzy, like you could actually pass out from the overwhelming bliss.
“I’m close,” he tells you in a raspy voice.
You catch your breath long enough to say, “Come for me.”
“Where do you want it?”
“Inside,” you say without much thought. If you were in a clearer state of mind, you would know that it’s reckless and stupid. You’re not on birth control, and if anything were to happen, you would have no one to blame but yourself.
But you aren’t in a clear state of mind, and maybe this is even more dangerous than if you were fueled by alcohol. At least you can sober up from alcohol.
You just want him so badly that rationality seems like a luxury you can’t afford right now.
“Y/N,” he whispers shakily, though there’s a warning edge to his voice that you understand.
“I want you to come inside me. I want it. I want it so bad. Please.”
Jungkook groans at your answer.
He doesn’t ask you to look at him, instead choosing to hide his face against your neck where you feel something wet glide down your skin as he grips your hips. It’s followed by a sniffle, and hands that hold onto you like you’re a lifeline.
He’s crying, and that breaks your fucking heart.
You don’t know what to do. Part of you wants to tilt his chin up to look at you, because it feels strange without his tender gaze on you, but you decide against it even though the tips of your fingers tingle with the need to do so.
Your walls clench with purpose, squeezing around him, trying to help you get there. It’s not that long before you hear your name falling from his lips in a choked out moan, so needy and beautiful and makes you nostalgic. He empties himself inside of you, making you shudder from the sudden warmth that he paints along your walls.
You stay in the same position for a few more minutes until your chest is no longer heaving with exhaustion and euphoria. He gently pulls you off his lap to lay you down on the bed, pressing an apologetic kiss against your bare shoulder when you wince from the oversensitivity, from any kind of movement at all.
When he moves to throw on his boxers and goes to stand up, you reach for him. “Where are you going?” You instantly feel pathetic for asking.
He pauses, then squeezes your hand as that sadness from before makes an appearance in his eyes again. “I’m just going to the bathroom,” he tells you, his voice quiet.
The relief on your face must be visible. “Okay,” you say. Rationally, you know he probably wouldn’t fuck you and leave you the second the deed is done. But again, rationality is a luxury at the moment.
Jungkook returns a couple of minutes later with a warm cloth, and dabs it between your legs to clean you up. You grimace when he touches you there, evidently sore already from the activities you just engaged in.
“Sorry,” he’s quick to say, though it isn’t really his fault. Or maybe it is his fault. You’re not sure if that even matters.
When he’s done, he gets under the covers with you. “Come here,” he says, then shuffles your body closer to his until he’s holding you with his hands on your bare waist. He leans down to kiss you, and you let him. God, you feel like you’re fucking melting.
It’s different from the kiss down at the beach, and it’s different from the needy ones you shared in the past hour. It’s soft and slow and easy, like there’s nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.
Jungkook breaks away eventually, and rests his forehead against yours then. One of his hands on your waist slides up to your ribs, until his thumb could brush the underside of your breast. The touch is gentle, sweet, completely innocent.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. He means everything he tells you. “You’re perfect.”
You even blush, like you’re a stupid lovesick teenager. “Tell me,” you say.
“Anything.”
You reckon it’s self-indulgent at this point. You’re only asking to feel better about your place in his life, or rather, the place that used to be yours.
“Tell me you can’t live without me.”
He nudges his nose against yours. No hesitation. “I can’t live without you.”
Truth. You know it’s the truth.
Nonetheless… “Liar.” Your tone is soft. There’s no bite at all. You touch his face, trying to commit to memory every detail, how his soft skin feels under your touch as if it’s the last time you’ll ever get to see him like this. Maybe it is. You never got to have a last time with him, never got to know that it was ending before it already ended. You’re not thinking about the morning because you don’t want to, but the seed of anxiety is there in your belly. Your fingers trace his jawline as you say, “You lived without me. You were doing fine without me.”
His lips ghost over your cheek. “It wasn’t much of a life,” he says. “I couldn’t bear it without you.”
The thing is, you know that he’s being honest. And it should make you feel good that you affected him as much as he affected you.
But then… it keeps leading you back to that question. The question that you thought you could go the rest of your life without knowing the answer to. But for that to be possible, you needed him to stay gone, stay out of your world forever.
He shouldn’t be here, tangled up in the sheets with you and kissing you like his life depends on it.
He shouldn’t tell you that he misses you, that he loves you. Shouldn’t tell you to please, love him too.
It’s contradictory, isn’t it? You needed to never see him again if you stood a chance of moving on with your life. You needed it and yet, all you wanted was to have him back by your side.
The tattoo catches your attention again. It feels like it’s laughing at you, mocking you.
You clench your teeth once, your eyes beginning to turn glassy. Jungkook sees it, and he’s quick to break up your train of thought. He presses his mouth to yours, shushing you with a deep kiss that makes your head spin, despite it all.
“Don’t think about it,” he mumbles against your lips, so desperate to get you to stop. As if he can sense where this could lead.
“How could I not? I don’t know who you are anymore.”
“You know me.” He holds onto your wrist, to keep your hand on his face before you can pull it away. “I’m still the same.”
“No, you’re not,” you say quietly, absentmindedly.
“Yes,” he insists. “Yes, I am.”
Maybe that’s true. Maybe you do see the person you used to know. But you only ever see him in glimpses and it always leaves you with a terrible, nauseous feeling afterward.
He doesn’t understand how much it hurts you to catch glimpses of the boy you used to love - the boy you still love - only to realize that maybe that isn’t the person he wants to be anymore. It feels like he keeps trying to kill that version of himself, like he despises the person who meant the world to you.
Are you gone forever?
Come back quietly.
“How old are you?” you ask after a moment.
The question makes him pause, his soft features twisting in confusion. He leans back a bit, so his eyes could focus on your face better.
“What?”
“How old are you?” you repeat.
It takes him another while to answer as he tries to see where you’re going with this. But when his search comes up empty, he just answers, “29.”
"I don't know who you are at 29. The last time I knew you was 24. No. You hadn't even turned 24 yet. Where was 25? 26? 27? 28? It’s unfair that you still know who I am when I don't know who you are. I feel like I never aged a day past 24. You carried on living but I'm still here."
His eyes well up once again, but this time, you can see it. The first tear spills over, lands somewhere on your collarbone. This is what you used to want, right? To see him hurting, just like how you were hurting? Well, be careful what you wish for.
No part of you feels victorious that you’re making him cry, that the score is finally being settled, because none of this undoes all of the shit you had to go through. If anything, it makes you feel even worse, like you’re still losing.
“I never moved on from us. I couldn’t move on from you,” he says, voice cracking toward the end. Your heart is doing the same thing in your chest, but you’re glad that he can’t see it. “I swear I miss you every day. I wanted you with me every day. You have no idea how much I wanted to come back to you.”
Jungkook looks so dejected, like a reflection of you these past few years. You recognize that look in his eyes. You know that sadness all too well. He was in as much pain as you were.
He loved you when he left you. He still loves you even after all this time.
You inhale shakily. For the first time, you feel infinitely selfish for only focusing on your own misery without even stopping to give him the benefit of the doubt, to consider the possibility that maybe letting you go wasn’t something he wanted. Maybe he isn’t the antagonist that you spent years making him out to be.
There’s more to it, and you need to know.
“Then why did you leave me?”
Graduation was just shy of a month ago, and two weeks before that was Hoseok’s flight when he left you all behind.
You and Jungkook, along with Taehyung and Jimin had gone to see him off at the airport. Of course you did, you were his best of friends after all. The goodbye was full of jokes accompanied by sniffles, and tears that overflowed without permission because you all agreed that you would hold yourself together for Hoseok. Jimin was probably the one who cried the most, even though inside, you were equally sad to see your friend leave.
A part of your life was ending, and that in and of itself was depressing enough already, but you thought at least the whole group would still be together and start the next chapter by each other’s side.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t the end of the world. All of you could still make it work, even if it wasn’t the most ideal of situations. You promised to keep in touch, promised to message the group chat every day and have video calls every weekend. You were still kids, and kids tend to be optimistic like that.
What none of you could see coming was how everything would fall apart in a matter of mere weeks.
Jungkook thinks that decades from now, when he’s old and gray and helpless, he still won’t be able to forget that day.
He should’ve been more concerned when your mother contacted him out of nowhere, asking him to meet with her, asking him not to let you know where he was going.
He’d shown up half an hour early to the cafe where they were supposed to meet, just because he didn’t want to risk being late and have your mother disapprove of him even more. Not once had she expressed anything other than disdain toward your relationship, but you’d always told him it didn’t matter, that you were the only person who could decide what to do with your life, not anyone else, let alone your mother. He always believed you back then, even if deep down, he still wanted her to see that he was enough for you. Her unattainable approval still mattered to him.
Jungkook spent thirty whole minutes running on nothing but anxiety and caffeine. That was probably his first mistake, ordering a cup of coffee which only made him more nervous than he already was.
When your mother arrived, it barely took her any time at all to get right into what she came here to say. She hadn’t even bothered with a drink.
Was that how it was always going to end? Should he have seen it coming from the beginning? Was he the only one who thought it would be you and him all the way until the very end?
Maybe he was more of a hopeless romantic than he thought.
It was the way she had called him a phase that she hoped you’d grow out of. That she had let you keep this relationship for long enough, but now that you’d graduated - now that you’d be starting a life for yourself - she couldn’t sit back and watch you throw it all away for a boy who could never give you what you deserved.
It was the way she told him she didn’t want history to repeat itself. How she didn’t want to subject you to the same fate that she and your father had to suffer through. How she had left your dad because in the end, he wasn’t enough for her and you, even though you were a child and you deserved to grow up with a father and with love.
She said the same thing would happen to you and Jungkook, because you were meant for greater things and he was not meant to deserve you. She made it clear that he would always hold you back, that he would never amount to even a fraction of what you should receive in life.
“If you love her, you would let her go.”
Cliché, right? Like the kind of stuff you only ever see in movies? Well, movies have to take inspiration from somewhere.
He thought about his own mother then, and about how people could have such different ways of showing love. He believed that your mother loved you, and he still believes that. She wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of seeing him if she didn’t care about you. She wanted the best for you, and that wasn’t him.
She didn’t have to tell him to keep it a secret from you, because he wouldn’t have told you regardless. He was well aware of how strained your relationship with your mother was, and letting you know would only drive it closer to the edge. She knew he wouldn’t tell you. He loved you, and that was the one thing that she could count on.
Just sitting there in that café, Jungkook felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room, even though he was surrounded by the other patrons and their lively laughter as they chatted away. The pitiful way that your mother kept looking at him forced him to learn what it was like to feel truly worthless.
The pity in her eyes only intensified when he couldn’t even say a single word in response, couldn’t think of anything to defend himself.
Silence meant agreement, and that was what he chose. Jungkook - the naive boy that he was - stopped believing in you. He’d believed her instead.
He was just a kid, what else was he supposed to do?
She was your own flesh and blood, and he knew nothing could ever replace that. He would rather let you hate him, resent him for the rest of your life, than let you lose your family.
That day, he lied to you for the first time ever, saying he couldn’t come over because he was tired. The sunflowers he bought for you just hours prior ended up dying on his windowsill.
He wouldn’t see you again for a few more days, then for months afterward.
July was supposed to represent a blossoming summer, but all he could remember was the dreadful promise of a winter that would inevitably come.
You call his name when he takes too long to answer. “Tell me.”
“I love you,” he merely says. His hand brushes your cheek.
You frown, despite the way the three words make your chest tingle.
“I love you,” he says it again, trying to ease the furrow between your brows.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I’m sorry.”
His voice is soft, barely even audible, but it’s this gentleness that makes his words ricochet, ringing in your ears loudly like a gun going off in the quiet of your room.
Again with the apologies.
Fuck this.
It’s hard to take it to heart when you don’t even know what he’s apologizing for.
You gave Jungkook the chance to explain himself, but if he doesn’t take it, then that’s not on you. There isn’t much else that you can do.
You swallow hard, then shove him off of you so you could get out of the bed. Your legs instantly tremble as you attempt to stand, but you soldier on as you put on your bra and underwear, then grab your dress from where it lays abandoned on the floor. You’re shaking, but it’s difficult to determine if it’s because you’re angry, or cold without his warmth nearby.
He’s quick to his feet too, rushing toward you before you could leave.
“Don’t touch me,” you hiss when he reaches for your arm. He doesn’t listen, because when has Jeon Jungkook ever fucking listened?
“Y/N, wait-”
“Wait for what?! I asked you a simple question and you can’t even answer me.”
He runs a hand over his face frustratedly, clearly torn over something. He holds your angered gaze, but the way he looks at you is much milder, gentler even if it’s equally frustrated. “I’m trying to protect you.”
You don’t know if it’s the wrong answer or not. You just know that in this moment, it irritates you to no end.
“Oh my god,” you gasp mockingly. “Someone is trying to kill me.”
“What?”
“Someone is trying to kill me. Someone is waiting outside that door right now, waiting for me to come out so they can kill me. Holy fucking shit, I’m about to be assassinated.”
“Y/N, I’m serious.”
There’s that burning sensation behind your eyes again. “And you think I’m not? What do you mean you’re trying to protect me? Protect me from what? Do you think this is a fucking k-drama? Jesus Christ,” you scoff harshly. “What do you want from me? What the actual fuck do you want?”
Jungkook aims for you again, and in an attempt to ward him off, your swinging fist inadvertently collides with his chest. The dress falls to the floor again, laying next to your feet, that useless piece of fabric.
It probably doesn’t do much damage to him, but he’s a bit startled regardless. So are you, if you’re being honest. But you do it again, and surprisingly, he lets you.
“You coward.” You shove hard at his chest, making him stumble backward. “You unbelievable asshole. You fucked me, you said you loved me, and you still can’t tell me why you left me.”
He allows you to push him until his back is pressed against the wall. And even then, you don’t relent. Your fists continue beating against his chest as you start sobbing, spilling ‘I hate you’s in between so many expletives it could make his grandmother faint.
He might bruise in the morning.
You hope he bruises in the morning.
The least Jungkook could do is bruise for you.
You want him to curse him out for so many things - for loving you, for leaving you, for not even having the balls to tell you why he broke your heart. For coming back to remind you that you still love him. For proving that he still has you in the palm of his hands, and every twitch of his finger can make you feel like the walls are crumbling down on you.
But even as you tell him how much you hate him, you’re still thinking: Come back. I don’t want to keep losing you. Come back to me.
Because he’s the only person who can hurt you like this. When you think about him, it used to make you so depressed that you could hardly function. There’s no other way to put it to make it sound less pathetic. That’s just how it is.
You shouldn’t have agreed to this weekend, shouldn’t have been nice to him, shouldn’t have let him convince you not to think about it. You shouldn’t have opened the door for him in the first place, because there was always a part of you that knew he could get under your skin so easily just like that.
This wasn’t your second chance at holding onto him. It wasn’t a do-over. It was a re-enactment.
The years haven’t made you wiser, that much is clear.
You don’t know how long this goes on for, but at some point, you begin to wear yourself out. Your movements start to slow and the energy to violently sob leaves your body until you’re nearly collapsing. Jungkook catches you when you don’t have the strength to hold yourself up anymore. Why are you always so fucking helpless?
“You just…” Your voice gets caught at the end of a sob. This is rock bottom all over again. “You make me so sad.”
You grasp his arm weakly, feeling like your own lungs are failing you. You can’t breathe. It’s too much, too infinitely humiliating. He’s doing this to you again, and this time you have to shoulder most of the blame, because you are the one that enabled your own heartbreak for the second time.
You’re still crying, and you hate that this is the first time he’s ever seen you cry like this.
“I’m trying to protect you,” he says firmly, looking at you like he’s trying so hard not to break down alongside you. “Please, I’m so sorry.” The words come out as a whisper now. You can feel the tremble in his voice and the shake of his hands where they hold you. His big bambi eyes - the usual home of constellations - now house tears that threaten to spill onto his supple cheeks. “Please. What can I do to make you believe me?”
It’s those stupid fucking eyes. It’s your stupid fucking self.
“You need to tell me.” Your tears keep on falling no matter how much he tries to wipe them away. “I can’t take it anymore.”
“It’ll make things worse,” he tells you, his voice cracking as he does. He sounds like he means it, and maybe he does believe that whatever he’s hiding from you will only hurt you more. It almost has you caving, but you can’t do this a second time. You’re exhausted, both physically and emotionally. In the morning, you’ll think about how this is all so dramatic, the way you’re acting right now. The most k-drama-esque thing that has ever happened to you. But in the moment, you just feel like someone plunged a knife in your chest, and they keep twisting it, twisting and twisting,...
In the end, you decide that it’s a risk you’ll have to take, because nothing can be more painful than the absolute hell he’s putting you through. He’ll never understand how utterly excruciating it is to experience this kind of heartbreak.
“If you don’t tell me now, I won’t be able to survive you again.”
up next...
our beloved summer (08) ⏤ aka the JK centric chapter
all rights reserved © jeonqkooks. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted september 30, 2023]
#jungkook x reader#jungkook fluff#jungkook smut#jungkook angst#jungkook x you#jungkook fanfic#jungkook imagines#bts x reader#bts x you#bts fluff#bts smut#bts angst#bts scenarios#bts imagines#bangtanbathhouse#clubzerooclock#52hertz#fic: our beloved summer#obs spoilers#jungkook
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Good For You - Quinn Hughes x ofc
gif from @gabelandeskog
Title: Good For You
Author: Tory / @tkwrites
Relationship: Pre-established: Quinn Hughes x Sarah Roberts (ofc)
Summary: Quinn and Sarah have a discussion about and decide to stop using condoms before putting that decision into practice. A question we’ve all been waiting for is finally asked.
Warnings: smut (18+ only), p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it up unless you’re in a consenting relationship!), cum play (sort of?), if I missed anything, let me know!
Word count: 4,900
Comments: I live!
After two heavy snapshots, steeped in feelings, I’m back with some good old fashioned smut (with lots of plot, of course, because I am who I am). Thanks to the many Nonnies who requested this. I’d already started writing it when you sent this, but your asks challenged me to combine both your requests. I hope you enjoy, and it lives up to your expectations! If you did enjoy, please let me know by commenting, sending in an ask or reblogging! I love reading your comments, asks and suggestions!
Anonymous asked: hey! Another request idea… I was rereading the fic about Sarah being overwhelmed before meeting Quinn’s parents and when they’re talking about the WAG jackets, sarah mentions that they aren’t official yet. Can we get fic of Quinn officially asking Sarah to be his gf? Seriously love readying your stuff!
Anonymous asked: I love how much you actually show the communication between Quinn and Sarah, it makes it so much more real and overall I just love your writing ❤️❤️ I noticed how as their relationship progresses, they decide not to use condoms. Will we get to see this conversation in the future? I'd also love to see when they officially decide to be together with labels and all xxx
Good For You
A Quinn & Sarah snapshot
“Hey, Quinn?” Sarah called, walking up the stairs.
“Yeah?”
She found him on the suede couch, reading a book.
Sitting at his feet, she smiled when he moved them into her lap. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Okay,” he put the marker in his book and rested it on his chest.
Color flooded into her cheeks.
“What?” he asked, unable to hold in a nervous laugh at her sudden blush.
“I just,” she paused to lick her lips, trying to screw up her courage. “I wanted to let you know I had an IUD put in last month.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the most effective form of birth control. It’s pretty much as effective as celibacy.”
