#the last two quarters are critical

[deargravity]

eikichi pov

[dksfml]

what would you do if I went to touch you now? - riki

pairing: younger!nishimura riki x older!reader genre: office romance, flirty niki, workplace tension, niki teaches you japanese. summary: despite your best efforts to maintain professionalism, the undeniable tension between you and riki makes it impossible to resist the connection growing between you. it doesn't help that he calls you "noona" at work. warnings: suggestive, kissing, implied smut word count: 2.7k

your professional relationship with riki had been straightforward when he first started. quiet and shy, he took careful notes during meetings, absorbing the work culture like a sponge. as his mentor, you were tasked with guiding him through the ropes, ensuring he understood the nuances of the company.

“make sure he knows what he’s doing,” your boss had instructed, handing you the responsibility like a personal mission. and you took it seriously. riki was younger by a few years, in need of your guidance. at first, he seemed timid, his questions asked in soft tones, his posture always slightly defensive, as if afraid of stepping out of line. you naturally fell into a nurturing role, steering him whenever he seemed unsure, offering advice when necessary. but as time passed, riki's confidence grew, along with a noticeable shift in your dynamic.

it started subtly—small changes in his attitude. his work improved dramatically, and soon he was strutting around with a smirk, leaning back in his chair like he owned the place. his newfound cockiness was relentless, even though you reminded him to stay focused.

“riki,” you sighed, standing by his desk, flipping through his presentation slides. “i told you to cross-reference these with last quarter’s data. this is incomplete.”

he leaned back, arms crossed over his chest, the corner of his mouth twitching into a grin. “i was going to fix it, but i thought i’d leave some for you to correct, noona. keeps me humble.”

you narrowed your eyes, unamused. “this isn’t a game. you can’t slack off just because you’re comfortable. these clients are important, and if we don’t get this right, it’s on both of us.”

his grin faltered, but just as quickly, he masked it with a wink. “got it. i’ll fix it. but only if you promise to let me take you out for dinner when we nail this project.”

you shook your head, suppressing a smile. “this is serious. you missed an email i asked you to forward last week. and calling me ‘noona’ here at work? we need to keep this professional.”

riki straightened, the playful glint in his eyes dimming. “right,” he said, his voice softer. “i’ll keep it professional. but you can’t blame me for trying.”

you couldn’t help but roll your eyes, but deep down, you felt a rush of excitement at his boldness. “i want those revisions by the end of the day, riki. and no more flirting until this is done.”

“yes, ma’am,” he replied, a mock salute on his part, and for the first time in weeks, there was no teasing in his tone.

now, the two of you were working on a critical project, preparing a proposal for a japanese client your company was eager to sign. it wasn’t just a regular pitch; this deal was huge—a make-or-break moment that could lead to long-term collaboration. you had thrown yourself into the task, familiarizing yourself with every detail of the project. but there was one problem: the language barrier. the client preferred to communicate in japanese, and while you had learned some phrases, you were nowhere near fluent.

that’s when it struck you—riki was fluent in japanese. you recalled him casually mentioning it one afternoon, and now that you needed the skill, you struck a deal with him: he’d tutor you in japanese after work, and in return, you’d ensure his involvement in the project didn’t go unnoticed by the higher-ups. a fair exchange, strictly professional, you told yourself.

later that night, during one of your lessons, the atmosphere crackled with unspoken tension. riki sat across from you, leaning forward as you practiced reading a passage. you stumbled over a phrase, and his sharp gaze caught your mistake.

“no,” he corrected, his voice low and firm, sending shivers down your spine. “it’s nihon, not nee-hon. you’re stressing the first syllable too much.”

his tone was both authoritative and teasing, igniting a spark of mischief that made your heart race. “let’s go over that phrase again,” he said, his voice soft yet commanding. you nodded, struggling to focus, but the heat radiating from his body made it impossible to think clearly.

“try it one more time, noona,” he urged, leaning in closer, his breath brushing against your ear. the closeness sent a jolt of electricity coursing through you, and you instinctively shifted, seeking a little more space.

“um, okay,” you stammered, trying to keep your composure, but the way he looked at you—a mix of amusement and something deeper—made your cheeks flush. “i’m trying.”

riki leaned in even closer, his shoulder pressing against yours. “you’re not trying hard enough,” he teased, a smirk playing on his lips. “what’s the matter? feeling a little shy?”

“shy? no,” you protested, your voice barely above a whisper. “i just—”

“just what?” he interrupted, his gaze piercing into yours, his confidence unwavering. “can’t handle a little pressure?”

your heart raced at the challenge in his voice. “at work, i’m your superior, riki. you need to respect that.”

“respect?” he echoed, leaning back just enough to gauge your reaction. “or maybe you need to realize that i’m not the junior anymore. you’re the one who seems to struggle with that.” his eyes danced with mischief, and you felt a thrill race through you.

“riki,” you warned, but your voice faltered, unable to hide the quiver of excitement that danced beneath your words.

“tell me you’re not interested,” he challenged, leaning closer, their faces mere inches apart. the air thickened with tension, and you could feel his warmth enveloping you. “because i know you feel it too.”

before you could respond, the sudden power cut plunged the office into darkness, leaving only the dim emergency lights flickering above. your heart pounded, and the adrenaline heightened every sensation.

“well, i guess that’s the end of tonight’s lesson,” you attempted to joke, but your voice trembled, revealing your unease.

riki’s eyes glinted in the low light, a devilish grin spreading across his face. “no, we’re not done.” he leaned closer again, his hand brushing against yours, sending a wave of heat up your arm.

you pulled back slightly, heart racing. “riki, this isn’t—”

“isn’t what?” he whispered, his voice a low murmur that sent a thrill down your spine. “we both know there’s something between us.”

you opened your mouth to protest, but the urgency in his gaze silenced you. your breath hitched at the finality in his tone. the professional barrier you had carefully constructed was crumbling.

“we should go,” you muttered, fumbling to gather your things. but riki reached out, his hand brushing against yours, halting your movements.

“we could go to your place,” he suggested, his voice dangerously low. “finish the lesson there.”

the implications hung heavily between you. you met his gaze, searching for any trace of the playful riki you’d trained, the one who’d always danced around the line but never crossed it. but there was nothing playful in his expression now—only a raw intensity that made your skin prickle.

you nodded, unable to trust your voice, and within moments, you were heading out of the office together. the ride to your apartment was silent, the weight of what was about to happen sitting thick between you.

the door to your apartment clicked shut behind you, and the familiar surroundings only heightened the surreal nature of what was happening. you barely had time to turn on a light before riki was in front of you, his presence magnetic. the silence between you was thick with everything left unsaid, but his gaze—intense, burning—spoke volumes.

for a moment, neither of you moved, both caught in the tension that had been building for weeks. his eyes swept over your face, lingering on your lips as if contemplating his next move. you stood your ground, refusing to back away even as your pulse raced in anticipation.

“you’re still thinking about work, aren’t you?” his voice was low, teasing. he stepped closer, just close enough that the warmth of his body radiated through the space between you. “always so professional, noona.”

you swallowed, feeling the flutter of nerves in your stomach. “someone has to keep things in check,” you replied, though your voice faltered just slightly, betraying the tug of desire that made your skin prickle with anticipation.

he chuckled, soft and deep. “maybe it’s time you stopped thinking for once.”

before you could react, his hand slid up your arm, fingers curling gently around the nape of your neck as he pulled you toward him. his lips met yours in a kiss that was far from the playful teasing you were used to. it was hungry, intense, like he had been waiting for this moment as long as you had. the taste of him was intoxicating, and before you realized it, you were kissing him back with just as much need.

your back hit the wall softly as his body pressed into yours, every inch of him enveloping you, filling the space around you. his hands trailed down your sides, fingers ghosting over the fabric of your blouse before dipping under the hem, finding bare skin.

“riki,” you whispered, breaking the kiss for a breath, but your voice was breathless, needy. his name left your lips like a confession.

his lips barely left yours as he responded, his voice a raspy whisper. “you keep acting like you’re in control, noona,” he murmured against your skin, his hands now slipping around your waist, pulling you even closer. “but i don’t think you are anymore.”

the challenge in his voice made something inside you snap. you wanted to respond, to assert yourself as you always had, but the heat between you was overwhelming, and before you could muster a reply, his lips were on your neck, pressing soft, hot kisses along your skin that left you trembling.

“i’m not the kid you used to boss around,” he murmured between kisses, his breath warm against your ear. “you can’t keep treating me like i don’t know what i’m doing.”

his hands slid lower, and you gasped as his touch became more insistent, his fingers deftly working to unbutton your blouse. his lips returned to yours, and this time, the kiss was slower, deeper, as if he wanted to savor every second. there was nothing hurried about the way his hands roamed your body, exploring with a confidence that made your head spin.

you tugged at his shirt, pulling it over his head in one swift motion, your fingertips brushing over the smooth lines of his chest. he was handsome, undeniably so, but up close like this—underneath the layers of work clothes and the carefully constructed professionalism—he was breathtaking. your hands trailed over his skin, feeling the tautness of his muscles, the way his breath hitched slightly as you touched him.

he grinned against your lips as you pressed your body into his, feeling the hardness of his form against you. “see?” he whispered, his voice rough with desire. “you can’t even resist me now, noona.”

you wanted to argue, to assert your authority as you always had, but the way he looked at you—like he knew exactly how to unravel you—left you powerless.

his hands made quick work of the rest of your clothes, every movement deliberate, controlled. he was no longer the shy, uncertain junior you had once guided. here, in the dim light of your apartment, riki was commanding, confident, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

he lifted you effortlessly, carrying you to the bedroom, laying you down with a gentleness that contrasted with the heat of the moment. and then he was over you, his hands exploring, his lips trailing over your skin in ways that made your breath hitch. you responded in kind, your fingers digging into his back, pulling him closer, needing him closer.

when his mouth found yours again, it was softer this time, but no less intense. his touch was slow, deliberate, as if he wanted to memorize every inch of your body, every gasp and shiver he elicited. you couldn’t help the sounds that escaped you, soft whimpers that only seemed to spur him on.

“don’t think just because i’m calling you ‘noona’ that i’ll let you keep this up,” he teased, his lips brushing against your ear, sending shivers down your spine. “you’re not the only one who can take charge.”

the air between you was charged with desire, thick with the tension that had been simmering for so long. every touch, every breath shared between you was electric, sending waves of pleasure rippling through your body. you had never imagined this—being here, with him, in this way—but now that you were, there was no going back.

and when he finally claimed you, when the last barriers between you fell away, it was like everything else disappeared. there was no work, no professionalism, no rules—just you and him, bodies moving together in perfect sync, lost in the heat of the moment.

the world outside faded into oblivion, and all that remained was the sound of your mingled breaths, the feeling of his skin against yours, the way he made you feel as though you were the only two people who mattered.

and in that moment, nothing else did.

“i still do want to take you on a dinner date though," riki said, breaking the silence with a light-hearted lilt that hung in the air like a sweet melody.

you pulled back slightly, your eyes searching his, as if seeking confirmation that this wasn’t just a fleeting fantasy. “really?” the question slipped out before you could hold it back, a mix of surprise and delight dancing in your voice.

“yeah, really,” he replied, his smile growing wider. “just you and me. somewhere nice. maybe italian? i hear they have the best pasta in town.”

his words wrapped around you like a warm embrace, grounding you in the moment. you could feel your heart quicken, the anticipation stirring something deep within you. “that sounds perfect. when do you want to go?”

“how about friday?” he suggested, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “i’ll even let you choose the place.”

a laugh escaped your lips, the sound light and airy. “i hope you’re ready for my pick then. i might take you to the best italian place in town, and you’ll be regretting it the next day.”

riki chuckled, the warmth of his laughter making your heart flutter. “i’ll take that risk. besides, i have a feeling it’ll be worth it.”

in that moment, as the soft glow of the streetlights seeped through the window, you felt the weight of the week lift, replaced by the promise of something beautiful on the horizon. but just as the excitement began to settle in, you were pulled back to reality by the sound of your phone vibrating against the table, a harsh reminder of the world outside this blissful bubble.

you glanced at the screen, and the moment slipped slightly, the glow of notifications flickering like an unwelcome reminder. it was a message from a friend, checking in about the weekend plans.

“sorry, i should probably—” you started, but riki gently took your hand, grounding you again.

“hey,” he said softly, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “you can always reply later. right now, let’s focus on us.”

you looked back at him, the connection reigniting. the moment stretched out like an unbroken thread between you, the world beyond the walls of this room fading once more into insignificance. you nodded, your heart soaring as you settled back into the warmth of his gaze, the future bright and inviting.

“so, friday it is?” you confirmed, your voice steady and full of excitement.

“definitely,” riki replied, a grin breaking across his face, as if he had just won a victory.

and just like that, the evening unfolded around you, a delicate balance of playful teasing and soft confessions, a new chapter beginning to write itself in the quiet spaces between your laughter.

[bucketbueckers]

I'D RATHER PRETEND

CHAPTER ONE

tags: @angryflowerwitch @avvwritesstufff | lmk if you want to be added! wc: 7.1k notes: see masterlist for content warnings. buckle up, here we go 🙂‍↕️

'South Carolina Basketball Star Tess Kennedy Hits Rock Bottom'

On March 31, the South Carolina Gamecocks went head to head with the Iowa Hawkeyes in the heavily anticipated Final Four match-up. For South Carolina, this was their two-peat season, coming off of an electric championship win back in April 2022 against the formidable Connecticut Huskies. For Iowa, this was their underdog season. Their last Final Four appearance was back in 1993. With powerhouses such as Kamilla Cardoso, Aliyah Boston, and Tess Kennedy, South Carolina was a fan favorite to win, but Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes would prove to be a wrench in the plans.

Late in the third quarter, Tess Kennedy fell to the ground clutching her knee as Clark drove past her. To those on court, the injury was obvious. She was carried off in a stretcher. We would later receive the news that Kennedy had officially tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her left knee and would undergo surgery within the week. Kennedy would have the entire offseason and most of the regular season to rehab and hopefully return for the 2023-2024 season, but onlookers quickly found that would not be the case.

April 9 marked the beginning of what was taunted as the "Tess Kennedy Destruction Tour." It had simple beginnings - a Twitter reply here, a heated Instagram argument there.

[IMAGE TRANSCRIPTION: USER GAMECOCKS4LIFE33: "TESS KENNEDY YOU SUCK, THANKS FOR THROWING OUR BACK TO BACK SEASON, I HOPE YOUR ACL NEVER HEALS!!!" | USER TESSKENNEDY25: "I'M PRAYING THAT YOUR WIFE HAS AN ABORTION. I'D STRANGLE MYSELF WITH MY OWN UMBILICAL CORD IF I CAME OUT OF THE WOMB AND YOUR FACE WAS THE FIRST THING I SAW." END TRANSCRIPTION.]

As recovery progressed, Kennedy soon frequented a local bar nearby the University of South Carolina campus. Kennedy would spend nights there, often inebriated and starting arguments outside. Her nights out would only end when other members of the South Carolina women's basketball team came to rescue her. They have all declined to comment at this time.

Kennedy's supporters have gone online with desperate cries for anyone at all to get Tess Kennedy the help and recovery she needs. South Carolina has been unnaturally quiet regarding their star player's self-destruction. Kennedy has expressed that she wishes to enter the WNBA draft after her senior year, and considering that an ACL tear often makes or breaks an athlete's career, it does not surprise us in the least that Kennedy is having a difficult time with her injury. The only question remaining is if someone will pick her up, or if Tess Kennedy will be left to her own devices and continue to sink.

-Penelope Lancaster, Bleacher Report

MAY 3, 2023

“You can’t be fucking serious.”

The silence in the conference room is palpable. Tess is currently battling a migraine, though she’s not sure if it’s from her hangover or the absolute bullshit her manager just subjected her ears to. She’s surrounded by Amaya, the aforementioned manager, Diana, her publicist, Coach Staley, a counselor from the university’s counseling and wellness center (though she’s already forgotten her name), Paige Bueckers, for whatever fucking reason, and two other unfamiliar people.

When Amaya called her to schedule a meeting, Tess didn’t know what it was for. Amaya didn’t say and Tess was too shitfaced to argue, especially when Amaya was yelling at her bright and early at 7 am. The regret pools low in her belly and she tells herself for the millionth time that she should have skipped this meeting.

“Tess, we’ve brought you in today because everyone is worried for you,” Amaya states. “Frankly, we should have done it earlier. That has been a critical error on our end. Your teammates have told us that you either lock yourself in your room for hours on end or go out and get plastered. I’m sure you’re familiar with what the media is calling the ‘Tess Kennedy Destruction Tour?’”

Paige, quiet from the other end of the table, raises a brow while Tess scoffs. “I feel like that’s a little excessive,” Tess says.

Diana frowns. “Since your ACL injury, you’ve been in several arguments online. You frequent bars and are at risk of a severe alcohol addiction. We know you’re not rehabbing nor are you taking your medication.”

And, at the heart of it, Amaya and Diana aren’t wrong. Maybe when Tess is a few drinks in and she opens Twitter and sees what all the trolls are saying, constant repeats and barrages of Tess Kennedy sold South Carolina’s game – she deserves so much worse than an ACL tear and South Carolina made a mistake in recruiting her, maybe she responds to them, because why wouldn’t she? She’s a college athlete, she understands trash talk and competitiveness, but everything that is said about her is downright cruel. She loses all of her inhibitions when the tequila flows through her veins – making the trolls feel just as bad as she does is one of the simplest remedies she could offer. The alcohol makes her forget about her injury, about the guilt of costing her team the game and the championship. It’s simple. So what if she drinks a little more lately? She’s not addicted. She’s just trying to forget.

Her avoiding rehab and her medication were just unfortunate casualties of war. Her injury was too fresh on her mind for her to fully commit to attending, even though Kamilla tried her best to get her to the physio’s office. Her medication was a different story – she had to be weaned off of her lexapro for a couple days before her surgery so she could safely be anesthetized for it. Then she wasn’t allowed to take her medication for a few days post-surgery given the nature of her painkillers. It all spiraled from there. She was off of her rhythm in multiple ways, and the last thing on her mind was her anxiety medication.

“We know you won’t listen, so we are not giving you options,” Amaya says firmly, forcing Tess back into the moment. She resists an eyeroll. “You’re at risk of killing yourself, Tess. You’re at risk of losing your basketball scholarship because your grades have slipped after finals – you’re lucky enough that your GPA was high enough from the past two years to cushion straight C’s this semester. Your brand deals are inches away from dropping you entirely. So, we are going to fix that. Three times weekly, you will meet with a trainer for mandatory physical therapy. Once a week, you will meet with a psychologist for your mental health and alcohol dependence. And during this off-season, we’ve made the decision that you and Paige Bueckers will be in a fake relationship so you can repair your images.”

Which brings us to where we are now.

“You can’t be fucking serious.”

Tess’s eyes nearly fall out of her head. Paige seems equally as shocked from across the table, jaw slack, though her expression hardens with indignance as Tess demands, “Why her? What is fake dating going to do about any of this?”

“Your brand deals are at risk of pulling away from you because you are destroying your image,” Amaya says again. “You’re too volatile. Paige’s brand deals are at risk of pulling away from her because…” Amaya struggles to find the words.

“I’m not ‘family friendly’ enough,” Paige supplies, fingers raised in air quotes.

At that, Tess snickers. “And by that, she means she sleeps around too much, people are noticing, and her conquests are bitter.”

“Why the attitude? Jealous I ain’t sleepin’ with you?”

“Oh, sure, because I’ve always wanted an STD.”

“At the rate you’re destroying yourself, you might be closer than you think.”

“Enough,” Amaya snaps. Tess and Paige close their mouths. Paige at least has the decency to look a little ashamed while Tess glares. “But yes. Paige’s brand deals feel as though she’s too… all over the place. Having a fake girlfriend will placate her brands and consumers who are upset with them for not taking action. The two of you together will show that Paige is not a womanizer and that Tess is not a flight risk.”

“I don’t agree with this,” Tess states.

Amaya hums. “I’ll take your grievances into consideration.” She pauses for a moment, tapping her chin dramatically as if thinking hard, before smiling. “Okay, I’ve considered. You and Paige will fake date. You’re going to go to all of your appointments and you are going to try to get better. Your doctors said you would be able to play again depending on your recovery. Why are you trying to destroy yourself? Why are you making this harder on yourself than it needs to be?”

Tess doesn’t have an answer for that. At least, not one she’s going to admit in front of her Coach or Paige Bueckers. Paige got lucky – she tore her ACL and she’s almost fully healed now. The chance that Tess might not be able to, no matter how slim, fills her with indescribable envy. Taking her destruction into her own hands gives her some semblance of control that she otherwise doesn’t have. She wasn’t in control when her ligament tore. She wasn’t in control when she was in surgery for hours and the doctors were meticulously replacing it.

When she doesn’t respond, Amaya sighs. “Paige flies back to Connecticut on Saturday. I want you two to take this week to get to know each other and soft launch – how you do that, I don’t care. We just want the public to know you’re seeing each other currently.”

After some more fine-tuning between Amaya, Diana, and Paige’s manager and publicist, the meeting concludes. Tess doesn’t waste any time before she’s hauling herself to her feet. She grunts as the pain shoots through her leg, gripping the table to stabilize herself. “Tess, hold on,” Coach Staley calls. “I need a word with you.”

Tess resists a sigh. No matter how fucked up she might be, she’s not going to be the one to test Coach Staley. The conference room filters out, though Tess doesn’t notice Paige’s lingering gaze as she leaves. “I know you probably feel a little trapped right now,” Coach says. “That we’re forcing you into this. Which we are – I mean, I won’t sugarcoat it. I know basketball is your dream and you feel like it’s all slipping away because of your injury. Let me be the first to say that the Tess Kennedy I know wouldn’t let this stop her. I don’t know what’s going on with you. I don’t know why you’re spiraling, but I do know that our team is a family and we are always here to support you if you’d just let us in. You are an amazing player, an asset on and off the court. Please give this your all, if not for me, if not for your teammates, but for yourself.”

Tess can feel the tightness in her throat and the slight sting in her eyes. Part of her knows that Coach is right – she always is. The other part of her is so overwhelmed by her grief that it’s hard to fully absorb it. “I’ll try, Coach,” she says softly, feeling more sober than she has in weeks. Coach Staley squeezes her shoulder, walking out of the room. After wiping the tears pooling in her eyes and taking deep breaths, she walks out, too.

“Hey –”

Tess nearly jumps out of her skin, a hand over her chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, Paige.” The blonde guard can’t help but snicker, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not funny, dude. You’re an asshole. I can’t believe people line up to sleep with you.”

“They do that?” she asks, smiling smugly. “Didn’t know.”

Tess rolls her eyes in annoyance. “Do you have a reason to be talking to me or are you just trying to make me start drinking at 9 am?”

Paige shoves her hands in her pockets. “Amaya told me your first PT appointment is in an hour. She wants me to go with you, help you out and shit.” Paige must recognize the look on Tess’s face because she huffs. “Look, I wanna be doing this as much as you do. But work with me a little. I wasn’t this insufferable when I tore my ACL.”

At that, Tess’s gaze turns into a hard glare. “Fuck off. You don’t know shit about my injury.”

She scoffs. “I know more than you think I do, and I think that’s why you’re all pissed,” she says, voice low. “Yeah, you’re in pain 24/7, but it’s the mentality that fucks you up. You’re scared you’re never going to play ball again and you’re taking it out on other people. You’re taking it out on yourself, Tess; you’re literally killing yourself over an injury you can bounce back from. It’s hard and it’s scary and it’s fucked up. And as shitty as it sounds, tearing your ACL is something that only happens to other people, right? It wasn’t supposed to happen to you.” Tess’s mouth morphs into a guilty frown, watching as Paige shifts her weight to her healthy leg unconsciously. “So, face it. You tore your ACL. You trashed your reputation to cope with it and now we gotta dig each other out of the mud. But your recovery is up to you. Commit to it, follow the PT, do what you gotta do – or you’re never playing on that court again.”

