#that was mostly bc i wanted to get a second monitor and needed more desk surface

[tciddaemina]

wondering how much my difficulty concentrating on writing recently stems from the fact that my current desk set up is rather uncomfortable. like its probably better for my health that i'm not getting sucked into multi-hour writing binges but-

but its not better for my writing

[seokjinsonlyone]

this is how i think it’d go if you went to visit bts at work and gave them a little peck on the lips

namjoon:

you’d probably walk into his studio and he’d be at his desk headphones in playing back some beat or revising some lyrics

you’d come up behind him and wrap your arms around his neck effectively stealing his attention away from the track

and that’s when you’d place a nice little peck on his lips

but that wouldn’t be enough for him so before you could even fully break apart he’d already be chasing your lips

he’d roll his chair around to properly face you placing one hand at the back of your neck bringing you back to him immediately slipping his tongue in your mouth

what once was a cute little greeting turned into a sensual experience as he gently massaged your tongue with his

and when he felt like he had his fill of you for the time being he pulled back, smiling, dimples on full display and said “hey, baby.”

the depth of his voice would send shivers down your spine and you would settle into his lap wrapping your arms around his neck picking up where he left off just bc he was done didn’t mean you were

seokjin:

you’d probably end up at hybe headquarters after seokjin called you when he was done with his day to get dinner together

you’d call him to let him know you’re outside and within a minute he’d be in your car

you’d lean over the center console to give him a peck to which he’d immediately complain

“woooowww i’ve been at work all day and that’s all i get”

you’d swallow down the urge to tell him that he not the only one that work in favor of rolling your eyes and pressing your lips to his again for a little longer

that wouldn’t be enough for him though “just one more,” he’d request.

“one more.”

“one more.”

he knew that asking for a kiss from you was a dangerous game

could feel it in the way he melted against you

could tell by the way he seriously thought about giving you one of his rolex watches you jokingly said you’d steal and sell

or one of his cars you said you’d steal and sell

thought about giving you the world just for one more kiss

yoongi:

with yoongi you’d probably enter his studio (he’s always in the studio) with the code he gave you

which the fact that you were the only one other than himself that had the code did inexplicable things to your heart you couldn’t really delve into without feeling like you were gonna explode

anyway you’d walk in the room and he already knew it was you like you said you were the only other one who could freely enter and he’d be at his monitor doing whatever producers do

“hey just gimme one sec”

and you knew how that one went sometimes it was actually just a few seconds sometimes it was a few hours until you had his attention but you didn’t mind you ain’t have anything else to do just wanted some company

you didn’t wanna disturb him too much but you couldn’t help yourself so you walked to him turned his head to face you and quickly kissed him before recoiling to the couch a few feet away

10-15 minutes later he was summoning you over to him, pulling you into his lap, and using his thumb and index finger to trap your chin bringing your lips back to his for a proper kiss

you sighed contentedly afterwards laying your head on top of his as he wrapped his arms around your waist, showing you what he was working on

hoseok:

hobi was usually a super organized person liked for everything to have a place and everything to be in that place

but you were his little chaos and organization was definitely not his top priority when he was with you taking second place to soaking up every ounce of your presence in whichever way you would allow him

so really it was no surprise when he texted you asking if you’d seen his little notebook where he wrote his lyrics and whatever other ideas or thoughts popped into his head

it took a bit of searching to find but you had it and he was very fortunate you liked him it was the only reason you were willing to drop it off before work

you made sure to let him know he was the reason you looked ugly today the trip to his office severely cutting your usual routine and he made sure to let you know that a) you were beautiful no matter what and b) he would make it up to you

it was only your second time at the new building your first time was when he invited you along for their first look at the hybe insight museum so it was safe to say you had absolutely no idea where you were going despite the detailed instructions one of the staff gave you upon entry if you hadn’t run into taehyun you probably would’ve been running around that building for another hour

you were thoroughly unamused with the situation but hobi looked so cute and sheepish when you entered the practice room wrapping his arms around you immediately alternating between expressing his gratitude and regretfulness that you couldn’t help but press a small kiss to his mouth

an action you instantly regretted bc a) it caused him to start pressing kisses all over your face in return b) it caused an eruption of various forms of shouting from the six other boys you failed to notice upon entry

you pushed at his chest as heat flooded your body from embarrassment preparing to leave you were going to be late for work “be good” you told him personally before shouting “have fun!” at the other members

jimin:

your days off hardly coincided with jimin’s days off mostly bc he never really had days off always had to go in for one thing or another

but his days weren’t always jam packed some days like today he had a meeting in the morning and a meeting in the evening and not much else to do besides that

and he was the absolute worst at entertaining himself always needed to find someone else’s business to get into and as the object of his affection you were always his first choice

he tried not to bother you too much when you were busy though no matter how clingy he was and he was awfully clingy

if you two weren’t able to be joined at the hip in your free time you were definitely on the phone and if he wasn’t the object of your affection as well you would’ve started ignoring him a long time ago as it stands he was the best company

anyway he knew you were off today and had no plans other than finding a new anime to start so naturally when he found himself bored out of his mind he was in your ear purring down the line for you to come to him

it didn’t take too much convincing your attention span wasn’t on your side so you couldn’t really get into anything and even though you literally saw jimin yesterday you missed him :\

it’s why you didn’t hesitate to land a peck on his lips upon meeting him again and latching onto his arm firmly as he led you to one of the small practice rooms they had

“so tell me about your day”

you looked him over suspiciously he had that mischievous glint in his eye so you knew he was up to something

and you were right you weren’t more than two sentences in to your answer before he was pressing his lips to yours in a long lingering kiss

“i’m sorry continue”

“um...” your attention span really wasn’t with you and it was hard to retrace your train of thought with your lips tingling and the hairs on the back of your neck raised

you eventually found your mental footing and continued speaking about your day which had more or less turned into you ranting about haikyuu when again mid sentence he captured your lips between his own one hand tracing up and down your spine while the other held your head into place so he could lick into your mouth just the way he liked

“go on” he panted slightly breathless once you finally broke apart

“jimin...” you whined

he giggled at his own antics loved riling you up found it so cute how you couldn’t even try to keep the dreamy look off your face “you like me so much don’t you?” he asked with a self assured grin etched onto his face

you did

taehyung:

sometimes he felt so sorry to you hated cancelling on you because something came up or another thing ran over time

you were always cool with it tho never made a huge fuss of it which he was forever grateful for bc he really did love his job

but he really loved you too

he had to cancel three separate times just this week alone and he was missing you something bad

and even though he really wanted to take you out and do something nice for you like you deserved at this point he just wanted to see you

missed seeing you in person and having you in his arms

that’s how you found yourself on a bench tucked into a quiet corner of the upper garden at a table chairs side by side his hands toying with yours as you caught him up on your week so far

he was kinda obsessed with you and you loved it because having his undivided attention felt so so good

so you couldn’t help but close the gap, briefly pressing your lips to his

the slight blush that took over his cheeks had an insane amount of serotonin flooding your brain you loved him so much

even more so when he surpassed his bout of shyness and unabashedly brought you closer to him and attempted to make up for a week’s worth of lost kisses

jungkook:

sometimes life got busy for the both of you and even though you meant to meet up it just didn’t happen

but once you finished your work week you made it your mission to see him as soon as possible

you’d texted him when you got off and he told you he was finishing vocal practice then going to workout which left you with enough time to stop home and freshen up before he was done

as expected his trainer told you he was in the shower when you popped up so you decided to wait in the hallway for him to come out

“heeeeey what are you doing here”

you looked up from your phone to see your slightly damp very buff boyfriend grinning down at you

almost instantly you were hugging him arms wrapped around his waist before pulling back slightly pecking him on the lips

which set something off inside jungkook a shock ran down his body just from the feeling of your lips pressed against his

“let’s hang out” you agreed immediately “i just need to grab something from my studio first”

he laced your hands together dragging you alongside him and as soon as you entered the room he had you pinned against the door hands on your hips kissing you with far greater ferocity than you could have anticipated

and it’s like jungkook knew he missed you but he didn’t realize just how much until he had you in his arms your lips on his

kissing you felt like home and his introverted self never wanted to leave the house couldn’t even help the groan that escaped the back of his throat as you took control of the kiss and made a mental note to remember to never deprive himself of this pleasure again

one of his hands slid down your thigh lifting your leg until you got the hint to wrap both of them around his waist allowing him to show off his strength and grope you at the same time

“jk,” you said breathlessly, breaking the kiss

his lips were chasing yours the second you broke contact he didn’t care about breathing when a fire was spreading through his body

you indulged him for a few more seconds before breaking apart again

this time his lips traveled down your neck kissing and sucking until you were making the prettiest sounds for him

you felt like you were going to explode his hands were squeezing your butt and his lips were on your neck and you were going to explode

“jk...” you whined again tugging lightly at the hair on the nape of his neck

he made his way back up your neck pressing a hard kiss on your cheek before gently nudging your nose with his “hmmm?”

and suddenly you were staring directly into his eyes big and pretty and filled with stars shining just for you

you were going to explode “let’s get out of here”

[spencerspecifics]

Okay yes hi hello this is me gracing y’all with my writing Bc I’ve had this idea forever!! This is going to be multiple chapters, here is chapter two. Enjoy :)

~

Technical Analyst (ch.1)

~

Short description: Spencer works as a technical analyst alongside Garcia and Kevin, though he hasn’t ever really worked directly with the BAU team, he works more in filing and researching. But when Garcia goes on vacation leave, and Kevin is busy with his own work, Spencer steps up to help- and that’s when he meets Derek Morgan.

———————————————————————

Spencer hated technology. He hated computers, tablets, cell phones, he hated it all. He hated everything and anything that isn’t on printed onto paper. So how the fuck did he end up as a technical analyst- whose entire job was based around proficient use of technology? In very short, budget cuts.

He originally worked in domestic terrorism, though he never fit in well there. He was a good worker, fast and able to do a lot. But his coworkers never let him feel included. He would hear them make plans without him, ignore him in conversations, only reaching out to him for his great memory to help solve a case. It was dehumanizing. He was just a brain for them, nothing more.

Then, the budget cuts came. And he got removed from the team, as he had the least amount of hours in the field- which wasn’t his fault. The rest of his team always forced him into the research position, so while they were off chasing the bad guys, he was stuck researching with a computer he doesn’t trust.

So yeah, he wasn’t an asset to them. But the bureau knew a mind like his in general was an asset, a fountain they’d like to keep a tap on. So they made work for him. It was mostly menial. He would assist with intense cases when necessary, but even then it was just research. No one knew what he would be like in the field, because they never gave him the chance.

Spencer tried not to think about how unfair this was, how stupid and purely tedious it was. He would rather be working as a T.A. at this point- which wouldn’t even be that bad. At least he gets heard and seen then.

~

Spencer’s normal day consists of going from his apartment to the bureau building, to directly into his cramped little office that was about the size of a jumbo walk in closet. A nice size to store clothes, but not so nice when you have to have a person, a desk, a chair, three computer monitors, two filing cabinents, a trash can, a fax machine, and a printer all crammed in there.

Yeah, his workplace was entirely too small. Thankfully it didn’t impact his ability to work, though, most the time Spencer finished his work quickly; and would end up reading. Spencer didn’t venture out from his office that much at all, (he always brought his own coffee so he didn’t have to worry about bugging the field agents.) the exception to leaving his office was to go across the hall to Penelope Garcia, his only sort of friend that he had at work. She was always so bubbly, it was a breath of relief for him to go see her- she reminded him of all the positive things, he definitely couldn’t do the job without her.

Not to mention, she had to train him from starting point zero. Spencer hated technology, after all. So he never made an effort to learn coding, hacking, how to re-route and track things. He knew nothing like that, hell, he struggles with his cellphone turning on sometimes.

Thankfully, she was able to get some sense into him, and he was pretty good at what he could do. Though he was still working out python coding, he was enjoying the learning process of using technology.

That being said- he still despises technology, and he hopes that once he leaves the job, he can throw away his very unnecessary but work mandated laptop.

~

Spencer made his way into the bureau building, messenger bag slung over his shoulder awkwardly as a thermos of coffee was held tightly in his right hand, while the left one reached for the door handle to enter. He got in no problem, security didn’t stop him anymore, thankfully. Though in the beginning, they did check him constantly, verifying that he belonged there. After all, he looked young, and he definitely didn’t belong in the bureau building. But then again, Garcia didn’t look like she belonged there either.

Security just made presumptions about people, he shrugged that thought off as he made his way to the elevator. Thankfully no one else was in there, he pressed the button for floor six, and the elevator doors shut.

The elevator whirred to life, taking him up to the sixth floor slowly. Thankfully today was a slow day, there wasn’t really any important case he had to work on. (Not like he ever really got given cases to work on, anyways.) So Spencer was hoping he would be able to finish his work quickly, as he had some books he brought with him that he wanted to read and re-read before the day was finished.

The elevator dinged, a signal it had reached its necessary location, before the doors finally slid back. He stepped out, taking his usual left down the hallway immediately. Forward through the glass doors was the bullpen with the agents who worked in the BAU. And god, what he wouldn’t give to be a field agent, working as a profiler. That’s why he wanted to join the bureau, and yet he was so close- his office only down the hall. But he was simultaneously so far, not being trusted by all the bureaucratic bosses, who didn’t know if he would be a good agent to warrant being put out into the field.

He hated it, but he tried not to think about it as he reached his office, Garcia’s door was shut, she was on vacation, or so he had heard. Spencer pulled on his office door, entering with ease as he moved into the cramped workspace.

Spencer sat his messenger bag down onto his desk, sitting himself down in his office chair and taking a minute to breathe in and out before continuing. Spencer hated this job. It was mind numbingly boring, he was so close to quitting. He knew the bureau would fight tooth and nail to keep him, however, but if that was the case, why not give him a better job- he didn’t want a nicer office, he wanted to help people.

He sighed, today was just one of those days where he was extra mad about not being treated right, he tried to ignore this thought process as he got ready to work; setting his coffee down by his computer mouse to his right, setting his messenger bag onto the floor next to him, pulling off the scarf that was wrapped loosely around his neck and hanging it over the back of his chair. Now he was ready for the day.

~

Penelope didn’t mean to forget to tell the team that she was going to be gone- she assumed they knew. At least Hotch did, all the rest of them knew was that she was going to take a week off to relax, they just didn’t know when (she had too many vacation days saved up, so she had to use them or lose them. She chose the former.) It was just a total brain fart moment on her part, so while she decided to hit up her favorite stores, spas, and websites; the team had no idea, they assumed she was holed up in her office, hacking away at whatever she normally does.

This would only show itself when Derek needed her, calling her office number and it going to voicemail “Hi, this is Penelope Garcia with the FBI and I’m too awesome to come to the phone right now, if it’s an urgent matter please call Aaron Hotchner-“ yeah, Derek hung up his phone by then, deciding to call her personal cell.

“Hi, hot chocolate!” She answered cheerfully, the sounds of people talking and laughing could be heard in the background, which Derek took note of. “Babygirl- your work phone sent me to voicemail, where are you?” Garcia was quiet for a second, before practically blowing Morgan’s eardrums out; “Oh- damnit! I knew I was forgetting something!” “Care to fill me in?” He asked her curiously, “Yes-“ Garcia sighed before continuing on, “Sorry. I’m taking those vacation days Hotch told me I had to use or else I’d lose.”

“So you’re not at the office.” He stated, “That I am not, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you! But my pal Spencer Reid should be covering for me.” “Spencer Reid?” Derek asked, unfamiliar with that person, “Why not kevin?” “Ugh, I don’t know- he’s doing that thing where he’s actually busy with other work for once. But Spencer is good, I taught him everything he knows- and I’m pretty sure he’s got three PhDs, so yeah, you replaced one genius with another- so don’t worry!” “Okay, well...” Derek took a second, “You sure I can ask Spencer about everything I’d ask you?” He meant work related, within being able to hack and get everything that Garcia would be able to get. Because Morgan knew that her talents were very special, and having someone else replicate them seemed near impossible, so he was a bit hesitant to trust someone new.

“Oh yeah- he’ll find everything easy peasy lemon squeezy. Don’t worry yourself, sugar.” “Okay, thank you mama. Have a good week of rest.” “I will! I have an appointment for a spa, and oh my god Derek- they do a seaweed wrap thing, isn’t that crazy?” “So you’re gonna get rolled up like sushi?” “No! Ew! Don’t compare me to raw fish!”