He paused, unsure where this conversation was going. When she didn't elaborate, he asked, “So what did you want to talk about? Just that you have it?”
“Well that and —” she knotted her fingers together, “since it’s super effective, and we’re only seeing each other and have been for a while, I wondered if maybe you wanted to…” she trailed off.
Quinn got the feeling he was supposed to know what she was talking about, but he was clueless. “If I wanted to, what?”
Chewing on her lip, she guessed it was time to just spit it out, “I wondered if we both get STI tested, and only if you want to, we could try not using condoms all the time.”
He felt his eyes go wide. “What?”
“I mean, only if you want to. If you feel more comfortable with condoms, that’s totally fine.”
“Are you joking?” he asked, scrambling to sit up. The book slipped off him and fell to the wood floor with a sharp slap. “Of course I want to. Did you think I was going to turn down that offer?”
“I don’t know.”
He moved to kneel, crowding into her space. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, feel it in his fingertips. “Can we try now?”
A laugh split her mouth into a pretty smile, but she put a hand to his chest to stop him from leaning closer.
“We need to get STI tested first.”
“I’m clean,” he said.
“As far as I know, I am too, but I would feel better if we both got tested, knowing neither of us has slept with someone else in quite a while.”
He looked crestfallen.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she hastened to add, “I’ve just heard horror stories of girls whose boyfriends didn’t know they were carrying something. Most STIs affect women, you know, and men just pass them along.”
His eyes went wide, “really?”
“Just another joy of being a woman.”
“Thats bullshit.”
“Yep,” she agreed, popping the last letter. “So It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I really need that proof for my own peace of mind before I’d feel comfortable.”
“Yeah,” Quinn agreed, “of course. I’ll talk to Roman about it tomorrow.”
“I’ll message my doctor,” she said with a shy smile, pulling out her phone.
Logically, Quinn knew they needed to talk about this before anything could happen, but the thought that he might get to fuck her bare buzzed in the back of his mind so intensely, he wished she had waited until it was an actual possibility, even if that was impossible.
When he asked Roman about it between breakfast and video the next day, the trainer immediately went into crisis mode, “what kind of symptoms are you having?”
“None. I'm just — I want to be safe.”
He was going to tell him that the girl he was seeing — he was getting so sick of using that phrase — asked him to, but that seemed like it was putting all the blame on Sarah. While she did ask for it, he'd just never considered it something he should do. Now that he knew, he was more than happy to do it.
“You're sure? You can tell me, you know.”
“I know. No symptoms. I’m just making sure.”
Roman looked at him appraisingly. “Are you dating someone new?”
Quinn was a bit surprised he hadn't heard about it. It seemed to him it was the only thing the guys chirped him about lately.
“Yeah.”
“Good for you,” he said approvingly. “Glad to know you're being safe.”
Quinn felt a chagrinned smile spread over his face.
“Well, I’m glad to know your girlfriend is safe at least,” Roman said with a laugh.
How was it so easy for him to whip that word around?
“Go to Doctor Jamison's after practice. I'll put in an order for you. They'll just need a blood sample.”
The results took two days. By that time he was on the road. Thankfully, not for too long. Only one game.
He sent her a screenshot of the panel results. All negative, mercifully. He didn't expect to be positive, but he hadn't checked while he was with or after he broke up with June.
She sent back a screenshot of her own test panel, also all negative.
It was suddenly very real. The idea of coming home to Sarah was even more enticing than usual.
He’d fucked girls bare before, he knew the sensations that came along with it, but he’d never fucked Sarah bare before. He’d tried, and she’d insisted on using condoms. He wasn’t going to make her uncomfortable, and he wasn’t going to give up sleeping with her. If that meant he had to wear a condom, he’d do it.
Now that the possibility of making love to her without one was on the horizon, he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
Looks like we'll be coming in about 2, he texted when they got to the arena. They'd fly home right after the game versus Calgary. Want to just stay at my place?
Wish I could, she wrote back, but I have class tomorrow at 8. I'll come to yours as soon as I'm done with work, though.
“What's wrong, Q?” Brock asked, noticing his crestfallen expression.
“Nothing,” he said, shoving his phone into his bag. “Sarah's just got class tomorrow morning so I won't see her until tomorrow night.”
“Man, she's got you whipped.”
Quinn rolled his eyes, playing off the comment. If he protested, he knew they would just chirp him about it more, and there was no way he was going to explain his excitement to Brock.
When the next evening finally rolled around, Quinn found himself pacing, a nervous excitement buzzing through his whole body. He’d never felt like this before. As if anticipation had been winding him up for 4 days straight.
He’d tried his best to burn off as much energy as possible on a run that morning, but that felt like years ago now. Adrenaline was coursing through him by the gallon.
He heard the elevator ding, and his stomach leapt.
Before Sarah could scan in, the door flung open. Quinn was standing there, cheeks already flushed.
She couldn’t help it, she gigged.
“What?”
“You’re just really cute,” she said.
Pulling her into the apartment, he resisted the urge to pull her upstairs straight away. Cool. He needed to be cool.
“Cute in a good way, right?”
“Yes,” she assured, leaning up to kiss him. “In a very good way.”
All of a sudden, the enormity of the situation crashed on him. He and Sarah had had sex 73 times, but this felt totally new. A frantic awkwardness took hold of his mind. How was he supposed to start this? Just like every other time? Every other time, it happened so naturally.
“Hey,” she said, grasping his wrist, trying to stop the overthinking she could practically see scrolling across his face.
He blinked a few times and met her eyes. “Sorry. I’m so… I mean, I’ve never anticipated something like this for so long.” The words were falling out of his mouth before he really had a chance to think through them.
“Yeah, I get that,” she said. “I’m not sure I have either.”
“I don’t want to fuck it up,” he admitted.
A soft smile took over her face. “Quinn, it’s me. We've already had great sex. This is just another step.”
Nodding, he took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before letting it out. Excitement reared in his stomach again, waging battle with his nerves.
“I do think we should talk about it, though.”
“Didn’t we already talk about it?”
“I mean, I think we should talk about what we want.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, what we're looking for.” She moved to sit on the living room couch, pulling him down with her. “I want to make sure we talk about it before we're in the heat of the moment so neither of us do something the other isn’t comfortable with.”
Quinn had never been with someone who communicated as much as Sarah. “It’s a product of the dead parents,” she’d told him when he asked her about it once, “life’s too short to not have the conversation.”
He sat next to her, “okay, so what do you want?”
“I want to feel you fuck me bare.”
The frank way she said it made his whole body ring.
“And I want to feel you come inside me.” It felt dangerous and exciting to say it out loud, but she couldn't get it out of her mind.
“Really?” Quinn asked, voice lilted with surprise.
“Yeah. I've been dreaming about it,” she admitted. For the past few weeks, it seemed every time she would dream of him, the feeling of him filling her was so vivid that when she woke, her underwear would be soaked, almost as if she'd orgasmed in her sleep. “I'm guessing that's something you want, too?”
He nodded.
“Is there anything else you want?”
He opened his mouth, then paused.
She nodded, encouraging him.
“I mean, there is something but it’s not a huge deal.” He was pretty certain she would at least consider it, but history had him trying to not get his hopes up.
“Tell me,” she urged, resting her hand on his knee. “I want to do what you want, too.”
“I want to come on you,” he admitted, the words coming out all in a rush.
Eyes widening, Sarah couldn’t quite stifle the laugh that squeaked from her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she hurriedly back pedaled, seeing the hurt on his face, “I’m not laughing at you, it’s just — with the look on your face, I was bracing myself for something super kinky.”
“June hated it,” he said quietly. “She didn’t like cum at all.”
“So did you just wear condoms all the time?”
“No. She didn’t like those either.”
Her eyebrows furrowed together, an incredulous expression on her face. “You can’t have it both ways.”
Something inside him unknotted.
“I mean, did she insist you come in a tissue every time or something?”
“Most of the time,” he amended, “sometimes I could come in her, but never on her.”
June reminded Sarah so much of the mean girls she’d known throughout her life: content to demand things of others, knowing their social currency was enough to purchase obedience to all of those ridiculous rules. Part of her wondered if June even disliked cum, or if she was just trying to keep Quinn under her thumb.
“Well I don’t have a problem with either. I mean, I don’t really love a facial, but other places are fine.” She paused for a moment, thinking about how often Quinn asked her questions, willing to learn, so he could please her better, “and, I mean, if you’re really invested in coming on my face, we can do it. I just don’t want it all the time.”
He felt his eyelids grow heavy and he swallowed thickly. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. A relationship is a two way street. You deserve to get the things you want, too. ”
The relieved smile he gave her in response made her want to slap June across the face. Quinn was so, so good — attentive and genuine and so willing to learn and please. She wanted to do the same for him. Besides, it wasn’t like Sarah had some kink for cum, at least she didn’t think she did, but feeling a partners pleasure in such a tangible way, always gave her a deep sense of satisfaction.
“Is there anything else you want?” he asked.
“No. You?”
He shook his head.
“Alright,” she said, “I think we should go upstairs.”
Quinn stopped trying to play it cool. He was too excited to play it cool. He grabbed her hand and raced up the stairs, glad that she laughed as she ran along with him.
She threw open the door to his room. Sarah loved this room. It was in the corner of the building, and huge windows looked over the beautiful Vancouver skyline. The sun was setting, turning the harbor and city windows yellow and pink, casting their colors on the walls and spinning everything else in the room into gold.
Before she could get too caught in the view, he was spinning her around, catching her mouth in a kiss that sucked the breath right out of her.
Clothing was discarded, and they tumbled into his bed.
They surged together and Sarah moaned. It was already so much better.
Somehow, there was less pressure. He didn't have to think about pulling away to make sure they were safe. He could stay focused on her without any other worries. Why had he been so nervous? This felt, like she said, like the natural next step.
When he pulled back to line himself up, Sarah pressed her hand to his pelvis stopping the movement.
“What?” he asked, worried he'd hurt her.
“We need lube,” she said. “Or more foreplay. The condoms you have have lube on them, so they slide easier. Without that I'm worried…” she trailed off.
He hadn't even thought about it. “Which do you want?”
“I mean, I'm always game for more foreplay.”
Grinning, he leaned down to kiss her, rolling his hips against hers again. As their tongues tangled, she groaned into his mouth.
“Tell me when you're ready,” he whispered in her ear before tracing his lips over her jaw and down her neck. He licked and kissed, while one of his hands fondled her breasts, working her up to those hitched little breaths and small moans he loved so much.
“Quinn,” she breathed, a few moments later, as her temperature spiked. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and his beard rasped against her skin. She’d never liked facial hair before him, but somehow, with Quinn, it was more arousing than painful. Probably because of what else he was doing. God, he was good with his mouth.
Unbidden, but not unwelcome or unfamiliar, images crashed into her mind — Quinns head buried between her thighs, his magic tongue working her to a climax she knew would be mind melting. The fantasies made her desperate for him.
“I need you,” she gasped, feeling herself grow slick against the muscular ridge of his thigh he had wedged between her legs.
“I’m right here.”
“I need you inside me.”
Her admission made Quinn feel drunk with desire. Out of his mind with it. He pulled back and her hand covered his to help him line up.
Pressing into her was better than he’d imagined.
She was so hot and wet and, “shit, you’re so tight,” he ground out, the words scraping over a moan.
Now that the barrier was gone, the time spent waiting to remove it was well worth it. Her smooth walls hugged him perfectly.
Just to feel the contrast, he withdrew to the tip, pulling a sharp breath through his teeth at the rush of cool air before he drove back into her warmth. His jaw dropped and he made some unintelligible sound.
Slick and slippery, his thrusts moved with her seamlessly as she rose to meet him again and again and again.
“So good,” she breathed, reveling in the feel of him - every vein and ridge that had been smoothed by the latex covering before felt so prominent now and, “Quinn, you feel so good.”
The praise went straight to his head.
“You feel so —” he broke off with a growl. “Shit, you feel so amazing, Sarah. I — I —” He babbled, nearly blurting that he loved her. He bit that back. This wasn’t the time for that. He wanted that to be special, not something spluttered in a lust-drunk moment. “I don't know how long I can last,” he admitted instead.
God, he was something else. Flushed and flustered, eyes half hooded, body tight with exertion and control, he looked delicious. The fact that he wanted her this much made her chest feel full to bursting.
A moan escaped her mouth as pleasure washed over her face. Her eyelashes fluttered.
Just like that, he was done for. Cooked.
“I can't… I can't,” he stammered. At least he lasted longer than the embarrassing two strokes from their first time.
“Then don't,” she panted, rocking her hips into his. Her own climax building as the thought of him finally coming inside her brought her sensitivity to a peak.
Groaning her name, he let his body take over, rhythm turning sloppy.
As she watched, his eyes fluttered closed and with a final, powerful thrust, he sheathed himself to the hilt and let go.
Feeling the very tangible result of his pleasure coat her walls made Sarah’s breath hitch. It only took a few more rocks of her hips before her body bowed, chest pressing flush to his as she pulsed around him, pleasure poured into her body.
His mouth was open against her neck as he let out a sort of pained grunt.
Coming down, she melted into the soft mattress.
His body followed hers, his weight pressing into her. He knew it was probably too heavy, but he couldn’t possibly hold himself up right now.
Quinns gasping breaths were crashing into her neck. Even though it didn’t make it any easier to catch her breath, she loved the solid weight of him on top of her.
Strength slowly returned to him and they both winced a little as he eased out.
Flopping onto his back next to her, he groped for her hand. “Oh my god,” he breathed, once he had control of his voice. “That was incredible.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, pulling some breaths deep into her lungs.
After a few more moments of basking in the afterglow, she moved to get up. He tugged her back, “where are you going?”
“I need to pee. I'll be right back, I promise.”
He didn't shy away from watching her pad to the bathroom and then back to the bed.
Halfway through their second round, he was determined to feel Sarah come undone around him when he wasn’t so sensitive from his own orgasm. Working his fingers to her clit, he traced gentle patterns over the swollen nub.
A pleasured sigh left her lips. “Oh,” Sarah breathed, “that feels so good, Quinn.”
She had to take a moment to make her mind concentrate on one thing at a time. Anticipation coiled tighter in her belly as she focused on his gentle, deliberate touch, the heat of his body above and inside her, and then, the feel of his cock, which had been so dulled before, it almost felt completely new.
He dipped lower, gathering more of her arousal on his fingers to slip and slide over her bundle of nerves.
He didn’t try to hide or hold back from how good it felt when she fluttered around him. Her name panted from his mouth. Only when he felt himself sliding too close to the edge, did he bite his lip to distract himself.
Seeing Quinn hold on for her, trying to draw out her orgasm before his own, made tenderness swell within her. It mixed with the pleasure in her veins, bringing her closer to the peak. How the hell did June not see him this way?
She gasped his name before admitting, “I’m almost there.”
“What do you need?” he asked, wrenching his eyes open to look into her face.
“Keep going, don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
He shook his head. Never. He would never stop trying to please her like this and any other way he could.
The steady rhythm he restrained himself into did its job, and she tipped over the edge.
The coil in her belly finally shattering, her body seized up as pleasure fractured through her like lightning. His name flew from her mouth in a hoarse cry.
Jaw falling open, he grunted his pleasure as her core sucked him deeper with every rhythmic pulse. God, she felt even more incredible. Sarah was already the best he’d ever had, and now, the sex had just gotten better. How was that possible?
Gripping the sheets, he held on for her, moaning and muttering about how good she felt coming around him.
Sarah was mesmerized by him. His eyes were shut now, the skin around them taut, but his jaw was lax, nearly hanging open. His arms flexed, mountains and valleys of muscle on either side of her, straining with the effort of holding himself up.
Electricity was still buzzing faintly through her veins, even as her high ebbed away. She couldn’t wait any longer to fulfill his fantasy.
“Come on me, Quinn.”
Breath lodged in his throat and his eyes flew open, frantically searching her face. “You're sure?”
“Yes. I want you to. Come on me,” she repeated, running her fingers up her chest as an example.
In a rush of want, he planked above her, quickly tugging on his cock, slick with her arousal, until he exploded, painting a sticky white line up her chest.
She seemed to preen under the assault, arching her back and moaning as if it was something she’d been waiting her whole life for. It was the hottest thing he'd ever seen.
“Fuuuck,” he groaned as his limbs turned to jelly.
He managed to lower himself on top of her without dropping, feeling his cum slick between their skin.
“Holy shit, that was so hot,” he panted against her mouth.
In a few minutes time, Sarah knew she'd be squirming for a shower, but for now, she felt extremely gratified with fulfilling this fantasy for him. She smiled, replaying the look of shocked elation on his face when she requested it.
Tracing her fingers up the bumps of his spine, she took in a deep breath and let it sigh out of her lungs, reveling in the weight of his body on hers.
Finally catching his breath, he lifted his head, arching an eyebrow. “Where did all of this come from?”
“All what?”
He traced a finger through the valley of her breasts, gathering some of his cum. “This,” he said, “your little exhibitionist streak when I came on you.”
“Oh,” she somehow blushed despite her flushed skin. “I wanted to be good for you. You’re so good to me all the time, I want you to feel that, too.”
That simple statement, her admittance that she did it for him, made his head spin. How could he have ever thought what he had with June was love? He saw now how a love that met you half way blew her idea of love, which he knew now was more about control, out of the water.
A few minutes later, Sarah’s sweaty, post-sex skin began to itch. “Shower?” she asked.
“Snacks,” Quinn countered, his head still resting on the front of her shoulder.
A laugh shook her chest, “shower then snacks.”
He supposed it could work.
A short while later, they were in the kitchen, and Quinn was having an argument with himself.
They needed to have a conversation, but it was terrible timing. He didn’t want her to think he was only bringing it up because of what happened that night. At the same time, he'd been thinking about it since before his parents' visit, when she'd brought up the WAG jackets. Now that his mom and dad had met her and approved, the only thing holding him back was his brother's approval. He wasn't sure he wanted to wait that long.
He was about to leave again, and the family skate was coming up after he got back. He wanted her to come, but he was so tired of introducing her as the girl he was seeing. Sarah was more than that, now. It didn’t fit anymore, and it was too damn long to keep saying.
If they didn’t talk about it now, he worried there wouldn’t be enough time.
He glanced at her. She was wearing a shirt with a funny little cartoon of a fork and a spoon that said, ‘Spooning leads to forking’ along with a pair of matching shorts. Her thighs were bare and lovely in the dim light as she sat on the counter, eating a piece of cheese she’d stolen from the sandwich he was building for them to split.
He put the top piece of bread on and decided he should just blurt it out. He didn’t think there would be a better way. The longer he waited, the harder it would be to bring up.
“What do you think about being my girlfriend?” he said, looking up.
Her hand paused on the way to her mouth, the cheese missing an almost cartoon-like bite — a little scalloped half moon cut into one corner.
“Am —” Sarah paused, wondering if this was some kind of a trick question. “Am I not?”
“No,” he said before his brain caught up with him. “No, you are, but I mean, like, formally?”
Her head tilted to one side, “Of course. I’ve been thinking of you as my boyfriend for a few weeks now. Pretty much since you met Trav and the kids.”
A sigh breathed through him.
“Did you think I was gonna say no?”
“I don’t…I mean, I didn’t want you to think I was only bringing it up because of the unprotected sex thing.”