Despite her harsh words, Paige’s eyes are soft with understanding, not pity. Tess was used to seeing the commiseration on her teammates' faces. They didn’t understand; understanding an ACL tear came with the fact of having one, and as mad as she was at the world right now, Tess would never wish something like that upon her teammates. Do what you gotta do – or you’re never playing on that court again. Paige’s words run around her head on repeat. Tess isn’t surprised that it makes her angry. She is surprised to find that the anger isn’t directed at the blonde herself, who she’s about to be stuck with for months on end. Tess is pissed at herself. Her actions may have just cost her weeks, if not months of extra recovery time. She was so lost in what-ifs that she didn’t focus on the things that were actually around her.

Tess would work on it. That is as much as she could promise herself.

Unable to fully process the genuine culture shock of Paige’s rant, Tess swallows thickly and looks anywhere but the blonde’s blue eyes. “Do you, um, wanna grab coffee before PT?” she asks forlornly.

Paige’s jaw ticks, but she seems to recognize the invitation for what it is – an olive branch. “Yeah. Sure. You should swing by your apartment and grab your crutches, though.”

Tess almost rolls her eyes at the mother-hen tone of Paige’s voice. “I don’t need them anymore,” she retorts. “Doctor said 2 to 3 weeks post-surgery. I’m very much 2 to 3 weeks post-surgery.”

“Pretty sure 2 to 3 weeks depended on good behavior,” Paige states. “You did literally the opposite of that. Plus, I saw you wince when you stood up. Go get your crutches, Tessa.”

“Okay, first of all, Tess isn’t a nickname,” she gripes, but she leads Paige towards the athlete apartments. “Tessa is not on my birth certificate. Second of all, don’t boss me around.”

Paige hums. “Okay,” she concedes, which shocks Tess enough that she turns around. Paige has a solemn look on her face, but the look in her eye tells Tess all she needs to know. “According to Amaya, we’re girlfriends now. That means I gotta look out for you. So lighten up, ma. Get your crutches and let me buy you a coffee so you don’t get cranky in PT.”

Tess wrinkles her nose. “Do not call me that either.”

“Okay, Tessa.”

“You’re actually so fucking annoying, it’s unreal.” Tess turns around again, leaning on her right foot to take the pressure off her left knee. She clasps her hands together, trying to distract herself from the way Paige smiles smugly at her, eyes bright. Tess suddenly feels stupid for not realizing any sooner that Paige was just fucking with her. The worst part about this whole situation was how Paige’s banter did manage to chip away some of the guilt and anguish that slowly frosted over her heart. She’d never admit that much to the blonde, though – her ego is already the size of Jupiter. “Don’t call me ma. Don’t call me Tessa.”

“So what’s actually on your birth certificate?” Paige asks when Tess starts walking again.

“Tess Kennedy.”

“Middle name?”

“Why do you care?”

Paige scrunches up her face. “We’re girlfriends –”

“We are not girlfriends,” Tess interrupts.

“Okay, what the fuck ever,” Paige gripes. “Middle name. We need to know stuff about each other. Mine’s Madison. You might as well just tell me anyways ‘cause I’m pretty sure it’s on your Wikipedia.”

Tess heaves a sigh. Paige has to get off on being an annoying fuck – there’s no other reason why she’d be harassing her right now. “It’s Alessandra. Tess Alessandra Kennedy. I was named after my mom.”

“Tess Alessandra,” Paige repeats. Her name sounds far too good rolling off her tongue and Tess gets mad all over again. Paige is a woman of many talents it seems, although it’s unfortunate that shutting up is not one of them. “Cute. Is that Italian?”

Tess softens at the genuine interest in her tone, realizing she's being an asshole. “Yeah. We moved here from Italy when I was seven. I grew up in New York, came down here for ball…the rest is history, I guess.”

“Can you say the thing?” Paige asks with too much glee.

Tess glances at her warily. “What thing?”

“You know, the ‘Ay, I’m walkin’ here!’”

“Jesus Christ,” Tess mutters. She and Paige exit the athletic facility, and the South Carolinian guard leads her on the short path back to the athlete apartments. “You’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met. It’s impressive.” 

“I like setting the standard.” Tess glances at her. Paige looks comfortable – too comfortable – sporting an easy-going smile, as if being perpetually on Tess’s nerves is enjoyable for her. Tess isn’t sure what to make of her. “So, what was coming to the States like?”

The shorter of the two shrugs. “It was an adjustment. My English was decent, but I struggled to make friends. Basketball made me feel like I belonged here, although it reminded me of home, too.”

“You still consider Italy home?” Paige asks softly.

Tess mulls it over, humming. “Home is a feeling,” she states. “I never had to second guess myself in Italy – whether or not I was using the right words or doing things the ‘American way.’ I feel at home when I play ball. I never doubted myself there, either; it’s what my brain is wired for.”

“And now that you can’t play, it feels like leaving everything you’ve ever known?”

Tess’s lips curl into a half-smile. “Something like that.”

Paige makes a noise in the back of her throat that sounds vaguely like understanding. “No wonder you went on a destruction tour.”

Tess rolls her eyes. “And the moment’s over.”

“Nah, I was being for real!” Paige defends. “I’m just sayin’ – I get it. Basketball means something different to everyone, right?”

Tess softens. “Yeah. Guess so.” She opens the door to the athlete apartments, leading Paige to the elevators. She pushes the number three and the elevator closes. She sighs, leaning against the wall, and lifting her leg slightly. “So what about you?”

Paige glances at her. “What about me?”

“Your ACL. What was different for you?”

Paige wiggles her leg. “Well, I’m still recovering. Want to be 110% before I’m on the court again.” She stares at her reflection in the elevator mirror before her eyes look anywhere else. “It was tough. It is tough. I felt useless for a long time but my teammates and family pulled me out of my slump before I let myself sink. It just took me a while to let them in.” At that, Tess feels hot all over, looking down at her feet and not at the blonde next to her. “I just wanna play,” Paige admits. “But it just feels like every time I get into a groove, there’s something that benches me. I don’t like letting my teammates down.”

“You’re not,” Tess states, surprising herself.

Paige looks up, meeting Tess’s eyes, lips curling into a solemn smile. “Aren’t I?”

The ding of the elevator saves Tess from having to answer. She frowns, but heads in the direction of her apartment. She hopes that Kamilla and Bree are out. Walking in with Paige Bueckers attached to her hip would be an uncomfortable conversation. Tess sticks her key in the door, opens it, and nearly drops her lanyard in surprise at the sight in front of her.

“Tess, what the fuck? I woke up this morning and you weren’t here. I thought –” Kamilla’s rant slows to a stop as Tess walks in, Paige in tow, who suddenly looks like she wants to be anywhere but Tess’s apartment.

“Good morning, Kamilla,” Tess says guiltily. “Say hi, Paige.”

The blonde waves. “What’s up, Kamilla?” Kamilla blinks at the two of them. “Uh, I can just wait outside.”

“Stay,” Tess says, her words coming out like a demand. Paige nods, shoving her hands in her pockets. “Um, I had a meeting with Amaya. I’ll tell you about it later, Kam, I promise, but I have PT in like, 45 minutes, so I really need to go.”

Kamilla doesn’t say anything as Tess hobbles to her room and exits with her crutches in tow. The two roommates stare at each other for a beat before Tess inches forward and wraps her arms around Kamilla, who freezes in shock before returning the hug. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk,” she whispers. “I’ve been an asshole to you and Bree. You guys didn’t deserve that. Thank you for trying to take care of me when I didn’t want to take care of myself.”

“Hey, we’ll talk later,” Kamilla says softly. “We love you, okay?”

Tess’s eyes burn with unshed tears. “I love you, too.”

Kamilla releases her with one last lingering look, smiling softly before glancing at Paige. “Best behavior, Bueckers,” she says coyly, much to Paige’s amusement, who raises her hands in mock surrender. “See y’all later.”

Paige, as if sensing Tess’s inner turmoil, allows her to lead them to the on-campus Starbucks in silence. It’s not too far away from the athlete dorms. Tess and many of her teammates would frequent it over the years, seeking caffeine for study sessions, though she’s aware of how different the situation is now. When they walk in, Tess is thankful to find it relatively empty. The two baristas on duty hardly offer them a second glance. Paige settles a tentative hand over the small of her back. “What d’you want, ma? You can sit and I’ll get your coffee.”

Tess is less bothered by the nickname the second time around. “Vanilla sweet cream cold brew. Please?”

Paige nods. “Got you.” She walks up to the counter while Tess grabs a spot at a booth out of sight. Tess pulls out her phone as she waits, having it on Do Not Disturb for the better part of the morning. She feels guilt all over as her notifications are full of missed calls from Kamilla and Bree and countless text messages. She clears them out and sends another “i’m sorry” to their group chat, to which both Kamilla and Bree quickly respond with heart emojis. Tess texts her parents back, who’d been blowing her up with reasonable concern after her media escapades. She tells them she’s doing better but doesn’t wait around to see their response. Tess has countless other messages she needs to get around to, but settles for silencing her phone again, promising to get back to them later.

Paige returns to their booth with their coffees in hand. The blonde passes her a straw and Tess quietly thanks her. “How much was it? Let me pay you back.”

Paige scoffs. “Bro, get outta here with that. I told you I was buyin’ so you don’t get cranky.”

“I’m already cranky, Paige–”

“That’s just your personality.”

Tess cracks a smile, the first genuine one all morning. “I’m serious. Let me pay you back.”

“You can pay me back by workin’ with me on this,” Paige says. She takes a long sip from her coffee, humming at the flavor.

“I’m good now,” Tess grumbles. “Trust.”

Paige snorts. “Trust?”

Tess nods solemnly. “I was kind of a jerk earlier. I’m sorry for calling you a whore.”

Paige blinks. “We don’t gotta talk about that, Tess, really –”

“No, just hear me out, okay?” Tess says. “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. Your business is your business. I shouldn’t have used that against you.”

“I shouldn’t have used your ACL against you, either,” Paige concedes, “when I said I wasn’t insufferable when I tore mine.”

Tess smiles weakly at her. “I kinda deserved that one, to be honest.”

“Well…” Paige trails off, grinning menacingly, and Tess rolls her eyes. “Hey, we’re cool now. We’d be even more cool if you’d answer my DM, but it’s whatever.”

“I ghosted a lot of people, you’re not special,” Tess gripes.

“I am,” Paige insists. “We’re ACL buddies now. ACL girlfriends if you wanna be real. Two knees, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona–”

Tess buries her head in her hands, unwilling to let Paige see the smile on her face. “We are not girlfriends. And what was that? Did you just compare our knees to Romeo and Juliet?”

“We’re star-crossed lovers, ma; you more than me since Caitlin crossed you up and snatched your ankles,” Paige jabs. At that, Tess can’t help the laugh that rips from her mouth.

“I actually hate you,” she says, but the words lack bite. She takes a sip from her coffee, too. “Okay. How do we want to do this?”

“Amaya wants it, like, obvious that it’s us, right?” Paige says. “You could post a picture of our coffees on your story. Don’t gotta show my face but you could keep my chain in the photo.”

Tess glances at Paige’s collarbones, where her necklaces rest delicately. There’s a chain with a silver cross on it and her signature #5 chain right next to it, albeit it’s a smaller, less loud version of the one she wears for hype videos. Tess knows the online fans are freaks with how they notice things – they’d instantly clock it. “You could post me at PT,” Tess offers. “Like holding my crutches or something.”

“Or something,” Paige agrees, eyes lighting up with mischief. “You trust me?”

Tess eyes her warily. “Not particularly, no,” she admits. “But it’s your story and your soft launch. It’s your call.”

“Bro,” Paige sighs. “We’ll work on it.” She adjusts their coffees then fiddles with the chains around her neck. “Look good?”

Tess tries not to focus too much on the way Paige’s collarbones protrude slightly, the fairness of her skin. “Mhm,” she says noncommittally, readying her phone. Paige reaches for her own phone, angling it just slightly so the edge of her purple case is in view. Satisfied, she takes the photo, flipping the screen to show Paige, who nods. She sits for a moment, pondering the caption, before typing out, ‘and a new day will bring about the dawn.’ She shows Paige again. “You like?”

“Frank?” she asks, smiling when Tess nods in confirmation. “It’s a little cheesy maybe. But it shows, like, you’re optimistic and shit. That you’re getting better.” Tess makes a noise of agreement, centering the text to her liking. Paige lays a hand on her wrist before she has the chance to post. “We should set some rules before we do this.”

Tess sighs. “Really, Paige?”

“Yes, really,” Paige retorts. “We’re lying to millions of people right now. Gotta make sure we got our shit straight or we’re fucked. When did we start talking?”

“You DMed me after my injury,” Tess offers hesitantly. “Offered support.”

“Lotta help I was with you spiraling for a month straight,” Paige grumbles.

Tess smirks wryly. “A little bit of truth in the lie goes a long way, right? You messaged me, I didn’t want to accept help, but you still tried – maybe you flew out to surprise me? You’re here now.”

Paige pauses, swirling the straw in her drink. “That works. We bonded over our ACLs, realized we had other shit in common. I pulled you out of the deep end–”

“And I got you to settle down.”

Paige raises a brow. “Oh, so that’s where we are now? You won’t even friendzone me but I’m settling?”

Tess rolls her eyes. “You’re literally on my last nerve.”

The blonde smiles smugly. “Alright. How open are we being with the media?”

Tess shrugs, chewing on her straw. “Maybe just be all coy and shit? We’re in different states so our options are limited. Repost couple-y stuff on TikTok, get active in each other’s comments, that kind of stuff. Maybe in month or so I can fly up to see you and we can hard-launch?”

Paige nods. “Works for me. Let me know when you’re thinking and I can pick you up from the airport or something.” They fall silent for a moment. “I feel like we’re media-trained enough that we don't need to overthink it. Just don’t invent an anniversary.”

“Agreed.” Tess stretches out her leg, rubbing her knee with a sigh. “You wanted rules?”

“Mhm,” Paige hums as she opens the notes app on her phone. At #1, she writes COMMUNICATE in uppercase, bold letters. Tess can’t disagree. “We have to make sure we do this right. If either of us gets uncomfortable, we need to talk about it and fix it or end it. I’m sure there’s community service or some shit to show we’re redeemed people. For public appearances, we gotta, you know…kiss and stuff to sell it.” Paige’s cheeks flush red as she says this. “Uh, we can talk about it later. If you want.”

“Yeah,” Tess agrees awkwardly. The thought of having to kiss Paige leaves a stirring feeling in her chest that she can’t quite place. At #2, Paige writes No seeing other people on the DL. “That’s pretty self-explanatory. You sure you can handle it?” she teases.

Paige rolls her eyes but she has the decency to look guilty. “Contrary to popular belief, I am not a womanizer, Tess Alessandra,” she sasses.

“I believe you, Paige Madison,” Tess retorts.

At #3, Paige writes Nobody can know. “My teammates have big mouths,” Paige states. “But also I feel like it adds to the story.”

Tess frowns. “Well, I kind of already promised to tell Kam and Bree. I owe it to them after being a shitty person for a month straight.” Paige stares at her for a beat before adding, Nobody can know, except Kamilla and Bree. Tess nods, satisfied. At #4, she writes, NO CATCHING FEELINGS. She blushes as she writes it and Tess raises a brow. “Is that a concern of yours?”

“No!” Paige says a little too quickly for Tess’s liking. “I can do casual,” she adds, voice lower. “Ion know about you. But you can’t fall in love with me. That would ruin all of this. We can’t let this get out of hand, you know?”

“Sure,” Tess agrees. “But you can’t fall in love with me, either.”

Paige’s jaw ticks. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Good.”

They fall into a brief silence. “You wanna add anything else?” Paige asks.

Tess shakes her head. “Shake on it?” Their hands meet in a crisp dap and Tess finally hits post on her story. She closes the app immediately, knowing that her notifications will explode. Paige finishes off the rest of her coffee, eyeing Tess curiously. The blonde has an unreadable look on her face – Tess isn’t quite sure what she’s thinking, and it rattles her. She glances at her phone, noting the time. “You ready?”

Paige nods, collecting their empty cups and tossing them in the trash. “Lead the way, ma.”

Tess settles into her crutches, feeling uncomfortable as they dig into her arms, but relieved as they take the pressure off her knee. Tess leads Paige back to the athletic facility, listening to the blonde’s rant about something Azzi said to her. She wonders how much of Paige’s brain is basketball stuff and how much is the random shit that apparently floats through there. Tess has only spent maybe an hour and a half one-on-one with Paige Bueckers, but she’s convinced the inside of her brain is a Where’s Waldo picture. Sure, they’ve chatted after games – okay, it’s probably more accurate to say they trash-talked after games, especially after South Carolina kicked their ass in the championship last year, though it was all in good fun – but getting to know her on a personal, less basketball-focused level is different.

They reach the physio’s office just in time for the start of Tess’s PT session. Craig, the trainer, greets her warmly, saying, “I’m glad to see your days of skipping PT are over, Tess.”

The South Carolinian guard rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I have an enforcer now.”

“Present!” Paige chirps.

Craig begins with a preliminary check-up, asking a few questions that Tess is tempted to sugarcoat if not for Paige’s convincing glare. Admitting that she hasn’t done much outside of skipping her PT to Craig’s face makes her feel embarrassed all over. The overall lack of proper rest and elevation coupled with overuse is expected to tack on another two months at most to her recovery, Craig estimates, but the idea that she still has a chance does enough to quell some of her worries.

With the questioning out of the way, Craig leads her through a couple of stretches and exercises. Paige joins in, working on her knee, and it makes Tess feel less silly about herself. It’s a strange thing to say. People always advise you to do it scared when you’re worried about trying new things, but Tess has come to find that the issue isn’t being scared – it’s doing it alone that makes it so difficult. She’s slightly ashamed to admit how much easier this whole process has become with Paige sitting next to her, extending her knee and breathing through the pain.

When Craig steps out to grab something from the storage area, there’s sweat beading at Tess’s hairline from the exertion of working her knee productively. She lays an ice pack over it, breathing through the slight pain and regretting everything that’s led her to this moment right now. “I’m never guarding Caitlin Clark again,” she mutters, half-serious.

Paige breaks out into infectious laughter. Tess has to fight back a smile at the sound. “You gotta get your lick back,” she says. 

“Trust, I’m working on it,” Tess says. “I’m gonna get better out of spite and break her ankles next season. Though she’ll probably drop a three on my head right after. That’s ball, baby.”

Paige reaches out, dapping her up and agreeing, “That’s ball.” Then, she pulls out her phone. “Soft launch time?”

Tess groans. “I know I said it was your call but please don’t do anything weird. I can’t handle it after this PT session.”

Paige rolls her eyes. “You gotta trust me, ma,” she chides. She readies the camera and reaches out for the ice pack, swatting away Tess’s hand. Her right knee bumps into Tess’s left thigh as she scoots ever so slightly closer, pressing the ice pack onto her knee. “Get your bracelet in there.” Tess does as Paige instructs, inching her hand closer in frame. Her bracelet is silver with a few notable charms, though the one that stands out the most is her jersey number, 25. “This okay?”

They look like a couple, Tess has to admit. Their proximity is one thing – you could say that’s just being friendly, but the fact that Paige is icing her knee feels weirdly intimate. “Yup,” she manages to get out. “All good.”

Paige takes the photo wordlessly, handing the ice pack over to Tess once she’s 100% satisfied with the way the photo has come out. She ponders the caption for a moment until she settles on the female doctor emoji and an ice cube. Tess snorts as she hits post and immediately silences her notifications. “You’re so creative.”

Paige rolls her eyes, but a smirk tugs at her lips regardless. “My bad. Next time I’ll use a cheesy ass Frank lyric.”

“You said it worked!” Tess exclaims, much to Paige’s amusement. She doesn’t get the chance to say more as Craig walks back in with the supplies he’d gone out to find. He wraps Tess’s knee and secures a huge ass brace around it. Given that she fucked up so much of her early recovery, he advises her to wrap her knee every morning and ice her knee on and off each day for about a week. Craig tells her to keep strenuous movement to a minimum and to use her crutches at all times – basically, everything her doctor told her to do in the first place. She nods along, promising to follow Craig’s instructions, but after a long day of PT and general emotional realizations, all she can think about is getting back to her room and taking a long nap.

Craig finally releases her from her session, reminding her to show up at the same time on Friday. Tess doesn’t fight him on it. He gives her one last gentle smile before she and Paige take their leave, walking back to Tess’s apartment in a comfortable silence. Paige scrolls on her phone before chuckling at something, nudging Tess, and showing her the screen. Her messages are full of questions from her teammates, with Nika Mühl’s sticking out like a sore thumb, reading, ‘I KNOW you didn’t seriously cancel on me and Lili this week to play doctor in SC!!!’ Tess can’t help but laugh out loud at that one. “The articles are crazy, bro, look,” Paige says, closing out of her iMessage and opening Instagram, where Overtime has shared pictures of both of their stories with the wide-eyed emoji. “‘Fans are speculating that Paige Bueckers flew out to meet up with South Carolinian shooting guard Tess Kennedy amidst controversy and Kennedy’s recent ACL injury,’” Paige reads.

“‘Amidst controversy’ is crazy work,” Tess huffs. “It wasn’t even that bad.”

Paige snorts, scrolling down. “We got detectives and shit,” she comments, showing Tess her screen. An Instagram account called ‘wcbbupdates’ has shared both of their stories again, having marked Paige’s chains and phone case and Tess’s bracelet in bright red circles. Paige narrows her eyes at a comment as she reads it aloud to Tess. “‘They are not slick, this is the hardest soft launch I’ve ever seen. I always knew Paige and Tess had sexual tension. Do you guys remember the regular season game in Paige’s freshman year where she was all up on Tess?’ Bro, what the fuck?”

Tess glances at Paige knowingly. “Something you want to share with the class?”

Paige scoffs. “I was not all over you,” she says. “We call that playing good D around here.”

Tess rolls her eyes. “You’re such a fucking liar,” she grumbles. “Just wait until I’m healthy again. I’m gonna cross you up so bad you have to retire from college ball or you have to take a super senior season just to fix your busted stats.”

The blonde smirks at her. “Oh, yeah?”

Tess doesn’t like the goading in her tone, nor the insinuation in her response. “You’re so –”

“Annoying?”

“So fucking annoying,” Tess confirms, much to Paige’s delight. 

“I love when you say nice things to me,” Paige croons.

Tess rolls her eyes, not responding, which draws a quiet laugh from Paige as they continue walking. Once they make it back up to Tess’s apartment, Paige lingers behind Tess, as if she’s unsure what to say for once in her life. The South Carolinian guard turns on her heel, leaning against her crutches and watching Paige carefully. 

“You’re here until Saturday?” Tess asks noncommittally, although she knows the answer. Paige nods. “You, uh, wanna come to PT on Friday, too?”

Paige shoves her hands in her pockets, giving Tess some sort of half smile. “Yeah. I can do that. Could get coffee or something.”

Tess studies her, lips quirking, but not giving anything away. “Or something,” she agrees. “Just text me. We can figure it out later.”

The blonde unlocks her phone and hands it over to Tess. She punches her number in and saves her contact. “Don’t ghost me this time?” Paige asks coyly, taking her phone back.

Tess snorts. “I’ll see what I can do,” she says gently. “See you later, Paige.”

Paige gives her one last fleeting smile. “Later, Tess. Be good for Kamilla.”

At that, Tess rolls her eyes, waving goodbye to Paige and finally inching inside her apartment. The door shuts with a click behind her. Tess sighs, leaning her head back against the wall, feeling the pressure of a migraine building behind her eyes. She doesn’t think Amaya is fully aware of what she’s asked both of them to do. Tess is struck with the realization that she’s in way over her head with Paige, with their silly little fake relationship, with her busted knee, and all of the mending she has to do over the next few weeks.

Tess takes a seat on the couch, propping her leg up on the coffee table in front of her. She turns the TV on and flips through various shows until she settles on her weekly rewatch of 2 Broke Girls. She makes it through the first episode before a knock at her apartment door forces her to get up. There’s nobody on the other side, but when she looks down, there’s a Chipotle bag and a drink on the ground. Confused, she picks it up. Her name is on it, but the cherry on top is the note attached to the receipt. 

