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hannieoftheyear · 6 months ago

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7 Days (kmg)

Can feelings change in only seven days?

During a seven-day vacation with your friends, you try to get over your feelings for one of them.

Feeling alone, surrounded by people who seem closer to each other than you, you find comfort in the one person that you didn’t know before.

pairing: kim mingyu x fem reader - inspired by 7days by (G)-Idle

w.c: 26k

genre: best friend's brother, strangers to lovers, fluff, comfort, smut, angst, | content warnings: ages are not specified but mingyu is mentioned to be a little older (once), some anxiety themes, alcohol consumption, MDNI! protected penetration, exhibitionism (just a lil), fingering, masturbation, cum play, lmk if i miss something important!

remember! this is a fictional work, it doesn't represent how any of the real people mentioned are like in real life!

note: this took so long to finish! i've had a crazy couple of months at uni, but luckily i passed all of my midterms :) i really hope you like this ♡♡♡

ONE WEEK BEFORE

Your eyes focus on the pavement below as you walk, head low and not a single word coming out of your mouth. Your steps and Minghao’s are coordinated, muscle memory moving them forward through the city. Each block memorized in both of your brains, each closed shop and parked car, the blinking lights and broken pieces of pavement, all so familiar to you yet coated with a nostalgic feel. You’ve walked the same path together countless times before, but tonight there’s an awkwardness impossible to shake away.

A third body walks by his side. Sami’s fingers are tangled with his with familiarity as they engage in a conversation you choose not to take part in. A question flies your way every few minutes, and you know they’re trying to include you so you don’t feel out of place, but nothing comes to mind besides one-word answers. You laugh every now and then, just so they know you’re at least a little bit engaged.

The pavement changes color under your feet and you know you’re barely minutes away from your home, finally. You like their company, you really do. And you appreciate them walking you to your door this late at night. But their presence can be suffocating.

You can’t avoid feeling guilty about your... feelings. She's one of your closest friends yet she never mentioned starting a relationship with the guy you were in love with. If you would’ve known, you would’ve never let your feelings progress beyond a tiny crush. You would’ve never deluded yourself into thinking he may also like you. For the record, you never told her either, but the only friend you trusted with your feelings also failed to mention that detail. You felt betrayed at first, but deep down you always knew they were closer to each other than to you.

They’ve been together for months now, but even if you’re used to seeing them kiss and hold hands, the awkwardness in your body doesn’t care. Every time you see him your hands are going to shake, and you mind will go blank. Inside, you can’t help to feel giddy anytime he takes interest in your answers to his questions, and you always feel bad after. So, when they insist that they’ll walk you home, you refuse. Not only you feel awkward around them, but now you have to be the third wheel? You'd rather not. But they don’t take a no for an answer, and thus, your current situation.

Your front door appears on your sight, and you feel instant relief. You're quick to bid them goodbye and thank them for keeping you company. Even though you kept saying they could just turn around and you’ll be fine many times over the walk, you don’t want it to seem like you hate their company. Their presence is not the problem, you are.

As you turn around to open your door, your name is called and you’re instantly facing them again.

“We’re going to Chan’s grandfather’s house on the beach next week. You should come!” Sami invites you with a smile on her face. She says it so sweetly you almost don’t care that they’re telling you with such short notice.

“Oh! I don’t know, I'm kinda behind on some homework for the semester,” it’s not a lie per se, you do have some stuff due after the break, but it can be done in a day. You like your friends, and you always have a good time when you’re all together, but a group of ten people can be overwhelming, “I have to think about it.”

“C’mon it’s spring break! We’ll go to the beach, play card games and get drunk!” Sami tries to convince you again. The fear of missing out on fun times with them starts overpowering your need to run away from your feelings. You think about it for a second too long.

“We really want you to come, please?” Minghao steps in. His statement sounds so honest as he looks at you directly in the eyes. You fear you will never be able to say no to him.

Your gaze can’t stand his for long, his eyes are almost piercing though your soul waiting for an answer. You’re quick to break eye contact and look at Sami, who’s waiting for your answer just as expectantly as Minghao. They’re still holding hands as they face you, fingers interlocked, like there’s some external force that’s keeping them from separating.

What can possibly be worse? Rotting in your bed for a week, thinking about how you could be having more fun away with your friends? Or spend a full week around the man you could never have and his perfect girlfriend? You juggle your options in your head as fast as you can.

“Ok I’ll be there.” You end up saying at the sight of their pleading eyes.

“Great! I’ll text you the details tomorrow, bye!” Sami excitedly replies as they walk away, and the feeling on the pit of your stomach starts to bubble up again. You can just ignore them from time to time. You don't have to spend all 24 hours by their side. It’s completely fine.

DAY ONE

The week flashes through and, in an instant, you’re already packing for the trip.

Your mind spirals, thinking of excuses to not go, but it stays empty as you zip up your bag, go downstairs, get in a taxi and go to Chan’s place where you’re supposed to meet everyone. It's only a 10-minute ride to his house, but today, it feels like hours. Watching the buildings pass by through the window, the streetlights still on and the sun barely peeking through the horizon, hundreds of thoughts cloud your mind, running through your brain like they’re on a race, competing on which one’s can stress you fastest.

But you calm yourself as soon as you see Chan standing on the sidewalk at the distance. He always looks genuinely happy to see you, always inviting you to hang out because he knows you’re not going to do it yourself. He's just so warm and welcoming, always knows how to make you laugh, even on the toughest moments. He's someone you could call a best friend. When he and Jihyun started dating, it made sense. She’s someone who, in the best way possible, never shuts up. He lets her talk and watches her with glossy eyes, as if what she was saying was the most interesting thing he’s ever heard. In a way, you should’ve known they would’ve been perfect together, but you were too caught up in your own feelings and didn’t notice your two best friends liked each other. Maybe that’s why she confided in Sami instead.

A bear hug welcomes you as soon as you get out of the taxi. Your bag drops on top of your feet as you hug Chan back, squeezing him like you haven’t seen him in ages. You have about three seconds of peace until you have to speak up.

“My bag’s crushing my feet.” You giggle with your mouth right beside Chan’s ear, so he hears you perfectly and laughs with you. He moves down to pick it up himself but is shocked by the weight.

“Did you bring your fucking desk? Why is this so heavy?”

“Hey! I just brought the essentials.” You did in fact only bring essentials, besides plenty of clothes, a lot of underwear just in case, your skincare, a hair drier and a few towels. Years of vacations going wrong taught you that those things can really make the difference.

“It's only a week...”

“A girl always has to be prepared.” You reply mysteriously as you walk away from him and into his house, forcing him to carry your bag inside for you. He follows right behind you, and when you cross the door, another voice welcomes you.

“She’s right you know,” Jihyun tells Chan while hugging you, “last month you forgot the toothpaste when we went to the lake! If I hadn't brought my travel bag you would have yellow teeth right now.” Chan huffs but doesn’t argue with her, he just smiles and gives her a peck.

Sami and Minghao are talking in the kitchen, so you only wave at them. Her shiny long black hair is tied up in two buns, and it contrasts perfectly with his disheveled light brown hair. Gyuri, Vernon and Jeonghan are playing some card game on the coffee table, you could hear her screams from the door, he probably cheated, and she only realized after losing. Miyoo looks at them, with a bored expression that doesn’t change as she sees you walk in.

After saying hi to everyone, you notice your bag already beside a couch, so you sit there. Looking around, you realize you’re the last one to arrive, as all your friends are already here. Right as your about to question what you were waiting for; Chan speaks up again.

“Ok so, Joshua told me yesterday that he couldn’t come, his shitty job didn’t give him the days off,” everyone collectively ‘oohs’ at the news, “and I know we had planned the budget with all ten of us,” He gets interrupted again as Vernon walks out of the bathroom and sits beside him, “so I… invited my big brother. I hope you’re all cool with that I’m sorry I didn’t ask you before it was just so sudden, you all know him he’s chill, and he won’t-"

“It’s ok bro we don’t mind.” Minghao steps in to calm Chan down. Everyone agrees with him instantly and he visibly calms down. It seems everyone has already met Chan’s brother, besides you.

You’ve been to Chan’s house a fair share of times, but almost always his family wasn’t home, and if they were they just kept to their own and let you hang out. And you know your friends sometimes hang out without you, you don’t mind, so they probably are more familiar with Chan’s family than you are. A new addition to the trip doesn’t bother you, you’re probably not gonna talk to him much anyway. You’re usually very quiet around your friends, especially when all of them are around. So, it’s not going to be different this time.

“Great! Then we can start heading our way then.” Everyone stands up and grab their bags simultaneously at his words, eager to finally start the trip.

“You said then two times babe.” You hear Jihyun joke as you head out.

“I know I was nervous ok." Chan laughs with her.

The sun is already out by the time everyone is out the door. Orange rays enlighten the world and blind you lightly if you stare at the fiery sun for too long. It’s a beautiful sight for a long road trip.

You squint, trying to gain your sight back, and the first thing your eyes land on is a truck you’ve never seen before, and a hilariously tall muscular man standing against it. Just when you think you might’ve seen him before, Chan walks over to him and hugs him.

“Oh right, this is my brother,” Chan turns around and speaks directly to you, “I don’t think you’ve met him yet.”

“Our budget savior!” you cheer before directing to his brother, “Hi! I'm Y/N.” Your right hand moves forward to shake his awkwardly.

“I’m Mingyu,” He chuckles lightly at your cheer and shakes your hand back. A tiny, almost unnoticeable, electric current runs through you at the touch, alerting all of your senses. Fortunately, he doesn’t notice because he’s looking at your bag in your other hand and then back up to your eyes, “are you riding with us?”

“Oh! I don’t know,” the question startles you, and you look at Chan panicking a little inside, “if you guys don’t mind!”

“I don’t mind, c’mon,” Mingyu cuts Chan before he can reply, takes your bag out of your hand to put it in the trunk and you follow him back. You take the chance to look back at the other cars, Sami’s already behind the wheel of one of them while Minghao puts Gyuri’s and Miyoo’s bags in their trunk, and Vernon and Jeonghan are already sitting inside the other car, waiting. Your body relaxes, riding with Jihyun, Chan and his brother might be the best option. It’s not that you don’t like the others, but you’re quite sure Miyoo just doesn’t like you, and you’re not close enough with neither Jeonghan nor Vernon to be in a closed space together for six hours.

While Mingyu makes space for your bag in the trunk, your eyes can’t help to scan him up and down. If you thought Chan was buff, nothing could’ve prepared you for his brother. As he moves the heavy bags to accommodate yours, you think his arms are probably double the size as yours, if not more.

“Is this your car?” He finishes placing everything and you ask him something before he can catch you staring.

“It’s our dad’s but I use it more often than him nowadays,” he closes the trunk and finally turns to look at you, “you wanna take the shotgun seat? I don’t want to listen to my brother’s playlist again, I used to like it but now I’m kinda tired of it.”

It takes your brain a second to register what he’s asking you, “it’s fine by me,” you reply in a chuckle and you both start walking to the front of the car, “but I don’t think you’re gonna like my music better, I exclusively only listen to Taylor Swift.”

You hear a gasp coming from him and turn your head aside to find him with his hand on his chest, dramatically looking at you with a shocked face, “how could think that? Can a man not like Taylor Swift?” Your attempts to hold your laugh fail and the back on your hand flies to hit him lightly on the arm.

“I’m not judging you! It was mostly a warning that you’re not gonna hear much diversity in artists.”

“It really is fine by me, I like a few of her tunes by the way.”

“As you should!”

In a few steps, you stop right beside the passenger's door. Mingyu’s about to open the door for you when you hear Chan complaining behind you.

“Hey! I thought I was riding shotgun!”

“Sorry! It seems your brother likes me better already!”

“How could you!” He crosses his arms feigning annoyance and you and Mingyu chuckle at him, your gazes crossing for a second. You sit down, ignoring Chan’s fake complaints, Mingyu closes the door for you and circles around the front of the car to his seat.