“That is pretty terrible timing on your part,” she conceded, laughing. “It’s a good thing I…” she trailed off, stopping herself from continuing out loud. Why couldn’t she just come out and say it? So what if she was in her ridiculous pajamas in his kitchen? She’d brought them with her expressly because she thought they would make him laugh, and she’d been right. The delighted surprise that had escaped his mouth when he’d seen them was something she knew she’d treasure for a long time.
“A good thing you?” he repeated, hope ballooning in his chest.
“It’s a good think I know you’re not just in it for the sex,” she said, lamely.
Quinn’s expression went from hopeful to distraught right before her eyes. “How could you think that?” he asked, his voice embarrassingly earnest.
“Quinn, I —”
He cut her off, “I like so many things about you, Sarah. You’re smart and funny and you’re kind to everyone you meet, and you’re so dedicated to your work.” He was rambling now, but if she thought he was in this just for the sex? He would die of shame.
“I like that you’ve never treated me like anything else but Quinn, and you’re always willing to meet me half way,” he said, his voice taking on an almost frantic quality as he tried to convey what she meant to him. “And I —”
“Quinn.”
The way she said his name made him stop short.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her hand coming up to gently cup his jaw. “I was teasing. I know you’re not just in it for the sex. Someone who only wanted sex wouldn’t have waited four weeks to have it.”
She had a valid point.
“I’d love to be your girlfriend, Quinn.”
Leaning in to kiss her, he felt as if someone had struck a match, setting his heart ablaze.
Settling into bed, Quinn remembered he hadn’t told her yet.
“Hey, my family’s coming in for the finals. They’ll be here on the 20th.”
“Oh,” she said, obvious disappointment on her face.
“Is that not…okay?”
Feeling her cheeks blaze, Sarah realized she hadn’t shared that expectation with him yet. “It’s just…my last final is that day and I’ve kind of been looking forward to you fucking me silly as a reward for finishing.”
His eyes went huge, “oh.”
“It's one of the ideas that's kept me going, honestly.”
“I could still do that,” he said, the words rushing out of his mouth.
“With your family in the house? I don't think so.”
“At yours then.”
“With my roommates there?”
He bit his lip. “We could get a hotel?”
“Because that's not weird when you have people, let alone family, staying at your house.”
“I’ll tell them to come a day later,” he offered.
“Would they buy that without an explanation?”
“Would I have to give them one?”
“I don't know. Would you? My family would want to know. You’ll have to make something up.”
“You don’t want me to tell them they can’t come on the 20th because my girlfriend finally finished her classes and wants to be fucked all night?” he teased.
Giggling, she smacked his shoulder lightly, “I think I might die if your mom knew that about me,” she admitted, part of her mind still caught on the open way he used the girlfriend title.
He laughed. “I’ll just tell them we have a late team meeting, or something so it would be better for them to come in on 21st. It’ll be fine.”
Want more Quinn & Sarah? Check out the Snapshots Masterlist
To read all my fics, check out the Fanfiction Masterlist
#quinn & sarah snapshots#quinn hughes#qh43#quinn hughes fic#quinn hughes imagine#quinn hughes fanfiction#quinn hughes x oc#quinn hughes smut#quinn hughes fanfic#nhl writing#nhl fic#nhl fanfiction#nhl imagine#nhl smut#hockey romance#hockey fanfiction
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Hello hello nina-chwan! I have this idea that I would love to read from you if it’s interesting enough? It’s about the female crush or s/o (either way is fine🤗) of law and/or marco, and whoever you want to add, who has really long hair (it reaches past her hips/butt) but she always has it in an updo.
So I’d like to know how it will go when they see it down for the first time while she was taking care of it one day. I’m trying to grow my hair out and have always wanted to have it super long so… one piece men + long hair hyperfixation got me wondering ig? 😅
I’m sorry I’m being so awkward but thanks in advance lovely 😅🧡
A/N: HIIII I got to write for the sexy doctors omgggg I also added Zoro too cause why not THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING I HOPE YOU ENJOYYY Pairings: Law x Reader, Marco x Reader, Zoro x Reader (separately) CW: None for Law and Marcos parts. References to sex and hair pulling in Zoros part. WC: 982
Law had not intended to intrude on your privacy, but as fate would have it, he found himself needing something from you soon after you had stepped out of the shower. The encounter gave him a view he had not witnessed before- your hair down, still glistening from the shower.
You were absorbed in the act of brushing out your hair when Law entered. The room smelled of your shampoo, and the sight of you taking care of your hair captivated him. Law couldn’t help but stare. He took in the soft scene unfolding before him, and it only fueled his growing infatuation for you.
You caught movement in the corner of your eyes, and turned to see Law. Surprise filled your features as you took in the sight of him leaning against the doorway with a small smirk on his face. “Didn’t mean to catch you at a bad time,” he said, his voice filled with amusement. Your face heated up, and before you got a chance to chastise him, he spoke up again, catching you off guard. “Your hair down suits you.” It was a simple statement, but it was enough to make you stumble over your words.
“Haha, thanks… I, uh...” you started, trailing off as you failed to find the words to respond. Law's gaze lingered onto you as he stepped towards you, stopping just by your side. He didn’t say anything at first; rather he just reached out to lightly touch your hair. A shiver ran down your spine at the feeling, and you watched as he twirled the damp lock of hair in his fingers for a moment.
A small smile played on his lips as he continued, “You know, you should wear it down more often.” His words left you in a flustered gratitude.
Clearing your throat, you spoke up, “Um, did you need something?” you asked, changing the subject.
He looked at you and an air of realization crossed him that he indeed did come to you initially for a purpose, but it seemed inconsequential now, “I did, but that's not important anymore.” He dropped the piece of hair he was holding and took a step back and looked at you with a smirk as he said, “what’s important now is that you have to start showing me this more often, okay?”
---
Marco had known your hair was long, judging by the intricacies of the hair styles you usually held it up in, but he did not know just how long your hair was. At least until he stumbled across you sitting on the edge of your bed, in the process of tying it up to protect it from what the day may hold.
There you were, your hair falling down your sides, reflecting the light that shone through the window. Parting your hair and preparing to put it up, you looked up and saw Marcos' expression, sensing something was off. You spoke up, “What's wrong?” dropping your hands to your sides as you let go of your hair, opting to pay attention to him instead.
Marco snapped out of his trance and walked up to you as he responded, “Oh it’s nothing.” He took a seat on the bed next to you as he continued, “You just caught me off guard," he reached out and ran his hand through your hair as he continued, “I knew your hair was long, I guess I just never realized how long it was.”
A smile spread across your lips as you felt his fingers run through your hair. “Surprise” you teased. Marco chuckled, his free hand finding its way to yours, interlacing your fingers.
“I like it,” Marco said, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand. “But then again, I like everything about you.” He stopped running his fingers through your hair, and he placed a gentle kiss on your forehead. “Leave it down for a bit,” he suggested, his eyes lingering on your hair.
“Why?” you asked.
He simply responded with, “I just want to admire the view.”
---
Zoro had stumbled into your room unexpectedly, his horrific sense of direction failing him once again. As he entered, he noticed you sitting by a mirror untangling your hair. Without much of a reaction, Zoro glanced in your direction and muttered a nonchalant, “This isn’t the men's quarters,”
You looked at him in slight surprise at the abrupt entrance and rolled his eyes at the comment. “Zoro, how the hell did you get lost on the ship? It's not even that big,” you asked, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear.
He grunted in acknowledgement, eyes glancing around the room before he decided to settle on your bed. You continued detangling your hair as Zoro struck up a conversation with you. He leaned against the headboard, seemingly absorbed in the conversation. Every now and then, his gaze would linger on you a moment more than usual, his expression suggesting that the conversation was not the only thing he had on his mind. But you never noticed, as you were too caught up in your own actions.
Soon, he left the room, seemingly unbothered by the new sight of seeing your hair down, but you would soon realize that he was thinking long and hard about it. Ever since that moment, his hands always found a place in your hair. Fingers delicately threading through the strands to lull you to sleep. Gripping firmly to angle your head, seeking better access to plant kisses and bites along the length of your neck. His touch became purposeful– pulling it away from your face into a makeshift ponytail to reveal your teary-eyed expression as you worked to please him with your mouth. Intertwining and tugging hard as he is buried deep within you coaxing the sweetest moans from your throat. Maybe, just maybe, you should have let your hair down sooner.
#one piece#one piece x reader#trafalgar law#one piece fluff#roronoa zoro#marco the phoenix x reader#trafalgar law x reader#trafalgardwaterlaw#marco x reader#marco the phoenix#zoro roronoa x reader#roronoa zoro x reader#zoro x reader#one piece zoro#x reader#Nina Responds~✦#Nina Writes~✦
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ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 | 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑����: every summer on your grandpa's farm was real-life magic to your younger self, who left a piece of her heart in amber valley when the years went on and the town became nothing but a faint childhood memory. soon enough, you become rocked by his death and realize the dead end in your bustling city world. this leads to you making an abrupt decision.
despite knowing nothing but designer purses and the corporate ladder, you uproot your entire life to take over your grandfather's old farm in the town you were desperately trying to remember - alongside a familiar face from your youth that permanently finds his way into your heart.
𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: jungkook/reader 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒. inspired heavily by stardew valley, friends to lovers, childhood friends, cowboy jungkook, small town alternate universe, slice of life, grief, growing up, mutual pining 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓. 4.6k 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒. n/a
part three: the letters, the saloon and the second storm ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ previous. next. masterlist
vi. the letters
september 2nd 2008 (age 9)
dear jungkook,
my mom said i should write you letters. i don’t really know what to say here. you better be visiting marshmallow and be nice to her while i’m gone. i miss her a lot. i guess i miss having you around since i don’t have anyone to play guitar hero with…
p.s. happy late birthday maybe i can visit and come to your party next year if my mom lets me
from y/n
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ***
january 19th 2009 (age 10)
dear y/n,
i learned how to skate for the first time. it’s too bad the ice will be gone when you’re back and we won’t get to skate together. i can’t believe we’ll be in middle school soon. are you scared? hoseok and namjoon say it’s not a big deal. also, i saw your grandpa yesterday and he showed me how to use a tapper on a maple tree. so cool!
p.s. you should ask your mom if you can visit earlier this year
from jungkook
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ***
april 23rd 2009 (age 10)
HEY JUNGKOOK,
look inside the box, i sent you a book with this letter. i told you in my last letter that i would send you one. it’s astronomy for dummies (because you’re a dummy). you better read it before i come back to grandpa’s, okay?? you have a month and a half loser.
from y/n
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ***
september 30th 2009 (age 10)
hi y/n,
jimin sprained his ankle during gym class. your grandpa told me to write that because it probably just made your day. i feel a little bit bad for him, the nurse at our school is really mean. also i know it’s a month away but i’m so excited for halloween. my dad got me this really cool goku costume. what are you gonna dress up as?
from jungkook
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ***
february 4th 2010 (age 11)
jungkook,
i’m so tired of my parents fighting all the time. all they do is yell. i can’t wait to be back in amber valley so i don’t have to hear them all the time. i wish i had your parents, they’re so nice. also i hate my class. it’s so hard to be friends with the girls that sit next to me, they always leave me out of things. don’t you miss elementary school?
from y/n
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ***
may 17th 2010 (age 11)
dear y/n,
guess what. my dad got me a skateboard!! it’s so cool. if you’re nice to me i’ll let you borrow it. we should see who can do the coolest trick. it’ll be me of course i’m better than you at everything LOL. you better hurry and come back!
from jungkook
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ***
november 25th 2010 (age 11)
hi jungkook,
i can’t believe i’ll only be living with my dad soon. do you think my mom doesn’t want me? honestly, i’d rather just live with grandpa all the time. then i could see marshmallow everyday all year! or maybe you can convince your mom to take me in. actually, i take that back, i could never live with you. you’re so messy.
p.s. i got my own skateboard!! it’s cold now but i’m gonna practice and bring it with me next summer
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ***
february 18th 2011 (age 12)
y/n,
i know you’re super sad and stuff. i’m sorry about your parents. we’re gonna have the best summer ever though and maybe you won’t think so much about it. look at the bucket list i made!
eat breakfast for dinner
watch the captain america movie
ride the big kids ride at the midsummer fair (i’m tall enough now so you better be too)
stay up all night
make ice cream
if you have any ideas, add on! hope you’re doing okay :(
from jungkook
vii. the saloon
when jungkook mentioned the saloon to you, you thought it was a joke poking at the countryside life.
“oh, it’s actually called a saloon. like, unironically. that’s what the text said,” you rambled into your phone, edged between your ear and shoulder, as you stood in your kitchen in front of your laptop.
on the screen, you were assembling an excel sheet of sorts to assist your navigation through the business side of the farm. thankfully, this was exactly the field you had long worked and studied in and knowing this before taking on your new role made the transition far easier. there was hardly any product to be profiting from, as you had just arrived, and you were preparing the document before the time came to deal with vendors and other local businesses.
“oh, honey, that place has actually been called ‘the saloon’ ever since i was a little girl,” your mom’s voice chimed in from the other end.
since the turn of your early twenties, your phone calls to your parents were far and few between and you could hear the surprise in her tone when she initially picked up. but, your grandpa’s letter seemed to be growing truer everyday, as your surroundings made drew you to reconnect with what you thought was to be lost.
eyebrows furrowed, you continued to scroll through your work. “mom, do you think he meant it as a date? i can’t do a date, i literally just got here!”
“calm down. it’s that amber valley hospitality. but,” your mom paused, “you did have crushes on each other growing up.”
“mom, no way - “
she merely laughed. “it was so obvious! you mailed a valentine’s day card to jungkook every year. one time, he punched little jimin because he called you ‘jungkook’s ugly girlfriend.’”
“and then he screamed that i wasn’t ugly. huh, i do remember that,” you began to think.
spending time reminiscing with your mom momentarily distracted you from the anxiety you felt, waiting for the evening to come. jungkook did end up texting you, asking if you were coming down to the saloon for the birthday surprise. you looked away and closed your eyes when you pressed ‘send’ on the confirmation that you would drop by.
the idea made you nervous only because it had been so long since you went out and met new people. there was no such thing as free time in your old life and you really only maintained surface-level friendships with your coworkers in your last year of the job. however, knowing amber valley and the tight-knit community, it was only a matter of time before you got acquainted with everyone, whether you liked it or not.
by the time it was six, you’d forced yourself to get changed and inspected your outfit several times before leaving. the last thing you wanted to do was stand out too much. so, you put on your favourite denim jeans and a plain long sleeve top, putting away your go-to strappy stilettos for the night.
making your way into town was quick and soon enough, you found the pub situated in between the flower shop and the hardware store. it definitely looked like it’d been around since your mom was a little girl, the exterior siding showing age with chips here and there.
“hey y/n.”
you jumped, having not paid attention to your surroundings. turning around, it was taehyung holding a box adorned in magenta polka dot wrapping. he wore a similar outfit to the one from the day before, except a different cowboy hat. you wondered if there was a store in town that specialized in selling just these hats.
“hi taehyung. is this for jin?” you offered a smile, gesturing to the box.
a pleased grin formed on taehyung’s face. “yup. i’m pretty sure i got him the best gift out of everyone, but don’t tell anyone.”
he walked ahead of you and opened the door, pausing. you realized he was opening it for you and you quickly thanked him, going right in. small town hospitality.
it was saturday evening, but to your surprise, there were hardly any patrons in the bar. taehyung then pointed to a sign by the door, which you missed completely. it read: ‘private event, invite only.’
“oh, wow, am i v.i.p?” you joked, following him to the back of the room, where a stack of presents were grouped on one table.
“of course! you’re jungkook’s friend, after all,” he exclaimed, setting his box down with the others. “you guys go way back, huh? how long has it been since you guys since saw each other?”
you counted in your head. “i think twelve or thirteen years. a while.”
“what, no facebook back in the day?” he teased.
“no, he was never nearly fond of that. after i stopped coming for the summers, we lost contact completely.” you couldn’t recall any attempts for continued communication afterwards, other than your grandpa offering updates here and there about him. “we used to write, but i don’t know what happened. . .”
for a while, you wondered why jungkook never wrote you again after you stopped coming to the valley. admittedly, looking back, it hurt your preteen self that he never tried. but, eventually, you moved on and left jungkook in your childhood.
taehyung nodded slowly. “so. . .you didn’t know about what happened?”
you already knew what he was talking about and squeezed your eyes shut in embarrassment. “no. i felt really bad about it.”
“it’s okay. since i moved to town, i’ve really admired jungkook. if there’s any sort of pain, he hides it really well for the sake of others,” he said, leaning on the wall.
that sounded like the jungkook you remembered. he was always the type to put others before himself, no matter how small the issue. then, you began thinking about jiwon.
“taehyung, can i ask you something?” you suddenly said. “jiwon. she’s only nine. and jungkook doesn’t have any other family. . .”
the smile at the corner of taehyung’s lips was sad. “yeah. jungkook is her primary guardian and has been since he was nineteen.”
the answer seemed to weigh a hundred pounds and you had to take a second to take it all in. there were so many questions that formed, floating around your head and you couldn't seem to find the words to articulate any of them. before you could even try, you jumped again at the sudden appearance of two new individuals, one of them being jungkook himself and forced you to put away your thoughts.
“we’re behind schedule, did yoongi put the cake in the fridge?” this new person was turned to taehyung, carrying a case of beer. “we need - oh, hi! y/n! i totally remember you, i heard you were back!”
you’d never seen someone with such energy, exhibiting positivity like a ray of sunshine. it seemed like he was genuinely delighted to see you. taking a closer look at his features, you recognized him to be jung hoseok - jungkook’s next door neighbour. he put down the case in his hands and immediately pulled you into a bone-crushing hug.
“hoseok, hi!” you winced, trying your best to hug him back, but it certainly made you burst into a giggle.
he was the first person to remember you on the spot, which took you aback. a few years older than you, you weren’t as close with him as you were with jungkook growing up, but he was always around. you remember him as the big brother who showed you and jungkook the cool ‘older kid’ shows and games that your parents would have never let you watch at that young age.
“how have you been? you look so grown up! you’re really staying here for good?” the questions were rapid-fire, one after another.
beside him, jungkook was smiling, but tapped hoseok to bring him back into the main conversation. “hyung. hyung! we’re behind schedule, remember?” he groaned, but grinned wider when you met his eyes. “nice to see you, though, bunny. really glad you came.”
“oh, right.” hoseok quickly let go and cleared his throat, beginning to point to each of you with authority. “you, taehyung. go help jimin with the slideshow. namjoon has the pinata.”
pinata? how old was this jin person, was he one of jiwon’s friends?
“you, jungkook. jin said he’s five minutes away, we need you to distract him for a bit longer.”
“can i help?” you piped in, feeling a bit out of place. “i mean, i’m here as a last minute guest, i’m happy to help in any way.”
hoseok clapped his hands together in glee. “thank you, y/n! go help jungkook distract jin, you being there will give him a reason to yap on. let’s go team!” he raised his fist in encouragement and in the blink of an eye, he already dashed off.
at this, jungkook seemed unfazed and frankly, so were you. you remember hoseok’s personality to be like this - extremely vigorous and could never sit in one place. on the other hand, taehyung looked perplexed as much as he appeared amused. he only shrugged, picking up the case of beer that hoseok clearly forgot.
“let’s go team, i guess. i’ll see you guys in a bit!” taehyung chuckled, walking off.
you were expecting to be asked to move around chairs or help bring out food. this wasn’t quite in your cards. you turned to jungkook in confusion, who chuckled at your expression.
