#the next step and can go do whatever for like 8 hours a couple times lol. next week will be a normal week finally

[kuromi-hoemie]

she ended up being everyone's favorite (*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ*.ﾟwould luv to have another trans woman of color i could talk with regularly if even just about work 👉🏾👈🏾 very excited!!!!! augh i hope she accepts the offer 😭😩 she really nailed the interview.

interviewed a very beautiful Afghani trans woman just now and I'm gonna be thinking about it the rest of the day.

[globalrebrand]

A Day in the Life of Professor Crewel & Spouse

Warnings: None! Fluff. Just a little something for Crewel. Vague mentions of future children/pregnancy but no pronouns used. One gendered act of chivalry mentioned .

Together your purchase a large family home on Sage’s Isle. Crewel could Never justify the purchase of such a massive house independently, but now that he has you he’s able to acquire the large coastal home he’s always dreamed of for you and your family. 

Crewel wakes up on week days at dawn usually around 6 and goes for a run with his two dogs. You (and your dog) are welcome to run with him if you’d like, he aims to do a 5k in about 30 minutes usually, but you’ll add in a little time on the front and back for stretching. If you come with on the weekends there’s a good chance he can be convinced to stop in one of the bakeries in town, stop for 15 minutes or so to drink/eat a light pastry before running home.  

However you only do this if the weather is permitting, in the winter, Divus heads to a gym in town to swim laps or uses your home gym with you. He’s a big believer that the couples that exercises together, stays together.

After some morning fitness, it generally tea time. Usually you take turns cooking breakfast on Divus’ turns he cooks something light, but well spiced, nutrient rich and complimentary to a cup of tea of course. He’s generally not a fan of sweet breakfast or heavy foods, but has become partial of the occasional waffle if you’re making them. You either together usually at your kitchen island or in the breakfast room.

By then it’s about 7 and you both get ready for school. Crewel likes to pick out coordinating outfits. Not matching but complimentary. He won’t insist that you wear something but if you aren’t feeling up to picking an outfit, he’ll give you options.

Then you drive to campus, after dropping the dogs off at daycare. Crewel always drives and don’t even think about getting out of your side of the car before he comes to get you. He’ll open your door and help you out. 

Then you ascend the front steps of the school hand in hand. When you reach the front doors Crewel gives the back of your hand a kiss before releasing your hand. Once you enter the door you’re no longer spouses but colleagues.

You drop hands but Crewel still walks you to your  classroom in the morning. Most students aren’t in until homeroom starts at 8:30. 

Usually you don’t eat lunch together, you both agree it’s best to spend time chatting with your colleagues, you’ll see each other at the end of the day anyway. But you both take care to ask the chefs to reserve dishes for each other depending on who gets there first. 

Crewel isn’t afraid to steal a kiss or two, or three when no one is looking. If he’s feeling really bold, he’ll pin your hips to your desk so you have no choice but to cling to him as he kisses you senselessly. When he’s finished he’ll chastely kiss your forehead and mutter good pet, before switching the subject to something much more mundane like dinner plans. 

You eat out rather often, maybe 2-3 nights a week. You and Crewel have a collection of favorite restaurants in town. His favorites are the ones on the coast with a good wine selection. 

After dinner you pick up the dogs from daycare and go for a night walk if it isn't too cold. Usually no longer than an hour.

Crewel often has to take papers home to grade and such, so please bring him some tea and rub his shoulders before attending to whatever it is that you need to do.

After he leaves his study, you may watch an episode of a show or chat and listen to music to decompress, but more often than not you both retired to your shared room for *ahem* intimate activities. After which you and Crewel let the dogs in and complete your night care routines before snuggling up and calling it a day!

Crewel can't say he misses the bachelor life when he gets to go to bed and wake up next to you everyday. You and his pups are the highlight of his life. Well until you and he can have some pups of your own.

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 15 - "Fine explain it to me."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: Slight shipping but can be seen as platonic too

A/N: Just wanted to mention that I usually am more of a found family themed dpxdc writer but this was a self runner once I started writing until I realised that this could be seen as a ship.

Danny sipped on the champain, he was drinking leaning against the wall. Next to him, also leaning against the wall with crossed arms was Dan glaring at everyone that even remotely tried to approach them. Dani had disappeared into the crowds and Danny was convinced that she had made her way to the buffet table and had found a hiding place with whatever food she had piled up high on a plate. He had seen her do that before.

"How long do these things go?" Dan asked, glaring at someone specifically, Danny knew was a business partner of the fruitloop.

"A couple of hours, usually fruitloop lets us leave around 8 pm." Danny answered easily, surveying the area for any familiar face he might recognize despite knowing he wouldn't. Sam's family wasn't attending this gala and any face he could recognize was probably a business partner of Vlad or someone he had seen on a magazine cover.

"Dile back your glare. Your eyes are glowing red." He offhandedly mentioned to his time-clone-twin taking another sip. Dan only growled at him and looked stubbornly away, though his eyes lost the red color and turned back to a blue.

"How do you and Dani do this shit?"

Danny hummed, museing how things had changed over the past couple of years since Dani and him started to attend these Galas Vlad made them go too. "I hated it at first too. But you weren't socialized enough to attend and Dani used to flat out refuse but we got used to it and found our tactics on how to handle it. Dani usually raids the buffet and finds a hiding place, I just hang with Sam if she is here."

"But she is not." Dan growled, now glaring at a rich kid that had looked like it wanted to approach them but wisely decided to turn tail at Dan's glare. "These stuck up kids are trying to mock us aren't they?"

"Yup." Danny popped the p. "We could always ghost the fruitloop though."

"And have to listen to him lecturing us later? No thanks." Dan's eyes went over the people at this place. He saw Vlad talking to someone he was pretty sure had been on the cover of some tech magazine before but then his eyes stopped on a guy with black hair and blue eyes looking only slightly older than them that was staring at them very intensely.

Dan rammed his elbow into Danny's side, causing the other to wheeze and nearly drop the glass he was holding. The one he had spotted was now on his way to approach them and Dan narrowed his eyes. "You know that guy?"

Danny once he caught his breath again looked up and his eyes widened with recognition. "Shit!"

But before Dan could question the other about that guy, who was now speed walking with a business smile towards them, Danny grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him along with him. "We need to go, like right now."

Dan dragging his feed and making Danny literally drag him along only looked at his phone arching an eyebrow mockingly. "It's not 8 pm yet."

"Text the fruitloop. We are going-"

"Danny, what a pleasure to see you here, I didn't know you attended galas like this." Danny got cut off by the same guy Dan had spotted watching them. He hadn't seen how but somehow that guy had managed to cross the hall before them and block Danny's exit.

Dan heard Danny mutter a distinctive "fuck" before letting go of his elbow and smiling at the guy nervously. "Dick. What a surprise. I didn't know you would be here."

"Dick?" Dan repeated with an arched eyebrow but Danny swiftly stepped on his foot.

"Well Bruce thought it was about time again I attended one of the Galas with him again. You know how it is, don't you?" There was a glint in the other's eyes and Dan eyed him interested, the guy had some dirt on Danny. This was going to be interesting.

"Ah well yea, Vlad asked for me to come along too and someone got to represent my late parents too after all." Danny laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck and clearly avoiding direct eye contact.

"Represent your late parents?"

"Yea funny thing, my parents willed their company to me and-"

"I thought you said you were an engineer working for Dalv.Co? To think I told you about how I am with the Waynes and yet you never mentioned even once to me your relation to Masters." Dan blinked, okay so that guy was a friend Danny had made somehow outside of Sam and Tucker.

"I do! I do, it's just that… well... I can explain!"

"Fine, explain it to me."

Danny appeared to be a flustered mess while this Dick was staring at him with crossed arms. Dan watched them with fascination and a small amount of satisfaction at how Danny fumbled with his words. He then felt a tuck at his side and locked down to find Dani offering him popcorn.

"That's Dick Greyson." Something suddenly clicked for Dan and he smirked down at Dani.

"The guy that's teaching your Gymnastic course that Danny always volunteers to take you too?"

Dani nodded once more and now also sporting a mischievous smile.

[thalialunacy]

[for the @calaisreno Prompts May-hem (get it?!); cw for more violence than I usually do, ymmv. Also I have a feeling this one shows my American-ness more than most, so uh, sorry? ^^;]

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) 15: nightmare (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31)

'This,' John mutters to himself as he eyes the flashing red on the departures board, 'is a bloody nightmare.'

Sherlock frowns beside him. 'We're being shunted to a less direct route. Inconvenient, but hardly the stuff to disturb one's sleep.' 

John closes his eyes momentarily. By and large, he's a good fit for Sherlock's behaviours, even when they're--especially when they're?--somewhat off the beaten path. But sometimes he doesn't have the energy. He just doesn't.

They've been on a literally cold case in Nowhereton, Bumfuckshire, and although the jewellery was found and no one was hurt John could absolutely murder a home-brewed cup of tea. And he would very much like to hold his daughter.

'Don't worry, John, you'll be home to her soon,' Sherlock says to him as they board the overstuffed train. They're not the only ones whose night has been sidetracked, literally, but John's empathy is thin on the ground as he jostles his way to two open seats, fantasising about going for a rugby tackle if someone else gets their first.

Sherlock ends up doing the tackling, though, because he gives not one damn about how train passengers view him. And it's not really a tackle, just a Very Cold Look. And maybe a thrown elbow.

Amused, at least a little, John takes his seat.

They manage to get an hour in before it all goes to hell.

---

The sound of the train car sliding over something besides tracks is the first thing that happens -- and really it's more of a feeling than a sound, somehow.

At first.

'Sherlock,' John says quietly, his stomach twisting. 'What was that?'

'Likely just--'

But Sherlock is interrupted by a great dirty shake, like the train is a snake trying to shed its skin in a big ugly hurry.

'Shit,' John mutters, feeling adrenaline flood his system. 'Hang on to something.'

---

John doesn't wait until the dust clears; he's out of his seat and beating his way through the door at the end of the car the second there's stillness beneath him. Their coach is still on the tracks, but he somehow knows that those ahead of them are not so lucky.

The emergency lights are on, but they're flickering and John has to squint as he makes his way through. His gaze sweeps around and he listens hard, but everyone in the car seems to be suffering from merely shock, bumps and bruises, minor things.

The next car is where shit gets real. The angles are all wrong, and he can see several people tangled in an awful unnatural embrace with metal pieces popped out from seats and side rails.

'Jesus,' he hears himself mutter. 'This is not ideal.'

Sherlock is right behind him, which he'd known but not paid any attention to. 'Triaging a hoard of exhausted people in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere with no avenues of immediate escalation?'

'Yeah, like I said. Not ideal.' 

Sherlock opens his mouth, but John has no time for whatever witticism is about to be gifted upon the world, so he steps away from the detective and further into the chaos.

He raises his voice, but tries to keep it calm. 'Hello, everyone. My name is John, I'm a medical doctor, and I'm here to help.'

---

It's a long fucking night. Four dead, a couple dozen injured. One cannot save them all.

---

Hours later, the sun peeking over the horizon and Molly sacked out on the couch, he's about to pivot onto the staircase to his room when Sherlock puts a hand on his elbow. 'Let's wash up first,' he says, voice low and firm. 'Your daughter doesn't need to see you covered in blood, even if it's someone else's.'

'God damn it,' John mutters, knowing Sherlock is right but hating it; his skin itches with the need to see his little girl. 'Fine, but quick-like.'

He sheds his jacket and button down, which had got the brunt of it, on the way to the toilet, then barely looks at himself in the mirror as he runs a flannel over his face and scrubs at his hands. Sherlock is quiet beside him, handing him soap and cloth when needed, without prompting.

John finishes, then looks up at him. 'Aren't you coming?'

Sherlock's face-- well, It does something very complicated before smoothing out into a small smile. 'All right, let's.'

---

Anticlimactically, Rosie barely stirs when John picks her up. His limbs are finally able to shake out the events of the last twelve hours, and he feels Sherlock's arms around him and beneath her like a bridge truss, supporting them both.

John breathes in deeply, taking in the scent of his daughter and his flatmate. His-- his family, he thinks, trying the word out.

'Stay,' he says quietly, not looking away from Rosie. 'Just-- Stay?'

Sherlock hums for a moment, then answers like it was never in question. 'Of course.'

They don't consider pyjamas, instead curling around each other's dusty skin in pants and vests while murmuring about inconsequential things, domestic things that send warmth spiralling through John to replace the chill that had settled in somewhere during the journey they've just finished.

'I do have one question,' Sherlock says finally, the words warming the skin at John's neck.

'Go on.'

'As you know, many common understandings about the English language, particularly when it comes to colloquialisms, are not part of my… erm, base worldview.'

'Right, I am aware.'

'So I'd like to confirm: When you called the train delay a nightmare, you were exaggerating for humour, and when you called the derailment "not ideal," you were…'

John chuckles tiredly. 'Being English.'

'Being facetious.'

'Yes.' He pauses, fingers in Sherlock's mildly tangled hair. 'Sometimes, it's all that gets you from one moment to the next. One body to the next.'

Sherlock murmurs a noise, and John feels his embrace tighten. 

'Well,' the detective finally says, voice deep and sleepy. 'Besides all that, I really must say that watching you in action was quite... informative.'

'Oh? In what way?'

'Informing me that I find your medical competency viscerally pleasing.'

John huffs a surprised breath. 'Yeah?'

'Mm-hmm. You're very good, and it's very attractive.'

'Noted,' John murmurs, eyes closed. 'Next time.'

'Mm-hmm.' Sherlock's palm is warm on his solar plexus, and John doesn't think twice as he succumbs to a deep, quiet sleep.

[❤️]

[a/n- I have not been in a derailment, but I have been in a train car when it ran over a live human being going 70mph, so forgive me for not being keen to research the former for the sake of accuracy.]

ETA OH GOD I forgot the best part! My inspiration for this piece:

[so-long-soldier-writes]

Dog Days Are Over

kai parker x reader

summary: the post-wedding heartbreak never ceases. without him, life seems to lose its meaning. but despite your best efforts to depart and chase the void that seems to call to you, somehow you're held back. someone refuses to let you go.

tags: tw: su1c1de attempt & thoughts, blood, blood drinking, vampirism / transition, heretics / siphoning, emotional hurt / comfort, light angst, heartache, anger / mild violence, slow recovery, domesticity, friendships, found family, canon divergence, loosely follows plot of seasons 7 & 8

word count: 8.2k

a/n: I'm obsessed with found family x heretics, if you can't tell. I've had this idea for months and finally was able to execute it! (and by execute, i mean write the whole thing in 10 hours & edit for 2 days)

A subtle weight rests on your body; a heaviness in your chest makes it hard to breathe. You don’t fight it. In a couple of minutes, it won’t matter anyway. The wound in your stomach bleeds, soiling your bright blue shirt with a dark red tint. Your heart rate slows, and your eyes flutter. The world around you is getting darker by the second. The end is near, and you swear you can taste it. To whether it’s heaven or hell you are headed, you don’t mind. Or maybe, it’s nothingness. A void. Either way, anything is better than here. 

Your short gasps for breath begin to even out as your heart fails. Pumping no longer seems necessary, so the organ quits. It succumbs to the state that your brain has been in for weeks: numb. Cold. Dead. 

A glimpse of life flashes before your wilting eyes. A figure running towards you, putting their hands on your cheek. Your lover, maybe, greeting you for an eternity of peaceful nothingness together. Your lips part in the joy of seeing him. Blood trickles from your mouth; the wound finally shutting down your body. Your eyes close and you welcome the darkness. 

<•>

The next time you wake up, it’s still dark, and you automatically assume it’s the void that called you home. The Other Side collapsed over a year ago, but supernatural creatures have died since, and nobody ever knows where they go. Here, presumably. To the dark. 

After a moment, your eyes begin to adjust and you move to sit up on your knees. The ground beneath you is hard and cold, like cement. It is not at all welcoming or comforting, but maybe that’s how death is supposed to feel. You shrug, not caring yet. Soon, you won’t feel anymore. Soon, you’ll enter the void, or cross the Styx, or whatever is the last necessary step of dying. Soon, you’ll be free. 

You stand, then stumble. One minute, your mind and soul feel empty, but in the next, an insatiable hunger takes over your body. It knocks you back to your knees. A whine escapes your throat. Death should not feel this way. Death is supposed to be empty. Something’s wrong. 

“Hello?” You call into the void, not expecting an answer. 

Instead, you hear a far-off voice, talking not to you, but someone else. “She’s awake.”

Fear thumbs in your heart. You put a hand over it, only to realize after a couple seconds that it’s not beating. The hunger increases as the sound of footsteps approaches. This isn’t happening. You can’t be alive; shouldn’t be. You chose death. Wanted it. Sought it. 

But someone had other plans. 

<•>

“Hello?” A girl calls out, maybe to you. She waits, then pulls back a small window, letting a little light in your supposed void. “Where are you?”

“What do you want?” You ask, straining. Your voice comes out weaker than you like it to be.

“I brought you something.” 

“Nora, turn on the light,” another girl says.

“Would you like a light?”

No, you think. You’d like to be dead. But… you’d also like to identify your captors. “Okay.”

An overhead light comes on a moment later. You shut your eyes tight as it floods your senses, then open it once you start to adjust. 

“Too much?”

“Was there a lamp option?” You sass. 

“I could find a lamp,” the second girl suggests.

“We’ll find her one in a moment,” the first turns back to you, “can you see us alright?”

Finally, you can. Two girls peek through a window, one brunette and one blonde. They seem sweet, not like the high school mean girls’ type, but you’re still cautious. “I can see you.”

“Good. We have something for you.”

The smell of blood attacks your senses. Your hunger grows. 

You make two big strides to the pair, before realizing something. You weren’t a vampire before, so why should the smell of blood excite you now? You stop, shaking your head. “No.”

“You have to drink,” the blonde urges. You have to complete the transition, she doesn’t say, despite it on her mind. 

“No, I wanted to die. I tried to die.” You lock eyes with the brunette. “One of you turned me.”

“Y/N, you can’t die. You-”

“How do you know my name?! Who are you?!”

“That doesn’t matter right now, what matters is that you drink.”

“No!”

“Y/N, please!” She holds the bag further out to you. 

Your weak body begs for you to drink, but your mournful heart refuses. “No!” You shout again. “I’m not drinking your blood; I’m not transitioning!”

“You have to!” The blonde agrees with her friend. “You’re getting paler by the second.”

“Good. Then I’ll have lived and died a witch.”

“You’re too young to die, Y/N. You can’t give up. He wouldn’t want you to give up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Please, drink, and then we can talk.”

“No. You can’t make me.”

“I can,” she argues.

“You won’t come in here with me. With me so close to transitioning. That would be suicide.”

“Well we can’t let you die, either.”

You stand off with the two girls. They seem to communicate telepathically between themselves. It’s quite frightening to not know what they’re thinking. You stare at them, wondering who they are and why they care that you live. 

“You’ll thank us later, Y/N, just drink.”

“I don’t want to live. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t have stabbed myself.”

“You won’t feel this heartbreak forever,” the blonde speaks, like a Hallmark card you didn’t ask to receive. You roll your eyes. 

“I think we have to,” the first girl says, hand undoing the bag.

“I agree.”

Before you can ask about their apparent plan, they’re opening the door and swarming to you. 

“Get out!” You cry. The blonde holds your left arm, while the brunette backs you up to the wall. “I don’t want it.”

“You’ll be grateful one day,” she sticks her promise to you again. 

“If it’s not today, there’s no point. I can’t take this anymore.”

“Take it from someone who spent a hundred years in solitary confinement, I know loneliness. It hurts. It’s worse than a knife to the stomach,” she references your attempt. It’s still apparent on your clothes. “But life isn’t all sad. Sometimes it can be beautiful.”

“I’ve seen it beautiful,” you argue, tears forming in your eyes, “I've seen it, yet I’ll never see it again.”

“You have to trust us. Trust yourself. You can be happy again.”

“No.”

“Yes, Y/N, come on. Drink the blood.” The brunette holds the bag to your face, pinning you against the wall.

“No.” In a last ditch effort, you raise your free arm and smack the bag out of her hand. It flies, then hits the stone wall across from you and splatters. Her eyes go wide, and when she looks back at you, a triumphant look shines in your eyes. 

“What did you do that for?!” The blonde shouts. “Waste a perfectly good bag!”

“It’s okay, Mary Louise, just means she’ll get a taste of the real stuff.” Before you can ask, the vampire before you is biting her wrist and shoving it between your lips. You fight, kicking and swinging, but the girls are much stronger. “Keep her still,” she nods to her friend, “just a little more.”

Your wrist starts to burn. You glance down for a second and see an orange glow emitting from the point of connection on your skin. “What-”

The brunette takes advantage of your parted lips and shoves her wrist further into your mouth. “Okay, stop,” she says, and the girl siphoning stops. 

Your body is weak, but your heart feels strong. It doesn’t beat, but the blood filling your stomach powers it. The siphoning, however, tolls on your body. The girls let go of you, watch you daze, then gently help your body to the floor. You’re out like a light, asleep. 

<•>

You’re much stronger the second time awake. Stronger, with a vengeance. First, you need to find out who those girls were, how they were able to siphon you, and why they wanted to keep you alive. Then, you need to find the nearest piece of wood and send your soul to the void like you had planned. 

You look around, searching for anything sharp and anything wooden. You realize now that you’re in a cellar with absolutely nothing that could be used as a weapon, and the only thing in there with you is another blood bag. Angrily, you kick it and it splatters. The smell reaches your nose and you curse yourself for wasting it, now hungry. On the bright side, the violent act seems to let your captors know you’re awake. They walk gingerly down the stairs only a moment later, then switch on a lamp before opening the window. 

“Y/N?” The brunette starts, tone cautious. 

Your reply is bitter. “What?”

“I’m sorry we had to hold you down. We didn’t want it to come to that.”

“But you had to drink. We couldn’t let you die.”

“What do you care? And who are you?” Then, “and why could you siphon me?”

“If we let you out, will you run?”

“We can’t let her out, Mary. I don’t trust she won’t hurt herself.” You scoff. She turns back to you. “I’m Nora, this is Mary Louise.”

“And? How do you know me?”

“Well, we don’t, but we recognized you from pictures.”

“Pictures? What pictures?”

The girls hesitate. A name rests on their tongues, but they don’t utter it. Unbeknownst to you, they fear saying it out loud will drive you mad. Names have power, and in this case, a lot of it. 

“Doesn’t matter right now,” the brunette, Nora, says instead. “What matters is that you get better.”

You laugh dryly. “I would’ve been better off dead.”

Mary Louise seems to get agitated at that. “Stop saying that! You have to live! He’d-”

“Mary, don’t say anything.” The girl quiets immediately. 

“Why do you care so much if I live? Who’s he? Where am I?”

“Technically, you’re in the Salvatore house. The basement. We’d give you a room if we could trust you, but it’s too great a risk that you’d hurt yourself still.”

“Why the boarding house? Where’s Damon? Stefan? Do they know I’m here?”

The girls share glances but confess nothing. “You’re safe here. We are not going to hurt you.”

“That’s what people often say before hurting said captive.”

“You’re at more risk by your own hand than ours,” Mary retorts. “You stabbed yourself in an alley behind a dumpster. You’re lucky Nora and I sensed the blood.”

“Luck is not the term I’d use. If you couldn’t tell, I did it on purpose.”

They sigh as if they knew it was on purpose, but for some reason they’re not telling you, they still felt the need to save you. 

You ask again, “why did you turn me? Why not just let me die?”

Nora hands you a new blood bag. “Drink this.”

Rolling your eyes more, you refuse. “No.”

“Drink, and we’ll give you answers.”

“C’mon, you’ve already transitioned,” Mary argues, “you might as well not dessicate.”

You know she’s right. Angrily, you snatch the bag and drink it down quickly. When you toss the bag back at Nora, she sighs. 

“You’re a friend of a friend of ours,” she says vaguely. “He would want you to live. He’d want you to live your life and die naturally, rather than die young and heartbroken.”

“That ‘naturally’ part is no longer happening-”

“-which is not our fault,” Mary snaps, interrupting you.

“Mary,” the other calms, “patience. Yes, when you die, it will no longer be natural, but at least as a vampire, you have a shot at life again. In a sense, maybe, it’s a gift. You can leave if you want to leave. You can go where you want. You’re not bound by human laws or rules. You can be free.”