The phone call continued for a bit after that, as Derek wasn’t in an urgent matter. It was just a filing day at the office, before he hung up he asked where Spencer was, though; “Oh, he’s in the office next to mine, across the hall!” Garcia told him happily. Derek had thought that was a storage closet, but he didn’t tell her- instead thanking her and hanging up.

Now to pay this mystery computer whiz a visit.

~

Spencer was in the middle of re-routing a bunch of information that Garcia needed to send to her boss, Aaron Hotchner. Spencer didn’t share the same boss, since he was technically working in a more basic division of the bureau, he instead answered to Strauss- which was a royal pain in the ass, but he always turned his work in on time, came in when needed, he had never had to face her wrath yet, thankfully.

Spencer typed away, trying to get all the data to get to Hotchner as quickly as possible so he didn’t have to wait, though it wasn’t crucial the work did get completed right now. Spencer just liked to get things done.

A knock sounded Spencer out of his methodical typing, it wasn’t Garcia, obviously. And he knew Kevin was in a meeting right now with some IT people over his keyboard acting funky (Kevin could fix it by himself, but office administration forced him into talking to IT.)

“Yes?” Spencer asked curiously, turning around in his office chair, because he had no clue who it was that could be interrupting his work. The door pushed open, revealing a tall, classically handsome, muscular man carrying some files in his hands. Fuck, that would be Spencer’s luck. An attractive guy swooping in and making his IQ of one hundred and eighty seven go down to sixty in two second flat

“Hi- you Spencer?” The man asked, stepping forward into the cramped office. Spencer stood up instinctively, “Yes, I am. How can I help you?” The man handed the files over awkwardly, “I’m sorry, I usually ask Penelope Garcia for this but she’s on vacation and she referred me to you- I just need these put through VICAP, I’m not too familiar with the system as a whole, ‘cause Garcia usually handles it.”

Spencer nodded, taking the files and looking through them briefly, there were nine of them. “I’m sorry, I know that’s a lot of work to do... I’m sure I can figure it out myself-“ Derek started, doing his best to apologize. Little did he know Spencer could get this done within an hour or so.

“Oh no- not a problem at all, this should only take me about an hour, two at most, but that’s a generous estimate.” Derek raised his eyebrows, “An hour or two? Garcia usually finishes up this many files within three or four. How are you able to get this done faster than her?”

“I have an eidetic memory, which helps me recall anything that I read. I can read these files once and put all the information into VICAP knowing it’s accuracy is one hundred percent without having to double check, that cuts down my speed by half per case file.”

Derek looked confused and shocked. Yeah, Spencer could understand why. “Sorry, um. That’s a weird explanation, but it shouldn’t take me as long. I’m assuming you’re out in the bullpen?” Spencer asked him, putting the files down atop his keyboard.

“Yeah, I’m Derek Morgan with the BAU.” Derek finally introduced himself, reaching his hand out. Shit, this was Derek Morgan? Garcia has mentioned him a few times to Spencer, saying he’d love him “oh he’s so handsome, but so sweet and loving, like the hottest man on earth- I’d marry him in a heartbeat, but we don’t roll like that, Y’know?” That’s how she described him once, and of course Spencer remembered that word for word. Spencer felt like it was just his luck, that his only work colleague was best friends with a man so attractive that his mind isn’t working fully.

Not to mention he was in the BAU, Spencer guessed he was, since Garcia was their technical analyst. But still, it would be just his luck to know this insanely attractive man was part of the team he wanted to belong to so bad. Spencer wasn’t sure how to respond as he kept his composure. After all, yeah, Derek was attractive. But they probably wouldn’t speak again after this exchange. It wasn’t worth Spencer thinking about him, or how Garcia described him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t shake. But it’s nice to meet you, I’ll find you once I’m done. If you need anymore help, feel free to let me know.” Spencer told him, looking back at the files on his desk as a distraction away from this hot guy that was just standing so calmly in his office, as if Spencer ever had any visitors into the cramped space besides Garcia and Kevin.

By the time spencer looked back up, Derek’s arm was back down by his side. “Okay, thank you.”

~

Derek was surprised by their exchange, to say the least. How did he not know about this genius before? How was he not more well known, a memory thing, three PhD’s- that would be a useful asset? How come he was hidden away in a closet sized office? He had to know more. Even if it was nosy and stupid.

Normally, he’d call Garcia and ask her if it was about an employee. But in this case, he couldn’t. And he couldn’t go to Spencer, that would be weird.

So, he did the next best thing. He asked Hotch.

~

He knocked slowly on Hotchner’s door, hoping he wasn’t going to tell him to mind his business and not ask about employee facts when they definitely were irrelevant.

Derek was smart though, he figured out a foolproof way to play this. So when Hotch said, “Yes?” He came in, starting his plan into motion.

“Hotch, where’s Garcia?” He asked him, as if Derek hadn’t immediately checked up on his babygirl when he couldn’t find her. “Oh,” Hotch started, setting a file down that he had been looking over, “She took some vacation time.”

“So, who am I supposed to go to for computer help?” Derek asked, “Well,” Hotchner started, matter of factly, while he reached for a thin, unopened file on his desk. “We have a new guy helping us. Kevin’s busy with helping the child abduction unit reset their computers, as well as he’s in an IT meeting right now, so we have..” Hotch stopped, looking down to read the name off the file; “Doctor Spencer Reid. I’m sure he’ll be just as good.”

“Hotch. No ones as good as Garcia.” Derek pointed out, Hotch shrugged. “Maybe not. But this guy has a glowing personal history- and Garcia told me she taught him everything he knows.”

“What’s his personal history?” Derek asked curiously, stepping a bit closer but still trying to play nonchalance. “You know I’m not able to disclose that. You can go ask him for yourself.” Derek sighed. Of course Hotch wasn’t gonna tell him shit. He should’ve expected this. But sue him, call him hopeful. He was hoping he could’ve gotten some information on this mysterious doctor.

~

Derek made his defeated way back to his desk in the bullpen. And Emily, whose desk was directly across from his, immediately noticed his slight annoyance at Hotch. So she asked in a hushed voice as soon as he sat down;

“Did you get yelled at by Hotch?” Because in her mind, that was the most logical explanation that made the most sense. Derek just shook his head as a response, “No,” he clarified, “I was asking about our Garcia fill-in, and Hotch wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Garcia fill-in? She’s gone?” Emily asked confusedly looking back to the hallway that led to Penelope’s office, as if she’d magically appear. “Yeah, but just for the week.” Derek explained, “She’s using those vacation days she had saved up. And Kevin isn’t our standby, ‘cause he’s busy. Instead it’s some new guy.”

“Who?” Prentiss asked, this time she was curious. And as if on cue, Dr. Spencer Reid came through the glass doors, and into the bullpen, carrying Morgan’s stack of files.

“Him.” Morgan pointed back simply as a response as he waved Spencer over.

~

To say Spencer felt out of his element by being in the BAU bullpen was an understatement, he felt like a fish out of water. Like he was suffocating and everything around him was too much.

He purposely avoided the bullpen, first reason being because he didn’t have any work with the BAU. But the second reason was he knew if he stepped in, he’d be more upset that he couldn’t be on the team. And the last thing he wanted to do was make his job worse for himself.

But, this experience was an outlier. And though Spencer can remember almost anything and everything, he planned on doing his best to purposely forget all of this. Every last detail.

He wasn’t going to let himself remember how there were field agents with real life guns holstered at their sides, how they were all sitting casually, looking over cases and drinking coffee, how they had the title of SSA (he only had SA, which he still was bitter about.), and then how at a moments notice they could fly away in a jet. How astonishing their work is, how jealous he is.

But Spencer entered through the glass doors nonetheless, looking around quickly before seeing Derek wave him over. Derek was sat at his desk, talking to a woman whose head was turned away from Spencer, all he could see was that she was his desk mate, and that she had black hair.

Spencer made his way over at a brisk pace, he just needed to get in and out. If he stayed for too long, he’d let himself remember to much.

“Hey, I- I got these into VICAP no problem,“ Spencer started as he handed Derek the case files, “But I noticed some errors on the date stamping on when you found the unsub so I corrected it myself, I hope you don’t mind.”

Derek shook his head casually, “Not a problem at all, I have a habit of messing that up. Thanks doc.” Fuck, ‘doc’? Spencer hadn’t been called ‘doctor’ in months, let alone ‘doc’. This was turning into a tailspin moment for him as he smiled awkwardly, feeling a blush rising to his face, he wasn’t sure what else to do. But he wanted to get out of there.

Thankfully, the woman with black hair introduced herself, as once he had rounded the corner to see Derek, he also saw her face. She was pretty, and had bangs. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Emily Prentiss.” She reached her hand over to shake Reid’s expectantly, “Oh I-“ Reid started, hands down at his sides, he wasn’t going to move them.

“He doesn’t shake, Prentiss.” Derek explained casually, “Oh,” Emily said, dropping her hand down, “Sorry! It’s still good to meet you, though. So I hear you’re covering for Garcia?” She asked Spencer, who nodded as he pushed a piece of hair back behind his ear.

“Yeah she’s taking vacation time, and Kevin is currently busy with helping the child abduction unit. So I’ll be you technical analyst for the next week or so.”

“I’m sorry, but how long have you been with the bureau? You look really young. I don’t mean to be rude I’m just-“ “You’re really asking him the rudest possible question, though, huh?” Derek joked to her, and she just smacked him on the arm lightly before turning her attention back to Spencer.

“No you’re fine to ask I- um, I’ve been with the bureau a year and a half, but originally I was on the domestic terrorism field unit.” He explained shortly, he didn’t wanna go into how he got on the bureau to begin with, or how he left the domestic terrorism unit. All he wanted to do was have this conversation end, or else it would just be that much harder to forget.

“Domestic terrorism? So how do you end up doing technical analyst work?” Derek butted in curiously, up until now it has been Prentiss asking all the questions.

Spencer stayed quiet for a moment, before finally responding, “If you need anything else, my office is next to Garcia’s. It’s been nice meeting you, Emily.” All he gave to Derek was a curt nod before walking out at the brisk pace he had entered with.

~

“Wow, well you fucked that up.” Prentiss spoke to Derek once she saw Spencer exiting through the glass doors, and turning down the hallway.

He sighed and rolled his eyes at her, “I’m just curious about him, can you blame me?” Emily just chuckled softly in return, shaking her head as she turned her chair around to face him more head on.

“Are you curious about him because he’s cute, or because he’s replacing Garcia for the week?” Derek blinked at her in surprise; “I never said he was cute.” He protested, more confused than anything else.

“You didn’t say it, but your body language did. You think he’s cute. You called him ‘doc’ and he almost blushed, and I have a feeling you’re gonna try and call him ‘doc’ again to see that same result- and you watched him the entire time, even if I was talking.”

“You think random bureau agents are cute all the time, what’s it matter?” Derek rebutted, trying to deflect and ignore, because Prentiss wasn’t making sense. Derek wasn’t attracted to Spencer, he didn’t think he was cute. Spencer’s level of attractiveness had nothing to do with his curiosity.

Derek did have a right to be curious for other reasons, anyways. This guy was replacing Garcia for a bit. It made sense Derek would wanna know more about the guy, even if he was or wasn’t attractive.

“Yeah, I find agents cute. But I don’t go asking Hotch about them.” Prentiss said with a smirk, Derek just shot her a glare. “I asked Hotch because he’s replacing Garcia. And I’ve not heard of the guy before.”

“Whatever you say, man.” Was all Emily replied with as she turned back to her work, Derek just rolled his eyes at her again before turning to his own computer.

Okay, so he knew Spencer was in domestic terrorism. It couldn’t hurt to just search it up, right? It wasn’t anything classified, he’d be able to see it, Derek hoped. He wasn’t meaning to be nosy, but he was just so curious and confused. He just had to know more.

———————————————————————

[red-becca]

The Streamer And The Model

I republished this with my laptop bc why not? Make it look better. Also, just realized I don't really have anything about Red on here that screams "model" other than it being mentioned. So, yeah. Gonna be writing a sequel of sorts or just another oneshot basically that is connected to this one. Hope you guys can wait for it.

---

"Mmm... Okay then." Kevin hummed as he sets up his face cam for his stream for today. "You guys can see me good, right? I see the comments and all the other stuff you guys say, by the way. About how I need to show my face more and well... Here I am. I still struggle with setting it up on this new program you guys suggested me, so yeah... I set it up earlier than when I'm scheduled to start streaming for it to show up properly." He clears his throat as he looks through the chat. "Anyway, I was gonna say we'll have a good ol' fashion QnA while waiting but you guys are just immediately bombarding me with questions..."

The male snickered as he rubbed his painted nails, shaking his head. "Yes, this is live and unedited. I am wearing black nail polish on my nails. I feel like it should no longer be a shock for people to see guys with nail polish but I get it. I don't seem like the type to do it, right?" He chuckled as he takes off his headphones and showing off the piercing in his right ear. "To shock you guys even more, I got myself a piercing too..."

"My girlfriend basically convinced me to do it, so we match kind of. But you know, I actually quite like how it looks on me. And she even did my nails just for fun and I think she did a great job." He said without even thinking, too focused on admiring his nails. Then his eyes widened as he realized what he had done, gulping as he saw the endless spam he was getting in chat. "Fuck, Red warned me that this would be your reaction once you found out..."

He let out nervous laughter and pushes his index fingers together. "Hehe, yeah... There is no way I am gonna be able to edit out what I said earlier. You guys heard me loud and clear there." Kevin let out some more laughter before taking in a deep breath. "So, I guess, I can't hide it anymore. Yes, I do have a girlfriend. We've dating for... like a really long time now, actually. I never really mention her because... Well, she tells me not to. I've actually been wanting to tell you guys about her for a while now because of how much I just adore her but again, she doesn't want me to tell you about her. Why? I don't really remember exactly but it's something like her not wanting to steal attention from me or something like that..."

Kevin rubbed the back of his neck, reading more of his chat. "You said her name was Red... You won't happen to be talking about famous model, Rebecca McArthur, are you?" He gasps in realization. "Hmm, maybe that's what Red means when talking about stealing attention from me..." The male mumbles before clearing his throat. "Umm, yes actually. She refers to be called Red more, so please. Call her that. But yes, I am dating a famous model but you know, I knew her and dated her before she became said famous model. So, I see her more than just a famous model. There is more to her than that..." He smiled, blushing softly as he thought of Red.

The smile he had on his face immediately faded when he saw his chat saying that he was lying and that he's only saying he's dating a famous model for clout. "Hey! I know it sounds really unbelievable for someone like me dating someone like Red but you guys don't have to say such mean things like that! I really am dating Red! If you don't want to believe me, go ahead! You'll eat your words once you-" He gets cut off by Red suddenly coming into his office.

"Hey, Kev! Started your stream yet? Me and Bailey made some cupcakes for you to try before it starts! Well, it's mostly me. Bailey just slept next to me." Red laughs, peeking through the door with a tray in her hands. "And don't worry about this tasting bad! I followed the recipe you put down to a T! And it tastes exactly how you would cook it!"

Kevin chuckles as he turns his chair to face her. "Heh, thanks for the snack, Red... And uh, my stream has already started, actually... And funny thing, I... I, uh.. I may or may not have accidentally let it slip that me and you are dating..." He let out nervous laughter and pushed his index fingers like earlier.

"You did what?!" Red freaked, almost dropping her tray but she quickly put it in a dresser next to the door. "Kev, I told you! We can't tell people that we're dating!"

"I know! I know! You told me countless times that you didn't want me to tell my fans about us..." He sighed as he rolled his gaming chair towards her, grabbing a cupcake from the tray and eating it. "But I couldn't keep it in. It just came naturally to me to boast about you, Red... You're an amazing girl, I am lucky to be dating someone like you. Like this cupcake tastes really good! Way better than how make it even!" He chuckles and smiles at her as he takes another bite of his cupcake. "So, yeah... I'm really sorry that I ended up spilling the beans there..."

The redhead ended up smiling at his words, giving him a small kiss on the cheek. "I forgive you, my space captain. I am so lucky to be dating an amazing guy like you, after all. Someone who loves me for more than just my looks..." She giggles as she gets her own cupcake and tastes it for herself. "Mmm, not bad. So, uh... How did your fans react to you dating a "famous super model"?" She jokingly waves her hand at the last part of her sentence, giggling and letting out a snort afterwards.

"Oh, you know... First, shock for me even dating anyone in the first place..." They both snickered after he spoke. "And then you know, disbelief because it is just so unbelievable for anyone who isn't that famous to be dating a famous person..." He rolled his eyes.