Realized I took you to PT on an empty stomach. Hopefully I got your order right. You seem like a chicken and veg kinda girl. Sour cream and guac’s on the side. Lemme know if you don’t like any of this and I’ll order something else so you don’t bite Kamilla’s head off. See you Friday!

Tess barely registers half of the note. All she knows is that she’s well and truly fucked.

[trulyhblue]

Baby England (Part Two)

Lionesses x Young! Reader, Leah Williamson x Reader (platonic) Keira Walsh x Reader (platonic), Lucy Bronze x Reader (platonic)

Warnings: fluffy angst, mentions of blood/injury, coarse language.

Masterlist

__________________________

The Euros were flying past, and before you knew it, you were tapping your studs anxiously against the tunnel floor as you awaited the start of the Quarter Finals.

Every other game up until now had been different. You were promised a secure spot on the bench, assured the security of a safety sub during the last third of the game. You didn't receive the special treatment when you played. If anything, you were pushed harder by your opponents’ attempts to spike you out. You were young, younger than most of the women you played with and against, but you were there for a reason.

Sometimes you needed to be reminded that.

You were versing the Spanish Team. Contrary to many of your teammates, this was your first time playing them. Of course, you were aware of the individuals that you were playing against. You would be lying if you said you didn't idolize them. The mere idea of standing next to Mapi Leon and Aitana Bonmati was a frightening feeling. It was a bugging sensation filling your stomach. You tried searching the floor for any hope to calm your nerves, but the absence of serenity did nothing in response.

You weren't quite sure why Sarina had decided to put you in the starting eleven, especially in such a critical, knockout stage like today. The Euros were your first major tournament. When you told Leah the news, she wouldn't let you go from a bear-crushing hug until you wrenched her arms off you. She was reeling with excitement at the prospect of you standing alongside her in front of thousands of people. She couldn't contain her elation on the way to Falmer Stadium, and you tried to find the same emotions within yourself but the notion was proven difficult.

Hempo and Alex were giggling in a huddle as the team warmed up together. Leah was running laps with Beth. Rach and Millie were dribbling a ball with Ellen and Fran, and you were left stretching by the drink bottles, deep within your own thoughts.

You could see the Spanish girls across the field, eloping the growing crowd that littered the stands, all while split into groups as they carried out their respective warm-ups. You felt your hamstring tug while you ran you hands down your leg, tugging at your muscles so that they wouldn't tweak in the game.

The more time went by, with physios packing up their kits and subs heading over to the sideline, the more of a nervous wreck you became. You could feel the slight shake in your hands, the flood of adrenaline in your veins. Heart thumping out of your chest, beating in your ears, and bile rising in your throat.

This was your first time starting for your country. You had the impression that this was the one chance you could show not only Sarina, but all the media and fans that doubted your ability to set the tone for the game that you were capable of doing so. You wanted to make the first tackles, and produce opportunities. As a midfielder, you strived to cross the ball into the box for your strikers. Your job was to free the field of potential threats and switch between attacking and defensive plays depending on the style of your opponent.

You wanted everyone to know that you deserved to be in the starting eleven. You worked night and day, all the time, to make your dream come true. This was your life, your career, your journey.

The weight of this fell on your shoulders all at once in the tunnel as the narrow hallway blacked out most of the crowd’s roar. Everyone was in their own bubble, preparing themselves for the difficult match to come. Even as you walked out, eyes plastered on the floor, refusing to meet the eager euphoria of the crowd or anyone around you, the gravity of your situation began to set in.

You felt Leah kiss your forehead when walking past. The blush that painted your cheeks when you shook Mapi’s hand went straight through you. Nothing snapped you out of your haze. The crowd’s thundering booms fell beneath you, a level of determination fueling your insides as the whistle blew.

You ran up and down your line for nearly fifteen minutes before you finally gained possession of the ball. You were loosely marked by Guijarro beforehand, but as soon as the ball hit your feet, your legs were cut out from beneath you, leaving you tumbling face-first into the grass.

You were too high on adrenaline to feel the effects of the fall, but you felt fleeting hands sought your body when seeking to regain balance on your feet. There was a slight pang in your legs, but you quickly shook it off when offered a free kick.

“Should be a card, Ref.” One of your teammates quipped, holding your shoulders and pushing you on your way. The referee must've shooed her off too, since no acclimation changed and play resumed.

Both sides held possession well. You felt your confidence slowly increase at the endless support of the crowd. The flow of play made for excellent progress on your side of the midfield. You had curved a cross from the halfway line over to Hempo, but Ona Batlle had swiped it easily.

Georgia and Keira were absolute beasts, using their infinite knowledge to bound your team closer and closer to the goal. Spain was also moving quicker into your half as the game progressed, and the first half was coming to an end, you finally gained the opportunity to find space to shoot.

You were next to Beth, sprinting along the wing after Leah booted the ball to your end. The crowd boomed around you, your lungs gasping for air, your feet carrying you closer to the goal. Cardona was on you now, trailing your figure in the fleeting moments that felt like a lifetime.

Lauren was motioning for a crossover to her end, where no defenders thought themselves spent near. Paredes and Battle were spotting Ellen and Fran while Beth, Georgia and Keira were all making a worthy endeavour to free themselves.

Your heart raced as the wind whipped against your face, your hair whispering behind you in a tight, yet flimsy ponytail. No defenders were near the blonde. Ona and Paredes were stacking up against Ellen, while Carmona was battling Fran. Lauren was sprinting down the straight, her trajectory heading right into the box. Panos was urging her defenders back, but the communication between the two lines wasnt quick enough for your movements.

You made the move of switching the ball from your right foot to left, engulfing the fervour of the crowd as you did so. Blocking out any hesitancy, you kicked the ball as hard as you could, struggling to both watch your cross and keep straight at the same time. To your surprise, your connection with the ball made a successful thump, curving over the defenders and toward the direction of the blonde, who was almost in the box.

You watched with hope, every bone in your body ceasing up at the chance of scoring.

But before the outcome occurred, you felt your knees fall out, your legs crashing to the ground with a potent smack, leaving you winded and heaving for air. Your face made contact with the grass, your nose just skimming the ground as you made the sharp decision to move your head. For the second time that night, you heard the whistle blows to call the game to halt.

This time, however, you felt the potent emphasis of the strain on your body a lot more.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lucy’s thick accent came into range from above you, though you couldn't exactly see since your head was firm on the ground. Nothing hurtled incredibly badly, though you couldn't help but wince at the language falling from Lucy’s mouth.

While in a desperate attempt to pull yourself upwards, Keira came crouching beside you.

“Are you alright, Darling?” She asked, soothing a hand on your shoulders. Her eyes, both cautious and caring, bore into yours. You caught sight of Leah tugging Lucy away from the ref and Mapi, who was shown a yellow card.

You glanced up at the big display screens near the top of the stadium, watching in slight horror at the replay of Mapo taking you out from behind after the ball left your feet. It could've been a red card, arguably, but you were just glad you were still okay.

You told Keira so, thanking her when she pulled you up onto your feet. Lauren was watching from the other end, hauling thumps up your way, to which you promptly responded with a disappointed nod. You wished the ref had just left you on the ground because now you were going into the second half nil all.

You tried not to think about what could've been when sauntering back into the changing rooms. You were met with some encouragement. Leah was shouting all sorts of things to the team as they replenished and rejoiced for the next forty-five minutes. Rach and Millie were on either side of you, making an endeavour to be as loud and boisterous as they could in an attempt to rule everyone up. Lauren was by your side, taking prolonged sips from her water, patting you on the back throughout the break.

You watched all the girls intently while you changed your socks, tying your shoes with a double knot before following the rest of the girls out.

Before you jogged over to find your starting position, you felt someone spin you around gently.

“If that happens again,” Lucy spoke, Keira looking equally concerned by your side. “And you feel like it's too much, we want you to tell us.”

“I'm alright,” You reassured. You knew the pair believed you. This didn't soothe them, nonetheless. “I will, though. I promise.”

Before you could escape their prying eyes, Keira pulled you into a hug.

“You doing so well, Darling.” She muttered, patting your head. “Keep doing what you're doing.”

Both sides came out with a new taste of persistence. Everyone on the field was putting in ten times the effort from before. The anticipation from the crowd and determination in each of the girls’ mind combined to push the limits of the game to an all-new high.

Your hopes came crashing down when Spain’s striker, Gonzalez sent the ball through the back of the net. You threw your head back and groaned, moving your hands to cover your face. The celebration from the red rang out, their supporters in the stands properly dedicating their level of support. Your eyes met Leah, who was already marching back to her position. She gave you a civil nod. That was all. You knew she cared more for this than anything. This was the Euros.

That was enough motivation to keep going.

You tried to find more of a defensive end to your play going into the second half. Keira and Georgia were both creating chances down the line so you thought it best to keep the Spanish forwards on their toes by marking them instead of their defence.

Soon enough, Beth, Ellen, and Fran were all subbed off. You were surprised to find yourself still on the pitch. For some reason, your usual fatigue hadn't hit you yet, the endurance of beating your opponents still raw and fresh in your mind.

With Ella, Lessi and Chloe from now on, your assistance as a defensive midfielder was all the more prevalent. You made conscience tackles when needed. You pushed your opponents out of their zones, leaving them high and dry in different spots of the field. You were continuously feeding Chloe the ball from various passes, and even when some of them fell short, you made the effort to run back and do it again.

Spain must've noticed your team’s constant attacking push since strikers were being replaced for defenders, and roles were beginning to switch amidst the field.

Alex passed you the ball from between Garcia’s legs near the halfway line. You made no reluctance in sprinting down your line, taking no time in peeling the ball to your right in Chloe’s direction. The forward bolted into the centre, finding Lessi behind her. In a swift movement, Alessia found the ball at her feet, connecting a brilliant pass to Tooney.

Everyone on your backline held their breaths, awaiting the pause from Ella as she shot from where she received the ball. It went flying, flying forever, in what felt like a lifetime, before you heard the crowds rising to their feet in Revelation.

You held your arms up high, running towards the closest person, which happened to be Leah, and gripping her tight. She swung you round off the ground, yelling into your ear as the rest of your team celebrated around you.

You were one-all, you thought.

This was it.

When it went to extra time, you were almost certain you were due to be subbed off.

You had never played more than a half before. Going into over ninety minutes on the field, about to play another half hour, was daunting. You were starting to feel the dread of exhaustion pump into you when the extra time started. If you were to stay on until the end, and it was still one-all, it would go to penalties. You had only just made your Senior Debut, anyone would be stupid to think that you would ever oblige willingly to take one.

You stuck by your defensive line for the most part, only ever really leaving your back end of the midfield if you felt there was an opportunity to be given by the other end. You and Alex were pretty much feeding each other the ball if there was nothing else to give. The Spanish girls were growing impatient with it, and their relentless pushing and shoving indicated to the two of you that they were on the last thread.

You finally gave the ball to Millie, who gave it to Leah and returned back to you. For what felt like the hundredth time that game, you ran up your line, lugging the ball cautiously through the midfield. You sent a short pass to Ella, receiving the ball only a moment later. You shot past two of your opponents, glancing up to find none of your forwards free. You waited, fighting for possession for a while, before both Keira and Gee broke free from their markers. You chased them down, booting the ball to Keira.

Keira controlled the ball through the legs of Spain’s centre-back, hauling it along their backline before Gee found a space through the main slipstream. You held your breath, filling the air hitch around you in apprehension. Gee caught the ball, holding it for her side. The world seemed to stop, pause in time. You didn't remember seeing Georgia have a go at shooting, but the screams of the stadium were enough to send you tumbling towards her in a heap of sweat and tears.

You were the first to meet Georgia, jumping onto her back as the rest of your team fought themselves around her. Nothing else mattered to you at that moment, the feeling of absolute euphoria overriding any sort of anxiety you felt beforehand. All the girls were screaming, you were fighting tears. Everything was going your way, and you’d do anything to maintain it.

And that you did.

The rest of the game was defensive for you. You didn't even bother trying to connect any balls with the goal. You were too focused on any coming into your half. Lauren and Keira were subbed off, leaving no more subs available for the game. You played your heart out for the remaining time, counting down the clock for the final whistle.

When it blew, you fell to your knees.

You weren't sure if it was from the utter exhaustion of playing a hundred-and-twenty-minute game or merely because you were going through the realisation of winning. It was a surreal feeling, one you wouldn't shake for days. You stayed on the floor with your hands covering your face, hoping no one would catch the salty tears streaming down your red, tired face.

The Spaniards were all congratulating you by the end. You were quick to shake the apology Mapi Leon sent your way, blushing furiously at any sort of recognition from the defender. You ran into Leah’s arms, letting her ragdoll you around by swayying you back and forth.

“I'm so proud of you, my girl.” She muttered, kissing your forehead.

“Love you, Lee.” You simply replied, gripping her jersey tighter in your hands, relishing the moment with your eyes closed.

You were going to the Semi Finals.

__________________________

lionesses, yourusername (pretend its you)

*liked by keirawalsh, alexgreenwood and 43,256 others.

Lionesses — first full game starting AND player of the match. SAY THANK YOU BABY ENGLAND ❤️

Comments:

leahwilliamson — well deserved, beautiful girl 💗

^ yourusername — love you Lee ❤️

^ user1 — THEY ARE SO CUTE AWWWW

user2 — THANK YOU BABY ENGLAND YOU LITERALLY CARRIED US OMG

^ user3 — nah cause fr she deserved to play every minute of that game.

keirawalsh — our stargirl 💫

* liked by yourusername

georgiastanway — yeah the baby

^ yourusername — you can't call me a baby you're literally a few years older than me

^ Georgiastanway — YEAH THE BABY

arsenalacademy — congrats, baby england ❤️

^ user4 — you better start bidding for ur gurl or else she ain't gonna be yours

^ user5 — fr they think she won't leave but if a club wants to pay she’ll go where the money’s @

^ user6 — she wouldn't leave Leah. Period.

^ user7 — I doubt Leah would care where she goes, as long as shes happy.

ellatoone — lets goooooooooo

arsenalwfc — North London raised ‼️

______________________

soccerdrama

soccerdrama — after an absolute masterclass performance from Y/N L/N for the Lionesses against Spain this week, talks from multiple clubs have spurred.

These include;

- Arsenal

- Aston Villa

- North Carolina University

- Bayern Munich

- Manchester City

Where do you think she'll go?

Comments:

user1 — PLEASE SHE NEEDS TO STAY WITH LEAH ARSENAL ARSENAL ARSENAL

^ user2 — she suits nl so much

user4 — her and hemp are gold together. Would love to see them play for city together.

^ user5 — they've also git LUCY, keira, and Alex. City will be unstoppable with Y/N in it.

User8 — I still think she’ll go to UNC

_____________________________

[artbyblastweave]

🔥Punisher: Last Gun on Earth?

This ask is referring to the fairly-obscure 2010 zombie apocalypse Elseworld Marvel Universe Vs The Punisher by Jonathan Maberry, as well as the two prequels following Wolverine and Hawkeye at different points in the same timeline. I've been meaning to do a more comprehensive write-up on this for quite some time, as it was a series distinct from but very visibly in conversation with Marvel Zombies, which Maberry was also peripherally involved with. The elevator pitch is that a fuckup by the Punisher during a hit on the Russian Mob results in a cold war bioweapon getting into the biosphere, eventually turning almost the entire human population, and most of the superheroes, into adrenaline-fueled 28-days-later style rage zombies. Content Warning under the cut for discussions of racism

Despite its many, many flaws, there was a lot I enjoyed about this series, and alongside Marvel Zombies it had a not-insubstantial impact on my own aesthetic sensibilities, which I think probably comes through in a lot of my zombie artwork. The first mini, Marvel Universe Vs The Punisher, is a pastiche of I am Legend, with Frank Castle in the role of Robert Neville, an infected Deadpool in the role of Neville's abnormally sentient neighbor Ben Cortman, and with a zombified Spider-Man the white whale that he's spent five years hunting through the remains of Manhattan. Before I get into the rancid shit, I'm going to talk about what I enjoyed:

While the series succumbs to all-too-common Punisher Wank in terms of his efficacy in taking down a number of the A-list infected heroes, it ultimately comes out the other side as a pretty competent piece of character work for Frank; the series is grimly aware that a virus turning most of the human population into a shooting gallery of sadistic cannibal maniacs would be something like Valhalla for Frank, regardless of his pretensions to the contrary. Moreover, it's subtly implied that Frank's belief that he's immune is incorrect, and what's actually happening is that a virus that turns you into a vindictive, dogmatic maniac with a hardwired us-or-them mindset had no effect on him because he was already like that. There are ultimately revealed to be thousands of other survivors in New York, all of whom have spent five years studiously avoiding him because they think he's batshit insane. Even zombie Spider-Man, played up as the Biggest Bad, is ultimately revealed to have retained enough humanity to protect his uninfected family the entire time, whereas Frank is ultimately painted as unrelenting genocide machine whose psychological inability to give quarter ultimately makes him worse than the infected.

From there the series extrapolated some hilarious commentary on the genre as a whole; the zombie outbreak was going on for months before reaching critical mass, and nobody noticed because the baseline levels of random street violence and superpowered brawls are already so high in these settings that nobody realized a lot of the fights were occurring for rage-virus reasons until Spider-Man killed and ate a supervillain on live television. The whole series can be viewed through the lens of the usual spectacle-bait crisis-crossover contrived-battle-between-heroes routine, distilled to its purest form and escalated to the point of Ragnarök; the art frequently deliberately obfuscates which combatants are infected and which are uninfected people fighting for their lives. In this way it's playing with the pre-existing logic of the superhero genre in a way that Marvel Zombies didn't.

Maberry knows how to use Deadpool in a supporting character role without having him eat the entire goddamn thing. It's a fun dynamic!

Unlike Marvel Zombies, which was deliberately unconcerned with logistics as part of the gonzo fever-dream aesthetic, Maberry put some actual thought into a semi-plausible model by which a zombie virus could overrun a superhero setting. The responsible mutagen is air-and-waterborne, causing people to start turning at random months after being infected rather than through bites or fluid contact, and sneaks around healing factors because the mutations it causes are parsed as improvements rather than disease symptoms. Mass swarms of infected, unpowered civilians are as relevant, if not more relevant, than the superhumans are in spreading the infection, leading in turn to a lot of Left 4 dead styled set piece co-op fights like the one depicted above, and leading to the failure state that a superhero might be able to mince human wave attacks all day but at a certain point they'll have chewed through everyone they were ostensibly protecting by doing so, even if they themselves survive. This is a dynamic that, ultimately, only Frank Castle is really capable of thriving within, because with him it was never about protecting people, just hurting "bad" ones.

Which leads to another major positive points- the series is also a lot more concerned with rendering the setting's downward spiral. Eight prequel issues depicting the superhero community going down fighting over the course of months, rather than folding like a dixie cup in a trash compactor for horror value. Dead Days is the closest that Marvel Zombies ever got to rendering that same process, and while that was a very good oneshot it was still a deliberately compact one-shot. Here you get tableau after tableau of survivors throwing down with zombies. Unlikely alliances, second-string deep-cut z-listers crawling out of the woodwork- all interspersed with the growing realization among the protagonists that this is not business as usual, the status quo is not going to hold this time, it's just the actual apocalypse.

Here's Punisher, Hawkeye, Iron Fist and Black Cat trying to hold the Holland tunnel. Here's Dr. Bong, Howard the Duck Ruby Tuesday and Hit Monkey making a last stand in Central Park. This shit unironically kicks ass! This is what I think a lot of people are gesturing at when they say that they want to see a superheroes vs zombies story.

And, on that note, if you're going to tell this kind of story, Punisher, Wolverine and Hawkeye are objectively three of the best characters to have as the viewpoint characters- precisely the right level of competence and street-level scrappiness to survive without having a prayer of turning the tables outright. "Shit, Man, this superhero war is fucked-" the comic.

One additional minor thing I enjoyed about the series, aesthetically, is that while Marvel Zombies was a deliberately anachronistic mish-mash where every character was depicted in their most visually iconic outfits from across decades of publication, This series was very specifically working with the Marvel Universe status quo circa 2010 when it was published- The X-Men in San Francisco, Red Hulk on the Avengers, now-long-forgotten Avengers Academy kids in crowd shots. It grounds the narrative in a way Marvel Zombies was deliberately avoiding, acting as a snapshot and a time capsule in a neat way.

Now onto the two big things I didn't like about this series, the latter of which sinks it really really badly:

One: Caption Cancer. Maberry is one of those authors who I like on balance but who also often lapses into Talking Just To Talk. How many times does the navel-gazey running commentary in the above excerpts double back on itself, and how much is it actually saying- particularly when contrasted with the story told by the art and dialogue alone? Either he felt a need to fill the space (bad) or worse, he thought that these were some kind of deep and compelling rumination on the human condition. In general the balance of exposition to action in this thing were.... all over the place, not always integrated gracefully. The best sequences in the book are the ones where the captions just shut the fuck up so we can watch these people clobber each other. This is not a problem the original Marvel Zombies had- one thing I like about Kirkman is that he's usually a caption minimalist, letting the art and the dialogue do the heavy lifting. You don't get a page as quiet and decompressed as the following in the entire 12 issue run of Marvel Universe Vs.

Two: It's Racist. Like, really really racist. The comic continuously lapses into extremely racist imagery with the infected, using the visual language of "primitive savage tribes" with seemingly zero awareness of the real-life groups that those tropes were used to propagandize against and dehumanize. It's one thing to have zombies that take human body parts as trophies- that's kind of a cool motif- it's quite another to have a zombified Hulk who braids his hair in an obvious caricature of Native Americans, complete with feathers. What the fuck, Maberry!

Moreover it's a comically unforced error- everything compelling happens outside of that imagery, it's adding basically nothing but an attack surface to the premise. 28 days later did this basic premise without the racism, Left 4 Dead did this basic premise without the racism, The Crazies did this basic premise without the racism, Fucking Crossed did this basic premise without using the same racist visual language, at least until after Ennis left the book. Congratulations- you found a way to make the zombies more on-the-face racially insensitive than Garth Ennis. Round of Applause, everyone. This specific issue is why I don't think I've ever brought this book up in depth unprompted, it's genuinely really gross.

Anyway, those are my unified thoughts on the Marvel Universe Vs. trilogy, hope you enjoyed.

[negansbackdoorwhore]

Scrimmage

Summary: Negan coaches college ball for a small community college. One of his players however keeps up a little game that he is tired of playing

Warnings: swearing, age gap (early 20s reader, Negan is mid 40s), smut, p in v sex, daddy kink

Negans POV

There she goes again, purposely wearing those fucking short shorts. They hugged those thighs tights and made her ass pop. Fuck, what I’d do to her if she was mine for one night. But I can’t risk my fucking job over pussy. I try to ignore the way she sways her hips when walking past me and how she’s able to be a star during practice. There is no denying that most of these girls are crushing on me but Y/N just has to make her desires known in a more outlandish way. She was by no means shy about the attraction, sometimes I would slip up a flirty comment to amuse her game. But never actually go to touch her or anything stepping over that boundary.

Tonight was a scrimmage game to see how well we are prepared for the season. Along with to see what we need to practice on. As the game went on, a few students watched in the gym and I focus on different plays.

“C’mon girls! Defense, defense!” I call out and blow the whistle for a quick time out. They came over to the side line and gather in a circle.

“We’re doing great so far, but defense needs work. It doesn’t really work out well if we can’t keep the opposing team off our dick, right?” They laugh at my joke and nodded in agreement. I blew my whistle once more to set off the game again. Much improvement in our team and I shout out my criticism and let them finish out the last quarter as champs. We had a little get together after they showered up in the cafeteria. Apparently, there was a little froyo social, bullshit that college campus’s do. I snuck away as the girls started talking whatever girl language they do. Hopefully, they have fun tonight. I sigh and walk back to the gym to gather my stuff to go home. As I unlocked the gym door, I go to my office and flip the light switch.