After four hours into the ride, two bathroom stops, tons of singing and shouting to Taylor Swift's hits and Mingyu surprisingly knowing all the lyrics to Anti-Hero, the car sits in a comfortable silence. Chan fell asleep almost half an hour ago, that’s when the karaoke sessions stopped, Jihyun’s reading some book on her phone, Mingyu’s focused on the road and you’re admiring the view. The smell of wet grass from the dew envelopes the car, the wind ruffles your hair harshly, but you don’t care, and every now and then you’ll pass through a farm, and you’ll see the animals from far away.

Conversation strikes up again when Chan wakes up after a loud gasp Jihyun let out because of her book. The car becomes alive with laugher, telling funny stories from high school to Mingyu, and Chan’s complains about how you’re spilling too many secrets to his brother.

Jihyun starts telling a story you heard a million times, so you tune out and take the chance to take a proper look at Mingyu. His eyes are focused on the road, but he’s paying special attention to what’s being told to him, reacting at every detail and asking questions every now and then. His tan skin glows thanks to the morning sun, you can see a tiny glint in his eyes and how his nose scrunches when he giggles, but what catches your attention the most are his moles, highlighted by the sunlight, there are a few sprinkled on his cheeks and an especially cute one on the tip of his nose. It's undeniable that Mingyu is very handsome, and polite, and funny, and hot, and if you weren’t so stuck in your feelings, you know you’d probably crush on him for the whole trip.

How come you’ve never noticed him before? You’re sure he must’ve been at Chan’s house at the same time as you at least a couple of times, but you don’t remember ever saying hi to him. You think you’d remember him.

Chan and Mingyu’s grandparent’s house is huge. It’s probably more of a mansion than a house. Each of you have your separate individual rooms, and the two couples get the two big rooms. The entrance has a shoe rack that can fit almost twenty pairs of shoes, the kitchen has two ovens and the biggest island you’ve ever seen (and probably ever see) and the living room has couches so big that you could take a nap, and everyone would still be able to sit comfortably. Right by the living room there’s a door to a small back porch that goes straight to the beach. It’s peaceful and beautiful and you wish you could stay here more time.

After snooping around the house, you finally go to your bedroom, that’s luckily on the first floor, and settle your stuff down. The room is almost as big as your own living room. There’s even a desk where you can put your laptop and a few drawers for your clothes, but what takes the cake is the on-suite bathroom that has a full-length mirror and a bathtub as big as the bed.

You must’ve been exhausted because as soon as you lay in bed you fall asleep.

When you wake up, the sun is starting to set and the smell of something being cooked fills your nostrils. Three soft knocks at your door wake you out of your trance, and the mysterious person opens your door just barely enough.

“Hey,” Jihyun whispers, her head peeking inside, “we're setting up the table for dinner.”

“I’ll be right out.” You half moan half whisper in your sleepy voice.

It’s kind of funny in a way. When you go out of your room after a nap that was definitely too long, the door of the room right in front opens at the same time, revealing a just woken up Mingyu. It’s funny, that you both, being the ones less close with the rest of the group, end up together in this side of the house, the only rooms on this corridor, while the other two rooms downstairs are across the house and the rest are upstairs.

“You took a nap too?” You ask Mingyu as you walk towards the dining room side by side.

“Is it that obvious?” His voice is still raspy.

“Not at all, if we don’t take in account the messy hair or that your shirt is inside out.” You joke, still a little sleepy.

“Oh shit.” The innocent conversation completely shifts when he stops in his tracks, takes his shirt off to and puts it back the right way. You’re frozen in place, now fully awake. You obviously could tell he was big and buff, but seeing him shirtless, even if it was just for a second, is completely different territory. He pays no mind to you and keeps walking.

A group of voices coming from the dining room take you out of your trance and remind you what you were doing. “I need a drink.”

DAY TWO

You’re not sure what you did yesterday after dinner. One drink turned into shots with Jihyun, and then everyone was drunk, playing some stupid drinking card game. That memory is already blurry, but after that is just a void.

As soon as you open your eyes, you regret it. The sun beams brightly directly to your face, increasing the feeling of someone drilling into your skull. It’s your first full day on the beach house and you’re completely wrecked.

The only thing you want to do right now is take a pill for your headache and have a fulfilling breakfast.

There’s complete silence around the house, only the birds chirping and the waves crashing accompany you as you walk to the kitchen. Most probably everyone's in the same state as you but opting to stay in bed to sleep the hangover off.

“Oh hi, I didn’t think anyone was awake.” You really don’t mean to be mean, but Mingyu’s presence startles you. You were yearning for some alone time in the morning, peaceful and quiet, at least until the others wake up.

“Good morning, yeah I just woke up,” his drowsy voice confirms it, “I don't think anyone else is awake tho.” You only hum in response, noting that you both are too sleepy to engage is small talk.

Mingyu’s company proves not to be dreadful like you thought. Both of you mind your own business, sitting down eating breakfast and killing time with your phones in comfortable silence. It’s nice, the atmosphere isn’t awkward and there are no expectations from either of you, only two people starting the day at the same time.

“You and Jihyun seem close,” Mingyu breaks the silence and looks at you after putting his phone down.

“She’s one of my best friends,” it’s your turn to put your phone down to look at him, “she and Chan were the ones who introduced me to the rest of the group actually.”

“Yeah? How did you guys meet?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” You sound dismissive even if you don’t want to, Mingyu doesn’t strike you as someone who cares about high-school drama and you don’t want to bore him to death, “just high-school stuff.”

“Well now I’m curious,” He fixes his posture to face you properly, “I’m listening, c’mon we have all morning.”

“Okay,” you chuckle at how eager he suddenly sounds, “basically, I moved cities right before senior year and she was my first friend in my new high school. I also met Chan on my first day since he gave me the tour.” You stand up to grab both of your cups, he notices and moves his hand to give you his cup himself. His hand barely grazes yours, but the touch is electrifying. Panicked, you move away quickly, put the cups in the sink and keep going with the story.

“Me, Jihyun and three other girls formed a group, we were all best friends and would always hang out together, but it didn’t last long. Long story short, Jihyun and one of the girls had a big fight and she kinda left the group, became friends with Minghao and Chan and cut her relationship with the rest of the girls. I was the only one still talking to her, and yeah, the group started crumbling.”

“This is very high school.” Mingyu jokes and you agree.

“I told you! But it gets worse. So, this girl Hyerim, the girl Jihyun fought with, didn’t like that I was still talking to Jihyun and would always turn around at the sight of her. Just childish behavior that eventually started pissing me off, because every time she saw me talking with anyone even remotely close with Jihyun, she would get mad at me. It’s stupid I know, we were 18, and I just I thought those kinds of fights only happen in middle school, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Oh my god, are we talking about Hyerim?” Jihyun suddenly enters the kitchen, clearly just woken up.

“Mingyu wanted to know our story,” you chuckle at her disgusted face and joke, “our favorite topic.”

“She sounds very immature,” Mingyu adds to your joke, not very interested in dissing some girl he doesn’t know, just adding to the teasing.

“She was a controlling bitch you couldn’t fathom her friends having other friendships beside her, she wanted followers, not friends.” Jihyun can’t help to get angry for a moment, so you intervene.

“Yeah well, luckily I escaped her claws and you and Chan adopted me, like a stray kitten,” Your arms wrap around her shoulders, and you give her a peck on the cheek, “my saviors!”

“I think I’m gonna go back to bed, my head’s killing me.” Jihyun whispers while patting your hip and starts walking away from the kitchen, “bye guys, really nice chat.” Her sarcastic tone impossible to miss.

“We don’t really talk about it much; we can get really pissed.” Your eyes are back to Mingyu, who’s gaze never left your figure.

“I get it tho, it sounds like a really shitty situation,” weirdly enough and even if he didn’t intend to, he comforts you. Mingyu doesn’t make you feel stupid for still having feelings about a fight that took place years ago.

After a while, more people wake up and a plan is made to go to a hiking spot Gyuri found close to the house. But all morning and even during the afternoon, all you can think about is how you’ve spoken more words to Mingyu at breakfast than to all your friends in two days. How comfortable you felt alone with him, no expectations, no need to pretend to be someone you’re not, in that moment, you were just you.

“And then he pooped! On the balcony floor!”

“No way! That’s disgusting!”

The bottle that was full an hour ago passes from Mingyu’s hand to yours, with now less than a third of the liquid left.

Avoiding Minghao proves not to be as hard as you thought, people have been sticking to their own plans during the day, everyone only being together at dinnertime and after.

Loud voices can be heard from the living room, they found a board game and made it into a drinking game; and they’ve been playing for over an hour, all while you were with Mingyu in the kitchen. You’re both sitting on the floor with your backs against the island, facing the couches where everyone else is sitting, but neither of you make any attempt to join them. Some come and go, enter the kitchen to grab a drink and go back to the living room. Chan even told the both of you to join them, but you refused at the same time. The minutes go by without realizing, just talking about whatever, and you don’t feel the need to go where everyone is, you’re not missing out on anything.

“There’s no way that actually happened!” The words barely get out of you, between the laughs and the bottle on your lips.

“I got pics let me-” Mingyu’s hand heads for his front pocket to retrieve his phone.

“No!” You push him lightly to the side and you both break into laughter, “why would you take photos of that?” It’s a genuine question to ask, but it seems that you’re both a little too drunk to focus on more than one thing at a time because he doesn’t hear you.

“Why can’t I find them?” He’s looking through his gallery, and in your drunk haze, you don’t think your actions through. You put the bottle on the floor and throw yourself over him to take his phone away from his hand. Your arm stretches as far as possible to reach for Mingyu’s cellphone while the other is placed on Mingyu’s thigh for support, and you don’t notice how dangerously close your head is to his, or how your hand is dangerously high on his thigh, but he does. You put all your core strength to use and manage to snatch his phone right out of his left hand. For a second, your surroundings become blurry, the voices are no longer background noise, it’s just you and Mingyu when you look up and his eyes on yours, faces barely inches away. You stare at each other, without blinking and with your breaths synchronized for what feels like minutes. A little smirk forms on the corner of his lips when his eyes glance at your lips for a millisecond, and you can’t take it.

“I can’t believe you have pics of a stranger's poop on your phone.” You chuckle awkwardly as you back away from him and sit on your previous position, a little sobered up. His phone is left on top of his leg, where your hand previously was.

“I didn’t actually take them, it was my friend that sent them to the group chat, if that makes it any better,” you look at each other before erupting into laughter once again, the awkward atmosphere already gone.

“It doesn’t!” You try to focus on your friends and the game they’re playing while Mingyu takes another sip from the bottle. There's silence between you for the first time in hours, the only thing you feel is his body close to yours. Your knee sits on top of his and you’re afraid that if you dare to move, he’ll realize your closeness and move away. You've known this man for two days, an objectively short amount of time to be so comfortable getting into the other’s personal space, but it doesn’t feel awkward.

“Do you think they’ll notice if we casually left to go to sleep?” His voice reaches your ears, not letting the silence get between you two and overpowering the shouting coming from the living room.

“I don’t think so,” You look at your friends carefully. There doesn’t seem to be a piece missing in the group, nothing changes without you there, even if they all like you and you like them, there’s not much to add, “maybe Chan will notice if you disappear suddenly, he keeps looking over.”

“Jihyun looks this way every now and then to look for you too.”

“They’re a very caring couple.” Just that second, both Chan and Jihyun look back to the kitchen and see you sitting on the floor, and you both crack up laughing.

You rest your head back against the island and your eyelids feel heavy. You try to fight the urge to close them, you don’t want the night to be over yet, but it’s pointless. Your eyes close almost on its own and your head falls softly to the side, against Mingyu’s shoulder.

A soft smile appears on Mingyu’s face when he feels you rest on him. Warm and giddy, he’s careful not to move much as to not wake you up, but your heavy sighs signal him that you’re fast asleep. He stays that way, watching the others play while you’re resting for a few minutes. When you move slightly in your sleep to get more comfortable his breath hitches for a second, he doesn’t really want you to wake up.