“I don’t want to be free. I don’t want anything if I can’t-” you stop yourself. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know. But someday, you’ll realize life is worth living, and you’ll be glad that you got a second chance. Take it from someone - both of us - who were given one.”

“Easy for you to say, you have each other. I have no one.”

“Maybe we can be someone for you, if you trust us.”

“Yeah, not likely.”

“Give it time, Y/N. We’ll bring you another bag later.”

As she shuts the window, you shout. “You didn’t even answer all my questions!” But they’re gone. The lamp remains on, but you’re left to your thoughts, alone. 

<•>

The same cycle repeats for days. Weeks, even. The longer the mystery girls keep you locked up, the angrier you get. They arrive, open the window, practically force you a bag, spew bullshit about how you’ll get better, then leave. Two, sometimes three times a day. No one else ever visits, although one time, they had a third girl - Valerie - join them. She didn’t talk much, but she sure did seem to study you. 

That day, after realizing there were more people in the house than just the two of them, you grow restless. Your mind is understimulated and bored. Your heart is broken and sore. You haven’t seen daylight in god knows how long. The next time Nora and Mary Louise come down, you’re ready to pick a fight. 

You drink the bag without complaints, then send it flying back through the barred window along with a string of shouts and cuss words. They’ve given you the bare minimum of information, despite promising an explanation, and saving you from death just to lock you in a cellar seems cruel and unfair. They want you to live, yet treat you like a wild animal. They swear they’re protecting you, but you can’t see them as anything but kidnappers. 

Nora remains calm throughout your rants, though Mary Louise looks on the verge of tears. It hurts, a little, to see her so upset, but if she could feel the agony you feel day-after-day, maybe she’d understand your pain. 

After every last word on your mind is spat out to the girls, Nora gives you a look that you hate. It reads that she sympathizes; she cares, in her own way, but she keeps you confined for your own good. You hate to admit it, but she’s right. If they had even given you a pillow, you’d find a way to hurt yourself. Even if you kill yourself daily just to be unconscious most of the time. Still, you scream at them. How you didn’t ask to live; how you were ready to die; how you can’t live without him, and he’s gone. You think Nora doesn’t understand, but she does. They both do. 

She doesn’t tell you she does until you settle. And when you do, she finally tells you all of it.

<•>

“Your silencing spells are weakening with her anger. She’s literally breaking them down, there’s so much pain in her screams,” Valerie tells the girls. “You better get her under control quickly, or Lily will have something to say about it.”

“She’s just facing the worst part of her transition. All the pain is hitting her at once, coupled with the fact that her lover is dead. Give her a break.”

“You shouldn’t have turned her at all, Nora.”

“Well I couldn’t very well let Kai’s girlfriend kill herself out of heartbreak. We owe it to him to save her.”

“Some people don’t want to be saved.”

“She doesn’t want to die,” Nora counters, “she just doesn’t want to live without him.”

“And now she’ll live forever without him.”

“I’m going to help her find happiness in this life. Even if he’s not here, she needs to know life is worth it to hold on and find something that makes you happy again.”

“A heartbroken vampire in love with a murdered sociopath can be a very dangerous thing.”

“So can a previously dessicated heretic still in love with her ex-lover from the eighteen hundreds,” Nora sasses. “She’ll be okay, she just needs time.”

“I bet Mary Louise won’t like you devoting so much time to a girl that’s not her.”

Mary enters the conversation from the kitchen. She leans against the doorframe, a small smirk on her lips. “Mary quite likes the girl, actually. She’s grateful to Kai for feeding us and busting us out of that god-awful prison world, and she knows how much Y/N meant to him. And, she likes seeing her girlfriend put so much effort into healing someone else’s broken heart.”

Valerie rolls her eyes, defeated. “Whatever. Just put up new silencing spells, because the neighbors will start to complain.”

<•> 

That afternoon, the girls visit you and prepare themselves for a new string of cuss words. The modern day tongue seems to have many at the ready, and the pair are always surprised to hear the variations you spew at them. Although, when they open the window this time, they’re shocked to find you sitting criss-cross, in the middle of the floor, sobbing heavily. Your hands cover your face, and you seem to neglect to notice their presence. Nora’s heart breaks. In the moment, you remind her of Alice in Wonderland in her sea of tears. She recalls reading that book over a century ago and relating to lost little Alice. Now, she’s transported back in time as she looks at you.

“Y/N?” She asks cautiously. You look up, glance at her, but then dart your eyes back to the ground. “Are you okay?” 

“How is life supposed to get better? How do I live after all this tragedy? Where do I go from here?”

“That’s something we’d like to help you find out, if you’d let us.”

“That’s why we turned you,” Mary adds, “so that you could find it, and have friends along the way. We want to help you.”

You raise your head back up to them. “I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough for it.”

“You are perfectly capable of living a life you can be proud of. You just need a little push to get there.”

“And how am I supposed to get there, living in here? In this cellar?”

“This is only temporary. This is for your safety, until you find it in yourself to want to live. ‘Til the desire to hurt yourself is gone, okay?”

“We have another bag for you,” Mary says, tossing it to you.

You drink it unquestioningly, and they prepare for the shouting. This time, however, it never comes. You only nod to the girls, then lie on your back and continue to cry. 

<•>

A month after your transition, you finally settle. Most of the anger and tears have subsided, and the boundary and silencing spells hold without wavering. Nora and Mary Louise want nothing more than to tell you their full story, and they think you’re finally ready to hear it. 

For the first time ever, you smile at them. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Nora says calmly. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I want to die,” you blurt out, but then sigh. “But okay. A bit numb.”

“You haven’t turned off your humanity, have you?” Mary jokes lightly.

“And be even more bored out of my skull? No.”

“Good. Bag?” 

You shrug. 

“Can we come in?”

Your eyes narrow at Nora’s request. The question is new to you. Usually, they stay beyond the cellar door. The last time they had come in with you, she force fed you her blood. But despite that memory, you don’t feel threatened by the girls anymore. They give you a strange sense of peace, like you could trust them, for reasons you don’t understand. “Sure,” you reply. 

They join you on the ground, the three of you all sitting criss-crossed. Mary hands you the bag, which you accept and drink quietly. 

“Y/N…” Nora starts, “we know you have a lot of questions. And while we didn’t want to give you any responses before, we think you’re ready to hear some answers now.”

You pause sipping your bag. “Really?”

“Well the hard part of your transition is over,” Mary says, “we’d really like you to trust us, and we’d like to have trust in you, too, so that we can let you out. But in order for that to happen, we have to know you’ll be safe in the world. No pointy objects, no wood.”

You turn to Nora. “Is that one of the questions you’ll answer? The real reason you want me alive?”

“It is.”

You nod. “I’m listening. And I promise, I’m okay right now. I’m not going to hurt you, or myself, unless I have reason. Truth be told, I don’t really have the mental strength for it.”

Nora nods, too, then, “why?”

“What?”

“Why is it that you don’t have the strength? What’s plaguing you? Why did you attempt to take your own life?”

“I…” your eyes already start to water again, “I can’t live without him. I don’t want to live without him.”

“And who is him?”

“I- I can’t say.”

“Can’t say because you fear our judgment, or can’t say his name out loud?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Might I say it, then?”

“I guess. If you know…”

“Y/N… we know it’s Kai. And we know because his… passing affects us, too.” Hearing his name out loud shatters your heart, but Nora saying she knew him catches your attention. You tilt your head at her. “The reason we were able to siphon you earlier is because we’re like him. We’re heretics.” You straighten. “We were trapped in the 1903 prison world. Kai fed us and let us out. We owe our survival to him.”

“He became a brother to us,” Mary adds, “was a brother to us. We’re all of the same family, with the same rejected gene, although a century apart. Besides each other, we’ve never had anyone understand us, and aside from Lily, no one’s ever cared to listen.”

“But how do you know me? You know,” your voice wavers, his name coming off your tongue weakly, “Kai. How do you know me?”

“Because, silly, he loved you,” Nora rolls her eyes gently, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Mary nods. “Once he knew we were trustworthy, he talked to us nonstop. Some of it was about the modern world or his own past, but he mostly talked about you. He had the strangest device, a phone, he called it, and would look at pictures of you until it died, and after that, he had one in his wallet.”

“And he’d tell stories. How kind you always were, how he came to trust you, and how you had started a relationship together.”

“The longer he spent there, the more worked up he was getting. He told us about 1994 and what had happened, and that he’d spent eighteen years in another prison world, just to end up in a colder, darker one. I think that’s where the wedding went wrong.”

You agree. “He told me his biggest fear was getting sent to one of those again. Being alone.”

“Not only being alone, but being without you,” Nora says. “We were there, but he still needed you.”

“And although we kept him company, it wasn’t the same.”

“Valerie didn’t help much,” Nora mutters.

“Valerie… the other one? Upstairs?”

“She didn’t approve of his crime to get locked in 1994. She seemed to have forgotten her own childhood, judging his like that. We all grew up similarly. Told we were abominations and cast away.”

You’re about to make a comment on that, but Mary beats you to speaking first,

“You didn’t flinch when I siphoned you.”

“Yeah, um,” you smile, a memory surfacing, “I used to let Kai siphon whenever he wanted.”

“It didn’t hurt?”

“I liked it.” You shrug. “Hurt a little, sometimes. Like a burn, but… I liked the feeling.”

“You say ‘whenever he wanted,’ so like, not only for spells?”

“Sometimes he just wanted to feel magic in his blood. I didn’t use my magic a lot, and knew he had been deprived of it, so regardless if he was performing a spell or not, yes, I’d let him siphon.”

“So…” Nora starts, “you said you didn’t use your magic a lot?”

“Not really.”

“So you won’t be too upset at losing it now that you’re a vampire?”

You give her a playful glare. “I’ll miss it, but I can live without it.” Her face lights up at your choice of words. “What?”

“‘You can live without it’. That’s exactly what I want to hear from you; that you know you can live, despite the tragedy, just like you said you fear.”

“Nora-”

“Sh, sh, sh, let me relish this moment.” Mary giggles at her girlfriend. “You want to fight the war inside your mind. You want to live.”

“I wanted to live with Kai,” you remind. “Alone…”

“You won’t be alone. We know what it’s like to be lonely. We won’t let you feel that way.”

“I just… it’s going to take some time for me to heal. I can’t promise it’ll be easy.”

“We’ve got your back, Y/N. Kai would have wanted you to live. We want that for you, too.”

You nod, still a bit unsure, but now aware that these girls aren’t going to let you out of their sight, so you might as well comply. “Can I stay here, then?”

“In the cellar or upstairs?”

“I don’t know.”

Mary rolls her eyes playfully. “C’mon, we have a room ready for you.”

<•>

Adjusting to your new life is hard. Living without Kai is hard. Living with the heretics, though, is surprisingly easy. They’ve taken you in as one of their own, filling in the void that Kai left, and treating you like family. Valerie is a little weary around you, perhaps wondering how you could love the man that killed his entire family, but Nora and Mary Louise don’t ever let her get far. She, too, deep down, is grateful for the escape that your lover brought them; she doesn’t let her disapproval of his crimes cloud that too much.

Beau is more similar to Valerie than the girls. He’s older than them and Kai, and has never been one to seek revenge, as told to you by Valerie. While Kai had a penchant for violence, and Nora had a heart craving retribution, the other heretics were much more level-headed. They wanted to distance themselves from their family more so than to make them pay. And although Mary Louise was one of these, she strongly supported her girlfriend’s needs, understanding how their coven’s treatment could make them turn cold. 

Once awoken in 1903, Nora quickly admires Kai for his actions. Granted, he may have not gone about his revenge in the best way, but he refused to let his father win, and won himself. Nora wasn’t a twin, just a sibling in her particular line, but she had suffered as much isolation as Kai did. For him to break free from his father’s prison world, then complete the merge he was denied and become their leader, it didn’t take much convincing to get her involved in the break-free from 1903 plan. Mary, again, went along with her girlfriend. She was passive but had a similar childhood, and couldn’t help but see Kai as the brother she always wanted. She had one, but wasn’t allowed to speak to him, and so when Kai spoke nonstop to her, she felt adored by him. And it’s true, Kai loved them all like family, because they were. 

Despite knowing most of the heretics, you never meet Malcomb, who was killed by Damon while you were still transitioning. Nor have you met Oscar, who is out running vague errands for Lily. Though you remain in the boarding house with the four until tensions start to rise between Lily and her sons. 

Lily, rarely at the house, is nonetheless welcoming to you. She offers you a simple condolence when you thank her for giving Kai her blood. She says she wishes things turned out better, and regrets not being able to save his life. In a way, you tell her, she did, but that Damon took him away from both of you. All of you, rather, as Nora strokes your hair as you speak.

The warming party between Mystic Falls’ residents and the heretics is the day your new status as a vampire is revealed. The wistful shock in Damon’s eyes and the concerned delight in Bonnie’s is something you’ll never forget, although by this time, you’re too disheartened by either of them to address it. When Mary Louise whisks you away with a bottle of bourbon, you don’t fight. Enzo sends Bonnie a confused glance that you miss, but neither comment. 

<•>

A lot happens in a short time following that night. Jo’s twins are confirmed to be alive with Caroline carrying them, something about which you’re still unsure. Valerie had a rendezvous with Stefan a century ago, and Julian’s confirmed a monster when his atrocious response slips from between her lips. For a moment, Mary Louise is hesitant to trust her, and Nora finds solace with Bonnie, but you, now permanently bonded to the two youngest heretics, pull them back together. Oscar is lost along the way, caught by the Salvatores who had just put down their own mother. Four funerals are held in a mere couple of months: Kai, Malcomb, Oscar, and Lily. One month after that, a fifth is held for Beau. 

Caroline’s twins - well, Jo’s, ish - are born, with the help of the heretics. You watch from a distance, concerned way more for Caroline birthing two refusing siphons from her vampire womb, than for the twins themselves. In the end, only Beau is the one to not make it out. A previously estranged vampire hunter released from Alaric’s armory interrupts the introduction of life with a promise of death. Bonnie was the one to let her out, it’s revealed, so it’s only fair that she’s the one to get tangled in the mess and take her down. After that, Enzo and Damon are captured by sirens and made to perform the dirty work of the two ancient beings. Bonnie’s trapped in the middle of it, as is Caroline, and incidentally, as is everyone else in the town. Eventually, what’s left of the old Mystic Falls’ gang manages to rid themselves of the sirens, only to be faced with Cade, the Devil himself. 

Though most of these details are blurry to you. Parts of the story are missing, like holes in a blanket. You’ve kept up with the general plot, but lost a lot of the story’s structure along the way. 

That’s because seven years ago, right after the twins’ birth and Beau’s funeral, the heretics ran. Valerie escaped to Europe, and you, Nora, and Mary Louise headed south. You didn’t want to get mixed up in the turmoil, especially not with Rayna Cruz, then a vengeful Bonnie, on the loose, so the three of you disappeared with barely a trace. You’re still in contact with Caroline, and Valerie remembers to charge and connect her phone, she still talks to Nora and Mary Louise, but for the most part, you’re set far apart from your old life. 

And surprisingly, you’re happy. 

Life in the boarding house with the heretics was easy. Living with Nora and Mary Louise is even easier. You’ve taught them to adapt to the modern age, despite their unfamiliarity, but as it turns out, they blend in quite well. You have a thing for take-out; the girls love catching up on all the movies they’ve missed, so many nights are spent as movie nights, eating large amounts of take-out and binging movies all night. Of course, you also rotate cooking. Mary’s the worst. Nora’s the best. You’re in the middle, no talent of your own, for it’s Kai that taught you all you know about it. 

Speaking of Kai… over time, you’ve been able to talk more about him. You open up your relationship to the heretics, sharing stories you’ve never told anyone, telling them things that most might consider TMI, but by this point in your friendship, there’s no such thing as secrets. They love it. They love laughing at the funny parts, and crying over sadder ones. They share memories and tragedies from their own pasts, sometimes relating to Kai, but sometimes, also, relating to you. 

You share blankets on the couch and straws with drinks. You braid each other’s hair and rotate chores. You dance together in the kitchen, singing along to music both old and modern, with no neighbors to hear how undeniably loud you are. You’re happy. 

<•>

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from Caroline, but when you finally do, she sends you a cryptic message that immediately pulls you to your feet. 

Caroline: I need a favor. Call me when you get a chance. 

Your eyes narrow at the text. Rarely does Caroline text with such seriousness, especially with such a long period of not speaking. 

“What is it?” Nora asks, seeing tension on your face. 

“Caroline… asking for a favor.”

“You don’t have to go back to Mystic Falls, do you? It’s dangerous there,” Mary worries. Talk of the Devil filled the last phone call you’ve had with the other blonde. Specifically, Kelly Donovan returned for one more dramatic entrance, a bell was rung, and the Devil got out. A second protection spell was put around the house, just in case, after that news. 

“I’m not sure. One moment.” You dial her number, and only wait a second before she picks up. “Caroline?”

“Y/N? Hi.”

“Hi. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Kind of. I need you to come back to Mystic Falls as soon as possible.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s… it’s about the twins.”

You shoot the girls an anxious glance as they overhear the call. 

“Is everything okay with them?”

Caroline hesitates. “How soon can you get here?”

“Caroline? Are they okay?”

“Y/N-”

“Overnight. I’ll be there by morning.”

“Okay. Come to the armory.”

You pack a quick bag and hug your friends, then leave immediately. 

“Be careful,” they wish you. “Let us know if you need help.”

“I will. I’ll be back shortly.”

<•>

You burst into the armory quite loudly, calling for Caroline. She races to your side a moment later, a finger over her lips. 

“What’s wrong? Where’s the twins?”

“The twins are fine. They’re-”

“What?! Caroline, what the fuck?! I drove all night. I-”

“Come with me. Please. And be quiet.”

Still worried, but now a little pissed, you follow her down the narrow, dark hallway to the cells. You’re about to ask more questions, but then you notice a person occupying one of the rooms. “Who-?”

She spins you around by the shoulders, forcing you to look at her. “Take him and go. Wherever you are with the heretics, bring him with you. I can’t let him hurt my girls, but if he’s with you, he’ll stay away from them.”

“Caroline, what-”

“Cade is looking for him, and Stefan and Damon want to send him back in exchange for Elena’s coffin, but I know how much he means to you and if I were in your shoes, I’d intervene, too. Hell, I’ve spent the last three days compelling Stefan’s victims that they’ve been seeing things. We’ve all done questionable things for the people we love, and so I’m telling you to do the same. Get him out of Mystic Falls, now.”

When you turn the corner, Kai Parker is on the other side of the glass. His hand is raised as he siphons the magic from the walls. 

“Caroline, will-” he pauses, noticing you. “Y/N?”

Your breath hitches in your throat. “Kai?” You turn to Caroline, searching for answers.

“He escaped when the Maxwell bell rang.”

“That bell rang days ago, you said. He’s been here ever since?”

“Damon told me you were dead,” Kai says. The glass begins to crack under his hand. 

“We don’t have time for this,” Caroline interrupts hurriedly, “Y/N, you need to go.” She waves in Kai’s direction. “Break the glass, make it look like you’ve escaped, and get out of here. Just don’t think about coming after my kids, or I’ll make you regret it.”

Kai sets his jaw, then shatters the glass. Caroline blocks the both of you from the shards, and in the next moment, you’re standing face to face with the man you’ve missed for years. 

“Hi, princess,” he greets.

You waste no time jumping into his arms, legs around his waist, burying your face in his neck. You cling to him tightly, wrapped in an embrace, until he sets you down gently. 

“Caroline,” you start, “thank you.”

She smiles sweetly. “I love you. Now, go!”

“I love you, too. I’ll call you when everything settles.”

“You better.”

You take Kai’s hand and drag him out of the armory. A series of turns leads you to a side exit; an emergency door, but with the sirens already blaring overhead, you’re not worried about it. 

“Y/N,” he pauses the moment you get outside. 

“My car’s over here, c’mon.” 

He doesn’t budge. “But-”

“Kai!”

“You’re a vampire,” he says, clearly confused. “What happened? When’d you turn?”

“What? You don’t think I could look this young seven years later?” You joke, tugging more.

“No! I didn’t mean that-”

“I…” your grip weakens with the look he gives you. “Can we please get in the car? Alaric’s going to notice you’re gone, and-”

“When? When did you turn?”

“After you died,” you confess, face falling to the ground. You can’t look at him; can’t stand to see the sadness on your face. 

“How? Did Damon-?”

“No, Damon didn’t do it. I… I couldn’t live without you. It was too hard. I didn’t want to. I tried… someone had other plans.”

“Princess…” his voice trails off as he realizes what you mean. Strong arms reach for yours to pull you into his chest. “You didn’t… oh. Oh my god.” He tilts your head up to face him, but you avoid his eyes. “Who turned you? Dam-”

“Again, not Damon. I, um, can we go? Ric’s gonna come any second, and-”

“Who turned you, Y/N?”

“Nora.” 

“Nora? From-”

“1903? Yeah. “

“Is she-? Are the heretics-?” Kai’s interrupted by shouting coming from the armory. You grab his hand once more and drag him to your car. He climbs in the passenger seat without question, and you speed out of Mystic Falls as fast as you can. 

Not until you’re fifteen minutes from the armory, do you finally answer the questions swarming his head. You lower your speed to follow the limit, then take a deep breath. 

“Nora,” he beats you to it. 

“I killed myself,” you confess, “attempted, I guess. She found me, fed me her blood right before I died. She and Mary Louise took me to the boarding house, where they had been staying.”

“Both of them?”

You nod. “I wasn’t an easy project. First I refused to transition, then I refused bags. She had to pin me to the wall to get me to drink; I still fought, and Mary had to siphon me to weaken me enough that Nora could complete the transition. After that, I’d scream and cuss at them for keeping me alive. Nora would give me this cold stare, and Mary would cry, but neither gave up on me. Then, I flipped a complete one-eighty and cried for weeks. Nora said I resembled Alice in Wonderland in her sea of tears.” You chuckle now, but Kai has a feeling you weren’t laughing then. He sure isn’t laughing at all as you retell the story. “But finally, after about a month, I settled. I realized I couldn’t die, and they wouldn’t let me die, and I had to figure out how to live, now, as a vampire. I let them give me bags without a fight, and with time, talked to them.” 

“Why did they save you, do you know?”

“That’s something I begged them to tell me for weeks, but they refused to say until I was ready to hear it. They loved you,” you say, stealing a glimpse at him, “like a hero, like a brother. They loved you, and heard so many stories in the prison world about how you loved me, and when Nora found me in the alley, she knew she had to save me because you would’ve wanted me to live. She did it for you. She didn’t want me - your girl - to die ‘young and heartbroken’.” You sniffle, tears forming. “She wanted me to learn to live a life I could be proud of, and she wanted to honor her admiration for you by keeping me here.”

It’s a lot for Kai to take in; he’s quiet for a few minutes. As he thinks, though, his hand creeps towards yours and takes a hold of it. He squeezes gently, then kisses your knuckles. 

“The heretics,” he says, “where are they now?”

“Val’s in Europe, traveling. She didn’t want to be near Mystic Falls; turns out she has history with Stefan. Damon and Bonnie killed Malcomb before I could meet him, and Damon and Stefan killed Oscar, also before I met him. Beau was killed by an ancient hunter, whilst protecting the twins after Caroline gave birth to them, and-”

“Mary Louise and Nora?”

“I live with them.”

“What?”

“We have a little house on the border. Just out of Virginia, but barely considered North Carolina. They’re still together; had some bumps in their relationship, but they’re happy now.”

“And you, are you happy?”

“It took me a long time, but I found happiness within myself and from them. So I would consider myself happy, I guess. As weird as it is to say.”

“And me… if I were to join you, would you still be happy, after all these years?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve learned to live without me. You’ve found your place in this world, and friends. You’ve built a life for yourself.”

Slowly, you pull over to give him your full attention. Kai watches carefully, curious at what you’ll say. “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed you. I think about you every day. I miss the feeling of holding your hand, and hugging you. Kissing you. Hell, I miss the feeling of you siphoning me. No matter how happy I’ve become, there’s always been a piece of me missing. I figured it would always be missing, but as I sit here and look at you, I realize it’s not anymore. I love you, Kai, and I want you in my life, with me. I always have. I’ve learned to live without you, yes, and I’ve found people and things within myself that contribute to my happiness, but I will never be as good as when I’m with you.”