“What are you doing here?” I sigh looking at Y/N on my desk, her legs are crossed. “Not much. Just waiting for you…Daddy.” I hissed as I heard that nickname and shook it off. I move pass her and grab my duffle bag.

“Get out of here and go to that gay froyo social.” I say making sure all my things are in my bag. I then heard movement around and hoping she left. But instead heard the locking of the door.

“Y/N. I’m telling you one more time, leave.” I say in a stern tone and remove my hat. I run my fingers through my hair as I turn off my computer.

“Am I not attractive?” The question made me turn my head towards her. “You are very attractive, Y/N.” I say throwing my bag on my shoulder.

“Am I not your type?” She keeps on asking and trying to trap me. “I don’t have a type.” I say trying to dismiss her. “Then what is it? I’m twenty one, so it’s legal and I’ve caught you staring at me numerous times…” She says reaching to touch me but I dodge the advance.

“This is inappropriate and you know it.” I say going to unlock the door and then heard her let out a dramatic sigh. “I see how it is. Coach Smith is just too scared.” I gripped the door handle tight, I knew exactly what she was trying to do. I just shook my head and unlocked the door to make my leave. “Fine. Run away like a coward.” I heard her say in a disappointed tone.

-

Another week passed and I was grading the last few exams. I hated graded these papers especially since I’m supposed to be hands on. But can’t be so lucky as the curriculum calls for state testing and at least a few tests to exercise their brains. I sigh feeling bored already and sip the coffee from my thermos. It was late evening as I got stuck here. I did however procrastinate my duties, I had a couple dates with a few faculty members. Unfortunately, they were boring and even worse no pussy either. I growl under my breath and felt it was too long since I’ve felt the warmth of a woman. Two long months and not getting my dick wet. I lean back in my office chair and ran a hand over my chin. As I took a break, I heard some noise outside of my office. It sounded like some stupid kids finding the empty gym to fuck. I would leave it alone but hearing some guy get lucky instead of me, just pisses me off. I go to stand up and open my door to see some frat boy with Y/N.

“Shit! You fucking lied to me!”

“Hey! I didn’t know he was still here.” She retaliated and I was fucking furious. For one, she was here with this idiot and the other thing was that she intended to let another person have her.

“That’s no way to speak to a lady. Now, I’ll give you two options. One, you can leave and I won’t do a fucking thing. Two, I’ll suspend you and fail your sorry ass.” I say looking at them both. I scowl at Y/N to make her feel how angry I was.

“Fine. I’m out of here.” He walked away quickly and Y/N was shooting daggers at me. “Thanks a lot! I was trying to have fun but I can’t get that when you’re around.” I shook my head and grabbed her wrist. “I’m so sick and tired of your ass. You need someone to fuck you? Fine, I’ll change your fucking life.”

She didn’t put up any physical protest or verbal as I lead us to my office. I could practically feel her excitement as I push further inside and lock the door.

“Get your ass on the desk.” I say removing my cap and see her immediately jump to my orders. I smile to myself seeing how happy she was, I was too. Finally get to feel that tight cunt on me along with her ass. I bit my lip and approach the desk. Her thighs opened for my body to fit and instantly my lips were on hers. I held her by the waist as I leaned down to deepen our kiss. Fuck, they were so soft and tasted like honey. I groan into her mouth and felt her hips buck. I grin against her lips as I felt her thighs going around my waist.

“Eager?” I teased her and grind against her, she let out a cute whimper to feel my semi erect cock. I bit my lip and moved to bite her neck. Her skin tasted just as good as I sucked a dark hickey on her bare neck. Want everyone to see that she’s owned by me. And me alone. I growl as I move lower and felt her body through the thin shirt.

“Fuck. Coach.”

“Not coach. Negan or Daddy, either one is fine as long as you scream it.” I heard her breath get heavy at the statement and took the opportunity to kneel down. Y/N looked down at me, all that cockiness she had was out the window. It turned me on even more, seeing her slick mouth shut and her actions were all shy. All because I have her trapped under my grasp. Her limbs were trembling as I had my head between her thighs. I bit my lip looking at her turn red.

“Someone getting cold feet?” I teased as I reach to tug away her shorts. She tensed instantly and almost pushed me away. I look up at her and stopped my hands from going further. I can read how nervous she was to do this and pecked my lips on her knee.

“It’s okay. Just relax baby, Daddy won’t hurt you.” I coo as I gently massage her calf. I move to stand up and moved my hand up from her leg toward her chin. I held her cheek gently in my hand as my thumb swept along her skin. She was still flushed and I saw how she wanted to hide from my gaze.

“And I thought you’d be more fiesty. Guess that was all bullshit, but don’t worry. I know how to treat a fine piece of ass.” I kiss her again but this time, softer and more attentive. She moaned against me and I reached my hand lower to touch the front of her shorts. Her thighs daring to close but I stop the resistance. “Be a good girl. Let me touch your pussy.” I purred and her muscles slowly untensed. I caressed her through her shorts and felt her hips buck.

“Mm baby. You like that?” I say pressing harder and kissing the mark I left. She only nodded and I bit down on that spot, making her let out a wince.

“Use your fucking words.” I warned. “Yes, I like it.” She whined feeling my hand go beneath the fabric. I felt the little damp spot on her panties making me growl. Fuck, I barely even touched her. I could feel the excitement in her body after making such a noise. I go by her ear and nibbled her earlobe as I growl again. She let out a moan this time as my finger teased her clit.

“Negan, it feels-“

“Oh yeah. Tell me baby, tell me how I feel.” Y/N moaned and went to hide her face in my chest. Her hands reached to grip onto my sweatshirt. I laughed lightly and shoved her panties away. I moaned at the warmth of her nectar hit my skin. I felt her erect clit practically twitch against my touch. Her body clings to me as I finger her dripping cunt. Her noises were muffled into the fabric of my sweatshirt and I kissed the top of her head. Her thighs dared to shut. Damn, she must be close.

“Don’t do that. Be a good girl and let me make you come.” I say against her ear and felt her pussy clenching on my fingers. “Daddy!” She squealed into my chest as I felt her come. I groan feeling her sweet juices coat my hand and brought her into another kiss. I groan and pulled away to take off my shirt. I heard Y/N catching her breath and guided her hand on the buldge of my sweatpants.

“It’s big…” She said in a shaky tone but I reassured her motions and pulled down the waistband. My cock sprung out almost hitting poor Y/N in the face. She visibly shook at the sight of me.

“Don’t worry about putting it in your mouth. We’ll do that another time, for now…” I take her hand and had her touch my shaft. Fuck, her skin was soft and warm. “Just play with it. Get a good feel for me, sweetheart.” Her palm gently went down my cock and back up. She was still shaking but it only made me twitch in her hand.

“Don’t be scared to get a little rough. Go on and give a firm squeeze.” I instructed and she obeyed immediately. I bit my lip feeling her slowly jerk me off. “Oh shit. That’s a good girl.” I praised and see her body language change, she must like that. I smirk to myself and go to stroke her hair. “You want to be my good girl, don’t you?” I asked and gently massaged her scalp. Y/N let out a light sigh at my attention and it encouraged her to go faster. I moan and starting to buck my hips against her. Her grip grew tighter as I felt her.

“Shit. This is making Daddy feel so fucking good.” I smile and brought my hand to lift up her chin up at me. Her eyes were full of desire and I wanted to fill that need. Along with her pussy.

“Behind? Or do you want to face me?”

“What?” She asked and I laughed lightly at her question and squeezed her chin. “How should I fuck you? Behind or do you want look at me?”

“Can I look at you?” She says in a hesitant tone and I gently push away her hand off my cock. I lean over her and kissed her lips as tugged for her shorts to come off. Her hips lifted up and I quickly toss them onto the floor. She shivered feeling the cool touch of my wooden desk as my hands brought her legs to my waist.

“Like this?” I ask knowing fully well how embarrassed she was having me doing this to her. Her cheeks were flushed and her thighs tensed. “Hold on to me, I want to feel you scratch my body as I make you all fucking mine.”

“Yes Daddy.” She whispered and I felt my cock turning to steel. Y/N’s arms go around my shoulders and I lean lower to guide my body to tease her wet slit. I groan at the feeling and heard her let out a moan. I bit my lip and eased the tip inside. She was already squeezing me and I go deeper watching her expression closely.

“Relax for me.” I whispered and stopped my movements feeling her clenching harder. Her nails scratched my shoulder and eventually her velvet walls relaxed.

“I’m sorry. I’ve never felt someone this big.” She winced gently moving her hips up making me moan. I took the opportunity to go all the way inside and moaned at how good she felt.

“Fuck. Tight little pussy on you, feels so fucking good on me.” I moan slowly moving my hips as she whimpered to feel me stretching her cunt. I reached my hand to hold her hip as I kept my thrusts slow to make sure she was adjusting to my size. I was really giving her the special treatment, might as well savor this. I lean closer to her face and kissed her softly. She moaned on my lips and I moved up for her legs to go onto my shoulders. She let out a surprised noise as her back landed onto the papers on the desk. I could careless about that shit right now.

“Oh Y/N.” I groan as I move inside of her as her cunt started overflowing with her sweet juices. Her hold grew tight on me as I started to pound her into the desk. I couldn’t hold myself back, it felt too fucking good.

“Fuck! Daddy!” She whined as my hips seem to have control over me. Well fuck, I think I might be in love with her cunt. “Good girl, letting me have you like this.” I groaned feeling her clench down on my cock.

I growled as those perfect manicured nails dug into my skin and I pumped my cum deep inside this perfect pussy. I moan and dug deep to hit that special spot and watched her mouth hung open. Her eyes shut and tears roll down her cheeks. Fucking fuck fuck fuck! This might’ve been a mistake….

[bradshawssugarbaby]

Girl, You're My Angel - Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

summary: Bradley Bradshaw's a down on his luck first baseman in the MLB, struggling to find his stride in the game he loves so much. A wedding invite from his ex-wife is enough to convince him to go for a drink, trying to forget about everything going on. He wasn't banking on meeting you though.

pairing: baseball!Bradley Bradshaw x reader (nicknamed Angel)

warnings/content: baseball au, mentions of divorce, smoking, alcohol, reference to drunk driving, bar fight, mentions of blood, Bradley having a dirty mind.

word count: 3k.

taglist (also tagging those who were interested in Take One For The Team since it's a similar vibe and explains the lack of updates lol): @avengersfan25, @jessicab1991, @atarmychick007, @b-bradshaw, @nouis-bum, @mamachasesmayhem, @floydsmuse, @kmc1989, @dckweed, @katfanfic, @nerdgirljen, @whatislovevavy, @mrsevans90, @averyhotchner, @yuckosworld, @tgmreader, @allepaula, @lourd-ita, @mariaenchanted

The booming bass drum of a classic rock song thumped in your head as you gripped the cocktail glass in your hand. The liquid sloshed around in the glass as you danced, swaying to and fro with your best friends, trying your best to enjoy yourself on your girls’ night out. Your finals had just wrapped up, and you were this much closer to earning your masters, the only thing standing between you and getting that embossed sheet of paper, was your grades. To unwind after the cram sessions you’d mustered your way through for the past month, your friends dragged you out to some new amusement bar in the Gaslamp Quarter. 

Across the bar, on the other side of the room, stood Bradley Bradshaw, a once promising baseball star who now, had earned himself a reputation as the MLB’s resident asshole - unable to take criticism or a loss without lashing out at someone. His recent stunt involved hurling his baseball bat across the diamond when he struck out in practice, frustrated with his sudden lack of skill, a skill that once came so naturally to him when his mind wasn’t preoccupied. 

The invitation had come in the mail two days before the bat throwing incident. His ex-wife, the one who left him two and a half years ago, was remarrying the fucking prick she cheated on Bradley with. The invite had come completely out of the blue, and when Bradley opened it, he felt all of the air leave his lungs as his fingers traced over the gold embossed lettering, donning her name and the name of her new fiancé. He’d never admit it to anyone, but that single piece of cardstock had been enough to reduce him to tears, slumping down the kitchen wall as he hugged his knees to his chest, crying loud enough that it made him thankful he had no neighbours near by.

Bradley had pulled himself together, lit a cigarette from the pack he’d been nursing for the last few months, reserved only for social events and times of pure stress, and got in his vintage Ford Bronco, his first purchase when he signed his first contract. Taking a drag from the cigarette, his brown eyes scanned over San Diego’s downtown core as he cruised past a few of the typical nightlife spots - each one a little too public for what he wanted. All other options exhausted, he pulled up outside of a newer bar that had opened the previous week, neon lights advertising an arcade on one side and drinks on the other. 

He figured if nothing else, a couple of rounds of Pac-Man on an old video game after a handful of beers might do him good. He could leave the Bronco parked there and walk to the hotel around the corner, and forget about how his ex-wife’s wedding was coming up in six months, how she’d had the audacity to invite him to see her marrying the guy he’d walked in on her with.  

He sidled up to the bar, nodding his head to the bartender in thanks as he ordered himself a beer. Standing across from him was a group of women, not much younger than him, gossiping and giggling together. He sized the group up, thinking to himself that maybe a one-night deal was what he needed to take his mind off his ex. 

You were the tallest girl of the group, with bright eyes, and hair brushed back in a sleek, high ponytail, sporting a form-fitting cocktail dress that made Bradley’s heart race when he saw you. He pounded back the rest of his beer, trying to find his confidence in himself once again in the comfort of the drink. 

Bradley set his empty bottle down on the bar top before walking his way around the circular counter. He rested his elbow on the bar, leaning in with a broad smile as you looked in his direction. He offered a polite wave of his hand, chuckling awkwardly as he felt his confidence wavering as he spoke to you. 

“Hey, could I buy you a drink? He said simply, his Virginian accent dropping into a thicker drawl than usual.

“I’m good, thanks, still got one,” You held up your half-full glass and shook your head politely, not wanting to reject him too brutally. 

Bradley nodded his head once at you, his smile faltering for a second. He quickly regained himself, smiling once again politely before grabbing himself another beer and heading over to the arcade, resolving that a couple of old-school video games might make his night a little better. 

It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to rejection - he’d been turned down almost as often as he’d been accepted, but for some reason, your rejection stung just that little bit more. Maybe it was the wedding invitation still making things sour, or maybe it was the fact that the mere sight of a girl hadn’t been enough to make his heart accelerate like this in a long time. He shook his head once, trying to focus his train of thought once again on something, anything other than what was currently occupying it. 

Baseball? Too stressful, his game was starting to slip up on him. Buying a puppy? No, it’d just be one more thing he could let down. Hitting the gym? He already went 6 days a week - if he went any more frequently, he’d have to consider moving his bed in there. 

His mind raced as he pressed the buttons on the video game, moving the small yellow circle across the screen, collecting points between sips of beer. Behind him, he heard a couple of guys shouting at a tv screen, the sound of the latest sports highlights blaring out in the background. 

“This Bradshaw asshole needs to get his shit together. Twenty-nine and he plays about as well as my ten year old. Drop him down to the minors or get rid of the bastard. He shouldn’t be missing plays like this.” One of the voices shouted at the tv, his friends nodding their heads in silent agreement with his rant.

Bradley felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention as the insults about his playing continued to spout from this guy’s mouth. He couldn’t have been much older than Bradley was, one of those armchair commentators who probably hadn’t swung a bat since Little League. As the criticism continued, each jab focused directly at Bradley’s game performance, missing one play that cost a game - one that he’d already been feeling pissed off about - it became harder to ignore. 

“I bet that hot little piece of ass wife of his left him because she knew he was a dogshit baseball player.” 

Bradley spun around on his heels so fast that he swore the room was spinning. He turned to face the group, crowded in a corner in front of the tv, faces all glued to the female commentator. Bradley could practically hear the derogatory thoughts they were having about her and it only fuelled his anger more. 

“Hey, man, if you’ve got an issue with how I play the game, I’d like to see you get off your ass and go play nine innings against Boston. Keep my ex-wife’s name out of your mouth.” Bradley scoffed, narrowing his dark brown eyes at the trio. 

“You got a problem, jackass?” The other man growled, raising an eyebrow at Bradley as he slammed his drink down on the table. “She probably left you for that rookie because even she knew you weren’t good for anything.”

“That so? Your wife would probably like to go a couple rounds with me though.” Bradley retorted, a devilish smirk forming on his face as he folded his muscular arms across his chest. 

Before Bradley had time to blink, the man drew back his arm and landed a hard punch to Bradley’s jaw. Bradley quickly delivered a stronger hit to the man’s face, watching him stumble backwards for a second. Bradley turned around and walked outside, getting ready to light another cigarette as he ran his hand over his jaw, assessing if he had any damage to worry about. 

The man returned, practically running outside after Bradley. More heated words were exchanged, insults flying between them both before the man delivered another hit, this time to Bradley’s nose. He shook his hand off and headed off down the street with his friends, disappearing off to the next bar. Bradley held his nose, blood dripping down from his nostrils and onto his hand. 

You and your friends had heard the commotion when it unfolded inside, and decided to head out, having enough excitement for one night. As you stepped out, you saw the man who’d hit on you earlier, this time with his nose bleeding onto the pavement under him. You ran over to him, raising an eyebrow.

“What did you do, hit on a girl who had a boyfriend?” You asked playfully as you rooted through your purse for something to help clean his nose.

“Called a guy out for saying my ex-wife was a “hot piece of ass”, actually,” Bradley nodded once, gratefully taking the tissues from you and using them to clean his nose. 

“Stick your hand out for a sec,” you instructed, squirting a dollop of scented hand sanitizer into his large palm before raising an eyebrow at him, “You don’t have anything I could catch from helping you without gloves?”

“What the hell is that suppose to mean?” Bradley scoffed, trying to laugh but wincing instead, “And why the fuck does my hand smell like a flower?”

“Lavender hand sanitizer. It’s not as good as washing your hands, but it’ll do while we’re outside. And I’m going to hold the tissues in place while you rub it into your hands, but I don’t want to catch something. I’m just fresh out of latex gloves.”

“Good thing. I’m allergic,” he laughed, shrugging his shoulders as he tried to brave through the pain, “I’m clean. You’re fine. I get drug tested and physicals through work constantly.” 

“What kind of a job provides those? Military?” 

“Professional athlete.” He nodded as you pinched the tissues to his nose, applying pressure to help with the bleeding. “Fuck, that hurts.”

“Your nose is broken, it’s suppose to hurt.”

“What are you, a doctor?”

“No, just wrote my finals for a masters in nursing.”

“Close enough,” Bradley nodded slightly, cringing as you continued to apply pressure to his nose.

You rooted through your purse, laughing softly as you pulled a tampon out of your bag. Bradley raised an eyebrow at you, not quite registering what the item was until you pulled the plastic wrapping off of it, stuffing the garbage back into your purse.

“What the fuck do you plan on doing with that?”

“I need to stick it up your nose on the left side. It’s bleeding more than I’d like to see, and a broken nose should probably be set in a medical setting. This way, you won’t bleed all over my car.”

“Your car? You’ve been drinking.”

“Half a vodka-cran over the span of three hours? I think I’m probably not gonna blow over the limit.”

“You are not sticking that up my nose,” he replied stubbornly, arms folding over his chest like a petulant child. 

“Look at your shirt,” you laughed, gesturing to the white floral print button down he was wearing, its collar now tinged with red and pink splotches. 

“Fine,” he said with a reluctant sigh, “but if anyone finds out about this, I’m denying it.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” you nodded as you offered him the plastic applicator. 

Bradley rolled his eyes and reluctantly pressed the bottom of the applicator, pushing the tampon into the edge of his nose. He looked at you with another dramatic eyeroll and shook his head before walking down the street to a garbage can. He discarded the applicator before turning to face you, sighing. 

“I can take myself to a hospital, you know.”

“I’m already here, I may as well come with you. Besides, I feel kinda bad about turning you down.”

“Oh, so you’re taking care of me out of pity?” He teased, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe. Even more so with a tampon hanging out of your nose.”

“It’s quite the fashion statement, isn’t it?” He laughed softly, unbuttoning his dress shirt. He shrugged the shirt off his shoulders, revealing a clean white t-shirt. 

You unlocked your car, the familiar beep as the doors unlocked causing Bradley to stifle a laugh.

“What is that?!” 

“My car,” you responded matter-of-factly, “What does it look like?”

“One of those cars for a Barbie doll that my goddaughter plays with,” he said as he flourished his hand, gesturing to your pink steering wheel cover and coordinating seat cover.

“Listen, I like pink. Now are you getting in, or do I have to make you?”

Bradley’s eyes widened for a moment, your playful threat of making him get into the car sending his mind into a frenzy again. He eyed you up and down again, and found himself shaking his head as he wondered what colour underwear you had on under your dress. He bet it was probably a coordinating pink set - the kind that Victoria’s Secret mannequins would model in the store window, with delicate little bows or lace or something adorning them. 

Focus, Bradley. She doesn’t want to sleep with you. Stop thinking about her.

He sat down in the passenger’s seat, watching as you hopped into the driver’s side. As you pulled away from the curb, he raised an eyebrow at your choice in music as Taylor Swift started blaring from the speaker.

“You can change it if you want to,” you nodded. “You can put on whatever.”

“No, no, It’s fine. I actually like this song.”

“You said you’re a professional athlete? What sport do you play?”

“Baseball,” he said, slowly nodding his head, “my headshot’s on a flag outside of Petco Park.”

“I thought I recognized you, you’re that player everyone always talks about, right?”

“Unfortunately. It’s rarely good things.”

“How come?”

Bradley sighed, raising an eyebrow, “You know they talk about me but not why?”

“I don’t follow baseball, I've actually never even seen a game, live or on tv. I just know my friend does and she told me everyone talks about you. Bradshaw, right? Number 10?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Bradley Bradshaw. First baseman, used to have a promising career, then, you know, wife cheats on me with a rookie from a rival team, catch her in a hotel room that I paid for with him, and then, despite me stupidly telling her I forgave her and you know what, I was pissed, but I loved her anyway and I blamed myself for her cheating, she served me divorce papers. Said I was incapable of loving anything but baseball. Says the woman who refused to do anything with me when I tried to be loving and affectionate. My friends swear she only married me for the status and the paycheck. Her new fiancé just signed a multi-million dollar contract that’s being talked about as one of the highest in the league, so it sort of checks out.” 

“Jeez,” you whistled, shaking your head, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It was two and half years ago. I just, I haven’t found my stride again yet, I guess.” 

“Is that why you got defensive about her?”

“They said she left me for this other guy because she knew I was a dogshit ball player. I mean, it’s probably not far off. But, I got an invite for her wedding in the mail today, and I was already on edge, so I sort of…snapped.”

“She invited you?!” 

“Yeah, like that, huh? She probably thought I have someone new I’m seeing and that we could still be friends or some shit.”

“So you need a date?”

“I’m not going,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “I’m not going.”

“Why not? Free drinks for a night, you can wish her well while secretly hoping her husband’s ball career washes out on him in a year or two.”

Bradley chuckled, shrugging his shoulders as he gestured his hand towards you, “I like your thinking actually, but I’m not going alone.”

“I’ll go with you,” you offered, shrugging your shoulders, “When is it?”

“In six months, you don’t need to come with me though. I’ll send her some cheap gift and call it a day.”

“No,” you insisted as you pulled into a parking space at the hospital’s urgent care clinic, “I’ll come with you. I love a good revenge story. Besides, it could be fun. I’ve never partied with a bunch of baseball players before.”

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

“You mean, you don’t have dozens of women offering you a tampon to stop your nosebleed, driving you to the hospital and then offering to accompany you to your ex-wife’s wedding date?” you challenged.

“Can’t say that I do, no.”

“Well, I’m honoured to be your first.” 

Bradley couldn’t help his ear to ear grin as he followed you into the hospital. Despite his bloodied, battered nose, which was hurting more than he cared to let on, and his fledging career, falling apart around him as he stood there, he felt genuinely excited. Excited to get to know you better. Excited to see where things went with you. He felt a promising sense in your words - like maybe, just maybe, he might be able to be done with one-night-stands and empty beds in the morning. He felt giddy, like a teenager going on a first date with his high school crush. He wasn’t sure if it was the pain from his nose or the alcohol talking, but he was almost convinced you were a guardian angel of sorts. Refusing to believe that someone like you could be anything but. 