Awfully, when everyone gets tired and cleans up the living room, it’s time for the house to sleep. They notice you asleep on Mingyu’s shoulder, a few knowing looks come your way, but most importantly, Chan’s worried look alerts Mingyu. He assures Chan that you’re okay, just tired, and tells him to go to sleep, that he’ll help you to your room.

DAY THREE

Second day in a row where you wake up feeling like the weight of the whole world is sitting on your forehead.

With your eyes still closed, you stretch your arm to the side you think you remember putting your phone at. Somehow you actually find it there and grab it to check the time, but soft knocks on your door interrupt you.

“I’m awake!” Even talking feels painful.

The door opens slightly, revealing a freshly showered Mingyu with his hair still damp and his skin shiny from the morning skincare.

“Can I come in?” It’s cute how he whispers. He most likely knows your head's killing you. Your nod gives him the okay and he comes in, like your knight in shiny armor, with an ibuprofen a glass full of cold water.

You sit up when he sinks down beside you after placing the glass and the pill on the nightstand. The warmth of his body beside yours gives you flashbacks of the night before and remind you how you fell asleep on him.

“Oh my god,” embarrassed, you cover your face with your hands, “I’m so sorry for yesterday, I swear I’m never drinking again.”

“It's okay,” Mingyu chuckles, “you didn’t bother me.”

“Really?” You move your fingers enough to uncover your eyes and side eye him, “you don’t have to lie.”

“I’m serious!” With one hand, Mingyu removes yours from your face so that you look at him properly, “we were both pretty drunk and having fun, I didn’t mind.”

“You look too good for someone who was drunk last night.” He doesn’t even have noticeable eye bags, while you’re probably as pale as a zombie and look like you slept only one hour. A smirk slowly forms on his face at your words.

“You think I look good?” He teases and makes you realize what you said exactly, but you’re not giving in that easily. Even if the blush fights to get on your cheeks and your stomach starts filling with butterflies, even if your mind questions the reasons for his teasing and your eyes linger for a second too long on his smirk.

“For someone who got shitfaced 8 hours ago, sure.” You avoid his gaze and focus on the glass on the nightstand. You forgot it was there.

Your attention is now on hydrating and taking the ibuprofen pill, but you hear him chuckle again and stop drinking, “What?”

“Nothing.” His lips form a quivering line, and you know he’s fighting for his life not to laugh. “We’re all going to the beach later,” he gets up quickly, a light chuckle escaping at your questioning face, “you better not be hangover by then!”

“You’re not funny!” You shout at him as he leaves your room.

You smile as you finish the glass of water. You really try not to ponder about why that interaction left you so giddy, why remembering his smirk makes you all mushy inside, why your stomach contracts thinking about him caring enough to bring you something for your hangover.

When you decide the leftovers of the alcohol left your system for good, you change into your bikini, grab your beach towel and head to the backyard beach to join the rest of the guys.

At first, you join the girls sunbathing, snacking and chatting calmly. There's no sight of the guys, probably doing their own thing, guy stuff. The time passes quickly, talking about university and gossiping about each other's coworkers, and its already past lunch time. You almost don’t think about the night before, falling asleep on Mingyu’s shoulder and how he seemed okay with it.

It's nice spending time with the girls, even if you don’t talk much around them, they’re funny and you end up cackling and falling onto the sand multiple times.

You’ve done a good job staying away from Minghao these past two days, but there’s so much you can do before you have to face him again. And it seems that the universe thinks you’ve reached your limit.

A shirtless Minghao, wet from swimming in the sea, comes running your way, says good morning to you and asks how you woke up so nonchalantly, like his whole presence isn't messing up your whole nervous system. He never noticed and he’ll probably never know just how much he affected you. Now, for you, it’s just awkward. Remnants of your feelings still float around, making you feel guilty anytime you’ll see him and Sami acting all coupley, like right now. After saying hi to you, Sami got up and jumped to hug and kiss him, making it almost impossible for you to ignore, but your gaze doesn’t fix on them for too long.

Behind them, Vernon and Mingyu are setting up to play beach volleyball. It's only a few meters away, not enough to see a lot of details but enough to leave you breathless. Since the morning, even if you won’t admit it, all you wanted was to see him again, but you hadn’t thought about the fact that you were at the beach, with warm temperatures and the sun shining brightly. Your stomach is doing backflips seeing his defined bare back as he’s setting up the net, a pretty mundane task, but something about how concentrated he is, in addition to the way his muscles tense, is driving you crazy inside. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you had a fleeting crush on him for the time being, it’s not like you’re gonna see him much after anyways

Sometime during your haze, Jeonghan came up to ask if any of you girls wanted to play, you were too gone to answer, but Miyoo happily went along, and now they’re playing what seems like a friendly volleyball match, but you know it’s going to get competitive in no time. Minghao, Chan and Mingyu against Jeonghan, Vernon and Miyoo, it’s gonna get ugly.

Gyuri, Sami and Jihyun keep talking beside you, but you concentrate on the match, or you at least try to. You really try to, it’s just, he’s very distracting. The ball passes from one court to another swiftly, when one team scores, they make fun of the other and vice versa. The ball goes particularly far into Chan’s team’s court and Mingyu runs to get it, having to fall onto the sand to hit the ball from below, and it works, Minghao manages to throw it to the other team’s court, and they score.

You always thought people playing sports were as hot as they could possibly get, that’s probably why you’re basically drooling over Mingyu like he’s a full course meal and you haven’t had anything to eat in weeks.

Jihyun distracts you from your train of thought to tell you that her, Sami and Gyuri are going back inside to do something you don't get to hear. You're still a little in your head and only hum in response. You’re left alone with your thoughts. Your eyes don’t want to leave his figure, until his team ultimately wins the match thanks to points that he managed to score, and he glances at you, catching you staring, and smirks. That damn fucking smirk it’s gonna get you in trouble.

You lay down on your towel, if your eyes are not on him maybe you can get over it. Out of sight out of mind, as they say. But the peace is short-lived.

A few steps get close to you, getting sand all over your body and now a shadow blocks the sun. You open your eyes reluctantly, and you wish you never opened them in the first place.

The light is blinding, but not as much as the sight of Mingyu with his black swim shorts, sun-kissed skin, glistening from the sweat, and panting. It’s too much for you. Your eyes close instinctively and you act as if he didn’t disrupt your peace. You hear that damn chuckle, and he sprinkles more sand on you.

“You’re really annoying did you know that?” You intend to sound serious, but he’s caught up with your antics by now and just chuckles.

“Only when I’m trying to get someone’s attention.” You take a breath to try and gather strength to not jump him right there and open your eyes as you sit up. He's quick to motion with his hands for you to scoot so he can sit beside you. You roll your eyes sarcastically, but still move to the side.

“How was the game?” The way he’s sitting, propped down on his elbows, tenses his biceps perfectly, almost like he’s doing it on purpose, so you try to focus on his face as he answers your question.

“They had nothing on us,” he says smugly while looking at the loser team undo the volleyball net, “but you saw that, so why are you asking?”

“What I saw was you struggling until the very end,” his teasing doesn’t get you this time, on the outside at least, because your mind is still a mess, “good thing you managed to pull through tho!”

He nods sarcastically at your response, but something else catches his attention before he can continue teasing, “What’s their deal? Are they together?” You follow his eyes to see who he’s referring to: Vernon is running away from Miyoo who’s chasing him with one of her flip flops on her hand and shouting something along the lines of ‘don’t run away you coward’. They’re both laughing and you’re also used to it, you know their fights are not that serious.

“Vernon and Miyoo?” The hysterical laugh comes out of you before you’re able to stop it, “in Vernon’s dreams sure.” You joke but you can tell he’s seriously asking.

“Nah I think she likes him too.” Mingyu lays down after his statement, with his hands behind his head, and closes his eyes to enjoy the last rays of sunshine of the day.

“Are they that obvious? You’ve been with them for three days and you already noticed,” to you it was always obvious Vernon had a thing for Miyoo since Sami first introduced her to the group, but it’s funny that someone who doesn’t really know them also noticed.

“It’s always more obvious from the outside.” His answer catches you off guard. You only hum in response and he doesn’t press more on the subject. It leaves you thinking, were you that obvious when you liked Minghao? There were times when you felt Sami knew, but she never asked you about it, and since she and Minghao started dating you never felt those weird vibes again.

Mingyu yawns at your side and gets up, distracting you from your train of thought.

It’s beginning to get dark, bringing the temperatures down a bit, and the sunset paints the sky with a beautiful mix of oranges and pinks. It looks like a painting you’d see in an overpaid museum, and it would make that price totally worth it.

It seems you’re not the only one who noticed the pretty twilight sky, because Mingyu runs inside the house and comes back after a few minutes with a digital camera and wearing a black jacket for the cold. He walks around taking pictures of different sides of the sky, with different clouds and color patterns.

“Is that camera yours?” You prop down on your elbows to admire the sky and him, and you hear a light hum coming from him as an answer, “Didn’t know you were into photography.”

“I wouldn’t say I'm into photography, I just like taking pictures of what I find pretty,” once he’s done taking pictures of the sky, he returns to his place beside you, “one of these days I want to wake up before the sun rises and just sit here, watching the stars disappear as the sun gets higher and higher.”

“It’ll probably be really peaceful,” even if you’re alone at the beach now, you can still hear people talking from inside the house, probably deciding what to have for dinner. You imagine sitting on the quiet beach at 6 am, the only sound being the crashing waves and a few morning birds, the sky beginning to light up as the sun slowly rises and the morning wind ruffling your hair. “But the first step is to not get wasted the night before.”

“Or we could just stay awake and go to sleep after.”

“We? Who says I'm doing it with you?” You joke, of course you’ll accompany him if he asked.

A sudden cold wind makes you shiver and Mingyu notices, so he takes his jacket off and gestures for you to take it. You take it silently without much resistance and notice he also put on a sleeveless t-shirt before. The jacket looks giant on you when you put it on. You zip it up, so the cold doesn’t make its way inside, and you’re embraced by his scent in no time. You smile at him, and he returns it before answering your previous question.

“I’d just annoy you until you’re awake and you’d have no choice other than to come with me.” You chuckle at his response; you wish you could see what happens inside his mind.

“And I'd punch you for interrupting my holy sleep time.” You’re still laughing when you see a flash from the corner of your eye, “did you just take a picture of me?” Mingyu shrugs with an amused look on his face and waits for the picture to load, “I probably look disgusting! Let me see.” You try and stretch to take a glance at his camera roll, but he turns it off before you can see anything.

“Why would you look disgusting?”

“I don’t know,” he has some kind of power to always surprise you with what he says, “I've been out here all day, I didn’t get the chance to check myself on the mirror.”

“I told you I only take photos of pretty things.” This time you can’t hide the blush that creeps up to your cheeks at his words. No one ever complimented you so directly, and it’s not like you’re new to flirting, but you’ve never quite felt like this. Maybe it’s because everything around you feels so dull, except for when you’re with him. When you’re around anyone else, you never feel the need to speak up, afraid they’ll don’t care or just straight up ignore you, but these past few days, when you spoke to him, you felt like he wouldn’t judge you, he paid attention, joked with you, and even chose to spend time with you when he could’ve been with anyone else. He's just easy to be with. It's tempting to want to spend every day with him, but also terrifying, because everything could change after the trip is over.

“Then let me see?” You try your luck one more time to see the pic, also to try and turn the conversation another way so he doesn’t catch on to the effect he has on you, although it’s already too late.

“Don’t you trust me?” He looks at you with puppy eyes and a pout that could make anyone melt in an instant.

“Stop doing that!” You hit him lightly on his left arm.

“Doing what?” He replies, feigning innocence.

“You know what you’re doing.” Your look is serious, but he's amused by your reaction.

“And I think it’s working.” His eyes don’t leave yours, starting a staring contest between the two. None of you want to give up, raising your eyebrows to tease the other and titling your head to the side, but you don’t bulge and neither does he. You try to figure out the workings of his brain, if he feels the same things you do. You embarrassingly want to think that he does.