“come follow me.”
he led the two of you back out the saloon, hands in his jean pockets. the early summer air was stunningly humid and coming outside was like hitting a muggy and sticky wall. but, there was one thing that couldn’t be replaced.
you couldn’t help but stare up at the sky, a fixed gaze. “you can really see the stars when you’re in the valley.”
the stars, dotted across the night, twinkled and smiled down at you. it was a view that others only romanticized and dreamt of in carefully crafted paintings and poems made to move the soul. and now, this dream was your new home.
jungkook mimicked the way you tilted your head up, lost with his own gaze. “i’ve lived here all my life and i never get tired of it.”
“i can’t believe i forgot about this. . .” you trailed off.
he pointed out to the sky. “that one is ursa major and you can see - “
“ - the big dipper,” the two of you said in unison, which led to a shared laughter.
astronomy was one of your biggest interests growing up, having stacks of books and a tapestry of the night sky in your childhood bedroom. your bedroom in the farmhouse also had a shelf full of astronomy books, which your grandpa still kept until his passing. having ignored the task of organizing and arranging your new bedroom, which was the same room you occupied over your summers in amber valley, you made a note to go through this shelf when you arrived home.
jungkook said, “you’re the one that taught me about that,” he turned back to you. “you actually used to randomly quiz me on constellations, it was really stressful.”
you could see your younger self sitting on your grandpa’s porch steps with jungkook, who lazied on the hammock across from you. you would compile actual multiple-choice questions and threw pebbles at him whenever he got an answer wrong. eventually, your grandpa scolded you for that, so you changed your weapon of choice to toy balls.
“i guess my lessons paid off, though,” you bantered.
following this, you heard a person shout jungkook’s name. you looked over and saw a man walking in your direction. he was tall and handsome and his smile was inviting. a little too handsome, he reminded you of models you’d seen in high fashion ads. his clothes contributed to the image, a patterned short sleeve button down and t-shirt that gave off neat and put-together. he wore jeans like what seemed to be 90 percent of the town, but you noticed the luxury brand belt.
“oh, seokjin!” to this, jungkook nudged you, as if signalling for you to be ready for something.
this was jin? the birthday boy with a pinata? he had to be around hoseok’s age.
“hey! hoseok told me to meet him here, have you see him?” seokjin began looking around. “he is working tonight, right?”
“uh, did he?” jungkook’s tone was not convincing and you couldn’t believe the hoseok made such a horrible liar be the distraction. “i think he is, want me to call him?”
“um, yeah. he said he was returning something he borrowed from me.” seokjin looked at him strangely. “why don’t i just go inside and check? why are you just waiting out here?”
“this is y/n!” jungkook suddenly blurted out, seemingly having no way around the conversation. his smile was painful and avoided making eye contact.
your eyes went wide and seokjin turned to you, having not realized there was another person in his presence. “oh, i’m so sorry! i didn’t see you there.”
“yeah, hi, that’s me. y/n.” this time, it was jungkook looking at you like you were the least convincing person in the world. you cleared your throat and offered a handshake to seokjin.
seokjin didn’t seem to notice your awkwardness and took your hand. “it’s really nice to meet you. jungkook actually told me a lot about you!” it was subtle, but you could hear jungkook groan.
you raised your eyebrows at jungkook. “oh, did he?”
“you guys grew up together, right? and you’re taking over the old farm?”
although you could tell right off the bat that seokjin wasn’t from amber valley, his deamanour was just as welcoming and friendly. he asked you a few questions about where you’re from and how settling in was.
“i’m sure you’ll be a natural. it sounds like you already have a lot of experience!” seokjin exclaimed and his positivity gave you genuine reassurance. “we’re all friends around here, so don’t be shy to reach out if you need anything.”
“thank you,” you replied.
jungkook tried to regain his composure. “seokjin runs the bakery down the street.”
“yeah! my wife and i used to buy eggs from your grandpa all the time, hopefully we can keep doing that,” seokjin winked at you.
then, the front door of the saloon cracked open just enough for hoseok to poke his head outside. there was no sign of activity from the inside, with the lights now off and all voices coming to a complete silence.
seokjin tilted his head slightly when looking at hoseok. “there you are. are you. . closed? the bar is closed on a saturday night?” he asked.
“yeah, uh, plumbing issues,” hoseok’s eyes darted over to you and jungkook. “y/n, jungkook! what brings you here around this time of day? you should all come in!”
despite the growing skepticsm etched on his face, seokjin glanced over to you two and shrugged. he followed his friend’s gesture to come inside.
you mumbled to jungkook, “you and your friends are all terrible liars.” to this, jungkook stifled a laugh and playfully jabbed his elbow into your arm.
hoseok opened the door wider and seokjin went in first, while you and jungkook trailed after. you were surprised at how well they made the interior appear deserted, with not a single soul in sight. you did noticed that they even stacked the chairs on the tables, as if the establishment was really closed.
“by the way, hoseok is the manager of the saloon,” jungkook leaned into your ear and whispered.
the floorboards creaked with every step, only adding onto the heavy silence in the atmosphere. seokjin looked around, eyebrows furrowed. he cleared his throat, hoping to cut the awkward tension.
seokjin started, “so, y/n, what happened with you and ju - “
“surprise!”
all of the lights flickered on and filled the room. upbeat music turned on suddenly, causing seokjin to jump and yelp. two dozen or so people popped out from random places - underneath the booths, from behind the walls, and from behind the bar. balloons and streamers began spilling out from out of nowhere.
“happy birthday seokjin!” everyone yelled in unison.
you awkwardly tried to join in once you caught onto what everyone was saying. despite that, the high energy ended up engulfing you and you couldn’t help but smile. some of the boys started throwing streamers at seokjin, while namjoon appeared from under the bar with a lit chocolate cake and began approaching the birthday boy in question.
“thanks, y/n!” hoseok nudged you, as everyone began singing to seokjin. “it’s exciting that you’re around again!”
as the song concluded and seokjin enthusastically blew out his candles, you cheered along with everyone else. over the cheering, jungkook found his way to you again. he raised his hand, offering a high-five, which you immediately accepted.
something about the atmosphere unlocked something inside you. within days, you were welcomed into the community and for the first time in a long time, saw people that could become your actual friends. maybe this was what your grandpa was talking about.
“yeah,” jungkook added, “it is exciting that you’re around again.”
“real connections. . .” you muttered to yourself, remembering the contents of your grandpa’s letter.
the yelling got louder, as the partygoers chanted for seokjin to make a speech. “huh, what did you say?” jungkook shouted over the chanting.
“nothing!”
you weren’t prepared for the next part of grandpa’s wish for you. it was a surprise to you that you were able to ease into the town and become comfortable connecting with the people around you. at the end of the day, though, you had a farm to run and you were about to face the worst of it.
viii. the second storm
your grandpa’s last wishes for you were to reconnect with people and nature. nature. you didn’t realize what you were getting yourself into.
“oh my god! why does mother nature hate me?!”
the best thing about living in a big farmhouse by yourself was the fact that you could make as much noise as you wanted. you often found yourself yelling at the top of your lungs, shrieking like a bird when you came across anything frustrating. considering you were learning an entirely new job on your own, it happened quite often.
you screamed into the void after your first phone call with a vendor, who kept on asking you if you knew what you were doing. you swore you almost broke your vocal cords when you sunk into the mud the first time you checked out the fields after a rainy night. at least you walked away several metres from the coop before you screeched in agony after the chickens gave you a hard morning on time.
when a soft knock on your front door interrupted your emotional breakdown, your heart stopped.
“fuck!” you whispered to yourself.
who would be visiting you? what if it was someone important, like mayor kim? maybe they didn’t hear - no, they definitely heard.
you tentatively approached the door and took a deep breathe before swinging it open.
“i didn’t know you started tending to hyenas on the farm.”
it was jungkook with a lazy, shit-eating grin. it was early in the morning, about 8am, and he wore workout clothes. baggy grey sweatpants and a white nike tank-top, you felt like you were straining to keep your eyes on his face and not anywhere else.
“oh, shut it. good morning to you, too,” you shot back. “to what do i owe the pleasure?”
“sorry, i would’ve texted, but i was already passing by on my run,” jungkook said.
it’d been about a week since you last saw him, though he was nice enough to check in on you every once in a while to see if you were doing okay with the farm. you hardly left home, used to the same routine of working and going right to bed everyday from your old life and the habit was hard to break.
he continued, “anyway, i saw your windows hanging from outside and i just wanted to make sure - “
you opened the front door wider for him to see the state of your front entryway and his jaw dropped. there was water everywhere on the floor. the storm from the night before was aggressive and the age of the house couldn’t stand it. you didn’t anticipate for it to be this bad, having just shoved the windows closed before you went to bed.
“yeah, they’re wrecked,” you sighed, looking over to what was left of it, considering most of it was on the ground. “actually, that’s why i was screaming.”
“you know, i take what i said back. totally justified.”
“thanks,” you rolled your eyes and sighed. he made a gesture as if to come in and you obliged, carefully stepping aside and making sure you weren’t stepping in a puddle. “i’m surprised this hasn’t happened before.”
he let out a low whistle, as he walked inside and took in the sight of your floors. “honestly, me neither. you would think this would’ve happened already ages ago.”
you didn’t know what else to do but shrug. “i can handle it.” despite your words, you certainly could not handle it. there were still a million things you had to take care of around the farm and dealing with broken windows and water was an incredible burden that you didn’t know where to start.
“shit. look, i have to go to work in a bit, but let me help you out,” jungkook said.
you instantly shook your head. “jungkook, no. it’s fine, really, i got it.”
“you’ve never picked up a screwdriver in your life.”
“hey, you don’t know that!” you wanted to slap him upside the head like from when you were kids, but found the strength to refrain.
it was only jokes and jungkook’s smirk showed it, but his tone then became serious. “okay, then, at least let me help you fix your windows. dude, you live alone in this big ass house on this big ass farm. just say yes.”
at this point, you could tell he was exasperated with your stubborness and you laughed at it. you weren’t one to turn down someone offering to do manual labour for you, but you were hesitant to show any lack of indepdence. though, something told you to say yes and it wasn’t jungkook’s annoyance with your persistence.
“okay, fine. you’re real annoying, you know that?” you had to add in the last part, it was only natural.
he shook his head. “thank you - oh, how lucky i am for milady to accept my lousy, peasant self to fix your windows!” at that, you shoved him playfully and when he barely moved from your push, jungkook couldn’t help but chuckle.
“i know you’re perfectly capable of doing things yourself, by the way. you just shouldn’t have to all the time,” he gave you a pointed look.
you nodded slowly, looking down at your feet. “thank you, jungkook.”
though it was only 8 in the morning, you decided to take a later start in the day, since you usually woke up at the crack of dawn. you had your entire day ahead of you and what felt like a hundred things to do and the last thing you wanted to add was a trip to the hardware store.
“of course,” he carefully tiptoed around the water, moving back to the front door. “it’s what friends are for. i’ll come by tomorrow morning, how’s that sound?”
this is not what you meant when you decided to “reconnect with nature” at all. with your fluffy indoor slippers soaked in rainwater, you were certainly more than connected with it. you made a mental note to visit the beach and call it a day, hoping that would fulfill your grandpa’s wish for you to be one with mother earth and that the forces of nature would leave you alone after that.
𝐓𝐀𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓. @sstrongstyletyle @wobblewobble822 @seokoutt @firelcrds @taiwan0618
#jungkook fanfic#bts fanfic#jungkook imagine#bts au#jungkook x reader#jungkook x oc#jungkook x you#jungkook scenarios#jungkook angst#jungkook fluff#bts imagine#bts scenarios#bts series#jungkook au#*** / the farmhouse.
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Stalker.
PAIRINGS: AOS!Natasha Romanoff x CCTV!Fem Reader.
SUMMARY: While your Coworkers relish in their lunch breaks-you take to watching the security cameras. But while watching over live footage you see something, or rather someone, in the corner of the camera. Who are they and why are they here?
WARNINGS: Mentions of blood, Budapest references??, and a slightly agitated Katness Barton.
A/N: I had gotten this idea from a day dream, and decided to write it out at 2:30/3am. :). It was going to be a series.. but I’m too inconsistent for that.. so.. if anyone wants to actually write a whole or short series on it, be my guest, but tag me bc I wanna read it!
I had visions of it being like flirty nat, and playing hard to get reader, so nat keeps stalking and popping up everywhere trying to get her to go on a date with her, then she finally does so nat will leave her alone and the rest is history.
… anyways. Hope you enjoy. AOS means agents of SHEILD.
“I’ve got eyes on the target” A slight Russian accent was heard through the comms.
“You act like we’re in a movie” The archer spoke up.
“Shut up Barton, I’m doing my job” Natasha vocalized her annoyance. She’d only been with the man for 7 days, but even with it being that short, he was still a pain in her ass.
“We’ve got movement! I’m going in. Cover me.” The spy was already gone before Barton could even speak.
“Nat, you can’t just run off like that! There’s a woman in there. Who knows how many more. We should’ve sat back and waited longer!” Clint had told her, climbing higher up the tree to get a good look in the building.
“Oh please, they don’t even know they’ve got a weaponized system in the building! There’s probably only 3 security guards and I’m sure they would’ve already seen us with how slow you walk. I’ll be fine. Thanks for the concern.” The red head rolled her eyes. Knocking on the door before taking down 2 security guards with her widow bites, after they’d basically invited her in.
“2 down, 1 too go” She spoke just before halting her steps. Peeking into the door on her right.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Clint’s voice appeared in her ear. Wondering why the recently departed widow had stopped
“Another one…A woman.” She paused. “Do you think she knows about the weapons?” She continued.
“Well it’s not like you can walk in there and talk to her about it, I’d say no. Take her out and let’s get this done, I have a dinner party to get too.” The archer replied. He had climbed down from the tree and slowly walked his way towards the 2 big double doors.
-
Your head snapped towards the cameras when you heard the alarm go off. Checking each one of them to see nothing but a glimpse of red hair and an arrow.
Sprinting down the hall, you’d reached the break room, opening the doors to see if one of your coworkers had set the alarm off. Only to find them all on the floor and one of them bleeding throughout their nose.
Quickly dialing security, you told them you needed backup.
-
“You idiot! Who doesn’t check the doors before going into a building, with a million dollar weaponized security system?!” Natasha was pissed. They’d waiting in a stupid vent for 7 days, an entire week to steal the systems hard drive. All for Clint to try and open the doors at 12am. Setting off all the alarms.
“In my defense, there was no more people to let me in since you’d knocked them all out. And I couldn’t get the other one to let me in because you were too busy drooling all over her.” Clint threw his arrows back into the vent, settling down just in time to watch the security guards rush past them.
“I wasn’t drooling over her, I just thought maybe she knew something. She didn’t even look like a security guard.” Natasha thinks back to when she’d seen you twirl around in the spinny chair.
“Oh let me guess, she looked like a princess?” The Barton man whispered.
Yeah..
Yeah, she did.
-
“I saw a flash of red hair, and then what looked like an arrow.. I don’t know if it was an arrow tho.. I mean. Who carry’s around arrows anymore?” You questioned out loud to your boss.
“The boy, Katness Everdeen from the avengers does!” Mike, a coworker had joked. Making the others laugh.
“This isn’t a time to joke. It’s serious. Someone tried to get into the building and your joking around? Are you fucking kidding me?” Your boss, Chris yelled. Making the others stop laughing.
“Come on man, clearly no one got inside the building, if they did. We’d have seen. We do have some of the best security cameras.” Mike stood up, trying to calm Chris down.
“Whatever, get back to work. See if you can find anything” Chris walked out.
“We’ve check the cameras over and over again. We didn’t see anything!” Jake, another coworker yelled out the door.
“Check again!” Chris replied.
You did feel a presence watching you.. but maybe that was just your imagination.. right? I mean Mike was right. There was absolutely nothing on the cameras. Maybe you just needed some sleep.
#natasha romanoff#natasha romanoff imagine#natasha x reader#natasha romanoff x reader#natasha x you#natty#natasha marvel#natasha and yelena#natasha romanov#natasha x y/n#soft natasha romanoff
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Kieran Part 1: It’s All About Strength
I’m a longtime Pokémon fan who happily plays through every mainline game, but I’ve never been more than mildly fond of the occasional character here and there, because Pokémon isn’t much for deep and nuanced character writing. Then I played The Teal Mask DLC and came out of it with many, many Feelings and Thoughts about Kieran – enough so that it warrants a full, juicy analysis about all of his subtleties and issues. I never expected I’d write one of these character analysis rambles of mine on a Pokémon character of all things, but here we are. Colour me surprised and impressed.
For anyone reading this in the future: this was written before The Indigo Disk came out and therefore only talks about the events of The Teal Mask. Assuming The Indigo Disk doesn’t completely drop the ball on the best character-writing job that mainline Pokémon has ever done (please; please don’t), there will probably be a Part 2 to this analysis coming in a few months. (Aaaaand here it is! But you should read this one first, of course.)
(I’ll be referring to the player character as “you” here for ease of wording, but rest assured, this doesn’t mean I’m accusing you the reader of any of the questionable ways the player character treats Kieran. I was also very annoyed at being forced to lie to him, believe me.)
His weakness, and your strength
Kieran is a kid gripped with a crushing sense of inferiority and weakness. We don’t see all of where this came from, although we get a pretty good idea of part of it – his sister. So many times when Kieran tries to protest against things and assert himself, Carmine snaps back at him for doing so. Over time, that kind of thing would have made him feel like he’s wrong for trying to stand up for himself, leading to him letting people walk all over him. I don’t want to give Carmine’s behaviour all of the blame for Kieran’s issues, though, because there’s bound to be more to it than that. I expect some of it also came from him being bullied and outcast during his time at Blueberry Academy – I hope The Indigo Disk gives us glimpses into what Kieran’s life there was like before all this.
As a result of feeling so weak and inferior, Kieran admires and idolises people he sees as strong. This becomes clear early on with how much he looks up to you just for being able to beat his sister, someone else he also sees as strong. Apparently, he couldn’t stop raving about how cool you were and how he wanted to battle you all evening back at home.
He doesn’t want you to know that, though, based on his protest when Carmine comes out and tells you so. Kieran's probably rather embarrassed for you to hear how much he idolises you, after all. He also seems to think his request for a battle would be annoying and a bother – he says “You don’t mind?” in surprise when you accept, even though asking people for battles is supposed to be just what trainers do. Why would a strong trainer like you want to waste your time battling someone weak like him?
Kieran’s comment in the battle if you land a super effective move is also very telling: “Oof, ehehe… I guess I got a lot of weaknesses…” He tries to play it off as light-hearted, but, hm, that sure is A Way for a rival character to comment on you knowing about type matchups. And he most certainly does not seem to agree with his sister when she says he’s almost as strong as her.
(Fun fact: the game actually lets you lose the first battle with each sibling while still continuing the story. If you lose to Kieran in that first battle, he assumes you were holding back against him, as if that’s the only reason he’d ever be able to beat anyone. Perhaps he’s experienced people holding back against him out of pity before – maybe Carmine used to?)
He's flustered when Carmine partners him up with you, too, even though you’re the only option that he has at least a vague rapport with now – he’s still assuming someone cool like you wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time on him than you have to. Kieran worries he’ll “get in your way” if he sticks with you, so he hangs back and stays well out of your way instead. It’s a cute way for the game to justify him not actually following you around in the gameplay even though he’s supposed to be following you according to the plot, but it also just makes perfect sense for Kieran’s character. This is a kid who constantly tries to take up as little space as possible because he’s convinced that nobody wants him around. And it’s important that he seems to feel especially this way towards the people he looks up to (with the exception of Carmine, because she’s family and he spends most of his time with her already).