"Why am I not surprised?" Red laughs, playfully rolling her eyes as she walked towards Kevin's monitor. "So, what's happening now? Is your stream still on or what? You know me, I may play video games but that doesn't mean I know anything when it comes to working a computer..." She giggles.

Kevin chuckled as he rolled back to his desk, nodding. "Yeah, I understand completely. And yeah, my stream is still on. You see us in the monitor, right?" He gets a nod in response. "That's what my fans are seeing right now..." The male chuckles when the girl let out an amazed gasp, giving a small wave. "I got so distracted by you showing up that I completely forgot that I left my stream on." He chuckles more before flinching when Red suddenly slammed her hand on his desk.

"Hey, you fuckwads! I don't know what you've been telling my boyfriend when it comes to not believing him about dating me! But I'm here to tell you fuckos that it's true! We are dating and I couldn't be more happier dating a guy like him!" She smirked. "Still not believing my own words? Well, how's this for more proof?" The redhead grabs his right hand and shows off the matching promise rings they had. "Boom! Matching promise rings, baby! Custom made to fit the wearer's personality!"

Kevin got flustered at her actions. "Red, I appreciate your enthusiasm and all but this feels like too much for me-" He gasped when Red suddenly kisses him on the cheek.

"Sorry, my space captain. Now that you told people about us, I want them to really know that we're an item." She winks at him, causing him to blush. "Well, anyways... Now that your fans know about us... Mind if I join in with you in a stream?! Please?! I always wanted to join a stream but you know... Keeping our relationship a secret." She giggles, an excited grin on her face.

The male nodded, chuckling. "Go grab your gaming chair from the closet then..." He points to said closet, letting out a small noise of surprise when the girl hugged him really tightly. "Woah! Red..."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! I literally love you so much right now!" Red gives him a lot of kisses all over his face before giddily rushing to grab the gaming chair. "What are we going to be playing, by the way?!" She opens the walk in closet and goes searching for the gaming chair.

"Hmm..." Kevin turns to his monitor. "Well, I was gonna be playing a random one player game but I guess we can play some Mario Party, maybe..."

Red gasped in amazement, peeking her head out . "And then we can play as Daisy and Luigi like we always do! Ah, I love it! I am actually really happy that you revealed our relationship online now!" She giggles more before going back inside the closet.

"Okay, I'll set up the Switch for us to play that and then..." Kevin starts setting up his Switch then he pauses when he reads his chat again. "Oh... Oh, wow... As you had been worried about, all my chat is all talking about is you now."

"Oh, really?" Red pulls out a gaming chair from the closet, rolling the chair towards where Kevin's was and sat down it. "What have they been saying? Also, just where are people chatting? Like where are you looking at to read what they say?" She squints her eyes as she looks around her monitor for his chat

Kevin chuckles, pointing to the second monitor where he had his chat in. "There. You can read what chat has to see on that monitor."

"Oh! And that's why we bought two monitors! It makes more sense now!" Red giggles, looking at the other monitor and immediately getting angry. "Excuse me?! What are some of these bitches saying?! "Shame he isn't available anymore, I would have loved to date a hottie like him"?! "Why is he even dating the model with the dumb anger issues? He should just break up with her and date someone like me instead, I'd treat him right"?!" She crossed her arms and started to angrily grumble. "Well, I got bad news for you, girls! He's mine and mine alone! You can't have him!"

"Red, Red... Calm down... Breathe..." The male massages her shoulder gently. "Look, just ignore messages like that. I already have the perfect girl in front of me..." He makes her look at him by grabbing a hold of her chin. "Plus, the last thing I'll do is replace you with some fan..."

"But I'm one of your fans..." She pouted up at him. "One of your biggest fans even..."

"I know, I know... I mean them silly..." He gestures to the camera. "Anyway, ready to play some Mario Party?" He grabs one of the Joycons.

"Oh, hell yeah I am!" Red's mood immediately changed, grabbing the joycon. "Get ready to eat Daisy's dirt, Luigi!" She picks Daisy in the character selection.

"Oh, you'll be eating those words, Daisy! Trust me, it'll be Luigi who wins! He is a fan favorite, after all." Kevin smirks before they both laughed and started to play a round of Mario Kart for Kevin's stream.

[astralsweetness]

Set my soul on fire (make me wild) || Hui/Reader (M)

➣ I was originally going to write a LOT more smut (I had so much planned that I never got to!!! ugh).. Maybe I’ll have to do a part 2 or something 👀 the amount of time i spent looking at pics of his studio just so that one scene would be accurate is insane Title from the song ‘Queen of Disaster’. Very briefly proof-read, so please feel free to inform me of typos!

➣ Hui/Reader | Hui drunkenly kisses the reader without explicit consent but owns up to it bcs I’m tired of every other fic that includes this trope just glossing over it | Smut warnings include: masturbation, fingering, hair-pulling (implied), biting (mostly implied), oral + snowballing, slight pain/masochism (implied), some humiliation/degradation + some praise, referenced submissive headspace, and all of them apply to Hui lmao. Also it’s mentioned that Hui isn’t strictly heterosexual and if that bothers you then idk what to tell you

➣ “He is hanging off your every word and you suddenly feel like you have a choice to make - it’s one you don’t think about for more than a second, because you realize that you don’t need to.”

Hui knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you had completely ruined his life just by existing in it.

It wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. The feeling he got whenever you smiled at him, for example, was definitely not a bad thing. The way his skin tingled whenever you brushed against him was.. bothersome, but not a bad thing. The way his heart sped up and beat almost painfully hard whenever he indulged in his regular skinship with you wasn’t particularly bad, but he’d stopped doing that recently just as a preservation strategy so he didn’t die in the next year from a heart attack. (He was a naturally touchy person, and he wasn’t completely sure how he felt at having to stop that with you specifically.)

The way his mind constantly drifted to thoughts of you was starting to become an issue though, as was how he tensed up whenever you got even moderately close to him. You’d started to notice, and he had no idea how to tell you that it was happening because of that one time the rest of the boys had ‘accidentally’ forced the two of you to be pressed against one another in an elevator, and that just the knowledge that your breasts were pressing against his arm had him fighting to not get hard like some sort of teenager. He wasn’t totally sure how successful he’d be the next time if something similar happened.

Still, you were, as far as he was concerned, completely unattainable, and that in itself was a problem. He’d experienced his fair share of heartaches and heartbreaks before, but this was.. different. At least in those circumstances he’d gotten a definitive answer.

With you though, he couldn’t even bring himself to ask, had resigned himself to pining over you like a kid with a crush.

If you hadn’t ruined his life then you sure as hell had made it harder.

.｡..｡.

When Hui gets a knock on his studio door around six pm he’s not particularly surprised – lately his members had taken to dropping in to make sure he had eaten something that day. (Usually he had not.)

He is surprised to see you standing alongside Yuto when he opens the door, so he glances at the maknae suspiciously – Yuto seems perfectly innocent, but Hui wasn’t exactly sure how much of that was an act.

“Hyung, did you eat today?” The younger boy holds up a bag as an offering – it doesn’t look like the regular convenience store food the boys would usually grab for him, so Hui accepts it hesitantly.

“I was originally just going to bring food for Hyunggu, since he was apparently starving in his studio or something, but then he mentioned that you never ate either, so..” You’re looking at him like you’re vaguely disappointed, and it makes a funny feeling tighten in his chest so he pretends to be completely absorbed with looking through the bag. He’s not sure where you got the food from, but it was mostly stuff that he actually liked. “I went to a place Hyunggu wanted, but he told me what he thought you’d like from there – I hope he was right.”

“This – you didn’t have to do this.” It’s nice not being the one buying things for once, he has to admit that to himself, but he still felt a bit bad that you’d felt the need to bring him anything at all. “Thank you, though.”

“You’re right, I didn’t have to. I wanted to – just like I wanted to bring Yuto food too when Hyunggu told me he was also here.” You’ve perched on the edge of his small leather couch and he wonders if you’d ever been in here before – he honestly can’t remember, though with how hyper-aware he was of you it was pretty safe to assume you hadn’t been. Yuto’s lingering near the door quietly, watching you and he interact, and he feels like the younger is analyzing what was happening.

“Thank you for it – I should go eat it now, while it’s still warm.” Yuto’s gentle bass of a voice is almost soothing, but Hui shoots him a look anyway because he suddenly knew what was happening. His maknaes were downright masterminds when it came to plans like this, and he can’t think of any way to get Yuto to stay before you bid him a cheerful goodbye as the Japanese boy smiles at the both of you as he carefully closes the door.

“Should I go too? I don’t want to distract you or be a bother or anything.” Your question is so sincere that he just looks at you for a few moments, tries to figure out a way to say ‘Yes, you do distract me and bother me, but definitely not in the way you’re thinking’. He finally settles on a single head shake, clearing a small portion of one of his desks to place the food on.

“Did you already eat?”

“No, but I’m fine.” Your answer is quiet, and he glances over to see you gazing around his studio – he feels vaguely embarrassed, though he’s not particularly sure why. His studio is remarkably small, it’s true, but he’s not actually ashamed of anything in it.

“You’ve never been in here before?” He’s pretty sure you haven’t, but there’s no harm in confirming it. You’d been focused intently on reading the names on his soccer jerseys, but once he speaks you turn all that intense concentration on to him and his mouth goes dry.

“Nope. Not that I remember, anyway, and I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.” You’re smiling at him and he doesn’t know why that’s something you’d remember, but your smile makes him not really care about the particulars. “Now eat, Hui.”

He raises his eyebrows at the parental tone you’ve adopted but says nothing, knowing there was no way he could get out of it now – and honestly, he didn’t really want to. He was really fucking hungry, and the meat you’d brought him smelled delicious.

It’s only as he’s taking his first bite (which is excellent by the way, Hyunggu apparently had a very good taste in restaurants) that he remembers what you said about not eating and makes a stupid split-second decision. (He’s never been one to think about things like this too much before blindly doing them, which was probably a problem, come to think of it.)

“Here –“ He holds the strip of bulgogi out towards you, one hand underneath, the sound of his heartbeat a constant background theme song. “Say ‘ah’~” And it’s so easy to pretend, to act like he’s just being friendly, to tinge everything he says with a bit of aegyo – you roll your eyes at him but accept the food anyway.

It’s not easy to ignore the intimacy of an act like this, to ignore the way he’s hit with a sudden yearning deep in his chest to be able to feed you food whenever, like a real significant other could.

“Thank you, but no more! This food is for you.”

“Okay, okay.”

The silence that slips back afterwards is mostly comfortable – you seem determined to make sure he eats, so while he does so you go back to gazing around his studio. Hui feels like there really wasn’t that much to look at, but you hadn’t looked bored yet, taking in the contents of his desk and then computer monitor. He realizes belatedly that he still had the windows open for some of their unreleased tracks, but when he glances at you again you’ve already moved on from them, so he leaves them where they are.

“Are you still seeing that one guy?” It’s easy conversation, light and carefree even if the topic makes him feel a bit bitter – as much as the knowledge of you seeing other people ate away at him he knows it would bother him more if you didn’t feel comfortable talking with him about it at all. Being able to be a close friend you confided in was something he cared more about than not feeling jealous.

“Oh – no, I’m not.” Your tone is carefully disinterested, but he can see through it well enough by now. Still, he doesn’t say anything, just turns so he’s fully facing you, focused and listening. “We just had a – confliction of interests I guess you could say.” You laugh softly at your wording and he laughs too, even if he doesn’t totally understand what you mean.

“And that means, what, exactly?”

“He thought women should be submissive during sex, and I disagreed.” ..Oh. Hui’s gaze darts away as he tries to process that – it wasn’t that you talking about sex was surprising. He was used to talking with you about intimately private things like this, though that was before this annoying infatuation with you had manifested into the tiresome nuisance it was now. Still, you’d never exactly stated your.. affinities towards any one thing.

“Ah.. is that so?” He sounds much hoarser than he’d meant to, like he’d choked on something – he still can’t look at you, because suddenly all he can think about is what that meant, if it meant leather and pain or lace and sweetness, if it meant scathing words or saccharine praises.

“Are you blushing?” You’re leaning forward off his couch, grinning and trying to get a look at his face, one of your hands on his knee to keep him from turning away from you - and he realizes that yes, he is fucking blushing, and the place you were touching him felt like it was blistering with heat. “Well, at least you’re not getting all upset with me for injuring your masculine pride or whatever by being a woman who doesn’t like to –“

“Okay! Okay okay, please take mercy on me!” His slightly exaggerated whining is met with your laughter, and his face feels like it’s on fucking fire, but he can’t look away from you now that he’d accidentally met your gaze.

“Sorry – you’re just so cute when you’re flustered!” And he knows he shouldn’t take this as anything more than friendly teasing, just like whenever Hyunggu would call him ‘cute’ whenever he got scared of something, but your words still make something short-circuit in his brain and he swears to everything that you will be the death of him.

“I’m – sorry things didn’t work out with him, but you’re really going to kill me if you keep this up.” And it’s not even a lie – he is ninety-eight percent sure that if you keep talking like this without giving him time to recuperate then he was just going to over-heat and pass out.

“I should go anyway, I’ve distracted you long enough – I didn’t go too far, did I?” You’ve stood up now and are looking down at him with a worried smile, so he just shakes his head because he’s pretty sure if he tried to talk he’d say something stupid like ‘No, I definitely didn’t mind hearing you say that, and while you’re at it please tell me some more’. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? Make sure you eat it all!”

He manages a “goodbye” that sounds sort of like he wasn’t dying, waving to you until you leave and his studio door beeps to signify that it was locked again.

“For fuck’s sake..” Hui forces himself to breathe deep, tries to will some of the heat to leave his face. He really didn’t know why he was getting so flustered over something like this – he wasn’t usually the type. Was it just because it was you? Because he definitely wouldn’t mind if you preferred to be dominant?

Hui curses again, a quiet ‘fuck’ that doesn’t really encompass everything he’s feeling but seems to be the best he can manage. Fuck indeed. He was so fucked.

.｡..｡.

The next time Hui’s in his studio he does his best to forget about the conversation the two of you had had last in there, tries to forget the way his entire body had lit up when you touched his leg, tries to forget the way you’d smiled so sweetly when he fed you.

It doesn’t go well.

To be honest, he didn’t do things like this often – he was busy most of the time, and if he was in his studio then he usually had something he needed to work on instead. But being in this room less than twenty-four hours after you had off-handedly mentioned that you liked to take a more dominant approach in the bedroom had him unable to concentrate on anything else, though he had made a valiant effort for an upwards of fifteen minutes.

With an agitated huff he’s pushing his chair back from his desk with more force than necessary, moving to make sure his studio’s door was locked before taking a seat on the edge of his couch. For a moment he contemplates if he’s really going to do this, runs an aggressive hand through his dyed silver hair and then curses the tingling pain it brings that he doesn’t quite hate as much as he should in the moment.

There’s a lingering feeling of shame and a much stronger feeling of embarrassment covering his body when he reaches for himself, though it only lasts for a few moments until the feeling of the rough friction of his palm through his jeans overpowers anything else.

Hui tips his head back with a soft moan before he remembers he needs to keep quiet, bites his lip when he unzips himself so he can wrap his fingers around his cock more easily. He’s rough, impatient, wants to finish fast but also likes the slight bit of pain – he full body shudders when he finally tugs the waistband of his briefs down and feels the cold air hit him, falling back onto his forearm. He knows, for a fact, that there’s a small bottle of lube in one of his drawers somewhere, but he doesn’t bother looking for it – he’s slick enough as is, and the slight pain keeps him grounded, keeps him from getting into it enough that he wouldn’t be able to monitor his volume.

There’s a slight urgency surrounding it all that is always there when doing something like this in a semi-public place, and he gives into it this time and allows it to urge him on quicker, fucking into his fist like he was going to get caught at any second.

He wants to drag this out, wants to get this over with, wants to think about anything else or feel the need to pull up some dirty video on his phone to finish, but all he can think about is you, you, you – he wonders what it would be like if you were the one stroking him instead, if you’d take pity on him or would be ruthless, if you’d whisper sweet compliments into his skin or humiliate him with biting words, if you’d bite at his neck, he really wanted you to bite at his neck and mark him up –

He orgasms with a choked off cry, hastily shoves the back of his wrist against his teeth to try to keep quiet as his hips buck sloppily into the loose circle of his fingers. He’s never been particularly quiet, and another wave of arousal washes over him as he imagines you telling him to keep it down, warning him that you’d have to gag him otherwise. He whimpers pitifully at the thought and tries to shut his mind down, feeling overstimulated both physically and mentally.