First things first though, he needed to bring you to a baseball game. 

[magicshopaholic]

Thinking of You (Taehyung x OC)

Summary: Dilara has a nightmare.

Pairing: Taehyung x OC

Genre: Angst

Word count: 1.1 K

Rating: 18+

Warnings: mentions of war, blood

A/N: Short, but... well, not sweet. Probably not what you're expecting. Takes place almost two years after A Stormy Night.

Tagging: @bbl32, @quarter-life-crisis2, @margopinkerton, @faearchives, @whoisbts, @purpleseoul7, @kflixnet @jihopesjoint (if you want to be added to the taglist, lmk)

Listen to: "thinking of you" by katy perry

taehyung masterlist| main masterlist

Dilara wakes up in a cold sweat, her heart beating a mile a minute. The dream was vivid, like a 4D movie where she couldn't run out of the theatre. She closes her eyes again, snapping them open a moment later when the image behind her eyelids stay the same: a broken body, camouflaged comrades, smoke and patches of fire, and death. Everywhere.

She doesn’t know where the images came from; probably a combination of the handful of war movies she's seen her entire life. But the faces weren't from the movies. They were familiar; achingly, heartbreakingly familiar, enough that the thought of them once again makes her stomach churn painfully. A moment later, she stumbles out of her bed and runs to the bathroom where she falls to her knees and vomits into the toilet.

Her throat burns as she stays there for a few more seconds before slowly standing up, feeling unsteady. Reaching in the dark for her toothbrush, she brushes her teeth in the darkness as she waits for her heartbeat to go back to normal. It doesn’t, not really. Her feet don’t move towards the door either. Giving up without much of a fight, she slides down to the floor with her back against the door, all vestiges of sleep gone.

This nightmare was a new one. Dilara is prone to them in general, especially when she’s stressed. More often than not, they’re related to whatever she’s stressed about: a bad chemistry exam, getting rejected by Red Bull, crashing out and getting buried under the wreckage of her car. After the conversation she'd had with Kaya yesterday where the older girl had revealed how Namjoon was doing in the military, Dilara's thoughts had started wandering. That, coupled with what she'd overheard at the Red Bull office later in the day ("They're at war - it's nuclear now.") makes it clear what caused tonight's horrifying dream.

Of course, the "war" was figurative, referring to a Red Bull and Mercedes battle at a critical point of the season. But the direction her thoughts had gone in by default are more telling than the nightmare before she remembers that if North Korea had truly gone back on their ceasefire, it would be international news being broadcasted in every corner of the world.

Right now, she feels suffocated. She places her palms on the cold floor, trying to focus on the feel of the tile and cool her sweaty hands as she thinks of the only person in the world who can make her feel better, and her heart clenches. Kaya is lucky, she thinks, so lucky that she can contact her boyfriend whenever she wants and at least expect a response as soon as possible. Namjoon loves her, adores her, cherishes her; so much so that even halfway across the world from his girlfriend, stashed in the barracks of wherever he’s stationed, he would do everything in his power to reassure her of that fact, and that he’s safe.

Dilara herself could expect no such thing from Taehyung, though, especially since it’s now nearly two months since they last had any contact whatsoever. She tries not to think about that; it hurts too much. There were multiple messages she'd begun drafting, each a variation of the few things she desperately wanted to say. Are you okay? What's happening with you? Do you think about me at all?

But none of these are questions he wants to hear, much less answer. His monosyllabic responses, abrupt goodbyes and deliberate omission of his visit to Seoul had been enough to give her an idea of how he was dealing with their break-up and the last thing she wants to do is reopen old wounds at a time when fixing them would be near impossible.

Dilara drops her head on her knees, shoulders shaking with emotion. It isn’t the first time they’ve been apart. Being separated from him in another timezone was an unfortunate reality of a long distance relationship, common enough that she'd slowly and agonizingly gotten somewhat used to it. It was never ideal, but she could picture him at least: warming up in the dance studio, peering into the pot as his ramen cooked, swaying to an old Dave Brubeck number as he stepped out of the shower, hair wet and droplets glistening on his shoulders and back.

Now, there is nothing. He can’t share pictures, there are none online, and she hasn’t the faintest idea what South Korean military barracks even look like. She doesn’t know what he does on a daily basis, what branch he’s serving in, what he wears, what he eats, what his hair looks like, whether he's put on or lost weight, or how often he shaves his stubble. Everything is left to the imagination… and her imagination is a dangerous place to be in.

A sound interrupts her thoughts and she gasps, her heart jolting dangerously. Her first thought is gunshot, before it happens again, slightly louder this time but clearer. Someone is knocking on the door.

"Dilara?" A pause. "You okay, babe?"

Despite the genuine concern and sleepy affection in his voice, she cringes. It’s not the voice she wants to hear; in fact, for a few minutes there, she'd forgotten about him altogether. Kim Taehyung was taking up every thought, especially during the defenseless hours of sleep, and the image of him bloodied and broken was too much to bear. Swallowing a dry sob, she answers her boyfriend.

"Yeah." A breath. "Yeah, I'm fine. Be out in a minute."

Dilara can still hear him out there. She pictures him with difficulty; a frown under his black hair, grown long over the last few weeks, one hand in the pocket of his shorts, an old blue t-shirt. No, brown. She can’t remember. Eventually she hears his footsteps retreat softly and she exhales shakily.

She can’t stay here forever. There’s comfort in it, no doubt, but it’s lingering, fleeting. She climbs to her feet, swaying for a moment, before quietly turning the doorknob and silently treading back to her bed. Feeling for the curtains in the darkness, she slides them open halfway, letting the dim, silvery moonlight fall into the bedroom as she shuffles underneath her covers and curls onto her side.

From behind her, an arm appears to pull her close, a few of the tattoos around his wrist coming into focus in the light. Dilara hesitates, for it feels uncomfortably heavy, but then reaches up to hold his hand loosely, hoping it will ground her to reality.

He shifts slightly. “Everything okay?” he mumbles.

“Mhm.” She nods, parts of the dream already fading from memory. But not all. Never all.

“Jet lagged?” he asks, his voice a bit clearer this time. “Or ready to hit the gym already?”

That makes her chuckle half-heartedly. “Not for a couple hours at least.”

“Good.” He sighs and settles in more comfortably. “Night, Dilara.”

“Night, James.”

—

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to leave a review :)

[cyber-skeletons]

Omg Optimus finding out he was pregnant with Sam after not feeling well for a week and the mayhem that causes amongst his troops ( mainly Arcee and Wheeljakc having to be held back from kicking Megatron’s aft for their knocking up their commander bc they jumped to conclusions) and Megatron totally not trying to pass out form shock and then winds up scaring the pit of Knockout with the jubilant shouting from the warlord once the shock faded

"Optimus? What are you doing?"

Optimus froze and slowly turned towards Ratchet from where he'd been rifling through the medic's supplies. "...Searching," he said truthfully.

Ratchet arced a critical brow ridge. "For anything in particular?"

Optimus dropped his gaze, his finials sinking back. "...A carriage test."

Ratchet cycled his optics, then cycled them again. "Pardon?"

Optimus looked at his old friend pleadingly. "The increase in my core system temperature, the ache in my refineries, the way I've been purging every morning this past week... Ratchet, you know very well what this looks like."

"Sure, I know what it looks like, but I also know that sparklings don't just spontaneously manifest from nothing, and I know you, Optimus, you haven't interfaced with anyone for millions of years! It can't be a-" Ratchet froze at the look on Optimus's face. "Optimus..." he said slowly, "oh, Optimus, tell me you didn't."

Optimus stared dejectedly at the floor. "When Megatron held the peace summit last month, he invited me to his quarters, and we... Ratchet, there was highgrade-"

Ratchet immediately grabbed a wrench and hurled it to whistle past Optimus's helm. The Prime barely flinched.

"What are you, glitched?!" Ratchet shrieked. "That summit was a ploy to learn the location of our base, we knew it from the start, and what did he do at the end of it?! Said your terms were 'unacceptable' and TRIED TO KILL YOU!"

"Ratchet, please," Optimus tried, his voice breaking.

Ratchet rapidly collected himself and reset his vocalizer. "Right. Okay. I'm sorry. Eugh..." he groaned, dragging a servo down his faceplate. "Come on. A carriage test hasn't been available since Cybertron fell. I'll have to examine you."

Miko's voice suddenly sounded from the floor. "What's a carriage test?"

The two mechs whirled around to spot the human child in the doorway to the medical supply room, smiling innocently up at them.

"Miko..." Ratchet said gently, raising a servo as if he were in a hostage situation. "A carriage test is... a test... to determine if... a mech can transform into a carriage."

Miko tilted her head and scoffed, blowing her colorful bangs from her face. "But you guys can turn into cars and trucks and cool things like that! Besides, what use is a carriage without horses?"

"What is a horse?" Optimus asked.

Miko opened her mouth to answer with a bright smile, bouncing on her tip-toes, only to turn thoughtful and rub her chin. "What is a horse? We just don't know!"

Ratchet rolled his optics and drawled, "Yes, yes, very good, now run along, I have to examine Optimus for a very sensitive, private matter."

Miko snorted. "Yeah, whether or not he can turn into a buggy."

Optimus made a face. "I am not an insecticon."

"Wrong buggy, Prime."

"Shoo!" Ratchet barked, waving his servos, and Miko squealed and ran away with a giggle, leaving Ratchet to grab a medical scanner and herd Optimus to the Prime's private quarters.

Once Optimus was lying down on his berth, Ratchet swept the scanner over his abdomen to get a reading and then squinted at the results. He did it again, then again. He paled.

"Optimus," he said gingerly. "You're sparked."

Optimus laid there and stared up at the ceiling.

That was how he noticed Jack duck back away from the ceiling vent.

Optimus closed his optics and groaned, "Jack..." but the boy was already scrambling back towards the common area, creating frantic thumps in the ventilation system.

"I'll stop him," Ratchet said, determined, setting the scanner aside and marching towards the door, only for Optimus to catch his hand.

"Don't," Optimus said quietly, sitting up and setting his pedes on the floor. "I'll have to tell the team sooner or later. It may as well be now."

"Optimus, you have a right to-"

"It's fine," Optimus assured, standing up to his full great height, and Ratchet frowned, but made no further argument. "However, I must ask, old friend... will you stand at my side as I tell them?"

"Always," Ratchet swore, and with that the two mechs made their way to the common area.

"Optimus!" Arcee barked as soon as they came out of the hallway. The entire team was assembled around the children, including Wheeljack, looking shook to the core. "What is this? You're sparked? Can we afford this right now?"

"What Jack has told you is true," Optimus said gravely, coming to stand at parade rest in front of his soldiers and charges.

Rafael spoke up then, raising his hand. "What's 'sparked'? Is it bad?"

Bumblebee beeped at his human friend, and Raf balked.

Jack glanced worriedly between Raf and Optimus and asked, "What, what'd he say, what's wrong with Optimus?"

"He's uh... pregnant," Raf said slowly, looking perplexed.

Miko's jaw dropped. "Whoa, robots can get preggers? ...COOL!"

Wheeljack was the first to recover. "So who's the lucky bot?" he drawled with a forced smirk. "Is it Doc?"

Optimus and Ratchet shared a look. Ratchet immediately commed him, :Tell them it's me. They don't have to know.:

Optimus shook his helm and looked back at his team. He would not lie to his family. "No, it is not Ratchet. The sparkling's sire is none other than Megatron."

There was silence. Then:

"I'm going to kill him," Arcee snarled, curling her servos into fists and stalking towards the exit to the base. "I'm going to tear him apart!"

"I'll join you," Wheeljack said darkly, snapping his battlemask shut and transforming into his rally car alt-mode, roaring his engine.

"You will do no such thing," Optimus said sharply, quickly stepping between them and the exit. "Megatron and I's bonding was both consensual and enthusiastic."

Miko snorted and laughed, "Ewwwww!"

Jack furrowed his brow and held out his arms. "Optimus, how could you?"

Bumblebee beeped rapidly, and Raf translated, "What does this mean for the war?"

Optimus was getting overwhelmed, so Ratchet stepped in then, placing a gentle servo on his arm. Gathering strength from his friend, Optimus shot him a grateful look before turning to the others and intoning, "I will tell Megatron of this miracle that we have made, and hopefully awaken something in his spark other than hatred."

--

Knock Out was examining his claws when the Nemesis's communications array began ringing. When he saw it was from the Autobots, he groaned, "Ugh, fine," and stopped examining his claws long enough to answer the call. "You've reached Lord Megatron's line~ He's not inclined to waste time on Autobot filth at the moment, so how may I help you?"

Prime's system ID image stared at him disapprovingly from the holoscreen. "I have important news that I would prefer to give to Megatron personally. Is it possible to arrange a meeting on neutral ground?"

"What do I look like, his secretary?"

"I say again: I bear news that may alter the course of the war, and will certainly alter his functioning."

"Sure you do," Knock Out chuckled, finally letting his servo fall so he could seductively lean on the console. "And I'm the King of Velocitron."

"Are you saying you will not give me an audience with Megatron?"

"I'm saying you can shove it up your aft."

There was a weighted pause. "You would deny your Lord his sparkling?"

Knock Out's vents choked on air as he shrieked, "What?!" Bristling, he glowered at the holoscreen. "What evidence- I want proof! Our Lord would never lie with- Oh would you look at that," he said, tilting his helm at the still image of a second spark orbiting around the Prime's.

"I will not beg to see him," Prime continued, voice hard. "You may deliver this information yourself, if you so desire. This channel will remain open if he wishes to make contact afterwards. Goodbye."

And with that, Prime hung up.

Knock Out immediately scrambled to run through the hallways to find his Lord.

--

"Uh... Lord Megatron?" Knock Out prompted with a grimaced smile. "Nemesis to Lord Megatron, come in Lord Megatron."

Megatron just stood there, intake agape and flapping, his optics bulging as he stared at the second little spark cradled next to Prime's.

"Yoohoo~?"

"YEEESSSSSSSSS!" Megatron suddenly bellowed, whirling on Knock Out and picking him up, and Knock Out saw his entire life flash before his optics as his Lord spun him around and set him back down so he could pump his fists in the air. "YES! YES! YES! YES!"

Rattling with terror and swallowing repeatedly, Knock Out gave a shaky thumbs up before walking away to go bury his face in Breakdown's amazing bosom, hearing Lord Megatron practically skip through the ship behind him and off into the distance, bellowing, "I'M GOING TO BE A SIRE!"

[harringroveobsessed]

Prompt - Moon for @harringrovemicroficandart.

Billy had been here for hours now just watching as the blue faded fast giving way to vibrant oranges and dusky pinks until the only light illuminating the quarry came from the full moon. He stubbed out yet another cigarette as he lay back against the hood of the car allowing his mind to wander, nights like these always brought back memories of his mom. Billy snorted softly to himself pondering how even now he could recite every phase of the moon she ever taught him.

Billy always knew Maria Hargrove was different than the other kids Mom’s even from a young age. While his classmates would share weekend tales of being allowed to stay up past 10pm to watch movies, Billy spent his weekends holding hands with his Mom, rings on each of her fingers combing the streets by moonlight looking for treasures.

Treasures, Billy learned could be anything from a shard of beach glass in a pretty shade of turquoise, a delicate stemmed flower just waiting to be pressed and preserved or dainty little seashells that glimmered cheerfully when they catch the light.

Looking for treasures became such an important part of the time he spent with his Mom that even now, despite the ever present pang in his heart Billy finds himself scanning the floor of the quarry, absentmindedly looking for anything his Mom would declare special enough to keep with the small collection in his glovebox.

Maria Hargrove fancied herself something of a moon child, an astronomer tracking the cycles of the moon each month and teaching him constellations before he could even tell the time. She taught him how the moon turns the tides, how each moon phase lasts only around a week orbiting around the sun before moving and bringing with it a new meaning each time.

He can’t help the small hitch in his breath as he remembers standing in this exact spot almost two weeks earlier gazing up at the First Quarter Moon; the memory of his Mom’s melodic voice ghosting in his ear. “This phase is time for manifestation Bee, it gives you time to reassess, make adjustments in your life, remove what is in your way and move forward with determination”

He supposes she did just that back then; she made adjustments and moved forward without him.

It’s quiet up here at night, not many people bother with the drive once the temperature starts to drop but Billy likes the peace, the quiet crashing of the water below him and only the moon to cast her critical eye over him – he’d prefer the cosmos itself rather than his Dad. He’s sighs heavily about to crawl into his backseat and call it a night when he hears a car climbing up the hill; the sound of the approach he knows particularly well. Unlike the sound of his Dad’s truck, which growing up he came to memorise in order to expect oncoming pain, the tires currently crunching across the gravel ground bring him something else entirely.

“Drove by your house, you weren’t answering your walkie” Steve murmured over the sound of his door slipping closed, the sound of gravel crunching again as he moved towards the Camaro.

“Neil found it” Billy said, shoulders hunching self consciously “wanted to know why I had a stupid kids toy, had to pretend it was Max’s. She’s probably turned it off to be safe. Sorry.”

Billy didn’t even have to turn his head to feel big Bambi eyes full of worry burning a hole into the side of his face.

“Billy, are you hurt? Why didn’t you come to me, you know you can always come to me. I want you to come to me.” Steve said sounding almost pained.

Billy didn’t respond, feeling guilty yet not even sure what the hell for and continued to stare resolutely up at the full moon.

When Billy let the moment drag on without a response Steve huffed loudly pushing himself off the hood and bullied his way in between Billy’s legs. Leaning forward to place both of his hands softly on Billy’s knees, Steve ducked his head trying to catch Billy’s eyes with a concerned expression.

“What are you doing out here Blue?” Steve whispered. Billy took a breath and let it out slowly as he inclined his head to give Steve the eye contact he was striving for.

“’s a full moon is all pretty boy, I’m not hiding from you or anything I-I just… it’s nice out. Stars are out you know, reminds me of home and my Mom I guess”

Steve smiled softly and finally tore his eyes away from Billy’s and set his gaze up to the sky. Billy watched on intently as the reflection of the full moon shone bright in Steve’s hazel eyes; like the world itself knew that seeing the moon through Steve Harrington’s eyes was the only way to view it.

Billy felt his heart clench as he bit his lip and tipped forward to rest his forehead on his boyfriend’s chest.

Steve knew about his Mom and her draw to the cosmos, had pulled it out of Billy with weed and kisses when he found him up here the last time. Billy had expected him to scoff or laugh like the kids did when he was younger, but Steve surprised him, kissed him on the forehead, took his hand and asked Billy to show him the constellations.

Billy really should have learned by now to stop being surprised by Steve Harrington, half of the collection lovingly stored in his glovebox came from Steve. Pretty stones he found that shimmered in the sun, a blue gem Steve found he said reminded him of Billy’s eyes, a red rose from their first date.

Steve draws away for only a minute and returns with a blanket holding out his hand to Billy, they huddle together on the frozen ground of the quarry as Steve kisses his forehead just like last time.

“Tell me about the full moon Blue”

I'm sorry the word count got a way from me a little but this is the first thing I've written in YEARS and I hope someone enjoys it even a little. Apologies for any grammar mistakes, high school was a long time ago.

For @intothedysphoria and @dragonflylady77 who both have encouraged me once upon a time to pick up writing again!

[ch4nb4ng]

The Pompous Laywer

Pairing: Changbin x afab!reader

Genre: Enemies to lovers

Word count: 12.3k (jesus i know i always say i get carried away but this is the worst one to date)

Warning: 18+ fic, swearing, mentions of police and law, kissing, fingering, mentions of behind, breasts and nipples, penetration, mentions of erections, precum, switch (?) both people, no huge dynamics of any type, semi-public sex

Note: hey !!! I have binge watched the tv show The rookie and I'm obsseseed with it so I based this fic loosely off two of the characters on thw show. I will put a link here of the vibes of these chracters so you can get an idea of the vibe I was going for (here) and (here) . No visual inspo today it got deleted :(

Taglist: @seo--changbin @j-0ne25 @cb97whoree @kpopsstuffs

Summary: Tension was at an all time high between you, the very capable and well established police officer, and the arrogant, smug lawyer who was always in your way. That was, until he actually needed you for a favour, out of the precinct, and on his office.

It was a breezy day at police headquarters for the team. The holidays were over, meaning that crime rate was low, and mainly because today was an admin day for you; your least favorite. Stacks on top of stacks of finishing reports, filing said reports, making sure that it is impeccable shape. The last time you accidentally filed a case on August 21 instead of August 20, the captain gave it to you for days. 

****

That was years ago, during your rookie days. Now being a training officer, things were more fun. It was also easy to pick on the rookies that were assigned to you, feeling partly vindicated for what you had to experience during your own early days. However, without sounding too cliche, it also allowed them to become the best cops they could be, and it was fun to become friends with them, have them become your fellow colleagues and knowing that if you were in any high risk situation, they would have the training and rationality to have your back and do what is necessary.

***

Your eyes boggled as you sat at your desk, immediately noticing the way your fellow police officer, and best friend, Felix avoided eye contact when chucking the thick mound of paper onto the edge of your desk. The Sergeant was already out and about, checking and maintaining his authority by checking who was working and who was not. Sergeant Bang was not surprised to see you doing other things than what you were supposed to be doing; it was very obvious when you were staring at the large analog clock that was plastered on the wall, facing the opposite direction of your desk.

“How’s the paperwork going?”

“Pff,” you huffed, falling face first into the humongous pile, “Sergeant Bang, it’s a lot but I’ll get it done.”

“Good work y/n, I need at least half done by the end of the day, you need to take Hyunjin out on the street today, and you need to follow up on a house disturbance that occurred yesterday.”

“Yes sir.”

Your designated rookie, Hyunjin, was walking over to your desk, a large smile greeting his face as he took his seat next to you.

“Good morning Y/n, how are you today?”

“Can you not see the stack here? Get to work rookie, we need half of this done at midday so we can head back to that house we visited yesterday.”

“Got it,” Hyunjin replied, still smiling as he enthusiastically grabbed a quarter and clicked his pen, getting straight to it. You were lucky this year, taking on one of the rookies that was keen to listen, but also didn’t take it to heart when you criticized or made jokes. Most rookies understood that it was part of the process to earn your extra stripes.

Midday could not come fast enough. You were drowning in paperwork, and a coffee was definitely something you needed if your brain was not going to shut down. A large yawn fell from your lips as you rose from your chair, sluggishly making your way to the break room. The coffee pot had just been boiled, thank god, simply needing to just pour it in. Your arms moved slowly, sluggish movements following before a single drop touched your lips. Oh the feeling of sweet relief as the warm liquid ran down your throat, giving you enough energy to get back to your desk and into the swing of paperwork.

The pile descended bit by bit, but when the clock struck midday, a jolt of electricity sparked through your body as you nudged Hyunjin to get the tactical gear and prepare the shop. Felix was standing next to you, waiting for his own rookie to complete the same action.

“How is Hyunjin going?”

“Yeah good, kinda felt bad that he got stuck with my paperwork.”

A smirk came to Felix’s face, a playful punch coming into contact with your shoulder after.

“You made him do most of your own admin work? Damn, your harsh T.O y/l/n.”

A giggle came after Felix’s gentle criticism, “work hard play hard right? Got much on in the afternoon?”

“Not really, but we are only doing street patrol for a couple of hours today. Mr. Douchebag is coming in because I booked one of his clients yesterday.”

Fuck. When Felix said Mr. Douchebag, you knew exactly who he was talking about. Seo Changbin, the most scumbag defense attorney's known to mankind. Acted like he owned the place whenever he came into the precinct, treated sargents, captains, and police officers with little to zero respect. It’s people like him in the legal system that you simply did not want to make time for.

“For fucks sake,” you mumbled, “when is here not the fucking here?”

“Unfortunately,” Felix paused, covering his mouth to prevent anyone from hearing you gossip on the job, “and I hate to give him credit, but he somehow manages to represent every person in here, and most of them seem to get off. He’s trying to get me for unlawful captivity on the drug dealer we busted yesterday.”