“Y/N…”

“And if your next question is about Nora and Mary, just know that they adore you way more than you might ever know. Nora admires you, and to Mary, you’re the brother she never got to know. They saved my life because they were mourning you, and knew I was, too. We all saved each other, in a way, and we’re all brought together because of you.”

It takes another minute of focused staring to process your words. You follow his line of sight to the steering wheel, but the moment you catch his eye, he stutters a response. “I-I love you. I’ve missed you, too, every day, and the thought of you is what kept me strong when I was in Hell. I need you.”

“You have me.”

“I won’t be easy, either. I can’t promise I won’t have nightmares from all the shit that happened there, but I promise I won’t ever leave you again.”

“I’ll help you through them. It’ll be okay.”

“You sure you want me in your life?”

“I need you just as much as you say you need me. Don’t ever doubt that.”

He nods. “Take me home, then.” He smiles. “Wait, after a kiss first.” Kai moves towards you as you turn twice, once to the wheel, then back to him, and takes your face in his hands. He kisses you with a passion equally sweet and rough, fingers grazing your skin and tangling in your hair. Your own hands find his shoulders, pulling him closer. After a moment, he pulls back, needing to catch his breath after such a long time of not kissing you. “Good? You need any more convincing to keep me around?”

“Shut up,” you joke, lighting hitting his chest. “Convincing? No. But I am gonna need you to make up later for seven years apart.”

“Well that I can certainly do.”

<•>

Four hours later, you pull into the long driveway that is your home. It’s nestled peacefully in the woods, away from most people, yet not so much that anyone will assume it’s abandoned. It’s cute and dainty, with colored tulips in beds in the front, and a red wreath hanging on the door, all compliments of Mary Louise. A bowl of food and water rests on the porch, to which Kai makes a face, and you explain that Nora’s been feeding the stray cats. You, on the other hand, are responsible for the hammock on the wrap-around porch. It provides a perfect spot for reading, or, more often, a place to daydream what life would be like if Kai never left. 

Just like this, you’d think, but he’d be beside you, softly kissing your neck. 

You don’t knock before entering. However, Kai bumps into the doorway, and you let out a quiet giggle at his confused expression. 

“Nora?” You call into the home. “I need you to let somebody in.”

The door is open wide enough that Kai can see into the house, but he can’t see the stairs. Nora trots down the stairs a moment later, asking to whom you could be referring before she sees him for herself. 

“Just a friend Caroline wanted me to pick up. Kinda like a stray puppy, actually.”

Mary giggles, half-expecting an actual puppy. But then when Nora comes to the door and her heart begins to race, her girlfriend gets worried. “Nora?” She hurries to stand beside her. “Oh!”

“Kai?” Nora asks gently. It looks like him, but she can never be too sure. She looks to you for confirmation.

You nod. “It’s him.”

“Hi,” he greets, signature smile confirming his own identity. 

“Kai,” she says, tone full of relief. She rushes into his arms for a hug he didn’t expect. Nevertheless, he hugs her back just as tightly as she holds him. “Come in,” she invites as soon as letting him go.

Mary gawks as he crosses the threshold. “Can I-?”

He opens his arms again for her to hug him, and the two share their own embrace. 

“What happened?” Nora starts, “how’d you-? Where-?”

“As I told Damon, then Caroline told Y/N, I jumped out when the Maxwell bell was rung. Damon tried to keep me hidden from Y/N, but Caroline had other plans. She let Y/N take me as long as I didn’t hurt the twins, to which I’m happy to let those little Gemini gremlins go if it means being with her.”

“And Cade?”

“Caroline called on the way; Cade’s dead. And Kai ate on the way, so he’s feeling better.”

“Earlier I felt like I could still be slipping back into Hell, but Cade’s grip on me weakened, and her blood gave me strength, so I won and got my footing back on Earth. I am officially a live-dead man once again.”

Mary chuckles, but Nora’s attention catches on a word. “Her?” You glance at the ground, a blush rising to your cheeks. Nora smiles. “Not twelve hours, and the lovebirds are sharing blood.”

“Match made in Heaven,” Mary laughs more.

“Completely inseparable,” Nora agrees. “Well, Kai, I hope you’ve made plans to stay, because now that you’re back, we’re never letting you out of our sight again.”

“You want me to stay?”

Nora had turned, but now she whips back around to face him. “What? Of course. Did you and Y/N-”

“We talked in the car! I thought you were okay with staying.”

“But Nora’s the owner of the house, I have to ask her, too!”

“Of course you’re staying, dork!” She’d learned that word the last couple years and always said it fits Kai; now she gets to use it on him. “Now pull up a chair. I know you’re the cook around here, but I made dinner, and it’s pretty good!”

The four of you take to the table where Nora pours bowls of soup. You settle around the chairs like a family separated for too long, but finally joined back together, never to be apart again, and it’s good. Your hands connected with Kai’s underneath the table, and he squeezes. Across from you, the girls’ own hands are held in each other’s. The joy and laughter around the table is something you want to be a part of forever. 

[finest-galaxy]

Bullet With Butterfly Wings

The full playlist for this story can be found below:

1. Bullet With Butterfly Wings- Smashing Pumpkins

2. Kryptonite- 3 Doors Down

3. Scotty Doesn't Know- Lustra

4. Basket Case- Green Day

5. How the World Works- Bo Burnham

6. Crazy Bitch- Buckcherry

7. Killer Queen- Queen

8. Heart Shaped Box- Nirvana

9. Howlin' for You- The Black Keys

Be kind ya'll. This is the first fic I've written in fifteen years. Also, sorry the formatting is shit. I'm a computer illiterate Millennial.

The bird hadn’t answered his phone in four fucking days.

Not that Blitzo cared or anything. The stupid bird could do what he liked. No skin off his ass.

Only...he always answered Blitz’s texts. And he’d sent some quality horny memes. It was still a couple weeks out from the next full moon, but it never hurt to do a little pregaming. Plus, he knew Stolas would find them funny. This time, though, he hadn’t even sent so much as a “haha” or a fucking thumbs up.

The imp tapped his fingers against his bulky phone case, frowning. It was probably fine. He was probably just off on some royal bullshit, but it was still a little worrisome. The last time they’d seen each other, the avian horndog had seemed a bit more run down than usual. The sex had still been eventful, and he’d seemed to enjoy it, but it did seem like something was off. He hadn’t pushed and no details had been offered up. Now that he thought about it, Stolas hadn’t really talked much at all. Normally, he didn’t shut his beak the entire time Blitz was there.

“Fuck.”

Blitz: (10:41pm) Brd, answer ur phone.

Blitz: (10:47pm) Asshole. Just say if Via iz ther

Stolas: (10:55pm) No.

Blitz: (10:56pm) Gud. Be out side in 20

Stolas: (10:56pm) I’m not in the mood, Blitz. I would prefer to be alone. Thank you for offering, though.

Blitz: (11:06pm) 2 bad. 10 mins

___________________________________________________________________________________

Stolas pulled his sweater tighter around himself. He was perched on the bottom step of the palace, waiting to kindly tell Blitz to go back home. He’d had a truly awful few days, and for once he wasn’t feeling up to whatever sexual experience the imp was planning. Stella had spent most of the week silently stalking around the palace, setting his nerves on end. His awful brother in law had joined her for hours on end, and it had felt like the two of them were plotting something awful. It was probably nothing, but it had ensured that this week hadn’t held a moment of peace for him. He had barely slept and was beginning to feel the exhaustion settle deep into his bones.

He glanced up to see the IMP van screeching into the driveway. Blitz rolled down the drivers side window and leaned out.

“Hey, birdie.”

The owl raised an eyebrow at the smaller man, but remained on the steps. “Blitzy, I’m sorry you’ve driven all this way, but I’m—”

Blitz held up a hand to stop him. “Nah, we’re not doing excuses. Come on.”

Well, that was rude. Stolas frowned. “But, I’m not in the mood for physical contact with anyone tonight. I’m sorry.” He rose and turned to start back up the stairs.

“Bitch, I didn’t come here to get laid. Get in the damn car. I promise to keep my hands to myself.” Stolas turned his head to glance back at the van. Blitz lifted both of his hands in a mock surrender. “No touching. This won’t take long.”

The bird sighed, deeply, and trotted down the stairs. He climbed into the passenger seat and shifted into the closest he would come to a comfortable position. “There. I’m in the damn car. What are we doing?”

Blitz didn’t answer. Instead, he shifted the car into drive and slowly pulled out onto the highway. He pointed to two large styrofoam cups resting in the dash. “The one on the right’s for you. It’s shitty coffee, but it’s coffee and it’s hot. Figured your princess ass could use a pick me up.”

Stolas took a sip of the very acidic coffee, sneaking a glance over at the driver. “Blitz, what are we doing?”

After a few moments of silence, Blitz cleared his throat. “I don’t know what to say. You didn’t answer your phone. That’s not like you.” He checked his mirrors. “So, whatever the fuck is goin’ on, it must be bad. So, I’m here to help.”

“Well, Blitz, that’s very kind, but I’m not sure this is something that can be helped. It’s complicated and messy and something I need to work out on my own.”

“I’m not here to talk feelings or any of that bullshit, Stolas. I’m here to...I’ve been having a shit week myself, okay? And when I have a shitty day, I have a kind of ritual that helps me feel better. So, I’m going to perform my ritual. And you’re here for the ride. Maybe you’ll hate it, and maybe it’ll make you feel worse. But maybe it’ll help you like it helps me.” The imp’s shoulders had risen as he spoke, almost like he was building a line of defense as he released that small bit of personal information.

“Okay.” Stolas agreed quietly. “How do we perform this ritual?”

Blitz waved him off. “It’s not, like, anything you need to do. When I feel like shit, I go buy a big ass coffee, I gas up the van, and I drive around and listen to music. I’m not putting on any of your fancy fussy bullshit. I’m makin’ myself feel better and you’re just here for the ride. Also, and most important, if you try to talk to me about anything you see or hear in this van tonight, I’m not comin’ over on the next full moon. I don’t do feelings and I don’t do talking. I’m just tryin’ to help. Got it?”

Stolas felt a flood of excitement, despite his foul mood. “Got it.”

The smaller man nodded and reached out to press a few buttons on the radio. A lone male voice echoed around the cabin, followed by a loud, percussive riff.

“The world is a vampire,

Sent to drain.

Secret destroyers,

Hold you up to the flames.”

Blitz bobbed his head gently to the music. Stolas, wary of the warning he’d been given, didn’t watch him directly. He faced forward but continued watching out of the corner of his eye.

Stolas jumped in his seat when he heard Blitz’s voice join the singer’s.

“Despite all my rage,

I am still just a rat in a cage.”

The owl could no longer look forward. His jaw dropped and he turned to stare at the imp.

“Someone will say—Stolas, you’re gonna lose the full moon,

Despite all my rage,

I am still just a rat in a cage.”

The bird’s head snapped forward. “Sorry!”

The song continued to play, but Blitz did not resume his singing. They drove in companionable silence through the next few pieces, each one sounding very similar to the last. The lyrics didn’t seem to focus on any one subject. One song seemed to be singing about a superhero, and the next seemed to be about someone named Scotty.

Blitz was the first to break the silence when the fourth song began. “Oh, Stols. It’s a song for you!” He cackled. A driving guitar screeched across the radio. He winked at the bird, letting him know it wasn’t an insult.

“Do you have the time,

To listen to me whine?”

Stolas rolled his eyes. “Cute, Blitzy.”

Blitz’s response was to roll down the windows and turn up the volume. Wind whipped through the van, ruffling the bird’s feathers. He sang along obnoxiously, occasionally sneaking glances at his passenger. Fuck, he hoped this worked. Otherwise he was making a gigantic ass out of himself for absolutely no reason.

Actually, maybe making an ass out of himself is exactly what he needed to do. He hadn’t gotten a single laugh out of him yet, and if he was being honest, it was bothering him. Fuck it.

He turned down the volume. “Okay, not your song after all. Don’t worry ‘bout it. I’ll switch it up.” He poked a few more buttons and an old favorite of his began to play. It was silly, and stupid, but full of big words that the bird would probably like. He waited until the opening had finished playing, choosing exactly when he would join in.

He took a deep breath.

“The simple narrative taught in every history class,

Is demonstrably false,

And pedagogically classist.”

Stolas couldn’t help himself. He blinked a few times and turned to watch Blitz. The imp had his arm out the window, drifting his hand through the wind. There was a slight smile playing at his lips, like he knew a secret his passenger didn’t. He sang along easily, taking pleasure in the ridiculous lyrics.

Eventually, the song ended and the cabin was quiet again.

“More your speed, Princess?”

The owl chuckled. “I don’t know how much I liked the song, but I’ve never heard you use the word ‘demonstrably’ before.” He shifted in his seat to lean against the door, granting him a better view of Blitz. “Is this really what you do when you’re not feeling well?”

Blitz shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I mean, yeah. There’s usually nobody around. I can listen to my music as loud as I want to. I can drink my shitty coffee in peace. I can take the van to the right part of the country and drive as fast as I want. There’s somethin’ about having that level of control over somethin’ so big.” He patted the steering wheel gently.

“Oh, I see. It’s a control thing.” Stolas nodded. “I don’t have a lot that grants me that kind of control. It sounds lovely.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door.

“How the fuck?” You’re a fuckin’ prince. You can do whatever the fuck you want.”

Stolas hummed in agreement. “You’d think so, right? But, no. The closest I get to that is opening the occasional portal, but after the first few times it’s not quite so exciting. Ah, well. I’m thankful you’ve decided to kidnap me this evening. Even if your taste in music is abhorrent, it’s done a little for my mental health to get away from the palace for a little while.”

Blitz resumed his playlist, and they settled back into their silence.

A few songs later, Blitz abruptly silenced the radio and yanked the steering wheel. The van skidded to the side of the road, jolting the owl forward in his seat.

“Ow!” He yelped, rubbing his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Blitz shot him a devious grin. He pulled the keys from the ignition and tossed them to Stolas.

“Want a little control, pretty bird?”

[ageless-aislynn]

Okay, I think I finally have actual proof now that I did NOT cause my computer issues. I found a forum where other people with the same make/model and two make/models right next to it all have had similar issues from day one with their PCs. Then Dell revoked all of the previous driver updates they'd been pushing and yesterday, here comes 3 marked critical: BIOS and the Nvidia and Intel graphics drivers, all brand spankin' new (literally released that week or that day in Intel's case) and with the purpose of "fixing bug checks and providing system stability." Bug checks being the official term for a Blue Screen of Death, that is. Normally I wouldn't update on day one of a new release but, well, my computer crashed this morning when I just turned it on and it was sitting idle after about 5 minutes of up-time so I figured that was my sign.

All 3 updates are now applied. If you pray, I'd appreciate it. If you have time to spare me some kind thoughts, to put some positive energy out there in the universe, just whatever, I appreciate it. I didn't realize how much I truly rely on my computer to deal with my anxiety, depression and panic attack issues until not only do I NOT have access to the things I use to try to get through them all, but the computer's switching off at random times has made all of them so much worse.

Yeah, Halo's just a game but it's truly helped me redirect if I'm struggling with anxiety or a panic attack that's looming. Getting really involved in Mass Effect: Andromeda's various romances, making GIFs of them, learning to craft weapons, that sort of thing, it's helped me focus on things other than worrying about RL stuff. I really could use all of those things back, you know? Plus, I was looking forward to so many of the new games I've added to my Steam library. Learning something new can also help redirect my brain when it's spiraling out of control.

And this isn't even to touch on doing creative things like making GIFs, vidding and writing. I'm still working on my "15 Minutes" ch7 by hand but it's so much slower than being able to type it. I was really hoping to have at least this chapter up before Halo s2 starts but I'm not sure if I can, if I'm just scratching away with pencil and paper, not even certain how I'm going to get those words on the Internet anyway.

I mean, just imagine how frustrating it would be if whatever device you use would just blink off with no rhyme or reason, no way to predict when whatever you're doing will just be gone. Sometimes it does it a couple times a day, sometimes 8 times an hour. You can't do 90% of what you usually do online anyway and the other 10% feels like you're walking through a minefield, just waiting to take one wrong step. And nothing works to fix it. Nothing. You spend hours researching, desperate to find The Thing That Will Work and it's just not out there. That's been the past few weeks with this computer.

Considering that my previous computer is ALSO in this make/model line, just back several years, makes me wonder if the issues it began to have out of the blue in October, 2023 are related. I've seen a LOT of mentions in that forum of people whose computer suddenly went bad in Oct, 23. That seems like an awfully big coincidence, doesn't it?

Anyway, just wanted to check in. Hope you're all doing well and here's hoping that I'm now on the road to getting to just... do things on the computer and the Internet again like I used to. I miss it so much and I really miss all of you. Love to you all. 💖

[potatoes83]

Slice of life:

8:20 am. Dogs let out and fed. Laundry laundering. Dishes washing. Coffee coffeeing. About to take my pills, maybe start some bread, definitely start some breakfast. Debating on eggs, or the meal of oats. Or maybe toast and yogurt. I've got options. It was a long week, but we got through it. I was actually woke up by a very heavy downpour on the roof, but I was in bed at a decent hour, so no worries there.

Saw mom on Wednesday. She looks good. I don't know what someone on chemo is "supposed" to look like; this is all uncharted territory. But it was good to see her looking good. I am trying to stay positive... Thing is, I'm not "negative", but I just can't see around the other side of this yet. It's simply too big. I can't see a future without it whatever comes. Just not yet anyway. So it's really just taking things one step at a time. One day at a time, as they say.

Christmas approaches like a freight train, and I'm barely ready for Thanksgiving. It's hard, I'm keeping basic operations going, but my self-care is suffering, and I think I'm still giving too much of myself, more than I have to give. But I am trying not to shut down. That's a biggie. For the sake of those I love, and those who depend on me, I don't want to just retract into my shell, but damn is it hard some days. It's like wading through mire just to walk across a room, let alone "put it on" with my usual smile and witty banter. To contribute in a meeting, hell, just to try and focus on what is being said and not just hear bzz bzz bzz...

I take her to her chemo appointment next wednesday, and hopefully that helps. If I can get the logical side of my brain working on a problem, then it becomes a puzzle to be solved. Right now though, the emotional side is winning, and it just keeps screeching over and over again, "my mom has cancer". Garnished with a generous sprinkle of "that's the same cancer that killed her sister around Christmas a couple years ago". It's heavy. And while I absolutely do not believe in this whole thing where life becomes mildly inconvenient, so we lean on our mental health like a crutch, an excuse for everything, there are definitely times where life is heavier than others. And for me, right now, this is a very heavy time.

Right, coffee's done, and I really have to take my pills. Healthy heart, happy life after all. 🥔

[swimfaye]

16 hours, 12 Steps, 8 Days.

I overheard him say " You have all this time between Christmas and New Years, why not spend 2 days or 16 hours trying to get a job" I immediately replied "because its hard to do just that"

I don't know or care if the guy on the trail heard what my response was but the thought stayed with me. I don't know how hard it is to get a job. I have just learned and practice getting a job consistently. Whether its taking a job I am not qualified for, or getting a job for a short period that I am over qualified for. I have enlisted temporary agencies and government websites. I have looked up web based applications and literally hit the pavement. I have gone to networking events and I have tried to meet recruiters for businesses.

I have not heard No, so much as the deafening silence of getting no response from an application. I know the frustration of looking up a job on craigslist, crafting my resume to the keywords and ensuring I submitted it through whatever portal the company is using only to get an automatic reply.

I have watched job posting repost after my application or telephone interview or in person interview is completed. I have felt the sting of hearing they didn't hire me because they choose from within. I have been disappointed with getting through three hours of job interviews that could have been an email only to find "you're not a good fit" because of my age.

So, why boil the job search down to 16 hours. Sounds easy enough.

Okay, let's start. Step 1: Open Craigslist.org Step 2. Select the vocation Admin Step 3: Select the location " All SF Bay Area " simply okay. Now review the listings of say 129 pages of jobs, first page 1. Now, you are looking for a full time job within the San Francisco Bay Area that will pay more than $25 and is permanent.

Step 4: you find a position $30 with an immediate start date. Its an Office Management position full time in the City of San Jose. The job responsibilities and qualifications are as follows:

Responsibilities Include: • Answering phones handling customer inquiries and issues • All office management and administrative activities • Customer Service • Basic Bookkeeping & Invoicing • Professional Communication Skills • Office Maintenance • Onboarding of new employees and processing all paperwork • Support company operations • Preparing monthly billing/some accounting duties • Time/expenses inputting • Mailing - Processing Checks and Incoming Bills • Overseeing Customer Service Reps Qualifications: • Office Management Experience • Works well autonomously and able to multitask and learn quickly • Strong organizational and time management skills • Proper written, interpersonal, and oral communication skills • Knows basics in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook • Detail-oriented and strong work ethic • Ability to manage multiple competing priorities

You've spent about five minutes of your 16 hours so far. Now, you have to craft your cover letter and resume which you have never done before. Remember that will take some time. The next couple of steps are : Utilizing a Google Drive go to new Google Doc Select Template versus a blank sheet. Select a Resume style and start to plug in the keywords and information into an engaging paragraph format. Review the submission guidelines ( do you respond to the Craigslist ad and/or is there another address to send information to ? ). Be sure to keep the basics that respond to the ad - especially the start date you are available and the wage you expect.

Let's say that took two hours because you had to review and format into a pdf.

Now, you sent it off at the start of hour 14 of 16. What next? You go back to Craigslist job listings and you find another position to apply to. Maybe you select an specific area like East Bay and you find another one. This will take about another hour because you can utilize your previous cover letter and resume as you save it as new say version 2 and update the qualifications to match the key words and you send it off.

That is hour 12 of 16 and you have done two job submittals, what can you do next?

[dumpsterfirekitchen]

did you know you can make quiche out of whatever the fuck you want

well now you do and that's what I did today. see quiche is literally just an egg custard thing with some stuff in it in a crust when you get right down to it so when I get down to the ends of lots of ingredients sometimes I will put that shit in a quiche. I dont care if it's fancy and perfect I care that it's edible and uses up the shit in my fridge. Or in this case also on my balcony :)

Lets take a look at the crap I have to use up by today

we've got this thimble full of milk

Got some grated parmesan bc I grated too much for a thing I made the other day

got some dried mushrooms and ooooo

FRESHLY WASHED PORCH SPINACH FROM MY PORCH

you can turn this stuff into a decent fritatta tbh but I was feeling quiche mood

Here's what I do kinda, and I'm all about making it work without buying extra things

First soak the mushrooms in cold water for like an hour if they're dried like mine. The package says 5-10 minutes and whoever wrote that is out of their fucking mind and is telling you nothing but lies and if you don't soak them longer you'll regret it

I have little mini casserole thingies I use for quiche so I don't need much crust. And that's good bc I had about a thimble full of crisco too.

(but that's OK bc between you and me you can add a little bit of butter in a pinch to make up for what you lack in shortening and like you'll notice a little with the texture but not enough to care)

So this here (BTW my oven is preheating to 350 off in the background)

This is a couple tablespoons of butter and crisco and maybe half a cup of flour and a pinch of salt and I chopped it all together with a fork until it was the cornmeal texture you see. I generally know I added the right amount of fat when I can sort of smoosh it together as shown without water. But you do wanna add cold water.

Im at a high altitude so my water measurements will be useless to most people I think but basically you just need to add it by the tablespoon until the dough comes together in a ball. It shouldn't be a sticky ball but you don't want it dry either and don't like Knead it you don't want it stretchy. (If you're at a high altitude like me, DO actually make it a little extra wet to where it's sticky. You'll thank me later when you're not eating a crispy brick.) Roll it out to an 8th inch, then slice it up and piece it together in whatever [GREASED, DONT FORGET GREASED] dish you want to bake in. Then pop it in the oven for like 10-15 minutes. It should be juuuuust baked but not like Crunchy.

Anyway while that's happening I make the filling.

Do you want to know my secret

My secret is that this is the one time I will use a measuring cup.

I crack a normal large egg into my 1/3 cup and then add milk to it until its full

"but ej shouldn't you use a liquid measuring cup" SILENCE JUST BE GLAD I OWN A MEASURING CUP FOOL

dump it in your mixing bowl and then do that for 3 more eggs (well, your amount of eggs will vary. I think it's like 6 for an 8 inch pie dish. But see you know whats great about this method? If you didn't mix up enough eggs, that's ok! Crack another one in the 1/3 cup, add milk and a pinch of salt and pepper and mix it up and add it in) add a pinch of salt and pepper for each and whisk it all together till it's kinda homogenous.