His fingers are sticky, the warmth quickly drying on his skin, and he feels much too hot, a thin sheen of sweat clinging to his skin alongside a layer of shame. He’s not totally sure why but he feels like he’s just made everything worse, like somehow he’d crossed a line and now being around you was going to be ten times harder.

He also feels like this was inevitable though, that his attraction to you had been building for so long that if he hadn’t found a release for it somewhere then he would have gone insane.

Or maybe he’s insane now, now that he’d done something this dirty and depraved. He really didn’t know, gaze still just a bit glassy and unfocused.

What he did know was that he was completely and utterly fucked at this point, collapses onto his back and lets his aching forearm finally take a break as his eyes slide shut in defeat.

.｡..｡.

“You’re not serious.”

“Of course we are, hyung – why, do you have a problem with it?”

Hongseok is taunting him, like he always does, and Hui would usually play along and tease him back but he feels completely thrown off guard and does nothing more than blink at all of them incredulously. His lack of a playful reaction in return has Hongseok softening a bit at the edges, but Hyunggu isn’t nearly as merciful.

“What’s the problem with it? You’ve been wanting us to do something bonding like this for a while, and now we have a time to do it, a reason to do it, and someone to make sure we don’t screw it all up by doing something stupid when we’re drunk.”

“We didn’t force her, hyung, she offered when we asked.” Yuto’s trying to alleviate Hui’s concerns, but he’s way off base – still, he’s trying, so Hui manages what he hopes is more smile than it is grimace in the Japanese boy’s direction.

“We want to drink, she doesn’t like drinking, and we have a few days off because Road to Kingdom ended – what are you so worried about?” Changgu asks him, kind and sincere as always – Hui doesn’t trust him for a minute, but he can’t fight the natural urge to tell everyone what his issue was anyway. God, he hated them sometimes. (They were his family, and he supposed sometimes you just had to hate your family.)

“You all know my – my problem with her.”

“Yeah, we know you want to –“

“Date her.” Wooseok cuts Shinwon off at the last second, modifying whatever it was his hyung had been about to say – Shinwon looks both annoyed and scandalized that Wooseok had thought he was going to say anything else. Hui does his best to ignore them.

“You really thought I’d be okay with her being the one watching over us while we drank? Knowing that none of us can drink well?” He swore he could literally feel his stress levels rising – it wasn’t like he was an embarrassing drunk or anything, but he knew he had an incredibly low tolerance for it, and he also knew that if the entire group was drinking then they were just going to end up egging one another on until everyone was truly smashed.

“Well, you’re going to have to be okay with it, hyung.” Hyunggu, always the hard-ass, insists forcefully – he doesn’t say it unkindly, but he says it in a tone that brooks no room for disagreement. It’s more Kino’s voice than it is Hyunggu’s, scarily similar to when they’re in the practice room.

Hui knows he could override it with hyung or leader seniority, knows Hyunggu is watching him carefully to see if it’s actually something the elder couldn’t deal with.

He ultimately says nothing, just sighs in a way that lets everyone else know he’s acquiesced – the resulting cheer brings a small smile to his face, even if he still feels uneasy about how the planned drinking night would go. He knew that when it came to both his members and you in one building with alcohol involved there was no way he wasn’t royally fucked.

.｡..｡.

The night goes exactly as you expected it to – none of the Pentagon members could hold their liquor particularly well, which meant that after an hour and a half they were all at their limits. (It was honestly kind of funny to watch. They were all so intent on getting one another drunk that they weren’t really even paying attention to the way everyone was sabotaging each other by constantly keeping the cups full.)

Still, that meant you were mostly trying to make sure they didn’t kill or injure themselves somehow. It wasn’t too hard of a task, though you did have to threaten both Wooseok and Hyunggu to keep them from climbing on top of the only coffee table Dorm A had. You were pretty sure the glass would just shatter under their combined weight. Hyunggu had targeted you with an impressive pout after that, but he’d lost interest pretty quickly when Yuto had fallen asleep - not that you blamed him, the rapper was sort of adorable when he slept.

It also meant that when Hui got up to get water – he swore that’s what he was getting, at least – you followed him. The man was a menace in the kitchen when he was sober, you were almost afraid to imagine what he’d manage to do when he was drunk. Just his presence alone might cause the stove to burst into flames or something. He was seriously cursed.

“Why are you following me?” His question is just a bit slurred together, almost sounding more like he was incredibly sleepy instead of drunk – you figure it’s because he hadn’t had as much to drink, but you weren’t really sure. You hadn’t been monitoring how much any person drank, more concerned with keeping them alive. (They could manage to injure themselves sitting on the floor sober, so being drunk just made your job several times harder.)

“Just checking.” You murmur – he raises his eyebrows at your comment but doesn’t say anything else, turning to grab a glass from one of the cupboards. You watch him for four whole seconds before you decide he’s about to knock several of them to the floor, stepping forward to reach for it instead. Maybe you’d been wrong about how much he had drank.

“I could have gotten it..” His petulance makes you smile, doing your best not to laugh at the little “hmph” he gives you when you inform him that no, he probably could not have.

“Just let me take care of you, you big baby. At least this way I can make sure you’re getting only water.”

“That is all I was getting..” He’s still sulking when you hand it to him, face flushed from the culmination of everything he’d drank tonight. You force your gaze away when he begins to drink – even drunk off his ass he was still an infuriatingly confusing mix of handsome and cute, and you resolutely did not want to watch his throat when he swallowed.

The sound of glass hitting a bit too hard on a solid surface startles you – Hui’s set his glass down incredibly close to your hand, depth perception just a bit fucked. You want to open your mouth to scold him for the close call, but his body heat is incredibly distracting, and he’s raising one of his hands and your breath catches in your throat.

He cages you in against the dorm’s sink, one hand on the side of your neck – to angle the kiss better or to steady himself you weren’t sure – with the other bracing himself as he presses his lips to yours. He’s so ultra-hot against your body, tastes of the same fruity drink Shinwon had been pressing into his hand all evening, the metal of his belt buckle biting into your stomach.

It’s not until he gives a soft breathy moan into your mouth that you realize you’ve been kissing him back for the past thirty seconds in his own kitchen, heedless of the rest of his members in the adjoining room or the fact that he was drunk enough he could barely stand without assistance. You press at his shoulders with minimal force, missing the pressure of his lips when he instantly moves away.

“What..?” He looks immensely confused, and you feel awful for kissing him back when you weren’t totally sure he was even aware of what he was doing. “Why’d you push me away?“

“Hui –“

“You kissed me back, so why’d y –“

“I just don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret later, Hwitaek.” You hope the use of his full name will get through to him – it seems it does, in some regard, because while he chokes out a half-disbelieving and half-tormented laugh he still pauses and blinks at you slowly like he was trying to carefully choose his next words.

“You act like I haven’t wanted to do this since the first time I met you.” And oh, his voice is just a bit huskier, a bit slurred on the syllables, but he says them carefully and you know that, at the very least, Drunk Hui meant them.

The problem was that you didn’t know if Sober Hui would agree.

“You should go to bed, Hui.” You say this instead of saying all the other things crowding the tip of your tongue, instead of grabbing him by the collar and kissing him again – alcohol took away a person’s consent, and you weren’t about to take a chance to pressure Hui into doing something you weren’t sure he wanted in the first place.

“No one else has gone to bed yet..” Now he’s sulking – but this is normal, this you can deal with. You can pretend like your lips didn’t still tingle where his had been touching, can pretend like you weren’t already addicted to the feeling.

“That’s not really a valid argument considering Yuto’s fallen asleep twice already.” You counter, watching the way he bites at his bottom lip in frustration – you know it for what it is, and it still seems coy to you instead, like he’s trying to seduce you.

God, what was wrong with you? He was just pouting now, brow furrowed, and you feel absolutely pathetic for seeing his current actions as anything other than what they really were.

It didn’t matter how attractive or desirable you found him, you couldn’t in good conscience do anything while he was so inebriated.

“Come on, Hui – let’s get you to bed so I can get back to the other boys to make sure they haven’t done something stupid, like coercing Hongseok into wrestling Changgu shirtless. Again.”

“It wasn’t that stupid –“

“They literally broke a bookshelf with their bodies, be quiet.” The banter comes easily, is normal and comfortable – it’s easy to pretend like he hadn’t just been kissing you, like you hadn’t just been fantasizing about him seducing you of his own free will. His skin is warm underneath your fingertips, flushed from the alcohol, as you direct him by the bicep down the hall and to his room.

You’re rarely in here – he’s rarely in here, actually, considering how much time he spends at his studio, how often he sleeps there. Because of that his room is sparsely decorated, an incredibly faint lingering smell of the cologne he occasionally wore clinging to the edges of some of the surfaces. It’s a heady scent that you do your absolute best to ignore, because it brings to mind images of him whenever he bothered to get extra dressed up, devastatingly handsome.

He lets you guide him over to his bed with zero fuss but turns back towards you when his knees hit the edge of it, one hand coming up to caress your cheek. It’s a deceptively gentle action, and you know you should really stop him, but you don’t move when he leans in to kiss you again. Underneath the flavor of alcohol there’s a distinctive taste that is purely him, and you know if you weren’t addicted to kissing him before then you definitely were now.

When you nip at his bottom lip and he lets out a shuddering moan you realize what you’re doing, try to pull away as fast as you can – this wasn’t fair to him, when he wasn’t in his right mind – but he catches you with a hand frantically landing on your waist, dropping his head to litter kisses along your jaw and then throat. You try to ignore the way your legs go weak at the feeling.

“Please –“ It’s more of a whine than a plea, but you feel it against the skin of your neck all the same, the words dragged along your pulse-point like a searing flame. “If we don’t now, then I don’t think –“

“You need to sleep.” It takes every ounce of willpower inside of you to ignore the wetness pooling between your legs, the insistent hard press of his cock against your thigh, the way his whimper when you push at his chest vibrates along the skin of your shoulder where he presses one last desperate kiss. “We can – we’ll talk about it in the morning.” You continue to push him gently back until he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, gazing up at you through his eyelashes, flushed and looking five different kinds of wrecked. Your entire nervous system threatens to shut down at the sight and you’re not sure that you can keep your promise about talking about it tomorrow.

He’s apparently not sure of it either, expression pinched and distraught when you press him insistently by the shoulders back onto his bed. His hair is ruffled and his eyes are glazed (from the alcohol or lust, you weren’t sure), his lips slick and kiss-bruised –

You tear your gaze away and force yourself to breathe again. When you look back Hui’s thrown a forearm over his eyes, bottom lip snagged between his teeth, breathing labored.

It takes ten seconds before you’re out of the room, clicking the door shut as quietly as you can, trying to erase the imagery of tears staining his face.

.｡..｡.

When Hui wakes up it’s to a pounding head and the vaguely disgusting feeling you get when you sleep in your clothes on top of your covers. His entire body hurts and he makes the same promise he always does when he wakes up like this, the same one he’s never kept – he’ll never drink again. Or, at the very least, he’ll never drink that much again.

His whole room spins when he pushes himself up, groaning softly at the way he feels like the world tilts dangerously on its axis as he slides his legs off the edge of his mattress. It’s only because of this world-shifting that he notices Wooseok asleep on the other side of his bed, all his long limbs drawn in as close as possible, his brow furrowed in his sleep.

He wonders when the maknae had ended up here and how they’d decided on rooms while he goes to the pain-staking process of draping one of his extra blankets over the tall boy. The world is still too bright (even with his blinds shut) and every step he takes feels a bit like walking through mud, but when he sees the way Wooseok slightly relaxes after being covered it all feels worth it.

The trek from his room to the kitchen feels like it takes much longer than it should, but at the very least the suspiciously long stretch of the dorm gives ample time for his headache to shift from excruciating to manageable. He was going to find the bottle of Aspirin, take all of them, and then go the fuck back to sleep. (Okay, maybe one of those was an exaggeration, but it sure felt like he could use that many painkillers.)

“Good morning.” He almost chokes when he hears your voice, a sudden onslaught of memories causing his face to heat up – you weren’t even looking at him, busying yourself with the small skillet Hongseok kept religiously cleaned. Hui wasn’t sure if his nausea was due to the smell of food or the way all he could think about was how he had – stupidly, why the fuck had he done that – kissed you and then tried to get you into bed with him.

“..Morning.” He hopes you take his lackluster response as a product of his hangover, sliding into one of the chairs at the kitchen table so he can bury his head in his hands.

“That bad, huh? You’re going to have to learn to tell Shinwon ‘no’ when he offers you drinks, you know.” He looks up to see you placing what he assumes is an Aspirin down on the table in front of him, already turned back to grab him water. He’s not sure if he’s glad you mistook his suffering as the results of a hangover or not.

“Thanks.” He waits until you hand him the glass before he takes the medicine, downing the rest of the contents when he realizes just how thirsty he was. He can feel the weight of your gaze still on him and it makes the blood in his veins feel like ice, knowing you had to remember the exact same things he (suddenly) did.

“If it makes you feel any better, Hongseok is way worse off than you right now. I honestly can’t believe he’s such a lightweight sometimes…” Your tone is sympathetic, but all Hui feels is a slight smug happiness at there being someone else who was, at the very least, suffering more than he currently was. At least Hongseok hadn’t had the chance to do anything stupid with someone he liked last night, like Hui had. “Honestly, it’s sort of impressive.”

“Huh?” He’d stopped listening to you by pure accident, forces himself to refocus on you – which just causes his eyes to instantly lock on to your lips, face heating up because not only does he remember kissing them, he remembers what they felt like and tasted like and he has to fight to tear his gaze away. God he was so fucked.

“How many lightweights you have in your band. In a group of nine you’d think it’d be more even, but, like.. almost all of you can’t hold your liquor. It’s kind of impressive.” You’re back to focusing on whatever it is you’re cooking – he only just now notices you also have ramen boiling in their small stove to the side, the dull bubbling of the water having blended into background noise long before he’d realized it had been there.

“Are they okay?” He’s sure they are, but there’s some deeply ingrained part of him that feels required to check – the soft smile you give him in response makes him feel like he’s in high school again whenever his crush would focus on him and him alone, and he isn’t sure what to do with that feeling now that he’s twenty eight years old, so he looks down at his empty cup instead.

“They’ll be okay. Wooseokkie ended up in your room – I’m sure you noticed him.” You wait for him to glance at you and nod before continuing. “Hongseok and Changgu ended up in the same room together, which worked out well considering Changgu’s probably the only one who could sleep through Hongseok’s pitiful whining about his hangover anyway. Hyunggu and Yuto shared a room, I think – which I guess means Shinwon ended up alone. Any guess on whether he’ll be happy or upset about that?”

“It could be either.” He responds, mostly because it’s true (Shinwon’s moods were hard to predict sometimes) but partly because talking about his members was something he could easily do, something that felt familiar and normal. It felt safe and far away from the topic he didn’t want to think about. (But he was thinking about it anyway, could remember your warmth when your body was pressed against his, could remember the way you kissed him back bruisingly and made him want nothing more than for you to wreck him every day of his life.)

“Oh, right – Yanan’s in China, by the way, and Jinho’s in the military.”

“Thanks.” His response is a dry remark at the way you were trying to tease him – like he didn’t know where Yanan was and wasn’t constantly in contact with the soon-to-be actor, like he didn’t think about Jinho every single day and wonder if he was doing well. “What would I do without your incredibly timely information.”

You just roll your eyes at him and turn to the ramen – he wonders who you’re making it for before realizing it was probably for whoever woke up hungry. That realization makes a certain spot in his chest warm, and he tries to ignore it because for fuck’s sake, not now.

“I knew it was going to go badly..” He mutters to himself – you hum questioningly and he blinks, surprised you heard him and instantly trying to reach for a half-truth that you’d believe. “Drinking so much, I mean.” Not totally a lie, which meant he could say it and have it sound mostly believable. To his relief you seem to take it at face value.

A silence stretches out between the two of you – it seems comfortable for you, but he feels like his skin is crawling, waiting for the moment you spring the dreaded conversation on him. He can’t think of any more topics to bring up to stall it.

“Hwitaek.” The tone of your voice makes his heart drop into his stomach and freezes over any warmth he’d been feeling because he knows the conversation that is now seconds away from happening is going to be one he didn’t ever want to have. “I think we should talk about what happened last night.”

“What happened?” He tries to brush it off like he didn’t remember, but his voice wavers just a bit and he can’t meet your gaze and he knows that you don’t buy it for a second.