Then there’s the scene where he meets Koraidon/Miraidon. At first, I assumed it was there to introduce Kieran to our lizardbike friend because they’d be relevant later somehow. But they’re not! So the only reason this scene exists at all is for the purpose of illustrating to Kieran that, in his words, “you’re special”. You are A Protagonist, capable of befriending super special, rare, strong Pokémon with ease. (Just like a certain other special legendary Pokémon you’ll be meeting soon, how about that.)
Admiring the ogre
So, as you begin the trip to visit the signboards about Kitakami’s legend, Kieran starts to open up about how much he likes the ogre. Perhaps he feels safe telling you, because you’re an outsider and won’t frown upon him for it like the locals are prone to do. He probably gets that from them a lot and has learned not to bring up the ogre in town – another thing that makes him feel left out.
Even so, Kieran starts from the angle of “it’s so strong and cool because it won one-on-three”, since that’s a more acceptable reason to like the ogre that doesn’t question the validity of the legend, and is less personal to his issues. If you agree with him that the ogre sounds cool before he’s explained why he thinks so, he responds with “I knew you’d get it!” – you, who’s also really strong and cool, would obviously recognise that same strength in the ogre right away, right?
If you’re sceptical at first instead, he stresses that “it was all alone!” and still managed to hold its own – the more personal side of the reason he likes the ogre coming out just a little. By the second signboard, Kieran’s gotten a bit more comfortable with you, enough to start touching on that more deliberately. He mentions that it’s shunned, and that he likes its strength because he admires that and wishes he could be that strong himself.
Then he invites you to see the ogre’s den, something completely unrelated to the purpose of the school trip, because he trusts you enough to feel sure that you’ll get what he’s trying to illustrate about the ogre there. He points out that it seems like a lonely, miserable place to live, and that he’d happily let the ogre stay at his house if it wanted. He’s not quite explicitly saying so, but Kieran clearly empathises with the ogre because he relates to that kind of loneliness. Though he doesn’t want to outright say that the legend is wrong and the ogre isn’t actually the bad guy – maybe he’s got backlash from the villagers before for suggesting it – he's got to believe that to be the case.
(I’ve seen one or two people suggest that Kieran fawning over the supposed bad guy in the legend is an early hint to his potential for darkness, but I really don’t think that’s it. There’s plenty of reason for Kieran to relate to and see the sympathetic side of the ogre in the story due to his own status as a social outcast, without it needing to be a case of “he just likes bad guys because he’s Edgy”.)
Later, at the festival, Kieran has a quiet chuckle to himself when Carmine’s talking about the Loyal Three being heroes, and says it’s funny that she doesn’t know anything about the ogre. Then he conspicuously changes the subject when she implies that it’s just that he likes edgy bad guys, because that’s not it – but at least now he has someone who does get it. Carmine mentions later that she feels Kieran is trying to one-up her about the ogre, and maybe this is true. Perhaps this is one small way in which he can privately feel superior to his sister, because he’s more right than her, or than anyone in the village, about the ogre’s true nature. And while that’s more due to luck and a large helping of projecting his own issues onto it than out of any genuine inside knowledge of the truth, Kieran is the one person who understands the ogre best.
Or, at least, he understands it best… for the most part. Because there is one very key way in which Kieran is actually thoroughly wrong about what Ogerpon is truly like.
Misunderstanding the ogre
This begins to be apparent at the second signboard, when Kieran’s gushing about the ogre’s coolness and says “it didn’t even care when everyone shunned it”. From meeting Ogerpon later, we know that this is patently not true about her – she’s terrified of humans because of how they see her, so really she hates being shunned! But Kieran doesn’t imagine that to be the case about her, even though he empathises with her presumed loneliness and is basically projecting his own onto her. He sees the ogre as somebody who is shunned and alone, like he is, but who, unlike him, is strong enough to not let it get to them. Someone in the same bad situation as him, but with strength that he only wishes he could have to deal with it.
In that same conversation at the second signboard, Kieran then goes on to talk about how his sister always does everything for him, and he’d like to become stronger and more independent and reliable. And, “then, just maybe… I could be that ogre’s friend.” As if he doesn’t think he’d deserve to be Ogerpon’s friend unless he was already strong, just like she is.
He mentions a couple of times that he comes to the Dreaded Den a lot but has never once seen the ogre, which might seem a little strange at first. Obviously Ogerpon kept well hidden from him because she’s scared of humans – but, did Kieran never try to call out to her? To tell her that he’s not afraid of her, that he admires her strength and she must be lonely and hey, maybe they could be friends? If he had, then surely over time, Ogerpon would have grown to trust him and shown herself – so apparently, Kieran never did try to call out to her in an attempt to befriend her. Because he felt he wasn’t worthy of her friendship, not when he’s so weak, so inferior to someone as strong and cool as her. (A lot like how he wouldn’t have had the courage to tell you how much he admired you, if his sister hadn’t blurted it out for him.)
While you’re visiting the den with him, Kieran assumes that “a powerful ogre like that would only show up if it heard some kinda battle”, leading to him challenging you again. Since he admires the ogre for its strength, he’s assuming that the ogre also values strength just as much if not more than he does, which really isn’t necessarily true about Ogerpon!
During the battle, Kieran says he’ll “put up a good fight” this time. Which is to say, he still feels so thoroughly outclassed by you that he isn’t remotely expecting or even trying to win – he just wants to at least not go down quite as pitifully as last time, not when he’s potentially being watched by his idol the ogre. And when he loses (the game requires you to win this and all future battles against him), he laments how he’s ever going to be able to beat you, and then he muses, “If the ogre saw that battle, I’m sure it’d be thinking, ‘That kid’s got some real strength…’” He is assuming that Ogerpon would like you, far more than she’d ever like him, because of how strong you are. This is very important.
(As it happens, Ogerpon was secretly watching that battle, but as for whether she’s actually thinking what Kieran imagines she is about your strength – who knows?)
Friendship! Or is it…?
By the end of the den visit, Kieran has just enough confidence to invite you to the Festival of Masks, and to his own house to get ready to go together, which there’s no way he’d have been able to do at the start of the day. He’s so surprised but thrilled to hear that you consider yourself his friend – based on that and his grandparents’ reactions, you’re likely the first friend he’s ever made, which would not be surprising. It’s lovely watching this shy but sweet kid actually smiling and feeling comfortable around you and happy to have someone he can call a friend for the first time ever. And GHHHH it is so painful in hindsight knowing where things are headed.
Even with you calling yourself his friend, though, Kieran still feels inferior to you. He dejectedly offers to give you his mask for the festival when you find yourself without one, even though it’s the ogre mask, his favourite, his thing – because he instinctively feels that if anyone should be the one who gets left out, it should be him, like always, and not you.
The whole time, Kieran’s bound to be feeling thoroughly insecure about this new friendship. The idea that he’s actually made a friend, and not least someone as cool as you, likely feels far too good to be true, more than he deserves, and I suspect he might be constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he mentions to Carmine that you’re coming to the festival with him, her response is vaguely evasive, and Kieran responds to that in a very prickly, defensive way. It reads to me like he thinks Carmine is jealous of him befriending you before her, and that he’s afraid she might try to take you away from him as a result. Whether that’s actually true or not isn’t really the point (I think Carmine might indeed be a little jealous, but she would not do something that deliberately malicious) – what matters is that Kieran believes this may be the case and is liable to view all further interactions with you and Carmine in that light.
Then, at the festival, Carmine pressures Kieran into playing Ogre Oustin’ even though he doesn’t really want to. She’s probably doing this in an attempt to encourage him to have fun, but since he doesn’t find it fun (because he doesn't like this game where he's pretend-killing the ogre!), it’d be easy for him to feel like she only did it because she wanted him out of the way so she could hang out with you. And it’s while Kieran’s doing that that you and Carmine meet Ogerpon without him. Of course, that’s nothing but pure unlucky bad timing – Carmine had no idea Ogerpon was about to show up – but from Kieran’s point of view, with his obvious history of being maliciously left out of things by others, it’s easy for him to feel like there was some deliberate element to it.
At first he doesn’t know it has anything to do with Ogerpon, though. But still, when he gets back from Ogre Oustin’ and asks what you two were up to, Carmine abruptly shuts you up before you can speak and is blatantly hiding something – which Kieran takes to mean that you were laughing at him behind his back. That’s something else he must get a lot, for him to be automatically assuming it’s happening here. Really not so far off from his fear that his sister’s going to try and take you away from him, either.
Carmine’s lie isn’t done out of any malice – she is genuinely trying to protect her brother from feeling bad over being left out of meeting Ogerpon – but she sure is doing so in a way that’s going to make him feel even worse over being left out on purpose once he realises the truth. Carmine does care about her brother in theory, but this girl has zero social brain cells. And we the player are forced to play along with the lie whether we want to or not, which awkwardly turns our player-insert character into a very specific kind of character who would do so. I guess they either also have zero social brain cells, or they’re kind of a doormat who’s swayed by a forceful personality like Carmine’s. This part is frustrating, but I have to accept it because of the delightful things it does to Kieran’s arc, which really is the important part here.
Learning of the lie
The next morning, it seems like Kieran’s largely managed to brush off the weird bit last night where you and his sister were maybe laughing at him behind his back, because he greets you with a smile, ready to go see the last signboard. And then Carmine… forcefully demands that he finds somewhere else to be, because you’ve got business with her. Kieran protests that it’s not fair that you’ve been spending all your time with her lately – score two for his fear that she’s trying to take you away from him – and when she snaps back at his protest like always, he runs off.
But he doesn’t run off that far, because he stays close enough to listen in on the conversation. The discussion of Ogerpon’s story goes on for long enough – and takes long enough to get to the important part – that Kieran pretty much has to have stayed to eavesdrop on purpose, which is a little sketchy of him. Still, I can’t blame him all that much, what with his background of being mistreated, and the way Carmine’s behaviour gives him ample reason to be afraid there’s something going on here – of course he’d have wanted to know for sure. Perhaps he was even trying to hope that listening in would prove that you’re not actually hiding something bad from him and he was just being paranoid.
Except that actually, it turns out the truth is so much worse than Kieran had feared. Never mind just laughing at him – you and Carmine met the ogre without him and then hid it from him as if he didn’t even deserve to know. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it then turns out that he was right all along about the ogre being a good guy, and his own grandpa didn’t even think it was worth telling him that, and now you’re still just going to keep lying to him about it all and leaving him in the dark.
(Really, I have to side-eye their grandpa a lot more than Carmine here, because he’s a grown dang adult and has so much less excuse. He says he’ll tell Kieran the truth “when the time is right”, but what does that even mean? The “right time” would be right now! Heck, it should have been the moment he realised that Kieran had already intuited the truth!)
And all this being lied to and shunned and left out of things (like always) stings even more for Kieran because it’s coming from someone he’d thought was his friend. He’d actually dared to hope that someone – and not just anyone, someone really cool and strong – actually wanted to be friends with him? Of course that was too good to be true. Why would someone as cool and strong as you have ever wanted to befriend a weak loser like him, anyway? (After all, cool strong people only ever want to be friends with other cool strong people; that’s how it works, right?)
Probing about the lie
The correct thing for Kieran to do with this situation would have been to simply come right out and confront you about the lie. But of course he doesn’t have the courage to do that. He’s far too used to being shot down whenever he tries to assert and stand up for himself (no thanks to Carmine). And since he only learned about this because he was eavesdropping, it’s easy for him to imagine having that turned against him, and the whole situation being treated like he’s the one in the wrong for doing that.
Still, it seems like Kieran might want to at least indirectly give you the opportunity to tell him the truth. He heads off to the village shop to act like he was there the whole time, and then casually asks you what you were talking about back there. He’s maybe trying to hope that you don’t really want to lie to him and only got swept up into doing so by his sister’s forcefulness, and that you’ll tell him everything now that she’s not here, because, you said you were his friend, right? Later on, too, at the third signboard, the way Kieran brings up that his family is descended from the mask maker feels suspiciously relevant, as if he only thought to do so because he overheard the story and is trying to give you a chance to go, “Hey, speaking of that mask maker, actually…”
But no. It sure seems like you’re very deliberately choosing to keep him in the dark. As such, he’s bound to be feeling extra small and awkward at the signboard, just wanting to “get this over with” and be done spending time with you, because you clearly don’t want to waste any more of your time with him than you have to, right? The awkwardness of the third signboard photo, with Kieran obviously not wanting to be there, and your character’s very strained thumbs-up, is heartbreaking in comparison to how cute and happy the first two were.
During the conversation there, Kieran mentions the ogre being alone and treated like an outcast in a way that is very clearly also talking about how you and Carmine are treating him right now. The game pointedly lingers on his response to your comment, regardless of which dialogue option you choose. If you agree that that sounds awful, he says, “You think so too, huh?” – you think that it’s bad to treat someone that way, and yet, you sure are treating him that way anyway. If you instead mutter an awkward apology, Kieran asks, “For what?” This could read like he’s calling you out for not being able to admit to what you should be apologising for, but actually, I’m not sure that’s it. It could also be him genuinely asking that, because he doesn’t realise you need to apologise for anything. Hold this thought, I’ll go into it more in a bit.
It's because he’s weak
The other thing that happens at the third signboard is Kieran challenging you to another battle. He doesn’t really explain why, but I suspect he’s hoping that if he wins and proves his strength to you, you might just tell him the truth, or at least it’ll give him the courage to confront you about your lie. This is the first battle in which he says he wants to win and is actively trying and hoping to do so, rather than just accepting his loss before he’s even started. His optimism is pretty fragile, though, as he laments “it wasn’t supposed to go like this” if you hit him super-effectively, and “why does it have to be like this?” when he’s down to his last Pokémon.
But of course, he loses, just like he must secretly have been expecting to all along (how could he ever beat someone as strong as you?). And so he concludes, “it’s all ‘cause I’m too weak” – not just losing the battle, but everything. Why he’s always left out and shunned by everyone, why you lied to him and went behind his back about something you knew was important to him – it’s because he’s weak. He was battling you to try and prove that he’s stronger, strong enough to deserve better than that… but of course he isn’t.
A particularly important little subtlety is that he mutters “That’s why I…” – because it would have been easy to expect this line to say “you” instead. That you lied to him and shunned him because he’s weak, that it’s your fault for choosing to treat someone weak like this. But Kieran isn’t framing it that way. He’s thinking of it as his fault, simply for being weak, and that’s why he will always inevitably be treated like crap by everyone around him. As if that’s nobody else’s fault for choosing to do that, but simply the natural way of things when someone’s weak. As if he deserves this for being weak.
(So: what are you sorry for? You shouldn’t be sorry for anything; it’s his fault, isn’t it? Someone as strong and perfect as you could never be conflicted or in the wrong.)
By the end of this signboard visit, Kieran’s leaving on his own, saying that he’s got to get stronger with his Pokémon. All of this is happening because he’s weak, so he needs to be stronger – and apparently, that means “strength in Pokémon battling”. In reality, even if he did become the best battler out there, that wouldn’t necessarily make him any better at standing up for himself in social situations or being independent and reliable in other ways, but he’s very much conflating the different kinds of strength. This probably has a lot to do with his schooling at Blueberry Academy, which teaches Pokémon battling, leaving him overly focused on battling strength as the only kind of strength that matters. Perhaps he was picked on at school because he wasn’t very good at the battling classes, which wouldn’t have helped. I hope we see some glimpses of this in The Indigo Disk.
And on the topic of Kieran fixating on getting stronger at Pokémon battling: his Furret is never seen in his team again after this point. It was one of the first two Pokémon he used against you, so it’s presumably one of his closest Pokémon partners, which makes it heartbreaking that he ditches it from his team because, clearly, it’s too weak. Even worse, he’s inflicting being left out and shunned on someone else – someone he probably cared about – precisely because it’s weak. That’s just what happens to people who are weak, right? Guh. Poor Furret.
Outburst at Loyalty Plaza
Kieran most likely spends the next 24 hours alternating between fervently training as hard as he can, and stewing in his feelings of loneliness and rejection and betrayal. His grandpa mentions that he spent that night in his room after not even eating dinner, which, yeah, when he’s sharing a house with two of the people who are lying to him, not surprising. Oof. And more than just pain and betrayal, he’s got to be feeling so much anger, anger which he’s never been able to truly express, because every time he tries to stand up for himself he always gets shot down – but that only makes the suppressed anger worse.
The correct thing to do would have been for Kieran to confront everyone calmly about the lie as soon as he became aware of it. But because he couldn’t just do that, his resentment festered inside of him with no real outlet, until finally it becomes unbearable and explodes out of him and he has to do something to express it, no matter how questionable. So he steals the Teal Mask and runs off with it.
I don’t think Kieran actually has much of an idea of what he’s going to do with the mask. The one logical thing would have been to give it back to Ogerpon himself, but that can’t be his intent, because he doesn’t go anywhere near her den with it. And I highly doubt he’s planning to break it or anything like that, since he’d never do something that’d hurt Ogerpon. Really, I think he just wants you and Carmine to notice and acknowledge what he’s going through and what you’ve done to him – and if he steals the mask, you’re going to have to confront him to get it back.
He heads to Loyalty Plaza in particular because he’s conflating his own situation with Ogerpon’s. In amongst his pain and anger at the way he’s being treated, he’d have also been feeling a lot of anger at the injustice of how Ogerpon was and is treated, because he was right all along that she was never the bad guy, but she’s shunned undeservedly while the “Loyal” Three are lauded as heroes. Even though this outburst from Kieran is really all about his own situation, he makes it about Ogerpon first, because that’s easier for him to openly be angry about. He only brings up his own treatment as a comparison to how Ogerpon is treated like an outcast, as if the only way he can frame it as wrong in his head is by comparing it to something that’s definitely wrong. (After all, he deserves to be shunned because he’s weak – but Ogerpon didn’t deserve any of it, because she’s so much stronger!)
During Kieran’s outburst, Carmine blurts out an apology on realising that she’s hurt him – but Kieran basically just ignores it and continues to vent. Which tells us something interesting: that Kieran never did this out of any attempt to get you and Carmine to apologise for lying to him. If he’d wanted that, he’d have reacted in some way when Carmine did just that. So I think, in keeping with Kieran’s belief that all this is his fault for being weak, he doesn’t actually think you two need to apologise for anything. He’s lashing out because he’s angry and in pain and doesn’t know how else to deal with it, but he’s not consciously thinking that you and Carmine are in the wrong.
He’s also still holding onto the idea that you and Carmine were just laughing at him behind his back, which is of course not true, but when Carmine tries to say that, Kieran snaps back that she’s a liar. Given that she undeniably has lied to him about one very important thing, of course Kieran would find it easy to believe that she could be lying to him about anything and he can’t trust any reassurance she gives him. This poor kid must have such a history of being mistreated and patronised by others to jump to assuming things like this.
Lashing out with a battle
Then Kieran challenges you to another battle, promising to give back the mask if you win. Since there’s no way he is truly expecting to be able to beat you, this means that he never really intended to keep the mask forever. But he also doesn’t just want to seem like some weak pushover who’ll roll over and give in as soon as he’s confronted, so he at least wants to make you fight him for it. And based on his line at the beginning of the battle – “I know this isn’t right, but… I can’t just hand over the mask to you!” – he doesn’t want to just give up one of Ogerpon’s possessions so easily to someone who treated him like an outcast the same way those villagers back then treated Ogerpon.