“Can I-”

“Guys!” Sami’s voice interrupts you and both you and Mingyu stop staring at each other to look at her, “Dinner is ready! Come inside!”

Only at her words do you realize the sun already fully set and the sky is painted a dark blue color, with the only thing visible being the moon and a few stars.

“W-we should get back inside.” You look back at Mingyu to find him already staring at you.

“What were you gonna say?” He stops you before you can get any farther.

“Oh, it’s nothing, c’mon they’re waiting for us.”

DAY FOUR

“And then she ghosted me! The nerve!” Gyuri finishes telling her story about a girl she hooked up with last month.

“But didn’t you just say you didn’t really wanna be with her? I don’t get it.” Jihyun asks what all of you were thinking.

“Yeah, but like, I don’t want to be the ghosted one!” You, Sami and Jihyun burst into laughter at her words.

You and the girls are sitting on the living room while the guys and Miyoo are outside playing a rematch from yesterday’s game of beach volleyball. As soon as everyone finished eating dinner, Miyoo demanded a rematch and everyone, with their competitive souls, agreed immediately. It’s already dark outside, but with the back lights on it’s possible to play, at least for a while before your eyes get tired.

The four of you ended up sitting around the coffee table, talking about relationship drama or just telling funny stories. You don’t have much to add to the conversation, so you just say a comment or joke from time to time and give your opinion when asked. That’s until you’re given the spotlight.

“So, Y/N,” Gyuri catches you off guard and you look at her confused, “what’s up with you and Mingyu?”

“That’s right! I see you together a lot these days,” Sami adds excitedly. Three pairs of eyes are now watching you closely, curious for your answer.

“Oh nothing…I don’t know.” You shy away when a little smile cracks at your lips, hugging your knees close as you glance at the beach to see if you can spot Mingyu, but all you see is a blur due to the poor lighting, “we just happen to end up together a lot I think.” It is partially true because it’s not like you actively searched for him.

“C’mon! Don’t you think he’s hot?” Gyuri’s so forward she just makes you laugh, “If I wasn’t a lesbian lemme tell you, the things I would do.”

“Gyuri oh my god! He's right there, have some decency,” Sami brings her back to earth.

“Right, sorry sorry,” she apologizes and takes a sip of her beer before speaking to you again, “but really, you should do something!”

“Like what? I don’t know guys maybe he’s not interested.” Do you want him to be?

“I saw you two at the beach yesterday and trust me, he is.” Sami puts her hand on your shoulder to make you look at her and tries to encourage you, with no bad intentions whatsoever, she just wants to see you happy, you know that.

His words from the night before echo in your head, ‘it’s always more obvious from the outside', but you don’t really want to talk about it out loud, afraid you’ll jinx it. Jihyun throws you a knowing look and opens her mouth, but she gets interrupted before she can outer a word.

“Guys! Guess what-” Chan suddenly enters the house and the four of you shut up instantly, guilty look on your faces, “Wow what were you talking about? Am I not allowed to hear it?”

“It’s girl stuff!” Jihyun doesn’t hide that he is in fact, not allowed to hear your conversation, and throws a pillow his way, but he doesn't budge, “What do you want?”

“What I was going to say was... we beat them!” You chuckle and the four of you applaud lightly.

“That’s great babe!”

“You should’ve seen them when we-” Chan comes inside to show off their win when gets interrupted by a sudden darkness. The power went out, and everything and everyone sits in silence for about two seconds before Jeonghan comes in.

“How does everyone feel about turning on the fireplace?”

Lighting the fireplace on turned out to be a great idea. It’s been hours and the power is still out. All ten of you are sitting on the couches and on the floor, surrounding the only source of light and warmth, and drinking the beer that’s left from the previous days before it loses its gas.

It’s warm and cozy, and everyone is engaged in different conversations with the people by their side. You listen as Jeonghan talks about his new job at a museum, trying to pay attention, but it’s really difficult when, from the corner of your eye, you can see Mingyu and Minghao talking comfortably. It’s weird, seeing the guy that caused you so many emotional breakdowns over the past year talking with the only guy who was able to make you forget about it. Even if every day that passes you feel yourself getting more and more over him, there’s this little voice on the back of your brain reminding you how you stupidly thought you might’ve had a chance with him.

Someone by your side shifts and you see Jeonghan’s expression change before he exclaims, “No touchy coupley things when we’re all around!” Everyone’s eyes are now on the couple behind you. Jihyun just sat on Chan’s legs and they're just hugging, but Jeonghan’s low-key right, most of you are single and it looks like they're rubbing it on your faces (even if it’s not what they want).

“You’re just jealous because you’re lonely and sad,” Jihyun rebuttals and everyone huffs. It’s normal for them to bicker like this so you just watch like it’s a comedy show.

“I’m single by choice, I’m not letting anyone tie me down.” Jeonghan replies proudly.

“Didn’t you go out with that girl for the whole winter? What was her name... Miyeon? Or what about Seungcheol last year?”

“Well, I’m all free now so”

“Then don’t come to me asking for tips on what to say to girls ever again,” this is the kind of burn that makes Gyuri start clapping like crazy.

“I’m sure everyone gets what I mean,” Jeonghan looks around, checking to see if anyone agrees with him. Even if it's quite dark, you can see a few heads nod in agreement, including yours.

“Oh c’mon! Doesn’t anyone here like someone?” Now Jihyun is the one looking for backup, but it’s something harder to admit, “if you like someone, then you know you want to be close to them, to touch them!” She makes eye contact with you, knowing you do understand her, because she was the only one you told about Minghao, because you used to tell her everything.

“No one?” She asks again, looking at everyone one by one, but no one comes forward. And she lastly looks at you again. You shake your head as panic starts invading you, fearing everyone will notice why you, what she means. You make eye contact with her probably for less than a second, but it feels like your whole life passes in front of your eyes.

“Ok, fair enough.” The tense climate stills the air, because even if Jihyun agreed to minimize the public displays of affection, her speech got to some of you, and it takes a few minutes for everything to go back to normal.

But you’re still anxious. You never discussed what happened with Minghao after you found out he was seeing Sami, you couldn’t. Her indirectly letting you know she remembers makes you feel seen, exposed, bare, like she just disclosed your deepest secret to the whole world, like everyone now knows the most pathetic thing about you.

Eventually the atmosphere starts getting full of laughs and different voices again, but you’re still in your head, so much so that you almost don’t notice the power is back on.

As everyone is celebrating, you get up and announce quietly that you’re going to call it a night. Throwing some lame excuse, but no one really bats an eye, they just say goodnight and go back to their conversations. Everyone except for one person.

Mingyu, who’s been keeping an eye on you the whole night, and who’s already accustomed to your shyness, noticed that you got more reserved after Jihyun’s speech, but didn’t want to ask you anything that would make you uncomfortable in front on everyone. So, when you rapidly escape to go back to your room, he takes the opportunity to leave as well, putting the same excuse you did about being tired and not wanting to wake up super hangover again.

As you’re in tucked in bed, about to burst out crying in any second, Mingyu knocks softly on your door.

You don’t answer, staying as still as possible, trying to stop your sobs so nothing can be heard from outside. It’s been a few minutes since you left, so maybe it’s believable that you’re already asleep.

“Are you alright?” Hearing Mingyu’s voice shatters you and the tears and sobs become impossible to stop.

“Yeah, everything’s fine!” You wouldn’t believe you if you were him.

“You’re not fine.” He sounds actually worried

“How would you know? Just leave me alone!” Your voice breaks at the last words, telling Mingyu everything he needs to know

“I can’t just leave if I know you’re crying."

“Yes, you can! Just go!"

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” A playful tone mixes in his voice, “You can talk to me.” You know, but this is different. This is exposing something to him that makes you feel pathetic, idiotic, and it's much more than you ever told anyone

There’s silence while you consider letting him in. He’s not a stranger but he’s oblivious enough to the situation that he wouldn’t care about the drama, maybe you can trust him not to tell anyone. He cared enough to come and check on you, it’s way more than what anyone else did.

Mingyu waits for you, worried about what could’ve caused you to leave so suddenly and start crying alone in your room.

“I’ll be in my room if you need anyth-" He was about to give up when you open your door just barely, as to not let the corridor light reveal your blotched, tear-stained face. But you don’t stay there, you run back to the bed as he figures out that you’re letting him in.

He enters your room carefully, slowly stepping in and closing the door behind him. Even with the lights off, he sees you sitting on your bed, legs crossed and back against the wall while you’re fidgeting with your fingers, avoiding his eyes. Before he says anything, he sits beside you on the bed, testing what you’re comfortable with. When he’s sure you’re not going to tell him to fuck off, you finally hear his voice.

“What’s wrong?” He experimentally puts one hand on your knee, trying to comfort you, but it ultimately makes you sob a little before you reply.

“You have to promise not to make fun of me.” You’re still avoiding looking at him, entranced looking at his hand, but when he doesn’t answer you for a few seconds, you look to the side to meet his eyes, and only then he notices how serious your request is.

“I’d never make fun of you, or what made you sad like this.” He fixes his posture, sitting back against the wall like you and legs stretched on the bed, “If you’re comfortable you can tell me, but if you’re not I can at least try and make you feel better, take your mind somewhere else, whatever you need.”

You feel stupid. Crying about something that happened months ago, about a guy that isn’t really worth your time, when in front of you have this perfect man that for two days has made you feel more comfortable than anyone has ever. Sure, you don’t know if he just does this for all his friends, if you can even call this a friendship, but at least he cares. In this moment, you feel you could tell him anything, your deepest secrets, and he would welcome it with open arms. You'd do the same for him.

“You also can’t tell anyone,” You rush to add, “like not even Chan, okay?” Mingyu nods, a little smile showing up at his face as he realizes you’re really trusting him, “I promise.”

And you do. You open up to him, trusting him with what you have been carrying on your back these past few months that you didn’t trust no one else with.

You tell him how you always liked Minghao. How you found out you actually went to the same middle school but didn’t know each other. And how you thought he liked you back. How you don’t even like to talk about people you fancy, but you trusted Jihyun with it, before she distanced from your group and from you. How she suddenly became close with Minghao and his friends. How every time you managed to be with Jihyun alone, she would show off that she talked on the phone with him every day, that she regularly crashed at his place after work, that he often paid for her meals. She obviously had started liking him too, and it killed you inside. You couldn’t talk to her because his name would always come up somehow. A few weeks pass, you fight with your friends, and Jihyun and her new group welcome you in. They start inviting you to their hangouts, to their houses (often Chan’s). You always felt a little bit out of place, even if Chan and Jihyun always tried to invite you, and even if they always made sure to engage with you in conversations. But you were happy, you had a group of friends you saw every week, who made you laugh if you were going through rough times, and you got to spend time with the guy you liked. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good, until it wasn’t.

And after you finished senior year, the group was still intact. Hanging out whenever everyone could and talking on the group chat constantly. Except, you saw Minghao more often because you got into the same college, and even though you were on different majors, you still managed to bump into each other. One Friday, long after, everyone managed to get free to see each other after so long, you all went to some bar and you didn’t realize how late it got, so Minghao, being that he lived close to you, offered to take you home. Things happened and you ended up sleeping together. He was your first, God how pathetic is that, and it just solidified how much you liked him, and you thought it meant something for him too. But nothing changed after that, you two never talked about it and he just pretended nothing happened. And you didn’t tell anyone about it.

Months later, on Chan’s birthday, people started telling inside jokes that you didn’t understand about Sami and Minghao, teasing them to no end until they both turned red. When you looked at Gyuri for context, she whispered that they’ve been on numerous dates in the last few months. Your heart dropped, you had to pretend that everything was fine for the rest of the night, but as soon as you got home, you started crying and overthinking. If this was going on for months, were they already something when he slept with you? Did that solidify to him that he liked Sami? All the times you thought maybe Minghao was flirting with you were probably just your mind fucking with you, or the worst cascenario, he was flirting with the both of you until he decided which one he liked best. You felt stupid, pathetic, but most of all you felt betrayed. Because everyone knew, including Jihyun. And all this time you geeked to her about every interaction with Minghao, telling her every detail, she knew he was seeing someone else. Sure, your relationship had changed, she had new best friends, and she probably didn’t want to disclose something about Sami’s personal life, but letting you delude yourself was just mean.