“We have to.” Your voice is soft, gentle, and he hates it because he feels like you’re trying to be as kind as possible, and that didn’t bode well for how the conversation was going to go. “Did you do what you did because you were drunk, or because you were drunk and wanted to?”

Your gaze has him pinned to the seat, his own eyes wide and brain trying to stutter through any excuse he could think of, and when that didn’t work, trying to think of some way he could play it all off as a joke, or as him just being an overly friendly drunk.

You won’t believe anything but the truth, he can tell, and he was a shit liar even when he wasn’t hungover and panicked.

“I –“ He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, probably something stupid like ‘I love you, and I don’t know when I knew that but I’ve always wanted to kiss you, I was drunk but it let me do what I always wanted to do’ but he’s saved by Hyunggu walking into the kitchen, rubbing at his eyes and looking a bit less like hell than Hui felt.

“I think I’m dying..” The maknae grumbles, and your attention shifts to him and getting him something to help his headache. Hui tries to feel relieved that the conversation had been dropped, but the look you send him once over Hyunggu’s shoulder says, ‘We’re not done talking about this’ and he feels sick all over again. He was so fucked.

.｡..｡.

It isn’t until he escapes to his studio later that day, having basically inhaled an entire cup of coffee to try to fight off both his hangover and his exhaustion, that he realizes that aside from all his personal problems with how the night before had went he had essentially pushed himself on you and then not allowed you an avenue to talk to him about it.

And that makes him feel even more sick, because there had been a chance you’d just wanted closure of some kind considering he had basically drunkenly assaulted you, and all he’d done was avoid the issue entirely when you tried to talk to him about it.

Fuck. Fuck, he was the worst.

He’d been so worried about rejection that he hadn’t even thought about the fact that you’d never consented to being kissed – or, fuck, being propositioned for sex – in the first place.

He runs both hands through his hair aggressively, ruffling it in the slightly painful way he usually did whenever he did something he wasn’t happy with – he feels anxiety sitting cold in his stomach, fear that not only would you hate him but that he’d ended up hurting you or breaking your trust in him all because he’d gotten stupidly drunk.

Pushing down the steadily rising nausea, he reaches for his phone and almost calls you, deciding at the last moment to text you a simple ‘You’re right, we need to talk’ instead. He’d already fucked up once, he didn’t want to force you into the conversation by calling you unexpectedly. As an afterthought he adds a quickly typed ‘I’m sorry I tried to avoid it before’, because despite how nervous the thought makes him, he is genuinely sorry. (Sorry for everything, in fact.)

He tries to busy himself with unfinished tracks while waiting for you to respond, listens to the same snippet of some demo Yuto had sent him six times without really ever hearing the notes, does his absolute best to ignore how one of the last times he was in here he’d ended up touching himself to the thought of you. With everything that had happened since he feels fucking disgusting at the thought of it.

When his phone vibrates he essentially lunges for it – it wasn’t like he’d been making progress on anything anyway – heart hammering in his throat as he opens your messages.

‘It’s okay. In person or by a call?’

He wants to fucking cry at how nice you’re being, at giving him the option to choose a less personal route – but he knows that you were the one who’d taken the brunt of the incident, that all he was really worried about was rejection and being embarrassed. His fingers tap out ‘I’m embarrassed, but it’s up to you’ before deleting the first part before sending. He didn’t want you to feel like he was trying to pressure you into one choice or the other at this point.

‘Knowing you, and seeing how you reacted this morning, I think you’d die if we did it in person lol I’ll call you’

He tries to fight the weak smile your text causes – you always make him smile, and this is no different, but he can’t tell if you’re genuinely okay or not through text and it worries him. You’d seemed fine this morning, almost painfully nonchalant – too nonchalant? He wasn’t sure if he was overthinking things now or not – but he’d been hungover and tired.

You don’t call right away, and he resigns himself to waiting out another five or so minutes in this sickening state of anxiety, selecting and re-selecting the exact same clip of audio over and over just so he can pretend he’s doing something, so he can try to occupy his brain.

When his phone does ring he slams his knee into the table in surprise, high-strung and nervous. He barely even feels the tingling pain.

“I’m so sorry.” He blurts out the instant he answers, muttering a soft fuck under his breath afterwards. He’d wanted to give you time to speak, but he was buzzing with an anxious and guilty energy that had him speaking before he even realized he was.

“What?” Your question sounds more surprised than legitimately confused, like you hadn’t expected him to just start talking immediately. He rakes a hand through his hair again and then keeps it there, fisted, trying to ground himself with the tiny bit of pain as his breathing speeds up.

“About last night – I’m so sorry, I just – I was drunk, and that’s no excuse for what I did, I wasn’t thinking and I’m so fucking sorry. Are – are you okay? Am I allowed to ask that?” He feels like he’s right on the verge of panicking and he hates it, because you were the victim here, not him.

“I –“ You only pause to collect your thoughts for a heartbeat, but he feels the moment stretch on endlessly, sees ninety different scenarios play out and discards every positive one immediately. “Hui, you’re – god you’re so sweet.”

“What?” It’s more of an exhale than a word, because you didn’t sound angry, or hurt, you just sounded slightly amused and grateful, and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up but you didn’t sound upset.

“You’re right, what you did was wrong and shitty, and you suck for doing it.” You pause to breathe, and it reminds him he needs to breathe, his gaze darting along one of his computer monitors without really seeing anything. “But it’s sweet of you to apologize. You should, but most people wouldn’t.”

“I should have this morning.” He murmurs quietly, fingers gripping his phone so tightly they’ve begun to ache. “I was selfish and didn’t even think about it. I really am so fucking sorry.”

“I know, Hui. I believe you. You suck at lying anyway, if you weren’t sorry then I’d be able to tell.” You’re laughing again, and he tries to join you, but it sounds weak. His entire body feels like it’s melted into nothing – he didn’t even care if you rejected him at this point, you didn’t hate him and that was good enough. “But I kissed you back, Hui. Multiple times, actually.”

“…..what?” He can’t think of anything else to say – he had remembered you kissing him back, of course he did, but it all sort of blurred together at one point and he wasn’t sure that any of it had definitively happened. “I – I know – I mean, I thought you did, but you could have just, I don’t know, been trying.. to.. get me to go away by not resisting..?” Some drunks became irate when told ‘no’, and while he knew he wasn’t one of them – and he had a feeling you did too – that didn’t mean you hadn’t just been trying to protect yourself.

“God you’re sweet.” Your sudden, repeated statement is quiet, almost like you hadn’t meant him to hear it – he doesn’t say anything, doing his best to just breathe, doing his best to act his fucking age and not like some kid who needed instant reassurance. You were the one who deserved reassurance in this situation. “I kissed you because I wanted to, Hui. It’s very kind of you to be so concerned, but you’re about the least threatening drunk I’ve ever encountered. I could have probably pushed you off me with one hand – actually, I did push you off me with one hand, when we were in the kitchen.”

“I – you – you wanted to.” It’s a statement because he’s stuck trying to process this new information, because this wasn’t a rejection (he thinks it’s not, at least), because you didn’t hate him, because the way all the anxiety induced adrenaline had leeched out of his body was leaving him feeling even more exhausted than before.

“I actually wanted to tell you that I was sorry – since I kissed you back and all, but you were drunk so it wasn’t really like you were –“

“I wanted to – I wanted you to.” He says the words too fast, trips over them, but he knows you understood by the way you went silent on the other end. He appreciated the apology, really, he did, but not only did he not think it was needed, he also couldn’t stand listening to you apologize for kissing him back when he had been dreaming about this moment for way too fucking long.

And he wants to tell you that, but you’re still silent and he’s beginning to wonder if he somehow read this entire situation wrong.

“..I don’t know what to say now.” You admit softly, and he lets out a silent exhale when he realizes you’re just being shy. He wasn’t used to that side of you, but already he knew he found it adorable, just like the rest of you.

“You can’t be more embarrassed than me, if you are then neither of us will be able to talk.” He’s laughing quietly now, feeling.. not quite comfortable yet, but definitely on the way there. You hadn’t really made any declaration of love for him, but you had reciprocated his kiss, at the very least.

“Oh, you need me to be confident?” There’s a teasing tone in your voice that is more commonplace than the shy one from before, and he already knew just by the sound of it that whatever you’re going to say next is going to affect him in some way.

“It’d be helpful.”

“Then I’d say we need to try that whole kissing thing again, but without the alcohol. It really ruined the experience last time, don’t you think?” He suddenly can’t breathe again, mouth opening and then closing at your statement – not that you care about his lack of a response, since you continue without him saying anything. “It could have led to so many fun places if you hadn’t been drunk.” A pause, where his heartbeat pounds in his head and his mouth has gone dry. When you speak again he can tell you’re doing your best to keep up your confident façade. “..Is that okay with you?”

“Yes.” He says this on a relieved breath, face still hot but body covered in excited, adrenaline filled tingles. You were really putting him through an emotional workout this morning, but at this point he wouldn’t dare complain. “Please. I’ve wanted –“

He cuts himself off before he can say anything more embarrassing, about how long he’s wanted to do something like that, to hear you say something like that, how he’s fantasized and day-dreamed about it for way too long. He flushes even more when he can hear your gentle laughter on the other line.

“You mentioned something like that last night. I wanted to ask about it actually –“

“Oh, wow, I am super busy right now doing leader things, just.. so busy. I couldn’t possibly talk to you anymore, I’m just so extremely busy.”

“Jerk.” This time when you laugh he laughs with you, a real laugh instead of the weak one he’d offered you earlier. “Okay, fine, go do your suddenly important work – but I’m definitely interrogating you about that later, it’s just too interesting to pass up. Bye Hwitaek.”

“Bye.”

It’s so like you to cut the conversation short whenever he mentioned his work – you never wanted to genuinely distract him, and it was one of the things he liked about you.

Loved about you.

Fuck. Fuck.

He can’t contain his laugh of disbelief and giddiness, setting his phone down on his desk so he can cover his face with both of his hands, running them through his hair and pushing it back away from his eyes.

You said you’d wanted to kiss him. You had kissed him. He hadn’t imagined it.

You’d said you wanted to kiss him again.

His phone vibrates and he lowers his hands to glance at it, sees it’s a text from you, and already he can feel that warm, lightweight feeling in his chest just at the sight of it.

God, he was so fucked – but with how this had turned out, he really couldn’t complain at all, nor did he want to.

.｡..｡.

Trying the ‘kissing thing’ again, as you had put it to him on the phone, turned out to be a nebulous concept – not that Hui really expected anything else, but it was a bit disappointing to finally get an answer (a positive one at that) only to be unable to meet up with you again. Not that getting to text you often wasn’t wonderful – it was, and he felt the need to make that abundantly clear (though he was pretty sure you knew that, considering he actually paid attention to his phone now just so he could respond to you) – it was just a bit frustrating to finally have permission to do the things he’d been dreaming about, like kissing you, and then be barred from doing it by forces outside of his control.

As it was, it was nearing the end of the second week since the ’confession’ had happened, and he was only just now finding time to head over to your place after working all day. It was late (nearing four am, he noticed with a groan) and his muscles ached from practice and his eyes ached from composing all day but he would be damned if he’d let another chance to spend time with you slip by him without leaping for it.

“You look so attractive.” It’s the first thing out of your mouth when you see him at your door – Hui laughs the soft sort of laugh he does when he’s a bit nervous, bending to unlace his shoes. It’s not rare of you to compliment him – in fact, you usually did, because it was true and he deserved all the kind words you could heap on him – but something about the circumstances makes it feel different this time, charges the air with a sort of excited, nervous tension.

“Really? I came over right after practice, I can’t look that good..” He trails off, shy, and you look him over again. It’s true that he looks a bit tired and run down, but the dim low lighting of your entryway paints his skin golden and throws his profile into a mix of soft shadows and gentle lines, illuminates his silver hair into a gradient of golden blonde to dusky gray.

“You look good, trust me.” It’s all you can say – everything else gets stuck in your head, muddling itself before it can get to your tongue. You hope to one day be able to properly put into words just how beautiful he is to you, but you’re in no rush to do it now, you have time. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay tomorrow?”

“If I passed up on this chance then I might legitimately die.” He says it so seriously that you laugh, and the way his expression smooths out into a warm smile has your heart beating erratically. God, he didn’t play fair at all.

“Well, if you’re sure..” You take the chance to step closer to him during the slight lull in conversation – he blinks at you once, still smiling, but the smile freezes on his face when you nonchalantly place your arms around his neck. You can feel the way he’s tensed at the new, intimate position, and it’s absolutely adorable how he clearly wants to reciprocate in some way but resolutely keeps his arms at his sides. “You –“

“Can I kiss you?” He says it all in one breath, interrupting you, rushed and embarrassed but also like he craves it, like he might die if he didn’t get your permission to do so. It’s the cutest thing in the world and a surge of heat floods your bloodstream at the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes. “Please.” He tacks it on at the end, a quiet whisper, so fucking good and sweet and perfect.

“Of course, baby.” The words are barely out of your mouth before he’s surging forward to connect your lips, his hands landing on your waist and a soft sound of pleasure escaping him as a sigh. The pet-name of ‘baby’ is one you learned that he liked recently, and while it had been deliciously fun to tease him with it through text and over the phone it was something else entirely to see the way he responded to it in person, the rich sunset color of his eyes softening into something more gentle and pliant.

The way Hui kisses now is slightly different than when he’d been drunk – it’s more assured, more precise, and while it still holds that level of desperation from before there’s something a bit less rushed about it, something more confident and not as nervous as before.

There's something infinitely better about doing it this way, Hui thinks, better than anything he'd fantasized about or hazily remembered from when he'd been drunk. Every single one of his senses is attuned to you and you alone, and nothing exists outside of the two of you kissing, the weight of your arms on his shoulders, the feeling of your nails lightly scraping at the nape of his neck, the rough feeling of your clothing beneath the pads of his fingers at your hips. Your lips press and slide against his constantly before parting for a few brief seconds, and he chases the faint swipe of your tongue against his bottom lip with his own, whining when you don't instantly give in to his demands.

By the time you nip at his lip he's completely given up on leading the kiss, opens his mouth and moans high and sweet when your tongue leaves a blazing trail of pure fire in its wake. His lips are kiss-bruised and tingling, the sensation imprinting on him that this was real, you were really kissing him, he wasn't going to suddenly wake up and realize it was all a dream.

When you pull away from him he follows you for a moment, stopping only when you cup his cheek in one hand and slide your thumb across his bottom lip. His gaze is glazed and he looks so thoroughly wrecked from simply getting kissed that you feel another surge of heat flood your system.

"Good?" Your whispered question barely makes it through to him, but when it does he blinks a few times to force the haze from his mind and nods, grip on your waist tightening, grounding him. You’ve never seen someone look more adorable.

“Yeah.” His voice is slightly hoarse and you give in to the urge to kiss his throat tenderly – when he tilts his head back with a sigh you trail your lips up to his jaw. “Yeah, it’s – great.”

You can feel the heat of his skin against your face, leave open-mouthed kisses from the spot under his ear (which makes him shiver in a way that you immediately catalogue in your mind) in a line down to the collar of the light-weight hoodie he’d worn for practice.

“I wish I could mark you up here..” Your lamentations are met with a literal fucking whine from Hui, one of his hands coming up to grip unsteadily at the crook of your arm like the mere comment had made him unsteady. “Oh? Is that something you’d want? For me to bruise you up so prettily that there’d be no way you could cover it?”

He nods, not trusting his own voice, head full of fantasies where you could do that, where you’d be able to sink your teeth into him, suck dark marks into his skin that wouldn’t fade and that his members would tease him about. (But even in his fantasies his members are there, a constant, and he knows that there’s no other timeline better than the one he’s currently living in.)

“Hwitaek.” You say his name softly, wrap a hand around the back of his neck to make him look at you – his gaze is disconnected, lingers on your lips before your silence registers as he meets your eyes. “I think we should talk about what we both want out of tonight.”

“Yeah – okay, okay.��� Fondly, you watch as he takes a small step back and forces himself to become more present, a bit of clarity re-entering his eyes. You notice that he hadn’t stepped far enough away that either of you had to stop touching one another though, and it makes a part of your heart warm with affection. “That’s probably a good idea.”

He lets you lead him further into your house, glances around in interest but doesn’t stop you – he thinks (hopes) he’ll have more time later to become acquainted with this place.