Heres a picture of my next step which is layering the goodies

someone is going to tell me I should be using Swiss cheese I. DO. NOT. CARE. I hate Swiss cheese and these are for me I do what I want and this is fine and good. The dark supervillain secret that cooking shows don't want you to know is you can put whatever the fuck hard cheese you want. You can literally make the egg mixture and put whatever. Do you have some green onions and bacon and leftover terrible prepackaged cheddar? Put that shit in a quiche. Do you have a lunch meat and a couple slices of cheese that would pair well in a lunchable? Put that shit in a quiche. It's not traditional. It's not correct. Who fucking cares you're the one eating it. You gotta use that shit up so make it fun don't just put it in a sandwich man cmon. (I mean you can but)

Anyway if you're making a more traditional quiche you'd also add nutmeg to the egg mixture, but obviously I'm not doing that, so I skip that step.

Anyway next you ladle the egg mixture into the dish(es)

I put mine in a hot water bath but you probably don't have to do that, it just helps cook it evenly.

And check out the result

Nice and edible. ( It's not ugly you fool it's RUSTIC)

For me this took I think 25-30 min in the oven (which I left on from the crust....I tend to reduce the temp and cook longer though. In this case I reduced it to 230 and turned it off after 25 min or so. Basically when it reaches 165. I don't know if that's right and I don't care 165 kills the germs so I'm not doing it below that. You can take it out after and let it set up after that)

anyway that's what I ate today and the best thing about these is I can wrap them up and keep them in the freezer. Quiche freezes really well actually. You won't really notice a difference especially if you heat it up in the oven or an air fryer later, so I like to make a bunch of these guys ahead and just pull them out as needed.

[hyperbolicpurple]

For several weeks I’ve been running variations on a strength training program called Easy Strength by Dan John. (There’s a newer version called Even Easier Strength that is, ironically, more complicated and harder to remember, but I’m doing the very simple OG version.)

The idea of Easy Strength is to minimize time in the gym and effort put forward in the gym while still gaining absolute strength in terms of one-rep max (the amount you can lift a single time). In contrast to most powerlifting and bodybuilding programs, which use challenging, near-max-effort sets and rotate muscle groups or work days/rest days because putting in near-maximal effort requires more recovery time, Easy Strength has you in the gym hitting the same loads/lifts, but somewhat lighter and for fewer reps, 5 days in a row per week. (It was developed for college athletes, I think.)

Basically, you pick five movement patterns/compound exercise types and do them every day. You can pick whatever you want, just something from each of these categories:

squat movement (barbell squat, goblet squat, lunge, etc)

hip hinge movement (deadlift, RDL, hip thrust, etc)

push/chest movement (bench press, dumbbell press, incline bench press, etc)

pull/back movement (barbell row, lat pulldown, pullups, etc)

loaded carry (farmer’s walk, suitcase carry, waiter walk, trap bar carry, etc)

The squat, hinge, push, and pull you do for 60-80% of your 1RM (don’t go above 80%) for ten reps total (2 sets of 5, or 1 set of 10). For the loaded carry, you don’t have to pick just one; instead, vary the exercise/weight/time every day.

I’m doing a unilateral-and-dumbbell version of this because I have significant imbalances (my squat shifts so much when I go heavy!), so I’m doing:

Dumbbell step-up (surprisingly hard to do “correctly” for strength, and I had to start with bodyweight!)

Single-leg deadlift

Dumbbell chest press

Incline dumbbell row

Super basic, lots of core work from the step-up and deadlift, don’t need to wait for a squat rack--nice. I don’t always do the loaded carry because sometimes my obliques are shot from the single-leg deadlift especially.

A session of Easy Strength doesn’t take long, especially compared to many powerlifting/bodybuilding programs that have you in the gym for 1-2 hours at a time. Lots of people who do it report supersetting all the movements, meaning that they do the first set of five for each exercise in a row and then repeat the sequence with minimal rest (not hard because they’re not very heavy, so you can move from one exercise to the next pretty quickly), so they’re getting out of the gym in like ... 15 minutes total, counting their warmup. But despite that, in terms of increasing your strength it can be very effective, especially if you keep the weight in the 75-80% 1RM range.

It’s not a bodybuilding routine, and it’s doubtful anyone is gaining appreciable muscle mass on this program, but if you want to get stronger without spending a ton of time in the gym, I’d give it a try. I might not jump into it full-bore right away if you’re new to lifting or de-conditioned--take a couple weeks to fuck around in the gym, master the movement (if you’re new to lifting) so you have decent technique and stop getting sore, test 1RMs, etc--OR go really, really light the first week and just go by feel and add weight as it feels easy. The program is written for 8 weeks/40 workouts, but lots of people run it for 4 weeks/20 workouts.

[so-much-for-subtlety]

here’s what the dough looks like after 12 hours bulk fermentation at room temperature, it’s doubled/tripled in size to about 4qt/5L. Depending on duration and temperature it might not look so bubbly as this, and might only have doubled in size. That’s fine either way.

step 5: transfer the dough

Sprinkle flour on clean surface that you can pour the dough onto. I also sprinkle flour around the edge of the dough where it meets the container for the next step.

Now you can either use a plastic dough scraper or use your hands (lightly flour them so dough doesn’t stick to hands) gently ease the dough out onto the surface. Try and be careful here not to tear the dough. It will naturally deflate a lot as you transfer it, but just be gentle 🥹

With the dough on the surface cut it in two. I use the dough scraper again, and I dust a line of flour where I’m going to cut so the scraper doesn’t stick while cutting. Then I pull the edges of each portion out to an even square shape:

Step 6: pre-shape the dough

Use the same stretch-and-fold type technique to pull out an edge of the dough and fold over to center. Repeat for 4 edges (or 3, or 5 - whatever feels right to you!) and flip over so seams are underneath.

Step 7: rest the dough

with both portions pre-shaped you can cover them and let them rest for 5 or 10 mins, and while you’re doing this prep your banneton with flour (see here for alternatives to using a banneton) and clean your surface of any flour (for the next step you want the surface to be clean and dry).

the banneton helps the dough keep its shape, and because the reed material has gaps, it lets air contact the edge of the dough allowing it to dry out which will help form a crunchy crust.

Step 8: shape the dough

shaping the dough creates surface tension on the dough and gives it structure, and (obviously) creates the shape of the final loaf! I’m making boule (round loaf) but there are different techniques for different shapes.

you’re gonna use both your hands to pull the dough towards you a couple inches.

notice that my hand is angled like a wedge, I’m also pushing the bottom edge of my hand/little finger firmly down on the countertop- this makes it so the dough doesn’t have any gap to squeeze through or get caught between your fingers and the counter.

pull it towards you a couple inches using both hands with that technique (I can’t show it clearly since I used one hand to take photo) then rotate a quarter turn and pull towards you again, rotate, pull, rotate, pull several times. It’s hard to describe in words but you will feel the dough change as it builds surface tension.

step 8 final proof

sprinkle the top of the shaped dough with flour and gently transfer to banneton and do the final proofing in preparation to bake!

this proofing allows the yeasties to continue to develop and form carbon dioxide which will give your dough its nice bubbly texture.

there’s a Goldilocks situation here: you don’t want to either underproof (you’ll get a small loaf, dense texture, and tough crust) and you don’t want to overproof (you’ll get a loaf that may collapse or deflate, have large irregular air pockets and a thin crust).

You’ve got a couple options here, and it all depends on when you’re planning to bake the bread.

if you want to bake asap: proof at room temperature for 1 hour

it you want to bake in the next 4 to 8 hours: proof at room temperature for an hour, then put them in the fridge until you’re ready to bake

if you want to bake in the next 6 to 12 hours: do the entire proof in the refrigerator

I proofed for an hour, but I wasn't ready to bake, so I transferred to the refrigerator to bake later in the afternoon

I’m making bread again: dough tonight and bake tomorrow, I’ve already posted recipe before but thought I’d show step by step with photos because it really is so easy 💅

ingredients (makes two loaves)

1000g flour (ideally bread flour which has higher protein than all purpose flour, but AP is fine too)

780g warm water (around 95°F/35°C)

22g salt (doesn’t matter what kind, it’s going to dissolve anyway)

1g yeast (about 1/4 tsp)

step 1: autolyze

autolyze is just mixing the flour and warm water together (make sure no bits of dry flour), covering and letting it sit for 20 mins.

the water temperature is pretty important: too cold will slow down the yeast growth too much, too hot can kill the yeast. I always aim for around 95°F (35°C)

I mix with this stuff spatula, but it’s actually a lot easier to get in with your hands (I just get sick of always washing my hands so I prefer the spatula)

this is actually an optional step that can be skipped, but helps with bread texture, flavor, and ease of mixing.

here’s what it looks like once flour and water is mixed and then after 20 mins it will have flattened out a bit:

step 2: work in the yeast and salt

here’s what 1g yeast and 22g salt looks like:

It’s better to weight salt because 1 tsp of fine salt is a different weight to 1tsp of kosher salt etc. weighting is consistent regardless of the type of salt you use. I use fine sea salt.

sprinkle the yeast and salt evenly spread over the top of the dough:

then go though this process of grabbing dough under one edge, pulling out out to stretch and then folding over. Do that and do a quarter turn of bucket and repeat so you do 4 stretch-and-folds and then flip it upside down so the ‘seams’ from the stretch and folds and underneath.

that’s helped incorporate the salt and yeast a little, but not much, so now switch to pincher method where you pinch and squeeze the dough into 3 or 4 separate pieces:

and then you stack each piece on top of each other and push to flatten it down:

then repeat with more stretch-and-folds and pincher method/stacking for a couple minutes to really make sure that the salt and yeast is evenly mixed throughout the dough.

Optional: while you’re doing this you can keep a bowl of water and occasionally dip your fingers/hands in to help stop dough sticking to your hands.

Here’s what my dough looks like after a couple minutes of this, you can already see how the gluten is starting to form!

By now the dough will be getting difficult to work with and will be showing a lot of resistance, so let it rest for 10+ minutes to let it relax and chill.

Step 3: Develop dough with stretch and folds

over the next 30 mins to 3 hours you’ll want to do between 2 and 4 more rounds of stretch and folds.

After each stretch and fold let the dough rest for 10+ mins before the next stretch and fold. If you’re in a rush you could probably reduce this to 5 min relax. If you need to go and and do something you can let it rest an hour between stretch and folds.

I normally watch a 45 min show while this is happening and let it rest 15 mins between each stretch and fold.

here’s my dough after first, second, and third stretch and fold. every stretch and fold you’ll notice the dough getting smoother and you might notice a nice yeasty-bread-dough smell start to form:

step 4: bulk rise (aka bulk fermentation)

this is just giving the yeast its time to do its thing. Leave the dough covered overnight (8 to 12 hours) at room temp.

alternatively you can do a slower bulk rise (24 to 36 hours) in the refrigerator. or you can mix both like overnight bulk for 8 hours and then keep in fridge for the day until you’re ready to bake.

I’ll come back tomorrow after bulk rise for shaping and baking!

[wardensantoineandevka]

So, I said in a post a couple hours ago that, as someone with a background in media production, I have a LOT of thoughts about Exandria Unlimited from an IP management and general content production standpoint, among other related structural thoughts, but the short of it is: this is incredibly clever. People asked me to elaborate, so here's some of why I personally think this. A lot of this assumes they will be doing EXU mini-campaigns on a regular basis:

This maintains momentum until C3. Audience loss happens MOST sharply in a hiatus, no matter how short, so if your channel is active between C2 and C3, it minimizes that audience loss. If you don't have a regular show on, you naturally bleed viewership. (We saw them address this over COVID with their other shows.)

You can begin to address the diversity criticism. This is a criticism that's cropped up often, but you cannot simply recast the main table. Majority of your audience has loyalty to that table, so rostering some of them off suddenly WILL threaten the stability of the brand. If you simply bring in a second show, you can begin to address that. Both the announcement and the interviews allude to this strongly and often as something the cast wanted to work toward and address.

Diversification of content, meaning having a broader breadth of content, is important. They've been working on it a lot over the past couple dozen months since becoming independent, but this is the most important step, especially since it's the same medium their flagship show. Having other shows stabilizes your IP.

Eventually, years down the line, they will need a new flagship show, and transitioning an audience is VERY difficult. You can get the audience used to other tables, other people working in this world, by introducing us NOW to the concept of there being other people telling these stories and settle us in. You build loyalty to other players and DMs now, so that in however many years time when the core table or Matt no longer has the endurance for these long campaigns—the brand doesn't sink in the transition.

Breaks. The main table is their flagship show and is appearing in almost ALL their regular content. It is impossible to get the main cast, particularly Matt, a break as a result of this. If you have a second show, you can allow members of the table to get a break or a couple weeks off WITHOUT kneecapping your programming schedule. Getting the cast recuperation time is important, and doing so without losing momentum is critical.

It being a mini-campaign specifically very much diminishes the hurdle to access, because it's difficult to draw in new audience when your flagship show is THAT long. Essentially, the only real point to entry for their content is every three years, at the start of their campaigns. Mini-series are less daunting and easier to access—and once someone watches 8 episodes set in a world, they're a lot more likely to move on to watching a longer campaign set in the same world.

A second table, even for mini-campaigns, very much allows them to expand the number of stories they tell in their world, which is incredibly important for a media company who is custodian of a specific IP. And with a miniseries, this means they get to tell stories more often.

This immediately opens up the number of people who CAN appear on the show: they can now showcase other DMs as guests, they can have a rotating cast, they can build any number of tables now, whatever they desire because they've wanted to let others into the sandbox but the structure of the long campaigns makes that difficult. New blood is as important to brand management as retaining the familiarity of the old guard.

Like, these are all problems and challenges I was thinking about in the past weeks that face the company, especially since they're approaching two(?) years of independence and are about to roll over into their first campaign start as a totally independent company who can actually think and plan for their future.

So, Exandria Unlimited is a STRONG foundation for their future going forward, especially as they start to think a bout blocking off the next three years of their channel.

[oneofthemillionarmy]

Peppermint Bark | Mafia!Namjoon

Summary line: Candy cane sequel - The damned candy cane is moving and she’s causing a ruckus. On purpose.

(BTW: I had a big fan of the first story, wang-banana, but she’s deactivated now. If anyone who comes across this knows her, please let her know, there’s a sequel!)

~

Now, your neighbor was always impossibly unreasonable, but that doesn’t mean you had to be a jerk too. You hate the idea that he might take it the wrong way and think that you’ve stepped aside out of fear. You’re doing it out of respect of another human being. And that is all. That. Is. All.

That guy downstairs looks like he’s MIA again. Like you said, he wasn’t home frequent enough for you to even worry about making noise. Honestly, if he has such a problem with it, why isn’t he moving into his own home where he doesn’t have to worry about neighboring walls?

But it no longer matters to you. You get to sing and dance as usual for a good couple of weeks and found a place better than where you are now.

Okay. Now, you can be a bit petty. It’s perfect, because he just so happens to be home this week.

~

Lately, every time Namjoon steps into his home, it feels foreign to him. Before you pointed it out, he never noticed that he’s away from home so often. His place feels like a staged home or a hotel more than a sanctuary of private space. Actually, a lot of minimalist-styled homes are very similar, but at least have a picture frame, an artwork; He might even settle for a plant at this point.

Well, maybe not a plant. If it’s fake, it’s missing the point of him trying not to have his home so staged. If it’s real, he’ll just abandon it and see it dead the next time he sees it and remind him how little he comes home.

But rather than coming back reminds him of home, coming back reminds him of you. His ears are actually quite sensitive. You can wear socks, have a rug, carpet your floor, whatever, but the truth is, he can still hear you. The little thump-thump across his ceiling brings a twitch of a smile to his face before he remembers you’re not supposed to make any noise at all. But it lets him know that you’re close.

You were not a creature of habit like he is. This apartment he’s in is just shelter for him. Come home at 7, take a bath and order food to be delivered. Eat at 8:15. Finish dinner by 8:30 and then watch the news until 10.

But you don’t have a pattern. It’s like you always forget something while you’re in the middle of whatever, and you just abandon everything you were doing to do what you just thought of. Going back and forth, stopping dead in the middle of whatever room you were in, and then go back. If you were one of his boys, you’d be done. He needs deliberate people.

But he’s not as bothered about it with you. If anything, it’s cute when you do it. He’s not the type to lie to himself. He’s attracted to you. He’s been since he’s first met you. But he’s only met you once. If you were someone on the streets, he will just consider it as a one-off.

But because of your proximity and your incessant thump-thumps, you wander into his mind about how he can come up with reasons to see you again. But he knows he can’t. He’s not in the kind of occupation that makes it easy for him to have a relationship. Even if he’s not asking you out, constantly seeing you could make you a target at any time. Maybe he could, sometimes you’re protected and off limits even more so. But that’s not on him. That’s on you. And by his experience, the people he likes don’t choose a relationship with him. It is what it is.

You sleep later than him, so your thumping around your bedroom is his sleep music.

-

Your thumping is also his wake up call. And screeching. And clanging. And all sorts of ungodly noises at an ungodly hour for a Saturday.

Screw how much he’s attracted to you, you’re doing this on purpose.

He growls as he throws his covers back. You might be the only person who will ever see him in a hoodie and sweatpants.

He stomps on up to your floor and is surprised when he sees multiple people walking in and out of your apartment talking and laughing. If he wasn’t so focused on the fact that all sorts of cacaphony coming from the movement above him, he might have recognized you making conversation with someone earlier. One particular tall, muscular, handsome man. Towering so closely over you, too intimate for friends or aquaintances. Okay, now he notices.

“Oh look, it’s the grinch!” He takes his eyes off of the man to see you smirking at him from your doorway, “What do I owe the pleasure?”

“It’s 7am on a Saturday morning.” You should know what that implies, seeing as by one encounter, he’s under the impression that you’re smart. And you are. But you both know this is spite.

“Ah, would it be okay if we did this later then? 7:30?”

“It would be nice if this didn’t happen at all.”

“Oh, I think you’ll want this. I’m moving.”

“Oh?” He notices the slight pang in the center of his chest, realizing that she will no longer be living above him. Bitterness is in the back of his throat when he realizes that this is all his doing.

He wants to ask where she’s going, but it really shouldn’t be his concern; besides, if he knows, he’ll feel inclined to keep her in his mind. If she says she’s moving to Daegu, he’ll always think of her if he takes a trip out there.

He doesn’t know whether or not he truly wants to ask, but lucky for him, she tells him out of spite.

“Yeah, I’m moving up to the penthouse at the top.” You declared.

What?!

“You’re psycho!”

“Yeah. Probably.” You grin mischievously. He’s should be annoyed right now; on the one hand, letting you move out faster would give him peace. On the other hand, having you wait to move because he wants more sleep could also give you peace.

But the real issue is that he’s been wanting that penthouse for a long time now. How dare the landlord not inform him first when the penthouse became vacant; he has it in his contract that the landlord would inform him first and give him 10 days to apply and get the place. And now you’re moving up there. Not only are you moving away from his proximity, you’re moving to where he wants to be himself.

“Damn landlord.” Namjoon turns around and mutters under his breath. He turns to look over your shoulder to see many boxes have already been packed up and there’s not much left.

“No, that penthouse is mine.”

“Excuse me?” You crossed your arms and looked at him incredulously. He can’t be serious. Even in your last two days of being in this unit, he still finds a way to be unreasonable.

“Uh, I don’t know who you are but -” the man next to you begins to speak but Namjoon cuts him off.

“Shut up. I don’t know you and I’m talking to y/n.” The man next to you looks at you, attempting to communicate silently, Is this guy serious? Do you need me to take care of him?

You shake your head at him and gestures with your head to have him continue moving the boxes.

“Don’t worry, I got this.” The man stares down Namjoon one more time before going back into your apartment.

“You’ve got to be kidding. I signed the contract. Over half of my things are already moved in.”

“Yes, but our landlord had an agreement way before you even moved into this building.”

“Yeah, but your 10 days are up from last week.” Namjoon widened his eyes.

“Yeah, the landlord told me. We bonded over your unreasonable demands; he actually invited me over for tea to talk about it.” You lifted your chin and grinned smugly.

“Ok, keep smiling now, but I’ll get that penthouse. There are definitely ways to make him nullify your contract.”

“Ooo, your gun again? Shocking!” He steps closer to you and growls lowly. You crossed your arms again, mostly to provide a barrier between both you.

Namjoon takes a quick glance behind you to see if there’s anyone in the apartment that will see you two, and that also distracts you for a second. In the next one, he grabs your arm and pull you to the side and puts you against the wall with one arm pushing against your neck. It’s a wonder no one heard it, but this is his profession.

“What the fuck?!” You whisper-scream. You’re sure whatever he does is illegal but this is not the time for people to come out and start questioning why his first response is always violent.

“That penthouse is mine. I need it, and you’re going to have to move your stuff back.”

“You never really let anyone play in the sandbox with you when you were a kid, did you?” You heard another growl from him but this time, you felt a little shiver on your back. You hope he doesn’t realize it but his smirk tells you otherwise.

You sigh and grab his elbow and push it up and to the side; it makes him lose his grip on you and you sidestep away from him. Every time.

“What did I say the first time we met?”

“’Merry Christmas, Mr. Grinch’?” Now it’s Namjoon’s time to grin cheekily. You glare at him, “You don’t touch me.”

“Look, I --” He paused as he realized, he was about to address you by your name, but you two never exchanged names.

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” You roll your eyes and scoff at him. Walking around him, you head back to into your apartment.

“What? We never formally introduced each other.” His words put a halt to your steps as you finally came to that same realization and you look at him, “Riiiight.”

And then you continue moving forward.

“Wait. What is your name?” You scoff again, turning back to him, “No. You don’t need to know my name. I’m leaving your proximity and you are almost never here. You don’t need my name anymore.”

And with that, the sunlight from your living room disappears from the hallway and he’s left empty.

---

“Thanks for all your help, Soobin.” You gratefully expressed as you two stepped into the elevator. 

“No problem. It was my pleasure. It’s good to be done quicker with moving and stuff. It’s less stressful now.”

“Yeah. Without any help, it might have taken me two months to finish everything.”

“You know,” He begins speaking in a tone that you know that something is up, “All this work has worked up an appetite. I could really go for eating something.”

“Really? It’s 10pm.”

“Then how about some late night dessert? I love sweets.” He helped you out with packing up and moving out so quick, it’s the least you can do.

“Sure. My treat.” The elevator doors open to the parking garage.

“Oh don’t worry, it’s always been your treat in my mind.” Soobin winks and the two of you laugh on your way to his car.

“Fine. Where do you want to go?”

“Sulbing?”

“Sure. I’ll meet you there.” You stop right in front of his car as he heads for the driver’s side.

“Why don’t you just come with me? I’ll drop you off after.”

“No, don’t worry. I have something that I have to take care of first.”

“I can just wait for you.”

“No, don’t worry. It won’t take long. I’ll meet you there.” Soobin shrugs and waves to you as he gets into the car, “Okay, see you there!”

“Bye!” You wave him off. Once his car disappears from your line of sight and his red lights have disappeared from the walls, you spin around.

“Hello?” You call out into the seemingly empty parking garage.

“How the hell did you know someone was here?” Namjoon comes out from his car and closes it.

“I don’t know. It’s like ever since you’ve put your hands on me twice, I can’t help but have this internal alarm whenever you’re around now.” You throw your hands up in the air.

“I’m sorry. You probably said that sarcastically, but because of our past exchanges, that may actually be real for you. I should have never put my hands on you with intent of violence. Or, technically, never should have put my hands on you period.”

“That’s better.”

It’s silent for a little while between the two of you.

“Look, I’m sure you’re really happy to have that penthouse, and if it were any other circumstance, I would’ve been fine. But I need that penthouse.”

You cross your arms, gearing up for a new unreasonable conversation.

“Really? Is there a good reason why?”

As the words leave your lips, Namjoon nearly breaks his own neck, turning towards screeching noises coming from the entrance of the parking lot.

He runs quickly towards you and grabs your hand, pulling you back to his car as fast as he can.

“Hey! What did we just sa --”

“Get in. Now!” He didn’t have time to pull you to the other side into the passenger seat and practically throws you in to the back seat.

He gets in to the drivers side and immediately peels his car out of the parking spot. He looks into the rear view mirror to see the car he’s expecting all along just turn the corner to the same lane as he’s driving out of.