Days passed, and a new secret was revealed to you, that Jihyun and Chan started dating. This just enforced what you thought that she just didn’t trust you anymore, you weren’t as much of a part of her life as before. You never talked about Minghao with her again, the last time she asked you about him was the same day you found out her and Chan were dating, almost half a year ago. But the topic ended there, and it was never brought up again, until tonight.

“So, earlier when she talked about liking someone and she looked directly at me,” you breathe for the first time in at least half an hour that you’ve been talking to Mingyu nonstop, “she was referring to me liking him, and I felt so exposed, her looking at me right in the eye trying to make me confess to liking someone just so she can win an argument, it felt like I was naked and at her mercy in front of everyone.” You feel like a huge weight was lifted from your shoulders.

You can still feel tears rolling down your face. Sometime during your talk, Mingyu put his arm around you, and you rested your head on his shoulder. You’re sure his sweatshirt must be damp with tears now.

He doesn’t say anything for a while, letting you calm down and stabilizing your breathing. You concentrate on his breathing and his fingers drawing circles on your shoulder.

“Thank you.” You finally speak up after a few minutes of silence.

“For what?”

“For listening,” you answer like it’s an obvious thing, “it was a lot, and you didn’t have to, but you listened anyway.”

“Of course, and I asked, didn’t I?” You chuckle lightly. He has a way of making everything easier.

“So, what do you think?”

“Do you really want my opinion?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” You copy what he said before and he chuckles.

“I think you should tell them how you feel.” You don’t look at him, but you can feel his eyes on you, as if analyzing how you respond to what he said. “They’re your friends after all, they’ll understand.”

“I've thought about it, I’m not very good at that kind of talks, I kinda just keep it to myself until I get over it.”

“I don’t mean to be harsh, but it doesn’t seem to be working.” It’s hard hearing that, but it’s true. You’ve been carrying this for years and you’re still crying over it.

“Wow,” he’s not trying to be mean, but it really left you speechless, “maybe I should… to get it off my chest at least.”

“You don’t have to, but maybe you’ll get some closure with Jihyun that way, that’s the only way she’ll know she’s making you upset.”

“No, you’re right, I’ll talk to her,” when? You don’t know, “but only her, talking with Minghao kind of scares me, what if he forgot?”

“Don’t tell anyone but,” he starts, and you smile at his silliness, “I never really liked Minghao in the first place, I don’t know why, but now I have a reason.” You can’t help to laugh.

“You don’t have to dislike him just because of what I told you, you should get to know him!” You don’t resent Minghao for what happened, and he’s still someone you can call a friend, regardless of your history.

You dare to look up at Mingyu from his shoulder, and your face is much closer to his than you thought. It’s dark in your room, only the moonlight providing you with enough light for you to see how his head turns slowly to meet yours, and his eyes encountering yours, like he knew you were staring at him.

“He’s an ass for what he did to you, and I don’t want to be friends with someone like that.” He speaks softly, almost in a whisper, but with such a serious tone that it gives you goosebumps. Your eyes can’t seem to leave his, and neither of you want to stop. It’s becoming a habit of you two to stare at each other, testing who’ll look away first. His breath fans over your face, and you think about his words. You knew Mingyu was a good listener, he proved it several times over the span of four days, but now he’s even taking what you said into consideration before establishing a friendship with someone? Sure, he already didn’t really like Minghao, or so he said, but you gave him a reason to, so he must believe and trust you enough to truly take it into account.

This time, Mingyu breaks the silence first, “Let’s go watch the sunrise tomorrow,” but he doesn’t break the eye contact. You swear you see a little spark in his eyes at his words, and it makes impossible for you to say no.

“You really want me to go with you?” You just want confirmation that he does, that he’s not taking pity in you after crying your eyes out in front of him.

“It’ll be sad if I go alone, and besides, you’re the one I like the most here,” and it’s like a thousand butterflies fly out of their cocoon simultaneously inside your stomach, “don’t tell Chan I said that.” You both laugh at his words.

“We should go to sleep then, what time does the sun come out? Like 5:30 am?” You groan while saying the last words. You were never a morning person.

Cold hits you all around when Mingyu takes his arm off your shoulders and gets off your bed. You almost want to ask him to stay the night here so you can wake up together. But you don’t.

“I’ll come and wake you up, but don’t punch me please,” he jokes about what you said the day before and you chuckle. “Good night, see you in a few hours,” he says as he walks to your door slowly, hoping you’d ask him to stay. But you don’t, and he doesn’t say anything either.

DAY FIVE

Waking up so early in the morning isn’t difficult. You barely got any sleep; you spent the whole time watching the ceiling overthinking about everything that happened. You even heard Mingyu’s alarm in the distance, so when he knocked to wake you up, you were already ready.

The sky is starting to show more colors as the minutes pass. You’re sitting on a mat at the beach while Mingyu’s inside making coffee for the both of you. Is it wrong to think that there may be something more to your friendship with Mingyu? You’re almost certain you’re starting to like him, and these moments you’ve been having together don’t do anything to suppress your bubbling feelings. It’s dangerous, and you don’t want to let it go too far, not again.

You hear his steps behind you before you see him. He hands you the coffee in silence and you thank him with a smile. You’re both slowly sipping away your coffee admiring the colors of the sky as they become more alive the more the sun comes out. The soft morning breeze gives you chills, but the warm cup in your hand eases it away, and the waves crashing provide with enough background noise for it to not be completely silent. But being quiet with him hasn’t been uncomfortable, you don’t feel the need to fill the void, you’re just two people enjoying each other’s company.

As the sky turns orange and pink, with swirling clouds making it look like a painting, Mingyu takes his camera out and takes photos beside you. You watch him as he does his thing, changing the settings of the camera and picking different angles, mesmerized, and you don’t notice he says something to you.

“Sorry?” You come back to earth and find him looking at you already.

“I said I’m glad we did this,” his smile almost outshines the sun.

“Me too.” You smile back, afraid to show just how you really like to be with him, afraid to scare him away.

“You’re the first person that doesn’t think I’m weird for wanting to do this you know?” He mutters after he puts down the camera, “people always tell me it’s too much of a sacrifice.”

“That’s so stupid!” You huff, incredulous look on your face, “I get not wanting to wake up early on vacation but like, a sacrifice? That’s so dramatic.”

“You get it! Thank you.”

It’s quiet for a little while after. Every few minutes a new shade of orange paints the sky and Mingyu points his camera up to take more pictures. He probably took a thousand pictures already but shows no sign of stopping. You opt for laying down, the little sleepiness you felt already slipped away, and you’re left with your thoughts until Mingyu lays down too.

“I wish we could freeze time and just stay here like this.” You prefer being here alone with him than inside the house getting overwhelmed by everything. Here, it’s much peaceful, comfortable.

“That would be nice wouldn’t it.”

The sun is fully out by now, the birds already started singing on the background, and you can hear cars on the distance. The day officially started, you’re no longer on the limbo in between yesterday and tomorrow.

After everyone wakes up and has breakfast together, you and Mingyu take a quick nap before lunch time. Eventually the lack of sleep got to both of you, and you weren’t even able to keep a conversation going.

The house is suspiciously silent when you wake up, it’s probably 3 or 4 pm but no one seems to be at the house. Except for the one person you encounter when you go out to the porch for some air.

“Hey! You're finally awake!” Jihyun greets you with excitement, too oblivious about what happened the day before, “that was some nap!” Maybe you should really tell her, she has the right to know if you’re mad or upset at her. It's not like she forgot about what you’ve told her, you just have to let her know how that makes you feel. It’s easy!

“I think I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, I must’ve been too tired.” It comes out a little colder than you intended, hopefully she’ll mistake it by sleepiness.

“Were you okay yesterday? You went to bed so suddenly.” Now’s the time, you can’t just lie now, if you don’t tell her now then it’s pointless.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” You go to the point straight away and she notices your serious tone.

“Is everything okay?” There’s a little voice in your head telling you she’s not actually worried, but right now you decide not to believe it

“It’s about what you said yesterday, I wanted to ask you...” your hands shake as you lean against the rail by her side, looking at the beach, not so peaceful like in the morning now, and you turn your head to look at her, “it may be stupid but, were you like, indirectly asking me if I still like Minghao?” You do feel stupid as the words leave your mouth.

“Oh, I don’t really remember why I did that, I was kinda drunk and saying stupid shit,” you relax a little, at least she wasn’t trying to put you on the spotlight on purpose, “but maybe? I mean you never talked about him again.”

“I just thought it was awkward, since I became friends with everyone.” The conversation isn’t really going anywhere. You could leave it like this, but the topic out in the open and it could be the only chance to get answers, “and with you also liking him and all that.”

“I-I didn’t, I mean-” she stutters, and suddenly dropping the bomb that you know more information than she gave to you in the first place doesn’t feel right.

“It’s okay, well no it’s not really, you should’ve told me, but I’m past it by now.” Jihyun visibly relaxes at your words, but the air starts getting thicker, the atmosphere awkward.

“You’re right I should’ve told you, I’m sorry,” she avoids your eyes. You’re looking right at her, but she keeps her eyes on the ocean, or the sand, or literally anywhere else. “It was just a silly crush, it didn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t think it was, but it’s fine.” How can she just brush it off so easily?

“Actually, you don’t know how it was,” suddenly now she’s capable of facing you, and her eyes are almost on fire, “we weren’t even friends by then, so you don’t know what it was like.”

“Why are you saying that like it’s my fault?” Anger starts to take over your brain, “and we were definitely still friends.”

“It just wasn’t the same and you know it.”

"You were the one who pushed me aside!”

“I pushed you aside? I welcomed you! When you were alone! I invited you to every hangout, every party, I invited you everywhere!”

“You stopped trusting me.” There’s a noticeable hurt in your voice, “you didn’t even tell me when you started to like Chan.”

“You were too busy feeling sorry for yourself that you didn’t notice, even Vernon noticed, and he has zero awareness of what happens around him.”

“Because my best friend liked the same guy as me and didn’t even tell me!”

“I just couldn’t tell you.”

“Yes, you could’ve! and I really still wanted to be friends with you, at least I thought we still were.” Flashbacks of times your other friends told you how you should stop taking to her come to your mind. “And you did tell me,” Jihyun looks confused at your statement, “maybe not directly, but every time you decided I was good enough to have alone time with, and knowing just how much I liked Minghao, the only thing you ever talked about was him, and how smart he was, or how funny he was, or how he let you have his jacket, it was pretty obvious.”

Jihyun freezes in place. She looks down again and red stains start appearing on her cheeks.

“So yeah, I didn’t exactly want to talk about him with you.” This really isn’t turning out the way you thought it would.

“I- I didn’t realize,” you barely hear her whisper, “I wasn’t doing it on purpose.”

“Did you also just didn’t realize that it would’ve been nice to tell me that they were going out?” Their names aren’t said out loud, but Jihyun knows what you’re talking about, “I had to found out myself, and everyone knew except for me, stupid old me who was obliviously still hung up on him.”

��I’m sorry,” if you weren’t so angry, maybe you’d take pity on her and stop arguing, but at this moment, it just makes you madder.

“Do you know how horrible it is to see the girl who used to give you insecurities and the guy you’ve liked for years be together? Or how hard it is not to cry in that moment? Surrounded by other people who don’t know how you feel, while the only person who did know just ignores you?” Tears start blurring your vision, but you don’t let them fall, you can’t, “luckily I don’t like him anymore, but the guilt is killing me.”

“She asked me not to tell anyone, they weren’t serious at first.”

“You could’ve just told me beforehand that he was seeing someone, you didn’t have to tell me who it was.”

“I’m sorry, I really am.” Jihyun looks at you in the eyes for the first time in minutes, her eyes also glittery with tears.

“And yesterday, I felt so exposed, like you only wanted me to confess so you could win a stupid argument, like my feelings didn’t matter at all.”