“So, Hui –“ He perks up at you speaking to him, and it’s so cute that you have to stop just to recollect your thoughts. He peers around your room with thinly veiled interest but keeps glancing back at you like you’re the most interesting thing in existence. It’s flattering and adorable. “Considering we’ve talked about it before you know that I prefer to be more dominant, and you –“

“Find it incredibly hot?” He finishes your sentence for you, a happy little smirk on his face at your surprised expression as he darts in to kiss you once, quick and chaste and filled with delight.

“I – I was going to say, ‘you’re okay with it’, but what you said was so much better.” You’re smiling now too, still a bit shell-shocked – really, what sort of luck did you have for an incredibly attractive and sweet guy to also be down for being submissive for you? – but definitely not complaining. You cup his face in your hands and draw him towards you again for a sweet kiss – it lingers just on the side of ‘too passionate’, but neither one of you have enough self-control to reign it back in. You can feel his flush underneath your fingertips. “How did I ever get this lucky?”

“Should I say the cliché thing about thinking the same thing?” His voice is soft, one of his hands coming up to slip underneath your own, fingers curling around your palm. “Because I was.”

“You really are a hopeless romantic sometimes, you know that?” You couple your rhetorical question with another kiss – you were one hundred percent addicted to them now, you knew that for a fact. “We should really talk about what you’re comfortable with happening tonight, Hui.”

He must not be thinking clearly (he’s not, all he can think about is you and how you keep kissing him and how it’s all he’s ever wanted in his entire life) because he says “anything” in a strained whisper, breathless and needy before anything has even happened.

“Anything?” You can’t hide the surprise in your voice, though you try to soften it at the last second – he flinches anyway, like he was embarrassed with how eager he had come across, his gaze somewhere at your hip now. “’Anything’ is a dangerous thing to say, Hwitaek. What if all I wanted to do was finger-fuck you?”

He knows you were joking – he can hear it in your voice, the way you’ve tried to lighten the mood to make him more comfortable. He appreciates it, but it does absolutely nothing for him considering the effect your words had on him. “…I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Really?” Again you’re surprised, but this time you seem slightly eager – he raises his gaze to assess the situation, and yes, you did look interested. The excited, nervous little fire burning in his core feels a bit stronger suddenly. All he can do is nod, mute in the face of your presence, your power, your effortless aura that has him sinking down gratefully onto your bed at the slightest push of your hand against his chest.

Your fingers press at him, hard, and he feels breathless when they slide underneath his hoodie and t-shirt both in one go, hitch it up to above his navel. He thinks about all the marks you could leave on him there, hidden under clothing between promotions, and the sly grin you share with him when your fingernails rake a teasingly shuddering line down his side makes him think you have the exact same ideas he does.

Those two articles of clothing are lost quickly, dropped somewhere over the side of your bed as you kneel between his legs and kiss him until he can’t breathe, a wonderful feeling that has him drifting along in hazy bliss until he realizes what you’re doing.

“You’re a bit more dressed than I am, suddenly..” He tries to make it teasing but it comes out as something soft and reverent, and your lips when they smile at him are a slash of color that he can’t tear his eyes away from. He can feel your curious fingers dipping under the waistband of his athletic joggers and he does his best not to lose his fucking mind at the connotations of it.

“That’ll come. Later. Let me focus on you first, Hwitaek.” And how could he even argue with that? Why would he argue that? He’d have time to see your body later – and to be completely honest, he was perfectly happy with seeing however much of you that you were comfortable showing him.

(Still, he thinks, as you gently push him to lie down on your bed, he hoped you weren’t too uncomfortable with showing your body. As you drag the fabric of his briefs slowly down his legs he thinks about how much he really wants to eat you out, and what a shame it’d be if you weren’t comfortable with that. Regardless, he’d find some way to pay his respects to you and your body, even if his regular go-to’s turned out to not be an option.)

“You’ve done this before?” He doesn’t sound nervous, just questioning, having slung a  forearm across his eyes. You let him leave it there for now, knowing he must feel a bit vulnerable in his current position.

“Mhm, I have – and you?” It’s almost laughable how casually the two of you are speaking, like you hadn’t just been feeling him up and wasn’t currently in the middle of warming lube on your fingers. When he nods you hum and use your clean hand to grip him under the knee, pulling it up high enough you can place a kiss on the inside of it. An amused laugh leaves him in the form of a surprised exhale at the surprisingly tender action.

“I have – don’t worry, I’m not new to all of this.” You can’t see his eyes but you can see the rest of his face, see that he’s still smiling – you keep a close eye on his expression as you circle his rim teasingly, watching with rapt attention the way the smile disappears as he tenses with a soft sound that’s not quite a gasp before forcing himself to relax again.

“With women or men?” You keep it casual, careful to keep your voice unaffected, and he laughs again but it’s more disbelieving this time, pulls his legs up so his knees bracket you on either side.

“Yes.” Hui simply answers, and it’s your turn to laugh, your free hand smoothing soothing circles into his bare hip. You think he looks absolutely beautiful like this, spread out just for you and you alone, a small notch in his brow from the way his expression has twisted as you carefully slip your first finger in.

“You’re really cute like this, all vulnerable and naked for me.” You’re teasing him, testing the waters – from the way he flushes though, the little hitch upwards that his hips make, you think you might have just discovered something fun. “Hui, do you like me talking to you like that?”

He doesn’t answer you right away, moves his arm so he can look down at you between his legs. Something about it must get to him, because he just looks at you for a moment or two, like he was trying to imprint the visual in his mind.

“You can add another.” He says instead, all breathy and soft like you’d already ruined him, wrecked him into pieces. It’s incredibly endearing, you think, dropping your gaze to where his cock sits red and shiny and untouched against his lower stomach, a small mess of pre-cum already smeared onto his skin. That was also endearing.

“I’ve barely even stretched you yet..” Your disbelieving murmur is clearly heard by him, and you raise your gaze to meet his as you test the waters with a second finger. It’s definitely tight (tighter than you would have preferred, if only for his own safety), but Hui just moans and shifts his hips more towards you, digging into your pillow as he tips his head back. “Oh – Hui the size queen, huh? Is that it?”

He laughs, but it tapers off into a sound closer to a moan than anything else. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”

“Does it suit you?” You keep one hand splayed flat on one of his hips – he’s doing a wonderful job at not moving overly much, but by doing this you can feel every small tremor that goes through his body, can feel his muscles tense each time he forces himself to stay still. “If I end up fucking you one day am I going to have to make sure it’s sized big enough to totally wreck you?” Your question is coupled with an inquisitive upwards quirk of your fingers, and he nearly kicks you in surprise at the liquid arousal that floods through his body at the feeling. (You teasingly bite at his lower calf for it, and the soft sound he makes as you press your teeth into him is definitely something you file away for later.)

“I know you’re just teasing me, but -“ He licks his lips, tries to gather his focus again as you add a third finger. It burns in such an exquisite way that it’s hard to concentrate on anything else except for the current points of contact between you and him.

“Do you want me to stop?” A pause. “Hui, look at me.”

He obeys, meets your analyzing gaze and offers a slightly strained smile as he thinks about your question – though he doesn’t think for very long, a burst of wonderful, embarrassed heat curling across his chest and through his stomach when he lets his upper body drop back down to the bed, shaking his head ‘no’.

“Oh, Hwitaek..” You sound vaguely pitying, and he hates it, but he loves it. “You’re just a little boy who likes to be teased and humiliated, is that it?”

He feels so small with you talking to him like that, like his body was three sizes too big for his skin and he was burning up from the inside out – whenever the heat becomes too much all he has to do is open his eyes and see you looking at him (you’re always looking at him, and it takes his breath away because the way you watch him makes him feel like he’s something special, something that should be treasured) and suddenly everything was okay again. It was like you were the one stoking the flames of his desire, but you could also cause that blistering heat to ebb away whenever it became too much.

He realizes he hasn’t answered you yet and frantically nods, heart threatening to dissolve into something sticky and sweet at the way your expression softens.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we’re not going to delve too deep into that tonight without talking about it in more detail later.” He nods, because he really does understand (despite the slight burst of disappointment) and he appreciates that you want to talk out what his limits are first. “Besides, how am I supposed to talk to you like that when you’ve been so good for me this entire time? So pretty and vocal.”

He can’t help the whine that tears itself from his throat at your phrasing – it didn’t matter what you were saying to him anymore, every single word embedded itself into his skin and worked its way through his body like an electric shock.

“Oh? Sweet boy - are you an adorable whore for both degradation and praise?” He doesn’t even bother saying anything this time, just shuts his eyes tight - he knows you already know the answer, can read him so well it’s almost like his desires were written out on his skin in black ink. “That’s so cute. You’re just so responsive to everything, aren’t you? I love that - anything I say or do I’ll get a direct response to, won’t I, Hwitaek?” You wait until he nods, his eyes still shut, before taking the opportunity given to you. Your lips press a teasing kiss into the line of his pelvis, giggling softly against his skin when he gasps above you. “Yeah, just like that. So beautiful, Hui, and all for me.”

Yes, all for you he thinks, and even his thoughts are getting mixed up and hazy now because you’ve wrapped your fingers around him loosely and he is so slick already, the feeling of your thumb swiping across the head of his cock, tracing the lines of precum down the shaft to where they’ve collected on his skin causing his entire body to twitch in a mess of stimulation.

“Oh, baby, you’re so wet for me already.” He can’t focus on anything, can’t think of anything, hears your voice through the haze like it’s faraway and he’s drifting underwater. He tries to force himself to be more present, tries to physically drag himself out of those depths, but you’re cooing at him sweetly and running your fingers over his cock softly, and any amount of shame he might have felt at having fallen so far into this headspace is eradicated by the sugar-laced kisses you press into his side.

“You really can’t keep quiet, can you?” Your voice is sweet but laced with amusement, and you can feel the way he throbs in your hand at the slightly degrading comment. “You sound like you’re going to cum just from three of my fingers – are you, baby? You going to make a mess of yourself before we even get to do anything?”

“Fuck..” Hui’s entire body feels like it’s on fucking fire, and when you duck your head to suck a bruise onto the inside of his thigh it’s all he can do to keep from crying out even louder. You were right, he couldn’t keep quiet, his head swimming and his fingers curled so tightly into your sheets that he could barely feel them anymore. “I’m –  you’re –“ He can’t concentrate, can barely speak, and he knows his words come out more as whines anyway.

“Do you think it’ll be okay if you cum now?” You’ve stopped moving entirely and his whole body feels like it’s buzzing, his hips trying to rock back onto your fingers or up into your hand with no real success as the haze slowly recedes from his mind enough for him to be able to form full sentences

“Y-yeah.” He pushes himself up onto his forearms to be able to look down at you, groan catching in his throat when he sees the way you’re peering at him openly, watching him with beautiful eyes and a graceful flush on your face, one of your hands slick with his pre-cum and the other still wickedly deep. He’d never been more sure of the fact that he loved you than this exact moment. “If – if you give me a little bit afterwards, it’ll be fine.” He knows he sounds breathless and wrecked already, but you smile so sweetly at him anyway, like he was something precious to you, and he feels like the ground and the bed he was lying on had just suddenly disappeared at the sight.

And then you’re lowering your head and wrapping your lips around him and it’s all he can do to keep his eyes open – you hadn’t eased him into it, hadn’t given him any indication of your plans at all. One moment you were asking him about his refractory period and the next you were doing things with your tongue and mouth that he couldn’t even begin to fathom, your fingers once again brushing against that spot deep inside of him that has him keening.

He’s not going to last much longer; he knows that with a sudden certainty that has him trying to warn you but is more disjointed pleas for you to not stop than they are anything else.

One of his hands grasps for your shoulder blindly when he hits his peak, fingers curling into your skin as he spills himself onto your tongue. It’s blindingly hot and you can see the way he fights to keep his eyes open to watch, brow furrowed and mouth open almost like he was in some sort of pained ecstasy as you continue to finger-fuck him through it until he’s trembling.

When you stick your tongue out at him tauntingly and show him the mess he made Hui groans from deep within his chest like you’re torturing him, sits up abruptly and crashes his mouth into yours. It’s messy and dirty and he licks into your mouth aggressively, chasing all essence of himself off your tongue and onto his own with a moan that rattles your bones. You do your best to withdraw your fingers as gently as possible but he whimpers at the feeling anyway, drops his head to begin kissing a sloppy trail from your jaw down to your neck.

“You’re so dirty..” Your head is spinning and you feel short of breath - each time you inhale his chest knocks against yours as he heaves his own breaths, though he refuses to pull away from your skin for long enough for him to be able to recover as quickly. You think you feel him murmur a soft sound of agreement to your statement against your collarbone.

As soon as you can wrest a big enough part of yourself back under control you lean back, holding him securely away with your thumb and forefinger gripping his chin. Hui looks at you with an expression of wrecked reverence, the perfect picture of debauchery, and you know that right here, right now, at five something am in your bedroom, he would do literally anything you asked – that at this point in time it was no longer your room, with the window showing glimpses of the outside world, the sounds of cars going past. This place, this moment in time, it was now something disconnected and intangible, where he had given you explicit trust (perhaps foolishly, considering how inchoate your relationship was) to control and lead him. To take care of him in whatever way you see fit.

And you know that right here, right now, in this nebulous place that the two of you occupied, you would strive to make sure he never regretted giving you that permission.

“Hwitaek.” Your voice is breathier than you expected – you sounded like you’d been kissed hard. You sounded like you were in love. “Hwitaek, you are messy and crude – you are such a dirty boy, and you’ve hidden that from me for years.” He is hanging off your every word and you suddenly feel like you have a choice to make.

It’s one you don’t think about for more than a second, because you realize that you don’t need to.

“And, Hwitaek – you are so perfect for me.”

.｡..｡. .｡..｡.

“You know something?” Hui says it casually, out of nowhere, hand still rubbing nonsense patterns into the skin of your lower back after having crept underneath your shirt some twenty minutes ago just for the skin to skin contact. He’s not focused on anything else but relaxing in his bed at the dorm with you, thoughts about producing and writing lyrics and being a leader far from his mind.

“Hmm?” Your head rests on his chest, listening to his heartbeat – it’s a comforting sound, if not slightly faster than average, and when you close your eyes you can hear it mix with the soft (and sometimes not so soft) sound of some of his boys arguing or laughing or just living somewhere else in the dorm, outside his shut door.

He still hasn’t spoken so you lift your head and gaze at him, admire his features as he looks back at you with an expression so tender you’re almost afraid to have the weight of it on you. His hair is back to brown now, cut a bit shorter than before, and you stretch an arm out to run your fingers through it lazily, watch as he leans into it but keeps looking at you.

“I think you’re perfect for me, too.” His voice is warm, probably what sunshine would sound like if it was an auditory thing, and you blink at him in confusion for a few moments before you understand what he’s referencing, press your smile into his until it turns into a gentle, surging kiss.

It’s not quite an I love you, something adjacent to it, almost there but not exactly.

And neither of you say those words yet, just smile and look at each other and press kiss after sugared kiss into each other’s skin, interlace your fingers and marvel at the way affection seems to blossom for one another in both your ribcages at the simplest of actions.

The two of you weren’t in any rush. You had time.

[bubmyg]

paperweight - knj

pairing: namjoon x reader

genre: coworkers!au, f2l, fluff, lots of dialog in which i attempt to be funny

word count: 1,961

summary: hoseok rigs the secret santa so namjoon will stop staring at you every time you walk across the office to fill your water or where you get a dress that’s entirely too expensive to fit the office secret santa budget but find that the dinner that’s supposed to accompany it fits the thirty dollar limit, the dress is just extra

a/n: part 4 of my holiday series! as always, if u need the masterlist of the series, let me know bc tumblr is dumb and links don’t show up!!!

“Why did you email to come over here? My desk is like two office blocks away. You could have just yelled if you wanted to talk about—”

Hoseok took a stapler to the stomach, the nearest thing to Namjoon’s clammy hand clasped over his mouse. He caught the hunk of metal with a wheezing laughter, collecting himself enough to place it down without stapling his polo to his stomach.

“Do you have a volume setting I’m unaware of?” The younger hissed.

The red haired man straightened proudly, fingers tucking into his front pockets.

“Nope!”

Namjoon’s shoulders slumped, arm lazily waving his friend closer in some sort of knowing defeat. “So, we have a problem.”

“What?” Hoseok cocked his chin, “You don’t have the balls to do it anymore?”

“I didn’t have the balls to do it in the first place,” He grumbled. His office chair squeaked as he rolled around, ducking underneath his desk long enough to snatch a flimsy gift box before pushing the end against Hoseok’s chest, “I especially don’t have the balls to give her this.”