“Pfft,” you scoffed, “of course he is. He-,”

Before you could continue, a sudden bubble of anger traveled across your fibers as you saw him walk into the precinct. Suited up, completely, that fucking brown leather briefcase he always carried. God. Even the way he held his chin up, facial expression showing nothing but arrogance because he knew that as soon as he saw you or Felix, he was going to be relentless. 

“God he’s such a douchebag.”

“Listen Y/n, I actually hate him, you on the other hand,” Felix paused, giving you an unimpressed look, “Try not to get your panties in a twist.”

“Dude,” you hit him, face heating up from his rather honest remark.

The two of you had a history. From the multiple times he got his clients to remain silent, released on bail when they should not have been. Having to testify as the officer on scene and he would do everything in his power to tear you down, make you look incompetent. Changbin was a menace, and if it was anybody else you would admire how smart and hard working someone like that was. But to do that, let’s just say you would rather get hit by a bus like Regina George. He always, for some reason that baffled you to try and work out, was always obsessed with proving you wrong. Felix’s ‘wrongdoings’ were ones he liked to point out too, but yours were tenfold. It’s like he thought that you should be fired not everytime you apparently did something against the law, but more specifically when it was something he didn’t like. Something that went against his own personal morals, and that’s what irritated you the most. The pompous lawyer only did what aligned with his morals and values, which to any normal person, would be the opposite of most. Every word that came out of his mouth gave you a headache.

But god, was he hot. There was always a tension, the strength of it based on how fiery the disagreements became,  that filled the room whenever a conversation (if you were putting your interactions nicely) was sparked between the two of you. It was easy for all the officers to see, and the amount of shit you copped for it was an understatement. Especially since you worked in a job where everyone’s observational skills were of high standard. Nonetheless, you would never let anything get in the way of your job, and that meant never mixing business with pleasure. I mean, not that you wanted to, because as soon as he opened his mouth, any feasible positive thought of attraction or whatever it was that made you feel drawn for him for a second flew out the window.

It didn’t take long for him to identify the two of you, a sly smile covering his lips as he strode over, expensive dress shoes, ones that he bought by most likely overcharging his clients ten fold to support his wannabe lavish lifestyle, clicked across the concrete floor and as soon as he was standing in front of you, his eyes gazed down then slowly back up, making sure to up his sleaziness by checking you out. If punching someone in the face wasn’t illegal, Seo Changbin would be knocked out cold.

“Officers.”

The two of you refused to look in the eye, the pompous lawyer very much undeserving of your respect, let alone your attention. He chuckled when he noticed, readjusting his suit in an attempt to gain control over whatever this interaction was.

“Long time no see,” you replied with the fakest smile, gritting your teeth in resistance.

“How fortunate,” he fake pouted, completely matching your energy, “I’m not here for you today, I’m here for him.”

Felix crossed his arms and stood strong to keep his high standard of authority with Changbin.

“My client hasn’t said a word in 48 hours, so you need to let him go.”

Your best friend rolled his eyes as he said nothing, allowing him to walk passed as headed over to the investigation room. You could tell straight away that Felix was flat, another defeat he had experienced at the hands of this ruthless, douchebag, absolutely cock of a lawyer. It got under your skin even more each time. Nonetheless, maintaining a high standard of professionalism meant having the communication skills required to result in efficient or necessary outcomes. You placed a hand on Felix’s gripped wrist, opening it up and hoping he would take a deep breath.

“Felix come on,” you whispered, easily able to feel the lawyer's eyes burning into the side of your head, “we’ll get him next time.”

He shrugged you off, heading back to his desk and engrossing himself in paperwork. You knew not to take it personally, seeing as his frustration wasn’t with you, but rather with how Changbin always seemed to have the upper hand on the two of you. 

**

Hyunjin was taking an awfully long time, especially since Changbin has already left the interrogation room, making a v line straight for you again. His stance was still cocky as hell, hanging up his phone call with the perfect timing so he could stand right in your face. His hair was parted on the side, bangs slicked back, exposing his forehead. His shoulders were wider than usual, arms bulging out of the jacket as his smirk sent a shiver down your spine. Fuck. 

You were lying if you said that he wasn’t attractive, objectively speaking of course. He always had some kind of smoothness about him, even if it was arrogant, on some days, maybe when you were feeling vulnerable or frustrated, he was always something to look at. Wearing clothes that were way too tight was clearly a staple, but it’s not like you were complaining. If anything, the cocky persona, sometimes, was a little arousing. But then as soon as he opened his mouth, all of that perceived charisma and attraction disappeared.

“God it feels good getting them out unscathed.”

“Find somewhere else to gloat Changbin,” you scoffed, eyes fixated in the way his tie arched across his chest, “I’m not the person who made the arrest.”

“Oh I know, it makes me sad,” he fake pouted once more, “I kind of wish you were the arresting officer, could have spent more time working together.”

There was a slight pang in your chest at his words. You knew that he was joking, his sarcasm was impossible to not notice. He took a step even closer, now in your personal space. He raked another peek up and down, another god evil smirk plastering his lips. His look definitely did not go unnoticed. You took no pleasure in cowering away from him, standing strong and face tough because you knew better than to give him any benefit of the doubt that he would turn around and treat you with any kind of decency.

“Yeah well I’m not and you should know better than to interact with me if there aren’t any pressing cases or charges that I am involved in.”

“Yeah I know, which is why I am talking to you.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, mind scrambling as you had quite literally no idea what on earth he could be talking about. There were no open cases of yours right now, and even if they were, it had been passed onto detectives as the severity of the cases were too much for an officer. 

“Yeah, you know your T.O? How he was arrested for drug trafficking in front of the whole office last month? Yeah, well it turns out he asked me to defend him.”

The case sent you into a frenzy. Your T.O was the backbone on how you became the cop you were today. They got you through the trials and tribulations. Seeing a lot of gruesome things on the job was hard to conceptualize at first, but they were the first to comfort and assure you that things would be okay. When it was announced, 3 days before public knowledge, it broke your heart. Made you question everything that you thought you knew about policing. Therefore, for Changbin to bring up not only the arrest, but the fact that he was defending him was a low blow, even for him.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Of course. Earning the cop money is fucking great.”

You could feel the heat under the uniform rising rapidly, the mixture of stress at the mention of the anxiety induced name was not a good combination when standing in front of a person you already wanted to punch in the face solely for their existence.  

“You shouldn’t be defending them.”

Changbin’s expression changed, the cocky arrogant facade of Changbin to one more serious, like he was offended by what you said. Here you go, accidentally offending his so-called morals and beliefs. Always more important to him than the actual law.

“And what gives you the right to tell me who I can and can’t defend?”

You rolled your eyes at his question. “Look, I know you like to defend the scum, but this is the lowest.”

“That’s why I did it. Cops are just the worst, and defending an ex cop is great to me, but let’s not get brash and cut straight to the chase. I need you for the case.”

The look on your face was priceless. The shock was real, and you were too busy processing his words to realize his hardness dropped, the arrogance disappearing when he saw the hurt pouring from your eyes. The atmosphere changed, and it was more of one where Changbin, shocking himself, felt guilt toward you.

“Like hell I’m defending that piece of shi-”

“Wait,” he interrupted, another expression, this one different, more like concern as he heard the slight strain of hurt in your vocals, “I feel bad asking, but they want you as a character witness.”

Your frustration was reaching a new point, boiling point coming up much sooner than you would have liked. A tear threatened to spill from your eyes as you quickly flicked it away, not wanting the pompous lawyer to see any form of vulnerability, to know he beat you. Every conversation with Changbin was a competition; sometimes you won, sometimes you lost. He placed a hand on your shoulder, wanting to comfort you in a way that wasn’t too personal and suspicious in a public place. However, for you this was personal, and anyone with half a brain cell knew that this would strike a very sensitive cord within you. The tension was thick, and it was a relief that you could see your rookie coming back over to break up whatever this moment was.

“Here,” Changbin took out his business card, “it has my phone number on it. If you agree to do it, we will have to have a meeting to go over things. You don’t have to, but they would greatly appreciate it.”

You said nothing, a light smile across your face as you let yourself fall into the dream that was Changbin’s gaze. You weren’t sure if it was the sudden calming, friendly demeanor and lack of goblin behavior that you didn't know he was capable of expressing, or the idea that the buttons on his shirt were getting tighter and tighter, the spaces between them getting bigger the longer he stood there. It was hard to form a word the more time you spent with him.

Hyunjin was back, finished loading the shop before you could continue your shit talking conversation. You coughed to adjust yourself, not wanting for Changbin or your rookie to see that he was under your skin.

“All ready boot?”

He nodded, a friendly smile as he followed you, grin disappearing as he noticed your vulnerable demeanor. Hyunjin stepped in front of you, feeling the need to protect you from him, and to close the already small space that the two of you were sharing. You pushed him aside, a weak smile on your lips as Changbin waited for you to answer.

“Let me think about it.”

He nodded, allowing you to leave and head to the car with Hyunjin. As you got into the passenger's seat your mind continued to race with two things. Partly your T.O, but mainly Changbin. 

It was the first time that you had seen an almost human side to him. You weren’t sure what to call it, but it was encasing your mind, taking over all conscious parts of your brain. It was almost impossible to believe that a lawyer, especially a defense lawyer, actually felt bad for asking someone to help him with a case.

“Are you okay?”

Hyunjin snapped you out of deep thought, looking at you while driving to analyze your facial expressions.

“Eyes on the road boot, and yes I’m fine.”

A silence fell over the car, the lack of criminal activity responsible for that.

“Is something going on between you and the lawyer?”

You gave him a look of disgust, finding this a completely inappropriate question to ask a superior officer. Even though it wasn’t a completely ridiculous question to ask, it was obvious to a third party that there was something better. But you knew better than to have your rookie have the upper hand on you, especially when it came to your personal life.

“Why are you running your mouth, boot? You know who he is right?”

“Yes, I,” Hyunjin hesitated, worried that you were upset with him, “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” you mumbled, adjusting yourself in the rather large seat. When it came to your personal life, especially when it wasn’t great it was easier to be this way. Cold, brash. It also seemed to be the way that Hyunjin learnt how to do things efficiently and easily.

“I’m sorry Y/n, I know I’m overstepping, but I saw the way he looked at you when your appearance changed. Like he really cared for you.”

“Hyunjin I swear to god,” you yelled, immediately getting defensive at his implication. Your tone was harsh, a prompt guilt coming over you as you continued to speak, correcting the tone of what and how you said it.

“He didn’t do anything that bad, and there’s nothing going on in between us.”

You paused again, looking around with the means of refusing any possible contact when talking about this sensitive subject.

“He asked me to testify in a case about my T.O.”

“The one that got arrested?”

“Yeah,” you mumbled, feeling small even talking about it, “wants me to be a character witness for him.”

“That’s so rough, I’m really sorry.”

“Eh it’s not your fault. Enough about me, let’s focus on the road.”

The afternoon of patrol was easy, but your mind floated every once in a while to everything that surrounded Changbin. Hyunjin’s perception, Changbin’s own humane side coming out to comfort you, if you could even call it that. Whatever it was, it was something that you could not get out of your mind. On the contrary, you would never let something as miniscule as a mee defense lawyer get in the way of your high quality police work.

***

Patrol was over too soon, greeted by a smile from Felix once more as you saw him getting out of his shop and walking over to you.

“How was patrol?”

He said nothing, directing his hand to his rookie with one of the biggest drug dealers in the area. Your jaw dropped when you saw this large 6’5 300 pound man in cuffs.

“How on earth did you manage that?”

“He was sleeping,” Felix smirked, “had no idea we were coming. God some criminals are so dumb.”

“Nice work boot,” you nodded, helping him carry the man to be processed.

The processing was the easiest part. Finger prints, photos, and paperwork assessing the individual. Making sure they had no weapons on them; catching the cops was the hardest part. Processing and putting them in a holding cell was the most relaxing part of the job. Even the paperwork was more stressful. 

The guy was being put in his cell, but it wasn't a rude surprise when you saw the man who was on your mind all day show up. He was bolting straight for the cops holding the perp, an agenda in his eyes as your irritation rose, knowing exactly what he was going to do.

“Woah Changbin,” you stepped in, standing between the struggling perp and Changbin, “what are you doing?”

“You need to let go of him, he is being unlawfully detained.”

“And how would you know that?”

“Because my client is under the influence, he does not understand his rights and you cannot keep him.”

Your eyebrows furrowed at his statement. He was dead serious, and there was no way you would stop this guy from being detained. He was well known for a while, and you weren’t going to let Changbin’s antics get in the way of this.

“This man is not showing any substances in his system, he needs to be processed.”

“And like I just said, he doesn’t understand his rights so uncuff him and let him go.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because I was across the street after visiting another client and I saw them put him in the car. He barely said yes when asked if he understood.”

“Okay but he said yes so what’s the problem?”

“Do I have to repeat myself? You’re also using unlawful force on my client.”

“Unlawful force?” you scoffed, “the guy is over 300 pounds.”

The responses were back and forth, way too quickly to react and way too difficult for someone to step in and diffuse the situation. Tempers were running high, and the longer the argument went on, the louder your voices became. Any leniency that you felt prior towards the pompous lawyer was diminished in an instant. Another officer stepped in, attempting to continue to put this man in the holding cell.

“It doesn’t matter, you need to let him out or I will report this as unlawful and you will lose your job immediately.”

“Are you serious? I-”

“What is this ruckus?”

The two of your heads snapped simultaneously once you heard the Sargeants voice.

“We are trying to detain a perp but ‘Mr. fancy pants’ here is obstructing us from doing so.”

“With all do respect sir this is an unlawful arrest I-”

Sargent Bang took another step forward, putting a hand in front to stop Changbin from talking. Due to the significant height difference, the lawyer backed down, clearly intimidated by Chan's demeanor.

“Mr. Seo, do I come to your office and tell you how to argue in court?”

“No,” he replied, an obvious defeat in his tone, “I don’t.”

“Then you need to get the hell out of my officer's face and you can make a claim in my office.”

The lawyer nodded, no words needed to be said as he followed the Sergeant upstairs and you lost your view of him. The beads of sweat were scattered across Felix’s forehead, a huge sigh of relief as he swiped a hand across, happy to have got him in the cell.

“Nice arrest,” you smirked.

“Yeah. Thanks for that.” He smiled back. But you knew better. There was a second look in his eyes, one that had an underlying meaning, another implication if you will, “I wouldn’t have been able to complete it if it wasn’t for you practically barking at him.”

You laughed, hard at his statement.

“That’s not true, and I feel like you need to spit out what you’re thinking.”

A sarcastic look of shock appeared on Felix’s face.

“Me?” he questioned, placing a hand on his chest in surprise shock, “when do I have something ever to say?”

“Spit it out.”

“Fine,” he chuckled, “you held your own, don't get me wrong. It’s just, I can’t help but feel like there’s some tension between you.”

“Tension?”

At first you were confused. Obviously there was tension, the two of you were yelling at each other for five minutes. You were pissed. How dare he try to embarass you in front of your fellow officers. Accuse you of malpractice. You would never do the same in front of his colleagues. It wasn't until you realized what the smolder behind his lips really meant, and it shook you to your core.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“What,” Felix shrugged, mumbling under his breath, “it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it.”

You shook your head, the thought sending you into a head spin. He couldn’t be right. You repulsed the man, despised him on every level. 

Why was your head going straight to this morning, and the interaction before that, and the interaction before that. You had to walk away, space out in your office chair and involuntarily re-analyse every single conversation you had with this damn lawyer. God it was frustrating. Why was he playing so much in your mind? A man of such vulgar and despicable actions was clouding your judgment. It was impossible to do paperwork, concentrate on anything anyone had said. The thought of him, his face, hair, blazer jacket, shirt. That fucking white shirt. Your memory automatically scrolls to that one time the top button was undone. The way his jawline clenched when he took serious phone calls in the precinct. The way he was able to swoon other police officers into getting the information he needed. There was no reason for this, but it was becoming significant that all it took for you to spiral about the pompous lawyer was a gentle nudge in the direction from Felix.

“Hey.”

The voice, the last, yet first, person you actually wanted to even fix your eyes on was talking to you right now. This had to be a joke. It almost made you chuckle at the way he was standing over you at your desk; he probably loved it. Doing anything and everything he could to bring the worst out of you. And if he wasn’t going to apologize right now, he was going to do exactly that. His hand crept into your vision, veiny dorsal hands as his frame got closer and closer, hoping that you would acknowledge his presence, and not the other way round. You could see the look of Felix pretending to gasp at the lack of space between your bodies from the corner of your eye, leaving you even more reluctant to one, fuel your best friend and any other officers point, and two, actually converse with him.

“What do you want, Changbin?”

Your tone sounded very unenthusiastic, mouth, or throat, not having the energy to entertain the nonsense that was about to spew out of his mouth.

“I need an answer about testifying, for the other trial.”

“When do you need the answer?”

“Today at the end of shift.”

“Well then you’ll get my answer then.”

He moved away, running a frustrated hand through his hair at your stubbornness and unwillingness to cooperate. 

“Can’t you just give me an answer now?”

“Hmm,” you stood up, clasping your finger upon your chin, looking ‘very’ deep in thought, after the way he just treated you, attempting to embarrass you, it wasn’t really in your mind to treat him with any care, “I just don’t feel like giving you an answer right now.” 

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“My problem?” you raised your voice, smacking your hand down on the desk, causing the surrounding officers and personnel to stare straight on.

“What the fuck is my problem,” you took a step closer, aiming to get into the lawyers face, “You have the problem, not me.”

The bickering was at an all time high today. This was normal. Changbin used to find at least one officer to argue with, but the intensity of your heated discussions with him were always ten fold in comparison. Voices were always raised to a peak, fingers gripped in fists, it was practically a show for the precinct, and the officers looked every time; sometimes they were sad because the only thing missing was their popcorn. 

The tension in this moment was high, but nothing you didn’t experience every single time this douchebag flashed his face in your place of work. Your eyes widened when you saw Sargent Bang standing behind Changbin from a distance, teeth gritted to end the conversation now, or there would be consequences for your actions. You gripped Changbin’s arm, dragging him around the corner, in front of the low-level weaponry kit room. The only people that walked past that part of the precinct in the middle of the day were police chiefs, and their visit was once a month; today was not that day.

“This is unlawful force on a civilian-”

“Shut up,” you interrupted, whispering as you finally let him go once you were out of frame from the others, “I don't want to make more of a scene and you are not going to be the reason I get fired.”

He scoffed at your remark, finding a sarcastic humor in it. He adjusted his suit jacket once more, patting down his suit and making sure he looked perfect as always. A single strand was out of place across his forehead, and you couldn’t lie, it was pretty adorable. Seeing him out of place in the slightest was like goosebumps on your skin. 

“Well it wouldn’t be a problem if you just answered my question.”

The shrug he gave made you want to kick him in the knees. Hands on your hips, you stood there, waiting for him to actually pay attention to what you had to say.

“Look,” he whispered, facial expression of friendlessness back, “I know this must be hard for you.”

He paused, wanting to sense your reaction. Your muscles related to posture softened, eyes avoiding his gaze, yet feeling the need to guard yourself suddenly unnecessary. Conversing with Changbin was like having a concussion, sometimes painful, sometimes blissful, but you couldn’t lie and stay in denial that there was meaning behind this. A gravitational pull that rushed your towards him, and the gentle moments where showed his non-demonic angle was poking out and taunting you made the force greater each time. The sprinkles of generosity he showcased were something that you ate up everytime, and you hated it.

“It’s not that I don’t want to testify, because knowing you, I will be subpoenaed into doing it anyway.”

“No,” he interrupted himself with a laugh, “wait yeah actually I probably would.”

“Yeah that would piss me off, but I understand you would be doing your job. I guess I am somewhat appreciative that you gave me a heads up on it.”

He nodded, taking your mumbled graciousness as a win. 

“What do you need me to do?”

He said nothing at first, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the small card with his business, name, phone number and address to said business on it.

“Are you busy tonight after work?”

You followed through, fingers accidentally brushing fingertips with him when accepting the card. The two of you ignored the pull acting up once more. For some reason it felt better to not point it out. You shook your head in response, a small smile filling his lips as he was happy that he didn’t have to fight to get an answer he wanted.

“Great, swing past when you’re done here and we can move forward in your portion of the case.”

No reply was needed as he walked in a separate direction from yours, brain spinning once more as you sat down at your desk. It didn’t take long for your best friend to creep up on you and your rookie’s shared desk. An unwipeable smirk plastered his face as the two of them planned to gang up on you. Unfortunately for them, their plan was spotted from a mile away.

“I don’t want to hear it,” you smoldered, raising a hand to both of their faces in an attempt to silence them.

“I’m not saying anything,” Felix fanned himself as he spoke, “but the tension is hot hot hot.”

“Yeah I could feel it from-”

“Hyunjin, if you say one more word that contributes to this conversation I will write you up. Don’t forget I do daily evaluations on you.”

Hyunjin shrank back into his seat, a small ‘yes ma'am’ before he was back to focusing on his paperwork.

“He’s so into you it’s crazy.”

A small energy of satisfaction sparked through your body at his words. It had to be a joke. Why was a small part of you excited if that was the case?

“He’s not into me,” you brushed off, a smile threatening to spill across your face, “I have to testify as a character witness in the trial for my T.O”

“He’s representing them?”

“A check is a check, and I hate to admit it, but Changbin is one of the best criminal defense lawyers in this country.”

You got up, checking your watch and realizing that there wasn’t long until you had to head over. Yes it was a bit early, but what was the harm in going home, showering, fixing your hair, putting on some makeup and getting out of uniform?

“Hey,” Felix yelled, grabbing you by the arm to stop you from leaving for the day, “where are you going?”

“I’m going to Changbin’s office to get this over and done with. Don’t say anything, I’m just going to prepare for court and that’s it.”

“Mhm,” he nodded, not knowing it was possible for an action to be so sarcastic, “I’m sure it is.”

A frustrated scoff left your lips as you continued to go to the door. Felix was wrong, and you were determined to prove that his implications were false and just simply not the case at all. But not even you could convince yourself that Felix is wrong. Part of you didnt want him to be wrong, but the other part of you just wanted this to be in your past, and getting over and done with seemed like the first step in doing so.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“That isn’t much!”

**

You took a deep breath as your car parked. One more look at your appearance in the rearview mirror and you were good to go. You kept your outfit simple, jeans and a thin white long sleeve shirt with a small black leather jacket to accompany and counter the recent cold weather. Your hair was down, natural. The intention behind it was that it was a change. A calming nature and contrast to what he usually saw when at the precinct. The normal was hair slicked back in a bun as it was protocol to make sure all hair was out of your face, definitely not wanting your hair to obstruct any view while in pursuit.

The door was large, revolving, leaving you almost caught in between. The area was spacious, impressive, and looked like a big firm. You knew the other lawyers there, but not well enough to know by name. None of them were as much of a hassle as Changbin was. The guy at the reception looked concentrated yet approachable, giving you no trouble as his attention turned to you once your approach at the desk was certain.

“Hi, how are you today?”

“I’m great thanks,” you smiled, a sudden streak of nerves enticing your body, “I’m here for an appointment with Mr. Seo.”

It took a few clicks on his computer before he realized who you were.

“Ah, you must be officer Y/l/n. You really do a number on lawyer Seo hey?”

Your eyebrows furrowed in a polite way, “I do?”

“Every time he comes back from the station, and he’s spoken to you, it’s all he talks about.”

“And I’m going to fire you for saying false information like that.”

Your head snapped at his voice, smooth as honey, and fake, when talking to the receptionist. He shrugged, chuckling because he knew that Changbin had been completely caught; but he was too swift, and stubborn, to admit that it was true. His eyes, as per usual, were fixated up and down, moving back and forth as they glued to your figure, an extra second spent too long before he made eye contact with you. Changbin put a hand out, in invitation to lead you down the rather long hallway to his office. The room was nice. Marble desk, swirly chair, off white walls; if you ever had your own office, you would want it to look exactly like this. 