Really, I think the battle – and the notably forceful way he asks for it, unlike the previous times – just comes a lot from Kieran’s anger, and his need to externalise it somehow. He even insists that he needs this battle, if you’re hesitant about accepting the challenge. There’s probably a part of him that wants to lash out with physical violence, maybe punch you or something, but he knows that’s wrong and that it’d look pathetically impotent of him anyway even if he tried. Happily, this world has a socially-accepted form of violence-by-proxy instead, so Pokémon battle it is!
As for the battle itself, Kieran’s switched up his team some more, removing Furret as previously mentioned, and adding two new members instead of just one like the previous times – but the Cramorant he uses here doesn’t stick around either. This is less sad to me than Furret, though, because he wouldn’t have been very close to it. Cramorant may even have been taken onto the team with the condition of “I’m trying out new team members to see who’s strong enough”, at which point ditching it is less of a betrayal and more of it simply failing a job interview.
(Meanwhile, the other newcomer, Gligar, clearly impressed Kieran a lot with its strength, as it becomes his ace for the final fight. Fitting that his ace there is not a long-time partner, but one obtained only after he began to fixate on getting stronger.)
He’s also more openly determined to win (despite his suppressed conviction that he could never beat you), and remains more optimistic than before even when things aren’t going so well for him. In fact, this is the only battle in which Kieran has lines for hitting you with a super effective move or a critical hit. That said, he’s still a little insecure, based on an optional line: “I need to get this right… I’m gonna make sure to give the right commands!” which tells us that he feels like his losses are his fault for making mistakes and choosing the wrong moves, rather than blaming his Pokémon for not being strong enough. He also has an absolutely great comment in this battle if you land a critical hit, which I have to highlight: “What can’t you do? You’re like the hero in a story…” It’s purely luck, but despite that, he’s seeing you as this impossibly perfect hero that he could never ever measure up to, and this delights me.
Losing the battle just seems to make Kieran’s frustration at his own inferiority even worse, to the point that he does indulge in some physical violence, towards the shrine. Which is as pathetic as he must have been expecting, and should in theory have been harmless enough. (Of course, it appears that this is what somehow resurrects the Lousy Three, but there is no way Kieran expected or wanted that to happen, so he can’t be blamed for that.) Then he gives the mask back, just as he promised he would, and (ignoring another attempt by Carmine to apologise – again, this was never about that to him) he runs off back home.
So I find it really hard to condemn Kieran for… any of his actions here? Sure, he stole the mask, but he didn’t do anything bad with it and gave it back just fine (and must have always been intending to). All he was doing was lashing out – unhealthily, but basically harmlessly – over the really very callous way you and Carmine had been treating him. And if he hadn’t done this, you two would probably never have told him the truth about Ogerpon, and he’d have remained out of the loop and never met her at all! That would have been awful!
And yet: making you and Carmine bring him into the loop about Ogerpon and getting the chance to meet her is also not something Kieran was aiming for here. Just before leaving in a sulk, he says, “Say hi to the ogre for me” – which means that he never expected to get to meet it himself. He is still, even by the end of this confrontation, labouring under the belief that you and Carmine don’t want him there with Ogerpon and that he doesn’t deserve to meet her at all.
Apologies, and a lack thereof
After you rescue Ogerpon from being bullied by the resurrected Lousy Three, Carmine shows up with Kieran in tow. Apparently she found him moping around at home and dragged him here to apologise to you about his stunt with the mask. Which, yes, does warrant an apology – but what really frustrates me about this part is that Carmine doesn’t apologise for what you and she did wrong. Sure, she blurted out a couple of cut-off apologies back at Loyalty Plaza, but those never had the intended effect when Kieran was in no emotional state to accept them. Here and now, he’s calmed down enough that he would be able to take on board an apology… but Carmine doesn’t give one. It’s possible that she already apologised at home before bringing him here, but if she’d done that, then she really ought to have got you to also apologise for lying to him, and she doesn’t – so I can only assume that didn’t happen. And you the player can choose to apologise to Kieran here anyway, but since it’s optional, it’s not given nearly the attention it deserves.
Since Kieran never gets a proper apology while he’s in a state to listen, it means he never actually ends up internalising the fact that you were in the wrong to lie to him and he didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Which would have been a really, really important thing for him to realise! As it is, he continues to quietly assume that all of this is his fault for being weak, with nobody to tell him that this way of thinking is flawed.
It's frustrating, but I do kind of get it, from Carmine at least, because she’s also a pretty flawed person. Her deal seems to be that she’s only able to be emotionally sincere in uncontrolled outbursts when she’s worked up, and when she’s calm she covers up her true feelings with bossiness and vanity. Which makes her not at all capable of apologising to Kieran when he’s in a calm enough state to be capable of registering it. These siblings’ issues do not mesh well. Still, here’s hoping that Carmine’s able to self-reflect enough to acknowledge her partial responsibility for Kieran’s suffering by the end of The Indigo Disk.
She does seem to realise her mistake here enough to make a point of trying to include Kieran in their Ogerpon adventures from here on out, at least. But it’s too little too late in terms of how Kieran views things. He seems to have assumed that Carmine dragged him here only to apologise, and not to properly meet Ogerpon or be involved in helping her out, because he expresses surprise when Carmine casually includes him as part of the Mask Retrieval Squad. He was expecting to be shunned and left out as always – what do you mean, she wants him there?
Meeting Ogerpon
The only interaction Kieran was expecting to have with Ogerpon here was giving the fixed-up mask back to her, because he wanted to be the one to do so – but she shies away from him when he offers it. Carmine comments that she’s probably scared of new people, and this is likely the truth, but Kieran’s silent response suggests that he’s not necessarily agreeing with that assessment. Remember, from earlier: Kieran is convinced that Ogerpon values strength. And he’s so used to being shunned by others, especially strong people, because he’s weak. It would be very, very easy for him to come to the irrational conclusion that the reason Ogerpon refuses him is because of his weakness, even though his sister’s suggesting something else.
Despite Kieran’s key misconceptions about Ogerpon’s values, he does continue to understand her better than most people in certain ways. When you try to head into town with her, Kieran’s the one to point out that she’s probably afraid to go in because of the way she’s been treated by the townspeople. He also comments that she’ll feel safe going to retrieve the masks from the Three as long as she’s with you. He empathises with that insecurity and social anxiety enough that, seeing it from Ogerpon in person, he can instinctively see that’s the case about her too.
And yet… seeing Ogerpon’s fear, and understanding that she’s scared of being shunned just like him (which he previously said the ogre didn’t care at all about!), doesn’t actually change the part of Kieran that is also irrationally convinced that she only cares about strength. There’s no moment in which he seems to be re-evaluating Ogerpon or realising anything new about her upon seeing her being afraid. The part where she’s shy and afraid, and the part where she’s strong and cool and therefore values strength in others, manage to be separate enough in his mind that he never actually cross-references them to realise that one of these surely can’t be as true as he thinks it is. So his false conviction that things are about strength to Ogerpon still remains, unchallenged.
Staying behind
Then, even though Carmine is making an active point of trying to include him, Kieran… chooses not to come with you on the mission to retrieve the masks. This is despite the fact that this’d be his best chance to spend time with Ogerpon and hopefully get her to warm up to him, which you’d think would be his priority when he’s quietly hoping to maybe have the chance to become her partner.
But even though it would be a logical choice for Kieran to come with them, it makes perfect sense to me why he doesn’t. As far as he sees things, you and Carmine are way stronger than him and already have the fights against the Three covered – he’d be nothing but a useless third wheel hanging back, only there out of Carmine’s pity for him and not because he’s needed. And in terms of Ogerpon, Kieran is the kid who visited her den countless times but never had the courage to call out to her and ask to be friends. Of course he knows he wouldn’t have the confidence to actually try and get closer to Ogerpon, especially not when she’s already got someone she likes (someone who’s strong while he’s weak, which is clearly what matters to her, right). He knows he’ll just spend the whole time watching Ogerpon obviously like you way more than him while not being able to do a thing about it, and it’ll just make him feel even more jealous and left out.
(Trust me, as someone with social anxiety who spent a lot of my childhood being low-key outcasted by my so-called friend groups, I get it. When you’ve lived like that, integrating yourself with new people can feel downright impossible, no matter how much you may want it.)
So Kieran doesn’t come on the mission – but it’s not like he just uselessly sulks around, either. He spends the time doing something else to help Ogerpon, something neither you nor Carmine seemingly thought needed to be done: telling the town the truth that she was never a bad guy. Because of course Kieran understands best just how hard it is for Ogerpon to be shunned and outcast by everyone, and of course he has some Strong Feelings that people deserve to be told the truth, hmm I wonder where that might have come from. This task is really difficult and scary for him, too, because he hates talking to people – but he does it anyway, for Ogerpon’s sake! What a brave lad!
(I’ve seen people side-eye the fact that the villagers accept the truth and turn around their view of Ogerpon so easily, but honestly it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I get the mask maker way back when being persecuted because the villagers of the time saw Ogerpon kill the Three and made assumptions, but, like, it’s been generations. All of the witnesses who had that emotional gut reaction to the fight are long dead. Most of the people alive today didn’t even truly believe the story of the ogre was real until the Loyal Three showed up – they just thought it was a fun folktale that gives their village some unique culture. So for them to be told “hey, the ogre is real, but also the story’s backwards and the ogre’s actually the good guy”… so what? I was always sceptical of Grandpa’s conviction that the truth must never be told to the village (because… people will get angry that they were lied to? So therefore you should just keep lying to them so they never find out they have something to be angry about? Yes, great tactic, it worked so well on Kieran). Kieran basically just went and proved that there really was nothing to be worried about all along and the people should have been told the truth ages ago.)
His final chance to be strong
So now we reach the end, where Ogerpon makes it clear that she wants to stay with you, and… and even though he must have seen this coming, Kieran can’t accept it happening without trying to fight against it.
This isn’t even really about Kieran wanting Ogerpon’s friendship in and of itself. It’s more about what the concept of being partners with Ogerpon means to him. This whole time, he’s been obsessed with the ogre, and yet only letting himself imagine that maybe one day when he’s stronger, he could be its friend. He’s fixated on the idea of befriending Ogerpon as something that will mean he’s strong and no longer alone and everything is good now. Obviously this is extremely irrational and not necessarily true nor the sole way to fix his problems, but that’s how things are in Kieran’s head.
And so, with recent events making him feel even more weak and outcast than ever, you being effortlessly strong and cool enough to befriend Ogerpon on top of everything else feels to Kieran like it’s about to take away his one chance to turn things around, forever. Of course he can’t just let that happen without at least trying to have things his way. He says right at the beginning of the battle: “I know you’re probably a better trainer for Ogerpon, but I… I…” – and he can’t even voice the end of that sentence. He can’t put into words why he feels like he needs to become Ogerpon’s partner even though he knows he's being selfish and she’d be better off with you, because it’s not based in any conscious logic and is all just one big subconscious irrational mess of his issues and inferiority complex.
I’ve seen a lot of people condemn Kieran for this part, saying that he’s ignoring Ogerpon’s wishes because he’s planning to force her to join him whether she wants to or not if he wins. However, I firmly disagree that Kieran has any such thing in mind here. Remember, he’s still labouring under the misconception that what Ogerpon cares about most is strength. He thinks she likes you so much because you’re so strong (remember the previous time he battled you in front of the den, where he commented that the ogre must be thinking how strong you are if it’d seen that?), and that she refused the mask from him that one time because he’s weak. So Kieran has convinced himself that if he can prove himself to be stronger than you, by defeating you in a battle while Ogerpon’s watching, then she’ll naturally choose him to be her trainer over you. Right?
When Carmine says that he has to consider Ogerpon’s feelings, Kieran’s simply silent for a moment before saying “…I want to battle anyway.” He’s not denying that Ogerpon’s choice is what matters – he just believes, or is at least trying to believe, that her choice will be determined by this battle. And of course he doesn’t say anything like “Ogerpon will choose me if I’m stronger than you”, because – well, perhaps because a lot of this is also subconscious enough that he can’t articulate it, but even if any of it was conscious, he knows it’d sound stupid. Especially the part where he’d be talking like it’s possible for him to beat you, because deep down, he still completely convinced that’s impossible.
Plus, nowhere in this does Kieran bring up the fact that he told the village the truth about Ogerpon as a point in his favour for why she might choose him – which supports that it’s not about any kind of friendly gestures to him and he’s convinced she’ll make her decision entirely based on strength. (And it also proves that he did that out of a genuine desire to help Ogerpon, without any ulterior motives of trying to get her to like him!)
Just before the battle, he says: “Whoever wins gets to be Ogerpon’s partner… So don’t… don’t you dare hold back!” – making a point of demanding you don’t hold back, even though you might think he’d want any advantage he can get towards supposedly winning Ogerpon’s favour. But this makes perfect sense when you realise what this is about to Kieran. He believes that Ogerpon will choose (and deserves to choose) whichever of you is the strongest, and this battle won’t actually prove that if he only wins because you were holding back against him.
Kieran also thanks you for not holding back when you land your first super effective hit, which I enjoy. He’s so used to being patronised and seen as weak and pathetic, so he’s actually glad that you’re taking him seriously and viewing him as a legitimate opponent.
And, hey, he is! His team is pretty stacked: a full six Pokémon with solid movesets, and even strategic held items (at least in the postgame version). Assuming you’re not over-levelled, it’s quite a challenging fight, as it should be. Kieran is trying so, so hard to be strong enough, because this poor kid has convinced himself that all of his problems and pain are due to him being weak, and he is so desperate to fix that by proving himself even stronger than you, strong enough to win Ogerpon’s favour.
When he loses, he just crumples, and it’s heartbreaking. Kieran had so much more riding on this battle than just befriending Ogerpon – this was what felt like his one and only chance to stamp out the part of him that feels crushingly inferior and like he deserves to be treated like dirt. Guhhh.
And of course the first thing out of his mouth is, “Figures.” His inferiority complex runs so deep that, no matter how hard he’d trained and how genuinely really good his team had grown, he never truly believed that he ever had a chance at beating someone as cool and strong as you. He was just desperately trying to convince himself that he at least had a shot, because he couldn’t bear to give up without trying.
I really wish you could tell Kieran how good he was in this battle! It truly is impressive how much better he’s grown at battling since the first one, in such a short space of time, too. Just because he’s not quite as strong as you doesn’t mean he’s weak, not by a long shot. But nobody tells him any such thing, so Kieran continues to view things in that irrationally all-or-nothing way. He lost, so he's weak, end of.
Then he has to stand there and watch you battle Ogerpon in order to catch her. Before all of this happened, Kieran would have been so stoked to see his hero the ogre showing off just how cool and strong she is – and hey, her powers really are pretty awesome to behold! But here, despite the amazing spectacle in front of him, Kieran just looks supremely awkward. Like he doesn’t feel like he deserves to be here. Like he doesn’t even have the right to get to see Ogerpon’s full strength in all its glory. You’re the only one who’s strong enough to have earned this.
He does make one possible comment during the battle, if you land a critical hit on Ogerpon: “You really are good… I’m no match.” Which is a bit excessive, considering that really anyone is capable of critting Ogerpon if they get lucky – but apparently Kieran’s thoughts during this battle are still incredibly hung up on just how strong you are and how he’ll never be able to measure up to you. This goes to show that his issues at this point have shifted to be more about you than about Ogerpon. Which tracks, since his admiration for the ogre was never quite about Ogerpon herself and was more about what her strength represented to him – and now you’ve come along and given him an even bigger example of impossibly cool strength, in a much more painful way.
Once you’ve captured Ogerpon, Kieran manages to awkwardly congratulate you on it – hey, he’s doing his best not to be a sore loser! – laments once again why he can’t be like you, and then runs off. No doubt he’s feeling a huge heap of uncontainable painful emotions that he does not want to show in front of you or Carmine and needs to go let out in private. This kid is Not Okay.
So, in summary: Kieran comes out of all this with the message that all of his pain and suffering and loneliness is his fault because he’s still too weak, and he will only ever be strong enough to put all that behind him once he’s stronger than you. And to do that, he needs to get so, so much stronger, almost impossibly so, no matter what he has to do to achieve it. I’m sure this will be Just Fine leading into The Indigo Disk. (: (: (:
And one last thing: the game doesn’t let this happen, but if Kieran had won that final battle against you, I believe things might actually have turned out better. Because let’s face it, Ogerpon would probably still have chosen to go with you anyway, and if she had, Kieran would have been forced to face the fact that it was never actually about strength to her. It wouldn’t even be that hard for him to understand that, given that he’d already noticed the indications that she was scared of being shunned by the townspeople and that she liked you because you made her feel safe. This would help Kieran recontextualise things a little and stop focusing so unhealthily on gaining more battling strength as the One Thing that will solve all his problems. He still wouldn’t exactly be suddenly fixed and happy, but… things wouldn’t be quite so bad, at least. Alas, you are Too Protagonist to lose and let that happen.
#pokemon#pokemon scarlet and violet#pokemon sv#kieran pokemon#pokemon kieran#the teal mask#the hidden treasure of area zero#ogerpon#pokemon carmine#character analysis#my buttons#ramble#kieran did nothing wrong#he is just a suffering kid with bad coping mechanisms#because nobody has taught him healthy ones
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Just Keeping Life & Soul Together (Secret Admirer pt 4)
Steddie Week 2024, July 4: Trade / body swap / Wouldn't It Be Good by Nik Kershaw
wc: 1812 / rated: T / set between seasons 2 and 3 / also on ao3
By the time Steve recovers enough to drive home, it’s time to clock out anyway. Robin hangs back, not taking off on her bike until she sees him get in the car, and he’s had more time to think about it now.
Robin’s outfit that she’d changed into in the employee bathroom after clocking out is an eclectic mishmash of different colors and patterns; Secret Admirer said they wear mostly dark colors. That’s not the only reason it isn’t her, but Steve can’t quite put a finger on anything else. It’s just… she has a very different vibe.
He’s exhausted and still not feeling great, so that’s as far as he thinks about it.
But the next morning he wakes up, still with some of that post-headache grogginess but better, and realizes that if she was telling the truth about someone in the ice cream parlor sending him that cone, Secret Admirer was there. Probably saw how out of it he was and felt bad, but not bad enough to overcome their reservations about revealing themselves.
God, Steve wishes he could remember who had been in Scoops when his efforts to ‘man up’ and push through the pain had crumbled. He doesn’t, but that’s okay. Robin knows.
~
Dear Secret Admirer,
Yes keep writing. Please keep writing. My head’s been killing me these past couple days and wanting to write back to you is the only thing that’s kept me going. I’m sorry I got Bilbo’s name wrong.