“It’s not lingerie, is it?” Hoseok plucked open one end with his thumb, eyeing Namjoon seriously, “Joon, c’mon—”

The red haired man paused upon dipping a hand within the cardboard, fingers grasping over something silky. The dress came in cascading pleats of fabric, pooling up and over the lip in the box to hang in a crumpled seam from Hoseok’s white fist. He dropped the box where he’d deposited the stapler, using both hands to suspend the dress across his torso.

It was elegant green with a sloping neckline and a cinched waist and all things that would look beautiful on you but was definitely out of the price range for the office secret Santa.

“This…” Hoseok continued to stare, open mouthed, at the glittering fabric as it swayed over the top of his polished dress shoes, “This is what you bought?”

Namjoon snatched it, not caring that he probably just crinkled the fabric in the most unflattering angles (not that it would matter because you would look beautiful if he’d cut some holes in the discount paper bags meant for holiday gifts and gifted that to you instead). The dress folded over his knee and was shoved back in the tiny hole Hoseok had created before the box clattered against his keyboard, opening, closing, and making the screen cut in a fourth over two monitors all at once. His fingers curled into soft grey locks, elbows hitting his knees as he moaned miserably, “What do I do, hyung?”

Hoseok rolled his eyes, shoving Namjoon, chair and all, out of the way. He brought the box back into his grasp, flicking off Namjoon’s monitor in the process of straightening out the corners they had altered for the worst.

“Do I have to do everything for you?”

Namjoon, ever oblivious to the coincidence in the office of fifty how he’d managed to draw your name, blinked.

“Give her this.”

The box plopped against his thighs when Hoseok was done. Next came a roll of ribbon one propped up next to a roll of jagged wrapping paper Namjoon had tugged messily from his cupboard that morning. He watched mute as Hoseok bustled about his cubicle, snatching official letterhead from a tray in the corner and a brand new ink pen from a bottom drawer. The pen cap clipped into the corner of Hoseok’s lips as he arched over a file cabinet, slapping the letterhead down on top of the metal.

“What are you doing?” Namjoon asked lowly.

“Helping you,” Hoseok grunted, pen tip scratching against blunt metal. He scrawled in silence, Namjoon’s fingernails carving crescent shapes into the plastic arms of his chair as he waiting, toe bouncing against the plastic strip below his cubicle. His friend’s wrist circled in a looping, dramatic end, coming to drop the end of the pen into the cap still ceased between his teeth.

“Here,” He stretched the note out with a raised eyebrow, “Give her this with the dress.”

Namjoon scanned the note quickly, eyebrows furling tighter the deeper he got into the literature. “A dinner will be more than thirty dollars, though,” He said finally, still drilling holes into Hoseok’s shitty attempt to forge his signature at the bottom (but mostly at the xoxo etched a handful of font sizes smaller).

“You spent an entire paycheck on a dress.”

“That I still have to give her, by the way,” When Hoseok leaned closer, Namjoon added in a mumble, “The shop doesn’t take returns.”

“Okay fine,” Hoseok placed the note on top of the spool of ribbon, tapping the paper, “You put the note on top of the dress, so she reads it first. The note makes it clear that her portion of dinner is the part for the gift exchange. The dress is just a gift from the who stares at your ass every day when you go to get water—”

“I’m serious about a volume knob. Maybe an off switch. I’ll pay for the surgery, even.”

Hoseok grinned, moving to turn back for his desk, “You owe me one.”

“Wait!” Namjoon slumped into the back of his chair, resembling a miserable middle school boy afraid to ask his crush to step on his toes for three minutes and twenty-some seconds. “What I do if she says no? Will this make her uncomfortable? Oh my god, I’ve royally fucked up haven’t I, I should have just got her that turtle paper weight you saw—”

“You really do only have a grasp on half of your remaining brain cell, don’t you?” Hoseok continued to walk away, voice rising an octave, “Why do you think I rigged the secret Santa for you?”

“You what—”

“Just give her the damn gift, Namjoon,” He shot a thumbs up above his shoulders, “You’ll see!”

His email intended to have his friend reassure him that he needed to exchange his stupid attempt at asking you out for the turtle paperweight he may or may not have already bought and had gift wrapped in a drawer in his desk only worsened the ball of dread twisted in the pit of his stomach.

It also made him ten minutes late for the time he intended to drop the box on your desk and scurry away before you returned from your lunch break.

He weighed the pros and cons of giving you the paperweight and storing the dress in his closet for his roommate to find on accident only to endure how many ever months he remained with the company wishing he’d just grown his balls back and asked you out. He considered how long he’d have to hear Hoseok bitch and risk you hearing him just a desk over. He considered how long he’d had to walk around the entire office to avoid your prying eyes before the embarrassment of your inevitable rejection wore off.

And then his conscious spoke for it all, muscles contracting as he swiped the note and box into his hand and rounded the corner of his cubicle in route for your desk.

Namjoon’s breath seized when you turned to look at him, the rough clattering of his desk chair smacking against his desk startling you just as his looming presence at the corner of your desk did. You cocked an eyebrow, offering a wide, nearly bashful smile at the sight of him.

“Hi!” You chirped, tilting your head, “...are you? Okay?”

“This is uh—” His voice had squeaked twice in his life. Once when he was thirteen giving a speech on the importance of honey bees to the circle of life and now when he was trying to ask out his cute cubicle neighbor who teased him about the bear stickers on the corner of his monitor, was his drinking partner at every company get together, and made straight, khaki slacks look like they belonged on the nearest runway. “—this—” He tried again, thrusting the box in your direction, “—for you.”

“Namjoon…” Your voice was a halfhearted scold, leaning forward to take the box from him. “You didn’t have to get me anything. Keeping me away from Jeongguk during the Christmas party was enough.”

He shook his head, offering shortly, “Secret Santa.”

Your lips rounded, thumb barely underneath the box lid. “Well, you aren’t so secret now, are you?”

“Was going to leave it on your desk during your lunch break but uh…” Namjoon gestured vaguely with his hand in front of his face, “Hoseok.”

You nodded in understanding, flipping the lid over on your thighs. “Ah, well…” You trailed off, squinting hard at the handwriting on the note, cheeks gradually heating the further you got.

“That’s part of the gift exchange,” Namjoon rushed, bracing his hip against the corner of your desk, “The other thing is, uh, from me. I guess. If you want it. Or if you even want the first part.”

The dress fluttered between the ridges in your knuckles as you pulled it out, letting it pool elegantly in your lap as you ran your free hand across the embroidery stitched across the neckline and into the cinched waist. You pulled at the top, stretching it between your palms as you dropped it into your lap, staring blankly at the garment that now covered the company letterhead crumbled between your thighs.

“You really don’t have to—”

“Namjoon,” His name rolled off your tongue robotically, your entire being still buzzing numbly as you kicked your feet backward, rolling for you desk. You disappeared, only to return with a similarly generic gift box, white and cardboard, the only difference being the shiny red bow that was taped on the top left corner. “Take this.”

“Honey, you didn’t have to—”

“Secret Santa,” You rasped, features softened a bit now from their previously stoic state. “Hoseok.”

Within was a rectangular, plastic card, displaying the very logo of the place Namjoon had planned on taking you to. Underneath was a note scrawled in thick black marker in handwriting eerily similar to the note in his own gift.

You can only keep this if I get to come with you. Signed, your secret Santa your neighbor :)

“I’m going to kill him.”

“He told me to trust him but I didn’t believe him.”

“How did he rig the drawing?”

“He’s been here every day since the drawing, trying to convince me—”

“I’m still going to kill him.”

Your giggle broke Namjoon out of his haze of striding a few paces over and breaking his friend’s sacred glass rooster that perched on top of his computer tower. You slumped in silence, smile still stretched bright and proud over your teeth as you regarded him with a shaking head, occasional laughter still breaking past your parted lips.

“So do you want to—”

“Is that a yes to the date—”

You continued to beam, crossing your legs at the knee, “You go first.”

Namjoon huffed, setting his shoulders and wiping his sweaty palms on the front of his collared shirt. “Do you want to go to dinner with me sometime?”

“You know, it just so happens my wonderful neighbor just bought me a stunning new dress…” Your head lulled against the leather back of the chair, smile lessening to just a fond seam of your lips, “How’s Friday after work sound?”

“Perfect.”

Your laughter was already Namjoon’s favorite sound but now he wanted your smile painted to the back of his eyelids so he never had to stop seeing it. “Good,” You nodded, “I’ll bring my gift card.”

He was so starry eyed and floating on a metaphorical cloud that had vaporized above your head that he barely acknowledged his tongue wisping in his mouth, throat vibrating out words.

“I’ll bring your paperweight.”

[amillionsmiles]

“You started sitting by me at lunch because I’m alone at my table but we never talk to each other” AU (Sheith or plance whatever inspires you!)

combined this with another college AU I saw floating around somewhere that said: “You’re the RA and you’re trying to bust me for having hermit crabs.” I’m sorry but I’m also not. here ya go, Justine ;)

[Ao3 link] in case you want to read there bc it got a little long

“Hey, mind if I sit?”

Keith looks up from his Econ 1 reading to find Shiro hovering by the seat in front of him, a plate in either hand.  A well-balanced meal, Keith notes—one plate has been dedicated specifically to fruits and vegetables, the other piled with careful portions of today’s chicken stir-fry, eggplant, and brown rice.

Shrugging, he says, “It’s a free country,” mostly because he knows that Shiro will sit down anyways.  It must be an RA thing: the ability to, at any time, locate one of your residents and administer whatever aid is needed.  In this case, Shiro has noticed Keith’s empty table, swooping in to save his freshman from being That One Kid Sitting By Himself in the Corner.

What Shiro has overlooked, however, is that Keith is eating alone by choice.  He has twenty minutes to scarf down his food and assemble an understanding of the income elasticity of demand before he heads to section.  More like twelve minutes, once you factor in how long it takes to put up his dishes and dash across campus.  So yeah, not much time for small talk.

Unfazed, Shiro sits down, swiping some napkins from the table dispenser.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” he says knowingly, eyes twinkling with good humor as he raises a fork and knife and busies himself with cutting up his lunch.  Keith blinks, a little, at that, before shoveling the rest of his cornbread in his mouth and relocating his paragraph on the page.

He reminds himself that Shiro gets paid for this.  It makes him feel less guilty.

*

The thing is, Keith has a secret.

While other people choose to stock their dorm rooms with succulents, coffee machines, or decked out desktops, Keith came to college certain of one thing: he was taking his hermit crabs with him.  Rescued from a booth on the boardwalk during the senior year field trip, Pearl and Raf have remained safely in his care for a year now.  There wasn’t anyone back home he trusted leaving their tank with, so they had to come here.

Rolo has been an accommodating roommate, for the most part.  Largely, Keith suspects, because Rolo just doesn’t give a shit.  Their relationship revolves around the age-old motto of “you do your thing and I do mine.”  Each boy’s junk stays on his respective side of the room.  The trash gets taken out on time. The system works.

And if Rolo ever does decide to throw Keith under the bus of the “no pets” policy, well.  Keith knows where Rolo hides his weed.

Still, these reassurances don’t protect Keith from the miniature heart attack he suffers when someone knocks on their door.  Hurriedly, Keith scoops Pearl and Raf off his desk and back into their tank, throwing a tarp over it.

When he eases the door open, Shiro is standing in the hall, one hand braced against the doorframe.  The pose pulls his shirt tightly across his chest, accentuating his pecs, and Keith is reminded that his RA is a junior on the swimming team.  Those arms could probably heave Keith over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and it would be no problem for Shiro to muscle his way into the room.

Shit. The realization smacks Keith in the face.  Shiro knows about the crabs.  He’s here to confiscate them.

Keith is not going down without a fight.

“Keith!” Shiro smiles, which is already suspicious.  “How are you?”

“Fine,” Keith answers.  Wary.

Shiro nods.  “Good.  Because we’d love to have you join us for the hall meeting…” He trails off, raising an eyebrow.

Keith glances behind him to the clock on his table.  10 PM. Wednesday. Hall meeting.  That was…definitely an email that was sent, which he might have deleted without reading.

“Right,” Keith says, squeezing through the small opening he left between the door and the frame.  Shiro steps back to give him space; Keith tries to hide his relief when the door clicks shut behind him.  Pearl and Raf will remain safe for another day.

“Well?” he asks, starting ahead.  Behind him, Shiro is watching him strangely, the hint of a smile on his lips.  “Let’s go.”

*

It is 3 AM in the goddamn morning.  Keith shifts from foot to foot for warmth, blowing air into his hands.  The fire alarm continues to screech, whistling through the wintry air as the rest of the dorm residents stagger outside.  Lance, who lives down the hall from him, walks over, some sort of white paste caked to his face.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“No,” grunts Keith.

“Don’t know why I thought you would,” Lance mutters, leaving to find someone more helpful.

“Smart, grabbing your jacket,” someone else says; Keith turns to find Shiro grinning at him, clad in nothing but fraying red pajama pants and a black muscle tee.  The cold doesn’t seem to faze him.  Makes sense, since Keith is pretty sure Shiro was meant to be a bronze statue somewhere and just got lost in transit.

“Yeah,” Keith says, not wanting to betray the fact that currently, there’s a hermit crab shoved in each pocket of said jacket.  He hadn’t been sure if the fire was real or not—better safe than sorry.  It’s not going to be good for Pearl and Raf, though, if they stay out in this temperature any longer.

Shiro places a hand on his shoulder.  Keith nearly jumps under the touch.  “I’m going to go make sure everyone else is okay.  Stay warm, all right?”

“All right,” Keith says, finding his voice, but Shiro has already disappeared into the crowd.      

*

Saturday night, the common room smells like blueberry pancakes.  People poke their heads in, shuffling away when Shiro gives an apologetic look and says, “Sorry, guys, I’m out.”  It’s almost 2 AM and his on call is winding down; on the couch, Keith settles in, closing his eyes and readying himself for some blessed peace.

“Keith?”

Slowly—and not without a hint of annoyance—Keith opens his eyes.  Shiro frowns at him over the top of the sofa, a streak of flour dashed across the bridge of his nose, somehow.

“Wouldn’t you rather sleep in your own bed?”

“Can’t,” Keith grumbles.  “There’s a sock on my door.”  He’d known it was only a matter of time—Rolo and Nyma had been orbiting each other all of this past month—but the sexiling is a bit of an annoyance.

Shiro bites his lip, but his amusement at Keith’s predicament shows in the upward tick of his eyebrows, the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes.

“You can crash in my room, if you want.”

“It’s okay,” Keith says quickly.

“Seriously, Keith.  I’ve got an extra mattress and you’ll be undisturbed.  Plus that way you’ll be safe from anyone drawing on your face or taking a picture for the dorm slideshow.”  This last part, said teasingly.

Keith thinks about it a little longer.

“All right, fine,” he decides, sitting up.  He just barely manages to catch the keys Shiro tosses at him.

“I need to finish cleaning up here.  Leave the door unlocked—you know where my room is, right?”

“How could I not,” Keith says, shuffling out of the lounge.

He pushes open Shiro’s door carefully.  He’s caught glimpses inside it once or twice while passing by, but he’s never set foot in it before, despite numerous invitations.  It’s small but well-kept: a spare mattress underneath the lofted bed, a couch pushed up against the other wall, a nice monitor and various posters—Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and one that probably makes sense to history majors but which Keith is too tired to try and figure out right now.

He toes off his shoes and sets them aside so Shiro won’t trip over them, then goes to the mattress, curling up on his side.  There’s even a blanket, which he draws to his chin; that sends its smell wafting toward his nose, and suddenly he’s no longer tired.

The door handle turns.  Keith snaps his eyes closed, feigning sleep.  Shiro’s feet tread quietly across the carpet as he putters about the room; a few minutes later, the bedsprings above Keith’s head squeak, the sound of a body rolling into place.

Turning over onto his back, Keith stares up above him, eyes straining in the dark.  Shiro’s breaths come in soft, quiet puffs—a sound that should be soothing, but one that, instead, sets Keith’s heart beating faster.  Weird.  It’s never done that before.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

*

The rest of the year passes by uneventfully.  Keith decides that he most definitely is not going to be an Econ major and, at the same time, discovers a hidden passion for pottery.  Summer comes and goes, and soon enough he’s back on campus, trying to decide if he really has the stomach to eat today’s green bean special.

“Keith?”

It’s been a long time since he’s heard that voice. Even more shocking: the realization that he missed it.