Changbin closed the door behind you, showing you to your chair as he stood behind it, patiently waiting for you to sit down. He lingered behind, thumbs grazing the clothed skin of your shoulder as he looked down over your head while taking your jacket off and pacing it behind your chair, easy access to your chest. You rolled your eyes; perv. His proximity made you nervous, and you didn’t know why, but that familiar gravitational pull was something you very much liked to deny from a cognitive perspective.

“So Ms. y/l/n, y/n, can I call you that?”

“Sure,” you replied sarcastically, looking down at your fingers, fidgeting as you became more restless the longer he took to reply, forcing the two of you to sit in silence. God this was uncomfortable. Why was he dragging this out? Every second was torture for you. This was supposed to be one and done. Go to court and never have to work with this prick or to never see your T.O again. If anything it was making you angry. He knew that this was painful for you, yet he refused to move ahead.

“Can we start?”

“Yes of course,” he nodded, maintaining a serious facial expression as he opened up his notebook on his desk, “do you have any questions before we start?”

“How long is this going to take?”

“As long as necessary.”

He paused, again, seeming to be for dramatic effect, “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No,” you gulped, the sound of his pen clicking immediately making you anxious, “of course not.”

Your replies to the next few questions were short, but not abnormal as they were very closed ended questions. Changbin fixed his posture every few seconds, forearms flexing through his shirt while writing down his notes. It was somewhat frustrating that you had to multitask on so many things at once. His questions, making sure you were giving correct information. The way he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows to free up his caged arms. The veins. His lips. The deep voice coming out. Recalling events. To say you were getting overwhelmed was an understatement. He noticed your change in demeanor as soon as he freed himself, and for once in naivety, the emotion he felt was concern. He put the pen down, noticing that you needed a break from the lack of eye contact you were giving him. Although he hated your guts for most of the time, he didn’t want you to perceive him as a monster. It was sensitive stuff; everyone has a special relationship with a T.O. They show you the rope of everything, and they are there for you after intense crime scenes. The partnership was sensitive, and for it to blow up in your face was a shock to the system. He knew better than to rub salt in the seeping wound.

“We can take a break if you want. Can I get you anything?”

Your head snapped back up, a fake smile plastered on your face in an attempt to be polite and hide the discomfort that was going over the case with a comb, as well as the shock from his failure to make fun of you for once.

“Water and a break would be great.”

Changbin nodded, getting up from his seat and walking over to the water cooler in his office. Neat, but definitely obnoxious and just a ruse to show off how much money he made. And to think you were giving him the benefit of the doubt. Your impatience, and frustration was growing with each moment. Placing the water cup in front of you, he resumed his seat, taking a nice long sip of his cool refreshment.

“Right, where were we?”

His eyebrows furrowed, a sign of concentration as he thought about his next line of questioning.

“How many more things do we need to go over?”

He smirked, “already keen to get out of here?”

“Well,” you scoffed, “it’s kind of something that I want to get over and done with.”

His jaw clenched, “well it’s not that simple.”

“Yeah I know that I-”

“I don’t think you do. See, it’s my duty to give him the best possible case as he is paying me big bucks to get him the best outcome possible.”

“Yeah we know how much you love money,” you mumbled under your breath.

“What was that?”

“No nothing,” you shook your head vigorously, “well no not nothing. I just said we know how much you love money, you can’t help but always flaunt it at the station.”

He chuckled at your sarcastic yet honest response.

“Let’s just continue so we can get this over with.”

A pit of relief panged in your chest at his words, Changbin now finally has the same mentality as you. His phone rang, but he denied, quickly, shocking you in disbelief. He noticed your change in appearance, unsure why you reacted the way you did.

“What’s that look?”

“No nothing, you just, I’ve never seen you decline a phone call before.”

He smirked, nothing else.

“What can I say? You’re a special client.”

“I am?”

He immediately regretted the implications of those words. He really should have thought before he spoke, because the sentiment went straight to your head. Your ears felt hot, and suddenly the gravitational pull was very much noticeable again. You shifted in your seat, leaning forward; why not have some fun with it? Maybe it would ease the uncomfort you were experiencing. The white top you wore was low cut, something that you failed to mention, and remember, but sparked your memory once Changbin’s eyes dropped immediately. All you were doing was leaning forward, grabbing your cup, and sloppily drinking, a few droplets ‘accidentally’ falling onto your shirt. The white material helped you push your rebellion across, which ultimately did the complete opposite for him. He was now the one shifting in his seat, comfort somewhat observable as it was his turn to avoid your gaze.

“Ok so were you part of the drug trafficking ring?”

The smug expression on your face dropped instantly.

“Obviously not.”

“Well how is it obvious?”

“Through the evidence?”

“The evidence,” he paused, smug in his own arrogance, “is not in your favor. You know he has tried to pin a lot of it on you, right?”

His words triggered something in you; something ugly. You got up out of your seat, walking around and standing over him. How dare he say that? Even if he was just saying it to get your reaction, it was, for you, crossing the line.

“That’s why I’m not the one who got arrested. What are you trying to imply?”

He turned in his chair, legs spread open in the biggest manspread known to man as he continued to smirk. Fuck, you should be mad. You should be fuming at his accusations, smugness, cockiness. What was he trying to imply? Changbin tricked you into thinking that you would be a character witness. Silly you for thinking he actually was capable of caring for you, making sure you didn't get thrown under the bus when persecuted.

“Nothing?,” he scoffed, feigning ignorance laced in his tone, “What’s your problem?”

Your laugh was loud, indicating that your frustration had reached its boiling point. That fucking question again.

 “My problem? What is yours? You walk into the precinct, act like you know everything and treat the officers with little to no respect, then you obstruct a detainment? What makes you think you are so entitled that you can just talk to everyone the way you want? And to top it off, you want to switch the charges and pin me, a rookie at the time, for the crimes committed?”

Your breath was raised high, out of breath from the absolute serving Seo Changbin just got from you. A huge weight lifted off of your chest, finally getting what had been lying on your chest for years off of it. He got up and walked around his desk and stood in front of you, very much in your personal space; with an unimpressed look to say the least. How dare you question his practice, his ability to prosecute and defend as a lawyer. It was, in his eyes, this most abhorrent thing a person could do, especially an authority figure of similar position. You were, however, too stubborn to back down, chest puffed and fists pumped up, nails digging into your palms to prevent yourself from doing something you would regret.

“You think you know me so well huh?”

“I think I do.”

“If you did then you would know I’m not trying to get you convicted. I’m doing the opposite?”

Yeah right.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Of course I don’t want you to be a part of this, I want you to be as far away.”

“Why would you say something like that then? Accusine me? Do you just never think before you speak?”

The pompous lawyer didn’t answer straight away. The continuous cycle of confusion, anger, lust on repeat was sending you into a headspin. You couldn't keep up, but at the time, you were beginning to find the root of the reason you felt that cursed gravitational pull towards the man in front of you. As soon as his voice softened, so did you. Digits by your sides as opposed to dug in your palms, shoulders relaxed. Changbin was also standing very close to you. It was the first time you truly were able to take in his features. Thick, slicked up hair, tiny strands that had obviously been styled in a certain way that trickled over his forehead. The textureless surface area of his skin, the darkness of his eyes, you could have sworn his pupils were dilated, the color becoming darker and darker the longer he looked at you. His lips were in a whole different ball game. Very pink, very big, the hyperfixation was instant. Your eyes flicked between his lips and his own gaze, leaving you completely unsure where to look. 

“I,” he sighed, pausing before making sure what he said came out the right way, “I don’t want you to get hurt. Fuck,” he paused again covering his face with his hands for a brief moment before standing even closer to you, “I want to make sure you’re okay and you don’t get caught in the crossfire.”

The atmosphere of the room had suddenly changed again, and now, you could not keep your eyes off of the pompous lawyer. He was pulling you in this time, hard, but contrary to the other times you experienced a similar sensation, you were finding it really difficult to find a way out.

“So rather than criticizing me, help me. Help me get through this how you would if you were me.”

The telekinesis was impactful, and no scientific theory or rationale could explain what followed, because the next thing you remembered was Changbin’s grip on your hips, pushing you forcefully to sit on the edge of his desk as he leaned forward and crashed his lips against yours. The energy was magnetic, and the normal part of you was saying what is happening right now, you should pull away, and you had the thought to do so.

But it’s merely a thought that flies into your consciousness then back into the unconsciousness. His lips felt too good, hands now gripping your face as his tongue entered your mouth. The kiss was slow, the intention to envelop him, take in as much as possible. His movements were delicate, yet simultaneously precise as his hands traveled to your behind, grabbing as much ass as possible, breaking away before whispering a quick ‘wrap your legs around me’ and lifting you up, pinning you against the back of his office door. It did slip in your mind for a brief moment that you were in a public setting and not the luxury of your home. It was just that however, like the others, a passing thought as his hips pinned you against the wooden frame, fingertips soothingly soaring against the sides of your torso as he lips left your own, littering across your jaw, up to your ear lobe, a thick stripe of the pomppus lawyer’s DNA coating the skin from the base of your neck to the tip of your ear lobe. There was nothing organized about the movements that occurred, partly because the navigation was unclear and he wasn’t a usual partner. But the main rationale was the increasing desperation that filled the tiny, gaping air that was closed each moment your lips moved in unison. As soon as his hands gripped your body, traveling down your sides and back to your ass; god he loved your ass. 

Whether he would admit it or not, his mind went crazy everytime you walked away from him, mad or not. Conversation or no interaction at all. Changbin always wanted to see it, feel it, the texture of how the skin would feel in his hands, clothed or unclothed; he didn’t give a fuck. Changbin was grateful if there was any time in his life that he would get to experience it, and it was blowing his mind that it was happening. But, in the grace of it all, he was too stubborn, as per usual, to show that he wasn’t freaking out that this was actually happening. He wanted to be cool in front of you. He would rather get hit by a bus than admit that the feelings he had for you were something that were there every time he laid his eyes on you.

You could feel the subtle hard on across your groin, a gentle gasp escaping your lips and falling into his mouth as he acknowledged your reaction, gently grinding his hips against you, the friction only making your hornier as he pulled away, your hands leaching onto the buckle of his pants, the desperation clouding your efficacy to take it off in one swift motion. Changbin chuckled as he pulled away, unable to smirk as he was too desperate to worry about the lack of skill. His pants were off, and now it was your turn for a piece of clothing to be removed; and he wasn’t swift either. 

Fuck buttons and belts, buckles, zippers, anything that was put on clothes which, for you to in this moment, seemed to only be put onto clothing to makes things more difficult. Changbin was able to undo the zipper and button on your jeans, helping the thick material pool at your ankles before he dropped to his knees for a brief moment to lift your ankles to help you discard them completely. Both pairs of bottoms were in a pile on the floor mixed together, maybe a metaphor for what was about to happen. Changbin’s jacket was easy to take off, and he cared too little to be meticulous with a basic white dress shirt, biceps bugling barely as he effortlessly ripped his shirt, the noise of the buttons hitting the hard surfaces of the office, leaving him in nothing but his boxers. His chest was heavy, pecs already 4 dimensional on his chest but Changbin needed no time as he was just too fucking hungry for you. Yearning, lusting, you name it. Changbin being out of breath was such a barrier to pick you up again, your back now lying against the contrasting cool surface of the marble desk as he hovered over you, another sensual kiss against your lips as his trails extended. 

“Fuck,” he growled, primal like, “you have too many fucking clothes on.”

An annoyed sigh left your lips, “well that’s not my fault is it.”

He ignored your attitude. Changbin wanted to just rip it off, but he knew better than to let you leave with the clothing you did not come in with. His hands were now swift, wanting to focus on nothing else but your naked body. Changbin bit down on his bottom lip when he noticed your lack of chest undergarment. 

“Did you do that on purpose?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Jesus,” he paused, an extended trail of kisses descending down your body, past your neck, lingering on your chest, a quick flick of the nipples with his tongue that involuntarily made your back arch as he continued, eyebrows furrowed with concentration as he got to your panties. Your breath hitched a little when he got there, teeth teetering on the edge as he pulled them down, legs straight and the gentle bumpy texture of his teeth dancing across your legs as he finally got off the last obstacle of clothing. Changbin couldn’t help but bring a hand to his length as he gently palmed himself, completely mesmerized and aroused out of control at the current view he was looking at you. The temperature of your face was immediately as his eyes ogled over your very naked body. Fuck. It was so hot to see him like this. Speechless, no comebacks. You could tell that he wasn’t thinking much, which oddly turned you on so much. It was something you truly were not used to. 

“Stand up for me.”

The four words came out of mouth abruptly, switching positions as he sat down, practically drooling as your ass moved with each step, titties bouncing in unison with each movement. All he could think about was how hard they bounced if you were on top of him. How easily he’d be able to move his hands with your ass as you rode him, took him from behind. His mind was racing even more, and now he was back at square one: too overwhelmed and much too aroused to form a comprehensive thought of what to do to you.

“You’re so different.” you whispered, not wanting to catch him off guard.

“I am?”

“Yeah,” you breathed, heavy, hands beginning to roam across your waist, breathing through slightly gritted teeth, “usually you have so much to say.”

His gaze was so lustful, heavy, you couldn’t help but touch yourself. Your fingers attached to your left hand traced along your inner thigh, legs gently shuddering. If you were being honest, it kind of scared you how much something as simple as a stare could do to you. Your index and middle finger traced along your pussy lips, a desperate moan escaping your lips when the tip of your digit accidentally brushed the bareity of your clit. You thought you could handle the game; you usually did. But this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and there was no going back after this.

Changbin was also desperate, scrolling forward on his chair and reaching for your hips, steadying himself before his palms separated. One had pitching your left nipple and the other sliding on either side of your core, pussy lips trying to escape his digits. It was easy for him, seeing as your core was already a slip n’ slide, fingers practically begging and soaking up any sense of friction they could get.

“Stop teasing,” you gritted, small hitches in your wind at each possible moment of touch.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, adjusting his fingers without warning, tips attaching to the nub like a magnetic force. A much larger, breathier moan falls from the tight crevice that is your lips as Changbin gets closer to your torso, mouth latching onto the previously excluded nipple. The lawyer execution wasn’t perfect, and if this was the third or fourth time the two of you had been intimate, it most likely wouldn’t have felt as good.

At that stage, however, things were different. The tension from the lack of physical intimacy was the sole reason his fingers felt so good. This may, in the present moment be due to the short circuiting of your brain from the man’s fingers and lips, feel like something that just sparked out of the blue. Random. Out of nowhere; but anyone could tell that that was nothing but a crock of shit.

This was a culmination of all the times you disagreed, agreed, yelled, whispered, cared, lusted, hated, liked, loved? Even the way you looked at him when he would walk into that precinct with his very tight suits and heavy briefcases. The times Felix would nudge you to keep it down when the two of you would argue in front of the other officers, even the sergeant. The more you argued, the more care there was, even if it was illustrated as hatred. The opposite of hatred is indifference, not love, and there was nothing indifferent about the situation you found yourself to be in. 

Changbin couldn’t think straight. There were times he thought about it too. Whether it was when he woke up in the morning, preparing a case of a perpetrator that you arrested. He felt like an idiot, because all he wanted to do now was touch you. There was no instruction, no structure to how he was doing it, just rubbing your clit and sucking on your nipples, teething the hardened nubs was the way to go. Changbin thought he would have so much more composure, but the moment your clothes were discarded was the moment he knew he was in trouble, because the images he visualized in his head were not even closer than how sexy he imagined you to be.

“Mhmmm,” you hummed, hips forming a gentle rhythm on his digits, your own hand running up and down his arm soothingly, “feels so good.”

“Yeah you like it?”

“Yes I-oh my god.”

You interrupted your own sentence when you found two of his fingers at your entrance. Slow, calloused textured fingers scratching your walls as he began to pump. He stood up simultaneously, slightly bent over to make sure that his fingers would remain consistent in depth while adjusting to the height difference. His thumb that belonged to the same hand reamiend on then sensitive numb, the three fingers creating a collective come hither motion. You took a few steps back, finding stability in the wooden cabinet behind you as Changbin’s fingers picked up in pace. He was still a cognitive mess, no craft to his skill, but it seemed to be more than fine for you. He analyzed your behavior. Lids fluttering on the brink of shutting, jaw slightly agape with sinful moans and groans disclosed, and your left hand groping your own breast.

On the contrary, you were just as overwhelmed, unable to speak, those unorganized noises the only indication of how his fingers were making you feel. Fuck, you were already so sensitive, and the fact that he was already hitting the fleshy mound inside your pussy with his fingers only aroused you tenfold, knowing that his cock would be just as effortless in doing so. Your eyes wanted to roll, reach the back of your head. You never knew that something so simple as someone’s fingers could make you feel this good. Your hips spasmed, walls already clenching around him as you knew that you were getting close.

“Shit,” Changbin groaned, that god awful yet fucking sexy smirk appearing, “you’re close, aren’t you?”

“No,” you mumbled, not wanting him to give you the satisfaction of knowing he made you feel like pure heaven, “b-barely.”

You could feel his hard on pressed against the top of our leg, itching at your hip bone which gave you the idea to take the heat off of you for a moment. Yes, it was like walking into the gates of hell to give him the gratification that he was bringing you to orgasm, but really, it was because you didn’t want it to stop. If you could have just stopped lying to yourself about how much arguing with this man turned you on, that you could have been in this predicament much earlier. Then again, maybe if it did happen earlier, the arousal of his simple touch wouldn’t impact you as much, and that would be no fun, would it? 

Your hands, for the first time tonight, began to travel, snaking past his arms and right to where he wanted you. Changbin hissed, lips pressed against the side of your face as a deep groan bellowed from his chest.

“Fuck,” he hissed, the gentle grating of your hand against his clothed crotch taking him by surprise. You too, were in surprise at how big he felt. The visual was one thing, but you were always one for tactile senses. Your thumb slipped over the tip, the brief wetness that you assumed to be his precum easily felt. The muscles in your legs were getting tighter and tighter, and it was proving that rubbing Changbin’s cock wasnt enough to distract him from making you cum.

“Fuck I’m really c-close,” you whine, the pompous lawyer covering your mouth to prevent the crescendo of your voice project outside the 4 walls. He withdrew his fingers from your words, your bodies falling slightly limp and weary at the way you already were craving him, orgasm that was on the brim very cruel. Your hips were gripped once more, placing you to sit atop of his desk and he made no hesitation to slip his boxers off and let his cock spring free of what, to him, was torture. A very obvious gas came from your lips, still taken aback of how girthy he was. A nervous gulp followed, unsure if he would be able to fit. He could see the expression of concern. His hands cupped your cheeks, pressing another gentle kiss before they traveled back to his favorite spot, your hips.

“It’s ok,” he whispered, running his thumbs in a forgiving fashion against your hip bones, “just tell me to stop if you want to. I won’t be mad.”

You looked shyly into his eyes, nodding as you grabbed him by the base of his cock. A deep breath hollowed from hips at how your hands felt on him. God he had dreamed of this so many times. He would fixate on them every time he walked into the precinct. How such delicate hands could do such filthy things; it truly turned him on so much. The complexity of your character did too. You weren’t like other people that he had the pleasure of interacting with. No book that you could read by its cover. It was impossible, but maybe that's why he felt so drawn to you. He liked a challenge. He was a lawyer after all, and as much as he fantasized, unconsciously, about how you would look in such sinful positions, he was still able to simultaneously appreciate you and your character from afar, even when his presence wasn’t always appreciated by you in return. 

“Your hands,” he chuckled, almost sounding nervous, “they feel so good.”

It was finally YOUR turn to smirk, getting him where you wanted him. Although you liked to do nothing more than torture him, a guilt would rise in your chest and you know it. By this point, it was obvious that both of you pined for each other, so the games of taunting and teasing, mind fucking were irrelevant, unnecessary. The main thing that you wanted was to get your brains fucked out, and Changbin wanted nothing more than to give that to you. You took your hand away, allowing the man himself to line up with your hole, before gently prodding at the entrance, effortlessly and to your surprise plunging his cock into your pussy. It was a loud noise, the squelch of your highly aroused cunt leaving the pompous lawyer's cock sucked in like a vacuum. Your arms, without thought, wrapped around Changbin’s neck, pulling him closer to truly feel as much of him as you could. 

“Jesus fuck,’ he chuckled, beinging to pull out slowly, “this is the juiciest pussy I’ve ever fucked.”

The sentence made you moan, hips wiggling to keep as much of his length inside of you as he gently moved back and forth. If anyone else spoke like this to you, the next action would most likely be a slap in the face. Compliment or not, it was so hot the way Changbin’s words fell from his lips without thought. Even when the two of you shared heated discussions it was the same. Words, harsh, soft, anything he said was without thought. But this moment was when you liked it best, because as he continued to pull in and out of you, the corrupt compliments just continued to spell out, belongings beginning to fall off his desk with each thrust. It was usually something you hated, but maybe now, you could manipulate it to your own benefit.

“Jesus christ,” he continued to repeat over and over, hands gripping your ass as he used your body to grind into you, “I love how wet your pussy is for me.”

“Me too baby,” you moaned back, unable to help yourself, “I never knew it could get this wet.”

“Only for me,” he growled, partly out of breath, “this pussy belongs to me.”

There was no point in even refuting what he said. If he was going to make it scream like this every time he was near it from now on, he can have it. No one had ever made you feel this good. Electricity was flying the longer his skin made contact with yours. Maybe it was partly hallucinations from your sex brain, but you didn't care, nothing would ever equate to this, and no one could ever have such a pull on you than the man in front of you. Changbin had acquired some confidence, because he began to move with much vigor, cock feeling harder and harder the longer he was inside of you. It didn’t take long for him to find the previous spot that he was able to hit with his fingers, your eyes almost popping out of your head when he did, your own hand coming to your mouth and biting on your fingernails as he did, a poor attempt to suppress the roaring sounds that cut down from your lips, surely enough to alert whoever else was in the building. It took him a matter of milliseconds for him to notice, a hand leaving your body and clasping your wrist, forcing you to straighten your fingers as he pushed them inside your mouth. It was now his turn for his eyes to bulge out of his head, a whole new level of turned on as he watched each knuckle on the two of your fingers disappearing past your lips. He stood still, forgetting about his cock and fixating on nothing but the way your fingers were coated heavily from such a simple action

“Fuck me,” he scoffed, “I didn’t think you could get any sexier.”

Your eyes ogled as you looked up at him, lips forming into a pour around your tips as they withdrew from your mouth. Before you even had the chance, Changbin was already redirecting your fingers to your own core, spreading your pussy lips far as your fingers dragged to them, a teeth gritted sigh coming from the pompous lawyer as he picked up his pace. All he could do was stare, solely focused on how your center got wetter and wetter. The way your pussy hole was now clenching and double the pleasure from tow spots. Fuck, he didn’t care about his own pleasure, because all he could think was how magical your pussy was. 

You were so hot and bothered by the way Changbin’s mouth dropped when he watched you flick your own clit, fingers brushing the base of cock once every few thursts as he continued to fuck you out of your mind relentlessly. 

“Oh god,” you whined, not even caring about how loud the combination of sounds must have been to one walking by, “so fucking good.”

“I fucking bet,” he chuckled, tongue slipping over his tongue lip, “if you’re pussy keeps getting wetter I won’t be able to help myself.”

“Fuck, what do you mean?”

He suddenly picks up his pace to an all time speed, unable to control himself physically and verbally.

“I’ll have no choice,” he grunts, using all of his might to bury his cock inside of you, “I’ll have to cum in you.”

Oh no. This is bad. Changbin doesn’t know this, but he's unlocked one of your deepest rooted desires. You immediately attack his lips as soon as his sentence concludes, not wanting him to say anything else. You knew it was bad, but there is no way you would ever say no to letting him fill you to the brim.

“Do it,” you whispered, forehead meeting as your gaze fixed on him, “cum in me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes baby, fill me up with your load.”

“Oh fuck,” he wined, his first high pitch of the night, “whatever you want.”