“I really wasn’t trying to do that, I’m serious.”

“It doesn’t matter what you wanted or didn’t want to do, that’s how it made me feel.”

“I’m sorry.” The front door opens on the other side of the house and a chorus of voices reaches your ears. What a time to have a full house again.

You both look inside at the first sound, and you can feel her eyes on you again a second after, but you can’t turn your head, you can’t look at her, not right now. Without looking back, your feet walk you off to the beach, maybe with a load off your shoulders, but a little more broken than before.

A walk alone might just be what you need. Tears don’t fall, the wind blowing them off before they can. By the time you come back, you find someone else alone on the porch, and it’s almost like the universe wants you to suffer today.

Minghao stands in the same place you were before, with his body resting on the rail and looking at the ocean. He sees you at the distance and waves, but you can only find the energy to give him half a smile.

It’s impossible to ignore him now, so you walk over to him and stand by his side in silence. But that doesn’t last long. Something in you seems to want to let go today, free you from everything you’ve been holding inside for so long. At this moment, revealing to him how you felt seems like the best option, and you don’t argue with your brain about it.

“I’m gonna tell you something,” your words catch his attention, and he turns his head to you, but you stay still looking ahead, “but you don’t have to say anything back, it’s just so I can let it go, okay?”

Minghao nods slowly, confused by your words but listening, nevertheless.

“I used to really like you, you know,” your gaze catches his for a second before going back, “I don’t anymore, but yeah, I just wanted to get it off my chest.”

His mouth opens, as if he’s about to say something, but nothing comes out. His silence doesn’t scare you like you thought it would, “I didn’t mean to freak you out, and I don’t expect you to say anything.”

“I just… I didn’t know,” he sounds apologetic as he replies. Maybe it’s better that he didn’t know, it would be embarrassing if he or anyone else knew.

“We never talked about what happened between us,” it pains you to remember, but now you have to finish what you started, “but it meant something to me, I know for you it was probably nothing, because you started seeing Sami right after, and don’t get me wrong you two are perfect together I’m not trying to interfere, but yeah, it really hurt me that you just pretended that everything was normal after.” You finish with a sigh of relief. Everything you’ve been holding onto is now out in the open, and you’ve never felt so relieved, like you could finally breathe.

“I was an ass,” his statement is surprising, “I don’t have any excuse for what I did, I was an ass and I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you were,” you joke as you turn around, and he chuckles. You catch a glimpse of the living room through the window and see Mingyu sitting on the couch with Chan and Jeonghan. The three are paying attention to Vernon, who’s standing up telling a story, making dramatic movements with his arms.

“Are you okay?” Minghao asks and catches your attention again.

“I had a fight with Jihyun,” you don’t want to tell him, and you hope he doesn’t ask about it further, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” it’s a little awkward, but there’s nothing you can do now. You told him what you had to, and he apologized, “I’m gonna go inside then, is everything okay between us?” he’s almost at the door when he asks.

“Definitely, and sorry I dumped all of that out of nowhere.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” With that, he finally goes in and joins the guys on the couch.

After dinner’s over and everyone moved from the dining room and onto the couches, you’re left alone picking everything up and doing the dishes. After three days of cooking every meal, you collectively chose to order from a local restaurant instead, so luckily there's not much to clean.

Dinner was awkward as it has never been. Jihyun couldn’t look you in the eyes, even if she tried to act as if nothing happened. And not a word came out of your mouth, besides when you offered to do the dishes. No one else probably noticed the weird energy in the room, but to you it was suffocating.

As you’re putting the glasses on the sink, Mingyu re-enters the room. You try not to pay too much attention to him as he walks over to you, even if your skin tingles every time he’s around.

“Do you wanna go for a walk around town?” He has to crouch down to whisper in your ear.

“Right now? I promised to do the dishes.” The idea excites you for sure, the house has been weighing you down all day and also spending time alone with Mingyu is an activity you’re starting to love these days. But you also fear what everyone might say if you leave out of nowhere.

“We’ll get someone else to do it.” You’re not usually this easy to convince, but for him it’s suddenly too easy.

“Fine, but you do the talking.” He chuckles as he motions for you to follow him.

His back is hypnotizing as you walk behind him. His hair is damp from the quick shower he went to take right after he finished his plate. The woody smell of his cologne reaches you strongly, and you fear it may become your favorite smell ever.

You manage to get past everyone that’s lounging on the living room without getting noticed, but as Mingyu’s about to open the front door, Chan comes out of the bathroom and bumps into you, questioning look on his face. Before he can ask anything, Mingyu tells him that you two will go out and to please do the dishes. His brows don’t stop frowning, but in the end, he lets you go out, agreeing with a groan.

It's the first time you’ve been out of the house for the last few days. The few supply runs that were done you didn’t go, and the beach is kind of a part of the house, so it doesn’t count. The fresh night air hits you when you step on the street, and with Mingyu by your side, you no longer feel suffocated, you can finally breathe.

When Mingyu starts walking in one direction, you follow him. Since him, Chan and their family have been coming here every summer for their entire lives, he knows the town pretty well and you trust him to guide you.

You walk around the streets for a while, talking about trivial things, telling each other anecdotes and joking around, getting to know each other more than you were able the past few days. Because even if you spent quite some time together, it was always situational, but right now, alone with no one you know around, it’s much easier to let go.

The town feels cozy and warm, like the hometown from a Christmas movie. It’s very quiet and you don’t encounter many people, only the occasional old couple that goes out for a walk or few people walking their dogs.

“How come I’ve never met you before? I went to your house multiple times,” you ask when you decide to sit down at a park.

Such a strong presence like his is hard to ignore, but somehow, after all these years of being friends with his brother, you only heard about him, never met. Your friends would talk about him from time to time, and you were always itching to meet him, but it was like he was never there.

“I let Chan have his space when he has people over,” he shrugs as if it’s the most normal thing, but it’s something that’s been plaguing your head ever since you were introduced.

“But you've met the others?”

“They're at our house a lot, a little more than I'd like if I'm being honest,” you both chuckle at his statement

“Yeah, they can be a little annoying and loud but that’s why I like them, they can take your mind off other things.” A lot of times, when you were having a rough day or you were sad about something, having fun with them would make you forget about everything. Focusing on a stupid cooking competition Gyuri made up or playing a new card game Jeonghan discovered, those would become your favorite days.

“I know you said you don’t really like Minghao for some reason, but what about the rest? Don't you like them?” You’ve seen him talk with everyone by now, so you’re just curious.

“Is it bad that I don’t care about them enough? To have an opinion on them I mean, they're just my brother's friends.”

“Are you saying you don’t have an opinion about me?” Deep down you really want to know what he thinks about you, why he seems to want to spend time with you out of all the others.

“I'd like to think you’re not just my brother’s friend by now.” That could mean a lot of things, but it doesn’t stop your stomach from contracting and a smile from appearing on your face.

“That does not answer my question!” You push him lightly to the side, so he doesn’t see the tiniest blush creeping up your cheeks.

“I already told you I like you the most out of everyone at the house.” He keeps finding the words to make your mind collapse and saying them so nonchalantly.

“You only said that to make me feel better because I was crying.”

“I mean it,” the poor lighting at the park doesn’t prevent you from seeing the truthfulness in Mingyu’s eyes, “I wouldn’t have asked you to come out here with me if I didn’t.”

“That’s good.” You respond through a smile, and you see his smile form in his eyes before the rest of his face joins.

“Why?”

“You might be becoming my favorite too.” The confession shocks you as it leaves your mouth, and you regret it instantly. But when you see him getting shy, and even detect a little blush on his ears, it becomes worth it. “Should we get back? It’s getting really late.”

The walk back is just as calm and comforting as before. But the difference is you’re much more aware of Mingyu by your side. How his hand slightly brushes yours every now and then, sparking electricity that runs through your veins and birthing just a tiny bit of hope that he’ll connect them for once. How your steps coordinate even if his legs are much longer than yours. You don’t care if your being quiet, not with him.

“I have seen you around at my house, I just never went over and said hi,” he confesses after a few minutes, “I really should’ve, we could’ve met sooner.” There’s a tone of regret in his voice and his eyes shine at the possibility.

“You’d like that?” His words warm up your insides and you can’t resist the smile that breaks on your face as you look at him.

“Yeah,” his eyes shine as they meet yours, entranced, “I feel like an asshole, Chan always invited me to hang out with you guys when I was home, but I always refused, I don't know why.”

“I get it,” you both look at the empty road ahead, breaking the eye contact before you trip and fall, “I probably would’ve done the same.”

“Eventually I met everyone, except for you.”

“Maybe we were meant to meet this way,” your statement makes him look at you with curiosity, “like maybe if we met before you wouldn’t have spared me a second thought and you wouldn’t have asked me to ride with you on the way here.”

“You believe in destiny and that stuff?” There’s no mocking tone on his voice, but you’re still careful with your answer.

“Something like that, more like the universe prepares us for our future, like we go through things for a reason,” you feel a little stupid talking about it out loud, but Mingyu won’t judge you, “I try to see the good in the bad, is it silly?”

“I do believe in destiny, so if it’s silly then I’m fucked too,” his joke takes a laugh out of you and your eyes connect again, “you look really pretty when you smile.”

“Oh, shut up!” You avoid his eyes by looking down, but your red stained cheeks reveal his effect on you. Why is he saying all of these things all of the sudden? The talk about wishing to meet sooner and destiny already had your stomach filled with butterflies, but his sudden flirting makes your insides want to explode.

“Missed it today,” you look up slowly at his words, “you looked down at dinner earlier, did something happen?”

“I impulsively talked with Jihyun, and it didn’t end well,” you start fidgeting with your fingers, embarrassed by your behavior, “she tried to apologize but, in the moment, it didn’t feel genuine to me so I kinda just stormed off.”

“At least you got to tell her what you felt,” your head tilts like you can’t believe what he’s saying, “see the good in the bad, like you said.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” you huff, but the release of all those pent-up feelings did feel relieving, “and I also talked to Minghao after all.”

“Oh yeah I saw you guys talking earlier, how did that go?” It’s disappointing to see you’re already back at the front of the house. You don’t want the night to end, you wanna keep carelessly talking with Mingyu forever.

“Better I think,” you shrug as he lets you in, “I told him that I used to like him.” He follows right behind you as you walk towards your rooms. The lights are all turned off, the silence interrupted by your steps and your voices. No one’s up beside you two. “It was awkward but at least I got it off my chest.”

“Used to? You don’t like him anymore?” Mingyu asks with curiosity. A tiny glint of hope reveals in his eyes waiting for your response.

When you think about why you liked Minghao, you can’t really think of much. Memories of times he’d remember details about you or say casual flirty things come to mind, but is that enough to like someone? Times when he straight up ignored you to go after his friends, or when he couldn’t even say hi to you when you saw each other in college always made you doubt.

“I don’t know if I ever liked him actually.”

“How so?” It’s scary to open up to someone like you’re doing with Mingyu, but for some reason you find it easy to tell him things you’ve never said out loud.

“I think I just liked the idea of a guy I found attractive liking me, even if he never actually did.” You always thought he was attractive, and when he’d say little flirty things to you your stomach your burn up. But before that started you didn’t think about him in that way. “I don’t know if it was all in my head or not.”

“Any guy would be really stupid not to like you.” He stands with his back against the wall beside his door, looking down at you with the most honesty you’ve ever seen in his eyes.

“You keep saying things like that,” confusing you, giving you hope. The wall hits you as you stand back, staring at him in the same position he is. Both beside your doors, you could end the night right now, stop this back and forth between you, but something keeps you out here, longing for him to do something.

“I mean what I say.” It feels like a challenge was laid down in front of you, but you want him to take the first step.

“I know.” He smirks at your words.

“Good.” His eyes stare so intensely, like he’s trying to read your mind, to know every thought passing through your mind. He’s usually very hypnotizing, but right now, under the moonlight, flirty haze and smirk adorning his face, you can’t look away.