He turns and Shiro is there, two plates like always, white-dyed tuft of hair swooping over his forehead.

“Hey,” says Keith, strangely self-conscious.

Shiro smiles.  “Are you sitting with anyone?”

“No.”

“Great. Let’s catch up, then,” he says, tilting his head, and there’s something new in the air between them now, their old lines and roles fallen away.

Keith follows.  He’s ready to talk.

*

Somewhere after the fifth time Keith makes Shiro laugh and the second time Shiro asks him on a date, they end up back at Keith’s place.

Thank god I drew into a single this year, Keith thinks as the door clicks shut behind him, Shiro a long line of muscle against his front, shifting under his hands.  Shiro’s shirt comes off and Keith kicks out of his shoes, stumbling forward in the dark—fingers grip his waist tightly, yanking him closer, and there’s a heady power to this, the knowledge that he can just keep guiding Shiro backwards with nothing but a press to his chest, backwards and backwards until they both fall onto his bed—

A teasing bite against his collarbone; his heart stutters for a beat, hands fumbling at Shiro’s belt, and then he trips over something and hits the corner of his desk.  

“Fuck,” Keith swears, partly because of the throbbing pain in his hip and partly because Shiro has just licked a stripe up the column of his neck.  Squinting through the blend of pain and desire, he turns on his desk lamp, just to make sure they haven’t knocked anything over.

To his relief, his haphazardly stacked column of books remains intact.  And the tank is fine, too—

Shiro, who up until this point has been doing an admirable job of working Keith free of his pants, stops.  His hair is mussed, his lips bitten red, a throaty disbelief in his voice as he turns toward the light and says:

“Are those…hermit crabs?”

[microsuedemouse]

HEY HO

WERE YOU WONDERING WHAT GWEN’S APARTMENT IN RAH LOOKS LIKE?

I had some floorplan sketches (close to this, though not exact) but when I went to draw rooms in perspective I discovered that I’d gotten... very rusty with that kind of thing. So I decided I’d hop into Google SketchUp and put the place together quickly for my own reference. It’s missing some details (mostly due to me just forgetting) but it’s kinda fun I thought? Good ref for me to keep my writing consistent and for anyone who wants to draw anything here, me included

I’m gonna make some tweaks to this yet but if you want any other angles (or even access to the file), or if you have any questions, hit me up! I’ve thought way too much about this.

Quick notes here and more detail under the cut:

All of the furnishings are from the 3D Warehouse - it’s been a long time since I used SketchUp much and I’m not THAT skilled any more, lol. I edited some colours and sizes but that’s about it.

I know it’s a bit big to really be realistic... I have excuses.

it’s a fanfic, guys.

floorplans are hard. the bedrooms and living room were actually supposed to be a smidge smaller but scaling is tough and this program is a bit of a hassle at times.

it’s cheap bc it’s in a shoddy neighbourhood and totally lacks storage? or something?? idfk

LET’S JUST SAY THIS ISN’T PERFECTLY TO SCALE OKAY I only meant it as a guideline

(Many) room-by-room details and goofy headcanons/trivia below:

Outdoor-

the hall is an outdoor one, like you get in a lot of motels. going out the front door, the stairs are a few units to the left. this apartment is on the third floor of five.

the units are arranged symmetrically, so the balcony has one wall to divide it from the one on the other side. in the other direction they might occasionally see their neighbours out on their own balcony, but they’re two bedroom-widths apart, so it’s not too bad.

eventually David buys a couple more chairs for the balcony so they can all sit out there. to Gwen’s surprise, he really likes the urban view, even if he misses the trees and nature he can see from home or camp.

Front hall-

coming in the front door, the bathroom’s on the left and there are hooks on the wall to the right for coats and things. shoes are generally left under those. it’s usually kind of a mess.

Bathroom-

I meant to put a mirror over the sink but I forgot lmao

the bathtub is too small for Gwen or David to really use for a ‘nice’ bath (they would have to be sitting up), but it works for Max bc he’s tiny

the plumbing kiiinda sucks - not enough to be REALLY off-putting but enough to notice

Kitchen-

this is all after David’s moved in, so his table is there, making the whole space a bit more usable

the decor is kind of dated (the stove is yellow and so is the backsplash), the blue cushions on David’s bench seats don’t really match, but it’s all functional

another thing I forgot to include: Gwen kept the three chairs from her old table and put them around the outside of David’s table, just in case they needed them.

the kitchen doorway is open, with no door in it

the microwave is to the left of the stove; other appliances (toaster, kettle, coffee maker, etc) kind of clutter the space to the left, around the sink. Gwen always just shoved things back into the corner if they were in her way, but David starts putting them away when they’re not in use, because he likes having space to move when he’s cooking.

Living room-

the purple chair is Gwen’s. the corner shelf is overflowing with books. They pushed the tv stand over a bit to fit David’s green chair in there too.

there’s a shitty lamp on the side table next to the couch, which is also where Gwen dumps things like take-out menus and notebooks and stuff. David often puts them away while tidying up and as a result Gwen never knows where any of her shit has gone.

when the couch-bed is in couch form, the coffee table (David’s, way nicer than Gwen’s old one) is pushed up closer to it, leaving some space between there and the tv stand. Max and Gwen sit there while playing video games, or they perch on the end of the bed if it’s pulled out.

(Much later, after David moves into Gwen’s room and the couch is back in couch form almost all of the time, they buy Max a beanbag chair for gaming)

fun trivia: that tv model I used has a still from M*A*S*H onscreen, which led me to imagining Gwen and David watching M*A*S*H in the afternoons... I love

there are no blinds or curtains or anything over the sliding door for the longest time. in the winter the living room starts to get pretty cold and David buys a nice heavy set of curtains to keep the heat in - he doesn’t mind the morning light but the temperature starts to be a problem.

Gwen’s room-

for some reason I could not edit that particular bed model’s colours? I imagine her bed is always that messy but her bedding is shades of purple, not grey.

I forgot to rotate the mirror in the corner to not be at a stupid angle... I also forgot to include the garment rack I imagine she has, in want of a closet. the object across from the end of her bed is a tall dresser.

once David (eventually) starts sharing her room, they move his wardrobe in next to her dresser, get a second bedside table, and find a longer desk they can both use at once. the room’s a bit crowded by then, but it’s workable.

there should be a laundry hamper somewhere idk

Gwen leaves her stuff in piles all the time by nature but David’s pretty tidy. eventually she starts learning to pick up after herself just so she knows where her stuff has gone. because if he puts it away she might never find it.

Max’s room-

he’s not wild about sharing the space with David but he makes it work. once he eventually gets his own computer they have to coordinate desk time. (Max gets priority if it’s homework-related.)

additionally: once Max has his own computer, David remembers Max’s search engine habits and puts parental controls on there. Max hates them. David forgets how to use them immediately after installation and Gwen is the one who has to figure them out and monitor them in the future.

Max doesn’t have much stuff with him at first (as you all know) but over the years he covers the walls in posters and stuff that Nikki and Neil have sent him (and later Maureen, as well, once he comes to like her more). 

once David’s moved into Gwen’s room and has his own desk/moves his wardrobe out, Max’s furniture situation also changed over time. he gets a bookshelf (mostly for movies and games, more than books) and later his own armchair, plus he keeps his beanbag chair in there when he’s not using it in the living room.

the rug came from Maureen. she thought his room could use a little something bright, especially given the bland paint job in the apartment. he loves it but he’ll never tell her.

he’s a nester and a pillow-hoarder. any time Gwen or David replace their pillows he takes over the old ones, adding to the pile of softness that is his bed (and eventually his floor). he also aggregates blankets over the years, though at a slower rate. his whole room is very comfy, actually.

[probably-a-cryptid]

Antivirus (Chapter 1)

Hi!! So this is the first part of an au i thought of a while ago. Its a sort of hacker au?? if nothing makes sense its bc ill explain it in the next chapter, i was being slightly vague on purpose. This chapter was longer than i thought it would be? but i like it so :D ill try to post this on ao3 too so if you like it you can follow it on there too. Now on to the shitshow story!

//

Izuku Midoriya has one goal in life: to be a hero. Being quirkless may have made other people give up on that dream, but not him. Determined to on day become a hero, he learns to hack. Operating under the codename Antivirus, he monitors the city, sending in anonymous tips about villain activity to the police. He becomes well known, and helps people like he's always wanted. However, nothing comes without a cost, and this reality is no different.

//

  Izuku glanced down at his phone under his desk, counting the seconds until the bell went off, signaling the end of the day. If he was fast enough, he might even be able to avoid-

  And there was the familiar sharp ding of the bell.

 Since his stuff was already in his backpack, it was simple to just sprint out the door. Bakugou had already started the chase, but Izuku was used to the cat-and-mouse they had played for years, and stayed away from sharp corners. His chaser was quick to orient himself on those and Izuku wasn't, so it was best to find a straightway to run along.

 The yells and curses behind him increased when Izuku jumped into an alleyway and kept up his jog, though they faded as he increased the distance between them. He’d faced off and seen many people that were technically scarier than his childhood friend, but his heart never did quite pound in quiet fear as it did when he was chased by Bakugou.

 His heart and breath slowed down once he saw his destination up ahead. The internet café he had been frequenting recent was small but cozy, and the black, silver, and purple color scheme it had going on was a welcome sight every day after school, especially after his daily escapes from Bakugou.

 “Ah, you're back!” a voice called from near the counter.

 A tall person with bright colored green hair that was just now changing to a light orange waved at him, smiling. Tomomi had been working at Museiai Café for as long as Izuku had been going there, and they always left a cookie or two aside for him when he came by.

 The café doubled as both a place to eat and get wifi that couldn't be traced, of which Izuku was thankful for in equal amounts.

 After getting his usual cookie from Tomomi, he settled back into the inconspicuous corner he was used to sitting in. It didn't have the most comfortable cushions, but it did keep people from peering over his shoulder or just noticing him over all, which was his goal. Can’t keep your secret identity a secret if everyone is always looking at you, right?

 The cushion sunk down with him when he sat in it. The laptop he kept on him at most times despite--how heavy it was--was brought out quickly, and then he set to work checking the cameras around the city.

 The east side of the city was doing okay today. The drug ring bust last week had seemed to mellow out that part of the city, though it would perk up soon, he could tell. A mugging near the park had him sending off a quick message to the officers near that area, and a few fights got the same treatment. Once that area looked good, he switched to the south side. It had been too quiet lately, and what that usually meant was-

 There. A bank being robbed. Izuku counted four villains, though they all looked like they had just started their looting. He checked the inside cameras, and it seemed like no one had notified the heroes yet. There were 2 hostages, though they didn't appear to be very scared. One of them even checked his watch. Living in a superhuman society did strange things to people's reactions to danger.

 It was easy for Izuku to slip his computer back in his backpack and quietly slink into the bathroom deep in the café. Once he opened the door, he quickly checked the room for any cameras in the vicinity. There never were any in this room, but it didn’t hurt to look. If he had learned anything from this whole situation, it was that people hid cameras in places you would never think to look.

 Luckily, the room was empty this time. The last time it had not had been a… fun experience. He had run out of the room before the person could ask any questions, however.

 Izuku found the first empty stall that he saw and quickly shut and locked the door. Pulling out the small mirror he kept on him at all times and liquid eyeliner, he set to work applying his usual mask. Two large wings, paired with the black facemask with a point-toothed smile, changed his appearance more than one would think, and successfully had kept his identity hidden for as long as he had been doing this. The final touch was the black sneakers that he switched out from his usual bright red ones. They were way too distinctive, almost as much as his hair, although he couldn't do much about the latter.

 Now that his disguise was done, he could leave for the scene of the crime. Going back out the way he came was out of the question, so he would take his usual route; the window.

 If there were ever times Izuku was glad he was short, it was ones like these.

 Once he had wiggled through the window, which had luckily not been too high up, he checked his phone for the exact location of the bank. After he memorized it, Izuku tucked his phone in his pocket, straightened up, and ran.

 One of the things he had taught himself over time was the layout of the city. If there was an alley, he had walked in it. If there was a roof, he had jumped across it. One thing that often baffled people was how quickly he usually got to the scene. Some minimal parkour skills also helped, even if the first few times he had tried it he had ended up almost falling off a roof. That was a fun thing to try and explain to his mom.

 Izuku was lucky that he had good balance, or the several pipes he had to climb combined with the roof jumping would surely have been the end of him. He would never quite get rid of the lingering feeling of falling as he leapt to one high place to the next, however.

 A few minutes were all he needed to make his way towards his location. Izuku peered over the half-wall from on top of the roof of the building across the street from the bank. Though he didn't really need to be near the crime scene, the cameras in the bank had not been clear enough for Izuku to see exactly what was happening inside. He also may or may not have wanted to get on the scene and feel like a real hero, but that was besides the point.

 When he gets as comfortable as you can in black skinny jeans on a concrete rooftop, Izuku got out his laptop and opened up the personal hotspot that he had bought for himself. It would be easier and cheaper to hack into the wifi down below him, but every time he did, Izuku would feel guilty for days afterward.

 Once he was hooked up, all he had to do was send the location along with some details to the nearest police and heroes. After the location was sent, he squinted down at the building across from him, and started the mumble storm that helped him dissect the situation.

 “Two mutant quirks, one jaguar and one octopus. Fire quirk might work best against those. Two unidentified quirks- no, he just produced a knife from his hand, one unidentified quirk. Fire and possibly speed quirk would be best in this situation-” Izuku rambled on in a constant stream under his breath. The closest fire heroes in this area would be Endeavor and Flamethrower, though this was too much of a small job for one of the top heroes to deal with at the moment. He couldn't think of anyone off the bat who could easily combat a speed quirk, and the knife quirk could be handled by Flamethrower. Maybe a combination of two quirks? A water to slow down along with some sort of fish quirk might work, though it might make things harder for Flamethrower…

 Once he made up his mind, Izuku sent off the message to the station and notified the heroes he needed to. Flamethrower, Aquatic, and Chomp would have to work, as they were the closest heroes at the moment. It wasn't the best matchup, but if they could separate tentacles from the others it should be an easy fight. He said as much to the police and heroes before checking the time. Did he have enough time to watch the fight, or-

 Oh, that was a no. If he wanted to catch the other robbery on the upper end of the east side, he definitely had to run now.

 Snapping his computer shut with one forlorn look shot towards the fight that had already started in front of the bank, Izuku put everything away and readied himself to continue his trek across the city. Although his legs had already started to slightly burn from all the jumping, he smiled. Izuku was glad to help the city he lived in.

 It was all he could do.

 When Izuku finally got home, it was mostly dark, save for the light purple tint on some parts of the sky. He had stopped at a public bathroom on his way home, so his eyes were eyeliner free, save for the small clumps near his eyelashes. He never figured out the trick to getting those out, even though he had been doing his own makeup for three whole years. He was lucky his mom hadn't noticed yet.

 “Mom!” he called out into the seemingly empty space.

 He wasn't left waiting for long, as his mom quickly appeared seemingly out of nowhere to greet him.

 “Izuku!” she cried out, and latched onto him in a hug. Although she saw him every day, she still disliked to when he was gone until dark, especially after that incident.

 “Izuku, I was so worried, I thought we agreed to not stay out past 6:00-” Izuku barely flinched and chanced a glance to the wall clock, confirming that he had been out later than he thought, “-and I was just so worried. Please don't do this again, please, baby?”

 All Izuku could do was nod in confirmation before Inko buried her face in the side of his neck in another hug. He could feel himself wilting internally at the sight, and made sure to squeeze her just as hard back.

 “Mom, Mom it’s okay, i'm okay, i promise-” he quickly assured her, and his words seemed to comfort her as she let him go a while after he had started apologizing.

 After they had both calmed themselves, Inko led Izuku to the kitchen to eat the dinner he had almost missed out on. The katsudon she had made him was cold, but he ate it anyways for his mom. The tv was on in the living room still- he assumed she had been watching it in stress before he got home- and paused in his eating when he heard something the reporter was saying.

 “It seems that once again, the police have been helped by the anonymous coding vigilante, Antivirus. He notified nearby heroes to three robberies and 4 break ins-” Izuku tuned the rest out after that. Hearing himself on the tv had a certain kind of effect on people, it seemed.

 He had to hide his smile in the bowl of cold katsudon, although it tasted much better now.

//

Sooo how was it?? I haven't written in a while so I'm a bit rusty ^-^ thank you @saltier-than-thou for beta-ing for me! i guess just like this post if you want to see more chapter? i have a lot planned but if no one likes it i won't post it lmao. Thanks for reading this!!