Your hips inched off his desk, giving him easier access to control you, giving yourself up to him in every way possible. Holy fuck were you about to bust yourself at any minute. Seeing the longing want and need to finish in you being an option was driving him wild.

“Oh my god Y/n,” he whispered, “I can’t hold it back any longer.”

“That’s okay baby just do it.”

“Do it?”

“Cum in me,” you whined, “I know you filling me up will make me cum so hard.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah baby do it.”

“I’ll cum in you.”

“Yeah cum in me.”

The back and forth with no room to breath in between was spilling you over the edge, and so was it for Changbin. His face was contorting more and more with each second, knowing he was going to blow his load any minute.

“Fuck I’m gonna cum,” he continued to whine, unable to look anywhere else except your gaze before finally reach his high, pulling himself out completely except for tip, able to watch the way each load blew straight into your pussy. A heavy breath filled your lungs as the warmth of his seed tipped over the edge, hips bucking uncontrollably as it dribbled out, Changbin also spasming before gently pushing himself back in, the two of you using each other to ride out the peak of your orgasms. 

Your chest heaved simultaneously, the sounds of such heavy breaths the only noise filling the room as he pulled out, the motion causing you to whimper and already crave his touch once again. Changbin looked around, finding the box of tissues that fell off of his desk in the midst of things, cleaning the trail of his remains that was currently spilling down your leg. A small giggle erupted from your lips as you watched his aim with such delicacy and poise.

“What?” He smiled.

“Nothing,” you smiled in return, his grin becoming infectious, “I’ve just never seen you move so carefully before.”

“Hey I can be gentle!”

“Can you though?”

You pointed at your hips, already discolored in light shades of purple. He ignored your gesture, rolling his eyes as he grabbed the pile of clothes that was once an obstacle, handing it back with much of a haste. 

“We still have to work on the case, you know.”

“We can’t make another appointment?”

“Well no because I think 85% of the office would have heard that and it would look very suspicious if you just left.”

“I don’t think it matter if they heard, they’re still gonna know we fucked.”

“Jesus christ y/n,” he scoffed, “don’t fucking start with me now.”

“What?”

“You’re driving me crazy.”

“How?”

“The more you argue with me, the more I want to fuck you over and over again.”

[nightxcreature]

My House

Authors note: Written in about an hour based on absolutely nothing except an idea i had while I washed dishes this morning. 🤷‍♀️ Edited poorly. As always, criticism welcome.

REQUESTS OPEN!

Warnings: Cursing, Slight Spice toward the end I've never written smut so..., Blood and guts that are not MC's own, Dean Winchester.

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Female!Reader, Claire x Mentor!Reader, Jody x Friend!Reader.

______________________________________________________________

It was coming up on a quarter past two in the morning when Claire pushed open the door to Jody's home quietly, trying her hardest to keep anyone from knowing that they'd finally made it back. At least until she could get inside, shower, and change clothes. Claire had made a brutal mistake back on the hunt and she had taken the fall for it, something that Claire was reminded of the entire ride back home. The woman's usual soft footsteps were wet across the carpet in the hallway while Claire led the way through the dark, praying to anyone who would listen that no one could hear it through their bedroom door.

"Move." She grunted out as she shoved passed Clair toward the kitchen, "I need a drink."

Claire's arm shot out wrapping around her wrist, "No. Not until you get all that blood off of you and into a change of clothes."

She rolled her eyes and pushed Claire off of her, "Do you think I give two shits about a change of clothes right now? You almost killed me, twice, my back and my ass are killing me, and I have vamp brains in places that vamp brains shouldn't be. I want a drink, I want a drink, I want a drink."

"Sam and Dean will kill me if they see you like this. Please, go shower first. I'll bring a drink to you if it's that important." Claire pleaded to deaf ears as the woman continued her trek through the dark toward the kitchen. With a sigh, Claire followed behind her almost jumping out of her skin when the kitchen light flipped on, and Dean and Jody were found sitting at the breakfast table.

"Where have you been? I called fifty times, and I know Jody left about as many messages." Dean angrily snapped.

"Why are you covered in blood?!" Jody exclaimed, "Are you hurt?"

A dry chuckle left her lips as she reached for a glass and the bottle of Jameson on Jody's fridge, "Not mine." Turning to place her items on the table and pour a glass, she faced Dean, "Who are you, Molly Weasley? Where have you been? Car gone, no note!"

Dean scowled, "Lose the attitude, I was worried about you."

"I'm your girlfriend, not your daughter." She said after taking a long swig from her glass, "Besides, you and I've been doing this the same amount of time. It's not my first vamp nest, and it won't be my last. And after the way this hunt went, Claire needs the practice if she's going to keep doing this."

"What happened?" Jody questions, eyes narrowing in Claire's direction.

She turned in Claire's direction, crossing her arms, "You want to answer, or should I?"

"Uh..." The teenager started, cut off before she could even begin.

"Don't worry, I'll do it." The small woman turned back to her whiskey taking another long drink before beginning again, "This little brat decided to head out on her own after we went to bed last night. She was adamant that we should hit the nest then, even though I reminded her a million times that we needed to wait until we were sure there weren't others hiding out in there."

"I was sure!" Claire butt in, "I told her that I knew what I was doing!"

"And did you? Huh? Do I look like you knew what you were doing?!" She yelled, gesturing to the blood on her clothes, "I'm covered in blood that isn't mine and I lost my socks. How did I lose my socks Claire? I sure as hell don't know. What I do know is, if I hadn't shown up to save your ass you would be a blood smoothie by now. You're welcome!"

Claire looked at her feet, "I just wanted to do it on my own."

"You're not ready. There's nothing wrong with taking advice and help when it's offered, especially with a nest that size. If a more experienced hunter offers their help, you take it. I was just like you when I was a kid, and it almost cost me everything." The venom in her voice had started to dwindle as the whiskey took the edge away from the pain in her muscles, "You're strong, Kid, but you don't know everything."

Jody sighed from behind them, standing to put an arm on Claire's shoulder, "I've been trying to tell her that. She just doesn't like to listen to me."

With a roll of her eyes, Claire sent a small smile in her direction, "You don't have to talk about me like I'm not here."

"You shouldn't be here; you should be in bed." Jody sent back, grinning at the woman on the other end of the table, "Thank you for taking care of my girl. I'd hug you, but..." She gestured toward the mess covering the woman and grimaced, "I really would take a shower soon if I were you."

She and Claire headed down the hallway giggling quietly, making the woman smile and sigh looking back at the bottle of liquor. The silence taking over the room and leading her hand to pour another, until Dean reached out to cover the glass.

"I don't think you need another; you've had enough for tonight." Dean said, standing to put the whiskey back on the fridge and place her glass in the sink, "But I do think you should tell me how those bloody handprints got on your ass..." He quirked a brow as he turned back to face her, a small smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

She snapped her head around trying to get a look at the back of her pants, "Seriously? That big bitch tried to break me in half after I killed Edward, Bella, and the Lochness Monsters he was creating. I didn't know he left a mark on my ass, didn't even know he had blood on his hands. Claire took his head off before he could hurt me, that's where most of the blood came from. Pretty sure he wanted to add me to his little coven, I'd make a real pretty vampire bride. At least that's what he told me." She winked and giggled as Dean pursed his lips and nodded.

"And what did you say?" He quizzed, his gaze feeling like it could see straight through her.

"That I'm already spoken for," She smirked, "And then I kicked his ass."

"That's my girl." Dean stood from the table a shit-eating grin on his face as he bent to whisper in her ear, "What do you say we go get you cleaned up, and then I try to break you in half?"

"I'd like that a lot." She whispered, reaching to capture his lips with her own. Dean deepened the kiss, placing one hand on her hip and another in her hair as he led her toward the door. Their tongues danced together, and Dean slowly pushed her into the wall nipping at her bottom lip. His hands had just made their way down to cup her ass, palms matching the prints already on her pants, when a cough suddenly came from the doorway. Jumping apart, they looked everywhere except at Jody, who stood with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

"Not in my house."

"Yep. Just gonna go...uh, clean up." She whispered back awkwardly stepping around Jody as she headed toward the bathroom, a sheepish grin on her lips, "Sorry."

"I, uh, I'm gonna go help." Dean followed her out as Jody flipped the light off in the kitchen.

"Not in my house, Dean Winchester!" She called quietly on the way to her own room.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Jody!" He whispered back, a grin gracing his face as he slipped into the bathroom with his favorite girl.

______________________________________________________________

A/N: I still feel like I'm dusting the rust off my brain with these little one shots, but i dont think they're turning out too bad. I'm going to start potentially working on a series soon, so we'll see how that goes.

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged in my work!

Tag List:

@lmhf1

[scottishmushroom]

Gif credit: @dancingcrowley

I think by now we can agree that the Job minisode and Crawley’s Bildad(dy) the Shuite is a crucial time for not only Crowley’s personal journey, but between him and Aziraphale. And at the risk of redundancy, I have to break this scene down because I think it’s critical to understanding them as a group of the two of them, as well as the fact that I think it’s a complete turning point in their relationship.

Aziraphale shows up, and seemingly gives a last ditch effort to thwart Crawley’s plan to destroy Job’s children. Crawley begins sowing seeds of doubt in Aziraphale, though I don’t believe he’s doing this to be cruel. This is the beginning of the “I go along as far as I can” mindset. Aziraphale states he gets to do what God wants, and Crawly counters it with “Like killing innocent children and winning a bet with Satan?”. Seed of doubt. Aziraphale at this point looks up towards heaven as though they’ll be overheard, and says he doesn’t believe that is what God wants. Now, this is where we can leave things up to guesswork because we don’t know what God ultimately wants. That’s not what’s important here. What’s important is that we’re establishing trust and faith, which I will get into momentarily.

Next, we get the very intimate back and forth where they’re almost nose to nose. Aziraphale asserting he doesn’t believe killing Job’s children is what Crawley really wants, and that he knows him. Aziraphale demands Crawley to tell him that he wants to do it (kill Job’s children) and Crawley removes his glasses. Let’s pause here. Crawley removed. his. glasses. At this point in history, he’s using them to cover his snake eyes. Of course Aziraphale already knows what his eyes look like, but to remove them here in this moment is a show of vulnerability. Typically we see him remove his glasses to be intimidating, but I don’t believe that’s what’s going on here. Especially to do so in such close quarters is just delicious to me.

Crawley: I want to. I long to destroy the blameless children of blameless Job just as I destroyed his blameless goats.

One of Crawley’s favorite things to say is “I’m a demon, I lied.” So what makes the statement above so powerful is that he didn’t lie. He told Aziraphale the truth. He wants to kill Job’s children just as much as he wanted to kill the goats. Which we will soon learn was not at all. He’s stealthily saying “I don’t want to kill his children just as I didn’t want to kill the goats”. Why didn’t he just lie?? He made a choice here to speak his truth (albeit in a covert way) when it would’ve been much more simple to lie to Aziraphale. But he didn’t want to.

Aziraphale, thinking he’s a killer of kids (both human and goat) responds with “May God forgive you” and begins to leave. Crawley could’ve left the conversation here and continued on with whatever plan he had to not actually kill the children. But Crawley doesn’t want God’s forgiveness. He wants Aziraphale’s.

Those crows did not start making goat noises on their own. Crawley did that. He needed Aziraphale to know that he’s not a monster. He, a demon, cares what an Angel thinks of him. This was such a gamble. I don’t think at this point they had a lot of history together to establish a semblance of trust and faith in one another. So Crawley showing his hand and revealing that he didn’t actually kill the goats is huge. This could’ve easily led to his destruction if Aziraphale told anyone the truth. But he put his faith in someone else (probably for the first time since he fell from Heaven) and who was there to catch him this time? His Angel.

I yield my time.

[waitmyturtles]

I stopped writing about Kidnap the Series about a quarter into the series because it was clearly designed to deliver the memeable romantic moments that GMMTV prioritizes these days for its number one goal, social media engagement. [And the series did this so well that many Kidnap-related social media accounts on Twitter got either banned or shadowbanned for explicit (??? get outta here, Elon) content, so the series actually did its damn thing.]

There wasn't enough plot material to actually criticize, which is my priority on this blog, so I gave my writing a rest. But: I did give the series a full watch out of deference to my insatiable stanning of the Series Y king, Ohm Pawat, and...

I'm here to say that I am not complaining about that final episode at all. I'm actually, surprisingly, happy with it!

Before I get into this, let me just first say that Kidnap didn't do something that many of the very big GMMTV series have done lately: it did not tread into disingenuous narrative waters. It didn't make thematic contradictions or leave open plot holes (Wandee Goodday), it didn't punish characters for real-life moral or ethical slips (Only Friends), it didn't jump story beats to design questionable moments without prior established emotional context (Last Twilight, 23.5).

Kidnap was sappy, very often repetitive and boring, but it wasn't offensively disingenuous, and it didn't ask its audience to hold back its understanding and expectations of how humanity generally functions. (Expect for the fact that the series had a very loose grip on the exact definition of "kidnapping," BUT ANYWAY.)

But anyway: I didn't expect the final episode to be rooted in Q's and Mhen's recoveries. And I loved that. The show didn't forget the framework in which it set up its main romance. Min is and was always a caretaker. He allowed that caretaking to obstruct his progress forward in life, whether vis à vis Nong Mhen or his Q. Both Mhen and Q asked Min to move forward from them, by the both of them taking accountability for their health, in part to allow Min to loosen his shackles (heh) on his perceived responsibilities to them.

I liked that! That was a responsible move by the show to not tilt the emotional scales in a direction that would have Min continue to take on a burden of taking care of people who, with a little help, could learn to take care of themselves.

And I'm a sucker for a therapeutic process. I'll take a quibble at the suggestion that Q "throw away" memories (since, cough cough, it could be about re-contextualizing the literal time spent and the value that an individual places on certain memories cough cough, but different strokes for different therapists), but honestly, having the entire episode framed on Q's mental health progress warmed my cockles. More mental health discussions in dramas!

I was baseline hoping for a potentially more campy or comedic take on crime and kidnapping when this show started, a kind of ironic approach that I know the acting of Ohm Pawat could take on, but that's asking a lot from a studio that's pumping out quantity over quality at the moment. I'm just very glad this show didn't end with me tilting my head to the side with question marks flying out in a thought cloud. It was, overall, a pleasant and warm watch, something worth fast-forwarding through during the holidays for the smoochy moments after one too many glasses of wine (heh heh).

And it looks like the branded pair of OhmLeng is permanent now, so I hope for a better script for these guys in the near future. Leng needs a LOT more acting classes -- but these two have chemistry in spades, and that chemistry could be used well in a better script.

[theoutcastrogue]

A copyright lawsuit filed by several major publishers puts the future of the Internet Archive's scan-and-lend library at risk. In a recent appeal, the non-profit organization argued that its solution is protected fair use and critical to preserving digital books. This position is shared by copyright scholars, the Authors Alliance, and other supporters now backing IA in court.

The Internet Archive (IA) is a non-profit organization that aims to preserve digital history for generations to come. The digital library is a staunch supporter of a free and open Internet and began meticulously archiving the web over a quarter century ago.

In addition to archiving the web, IA also operates a library that offers a broad collection of digital media, including books. Staying true to the centuries-old library concept, IA patrons can also borrow books that are scanned and digitized in-house.

Publishers vs. Internet Archive

The self-scanning service is different from the licensing deals other libraries enter into. Not all publishers are happy with IA’s approach which triggered a massive legal battle two years ago.

Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit, equating IA’s controlled digital lending (CDL) operation to copyright infringement. Earlier this year a New York Federal court concluded that the library is indeed liable for copyright infringement.

The Court’s decision effectively put an end to IA’s self-scanning library, at least for books from the publishers in suit. However, IA is not letting this go without a fight and last week the non-profit filed its opening brief at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, hoping to reverse the judgment.

Support from Authors Alliance

IA doesn’t stand alone in this legal battle. As the week progressed, several parties submitted amicus curiae briefs to the court supporting IA’s library. This includes the Authors Alliance.

The Authors Alliance represents thousands of members, including two Nobel Laureates, a Poet Laureate of the United States, and three MacArthur Fellows. All benefit from making their work available to a broad public.

If IA’s lending operation is outlawed, the authors fear that their books would become less accessible, allowing the major publishers to increase their power and control. The Alliance argues that the federal court failed to take the position of authors into account, focusing heavily on the publishers instead. However, the interests of these groups are not always aligned.

“Many authors strongly oppose the actions of the publishers in bringing this suit because they support libraries and their ability to innovate. Authors rely on libraries to reach readers and many are proud to have their works preserved and made available through libraries in service of the public.

“Because these publishers have such concentrated market power […], authors that want to reach wide audiences rarely have the negotiating power to retain sufficient control from publishers to independently authorize public access like that at issue here,” the Alliance adds.

This critique from the authors is not new. Hundreds of writers came out in support of IA’s digital book library at an earlier stage of this lawsuit, urging the publishers to drop their case. [...]

Copyright Scholars Back IA

In a separate amicus brief, several prominent legal and copyright scholars, many of whom hold professor titles, raise similar arguments. They believe that IA’s lending system is not that different from the physical libraries that are an integral part of culture.

“Libraries have always been free under copyright law to lend materials they own as they see fit. This is a feature of copyright law, not a bug,” the brief reads.

What is new here, is that publishers now assert full control over how their digital books are treated. Instead of allowing libraries to own copies, they have to license them, which makes it impossible to add them to the permanent archive.

“The major publishers refuse to sell digital books to libraries, forcing them to settle for restrictive licenses of digital content rather than genuine ownership. Moreover, publishers insist they can prevent libraries from scanning their lawfully purchased physical books and lending the resulting digital copies.” [...]

[oraclesraycons]

i never go here, but I was hit with an idea and had to write it. probably needs more work but I'm a little tired of lookin' at it now. if ya'll manage to find any enjoyment out of this I'd appreciate a reblog. don't interact if you're a minor or have no age indicator on your blog please.

Content Warnings: nsft, D.VA gets to be a lil creep, as a treat. Panty stealing, inappropriate use of the D.VA mech. Reader is explicitly described as chubby/fat, is afab (i don't think they're explicitly referred to as a woman), and their chest is implied to be bigger if i remember correctly. Otherwise, I tried to keep race and other aspects ambiguous. I'll happily welcome criticism if I messed up on that <3

Hana never hid the fact she was fond of you.

Well, she called it fond. You called it creepy as fuck.

At first it was easy to excuse. She was a bit of a shut in when she wasn't on missions after all, that was what everyone told you at least. A bit of awkwardness was expected, if anyone in the group could understand that it was you. Her bubbly nature helped ease you to her, reduced the tension.

At least for a time.

But there is a point where having someone stare at your tits so frequently stops being awkward curiosity and starts being weird. And that was just the beginning. It didn't take long for her to start getting handsy as well. The first time you two are stuck in a small space together she takes the opportunity to grasp at your sides, and gently squeeze at the rolls and the small of your waist.

She insists it's for stability, but concedes when you stand firm with your boundaries. It doesn't stop her from doing it again in the future, at any opportunity she got.

Of course, Hana's very physically affectionate with everyone, and never means any harm, so nothing comes of your complaints about it to the others.

The last straw comes when your underwear starts disappearing. You go nearly insane turning your quarters upside down to look for a pair, thinking you'd somehow lost it, when the epiphany hit you.

Fuming, you race out of your room to find her, and grasp her by the collar her shirt after catching her alone.

"I don't know who you think you are, but don't think I haven't noticed the shit you've been pulling. If you know what's good for you, you'll cut it out, got that?" With the demeanor of a scruffed kitten, she slowly nods. You drop her and walk away, praying the issues dealt with at this point.

Unfortunately, Hana was still too busy thinking about your tits bouncing as you raced down the stairs to process any of what you just said. Later that night she ends up using the underwear she stole to rub herself to her memory of it.

Honestly, she doesn't intend to be a creep. She doesn't really care to stop herself either though. Despite what the others say she definitely could, she's a trained soldier, that doesn't count for nothing. It was like she got a bug in her system when you two met; the cutest thing she'd ever seen, between your looks and demeanor.

You tried to put on a tougher demeanor, for yourself and others, but it was easy to see through. Even easier to see through was the way you pretended to hate the way she looked at you, the advances she made. The way your face would turn sheepish and heat up at her stares, the whimpers at her groping at you, it was better than any porn or fantasy.

Really what more could Hana do but escalate? You'd yelled at her for stealing clothes, what would you do if she went farther? She thinks about it as she works on upgrades for the D.VA mech, until an idea hits her. A few more tweaks wouldn't hurt would they...?

The wait is almost excruciating. When you and Hana finally get placed on opposite teams in a training match together, it takes everything in her to be normal about it.

The difference is still noticeable to you though. She's always gunned straight for you in matches like this, like in nearly every other scenario. Laying in wait, deliberately avoiding you, it all gave you a sinking feeling in your gut. But as a support, with your team doing everything but stick together, you couldn't act on it.

In hindsight, it was stupid to flank the enemy like this, but another team member had bulldozed their way to the payload, and you didn't particularly feel like getting knocked out on your way to grab them. Not paying attention, you don't see the DVA mech shifting out of hiding to flashbomb you till it's too late.

She hasn't shot you yet, but your ears are ringing. You don't notice she's moved the mech to stand over you till you slam into it with your back, and slump to the ground again. A quiet whirring sound can be heard emanating from it, before mechanical arms grab ahold of your and lift you up from them just slightly. You try to twist your wrists or use leverage to pull out of the hold, shouting in protest till more arms grab ahold of your thighs, digging into the flesh just slightly as they pull them apart.

Hana gives a giddy giggle in the cockpit, eagerly watching the camera feed from below the machine as she maneuvers it to tear up any clothing between her and your holes. The crack of ripping fabric startles you into a shout, wriggling and protesting further, but it's no use. By now the payload was far enough any team members would be out of hearing range, and too busy fighting to notice your absence.

All according to her plan, after all.

She enlargens one of the screens on her hud, the one trained on your backside, just in time to get a nice view of its large shaft rubbing against the folds of your entrance. A moan begins to bubble up in your throat, but you tamp it down. You've been struggling this whole time your body burns, the head of the mechs cock rubs into you and you realize lube's dripping from it, to make entry easier.

The rhythmic motion of it slipping against you is almost hypnotic, and with nothing else to do, you begin to relax to it. Rubbing down to brush up against your clit, making you jolt, before rubbing back up to poke at your twitching hole. You whimper, and start gently shifting your hips as best you can, to increase the contact with it.

Her heart races a bit faster, and she only subconsciously notices the click of buttons before the mech's cock starts to slide its way in. There's a slight burn, but it's impossible to focus on compared to the feeling of your walls being stretched out. Your moans get louder, and Hana thanks herself for grabbing the bigger toy, against her better judgement.

In no time at all it had managed to pump its way down to the hilt with ease. She briefly pulls her eyes to the other cameras, and is mesmerized by the frontal shot of those tits she's so fond of shaking, back and forth, in time with the machine. The rhythm slowly speeds up, and she can feel herself ache at the sight. The wetness between her legs made the jumpsuit she wore cling just a bit closer. If it weren't for the way she had to sit in the cockpit, she'd have already starting playing with herself by now.

Sloppy, obscene sounds ring out as the false cock continues to speed up, snapping her out of the reverie. The mech keeps a steady hokd on you, keeping your torso lifted and legs stiff. All you can do is sit there and bounce with the motions, taking it in and out of your throbbing cunt. The match and your teammates had all left your mind, the rising tension in your body was all that was left.

It was so close now, you started babbling in excitment. In and out, in and out, until suddenly your body starts writhing and squirming against the machine, and your hole starts to milk her cock. Hana exclaims almost manically with you, and rubs her thighs together as she presses another new button. All of a sudden you feel the shaft give a few pulses, and more warmth fills your hole. It pumps and pumps until it spills out of you and begins to drip onto the ground below you.

Your muscles begin to relax. Breathe.

You only get a moment to sit and revel in it till the machine begins to slowly pull out of you. You whimper and shift in disappointment, but Hana can only focus on the sight of your cunt gaping, and dripping with fake cum. She makes another mental note to herself save the footage to her personal storage before she wipes it.