Everything around you blurs as you stare at each other, waiting for the other to break the silence, to make a move, to do anything. Every second it passes the tension becomes more and more palpable, even the tiniest move might snap it. But the both of you stay static, only a faint noise of rain beginning to fall filling the silence.

Seconds feel like minutes, and every second that passes that Mingyu does nothing gets more disappointing. Maybe it was all in your head after all.

Defeated, you throw a little smile and a muffled ‘good night' at him as your hand turns your doorknob, and you finally break eye contact, entering your room slowly as his face drops.

When you close the door, you regret it instantly. You stand there, listening attentively for any noise. Is he still standing there? Maybe you should’ve done something, maybe he was also waiting for you.

There’s no noise coming from outside, and as more seconds pass, you lose hope. You don’t even breathe in case it blocks any possible noise from reaching your ears, but it’s pointless.

You take a step closer to the door and open it slightly, stupidly hoping he might be waiting for you, but the hallway’s completely empty.

Once again, you deluded yourself into thinking an attractive guy might like you, even if this time the “signs” seemed so much clearer, but it clearly didn’t mean anything. You don’t regret spending time with him though, he actually helped you a lot these past few days, it’s your fault you thought it meant something else.

DAY SIX

After tossing and turning all night, sleeping in short periods of time while your mind over thinks instead of resting, you finally check the time and see it’s a normal hour to wake up.

You won’t admit, you kinda hoped Mingyu had texted you during the night. Your stomach contracts as you remember how he gave you his number a few days ago:

Everyone was sitting on the couches hanging out. It was early in the afternoon, but no one had really any plans. Mingyu was sitting in between you and Gyuri. They were talking about some band they both like. You grabbed your phone to google something he said, sure he got a fact wrong. When you smugly showed it to him, he huffed defeated, and grabbed your phone to read it again. But then you noticed he started typing something really fast. You looked at Gyuri by his side with a questioning look on your face, but she just raised her eyebrows teasingly after looking at what he was doing. When he returned the phone to you, it was on the contact list, a new one stood with his name on it.

Doesn’t really matter now, as you probably won’t use it after the vacation is over.

A smell of some kind of breakfast welcomes you as you open your door, someone is cooking something really yummy, but before you move forward to check who it is, Mingyu’s open door draws your attention. Judging by the time and his empty bedroom, it’s most likely he will be the one standing in the kitchen right now, and you can’t stand to face him. Not after last night. Not after you embarrassed yourself.

The sound of your stomach growling reminds you to feed it, and you remember a cute cafe you saw the night before while walking.

You manage to head out without the mystery person hearing and walk to where you remember the shop was. The sun in the sky warms up the atmosphere, you almost can’t notice the heavy rain it poured all night. As you near the cafe, you see they sell Jihyun’s favorite cupcakes. Maybe if you get her a few she’ll be unable to ignore you.

Ignoring Mingyu might be an easy task for these next few days, but Jihyun is someone you can’t ignore until the issue doesn’t bother you anymore. One of the thoughts that kept you up all night was how to fix things with her, you were both wrong, so it’s only right to approach her and talk things through again. What you didn’t expect was seeing Jihyun enter the same shop while you’re paying.

You make eye contact, knowing you’re both here with the same purpose. As you walk towards her, she doesn’t walk away from you, and that confirms she also wants to talk things through.

The shop has a few tables placed outside, and after Jihyun sits on one you sit in front of her. It's awkward as you put the cupcakes you just bought in front of her.

“I’m-” your voices overlap as you speak the same words. You both laugh awkwardly, and she motions for you to talk first.

“I’m sorry for the way I acted yesterday, it was childish of me to just walk away and not letting you explain, and I shouldn’t have dumped all that to you out of nowhere, I’m sorry.” Afraid of her reaction, the words leave your mouth so fast you barely register what you say.

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” her response is surprising, as you expected to be the only one apologizing, “you were right about what you said, I was a bad friend for not telling you, and I shouldn’t have asked you in front of everyone if you were still in love with him, that was really stupid.” In love. It's weird to hear that about Minghao again, after so many days of getting over him, those words attached to him feel odd.

“And I’m sorry for not noticing that you and Chan liked each other, you really are perfect for one another by the way.”

“Thanks,” your comment breaks a laugh out of her, and you can finally breathe, “so are we ok? I really hate fighting, especially with you.” As the atmosphere relaxes between you two, Jihyun finally grabs one of the cupcakes you bought and starts eating it.

“Yes, I hate fighting too let’s not do that ever again please.” Making up was so easy, you feel ashamed for walking out on her, but now you’ll never do it again.

“Great cause I have something to ask you,” the relief you felt quickly turns into curiosity and you look at her expectantly, “well, it’s more so to confirm Chan's suspicions that a question but, do you have something going on with his brother?”

Red rushes to your face and your stomach drops in shock. Your shyness is a dead giveaway and Jihyun catches up in no time.

“Oh my god he was right?! You must tell me everything now!” Excitement shines through Jihyun’s voice, talking loudly and earning a few weird looks from people passing by.

“Nothing happened, I guess we’re together often and Chan noticed,” the disappointment on your voice is noticeable, “he’s really nice.”

“Channie told me yesterday that you two were acting weird and asked me if you had told me anything.” Jihyun notices something’s wrong, she stretches her hand to take yours, “did he do something?”

“It’s more about what he didn’t do”. The questioning look she gives you urges you to continue, “we went on a walk last night after dinner and Chan caught us before leaving, and I just,” remembering everything you talked about, how he wished he’d met you before, it’s a new kind of pain you’ve never felt before, “I thought he might like me or something, but it was stupid.”

“You know, for Chan to think there was something between you, I don’t think it’s nothing.” Jihyun always tries to be positive, and you do too, but this time you just can’t.

“Well, he had the chance, and he didn’t do anything, I was giving him bedroom eyes and everything!” Now you’re starting to get mad. At you. At him. At you for believing this was more than a passing friendship. At him for being so kind and hot and nice and handsome and a good listener and everything a girl could ask for.

“Maybe he got nervous!”

“He doesn’t seem like the type of guy to get nervous around girls.”

And you’re right. He isn’t. So why did you have such an effect on him that he couldn’t make a move?

From Mingyu’s point of view everything was different. He understood after a few days that he liked you a little more than he should, and it only intensified after you watched the sunrise together.

After your date that shouldn’t be called a date at all, but it felt like one to him, all he wanted was to kiss you, to prove that you’re worthy of someone being head over heels for you. He had been thinking about it the whole night, but in that moment, he froze.

You were looking at him so expectantly, with droopy eyes like you wanted to eat him. It was too much for him, and he’s beating himself for it since.

As soon as you closed your door, his feet automatically lead him to the windy beach, with only the tiny porch roof to shield him from the storm, but he didn’t care.

In the morning, he woke up before everyone as usual and started making breakfast for the two of you, hoping you won’t hate him, hoping he didn’t lose his chance. But then he saw you sprint out the front door like you were running away from him.

All day Mingyu’s been waiting to get you alone, but you were always so busy, talking with someone else or helping to clean up so the house is squeaky clean before everyone leaves tomorrow. If he doesn’t get to explain himself and make it right, he fears he probably won’t see you again for a long time.

As your last night at the house, everyone decided to have a goodbye party. And by ‘party’ you mean a hang out with no alcohol, because no one wanted to drive six hours while hang over and because you all spent the whole day cleaning and tidying everything up. Just hang out, playing games, maybe one beer or two, not enough to get anyone drunk.

Sitting on the couches as usual, you can feel Mingyu’s gaze piercing through you from across the room. You did avoid him all day, making yourself busy whenever you saw him around, but you didn’t think he noticed.

Your attempts to evade his overwhelming presence are pointless. You don’t look at him, focusing on whoever is talking or pretending to look for something on your phone, but every time you stretch to grab something off the table, he coincidentally goes for it too.

The distance between you might not be noticeable for the naked eye, just casually sitting across from each other, you’re not one to talk much so it’s usual for you to look at who’s talking and not interrupt them. Mingyu’s just the same, but his eyes seem to have got a life of their own and wander to you at your every movement.

It’s killing Mingyu inside to know that you’re avoiding him. He knows he fucked up, but fears that if he confronts you, you’ll just deny it. There's not much he can do in this group setting.

His opportunity arises when everyone decides to do a movie night. It’s weird to watch a movie on your last night, but he won’t oppose to it if it’s an unanimous decision. And when you’re tasked with the popcorn, he knows it’s time to talk to you without anyone hearing. He tags along, throwing some lame excuse to the others saying he’ll help you.

You object, you’ll do just fine on your own, but your legs betray you and don’t stop even when he insists. You’re both inside the kitchen in no time and there’s no running back.

“I’ll just heat the bags on the microwave, and you can take them to the coffee table.” You avoid looking at him too much, trying to focus as best as you can, but the popcorn bags are nowhere to be found. You look inside every cabinet, doing a very rigorous search, anything to keep the interaction as short as possible.

“Let me help you.” As the kind man Mingyu is, he attempts to join you in the search, but if he gets a mere inch closer to you, you might lose it.

“No, it’s fine I can find them.” It comes out harsher than you intend, but at least he backs away.

There’s a minute of silence, only your huffs of frustration can be heard.

“I’m sorry.”

You stop in your tracks, search already forgotten as you scavenge through your mind to find any usable words to respond.

“About what?” You huff incredulously.

“About last night.” Mingyu looks small as he waits for your reply.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” The big kitchen suddenly feels too small, the four walls imprisoning you. You ignore his figure as you walk over to the tiny storage room right beside the kitchen. Maybe there are forgotten popcorn bags there and you can finally end this conversation. But Mingyu's committed to his cause and follows you.

“But there is.” It’s almost annoying how adamant he is about whatever he wants to say. You don’t want him to pity you, it’s already embarrassing enough.

“It’s fine, really.” Mingyu followed you inside the tiny room, and when you turn around to face him, he’s dangerously close. Your breath hitches, but you force yourself to not have another reaction.

“It’s not,” barely a meter separates you from Mingyu, too close for your liking but at the same time too far. He realizes and moves forward half a step, so now if you concentrate enough, you can feel his breath as he speaks, “I know you’ve been avoiding me all day because of what happened... I shouldn’t have-”

“Look, maybe I've been avoiding you but it’s because I want to keep the last bit of pride I have left, I thought you wanted to kiss me and you didn’t, it’s okay, you don’t have to pity m-”

The words stop coming out of your mouth a millisecond before Mingyu grabs your face and smashes his lips against yours with force.

The kiss lasts merely seconds, but you melt under his touch instantly. Mingyu’s lips mold over yours perfectly, pillowy and soft, but with authority.

He backs away slowly, your eyes still closed, and your foreheads connected, he gives you a peck before finally separating.

“I wanted to kiss you, I mean, I want to, like all the time.” You watch him with glossy eyes, still dizzy from the kiss.

Your bodies are close like they’ve never been before, you have to move your head up to even see his face. The pumps of your heart are so strong he might even feel them. Your mouth hangs open in shock, your brain makes no sense of what’s happening, and words don’t seem to want to get out of you.

“I should've done that yesterday.” Mingyu can barely contain his smile as he confesses.

“Yeah, you should've!” You chuckle as you jokingly slap him on the chest, “Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” his hands sneak around your waist, fingers creeping inside your t-shirt to touch your bare skin, “you make me nervous.”

“Right, but you don't seem so nervous now,” as his fingers trace circles on your sides, your arms wrap around his neck naturally. Your faces get ever so slightly closer by the second, your chin up and his head down, eyes connected in a trance that draws a smirk on his face.

“Do you forgive me?” He breaks the eye contact, gaze focused on your parted lips.

“Hmm, I don’t know… I’m not convinced yet.” It’s your turn to smirk, trying to get a reaction out of him.

Mingyu’s eyes change before something takes over in him. He wraps his arms around your waist and erases the little distance between your bodies, connecting your lips in a frenzy kiss, nothing like the sweet one before. Your arms hug his neck, bringing his face and body impossibly closer to yours.