“I can’t fucking believe you. What the hell, man?” You sit up from the back seat and poke your head out to his side, over the middle console.

“Sit back! Head down, Candy Cane.” Candy cane?

You turn around to see the car that he’s trying to get away from and immediately lay down as flat as you can across the width of the back seats.

Namjoon has already driven out of the garage and takes the left. He presses one button on his wheel and the car begins connect his call.

“Taehyung! Why the fuck is Indominus chasing us?!” Namjoon growls visciously into the car’s microphone.

“Sir?! What happened?” A voice that you now connect to a name is trembling. You hear a lot of rummaging from the background.

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“Taehyung! I’m not repeating myself!”

“Shit. Okay. We took care of them before you got home...We, may have missed one. Everyone’s on their way now. Yoongi’s going to send you where the extraction point is and we’ll take care of everything from there. ETA: 6 minutes.”

“You better make that three.” With that, Namjoon hangs up. He hears you sighing from the back seat. All you can do right now is fold your hands together and lay it on your stomach.

“Hey Soobin, sorry I can’t make it to dessert. I got held up in a crossfire of illegal activity and I think I’m not going to make it for bingsoo. Enjoy your night!” You mumble under your breath in fake cheerfulness.

“Please tell me your not calling or texting anyone.” Namjoon mindlessly drums his thumbs over the top of the wheels, attempting this weak form of conversation.

“Of course not! I don’t know who anyone is right now, but there’s no reason to add on a potential tracking signal.” You put one of your hands up to your forehead.

“...You’re very calm for someone who’s in this situation right now.” Namjoon gets a notification from his touchscreen and he clicks on it, revealing his team’s extraction map pin. You say nothing.

Shots get fired at Namjoon’s car and you immediately cover your head, still laying down. Clearly he’s prepared for this, because the bullets barely make a dent on the body of the car and the back window doesn’t have a scratch.

“Shit!” Namjoon attempts to stretch his hand over to his glove compartment. You lift your head up to see his actions. His gun has slid to the other side of the compartment, which makes it out of his reach.

You groan loudly and wildly for a moment, which takes Namjoon by surprise. And even more surprise when he feels you move him out of your way, sit in the passenger seat and grab the gun. You quickly slide out the magazine to check the number of bullets, put it back in, unlock the safety, and cock it back to ensure a bullet is in the chamber.

You wait until the car behind you have stopped shooting and you quickly roll down the window on your side and turn around to shoot at their tires. They were quick to adjust because they did a controlled zig-zag on the road.

“Shit.” You bring the window back up and you take out the magazine, “Do you have another round?”

He widens his eyes at all the actions he just witnessed and slowly grabs another mag from his side door. You grab it from him and load it back into the gun.

“What the fuck? Who are you?!” You ignore his bellowing and attempt shooting at the tires. At the fifth bullet, you successfully hit one of the tires. It swerves and slows down to the side of the road.

You exhale loudly, trying to catch your breath, as you sit back into the passenger seat. You do your best to ignore Namjoon constantly looking back at you.

“Okay, seriously though, what the fuck?” You finally roll your head around to look back at him. He almost didn’t take his eyes of you as he waited for an answer.

“Let’s just say, I’ve been in something like this before and I’ve learned from my mistakes.” And you left it at that. The rest of the car ride was short but it felt like forever with the silence you both shared. You clearly weren’t going to say anything else.

He slows down to the extraction point, and his display changes with a soft voice saying, “You have arrived to your destination.”

You two immediately get out of the car, just in time for his team of 6 to grab you two.

“Who is this?” Hoseok asks Namjoon as the team escorts you two to a different car.

“Where are those bastards?”

Namjoon gets to the van first and looks back at you, trailing in the back with Hoseok grabbing onto your elbow.

“No questions.” He let out an exasperated sigh. His mind has been running wild since you climbed to the passenger seat. You didn’t seem willing to answer any more of his questions, let alone his team.

“Are you okay?” Hoseok quietly asks you as Namjoon gets into the back. Jungkook heads to Namjoon’s car; he’ll have to take it to a garage and recycle the car back into their storage. The other men go back to their cars and Jimin gets into the driver’s seat of the van,

“Yeah...I just want to go home.” Hoseok nods, “We’ll take you back safely, don’t worry. Where do you live?”

“I...am your boss’ neighbor.” Hoseok’s memory clicks in remembrance of a certain annoying neighbr of Namjoon’s, who surprisingly let her live. If you were any other neighbor, then he’s extremely Hoseok grins so widely as this may be the most interesting and entertaining thing he’s ever witnessed about his boss. He nods and leads you into the van, next to Namjoon.

--

“Bye!” His team bids you farewell enthusiastically. Hoseok texted the rest of the group to share the interesting connection you have to their boss. The entire ride home, Hoseok and Jimin attempt to have a decent conversation with you and learn more about you than Namjoon ever did in his two encounters. Namjoon stayed quiet and kept looking out the window the whole ride.

You and Namjoon walk into the building, you waving back to his team and Namjoon just heading towards the elevator.

You finally take out your cellphone, now that you’re technically back in your organic environment and see 5 missed calls, 2 voicemails, and 8 texts from Soobin.

- I thought you were in trouble!

- I tried coming back to your place, but the security is really top notch here. They won’t let anyone back in without a tenant profile or a name on the visitor’s list.

Maybe that’s why the Grinch chose this place, for it’s security. But how could the other car come into the parking garage? Perhaps it’s not so safe afterall.

- Don’t worry, you text back, I’m fine. I just got caught up in unpacking something and it just spiraled into a whole thing. I’m fine. I’m going to go to sleep now though. I just went through a whole thing.

He immediately texts back.

- Okay. I’m coming over tomorrow to check in on you. Please put me on the visitor’s list?

- Lol okay. Goodnight.

Ding! The elevator opened and you two step into the elevator. Namjoon presses the top floor first and lets you head up.

At floor 8, he finally says something.

“Look. I don’t know your name, what you do, what happened to you before, or how you know how to do the things you did tonight. But I am sorry I got you in this mess. I will move out. I can have my men install a top notch security program that was built by Yoongi. If you want, I can even find you a whole new penthouse and pull some strings to move you there and set up the security. Whatever happened to you before, I’m almost certain that it was not a good experience, so I’m sorry you may have re-lived it.”

Wow, that’s so many ‘sorry’’s in one night coming from some guy like him. You peek a glance over at him.

“...Why did you call me Candy Cane?” Namjoon had the strongest urge to shift out of embarrassment and surprise, but he stood firm. He did sigh however. How is it only floor 25?

“The moment you opened the door. That’s what you looked like to me. A beautiful candy cane.” Your cheeks flush red, and that’s not an easy reaction to get out of you.

“Thank you.” Namjoon just grunts.

Level 30.

“I work in tech, so I’ll find a way to build my own security system. Although, now I so many changes to my current program now that I know the bigger risks...I will take you up on your offer, but I’m don’t want a new penthouse. I’m going to put it in my back pocket as an IOU.”

Ding! Level 59.

You step out of the elevators.

“Thank you for apologizing. I know that couldn’t have been easy for you,” you continue to mutter under your breath, “even though you shouldn’t have such a hard time with it in the first place.”

“Yeah, I’m working on it.” He heard you.

You look back at him. He truly looks embarassed and disappointed with himself.

Before the doors close, you hold it back and it opens back up.

“Hey, thanks for doing your best at protecting me.”

“It felt more like you were protecting me.”

“And what’s wrong with that? You have so many peope protecting you all the time. I’m just one of the few.”

“Not to me, Candy Cane.” You smile at him for real for the first time since you opened the door to him, not recognizing the can of worms you’d open.

“My name is Y/N...but I like kind of like Candy Cane.” Namjoon finally smiles at you for real for the first time at all.

“But now, I like your name, Y/N.” You let out a smirk.

“What’s yours?”

“Namjoon.”

The elevator doors cry out an annoying beeping noise to remind you two that the doors have been open for too long.

You pull Namjoon’s sleeve and take him out of the elevator. He didn’t expect it and he slammed right into you, him wrapping his arms around your waist and your hands over his arms. He looks down at you and gives you such a gentle smile, you’re caught a little off guard. He gives you a little squeeze and makes you look up to him.

“A little rough there, Candy Cane.”

You giggle, “I should give you a nickname.”

“I thought it was Mr. Grinch.”

“I mean, if you really want to keep that. I’m giving you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to change it.”

“Okay. I want to be Handsome Man.”

“Ooo,” you wince, “Someone’s already taken that nickname.”

It almost stuns him for a second, but you start laughing, “We’ll keep thinking. Right now we have Mr. Grinch and Handsome Man in the running.”

“Mmm, Handsome Man is sooo good though.” He leans in just a bit and you can feel his breath on your cheek.

“We should really get some sleep, Namjoon.” He took the hint and loosened his grip on you, but not completely.

“Sure thing, Candy Cane. Sweet dreams.” His grip on you didn’t loosen the same way yours didn’t on him.

“Y/N?”

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me what happened to you before?” Your smile begins to falter as you slowly let go of his arms. He took the signal and slowly unwrapped his arms around your waist.

“I haven’t really told anyone, and I’m nowhere near telling anyone. You already know more than anyone in my life right now just by what I said earlier tonight.” Namjoon felt stunned and a little mad at himself. Even if he didn’t know what you’ve gone through, he brought an innocent person into his mess, and he likes you too. Now that he knows that you’ve gone through something you find unspeakable, any thoughts he had 

He slowly takes a step back, “Once again, I’m sorry.” He pushes his hand backwards to press the elevator button. Ding!

As he steps into the elevator, you call out to him, “Namjoon!” He holds the door open button.

“You want to bring your boys by some time? I can make you guys a thank you dinner and we can test out if Yoongi’s security system or my security system works better...” Your words are met by an agreeable grunt.

“And I don’t want you to move out. But we should probably inspect closer to why the parking garage let them in with our building’s security. If any or either of us continue living here, this building has to be be the best at security.”

Namjoon’s ears perked up when he heard that you don’t want him to move out, “Really? You’re okay with me sticking around?”

“Yeah sure. The best way to test a security system is to have a huge target worth breaking in.” You smirk.

“Wow, you know I’m pretty important in my circle you know? And you’re just keeping me around like bait?”

You shrug, “It’s time you find out that this world is a lot bigger than your circle.”

Amused, he smirks, “Good night, Candy Cane.”

“Good night, Handsome Man.” You cross your arms and tilt your head a little to keep eye contact with him until the door closes until you turn around and head into your bedroom.

As Namjoon leans back and tilts his head to the wall, he’s learned a few more things about you.

One, your name is Y/N.

Two, You’re a badass that can take anything he dishes out, regardless of your experience that he’s so curious about.

Three, despite that, if he can ever get a chance with you, and you both want it, this is real and he has to protect you above all else.

And that is the story of how Namjoon, a mafia boss, lost his penthouse.

[xpeachesncream]

how many drinks? | one shot (jjk)

summary: the question is - how many drinks would it take for you to sleep with your bestfriend?

pairing: jjk x reader

genre: (18+) college au, dance group au, bestfriends/bestfriends with some benefits au | fluff, smut, sprinkle of angst

words: ~12.2k

warnings: cussing, mature language/implied sexual content, kind of crack-y, dancer!jk to fulfill my needs, unprotected sex, sprinkle of dirty talk, fingering, sprinkle of a handjob, slight biting, nails digging into skin, oc almost gets taken advantage of/forced into doing things she doesn’t wanna do, rough handling, song kang is in this too because i’m also a hooch for him but he’s an ass here, alcohol consumption, intoxication, mentions of blunts/smoking, house parties, cuddling, kissing/makeout sessions, straddling, breast/nipple play, hickeys, fucking on the edge of the bed, multiple orgasms, fingering, licking/neck kisses, oral (f. receiving)

note: one shot title is taken from miguel's song ‘how many drinks’ + a couple of things--

both hoseok and jimin’s piece mentioned below are inspired by real-life pieces my old dance mentor has choreographed and taught. this is the inspiration behind hoseok’s couple piece; this is the inspiration for jimin’s piece

i’m a hooch for all three of them in this video

enjoy imagining koo and oc dancing part of their couples piece like this 🥺

"Y/N." You picked up Jungkook's call as you sat at your desk in your dorm room. You had been finishing up your bio homework until the interruption came blaring through on your headphones.

"Yes?"

"Can I nap in your room?"

"The fuck I look like? A hotel?" You snorted.

"Yeah, a 5 star at that with how good you take care of me." He tries to butter you up, causing you to roll your eyes.

"You're lucky I like you."

"Yesssssssss!" You hear him faintly exclaim on the other line. "Be there in a sec."

"You know my doors are always unlocked." Which, it was true. So many of your friends had decided to live off campus that you and your other bestfriend [and beloved suitemate] were probably the only few left on campus. And that meant people were constantly in your room, hanging out or using both of your rooms, [with permission] or the couches in the shared living room space of your suite as a place to nap. College, amirite? Why the fuck would you lose your parking spot to go back to your apartment when you have friends who lived right on campus? You weren't just good for smuggling free food from the cafeteria to your broke ass, struggling off-campus friends.

Sooner or later, you're greeted by a fluffy, black-haired Jungkook, looking like his shit must have air-dried with how wavy and voluminous it was. He swings your door open so aggressively that you jump a bit in your seat, swinging off your headphones like you weren't even expecting him. You watch as he flings himself onto your neatly made bed like he hasn't felt a bed in years.

"Ugh, yes." He moans as he belly flops onto your bed and stays in that position.

"When's your next class, you little baby?"

"In like an hour or so, I don't know." He says sleepily. "Wake me up, please?"

"Sure." You realize it's Wednesday, and he definitely has Ecology lab later at 3:00PM. You figured you'd wake him up by 2:30 just to give him enough time to groggily walk his ass back over to the science building.

You and Jungkook weren't really close before college. It was moreso that you knew of each other since high school because of mutual friends. You'd see him at parties and he'd see you, but it was never more than the casual hi and bye and small talk. Maybe the occasional comments on facebook pages and the likes on pictures on instagram. But foreel, other than that, that's as real as your friendship got for awhile. You didn't mind it though, you were good with your set of friends and he was good with his. A lot of your friends attended the same university as you two and then your groups intertwined even more. 

But, it wasn't until the past couple of months or so where you both unexpectedly got really close - simply just by talking more and being around each other more. You both had similar interests and Jungkook wasn't the most vocal in his group, but with you, he seemed to talk endlessly. He loved comics and he loved raving to you about Marvel and DC superheroes. He loved to draw, and he'd draw you things every now and then - his most recent being you as a scientist superhero saving the world from overgrown malaria-infected mosquito monsters. It was the cutest thing you had ever seen, and you tacked it against your cork board near your desk. Then, small things like that turned to bringing you food or boba, being stuck at the hip where he'd only go to a certain place on campus if you were there; texting each other inside jokes and funny ass tweets all day turned to facetime sleepover calls and then late hangouts eventually turned to actual sleepovers in your bed, where he'd drape his arm around while you both slept but it never escalated into anything more than that in bed. Although he did fucking hate your medium-sized Olaf plushie that took shelter on your bed - he'd always hike it across the room and talk about how annoying he is and how he's always taking his spot. You never understood it, really.

And then soon, it turned to small displays of affection behind closed doors, where Jungkook would hold you close. Hold your hand if you two were in the room watching a show, or movie. Small kisses exchanged. Big kisses exchanged, making out sessions. But, that was literally it. Nothing else. No sex. No pressure. Lots of unspoken feelings, obviously, but you weren't gonna be the one to bring that up. Because you were comfortable, and if anything, you didn't wanna ruin what you guys already had going.

Like, is this a friends with benefits thing? Maybe? Maybe not? It was hard to label it because it's not like you both determined so, it kind of just fell together that way. And there was really no pressure to fuck every single time you got affectionate. It was cute, sweet. And no one really knew it was like that behind doors - possibly your suitemate Kass and her boyfriend, Jimin, but that's only because you shared the dorm suite with her. Jimin was also one of Jungkook's roommates and his really good friend, so whenever they had slept over on the same night, it was pure and utter chaos. But honestly, if Kass and Jimin hadn't been around you two much, they most certainly wouldn't have the idea.

Whatever it was, it was a comfortable closeness that you both experienced and appreciated. However, the both of you were afraid of discussing what this really was, afraid it'll ruin the dynamic. The atmosphere. Having to come to terms of what it might, or might not be. Neither of you can fully admit that you like the other. Although, it got hard. People did lightly tease you two because you both always looked for each other and were stuck by the hip out on campus.

Oh, well. Bottom line is that you liked your relationship where it was at, but it doesn't mean you haven't thought about the what if's. Jungkook was insanely attractive, and it's no lie that girls swarmed him left and right on campus, but he didn't give a shit [either he didn't give a shit or he was dumb as hell?]. Okay, rewind — to be fair, he would have a fling or two, flirt once or twice. He'd tell you so and so was cute and that they've hung out or texted, but that's it. He just wasn't necessarily looking for anything cause he too enjoyed where he was at with everything.

It doesn't take long before Sleeping Beauty is snoring face down on your bed, looking like Patrick Star with the way he's sprawled out. But, you continue to do your work until it was time to wake him. You gently shake him, his puppy eyes looking back at you after being face down all nap.

"Class time."

"No." He groans. "Can't I just stay here with you?"

"No, dude. Get to class." You chuckle. "You already skipped last week."

"Yeah, but this is a new week Y/N."

"Jungkook." You almost say in a scolding manner.

"Fiiiiiiine." He whines as he shoots up and hops off from your bed. "Are you going to our party on Friday?"

"I said I'd think about it right?"

"Yeah, like on Monday. It's Wednesday."

"And I'm still thinking about it." You snort, making him pout.

"Just come for a little bit."

"Why? You know parties aren't my thing and you'll be too drunk anyways. I'll end up wanting to go right the fuck back home as soon as I step outside."

"I'd like to be drunk and have you there. It'll be more fun!" He pouts as he holds your hand and swings it back and forth.

"I mean, to be completely honest, I'll probably end up going because of Kass anyways."

"Because of Kass." He rolls his eyes. "Oooookay. Not because of you, Jungkook, no." He says sarcastically, brows furrowed.

"Ew. You're such a fucking whiner. Leave." You laugh, throwing an empty water bottle at him.

"I'm kidding." He chuckles. "Wanna grab dinner with me after practice?"

"Sure. If you pay." He groans

"Fine. I'll see you later." He puckers up his lips to blow you a kiss, which you automatically reject by giving him a look before turning your attention back to your homework. You were hoping he'd offer to go to In-n-Out because you were craving that #2 with animal fries and a neapolitan shake, plus there was a Target in the same plaza that you wanted to drag him to for new pens and clearance sale shopping. And you wouldn't even warn him about it. He would tag along, no question.

Hoseok stands in front of the mirrors in the studio, pacing back and forth as your dance group learned a couple of 8-counts from this new piece he had been brewing up. Apparently, it was supposed to be a couples piece but he wasn't sure if he was going to keep it that way. He watched to see if this would be better as a group, or if he should stick to his original plans.

Your college dance group was a small group formed by people with pure, genuine interest and love for modern hip hop choreography. Hoseok was the dance lead, with Jimin being the back up lead. The group came together, taught each other pieces, taught workshops for those interested on campus and performed at the various talent shows and productions the school had throughout the year. It was just your group's way of showcasing your talents, something you all purely enjoyed, and it was nice to see the love and support given by the audiences.

"Okay, run that from the top one more time please. We'll take break after, swear." Hoseok chuckles and gives Jimin the cue to start the song back at the starting point. Jungkook makes a funny face at you as he huffs and puffs, trying to catch his breath from the last time you went through the counts.

"Ew." You giggle, slightly pushing him aside. Miguel's How Many Drinks begins to blast through the studio speakers, Jungkook doing his best to sing along and match his tone all while focusing on his steps. Once you're done going through the counts, the music continues to play, Jungkook twirling over to you just to sing—

"Cause I ain't leavin' aloneeee, I feel like I could be honest, babe." He spins to your other side. "We both know that we're grown, that's why I wanna knooooow - how many drinks will it take you to leave with meeeeEEeeeE?"

"You can give me all the drinks in the world and I swear I still wouldn't." You snort, making him frown and click his teeth.

"Too bad that's not really how you act when I ask to sleep over, though." Silence as you stick your tongue out at him. Cause, yeah. You really do tell him to sleep over without hesitation. You loved his company, you can’t lie. "Yeah, fraudulent as hell. I never taught you that." He jokes.

"Shut up, Jungkook—"

"Okay!" Hoseok says, clapping his hands. "This'll be a couple piece. I honestly think it'll work better that way, just like I envisioned it. I'll work with the couple to clean this up before the performance, but to whoever isn't casted for this, Jimin still has a piece to teach the rest of you, so don't feel discouraged!" Hoseok chuckles a bit, giving the rest of the group a small smile. "So with that being said - Y/N, Jungkook, I want you two to do this piece."

"Ouuuuuuuu." Jimin teases you from the sidelines, causing you to put up your middle finger.

"We won’t let you down, cap." Jungkook swings his arm around you.

"I'll teach you the rest of the piece next practice so we can start polishing it up and making it clean before the talent show."

"Sounds good with me." You flatly say, even though 100%, you're pretty excited for many reasons. One, you had been wanting to do a solo or couples piece for awhile, and two, your partner was Jungkook. Your best friend, your ride or die, the dude you've spent so much time with and gave your affection to behind closed doors. It made you giddy just thinking about it, even if you'd blatantly lie to his face later on when he'd tease you. And Jungkook felt the same. You missed the way he subtly bit on his bottom lip when you were named his partner, just so he wouldn't smile too big in front of you.

After practice, you egg him on enough to agree to take you to In-N-Out, without hinting at the plan you had drafted out in your head earlier.  The plan that says you're gonna drag his ass to Target afterwards and he had no choice but to come along.

"Y/N, you liar." He groans. "You said you weren't gonna go to Target." He pouts as you follows behind you anyway.

"Kook, I literally just need to get one thing."

"What's the one thing that you couldn't get on your own time?"

"I don't know, I'll have to find out when we get in there." You giggled, causing him to groan again. "Plus, we're here already. Killing two birds with one stone."

"Ah shit, I suppose I can get some bottles for the party."

"Yeah, make yourself useful Jungkook."

"Yeah, make yourself useful Jungkook, aheh." He mocks your tone and does that really weird and ugly ass laugh that dudes always do when they try to mock girls, however, you ignore it because you've just stepped into Target and bitch, this was Disneyland to you. Heaven. Paradise.

"Hm, what are we drinking on Friday?" He says his text outloud as he follows you around the dollar section where you begin to pick up really unnecessary items that you're probably just gonna store away in or around your desk somewhere.

"Should be holy water because you all need it."

"Mmm, I don't know, I don't think they have that but we can check." He responds ever so seriously, causing you to chuckle.

"How many people are you expecting?"

"Honestly, I don't even know. We said we'd keep it to close friends only. I don't really have any friends, so that's all on them."

"Ah, makes sense as to how the entire class was invited." You fire back sarcastically. "Your upstairs neighbors are really gonna have a blast."

"They're invited too."

"You guys are so dumb." He laughs when you hit him against the chest. After walking a bit, the two of you head towards the alcohol aisle, Jungkook grabbing what his arms will allow him to grab since alcohol is a little cheaper here than other grocery stores. "Isn't there a limit as to how much alcohol you can buy?"

"I don't see anything anywhere." He hauls about 4 big bottles back to the cashiers. "Besides, I'm giving them business compared to Safeway and those other grocery stores."

"Grab the coupon at least, genuis. It could save you some money." You take off the coupons from the three bottles.

He looks down at the coupon attached to the 4th bottle. "Sign up today and get 2% cash back on every bottle you buy." He snorts after reading the coupon outloud. "More like sign up today and get 2% cash back turnt." He looks at you. "This doesn't sound like a coupon, miss. Where's the ‘get 5 dollars off’ bullshit?"

"2% cash back turnt? Really?" You furrow your brows at him and hand the coupons to the cashier. "Here. God, maybe you shouldn't be hosting parties with your roommates."

"Maybe not." He holds his bags, even grabbing onto yours as you both walk out to his car. He turns up the radio, the both of you singing along to the songs coming through. When he pulls up to the lot of Edgehill Village, he parks in someone else's marked spot only because it's technically next to your door and he doesn't anticipate to stay long. But honestly, that never goes as planned. He grabs your bag from the trunk, silently following behind you as you unlock your door to an empty suite - just as you expected. Kass was most likely at Jungkook’s, spending the night with Jimin, and you'd be alone for the night. It didn't matter to you though, the peace and quiet was always nice.