So I guess you already knew I had a headache the other day since you sent me that ice cream. That was you, right? Strawberry with rainbow sprinkles? I wish you would’ve stayed. I know you’re shy or scared of me not wanting you once I know who you are, but it really kind of sucked that you didn’t. I’m not trying to make you feel bad or anything but I missed you so much even though I don’t know you. But I feel like I do know you, because you keep telling me things about yourself, like bread crumbs in that fairy tale from the book my mom used to read to me when I was a little kid but she stopped a long time ago because my dad didn’t want me to be a sissy momma’s boy. But fuck that, sometimes everyone needs to be read a story so they have something good in their head while they go to sleep, okay? I have nightmares a lot. I can’t tell you about them because I signed an NDA, but they’re horrible. I wake up screaming sometimes, only I can’t when my parents are home because my dad gets pissed and my mom gets disappointed, just like they did about how hurt I got last year. And the year before. It’s all connected and it’s all bullshit and none of it was my fault, I just happened to be there and I got sucked in and I keep getting sucked in and some nights I can’t even sleep anymore.
You said you smoke, right? Cigarettes and other stuff. Cigarettes don’t help, drinking makes me feel like shit, so maybe I should try the other stuff. Does it help with sleeping? Do you think it would help my headaches or make me not dream so much? I’m so tired and I keep thinking that if I got some the smell would be like you’re there, since you smoke it too. I want to feel like you’re here with me so I’m not alone. Maybe if you were here the nightmares wouldn’t be as bad and I could get some sleep and then the headaches wouldn’t happen as often because you were right, they get worse if I don’t get enough sleep or if I’m stressed out.
What if you called me sometime? 555-5555. You wouldn’t have to say anything, maybe just play some of the music that you think I’d hate and I can tell you if I do or not? Just let me talk to you? The hard thing about writing is I have to fill a whole page without any way to know what you think about any of it for at least a few days, and I guess a one-sided phone conversation isn’t that different but it would be something, right? I might like your music after all and then we’ll have something in common. Or maybe I can listen and then you can write to me about why you like it and if it’s something I didn’t think of (there are a lot of things I don’t think about on the first try, perspectives and stuff) maybe it’ll grow on me. Sorry if I’m pushing too hard but you said you wanted to give me something with all this and it was just an idea I had. You could give me new things to find out about, like with the Hobbit in his hole eating his hobbit breakfast. (I really liked the part with the glowing sword, that was awesome, I wish my bat would glow when )
Anyway. Robin knows about my headaches now too I guess, which is embarrassing. She was nice about it though and let me hide in the back until I could go home, but she probably still hates me for being King Steve. I’d write about something else but there’s not a lot going on in my life besides you.
— Steve
PS My parents are gone all this week, so if you do call it’s just me here. And you can call whenever, but maybe Friday at 10:30? You don’t have to though. Just keep writing.
~
The next time Steve goes to work, head no longer in danger of splitting open, Robin still calls him a dingus. It doesn’t feel as mean as it used to though. So that’s something.
It’s easier now to take her jabs in stride. Before he’d just tried to let it roll off him like water off a duck, but he cautiously tries out responding in kind.
“Your hat’s on backwards,” she calls across the parlor, smirking when it makes him reach up to check. “Made you look!”
Five minutes later, he gets her back with, “Your shoe’s untied.” When she glances down, he grins and adds, “Yeah that’s right, Buckley, two can play at this game.”
“Oh, it is on, Harrington.”
They start racing during the slow times when there are only a couple of people in line at a time, one sticking to scooping and the other ringing up while the former tries to move the second customer along before the latter finishes the first transaction. It’s a much better use of the You Rule / You Suck board, though she does still add tallies for whatever she considers Steve’s failed flirting attempts. (He’s not even trying anymore, not with Secret Admirer always on his mind these days.) Makes the ache of pining a little easier to bear; makes the day almost fun.
“Hey, so,” Steve ventures while they’re cleaning up after close. “I have a question.”
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Robin tense up. “What?”
He feels wrong-footed already, if just that was enough to put her on edge, but he can’t stop now that he’s pulled the trigger. “Who, uh. Who sent me the ice cream the other day?”
She blinks, and once she’s processed the question the stiffness in her posture goes away as quickly as it had come. “Oooh. You think someone’s sweet on you, is that it? Admit it.”
“No,” Steve sputters back. Even he had to admit, though, that the way his face heats up immediately really undercuts the claim.
“Tell you what.” She crosses her arms and leans back against the counter, eyeing him smugly. “I’ll trade you for it.”
“You’ll.” Now it’s his turn to blink. “Trade me?”
“Yeah. I have information that’s valuable to you, apparently, so you give me something that’s valuable to me in exchange.”
Steve scratches the back of his neck, trying to think. “I could… give you dating advice?”
Robin snorts. “Absolutely not.”
Flustered, he throws up his hands. “Well what do you want, then?”
She’s full on grinning at him now, and while it’s not necessarily malicious (which he appreciates) it’s still at his expense (which he does not). “Uh-uh, you’ve got to put your thinking cap on and come up with something on your own, Mr. Hair. It’s more genuine that way.”
“What? Nooo,” Steve groans, but he supposes he’s grateful that she didn’t whip out the ol’ it builds character that his dad threw at him when ordering him to get a menial summer job. “And I don’t have a thinking cap.”
That makes her actually laugh. “Well duh, who’s dorky enough to own an actual thinking cap?”
Dustin does, Steve thinks fondly. The little squirt is only off at camp for another week, and he really has missed the little shithead. It’ll be nice to get along with his coworker and have a friend around… as pathetic as that does make him feel.
But whatever, first he has to figure out what Robin might want in exchange for what could very likely turn out to be his Secret Admirer’s identity.
~
Every time Eddie has seen Steve since that Tuesday at Scoops, he’s with his coworker Robin. Apparently he’s started giving her rides so she doesn’t have to bike everywhere all the time. They talk animatedly, like little kids racing from thought to thought as they gleefully mock and annoy each other.
And it’s probably his fault somehow. Maybe knowing that Steve was actually suffering instead of suffering his own consequences had softened her up, allowed her to pause and notice the soft and genuine person underneath what remained of the King Steve veneer. Maybe it’s impossible not to fall in love with Steve Harrington.
Whatever it was, the results make Eddie yearn to swap lives with some girl he doesn’t even know. Someone who gets to touch Steve on the arm without reproach—even if it’s more of a punch than a touch, jeez. The only relief he gets from the green monster of jealousy twisting around his heart is Steve’s letter asking him to call, so even if Robin is interested now then it seems she’s out of luck.
Call. And not even talk, but just listen to Steve’s voice and maybe play selections from a few of his favorite albums, then spend his next letter talking about why they’re his favorites. This perfect man has managed to pluck three of his favorite things to do out of thin air and present the offer as a favor to Steve rather than, uh, only the closest Eddie has ever been to going on an actual date in his entire life.
… If only he felt in any way prepared.
Tag list: @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @tangerinesteve @steviewashere
@cryingglightningg @theresebelivett @sleepy-steve @rozzieroos @lunaraindrop
@just-my-latest-hyperfixation @wheneverfeasible @swimmingbirdrunningrock @yesdangerpls
@matchingbatbites @ihavekidneys @p0lybl4nkk @grtwdsmwhr @cheesedoctor
@whalesharksart @thetinymm @envyadams-vs-me @practicallybegging @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme
@dauntlessdiva @nerdyglassescheeseychick @fuzzyduxk @chaosgremlinmunson @greatwerewolfbeliever
#steddieweek2024#scoops words#secret admirer steddie#steddie#steve harrington#robin buckley#the start of platonic stobin#eddie munson
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Wrapped Around Your Finger - Part 0.2
Series Masterlist | Original Fic
➪in which anakin returns home from the band meeting with some exciting information about his future while you also receive some news regarding your own.
PSA: strongly suggested to read the warnings before proceeding.
WC; 5.6k | Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡
It was nearing eight when Anakin finally returned home. You look up at him from your place on the new couch when he enters the living room, a small smile on your lips when he meets your eye. “Y/n,” he rasped as he braced his hands on either side of the doorframe. “That was a lot longer than I expected it to be. I’m sorry.”
Shrugging, you place your phone next to you on the couch and gesture for him to come over. “It’s alright, I figured it must be something important if your manager was keeping you,”
He walks further into the room and eyes the dark velvet couch. “When did this come?”
“A few hours after you left,” you answer as he sits next to you. “It came with a coffee and side table, but the delivery guys couldn’t put them together for me. I told them my boyfriend would.” You give him a teasing grin and he shakes his head.
“Yeah, alright,” he mumbles and leans back. “I’ll have one of the guys come over tomorrow or something and we’ll put together all the new furniture.”
You nod and move closer to him. “Okay,” you trace your fingers up and down his arm that didn’t have any tattoos at all and debate on whether or not you should tell him that you ended up sending in an application to that school in London. If you told him now then didn’t get in, you’d be embarrassed, but then again, you knew he would never let you feel embarrassed about anything, so what the hell. “I sent an application in for that program.”
Anakin lifts his head and looks over at you. “For the one in London?” He asks and you nod. He gives you a somewhat forced smile and reaches over to lace his fingers with yours. “That’s great, baby. You’ll get accepted, you’re too smart not to.”
You grin and press a kiss to the back of his hand. “Still down for coming with me?” He stiffened a bit then tried to play it off, but you caught onto it. “What? Did you change your mind?”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. London would be so fucking fun to go to with you, but I’m not sure I’d actually be able to,”
You furrow your brows. “Why not?”
He looks conflicted for a second before finally meeting your eyes as he sits up straight. “Helena says we’ve been given a few extra locations to perform at. They’ve been added to the tour, basically,”
You give him a confused look. “But the tour is over. It has been for months,”
“I know, but it’s been extended as of the end of this month,” he says and you break eye contact in order to stare at the floor in slight shock.
“They can do that?”
“I guess so,” he mumbled. “She also wants us to record more songs as soon as we’ve got a draft ready. Something about needing to keep the hype alive and to get people excited for the new tour locations.”
You nod slowly and turn back to face him, giving him a weary expression. “So, what does that mean? You’re going back on tour?”
Anakin shrugs sadly. “Yeah, in a few weeks,” he confirms and runs his thumb over your knuckles. “But I don’t want this to affect your decision of going to that school, okay? I want to go with you, and I want you to come with me, but I also want you to do this for yourself. You’ve worked too hard to not give it a try.”
A silence passes over the two of you for a few seconds as you try to process everything.
Anakin was going on tour again, and you had just applied for the writing program. He wanted you to go with him, but he also wanted you to go to London. The course would only be a few months, so you wouldn’t be away from him for too long, but it still didn’t make it any easier.
“I might not even get in,” you remind him and move so you’re pressed against his side. “And I want to go with you. Who else will silently cheer you on from backstage?”
He pulls you tight against him and kisses the side of your head. “Hopefully no one,” he says. “Your spot backstage is just that, yours. It’s no one else’s….even if you can’t come with me this time.”
You hum and fist his shirt in your hand. “We’ll just have to see what happens,”
-
After you and Anakin spend the rest of the night on the couch and in each other’s arms, you end up heading to bed at one in the morning. It was nearing ten when you pulled yourself out of the empty bed and made your way down the hall, pausing as you passed by the living room.
Anakin is busy hooking up the TV as you lean against the doorframe, eyeing his shirtless torso. “Wow, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” you tease and watch as he turns to look over at you.
“Wow, look who got up after me for once,” he teased back as he hooked up the HDMI cord.
“I know, I’m surprised, too,” you say and push off the frame. “Why are you up so early, anyway?”
Anakin plugs the TV cord into the wall before pulling you into his side and pressing a kiss to your lips. “Vin called me a while ago,” he answered. “I answered it before it woke you up, too, and I couldn’t fall asleep after that. Figured I’d get a start on hooking this up.”
He gestured to the TV and you nodded, nuzzling closer to him. “Is he coming over later?”
“Yeah, him and Theo,” he said. “We’re going to write a bit after putting together the coffee table and your shelf, that was the deal I made with them.”
You shake your head and laugh. “Now that is not surprising,”
He laughs and sets the cord down to give you his full attention. “Hey, have you heard back from that program yet? Did you check your email for any follow ups?”
Your smile drops a bit as you shake your head. “No,” you answer.
Anakin gives you a small grin as he presses a kiss to your temple. “I bet you had the best application that school has ever seen,” he hypes you up and it helps more than he probably knew. You were smiling by the time he added, “You’ll hear back soon, I’m sure, and with good news.”
You grin and he kisses you again, much deeper than the last one. It made it hard to pull away from, but you somehow managed to so you could go make something to eat.
As you wait for the stove to heat up so you can make pancakes, you go on Instagram and immediately let out a scream at the first post that showed up in your feed. At the sound of your scream, Anakin practically sprints into the kitchen and looks around as if scanning the room for any sign of immediate danger. “What? What’s wrong?”
You look up at him and meet his eye as you say, “You, you’re what’s wrong,”
Anakin gives you a confused look as he takes your phone from you when you shoved it into his hand. He hesitantly takes his eyes off you in order to find out what made you scream like that, and almost immediately felt his face heat up at what he was met with on your phone. “I…oh,”
“When the fuck did you get those taken? And why the fuck didn’t you give me a warning so I could’ve mentally prepared myself to see that?”
Anakin’s lips sport an embarrassed smile as he hands your phone back to you. “I didn’t realize that they were posting those today,” he says, referring to the photos from the shoot he did during his last week on tour. He was called in for a quick interview with SLACKERS Magazine and had a couple pictures taken to go with the interview, but he completely forgot about it until now.
It was done on the day you were stuck in the bus with food poisoning, so you really had no idea he had even done this, and he probably should have given you a heads up, but he genuinely just forgot. The photo that was on the cover was one of him shirtless and covered in mud, and he was surprised that he actually had a lot of fun taking those pictures. That was his first time on a photoshoot set, and he knew it wouldn’t be his last.
“You didn’t realize? What the fuck, Ani! You look hot,” you gushed over him as you scrolled through the pictures again. “You really need to make an Instagram account so you can post these. Imagine all the likes you’d get.”
He instantly shot that idea down. “Not a chance,”
“Oh, come on, Ani, it’s fun! You can read all the sappy captions I’ve written about you over the past four years,” you teased and he just laughed.
“That’s tempting,” he shook his head with a smile and pressed a quick kiss to your mouth. “I’ll think about it.”
You playfully roll your eyes and push on his chest. “Don’t be such an old man and get Instagram,”
He softly glared at you. “I said I’d think about it,” he called out as he left the kitchen in order to get the TV working before the guys came over.
-
“Quit being such an old man and make an account,” Vinny mumbled as he scribbled down a potential lyric onto a page of the notebook in front of him.
Anakin sits up straight, pausing the flicking of his pencil as he looks over at his friend. “You’re the second person that called me an old man today,” he says and ignores the quiet laugh that leaves Theo from his spot on the ottoman. “Y/n called me that, too.”
Vinny shrugged, looking up from the notebook. “She’s not wrong, man,” he replied and tossed the book aside so he could lean back on the couch. “You’re missing out, that’s all. Our band’s account has over three million followers now, and I bet you had no idea.”
Anakin’s eyes widen in shock as he sets his own notebook down. “Seriously? Three million?” He asks and both Vinny and Theo nod at him. “Y/n updates me sometimes, but we were barely at two million the last time she told me.”
Vinny shrugged again and leaned over to sip on his beer. “That was probably before we released Sugar,” he thought out loud. “That song did really well and gave us a lot of exposure on TikTok.”
Smirking, Anakin looks away before he slipped up and told the guys what inspired him to write that song - as if the lyrics weren’t enough of a giveaway. A month before moving to this apartment, Anakin went down on you in the middle of packing and was instantly hit with a song idea after he got you off. He even postponed your offer of a round two in order to scribble out a draft of the song.
He refined it a week later and got the guys to add whatever they wanted to it, and a few weeks after that it was released.
The song was very obviously about going down on a girl, more specifically, you, and he supposed that was enough to get them trending on that dumb app once again.
“We should add Sugar to the setlist,” Theo suggested as he strummed the strings on his bass.
Anakin perked up at that as he dropped the book onto the coffee table he and Vinny put together an hour or so ago and pulled out his phone. “That’s a great idea,” he agreed and knew that would probably be his new favorite song to perform live. He scrolled through the app store and muttered something under his breath before installing Instagram.
After messing around with the app for a bit, he had made his username ‘anakin_skywalker’ and uploaded a photo you took of him when he was looking out the window of the tour bus a few months back as his profile picture. He browsed through his gallery before settling on a selfie of the two of you he took on the last day of tour. You were both smiling and squinting at the camera as you tried to block the sun from your eyes, and it was probably one of his favorite photos of you and him.
He made that picture his first post with the caption being a simple red heart.
Anakin was still shocked to see that the band’s account did, in fact, have over three million followers when he followed it himself, as well as Vinny, Theo and you. Once he’s done stalking your account and scrolling through all the photos of you he had never seen before, he sets his phone down and that is when he hears the door to the bedroom open and the sound of fast paced footsteps coming down the hall.
“Anakin! You made an account!” You cheer as you throw yourself onto his lap. “I knew you’d give in.”
He rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around your waist. “Not really, I just wanted to see if we really did hit three million followers. Thanks for telling me, by the way,”
“Oh, whatever,” you scoffed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Your first post is us! I love that picture.”
Anakin grinned down at you. “Me too, princess,” he kissed you quickly. “But I’m a bit annoyed that I had to put a stupid underscore in my username. Seriously, who the fuck took ‘anakinskywalker’ when that’s literally the most unique name ever?”
“Fan account, probably,” Vinny answered before waving at you. “Hey, Y/n. Will we be blessed to have you join us on tour again?”
You tense a bit in Anakin’s arms, something you’re sure he noticed but didn’t say anything about, thankfully. “Maybe. I applied for this program thing that is set around the same time the tour starts,”
“Ah,” Vinny nods and smiles at you. “That’s cool.”
“It’s very cool,” Anakin corrects him as he slides one hand up to caress the back of your head. “My girl’s the smartest one out of all of us combined.”
Theo tilts the neck of his beer bottle in your direction. “Now that’s very true,” he smiled at you and you shook your head, wrapping one arm around your boyfriend’s shoulders.
“You think too highly of me, all of you,” you brush off their words and stand up. Anakin reluctantly lets you go and leans back against the couch, eyeing the small tattoo on the side of your wrist as you look at your phone. “Wow, Ani, you’ve already got nineteen thousand followers.”
“Fuck,” he laughed and looked at your screen when you showed him. “Is it too late to delete it now?”
“Yes,” you confirm and lean down to place a chaste kiss to his mouth. “So don’t bother.”
Anakin tries to pull you back onto his lap, but you just grin at him before pulling away completely and shoving your phone in your pocket.
“I’ll leave you guys to continue writing and go get dinner,” you say and begin to back out of the room “Any requests?”
“Get Chinese food,” Theo suggests, adding a quick “Please” once he saw the glare Anakin gave him at his demanding words to you.
You laugh and lightly slap Anakin’s shoulder, instantly making his glare soften. “Be nice, it’s okay,” you murmur. “Chinese food it is. I’ll be back soon.”
Anakin watched your retreating form until you disappeared around the corner and left through the door. When he turned back to the guys, he found them smirking at him. “Dude, you are so whipped,” Vinny laughed as he picked up his notebook.
Anakin rolled his eyes. “As if I wasn’t already aware of that,”
“How will you make it without her if she does this program thing?” Theo asks, making Anakin look over at the blond.
He really hadn’t thought about it, simply because he didn’t want to imagine going on tour without you there to cheer him on from backstage. He wanted you to do this program and wanted you to make a career out of it, but he also wanted you with him every day.
For nearly five years he hadn’t spent longer than a week away from you, and that was including all the times he had to sneak you into his parents house back when you were both seventeen.