"You sure you're gonna be okay here alone?" You nod.

"Yup. It's kind of nice actually." You lean forward onto your bed since it's raised a little higher than usual with bed risers, and open up your laptop. Jungkook sets your Target bag down and wraps his arms around you from behind, planting a kiss on your cheek and on your jawline.

"You sure you don't want me to sleep over? Cuddles sound nice."

"It sounds like you want to."

"Only if you want me to." He nuzzles his head against your neck, waiting for your response.

"Kook, please." You chuckle. "If you wanna sleepover, then go ahead."

"Yesssss! I do."

"Well you need to find parking, or else the person that owns that parking spot will be highly upset."

"You got it, captain. Pull up a movie!" He says, dashing out of your room to move his car. He's most likely going to come back in another 5 minutes, being that the only free parking at this time of night is probably on the other end in the gym's lot, or somewhere on the streets [if he got lucky].

And so that 5 minutes sure does go by before Jungkook is breathing heavily when he walks into your room, duffle bag swung over his shoulder with a big, dorky ass smile on his face.

"I'm back!"

"I see." You snort, still going through the movies.

"Hey, let's run through what Hobi taught us first."

"Ugh, I'm so tired though."

"Cooooome on, just once." He pulls you by the hand, his body pressed against yours as his his other arm wraps around your waist. "Please." His puppy dog eyes look down at you, causing you to push him away because fucking hell, that shit makes you weak. Makes the pussy throb just a lil, you know? Christ.

"Only if you watch 10 Things I Hate About You."

"Sure, I don't mind." He pulls up the song on your laptop. The both of you face the mirror in front of you, careful not to hit each other since you had such limited space to fully move around. Running through it once was a full blown lie, being that you both are doing it for almost 5-6 times before you're laughing at how out of breath you already are. You're so out of it and winded by the last time around that you accidentally hit Jungkook in the face, causing him to whine and stumble off to the side.

"Oh shit!" You laugh. "I'm so sorry, Kookie!" You run over to cup his face. "Are you okay? You good?"

"Shit, Y/N. You have a heavy hand." He keeps his hand against his cheek.

"I'm sorry." You lean in to plant a kiss on his cheek, but Jungkook being Jungkook, he looks to the side to have his lips meet yours instead. He picks you up in one swift motion, your legs wrapped around his torso as he sits you on your bed, your hands still cupping his face. And honestly, you really wanted him. You've always wanted him since this whole thing started. God, he was attractive to you - every little thing about Jungkook was a fucking weakness, but you weren't gonna let up first. Not tonight. The scar on his cheek, his soft, fluffy hair, his toned body, his muscular ass arms, the way he held onto you when you both slept, the way he kissed you.

Lord, he was truly going to be the death of you.

Before the kiss could get any deeper, you smile into it and back away, keeping your gaze on the small, dazed smile Jungkook has on his face.

"Can we watch now?" You ask, subtly biting onto your bottom lip.

"Yeah, good idea."

"Actually, after all that, I need to shower first."

"Can I join?" His eyes light up.

"Sit your ass down. You can go after." You laugh as you hop off the bed, grabbing your pajamas for a quick shower. You literally take 10 minutes, walking back into your room with wet hair and an oversized shirt and shorts underneath. Although you had been completely comfortable with Jungkook, the both of you have never really seen each other fully naked like that. Whenever he slept over, you were both always fully clothed. You've seen him hop out of the shower and come in shirtless, but that's probably about it. You start to brush your teeth as he rummages through his emergency duffle bag full of shit that he holds in the trunk of his car, grabbing a fresh pair of clothes to change into after his shower. You already know his ass is gonna use your shampoo for everything because he loves the smell of it and always talks about how good your hair smells.

While waiting for him, you slip yourself under your covers and pull the laptop closer to you, scrolling through your phone aimlessly to see what's new on instagram. Which, is absolutely nothing, so you let out a dissatisfied sigh.

"Ready!" He comes in, tossing his towel aside and shutting off the lights to crawl into your bed with you.

"You smell just like me." You chuckle.

"It's great, isn't it?"

"Your hair isn't bothering you?" You run your hand through his incredibly wet hair as he shakes his head.

"No, I'll be good."

"Okay." He wraps his arm around you to pull you onto his body, the movie already off to a start. As the movie goes on, you find yourself getting sleep as both of your bodies sink deeper into the sheets, Jungkook still not letting you go. The laptop rests on his belly, while your head is on his chest, his heartbeat the one thing putting you to sleep pretty quickly. He's comfortable, just as you are. He's warm, you're warm. He's content, you're content. You drift off to sleep while he continues to watch, knowing your bodies will be pressed tightly against each other in the morning.

"Kook there's so many fucking people here. The cops are gonna come and shut this down quick." Jungkook shrugs.

"Oh well, wasn't my idea." He snorts. "Shot?!" He hands you a shot that you take with ease, feeling like you aren't drunk enough for all this shit and all these people. "Atta girl."

"Yuck, though." You slightly make a sour face as you feel the warmth trickle down your throat and into your stomach.

"Heeeey, whyyyyy do you look so FaMiliaR?" This girl asks Jungkook in a weird, flirty tone, where every other consonant goes up and down. She's obviously really fucking drunk and out of her mind because for one, she definitely goes to the same school as you two, and she has definitely been in class with Jungkook before.

"Oh uh, my name's Justin Bieber. I used to sing from time to time." He says nonchalantly with you furrowing your forehead at him because what kind of response did he just give her?! What did he just tell her? You're so embarrassed that you slowly turn on your heel and walk out of the kitchen as you hear him sing One Less Lonely Girl hella out of tune, with the girl completely smitten over his drunk ass.

"Where's Jungkookie?" Kass asks as she sits on Jimin's lap.

"Over there, pretending to be Justin Bieber apparently."

"Oh, nice. You don't come across that often." Jimin says sarcastically. "Are you staying here tonight?"

"Yeah, stay here tonight, with Kookie." Kass wiggles her eyebrows, her cheek resting on top of Jimin's head. "It's not like that's anything new."

"Um, I'd rather much be back in the dorm."

"That cold, lonely place? When you could be here, in such a pretty apartment with such a pretty boy?" You shake your head at her.

"Unbelievable." You mutter. Suddenly, an incredibly tall man walks into the apartment, reaching about 6'1 and almost hitting the ceiling with his tall ass. You've never seen him before, but he walks in with Hoseok and Namjoon and for whatever reason, you can't peel your eyes off of him. "Woah, who's that?"

"Who's what?" Jungkook finally comes to your side after being Justin Bieber for a good minute or so, his eyes following yours. Who was he and why were you looking at him so intensely?

"That's Kang! You've never met him?" Jimin says, doing a slight nod to greet him as he passes by. Kang and his fine self looks up at you, a small smirk creeping up at the corner of his lips as he continues through to the kitchen behind Hoseok and Namjoon. "He's a transfer and on the basketball team."

"He's fiiiiine." You and Kass swoon over him a bit, Jungkook giving you a look.

"He's alriiiight. I've seen better."

"Shut up, no one asked you." You lightly punch him on the side, making him lightly groan while Jimin and Kass laugh. The rest of the party, you suddenly have a goal to find out more about Kang and see what he's about because you and Jungkook weren't official. You both didn't really know what this was, but one thing you knew for sure was that it wasn't anything exclusive. You wouldn't bring it up, so wouldn't Jungkook - so was this really something all that meaningful?

Whatever, you didn't wanna keep going in circles about it.

Jungkook fucking hates it though, and he's honestly really jealous that you're suddenly trying to be all cute and woo the new, tall, handsome [but he's not really that fucking handsome to Jungkook for christ's sake] basketball player. Jungkook almost wants to mock his every move and how suavé he is, almost looking like a try hard with the way he's leaning against the wall and talking to you.

Wait— he's talking to you?! You were literally right next to him 2 seconds ago.

"What the fuck?" He squints, trying to make sure he's actually looking at you.

"You're so full of shit." Jimin laughs.

"What are you talking about?"

"Why don't you just admit that you like her and stop being childish about it?"

"I don't like her. She's just my bestfriend."

"Um, okay?" Jimin snorts. "When you sleep at her place every chance you get and vice versa? When she has a ton of your shirts and hoodies in her own fucking closet? When you always get so affectionate with her in the dorm? Sure, you don't like her."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do, you've done it in front of me and Kass before but you both tried playing it off. I don't understand you two."

"Well, I don't like her. She obviously doesn't either with the way she's trying to be all up on him." Jungkook glares at you, his teeth biting the rim of the cup harshly as he brings it to his lips to take a sip.

"Whatever, I'm just saying dude. Probably better to be straight up about it than not."

"Kaaaaaaay." Jungkook responds sarcastically, trying to play off how butthurt he was right now. Cause yeah, he did fucking like you. He was just scared to admit it though because of reasons like this - the fact that you possibly didn't like him back killed him. The fact that you could possibly be using him to feel wanted, needed. It made his stomach turn.

He just really liked you, and god, did he want to be the one in your bed tonight. Whether or not that ended up in sex, whatever. He just wanted to be the one to touch you, be on you.

Meanwhile, Kang was attractive as hell and ouwee, were you feeling him tonight. You were, you really were - except, you could literally feel the holes Jungkook was burning through you from across the room. You'd occasionally glance over due to how distracting it was, Jungkook literally have no shame with eyeing you, almost glaring at you, from across the apartment.

"Is it too forward if I ask for your number already?" Kang licks his lips, his teeth lightly piercing his bottom lip as he looks down at you.

"No." You smirk at him, taking his phone to put your number in.

"We should kick it soon. I'd love to hang out with you and get to know you better."

"Yeah, just let me know when." You blush, until you're suddenly pulled out of your daze by a loud 'ahem,' the loudest throat-clearing you have ever heard in your life. You turn to see Jungkook making his way back over to the shots, knowing damn well he's calling you over. "See you around?" Kang winks before he tips his cup to you and gives you a single nod.

"Sure thing, cutiepie." You bite onto your bottom lip, making your way over to Jungkook at the shot station, instantly pinching his arm.

"What the fuck?"

"Nobody was calling you over." Jungkook smirks.

"Shut the fuck up, yes you were. I know that was you clearing your throat like that."

"I'm sorry, does it bother you?" He blinks cutely, tilting his head to the side. "Besides, why come over here when you're too busy with your man?"

"Are you jealous?"

"Why in the hell would I be jealous, Y/N? Do you." The words sting you, even though part of you still wants to believe that Jungkook may actually like you. All you can do is sigh and brush it off, placing your cup down in front of him as he pours himself another shot. "You sure?"

"Just give me the damn shot." You say, making it your 7th.

And the 7th turns into 8, 8 turns into 9, 9 turns into 10. And at 10, you're pretty fucking drunk even as the party is starting to die down by the time it's close to 2am. All 10 were a good combination of shots and mixed drinks.

10 drinks.

10 drinks is what it took for you to lay in Jungkook's bed at the end of the night, hands tangled in his fluffy hair as your makeout session intensifies by the minute - all due to this sexual tension, frustration, whatever the hell it was brewing between you two after all this time. The both of you are drunk as hell, and it's pretty evident with the way you can still taste the alcohol on his tongue, both sloppily touching up on each other, kisses getting wetter, clothes coming off like there's no tomorrow.

"Wait, are you sure?" Jungkook says, about to unhook your bra.

"Jungkook, god, just fuck me." You plead drunkily, the room spinning around you. He continues to unhook your bra, tossing it across the room where your other clothes lay, peppering kisses along your neck before licking up a stripe to meet your lips again. He hooks his fingers across the band of your panties, tugging them down and letting them get lost within his sheets. You take this as leverage to tug his boxer briefs down, already stroking his hardened member the moment you come into contact with it. The sad thing is that you both are so fucking drunk, you can't even appreciate the fact that you both are naked in front of each other for the first time ever.

You can't even come to terms with the fact that you both are about to fuck each other and cross that boundary completely.

But, hell, what do you care? You were drunk. You got a cute guy's number. You're getting dick at the end of the night.

"Oh shit, Y/N." He moans into your mouth as he feels you stroking him. "Need to feel you." He quickly runs his finger down your fold, slipping in two digits to pump them in and out, quickly prepping you for his dick.

"Hnnng--Kook." You bite onto your bottom lip as your eyes shut close momentarily, your head digging deeper into the pillow the more he tries to stretch you out. "Want you inside of me."

"I got you." He says. You almost whine at the loss of contact until you feel his tip poking at your entrance. He slowly continues to slip himself inside of you, Kook letting out a small groan while your mouth was left open, a soundless moan releasing before you hiss and take in all of him. He fills you up so well, so completely. He was so big that you felt full, bloated, with him being inside of you the way he was.

"Ohhhhhgod." You whimper as he starts to steady his pace, the lewd noises of his cock slipping in and out of your wet pussy filling his room - god forbid if Jimin or their other roommate Yoongi heard this right now. It would be nothing short of pornographic.

"You're so wet. Is that all for me?" He says, causing your eyes to roll to the back of your head as he begins to aggressively thrust into you.

"Y-yes." You whine.

"Say it again."

"All for you, Kook."

"I fucking thought so." He drunkily responds as one hand grips onto your hips tightly, the other in your hair as he digs his head back into the crook of your neck, his tongue messily licking near your jaw before he nibbles onto your earlobe.

"Hmmmmgggh, Jungkook. Fuck." You moan as you start to work your hips upward into his, your clit rubbing against his pelvis, causing the pleasure to pool quickly within the pit of your stomach. It causes goosebumps to pierce through the surface of your skin, your hands gripping tighter on his hair. "You're-you're gonna make me cum. Faster." You plead. He does just so, hammering into you, the sound of his hips slamming into yours bouncing off of the walls.

"Ahhh—Y/N." He groans.

"Just like that, just like that, just like that!" You repeat, your clit feeling incredibly stimulated by the way it rubs against his skin while he fucks into you. "Oh shit! Jungkook!" You moan loudly, biting his shoulder as you feel yourself trembling hard in his grip, your orgasm taking over your entire body.

"Shit, shit, shit—Y/N, Shiiiit." He says into your neck, followed by more curses and groans as you feel him coat your walls warmly. He stays inside of you until the both of you come back down to normalcy, your breathing becoming more regulated. He slowly slips himself out, plopping next to you on the bed, but doesn't welcome you into his arms.

The night goes on, the both of you sleeping on your own sides of Jungkook's bed, not really saying a word to each other. Because the both of you, although still pretty drunk, are more aware by the time it's over and it's become so clear how fucked up this got.

You were hurt. Completely hurt. Because you didn't expect Jungkook to just fucking ghost you after that night. You wanted to talk about it, maybe come to the conclusion that you two should just distance yourselves from each other to figure this out, even if it would hurt you a lot to do so.

No.

That morning, Jimin and Kass had to take you back to campus because Jungkook had darted out of his room, nowhere to be seen until later that night. The next week or so, there were no texts, no calls. No visiting your dorm, no asking to sleepover.

Nothing.

Just radio silence, white noise, if you will.

The one thing he could come up with was a stupid response to your text when you finally caved and asked what you did wrong mid-week.

Something along the lines of 'what do you want me to say, Y/N? do you want me to force myself to feel a certain way?'

Followed by a 'i'm sorry, fuck. that came out really wrong' even though you thought it came out perfectly fine. You understood loud and clear.

Even though this wasn't really an exclusive thing, or even a 'thing' if we wanna be straight up, you still couldn't help but feel like Jungkook had just dumped your ass with no explanation and you were still waiting for that explanation to come, whether it would or not. And because of this, you started to see Kang, hangout with him more often. He even took you out on a dinner date and you really enjoyed his company. He seemed genuine, caring, supportive - even if a lot of the basketball boys were the complete opposite. He was different, you liked to think.

And so you stand in front of the mirrors in the dance studio, you and Jungkook awkwardly running through the piece with Hoseok watching, confused as to why all of a sudden the two of you have this weird tension going on. It hasn't entirely ruined the couple piece, but it hasn't brought it together, either. The both of you could barely look at each other, barely get into the movements, the emotions behind the motions. Hoseok had to correct a few things, his 'pah pah pah's' echoing in the room constantly with how many times you and Jungkook had to be set straight for your sloppy steps today.

"Okay, I'm not saying it's bad, cause it's not. But can you both please act like you at least like each other or something? What's going on with you two? You aren't normally like this." Hoseok says, coming down to a crouch in front of the mirrors.

"Nothing, we'll do better. Don't worry." You brush off the entire question with your quick response. Jungkook looks at you, his hands on his hips, lightly frowning at how much you're distancing yourself even though he knows its entirely his fault for running from his feelings and not being honest with you.

"Okay, let's do it from the top." The music starts, you getting into the piece without making any eye contact with Jungkook. Even the steps that cause you to be close and near Jungkook, you look anywhere but his eyes, and your touch is light, trying your hardest not to let any feelings pass through the motion. Hoseok is a little more pleased this time around, but it still doesn't sit right with him, so he lets you two take a break while he heads to the other studio to check on Jimin and the rest of the group.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

"Jungkook, you don't get to ask me that." He sighs and runs his hand through his hair, not sure if he should continue on or not.

"Y/N—"

"Save it, and let's just get this over with, okay? I don't wanna be here just as much as you." Your words cut him deep because dear, you have gotten him completely misunderstood and yet, he still can't speak. He still can't talk about his feelings. He still can't save this even though he wants to, even though he loathes seeing you the way you are with Kang.

"I never said—"

"Kay, ready? Let's run this full out and make it a good one so we can call it for today." Hoseok says, clapping his hands to hype you two up somehow. The music starts and you're finally able to get into the steps. The emotions. And god, it's only because you're so hurt by your own bestfriend. You're hurt that he fucked you so good, and then dipped. You're hurt that he couldn't even face you the day after. You're hurt that after all this time, he made it seem like you still didn't matter enough - at least enough for an explanation, for some kind of reasoning, conversation, behind what just went down between the both of you. Between what has been going down between the both of you.

Besides the stupid ass responses he gave you through text.

You get so into your feelings that you don't even realize you're tearing up by the time the piece is over, and Jungkook catches it even though you face away from him as soon as the music cuts out.

"Nice, okay! That was so much better! Let's pick it up next session, yeah? We'll keep cleaning it up. Thanks guys!" Hoseok says. You immediately head towards the wall, grabbing your things to avoid any confrontation from Jungkook, but he grabs your arm as soon as you slip through the door.

"Y/N, wait. Stop."

"Let me go." You yank your arm from his grip.

"Why are you crying?" He stops in front of you, his hands placed on your arms to prevent you from moving any further.

"I'm not." You blatantly lie while you aggressively wipe away the stragglers coming down.

"Really? Just gonna lie like that?"

"Why do you care? You haven't said shit to me all week." You snap back, and Jungkook is taken aback from the tone in your voice. You remove his hands from your arms, and take one last look at him before shaking your head and walking off.

Next mistake? He doesn't come after you.

This was a waste of fucking time. If he truly cared about you, he wouldn't let you hurt like this.

You let out a deep sigh before clutching onto your things and walking back to your dorm. The walk from the gym/fitness center was damn near on the other end of campus compared to your dorm. It would be a good 10 minute walk if you really took your time. A good 10 minutes to ponder on your thoughts.

Yes, you liked Jungkook. You really liked him. Having sex with him solidified those feelings even more. How could you not have feelings for your bestfriend after all the moments you've shared? Was it your fault for assuming that? Was it your fault for walking through that door when it seemed to be completely open for you?

"Sup." Kang comes out of nowhere, pulling you out of your thoughts. He swings his arm around your shoulder, gently pulling you closer to his body.  "Just got out of practice?"

"Sure did." You give him a toothless smile. Yes, he was attractive as hell. He always will be. But, even with the time you spent together, the date he took you on, he still couldn't make you feel the way Jungkook has been able to make you feel.

"How was it?"

"Um, it was alright. Nothing new really, just cleaning up the piece before the show. You're going right?"

"Why wouldn't I?" He smiles down at you. "Listen, I don't know if you've heard, but there's another party tonight."

"A party? It's Wednesday." You snort.

"Yeah, I mean, one of the boys on the Lacrosse team is throwing it at his family house because his parents will be gone. Wanna come? I'll pick you up. We don't have to stay for long." You looked at your watch.

"What time is it at?"

"Like 9ish?" Enough time for you to shower and get a quick dinner in your belly. Why the hell not? You were caught up for the week. You didn't have any pressing assignments that were due asap.

"Sure. I'll come."

"Cool. See you later then?" He says, about to part ways with you. You simply give him a nod before walking deeper into Edgehill village. You hoped you wouldn't regret this tonight, and you really hoped he meant it when he said you two didn't have to stay for long. You drag yourself into your room, seeing Kass' door wide open, revealing her packing up her duffle bag.

"Hey, where are you headed during the middle of the week?"

"My two classes got cancelled for tomorrow so me and Jiminie are heading out for a mini getaway for our anniversary." You cross your arms and smile. "He's just gonna catch up on shit when we get back I guess." She laughs.

"That sounds cute. I hope you have loads of fun this weekend, babe."

"What are you gonna do?" Kass and Jimin were obviously aware of everything happening between you and Jungkook being that they had to be the ones to take you home. They never pressed on it though, knowing you both were still pretty upset about how things were playing out. They figured you two would eventually work it out, but until then, they would just sit back and keep their mouths shut. You two were being completely stubborn, but it wasn't their relationship to fix.

"Well, there's this party Kang wants to take me to tonight."

"The Lacrosse party? Messy." She laughs. "Be careful, but also have fun, yeah? I still don’t know if I trust him.”

"Yeah I know."

"Tell me how it goes!"

"I will." You wave her off as you head into your room and shut the door. You figured you would just grab dinner on campus to avoid spending more money than you should; after all, dinner seemed to be pretty bomb tonight. You didn't mind going alone, sometimes Namjoon would join you, asking for you to bring him a plate of food while he does the hard job of sneaking inside the cafeteria through the back door. He usually waits for you at a free table and ends up staying there to have dinner with you, updating you on how life has been, how school has been. Sometimes Hoseok would join you, too. Either way, you didn't mind if no one joined. It was nice to have dinner by yourself from time to time.

You get there on time to be able to grab some food, eat quietly and head out before the cafeteria gets way too busy for your liking. You slip into the shower and throw on a mini skirt, a crop top and a denim jacket, lightly fluffing your hair in the mirror and adding a dab of lip gloss to your lips before Kang is calling you to tell you he's outside your dorm. He's wearing something similar to your color palette, however, you don't make much out of it since this also wasn't really an exclusive thing and you sure as hell weren't going around telling people you and Kang had a thing going on.

To him, you two might be a thing. You've definitely overheard people talking about you two in passing.

To you though, you two definitely weren't. And it was a big fuck you to Jungkook for that.

The house is packed from end to end already, and you're surprised being that it has barely hit 10 minutes since the party was expected to take off. Kang is having to park down the hill, allowing you to hop onto his back for a quick piggy back ride up until you reach the front of the house. There's people already fucked up out on the lawn [you figured they fucked themselves over during their pre-game session cause that shit really happens from time to time], either laying there drunkily or yacking on a free patch of grass.

Gross.

Messy, indeed.

Some people are posted, smoking blunts and offering it to people who were passing by. You and Kang both pass up on it, the idea of not knowing where it has been not sitting right with you. You both head straight to the bottles, taking shots and downing mixed drinks to chase it with so that you can catch up with majority of the crowd. Kang has his arm around your shoulder throughout the night, keeping you close to him, even when he's getting pretty drunk. You realize he's a little more handsy than usual, a little more touchy than you expected him to be. It doesn't bother you for a minute, until he really tries to hike up your skirt while you sit on his lap. You gently shoo his hand away, playing it off while he nuzzles his head against your neck.

"Let's go upstairs, babe." He says, the pet name sounding incredibly off coming from him. Maybe you were drunk, maybe you really just weren't in the mood. It just didn't sound cute, if that even makes sense?

"Okay." You respond stupidly, not wanting to cause a scene at a lacrosse party. You intertwine your fingers with his as he leads the way up the stairs, eyeing the doors as they come into view. He leans forward towards each door, making sure it's clear before opening it. You assume he finally finds one that he's satisfied with when you catch the small smirk that grows at the corner of his lips when he turns the door knob and brings you inside. He pulls you into a deep, rough kiss, one that doesn't even allow you to breathe and process what the fuck is even going on. You can't get into it for the life of you, no matter how hard you try to back away. "Wait, wait."