He couldn’t imagine spending more than a couple months without you. In fact, he was sure he physically couldn’t be away from you for that long. “I don’t know,” he answered as honestly as he could, not wanting to come off as even more whipped for you. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
The guys just nod and go back to writing lyrics and notes, leaving Anakin to get lost inside his own head as he thought about the very real possibility of having to be without you in a few weeks.
-
A week goes by and Anakin has yet to see what the hype about Instagram is.
He had over five hundred thousand followers now and still only one post, and even that had over three hundred thousand likes. He really only went on it to do exactly what you knew he would, which is to read your sappy but very romantic captions about him.
Your latest one was probably his favorite so far, and it was a harsh dig at him.
Y/nY/l/n: my 21 year old bf finally got ig and already has more followers than me and i’ve been here for seven years. seven. years. let that sink in, show off. you can delete it now.
The picture was one of you and him on the couch, both your tongues sticking out and hazy looks in your eyes.
He had to laugh because you both looked high, despite neither of you ever touching a drug a day in your lives. Alcohol, on the other hand…well that’s a different story.
“Maybe making an Instagram account was a bad idea,” Vinny commented as he looked over at Anakin from his place on the chair. “The dude won’t stop stalking his girlfriend’s account even though he lives with her.”
“What did you expect? More than half our songs are about Y/n,” Theo added and Anakin just shook his head and pocketed his phone.
“You’d be the same way if you landed yourselves a girl like her,” was all he said as he sat up in his own chair.
“Hey, Clara is amazing, too,” Vinny defended his girlfriend, but there was no doubting that yours and Anakin’s relationship is a lot stronger than his and Clara’s. “And Theo is just a lost cause.”
Theo stuck his middle finger up as the two other guys laughed. “Thanks, asshole,” he mumbled as he looked back down at his phone.
Vinny narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been looking at that all morning, man,” he points out. “Is everything okay?”
Anakin, too, noticed Theo’s recent phone obsession, but isn’t as vocal as Vinny is about that kind of thing, clearly. Vinny had no problem calling people out, and Anakin had to appreciate it to an extent, because he had been called out by him more times than he could count on one hand. It saved his ass many times when he got into disagreements with you and Vinny was the one who told him he needed to apologize.
Theo sighed and placed his phone on the coffee table. “It’s my mom,” he said as he crossed his arms. “She’s been feeling really sick lately and my sister and I are getting pretty worried about her.”
“Damn,” Vinny said under his breath, suddenly feeling bad about calling out his friend now.
“Is she okay? Should you be going back on tour right now with her feeling sick?” Anakin asked as he leaned over and braced his elbows on his knees.
“She’s just not well, man,” Theo shrugged. “I told her about the tour and she said that I should go have fun and that Mary can look after her while I’m gone.”
Anakin nods and shares a look with Vinny. “We can ask Helena if we can push the tour back a few more months,” Vinny offers, but Theo just shook his head.
“No, it’s alright,” he waved his bandmates off. “I want to go back on tour. It’ll take my mind off it.”
“Okay,” Anakin said and leaned back in the chair. “Just keep us updated.”
Theo nodded as he asked, “Where is Helena, anyway?”
Vinny shrugged and leaned back. “She’s usually on time, so whatever is keeping her must be important,”
As if on cue, the door to the lounge opens and in walks their manager, done up in dress pants and a blouse. Her heels are loud against the floor as she makes her way over to them, a smile on her painted red lips and a folder in her hand. “Sorry, boys,” she apologizes as she sits next to Theo around the coffee table. “Traffic is no joke in this part of the city.”
Anakin laughs in agreement as he, too, got held up earlier this morning but still managed to make it to the studio by ten in the morning. “No worries, we get it,”
She gives him a grateful smile as she places her papers onto the table and leans over to scatter them around. “Okay, so you all know that you’re the first band I’ve ever managed, so we’re really learning how to do this together,” she starts, looking up at the three of them. “I was thinking that we need to do something to promote the shows that have been added. The tour ended a couple months ago, and I’m sorry to say this, but Sugar can only get us so far. It was a hit, yeah, but the fans need more. I’m really going to need you guys in the studio and making more music than you have so far. If you want to keep doing this for many years to come, we need more songs out by the time the next tour comes around.”
The thought of not singing or making music in the future was one Anakin didn’t want to think about, so he quickly pushed back his witty remarks and sat up even straighter, giving Helena his full attention as she began to go over a possible option for promo.
-
You were at home alone and bored as Anakin had been whisked away to yet another band meeting.
You were organizing your books when your phone went off from its place on the desk. Standing up from your crouched position and pushing away the box of hard covers, you grab your phone and click on the notification. It brought you to your email and your eyes widened a bit when you read the subject.
Y/n, Congratulations!
Your hand was shaking a bit as you clicked on the email and read the first sentence.
Dear Y/n,
We are thrilled to congratulate you on your acceptance into the Writing Program here at the Dun-Walsh Academy.
You nearly dropped your phone as you read through the email about ten times before it really hit you.
You did it. You got accepted. You did it.
You squeal a bit and jump up and down on the spot while hugging your phone to your chest, wishing that Anakin would hurry up and come home so you could share the news with him.
Anakin.
You stopped jumping instantly as you remembered that he is going on tour again in a couple of weeks and wouldn’t be able to go with you to London like he wanted to.
“Shit,” you curse to yourself as you read the email again.
You wanted to attend this school a lot more than you initially thought, but you also didn’t want to go without Anakin. You wanted to go on tour with him again and be his quiet cheerleader backstage.
“Fuck,” you curse again and walk out of the shared office and into the living room. Sitting down on the couch and picking at your nails, you debate your options.
One; go to London, take the program and miss out on Anakin’s tour.
Or,
Two; bail on the program and go on tour with him.
You were missing out on something either way.
There will be other writing opportunities, right?
As awful as it sounds, you would rather choose Anakin over your own future, and that was a scary thought, but it was true.
You were sitting there for about fifteen minutes before the door swung open and the sound of footsteps was heard. “Baby?” Anakin called out and you sat up a bit and set your phone aside.
“In the living room,” you called back and watched as your boyfriend entered the room not even a second later. “Hi.”
“Hey, pretty girl,” he said back as he leaned down to place a deep kiss to your mouth. He caressed your face as he pulled you back in for another quick peck before grinning down at you. “I missed you.”
“I missed you,”
He smiled again and moved to sit next to you. “What’d you get up to today?”
You shrugged and picked up your phone again. “Nothing too exciting,” you answer. “Just sorted through a few more boxes.”
Anakin nodded and ran the tips of his fingers along the skin of your bare thigh. Your shorts did nothing to cover your legs from his intense gaze, and you swallow harshly as he mumbles a “That’s good,” in his deep, raspy voice. He leaned in to kiss you again, a much deeper one than before, and you moan quietly against his mouth. He hummed as he pulled away, “I love that sound.”
“Some would say you love it so much that you would put it in a song,” you teased, referring to the fact that he did include a recording of your moan in a song.
He shrugged, smirking at you as he said, “The world needed to hear how hot you sound in bed,”
“Mhm, sure,”
Anakin shrugged again before dropping the smirk a bit and moving to hold your hand in his. “Something’s on your mind,” he commented, lacing your fingers together and resting your joined hands on his thigh. “What is it?”
You knew he would be able to read you like an open book as soon as he returned home, so you didn’t bother hiding how you were feeling from him. “I heard back from that school,” you say and watch as he nods, urging you to continue. “I got accepted.”
Anakin stays still as his eyes flicker all over your face. His hand tightened around yours just slightly as he exhaled through his nose before smiling over at you. “I knew you would,” he brought your hand up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “I’m so proud of you.”
Unable to stop yourself, you move so you’re straddling him and his hands are on your hips instantly. “But you’re going back on tour,” you point out. “You can’t come with me to London.”
Anakin gives you a forced smile. “We’ll figure it out,” he assured you, but it didn’t help much. “Yeah, I’m going on tour, but that’s my future. This is yours.”
You bite down on your lip as you process his words. “But we’ve never been away from each other for that long,” you nearly whisper. “Not since we were in high school.”
“It’s okay, baby,” he promised, kissing your forehead. “We’ll be fine, we always are. It’s only a few months, and I think Helena said that one of the new tour locations is in London, so you can come see that one. I’ll need my biggest fan at one of the shows, at least.”
You nod and wrap your arms around his shoulders. “I’ll give it up for you,” you murmured. “You know that.”
“I know you would,” he responds and pulls you against his chest. “And I love you for that, but I can’t hold you back from making a potential career out of this. I couldn’t, not after you’ve been so supportive of me and the band.”
You sigh and rest your head on his shoulder. “We have two weeks until the tour,” you inform him. “Two weeks until I need to be in London.”
Anakin pulled you even closer, inhaling your sweet vanilla scent he knew he would be missing for months. “Then we better start making up for lost time now,”
And that was how you found yourself completely exposed to his lust filled eyes as you break in the new couch by fucking him on it.
Your clothing was strewn around the room and some of it hung off the couch as you sunk down on him at a fast pace. You were both pent up and anxious about having to spend three months away from one another, and you were putting that frustration into the way you fucked yourself onto him. “I love you, Ani,” you promised as you grind your hips against his.
Anakin tilted his head so it was against the backrest of the couch, his firm grip on your waist helping you move on him. “I love you, too,” he said under his breath, sliding one hand to the front of your body so his thumb can rub harsh circles onto your clit. “I’m so fucking proud of you, princess. I always am.”
You sigh as you lean down to connect your lips in a kiss. “You feel so good, Ani,” you whispered, brushing your lips against his as you spoke. “Gonna make me come.”
“I want you to, baby,” he rasped, pinching your clit in a way that left you shaking against him. “I want it all over me.”
Your body shook a bit as your orgasm ripped through you, the rolling of your hips stalling as you cried out against his mouth. “Fuck, Ani, fuck,” you whine as he grips your waist to be able to thrust up into you.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured as he kissed all over your neck, the relentless clench of your walls making his vision blur a bit. “My good girl.”
His sweet praises make you whimper and cling to him tightly. “Anakin, please,” you begged. You were so sensitive, but you also needed to feel him fill you up because you would be missing out on the feeling of him for months.
You seriously couldn’t believe you were considering leaving him for three months. That’s a whole quarter of a year. Your five year anniversary is coming up next month, are you really willing to spend your half a decade milestone away from him?
“Please…what?” He teased, but his voice wasn’t mocking at all. “What, pretty girl? What do you need?”
Your body shook as you tried your best to hold yourself up. “I need you,” you whispered and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, pulling his body right up against yours. “Need it.”
“Yeah? You need it?” He asked, sliding his hands up your back and pulling you roughly down against him. His lips press against yours with every fuck of his hips and he filled you so well, you didn’t think you could ever get enough of him. “Need me to fill you up? Keep you nice and full for when those London boys think they have a chance with you?”
“God, Anakin,” you moan, rarely ever getting to see his jealous side come out. He never had a reason to get jealous as yours and his relationship was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes, so no one ever tried anything with either of you. Sure, people looked, but that was as far as it went. “Do it.”
And Anakin was never one to deny your wishes.
With a couple more thrusts he was spilling himself deep within your wet walls and painting you white. “There you go, princess,” he grunts. “Take it.”
You moan breathlessly and release your tight grip on him, softly running your hands through his hair. “Fuck,”
Anakin laughs quietly, wrapping his arms around you and gently rubbing your hips in his large hands. “We’re going to have to do that non-stop until we’re both satisfied enough to be able to not have sex for three months,”
You smile at him, brushing your nose against his as you say, “I’ll come visit whenever I can. Honestly, I don’t think I can go that long without you,”
“Me either,” he agreed. “Please, come visit me whenever you can. I’ll buy the plane ticket or whatever you’ll use to come back to me, but please, come visit me.”
You nod and nuzzle your face in the crook of his neck. “You know I will, Ani,”
While you were both reassured for now, doubts and worries were beginning to linger in the backs of both yours and Anakin’s heads, but neither of you would ever admit it.
#sw anakin#tcw anakin#anakin fanfiction#anakin star wars#star wars anakin#anakin skywalker#anakin smut#anakin x reader#star wars angst#star wars#star wars attack of the clones#anakin skywalker smut#anakin skywalker imagine#anakin skywalker x reader#anakin skywalker imagines#anakin skywalker headcanons#hayden christensen#hayden christensen gif#hayden christensen edit#hayden christensen icons#hayden christensen imagine#screaming whispers au#screaming whispers#wrapped around your finger au#wrapped around your finger
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Don’t Fall In Love With Me (Yet) Pt. 2
Pairing: Trafalgar Law x reader
Content: mentions of fights/canon typical violence and weapons, sooo much pining, can be read as a stand alone or as part of the mini series, allies to friends to lovers (soon!?), etc!
Word Count: 1.5k
A/N: hmmm where do i start? i changed the pov from third to second person, (the first part was third person) the writing style of this is a little different from what i usually do but i still like it so hopefully you do to! pls enjoy and ty for reading <333
edited 1/8/24
Part 1 | Part 3
Law finds y/n leaning on the starboard railing of the Thousand Sunny.
You feel Law’s steps on the wooden planks and look over your shoulder to see him approaching. you swear you can hear your own heartbeat, and only hope that he won’t be able to hear it, too. Your thoughts are interrupted by his presence to your left. Law leans over the railing, mug of coffee in hand. A moment of silence passes while he watches you watch the sea from the corner of his eye.
“Can you even see anything?” he questions, his words coming off much harsher than intended,
A bit caught off guard, you simply respond, “Mhm, everything.” you have good vision, so you’re sort of the natural choice for keeping watch if Zoro doesn’t feel like staying up.
You can feel Law’s gaze on your profile. You can also feel your cheeks heating up, but those two things are completely independent… It doesn’t even matter though, because the darkness of the night should be enough to hide that from him.
“Are you having a good time on board the Thousand Sunny?”
“It’s alright. You guys are really loud.” He says in a near scoff.
“Oh… Sorry about that.” Did you really bother him so much?
Law mentally kicks himself and is quick to wave a hand in front of his face apologetically, “No, I just mean… you’re all very energetic. Not you specifically, either. You’re actually really, uh…”
You wait patiently, now peering up at him through your lashes. He meets your eyes with his own, much more frantic gaze.
“You’re… nice.” He finally averts his eyes with a turn of cheek.
“Oh… thank you.” You smile to yourself. “I think you’re really nice, too.”
Law releases another scoff, though it comes off as more surprised than mean. He struggles with accurately portraying his feelings for you, who remains equally oblivious to his feelings as he does to yours. “You must be thinking of someone else.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m not known for being nice.”
“People must not really know you, then.”
“And you do?”
“Not as much as I’d like to, but well enough.”
“… What?” He finds that you make him feel dumb sometimes, be it through quick rebuttals or patient stares.
“I just mean, we could be friends. But I understand if you don’t-“
“I do.”
“… Ok.” You grin once more.
The pair stare out to sea, and Law takes another sip of his coffee.
“How come I never see you in fights with your crew?”
“I try to stay out of the way. Plus, I don’t really like fighting in the first place- that’s not why I joined my crew. It’s more of a last resort.”
“Interesting.”
“You think so?”
“That you would rather play support than have to get into a fight? Definitely. It’s not very pirate-like.” He nearly sneers- he has certain beliefs on what a pirate should be in order to be of use to their crew.
But, ever the optimist, you simply laugh, “So I’ve been told,” you start. “I guess I’m a little… strict about my morals. Just never really want to hurt someone, you know? Even if it makes people think I’m weak, because I know I’m not.”
“At least you’re self aware.” Law begins, but for some unknown reason feels compelled to continue. To give you some little piece of himself in return for what you’ve told him. However, after he tells you, “I don’t enjoy fighting much either, I just do it to protect my crew.” he feels like he’s talking too much.
You listen intently, “And do you have a family? If you don’t mind me asking.”
He shakes his head no, “Gone.”
You nod solemnly. “Well, I’m sure they’d be proud of you.”
“Have you… lost someone?” Law immediately regrets asking such a personal question.
But, you aren't offended. “No, I’ve been lucky in that way. Though we aren’t really… We don’t… Well, we’re not close.”
“Why’s that?” he mimics your earlier question, which you pick up on and smirk at.
So you sigh; “I guess the whole running-away-with-a-pirate crew thing kind of soiled their opinion of me.”
Your eyes meet again after your confession, and after a moment of silence, you both break out in laughter. Except, Law’s is more of just the shake of his shoulders, while you actually laugh.
“It’s not funny-” Law says through broken exhales.
“No, it’s really not!” you shake your head, still caught in a fit of giggles.
Eventually you both still yourselves, and Law concentrates on his half empty mug while you look up at the stars above head. Then you look at him from the corner of their eye, just for a split second, but find his eyes are already trained on you. So you offer a smile, like always, and go back to star gazing. Another moment passes, and your enjoyment of conversation gets the best of you.
“What’s it like living in a submarine?” Law raises a brow and gives a sidelong glance at your question. “Don’t you miss land and the sky when you’re down there?”
“Yeah. I miss land sometimes, I guess.”
You explore the answer to your question further by standing up on the ledge before you, and leaning over the railing to look down into the waves being split by the Thousand Sunny. It’s not a particularly dangerous stunt at all- there’s the floor, a 3 inch raised ledge, and the railing on top of it. When you stand on it, your height is barely altered; that’s how non perilous what you are doing is, for context. You simply want to lean over to see the waves.
But Law’s hand shoots out to grasp your shoulder, acting as a tether. You look at him with a concerned expression, which turns into a smirk. You could stay up there, maybe even turn and lift yourself slightly to sit on the railing itself, but you decide to come back down to the floor on your heels instead of giving the surgeon something else to stress over. Law then pulls his hand back rigidly and scratches the back of his neck with near painful awkwardness due to his sudden display of concern for your safety.
“I don’t think I could trip all the way over the railing unless I tried.” You tease.
“No, I- I know.” he coughs. Did he really just stutter?
“See? You are nice. You care.” you punctuate your statement with a smirk and the side to side tilt of their head. An occasional habit that, if someone were around you often enough to witness, they would know signified a feeling of triumph.
Law is at a loss for words at the moment, thoughts clouded by the growing warmth in his chest that seems to fluctuate up and down his neck and face, but never disappears completely when he’s around you.
“Sure.” he takes to mumbling again.
“You know, I really like having you here with us.”
“…You do?”
“Yeah. I love the other Straw Hats of course, but… I don’t know, you’re different.”
“You’re different from my crew, too.”
“Oh yeah? In a good way, I hope.”
Law shrugs, “Yeah.” He pauses, then mutters something under his breath. “In a good way.”
You’d blurt out your feelings here and now, if it were anyone else. But this is Law, and you kind of like him a lot, so you want to do things right. Besides, that would probably only scare him away- he seems like the kind of man who carefully works his way up to a relationship. With a friendly smile, you accept his statement. Because now that you know he considers you a friend at the very least, and more than likely shares your affections… you’re in no rush.
The night goes by quickly in his company, and soon enough you spot the golden rays of the sun peaking over the horizon.
“We should do this again sometime,” you tell him as the sun starts to climb higher into the sky (quicker than you’d like), “I had fun talking to you.”
Law nods, “Just let me know when you’re keeping watch,” he waves over his shoulder as he walks away, “I’ll be there.”
And when he makes it back to the privacy of his room, Law replays the night in his head. Over and over and over again, until he comes to a not-so-shocking conclusion. “Shit:”
“I’m falling for y/n.”
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