"What's wrong, baby? Isn't this what you wanted?" He says, kissing down your neck as he drops his jacket to the floor. He gently pushes you onto the bed, his hands traveling up your skirt as you lay there trying to push him off.

"Wait, stop." He doesn't listen. He continues until his hands are literally hooking onto your panties, his finger swiping down your clothed folds. You try fighting him off, but he's way stronger than you. He continues to be aggressive, forcefully trying to shove your panties down until you muster up all the energy you have to finally push him off of you completely. "Stop!"

"What the fuck? I thought you wanted this?"

"Who the hell said that?"

"Are you serious? The way that you're dressed and the way that you look at me. The way you approached me at your friend's party - isn't it all because of this? Because you wanted me? Why are you backing out now?"

"Jesus, get over yourself." You stand, fixing your skirt back down. He furrows his brows at you before his hand grips your arm tightly, shoving you against the wall.

"The fuck, you can't just leave without giving me anything. I brought you here to this party."

"Let me go! You're fucking sick. No one even told you I wanted this to go down. I don't know who you think you are, but you need to get yourself together and stop assuming every pussy is yours to take." He attempts to pin you, his hand holding up both of your hands against the wall while the other tries to pull up your skirt. Someone accidentally opens the door, distracting him and giving you leverage to shove him off and get the fuck away. You dart down the steps, fixing your skirt as you head outside and away from the house.

Fuck, you're far from campus. And Kass and Jimin aren't around.

God.

You groan and run your hand through your hair as you continue to walk down the hill and into the neighborhood to get as far away as possible from that house and that gross ass dude. He was literally just like the rest of the basketball team. You've heard stories and they weren't nice. Looks like he was trained well already, and that shit was sad. What a waste. A beautiful human being with such a nasty, sick mindset. You hoped other girls hadn't fallen for his shit.

Ugh, it sends shivers down your spine. Bad shivers.

"Hello? Y/N?"

"Kook, can you come pick me up please?"

"Yeah, yeah. Of course. Where are you?"

"I'll drop my location. Please hurry." You say, looking back to make sure your coast was clear. You drop the pin into your text thread with Jungkook and sit on the curb until his arrival. It's getting pretty chilly out, and the denim jacket you're wearing fails to provide you with the warmth you're looking for. Sooner or later, Jungkook is pulling up, damn near hopping out before he can shift the gear into park.

"You okay? What happened?" He says, opening the door for you before rushing over to the driver's seat.

"Nothing, can we just go back to your place?" He nods silently, and doesn't press any further after hearing your tone. He watches from his peripherals how you fiddle with your fingers and constantly reach to pull your skirt down even though he doesn't think there's any other way you could pull it down even more. He watches as he parks the car on the curb in front of his apartment how you simply undo your seatbelt and hop out to walk straight into his apartment. He watches as you welcome yourself into his closet and pick out some clothes for you to change in.

You were hurt, and his blood boils thinking about who could've done this and what they could have possibly done.

I mean, no. He knows who did this, but the question was what exactly did he try?

He hears the shower turn on, then quickly get turned off after a good 5 minutes. You had stepped in for a quick body shower, using Jungkook's bodywash just to rid yourself of feeling gross. Feeling gross from being shoulder to shoulder all night long, people breathing down your neck. Kang touching you inappropriately. You slip into Jungkook's clothes, his scent wrapping around you entirely. When you head back into the room, Jungkook has his headset back on as he faces his computer, logging back onto his game of League of Legends. You silently toss your dirty clothes to the side of his room, making a mental note to grab it tomorrow morning and toss it straight into the laundry.

Straight into a fire, perhaps. But you loved those clothes so much, it was unfortunate it'd have such a horrible memory to go with it.

Jungkook slowly removes his headset again and removes himself from his game before he heads over and sits on the edge of his bed. You simply look at him, pursing your lips tightly together to prevent yourself from crying.

But he can tell.

"What happened Y/N?" The question triggers you, making you cry into your hands as he sits there, dumbfounded and worried at how he can fix this and make you feel better. "Look, you don't have to tell me all the details but please tell me how I can help. At least tell me if I need to beat Kang's ass." He says, pulling you into his arms.

"He tried to fucking take advantage of me." You mumble as you remove your face from your hands.

"He did what?" He manages to ask even though he has a hard time swallowing the lump that formed in his throat. He already assumed you had placed him in the same category as Kang even though he never intended to take advantage of you. He really took that night as something special [even drunk], and he never meant to make you feel like you were a used object. Not like Kang.

"He-he," You sniffed. "He tried to force me into having sex with him. He took me upstairs at that lacrosse guy's party or whoever the hell it even was, and he started to aggressively kiss me. And then he tried to force my panties down and touch me there, and—"

"Okay, please don't go on or else I'll literally go over there and tear his ass apart right now. I promise you." He says sternly, his jaw clenching tightly. "God, fuck. I'm so sorry Y/N. I can't apologize on his behalf but fuck, you didn't deserve that." He uses his sweater to wipe your tears.

"I don't even know why I'm crying, this shit isn't even worth it." You groaned. "It's just overwhelming to process, I guess."

"That's okay." He says, letting out a sigh as he brushes his hand through your hair and continues to wipe the stragglers falling from your eyes. "Anything I can get you right now?"

"No, I'm probably just gonna go to bed." He nods. "Thank you for picking me up."

"Of course. You know I'll always be there." He says. You slip yourself into his sheets, watching as he makes his way back to his desk. But fuck, the only thing you needed right now was him. You didn't want this distance anymore, and you just wanted to be comforted in true Jungkook fashion.

"Wait."

"Hm?" He hums as he has a hand placed on the  head of his chair while he turns to you.

"Can you just lay with me?"

"Yeah." He says, shutting off his computer before making his way over to you in the dark. You feel him slip in next to you, his arm snaking around your shoulders so he can pull you close and onto his chest. "Better?"

"Yeah." You say, shutting your eyes as you listen to his heart beat.

"Y/N."

"Yeah?"

"I never meant to take advantage of you, or make you feel like I used you that one night." Silence. "It was dumb of me, but I just— I had trouble coming to terms with my feelings. I was scared that you wouldn't feel the same way, but I thought fuck it, at least you would know, right?"

"What are you talking about, Kook?" You ask, close to a whisper.

"I'm saying that I really fucking like you, Y/N. No, that's not right." He curses himself. "I-I uh, I'm in love with you. And I don't know if I messed this up already with the way I acted, god I hope not, but you at least deserve to know that I truly do value you and that you mean alot to me. That night, even though we were pretty plastered, it meant a lot to me. It was more than just sex and I'm sure you felt that too." He waits for your response as his fingers rake through your hair. "Please say something, anything."

"I feel the same way, Jungkook. You're an idiot for running off, but I couldn't even stay mad at you. You just know how to hit my soft spots and I can never say no to it. Can never turn my back on it." He presses a kiss against the top of your head.

"Fuck, I'm really glad to hear that cause I don't know what I would have done besides cry if you rejected me." You playfully hit his chest.

"You're annoying." You jokingly say as you chuckle.

"I'm sorry. I really am. I never wanted to hurt you."

"It's okay." You look up to press your lips against his before laying back down.

"And Kang better be fucking glad you're pressed against my body right now because I'm still looking to beat his ass."

"He's not even worth it." Is the last thing you say before you find yourself drifting into a deep sleep, in the comfort of Jungkook's arms.

"You two feeling okay? Nervous?" You and Jungkook shake your heads. "Good, you guys got this. You've been looking amazing during practice, the audience will love you two, no doubt. Just remember to show emotions through expressions and hit every beat sharply." Hoseok nods in unison with the both of you.

"Got it, thanks Hobi." You smile at him toothlessly. You and Jungkook patiently waited for your turn backstage, the talent show already off to a wild and fun start. So many students came by to showcase their talents - from beatboxing, open mic, freestyling [like Yoongi did], dancing, singing, you name it. It was always a fun time at the talent show, and it was always nice to see people getting love for the shit they loved to do.

"You're up next." Hoseok says. "I'll be in the front row. Kick ass and have fun!" He says as he rushes off towards the opposite end to head back out to his seat in the theater.

"Ready?" Jungkook holds out his hand for you to take.

"I think so." You playfully respond as the backstage crew is rushing out the previous talent and rushing you two in to take your places on stage. The lights pick up as soon as the music starts, Kang's big ass head already in full view for you. He's definitely not smiling, no, he has a look of pure disgust because he simply couldn't get what he wanted from you.

And boy, who's fault was that? Not yours, no sir. It was his fault for thinking he had it like that.

But anyways, you're feeling the music, you're feeling the piece because you're dancing with your bestfriend and there wasn't this grey area anymore. It was easier to get into the motions, to get into the feeling, especially when things felt right between the two of you.

And God, what else is more attractive than Jeon Jungkook hitting his 8 counts so smoothly, with just enough umph to make it pop but make it pop cleanly.

Yo, please. I beg. Send some help. You could literally melt on stage.

The moments where Jungkook has to be close to you, where he has to touch you - you let him, and you touch him with meaning. You don't stray away this time because you have no reason to. The crowd is cheering, lots of 'ou's' and 'aw's' erupting from various places in the theater.

"Pretty lady." Jungkook whispers in your ear as the move requires his hands to be placed on your hips for a quick moment. You hear him slightly singing along to the song as he parts from you, causing you to blush.

Sooner or later, the couple piece is over and the song is transitioning to Jimin's piece, you and Jungkook rushing off the stage so the next group can take their positions. Jimin wanted to test his limits, creating a piece a little different than his usual taste - Chris Brown's Came to Do begins blaring through the theater speakers. You immediately jump into Jungkook's arms once you both reach backstage, the both of you immensely happy and pumped that you got through the piece without messing up one step or beat. It went so smoothly that Hoseok was standing in the front row, clapping and cheering in typical Hoseok fashion. You intertwine your fingers with his, slipping through the side door to catch Jimin's piece on stage. You and Jungkook are cheering them on, always impressed by the shit your friends can come up with. You both loved dancing, but you couldn't even imagine coming up with your own pieces to teach people.

That night after the show, everyone heads to a nearby restaurant for dinner with everyone. You all take up almost an entire section of the restaurant, splitting two long tables to accommodate the entire group with doubled the waitresses to take your orders. You settle for water, splitting an abnormally huge and filled deep dish pizza with Jimin, Kass and Jungkook. It was a good day, a good night, everyone at the table happily eating and chatting it up over dinner. You turn down any drinks because to be honest, drinks lowkey make you queasy just from the thought of how much you drank at Jungkook's apartment, plus the added bonus of that party Kang took you to. Jungkook declines as well, knowing he has to drive you back safely.

Jimin and Kass head back to the apartment because Yoongi says he's gonna hang out with Joon And Hoseok for a bit, and they warn you and Jungkook that things may get loud so the both of you decide to really stick to the plan of bringing you back to the dorm. Jungkook does his usual routine of dropping you off first before finding parking around campus. You hop in the shower and come out in Jungkook's oversized crewneck that he left in your closet, forgoing the shorts because you certainly thing that at this point, he'd love to see you in his sweater and panties.

And he does. He smiles as he pulls you close, his hands traveling up your sweater, only to find out that you literally don't have shit on besides some cute little boyshorts. He feels himself hardening in his pants quick because he's incredibly attracted to you and everything about you, always has been, always will be.

"You did amazing tonight." He says, gently kissing your forehead.

"You did too, partner." He gives you a slightly shocked look.

"Is that all I am to you? Your dance partner?"

"Yeah, why? Were you expecting more?" You joke as you smile up at him.

"Yeah, I was."

"Oh?" He gently swoops you up into his arms, your legs wrapped tightly around his torso as he sits you on the bed, his hands resting on your thighs while you continued to hold him around the neck. "Care to tell me what you were expecting?"

"Well, you know, my best friend—" He presses a kiss against your lips, thumbs gently rubbing circles against your hips. "My girlfriend."

"Hm, say that again?" Your fingers are gently playing with the ends of his hair, your lips barely grazing his.

"My girlfriend." He says closed to a whisper, kissing you softly. The kiss deepens quick, Jungkook's tongue lining your bottom lip as his way of asking for permission to take it further. You gladly take it and let him in, your tongues instantly fighting for dominance. Your fingers travel up his hair, tugging ever so slightly just to let him know you want more. That you need more.

And he gets that.

His fingers hook onto the band of your boyshorts, tugging them down and letting them fall down your legs and onto the floor. He breaks the kiss momentarily, his brown, puppy dog eyes looking straight into yours.

"Hey." He says, brushing the hair out of your face.

"Hm?"

"I know I said the last time was special, and it was. It is." He corrects himself. "But, I wanna do right by you this time around. So, is it okay if I keep going? Are you comfortable?" He asks properly, since the two of you are both sober and perfectly coherent, aware of your surroundings and the fact that you'll be seeing each other fully naked in a few minutes.

"Yes." You respond. "Yes, I want you to keep going. I want you. This." He simply nods, bringing his lips back onto yours. His hands climb up your sweater and gently gives your breasts a good squeeze, earning a small moan from the both of you. His other hand begins to travel down to your pussy, two long fingers slowly probing your entrance and causing your breathing to hitch.

"You okay?" He asks lowly. You nod, biting onto your bottom lip as you tilt your head back and rest on your hands, no longer able to keep up with the kiss due to all the pleasure starting to pile up deep in your core. Jungkook starts of slow, his head now buried into the crook of your neck as he works his digits upward, tickling at the right spot.

"Ohhhh, Kook." You mewl as his tongue swipes across the surface of your neck, biting gently beneath your jaw. He begins to pick up the pace, the sounds of him finger fucking you filling up the room entirely.

"Fuck, you're so wet baby." He groans into your neck.

"I'm gonna cum." You whine, teeth almost piercing through your bottom lip in between your whimpers.

"Need to taste you." He removes his fingers and sinks down in between your thighs, gripping onto them and pulling you just a teensy bit more off the edge of the bed so he can get a good angle. The sight of his eyes looking up at you in between your legs is to die for, and the sight alone is enough to make you cum. But, you hold on, you ride out for a little longer - feeling Jungkook's tongue swipe in and out of your folds before he's sucking endlessly on your clit.

"Ahhh, fuck, wait, Jungkook!" He slightly smiles while eating you out, signaling that he's not stopping even if you beg him to. "Hnnng—shit!" You moan loudly as you feel yourself toppling over the edge, your body shaking in Jungkook's grip. You twitch every time he continues to suck gently on your sensitive nub, letting you ride out the rest of your high. He comes back up to your lips, the taste of your own cum lingering on it as you kiss him deeply.

"You taste so good." He says, back to twirling your nipples in between his fingers.

"Wanna feel you." You fiddle with his jeans, undoing his belt and sliding the rest down as much as you could. Jungkook gets out of his shirt and tosses it aside before helping get the sweater above your head. His eyes glow at the sight of your bare body in front of him, wanting to do nothing but please you and please you well.

"God, you're so perfect." He places kisses down your collarbone, to the surface of your breasts before quickly swirling his tongue around your perked buds. You moan as you tug down onto his boxer briefs, immediately stroking his hardened member while he tended to you. Jungkook was a fucking beauty himself - his soft hair, his perfectly toned body, his long 'thick in all the right places' dick.

"Please." You plead. "I want you inside of me." You whimper, causing Jungkook's breathing to hitch when you slightly tighten your grip at the base of his shaft. He gently pushes your hand aside to take over, lining himself up at your entrance. He inserts the tip, watching your eyes roll to the back of the head as he slowly sinks into you.

"Mmmmmgod." He moans. "So tight for me, baby. So fucking wet and tight." He repeats, close to a growl. Your moaning begins to pick up, matching the pace of his thrusting. You're still on the edge of the bed, Jungkook keeping you steady by gripping your thighs tightly. He marvels at the sight of your titties bouncing up and down with every thrust, hissing and shutting his eyes momentarily to keep himself grounded and to prevent himself from coming too quickly. Cause god, he can literally blow any second now.

"Jungggggkooook, yessssss!" You moan loudly, whining even at this point with how good he feels fucking into you at such a fast pace. You're feeling slightly sore already from him hammering into you, but nonetheless, it builds more pleasure for you and you want nothing but to reach your high again. "I-I'm coming!" Jungkook moans in unison with you when he feels your walls pulsating against his cock.

"Such a good girl for me." He says, slowing his pace. The creamy sounds of Jungkook's cock slipping inside and out is music to the both of your ears. He finally gains the courage to remove himself, sitting next to your spot on the edge of the bed and pulling you onto his lap. You swing a leg over, your hands resting on the nape of his neck while you sink yourself lower onto his length. Your mouth opens to let out a moan, but the best you can do is let out a hiss. It feels too fucking good that you can't even process it thoroughly. Jungkook pushes your lips down onto his by grabbing your neck, his other hand guiding the movement of your hips as you roll into him.

"Mmmggg—Jungkook." You whimper in between kisses. "You feel so fucking good, god. You're gonna make me cum again."

"Yeah, cum for me. Cum all over me. It's yours." He grunts, his hands guiding you to work him faster. Your movements are getting sloppier, and you feel your wetness starting to coat his pelvis. He doesn't give a fuck though, and neither do you. This shit feels too good for you to worry about the mess you're making on him.

"Cum with me please." He moans at the sound of you whispering into his ear.

"Faster, baby." He says, almost making you cry at how awfully close you are to unraveling. You tug onto his hair, your head buried deep into his neck as you try and suck onto the surface, trying to find an outlet, some kind of release, until you let go. You suck harshly as you coat his cock with your cum, leaving a purple mark right at the base of his neck. You continue to ride out your high, rolling your hips sloppily as Jungkook finally lets himself go, his moan bouncing off of your walls as his seed fills you up warmly.

You stay in your position, slowly raising your head to cup his cheeks and kiss him deeply once more.

"Fuck, I love you." He says slightly pulling away.

"I love you too." You giggle.

"Didn't actually need any drinks to do this now, did we?" Jungkook jokes, softly pinching your hip.

"Shut up."

"Damn, you both couldn't even at least try to be quiet?!" Jimin yells from outside the door.

[mercy-burning]

Fake Fiancée

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader

Summary: Spencer is left waiting at a bar when he gets in some trouble, and meets a woman who offers to help him out in more ways than one.

Category: SMUT (18+)

Warnings: Language, virgin!Spencer, car sex/exhibitionism, handjob, brief mention of edging, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, degradation kink, minor voyeurism kink, dirty talk (If I missed anything, please let me know!)

Word Count: 7k

MASTERLIST

NOTE: Hi, there!! Most of you have been extremely excited about this one since I shared the idea for it a few weeks ago, and so I’m glad to finally get to release it for you!! There’s a playlist here for you to check out if you’d like some ~vibes~ and over on @mercy-midnight I shared a few visual inspirations last night, so check them out if you want! Thank you for all your enthusiasm over this fic, I hope it lives up to your expectations!! 🥰

***

I've always loved the rain.

And it was definitely going to rain soon. How soon, I wasn't entirely sure, but as I made my way into the bar, taking one final breath of fresh air before it would inevitably be taken over by alcohol, greasy food, and way too much cologne, I could smell it. Cool and fresh, waiting to serve as some type of fresh start, to wash away all the hard shit and give me a clean slate.

The gaudy ring on my finger was one of those hard things I wished I could wash away. At least, it had been for a long time. Patrick never asked for it back after he left, and I'd had every intention of pawning it off, but I started noticing—after a few nights out where I'd tried to get hammered and nailed—that it scared everybody off.

I guess no one wanted to fuck a married woman—and a drunk married woman at that. Even if she technically wasn't even married anymore. Which I found all particularly odd considering my experience with men in the past has proved to provide me with extremely low standards.

It'd turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though. Sure, it might have taken me longer to completely get over Patrick and the mess he left me, but rather than losing myself in the lonely company of strangers, I forced myself to reflect and move on, to take each day in stride and take time for myself. Could I have just taken the ring off and gotten laid? Absolutely. But being on my own like that was the wakeup call I didn't know I'd needed.

And now, almost a year later, the ring sat tucked away in my jewelry box until I wanted it— usually when I knew I was going to the bar with every intention of getting hammered and not nailed. There were the occasional persistent players, but they were few and far in between, and if all else failed I resorted to smiling sweetly at them and lying, saying my "husband" was a cop. That shut them up pretty quickly, and by that point I was ready to leave anyway.

Like I said, blessing in disguise.

After a long day at work being called in on a Saturday, a few drinks at Waterson's sounded like a perfect way to end the night. I'd gone home, showered, ate dinner, and got dressed before taking a walk down the block and crossing the near-packed parking lot. The air was quite muggy despite it only being around forty degrees, which was the first indicator of rain. The second was the smell, of course, which I'd always been fond of, and the cobbled pavement had some type of haze around it that served as the final confirmation of my theory.

Honestly, I was hoping to get caught in the rain on my way home. I couldn't tell you why, exactly, just that the idea of walking home in the rain gave me the most excitement I'd felt in a long time. Life was great at the moment, of course, but between work and my less than ideal commute there on the train every day, I think I was due for a little excitement.

That excitement, naturally, started once I opened the door to the bar, taking a step inside and quickly being smacked in the face with the smell of fried everything. A small smile crossed my lips as I went in further, jumbled conversations, glasses clinking, and music humming softly behind the sharp snaps of pool balls being shot forward with the cue completing the picture.

I walked up to the bar to find Carla standing behind it, and I smiled at her. "I didn't know you were working Saturday," I called to her as I approached.

The brunette looked over at me and beamed, her teeth as perfect as ever. "Y/N, I didn't know you came in on Saturdays! How've you been?"

I took a seat at one of the barstools, nodding as I set my wallet and my phone down. "Alright... Work's a bitch, of course, but when is it not?"

"Yeah, I hear that. There's only so much relentless flirting I can take." We shared a good laugh at that before she nodded. "What can I get you?"

"A beer?"

"You got it."

I turned around then, surveying tonight's crowd. Waterson's was decently sized— definitely not as big or popular as the other bars in the city, but it got enough traction on the weekends, and even on Tuesdays when they had open mics. As my eyes wandered, they passed over all kinds of people. Women in tight clothes and men all over them, large groups of friends over by the pool tables who were betting and yelling with large smiles on their faces, old men by themselves in some of the tucked away corners... Anyone you could think of, name it and they were there.

One scene in particular caught my eye, though, and I thought about leaving it alone, but my gut twisted when I noticed how obviously uncomfortable the person was and how there was no one around who seemed to care enough to say or do anything.

Sitting alone at a rather large table was a guy who... no offense to him or anything, but he didn't look like he belonged here, not alone anyway. With a formal button-down short sleeve, meek stature, and a pair of glasses sitting atop his nose, he was an easy target for the two men that were towering over him as he sat, eyes averting them while they conversed. It could have been nothing, but occasionally the man in the glasses would flinch or look around nervously like he was waiting to be rescued.

Not that I wanted to rescue anyone or anything tonight. But he reminded me of someone being stood up, and from experience I knew how embarrassing that was, especially in a space crowded with other people who could obviously see what was happening to you. I hated Patrick for standing me up time and time again, and it wasn't until this waitress once intervened and offered some advice that I started to understand just how fucked up it was. That didn't make it hurt any less, of course, when he inevitably said he was moving across the country and dropped divorce papers on my desk at work, but still... The talk gave me some clarity.

Whether or not this man was actually being stood up or not, it was obvious that he was uncomfortable, and I figured he could use some help.

And I had just the plan.

I watched the scene until Carla came back with my beer, at which point I turned to her with a smile and got money from my wallet.

"Hey, could I get another?"

***

"No, you specifically told me 8pm..."

"I'm pretty sure I told you 9..."

I sighed, glancing around briefly at everyone and everything around me before speaking again, almost yelling into the speaker over all the noise. "Maybe you meant 9, but you told me 8, so I'm here. Alone!"

"Hey, look, I'm sorry, Kid, alright? But we're not gonna be there until 9, so... keep yourself busy until then? Let loose, have a couple drinks..."

I could hear the smirk in Derek's voice just as easily as I could picture it in my head as I sighed out a, "Fine," and hung up. The whole situation significantly raised my blood pressure, not to mention my anxiety— It wasn't hard to see that I stood out here. Bars were most definitely not my scene, and the only reason I'd agreed to go in the first place was so that I could try something new. Expand my horizons, as Penelope had told me right before I caved and agreed to accompany her and Derek on their little outing. I'd even drove my car here, a move I rarely made, as a start.

But now I was sitting alone at a booth, a glass of water in front of me and this twisting sensation in my gut that usually came to me when I didn't know what was going to happen.

I leaned back in my seat and sighed, staring down the glass of water as my cellphone tumbled around between my hands. All I had to do was wait here for an hour and remind myself over and over that eventually I'd be with people that I knew, people that I felt comfortable around. Only an hour.

One hour...

One hour, one hour, one hour... It was a chant in my head that went through different pitches and speeds until it was interrupted by a loud, "Hey, you!"

It could have been for anyone, but it was right next to me, and I knew when I wasn't wanted somewhere.

Sure enough, I turned my head to see a rather large man, a football player-type if I had to guess, wearing a grey tee shirt that hugged every muscle. There was a beer in his hands, and someone next to him, another man slightly shorter but still definitely athletic, held what looked to be a glass of hard liquor. By the looks on their faces, it was obvious that they were looking for a fight.

And it was also obvious that I was the easiest target in the whole bar.

One glance at the clock across the room and above their heads told me that I still had 54 minutes until my friends showed up, and that meat I'd either have to give these men whatever they wanted, tell them I was just about to leave, or attempt to pull the "I'm a Federal Agent" card, which I knew would probably get more laughs from them than a simple, "Sorry," and an exit.

I was about to run through every outcome of tonight's events in my head when the bigger guy spoke again, making me jump.

"Hey, m' talking to you!" He was drunk, most likely toeing the line between sobriety and a fist fight if I wasn't careful.

"I—Is there something you need?" I asked, hoping that if I could get this over with quickly, they'd leave me alone and maybe I could get out of here...

He mocked my voice in a way I'd heard more than once while growing up, and though I knew it was childish of him, saying more about him than me, the action got to me more than I cared to admit. Call it intuition, but when a nearly-drunk guy two times your size starts picking on you like a kid and you know he's just looking for a fight, the odds aren't very good when you're someone on the smaller side like me— Federal Agent or not. And he wasn't an unsub. He wasn't someone I could pick apart and just hand over to my team once I pushed back his defenses. If I picked this man apart, he'd likely throw a punch at my face.

Of course, I could get him arrested for assaulting a Federal Agent, but... Obviously I didn't want to get punched in the face.

As soon as his mumbled mockery of my words ended, he punctuated them with his own. "Yeah, I'm thinkin' I need you to find a new place to sulk. Go to the library or somethin'."

His friend laughed beside him like he'd just said the best comeback anyone's ever heard, and that alone almost made me laugh. Though, I knew that might have gotten me into more trouble.

Speaking of, I probably should have just got up to leave. That would have been the perfect time to say, "Okay," get up, and drive home. Sure, Penelope and Derek would have probably given me crap about chickening out, but I'd have avoided getting beat around or ridiculed further by these morons, so it was overall a win, right?

But my stupid mouth didn't agree with what my brain was thinking. "Oh, well, um... I'm waiting up for some friends, they should be here soon—"

"You have friends?" the other guy retorted before I could finish, and he looked proud of himself for it.

"Look, I don't care who you're waitin' on, pal, Right now you're alone, so I want y—"

I didn't see it coming. I couldn't have seen it from a mile away, never dreamed of anything like this happening in a million years. It was certainly not one of the possible outcomes to the night that I'd had in mind. And actually, even if I'd had any time to prepare for it, seeing the woman walk up to us with two beers in her hand and the biggest smile on her face, I still wouldn't have believed what was happening.

She blocked me from the men's line of sight, sitting herself promptly on my lap as she set the drinks down. "Hey, babe, I'm back with our drinks," she chirped, leaning forward and stopping just under my ear, whispering. "If you play along, I can get them to leave you alone..."

She didn't even give me any time to process, quickly pulling back, but not before kissing me firmly on the cheek, leaving my face in a warm flush as she turned back around to survey the men, who I'd quite frankly forgotten about once she pressed her soft lips to my skin and set her hands on my chest.

What the fu—

"Who're you talking with?"

Her voice was so... low and smooth, and it sent a flood of warmth throughout my whole body. If I could have bottled up her voice to drink, I would have. But instead, I settled for the beer she'd brought, grabbing it and chugging down four big gulps even though I hated it.

"You're with this... loser?" the bigger of the two men said, and truthfully it was the first time all night I'd well and truly felt inadequate in front of them. Sure, I knew I'd stood out, that physically I was weaker than them, but I also knew that deep down they were just drunks looking for a fight. I was better than that, regardless of whether or not they'd almost bullied me into leaving the bar.

I didn't have a problem with who I was, but when it came to women, I was pretty much a total wreck. I'd only ever kissed someone once, and much like back then, this woman was absolutely stunning and completely out of my league.

The man was right to be suspicious.

"Excuse me?" my savior retorted, standing up off my lap and removing herself from me completely. I exhaled, trying hard not to look like I was just as shocked as they were as she tore them a new one. "This loser happens to be my fiancée. And I'd watch what insults you're throwing around— You're the ones going around some bar picking on someone you don't know like you're middle schoolers. Now grow the fuck up and back off before I take your drinks and shove them so far up your asses you'll still be able to taste them."

Truthfully I was surprised when they didn't back down. The bigger guy scoffed, his eyes raking the woman up and down with a wicked glint in them. "Y'know, maybe if you ditched him and got fucked by a real man, you wouldn't be such a bitch."

And once again, I was stunned by her ability to quip back quicker than lightening. "Maybe if you weren't such a childish prick, you'd actually get fucked in the first place. Now back. The fuck. Off..."

While I should have been more grateful that her words got them to scoff and turn away, a small, absolutely random part of me wanted to hear her yell at them some more. The longer she did it, the warmer my body got, and the second I started to put together why that was, I chugged more of the beer that was currently resting in my shaky hand.

It was even worse when she turned around to face me again, her radiance and beauty intimidating me in an entirely different way than those men. She wore a simple black dress that complimented her figure extremely well, minimal makeup and jewelry, and her hair was pinned back, showing off her neck and collarbone.

If she hadn't just helped me out, with the way she was looking at me I probably would have wondered if she was... trying to pick me up.

The thought made me all warm again.

"Y—You didn't have to do—"

She stepped forward and sat on my lap again, and I swallowed hard, the beer almost slipping from my hand entirely. "Don't worry about it. You looked uncomfortable, and those boys were absolute meatheads. But they are still here, so we should probably keep up the act, huh?"

I couldn't tell if she was joking or not. Either way, I set the beer on the table, though my hand still kept it firmly in my grip as I looked down at the ring on her finger. "I—I wouldn't want to get you in trouble... with your husband..."

"Oh! Uh, funny story," she laughed, leaning in and running her hands over my shoulders, most likely to keep up the façade. "I'm not actually married. Or engaged. I um... I wear this to deter people from trying to take me home."

I actually laughed a little, though my stomach still flipped at her touch and her proximity. "And that... actually works?"

She laughed with me, bringing her hands up to cradle my face as she tilted her head and looked me over. Her pretty, pillow-y soft lips quirked into a smile before her eyes flitted up to mine. She looked like she was entranced, like she was in a dream, and honestly I felt the same way. Because there was no way in actual Hell this was a real thing that was happening to me, right?

"Not always," she answered in a whisper, her face inching closer to mine. She smelled a little like beer, but mostly some type of fruit, probably pear. I didn't eat pears, but maybe I should start...

A gentle tug at the roots of my hair pulled me out of my thoughts, a soft sigh escaping me at the sensation. The woman laughed, brushing her nose against mine for a moment before pulling away and grabbing her beer. "So, since we're engaged, I feel like I should know a little about you. At the very least, your name?"

"O—oh," I laughed nervously, swallowing as she sipped her beer. And I tried not to let it get to me, but the way her lips wrapped gently around the bottle had my mind going a mile a minute, laser focusing on one image in particular of those perfect lips wrapped around something else. I wondered if she could hear the longing in my voice when I whispered my name. "Spencer."

With the beer still in her hand, she lowered it and rested it on my knee as she smiled. "Mmm, and what's my last name going to be?"

The thought of actually marrying this woman infiltrated my thoughts as I answered, louder this time, "Reid."

See hummed again, using the hand that was currently massaging the back of my scalp to gently tug at my hair again. "Y/N Reid... I like the sound of that."

I do, too, is what I thought, and I almost said it, but she started talking again.

"So, Spencer, what do you do?"

I would have gone into my entire spiel, but she was so pretty, and so close, I didn't want to scare her off. So, I simply stated, "I work for the FBI..."

Her eyebrows raised, and I felt her hand slide down my neck and settle on my shoulder. "Really?"

"Y—Yeah, I'm a profiler. We aid law enforcement in catching serial killers."

"So, Agent Reid, huh? That's hot..."

I should have just left it alone, because it was common knowledge that if a woman has any reason to call you hot, you just let it happen, right?

Well, like I said, when it came to women I was a complete wreck.

"A—Actually it's Doctor... I, um... I have 3 PhDs."

As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted them, but the hunger in her eyes deepened and her free hand roamed my shoulder and the front of my chest as she scooted even closer, her mouth coming up right under my jaw. "Mmm, even hotter..."

This time I didn't hold back, my voice audibly whimpering as I sighed out a simple, "Oh..."

Y/N pressed a featherlight kiss to my neck before dragging her lips to my ear again. And I'd been so hyperaware of her proximity to my face that I hadn't even noticed she'd set her beer down and took that hand to rest firmly at my hip, her palm pressing into my lower stomach. I only felt it when that hand moved over, the tips of her fingers hovering just above the buckle of my belt.

"Tell me something, Doctor," she whispered just under my earlobe. I was nothing short of putty in her hands as my brain tried to focus on what she was saying over the more prominent desire to focus on the way she pressed her whole body into mine. She was everywhere, taking up every ounce of air that found its way into my lungs, and I'd never breathed in anything sweeter. "Are you saving yourself for marriage?"

I found the question odd at first, but remembering the circumstances of our fake situation, my body suddenly flared to life at her implications. "N—No..."

Her hips shifted against my lap, and I swear I could have fainted on the spot as she hummed in my ear, "Good."

***

I certainly didn't expect for the night to end the way it did.

I mean, I knew I was going to be wet when I got home, but damn. We hadn't even made it out of the bar before my panties were soaked through at the thought of fucking my fake fiancée. Who worked for the FBI and called himself Doctor...

Not to mention he was fucking dreamy as hell with those honey doe-eyes and pouty lips... And his hands? I had taken one look at the one tightly holding his beer bottle for dear life and instantly went white-hot with desire, visions of them disappearing inside of me swimming in my head.

And then he had to fucking whimper when I called him hot.

Yeah, I definitely didn't expect the night to go how it did, but I wasn't mad about it in the slightest.

After explaining to him that I'd walked, and that my house was only a few blocks away, we decided to just hop in his car. Though, by the time we got there, I think we were both so eager to "get to know each other a little better," as I'd said before we actually left, that we didn't even make it out of the parking space.

Spencer fumbled around with his keys for so long, and he kept dropping them, so I just said fuck it and kissed him when he came up the third time. The sound of his keys hitting the ground for a fourth time excited me almost as much as his the way his hands trembled as they rested on my forearms.

"Pull the seat back?" I mumbled against his mouth, sliding my hands down the sides of his face and over his shoulders.

He let out a strained, "Uh huh," and fumbled around with that too, his urgency and nerves all rolled into one adorable spectacle that had the pit of my stomach in desirable knots. The seat sprung backwards, and I laughed lowly as I climbed over the center console and right into his lap, my dress riding up incredibly high.

The way Spencer looked up at me then, his eyes just as pouty as his lips as they practically sparkled with adoration and need, gave me this feeling I hadn't experienced in a long time— something that filled my bloodstream with fire and made me feel... wanted.

And that's not to say I hadn't slept with people since my divorce, but every time it happened there was hardly any connection besides the obvious need to get off. Here, with Spencer, it was different. And realistically I knew it was most likely the fact that a beautiful woman came to his rescue and pretended to be engaged to him just to get some morons off his back, but... In his eyes I saw this vulnerability that I'd never gotten with another partner. He was open and willing to take advantage of our situation to the fullest extent, sure, but within that was a pure longing to be close to someone after going so long without that connection.

I knew that look so well because it was exactly how I felt. We wanted to have sex with each other, that much was obvious, but less so was the fact that we could feel each others' loneliness. It was a shared bond that ran deeper than sexual desire, and in his eyes in that moment, I knew he could see it in me.

"D—Do you know... what it's like to feel alone, even... when you know you really aren't?" he asked as though he was reading my mind. His voice was soft, so curious and hinted with a little sadness that it made me want to hold him tight and rock him to sleep more than anything.

Still, I nodded. "Mhm... After my husband left I haven't... really been the same. I act like it's okay, and I... I really am better now that he's gone, but I just... I've spent most of my life with him, and now it's like I don't know what's out there beyond... loneliness."

It wasn't the most sexy conversation in the world, but Spencer reached out, his hands less shaky, and ghosted them over my bare arms. He looked up at me with those pretty eyes and let out a relieved breath before he spoke. "I kinda know what you mean... Not to that extent, but... I get it."

Seeing that he was more comfortable with me, I leaned in closer, bringing my fingers to brush the underside of his jaw. "And that's why you make the perfect fiancée."

I felt the laugh leave his lips before I kissed him, soft and steady, and reassured that I was in this for as long as he wanted me to be. Obviously we weren't actually engaged, but the connection that came with a real engagement felt pretty damn close to what we had going on.

And he conveyed that in the way he kissed me back, stronger than he'd been before and most certainly more skilled than he'd let on. His tongue expertly caressed mine with just the right amount of pressure and precision, and it made it easy for me to fall into him. Over time we grew more hungry, but for the most part our dance of mouth and tongue was so slow and intense, it felt like we really had known each other forever.

Eventually though, I did feel him grow harder underneath me, and the feeling kickstarted this more primal urge that caused me to groan into his mouth and rock my hips forward. Spencer's hands rested firmly at my lower back the whole time, though when I moved, I could feel him tense a little, like now that it was actually starting to happen, he was suddenly nervous again. So I brought my hands around my back to grab his wrists, gently sliding them down over my ass as I pressed myself into him and nipped at his bottom lip.

"Mmm, your hands are so big," I purred as I kissed my way over his jaw. "They feel so good all over me..." He relaxed a bit at my reassurance, but I wanted to give him more. So I helped him slide his hands underneath my dress, feeling him shiver under me when I assisted him in squeezing them into my skin. "You can touch me however you like," I whispered into his ear. "I'm all yours, Doctor..."

He squeezed my ass then, of his own accord, and I hummed happily before kissing my way back to his mouth, running my hands through his hair.. "Just like that, baby, whatever you want..." He swallowed my words with his tongue, taking a deep breath and inhaling me like I was his only source of air. Respectfully, I gave it all to him, happy to be of service as long as he wanted me— and in that moment, I hoped it would be forever.

Maybe that was cheesy. But he was an excellent kisser... And I was sure there'd be something equally as excellent waiting for me once I got the clearance to get my hands down to his belt.

Thankfully, that clearance came pretty soon. I would have waited as long as he wanted to, but with the way his hips jolted upwards and the needy whine that erupted from his throat at the contact it provided, I knew now was the time.

So I smiled over his lips and then kissed his jaw again, one of my hands staying threaded in his hair while the other snaked down his chest and lower, undoing each button on his shirt as I went down... "Forgive me if I'm feeding into the stereotype by asking you this, Spencer," I said, leaving small bites on his neck in between words. "But have you ever done this before?"

His hands continued kneading my ass as he let out a shaky breath. "N—No. But I've um... I've p—practiced..."

"Hmm, how so?" I wondered, sucking a big hickey into his neck. Meanwhile my hand traced along the waistband of his pants, not quite dipping underneath but teasing the skin just above the material.

"U—Um, well... I regularly t—try to edge... myself, just... I—I want to last longer, and... And I thought it would help..."

God, the images of this man lounging in bed, training himself to last longer in the event that he had sex with someone? I groaned into his neck, taking the initiative to move my hand lower and gently palm him through his pants. "Fuck, that's so hot..."

"Re—really?"

"Mhmm... You really wanna make a girl feel good, huh?"

"Of course..."

"So eager to please?" I cooed, starting to undo his belt. He gripped my ass tighter like he was holding on for dear life, like he'd some how fall out of the car if he didn't hold on to me tight enough. The way his fingers dug into my skin brought me almost the same amount of joy as the sound he made when I finally snuck my hand down the front of his pants and pulled his dick out, gently stroking it and getting a feel for him. "Obedient?"

"Y—Yes, Y/N, please, oh God..." he jumbled out, his hips bucking into my hand. I sighed into his neck, kissing him again as my hand slowly jerked him off.

"Is this how slow you go?" I asked, making sure to memorize how every ridge of him caressed my hand. "Hmm, you wanna draw it out? Feel every ounce of pleasure as you possibly can before you come?"

He didn't answer so much as he let out a loud, whiny breath that sounded very much like a broken, "A-hh."

"I'm clean... On birth control, too... So what do you say we trade this hand in for something a little more... wet..."

Spencer grabbed my underwear then, pulling at the fabric and bucking his hips again. Taking it as a good sign, I adjusted myself so that I could slide them to the side and hover above him. Meanwhile I pecked at his lips and he did the same, meeting me with urgency and anticipation.

And when the head of his dick finally came in contact with my pussy, he threw his head back and exhaled, exposing his neck and the front of his chest, which was lightly glossed over with sweat already. The only source of light in the car came from the neon bar lights and one single streetlight outside, which gave us this dark, aesthetic lighting that only made what we were doing even hotter.

I sank slowly onto him, letting out the longest sigh of my life until he bottomed out in me. "You doin' alright, Doctor?" I asked, pulling his shirt open some more to get a better view of his skin.

He sat his head up a bit and looked at me, breathlessness in his eyes. "F—Fantastic. You f—eel so good..."

I ground my hips in slow circles, nodding down at him with a wicked grin. "Feeling's mutual, babe... You stretch me out so good... It's like we're a perfect match."

The moment I started lifting myself only to sit back down, Spencer shut his eyes, his hands roaming my ass and my thighs as I rode him. It looked like he was concentrating on lasting, and I was going to tell him not to worry about it, but then he opened his eyes and started to speak.

"Will, um... Will you be m—mean to me? Please?"

I halted my movements for a moment, taking in what he just said, but then it came to me immediately. And my discovery turned me on way more than I would have liked to admit.

So I grinned and circled my hips again, leaning forward to practically crawl up the front of his body. My hands tangled in his hair as I studied his face, which was ridden with worry and maybe regret at what he'd just confessed. But I kept circling my hips all the same, clenching myself around him as I spoke against his lips.

"Ohhh, did hearing me insult those guys in the bar turn you on?" I drawled, gently pecking his lips.

"Uh huh," he breathed in response.

I smiled, rocking my hips a little faster and feeling him start to relax again— The worries he had about his desires faded into nothing as I gave into them, feeding them with an open palm and embracing them with great pleasure. "I bet you just couldn't wait for me to take you outside and fuck you after that, huh? For me to treat you like a needy little slut..."

With every word and every quick rock of my hips, Spencer started to pick up his breathing. He leaned back completely and let me take care of him, gave me every green light, every go-ahead... I never got to be like this in bed before, and the fact that it came so naturally sparked this confidence within me that was hard to quell once it got going.

"Is that what you wanted?" I asked him, picking up my pace and bouncing steadily back on his dick. "You were so desperate to get fucked, too, you couldn't even make it out of the parking lot before you gave into me... And now everyone in the bar could see us out here..."

He groaned out at that, his hands digging into the flesh of my thigh, which already burned from straddling him like this, but considering everything, a little burn never hurt anyone.

"Ohh, you like that too, huh? The thought of everyone seeing us?"

"Y—Yes... Y/N, yes... o—oh, fu..."

I took his face into my hands then, grabbing him by the chin and making him look at me. "And what about your friends, huh? What would they think if they showed up and saw their precious Doctor Reid getting fucked like the dirty little slut he is, huh?"

Even though his face was in my hands, he still managed to lean his head back with a loud groan. His hands were now sliding over to my waist, where my dress was bunched up. His nimble fingers slipped just under the fabric and explored the planes of my stomach as I continued riding him, and the feeling of it all coupled with the looks on his face and his reaction—verbal or otherwise—to my words grew the fire simmering in the pit of my stomach.

I wasn't sure how mean to him I could be anymore now, though, considering we were both so close to finishing, and the closer I got the more it became harder to focus on stringing together the perfect words.

Still, I tried the best I could, because it was his first time, and it's what he deserved.

I leaned in and kissed his neck and collarbone, simultaneously riding and grinding for extra stimulation. "You're doing so well, Doctor... Taking this pussy like a good little whore..."

Okay, so it wasn't entirely mean, but it was the best I could come up with on the spot.

Though, it seemed to have done the trick, because Spencer drove his hips up to meet mine, panting and whining out my name as his eyes fluttered open and he looked at me with the most desperate look. I almost fell apart right there.

"That's it, baby, take it," I cooed, leaning over and kissing him. One of his hands came out from under my dress to rub tight circles into my clit with an expert thumb, and it started to break me down immediately. "Ohhh, I'm almost there, honey, just like that... Show me what a good little slut you are, baby, c'mon... Just like... that... Ohhh..."

I kissed him hard as I shook and clenched around him, holding still as he drilled his hips upwards into me. His thumb kept up at my clit until I was whimpering into his mouth, and then he just held it there, a few grunts of his own rumbling in his chest before he stilled and filled me with his warmth. I kissed him through it, gently swallowing all his whines and sighs as he gradually came down from his high.

Immediately after we both settled, with his dick still sheathed inside of me and my hands rubbing gently over the planes of his chest as we slowly and softly made out, the unmistakable sound of raindrops hitting glass covered us on all sides.

I pulled away from Spencer with a small smile, resting my head on his shoulder and looking off to the side, out the window at the sea of cars slowly getting covered up by a multitude of rain droplets. "I hope that was okay," I whispered against his skin, willing myself closer by draping an arm over his shoulder and using my hand to twirl some of his hair around my finger.

"That was more than okay," he responded contently. His chin rested on the top of my head and I snuggled closer into him. "Thank you, Y/N... For... For everything."

"It was my pleasure, Doctor."

We sat in comfortable near-silence for a while then, letting the rain tapping gently over the car be the steady sound that grounded us and washed away everything we had until there was a clean slate.

That was the one bad thing I found about the rain. I loved it, yes, for all its cleansing properties, and as I came into the bar tonight, I looked forward to them— to clearing my head with alcohol and a walk home in the rain.

But as I laid there, breathing in every ounce of Spencer Reid, I watched the rain roll down the windows and actually dreaded the moment it would stop.

"I wish it would rain forever," I sighed wistfully, playing with one of the buttons on Spencer's shirt.

He drew patterns into my leg all the same. "How come?"

"Because... I have to walk home. And the longer it rains, the longer I can stay here with you..."

He chuckled. "That's a nice sentiment, but you know I can drive you home, right?"

"Yeah, but... I really don't want this moment to end."

He was silent then, and for a while I thought maybe he was just going to leave it be. But then his soft voice broke through the rain and cut into me like a piece of glass. "You know you're gonna be okay, right?"

I broke away and looked up at him. "How do you mean?"

He sighed, thinking before continuing. "I mean... I'm guessing it's been rough since your husband left, and... being here with me has given you some companionship and comfort, but... Even after we part ways, you're going to be alright... It's still going to feel lonely, sure, but if there's anything I know for sure after tonight, it's that you're going to get through it just fine."

My heart swelled, though it still broke all the same. "How do you know?"

Spencer smiled, bringing a hand up to gently brush the side of my face. "Because you're my fiancée and I know you better than anyone."

As I laughed at the joke, he looked back at me with sparkles in his eyes. And then minutes later, I was haphazardly cleaning myself up in his passenger seat with a wet-nap that I'd kept tucked away in my wallet while he fumbled around for his keys.

Even as I stood on my porch that night, under the rain as I watched him drive away with the lingering buzz of our final goodbye kiss on my lips, I wondered if I'd ever see him again.

And I wondered if he would ever notice or do anything about the sparkly diamond ring I left behind, sitting beside him in my place— a reminder of our time together, the comfort he provided me with, and the clean slate that always inevitably came with the rain.

***

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