You sigh when his hands start traveling across your back as he deepens the kiss, licking your lower lip and tangling your tongues together. His arms hug your waist up, forcing you on your tiptoes to reach his height while your hands on his neck push him down. Like a game of push and pull, both of you fighting for dominance, one pushes their body against the other and the other pushes you both closer, if even possible.

Inside you feel like exploding. You knew you wanted him, but your body wants more, you need more. From the first touch the only thing on your mind is him, his hands on you, your chests flushed together, his lips on yours with force, where they belong. Everywhere he touches feels like it’s on fire. When his hands sneak below your t-shirt and his fingers wander around the unexplored territory, you sigh on his mouth again and you feel his smirk against your lips.

The metal shelves dig onto your back, but you don’t care, all that’s on your mind is him, until some lonely can falls to the ground and makes an inexplicable loud noise that alerts not only the two of you.

“Is everything okay?” Chan’s question comes from far away, but it’s enough to make you jump and push Mingyu away from your face.

“Yeah! We just,” You’re too out of breath to speak more than a couple of words, “couldn’t find the freaking popcorn.”

“Doesn’t Mingyu remember where we keep it?” You turn to catch Mingyu as he smugly retrieves his hand from behind your head to reveal the bags you’ve been looking for.

“Need any help?” Chan’s voice gets dangerously closer.

“No need! Thank you!” You take your chance to snatch the popcorn out of Mingyu's hands and start walking away from him and towards the kitchen, “Mingyu’s so annoying!” You hear Chan's laugh as he leaves.

“But you like me as I am,” Mingyu whispers in your ear, already caught up beside you, smirk so prominent you can even hear it.

“Is it too late to retract?”

“Yep, you’ll have to deal with me forever now.”

“Forever huh?” The humming of the microwave accompanies the moment as you turn around to find Mingyu standing against the kitchen island, arms stretched as if he’s showing off his muscles. He definitely catches you ogling him, but that’s what’s fun.

The knowledge that you’re able to make him nervous is too powerful. Your hunger translates in the way you look at him, standing against the sink in the same way he is, you look at him exactly the same way as the night before, lust and want almost tangible.

You stand still, waiting for him again, but this time he doesn’t chicken out. Slowly, he steps closer to you and cages you in between his arms. The air becomes too thick, atmosphere heavy as you look up at him expectantly.

The microwave beeps behind you but none of you react, too in your own bubble to care about the outside world. His eyes switch between yours, with his eyebrows raised and lightly biting his lower lip, using no words but telling you everything.

His hands sneak around your waist, and you don’t fight the smile cracking on your lips. You move your head forward, craving his lips on yours again.

“Guys what’s taking so long?” You’ve never separated faster. You barely get to turn around and open the microwave before Chan appears inside the kitchen, notoriously troubled. A few steps by your left, Mingyu searches for bowls, his back facing the both of you as to not reveal his blushed face.

Chan’s eyes switch between watching his brother and watching you, waiting for an answer as you grab the piping hot bag and dump the freshly done popcorn into a bowl. The silence is telling, even to him.

“Sorry, we’ll be right there.” Chan grabs the bowl reluctantly, clearly aware that something happened, just not sure what. As he walks away, he even turns his head around to analyze the two of you for a second.

The movie democratically chosen is quite interesting at first, but after some boring scenes, the little power of concentration you have evaporates. Mingyu’s body is next to yours, legs touching and his arm resting on the back of the couch. What you want need is so close yet so far.

You sit back so he can wrap his arm around you without raising any suspicions, goosebumps run across your entire body when he finally does.

Not engaged in the movie at all, you opt for looking at the man by your side. Mingyu notices your gaze as soon as it lands on him, but he pretends he doesn’t. Everything about your current situation is making him lose his mind. The way you keep searching for his touch, even with all your friends surrounding you, inviting him to sit so close to you, not hiding as you stare at him, everything is making him nervous. The nervousness from the night before crawls back onto his body, because of you, his brother’s best friend, here, how you’re making him feel. He just doesn’t know how to act around you.

As he wraps his arms around you, you snuggle closer to him, only a blanket hiding your closeness from prying eyes. The movie’s long forgotten, with your head on Mingyu’s shoulder, you can only concentrate the rise and fall of his chest, his soft touches on the side of your arm. His warmth is hypnotizing, prompting your hand to place itself on the uncovered skin of his thigh, just above his knee. You don’t miss the way his breath hitches at your touch, goosebumps reveal around the cold of your hand. He expects for you to move it, but your hand stays there, squeezing softly, much too close to his knee, for a few minutes.

When a fight scene breaks on the movie, you take advantage of the noise and the initial shock, and move your palm slightly up Mingyu’s thigh, over his shorts but closer to where his groin starts to wake up.

Judging by Mingyu’s face, there’s nothing suspicious about you two. He stays looking up front, pretending to pay attention to the screen, while inside all he can think about is your hand and what you’re planning to do with it. The expectations excite him just as much as they scare him. All he wants is your body close to his, making you feel through his actions just how much he likes you, but he didn’t think you’d start something while surrounded by all your friends. It’s dark, only the movie lights up the room, and you’re on the far end on the couch where it would be hard for anyone to see you, but it’s still quite exposing. Someone could catch you, you don’t seem to care, and it excites him more than it should.

“I know what you’re doing,” you barely hear his whisper through all the noise.

“Is it working?” Your thumb slowly grazes his skin as he flexes his thigh muscles.

“I have probably minutes of self-control left, so we’ll see.” He backs his head away again and you turn to watch his reaction as your hand moves over his already semi hard cock. Only a few touches and he’s already halfway up. It fills you with pride to know how much of an effect you have on him. Big, strong, serious Mingyu, coming apart under your hand.

Your palm moves up and down his covered length slowly, feeling it getting harder under your touch. His reactions are so minimal that you only notice because you pay attention closely.

What you didn’t anticipate was his hand creeping up your thigh. Slowly, his fingers find their way inside the tiny shorts you put on, drawing circles on your inner thigh, nowhere near enough to your core but still sending waves of arousal through your whole body.

Half of the run time of the movie passes, but your touches stay over your clothes, teasing, barely grazing. You stop palming him the second his index fingers ghosts over your covered clit, your breath hitches and you’re too shocked to keep up your movements. As the seconds pass, Mingyu runs his fingers through your covered folds, feeling how wet you already are.

The movie’s suddenly silent, the main characters looking at each other in the eyes. It's probably a very important scene, but you only concentrate on not making any noise as Mingyu works you up under the blanket.

With your hand still motionless on Mingyu's cock, he stretches until his head reaches your ears when the scene changes and noise fills the room again.

“Let’s go to my room.” There’s no hesitation in his voice.

“You don’t wanna watch the ending?” You tease back. You don’t even know what happened in the movie this whole time.

“If I don’t have my fingers inside you in the next five minutes, I might go crazy.” His statement leaves your jaw hanging as he, contrary to what he just said, removes his hand from you.

“I’m sorry guys, gotta drive tomorrow,” Mingyu suddenly gets up and everyone's confused eyes are on him, “don’t wanna be up until too late.” And with those words, he’s out of the living room in no time.

Everyone's eyes, including Chan’s, go back to the screen, but you stay still. Should you follow after him right now? It’ll be too suspicious, but do you really care?

You wait until the scene changes, as to not seem too obvious, and fake a loud yawn.

“Sorry guys I think I'm calling it a night,” every move you make, you make sure to do it slowly, to show how tired you are, “I don’t wanna fall asleep on the couch.”

As you take a few steps, Jihyun calls for you, “But it’s about to end!”

“Oh! I’ve already seen it it’s fine,” you lie as you face the hallway again, your back turned to Jihyun so your face doesn’t expose you.

You can hear her voice saying something like liar! You wanted to watch it! But you don’t turn back, because you can see Mingyu waiting by his door. He's about to speak but you run and smash your lips with his before he can utter a word.

Your bodies are so tangled together you stumble backwards, but luckily Mingyu manages to catch you before you fall and turns you both inside his room. With his hand pillowing your head, he pins you against the now closed door and you both laugh lightly at your clumsiness. But as soon as your eyes land on each other again, it’s like you’re both hypnotized because your mouths attach again like magnets.

His hair feels soft between your fingers, long enough for you to tug at it lightly. He groans against your mouth and now it’s your turn to smirk. That ignites something in him, because he presses you against the wall at the next tug you give him.

He’s everywhere. His thighs intertwined with yours, his firm chest against yours, one hand on your waist and the other on your neck.

The feeling of his lips is addicting, and now that you’ve finally tasted him you never want to go back. His mouth glides over yours with familiarity, like it’s something he's been doing for years, like he knows exactly how to get you head over heels for him.

You chase his lips as he steps back just a little, and you instantly miss the warmth of his body. The only light source in his room is the moonlight beaming though the window, but it’s enough to admire Mingyu’s messy hair and blood red lips. Your hands stay around his neck and his on your waist, neither of you wanting to stop touching the other.

A strand of hair blocks your view for a second before he brushes it back and tucks it behind your ear.”

“Did you mean all that?” Not his words, but his actions. Kissing you. Did it mean the same for him as it did for you?

“I've been wanting to do that for days,” his hand caresses the side of your face gently and you lean into his touch.

His lips are on your again without warning and you melt at his touch, giving in to him. His lips guide yours slowly, taking his time savoring you. Every move of his has a purpose, every deliberate touch makes you more needy for him.

He's in total control, caging your body against the door, pressing himself against you so you feel his almost fully hard dick against your upper thigh.

His mouth travels down to your neck and makes you gasp, leaving damp kisses on your sensitive skin. Your hands play with the hem of his black t-shirt, and you feel his smirk against your neck. His hands travel all around your body, from your neck to your back to your waist and your ass. You feel him everywhere every second and the heat inside you intensifies per second.

The only thing on your mind is having him. Your hands start lifting his shirt up, he smirks against your lips before separating briefly to take it off and slip his shoes off. You do the same.

You barely get a glimpse of his shirtless body before he’s on you again. Lips on lips, skin on skin, your insides pulsate with need feeling every muscle of his against you. His biceps tense under your touch when he picks you up by your thighs effortlessly.

Legs wrapped around his waist, Mingyu walks with you on his arms towards his bed. He makes sure to drop you softly before getting on top of you. His mouth finds your neck again as he lets you feel his hard bulge against your core. You grind against him, eliciting a moan out of the both of you, but it’s not enough.

With your legs still wrapped around his waist, you press him further against you. Even with the layers of clothes between you, his length grinds deliciously against you, the friction causing the heat inside you to fire up and the idea of having him inside releases a wave of arousal.

“Mingyu!” You intend to draw his attention, but he grinds against you again and it comes out like a moan. He hums against your skin and your fingers on his hair and back encourage him further. His hands roam your body until they reach your poorly clothed chest, but the lousy fabric doesn’t stop him from groping with excitement.

“Mingyu take off your pants.” You manage to grab his head to make him look at you, and he follows immediately.

You take your pants and bra off easily and prop on your elbows to admire him while he struggles to take his off. His frustration makes you chuckle, but his defined muscles distract you quickly. You saw him in just swim shorts days ago, you knew what to expect, but it still shocks you how broad his shoulders are, how his pecs flex at the tiniest movement. The size of his biceps are probably three times the size of yours.

When he finally throws his pants away, he aims to get on top of you again, but you think ahead. You move to the side, so he drops on the bed, and you get on top of his big thighs. The little fabric between you allows you to feel just how hard he is under you, hitting all the right places, making you moan while wetness gushes out of you.

Your hands travel slowly through his chest, fingers tracing his muscles, torturing him with your slow pace and making him squirm at your touch. His little sighs and whines are music to your ears, reaching the deepest parts inside you and ruining your panties more and more.

Proud of the effect you have on him, you grind softly and feel his hard twitch under you. But your fun doesn’t last. Mingyu grabs you by the neck and lowers your body until your faces are millimeters apart, keeping your hands from moving. He attempts to kiss you, but you grind on him again, causing him to moan in your mouth.

“You’re making me crazy,” his lips graze yours when he speaks, and you have to fight every internal scream telling you to kiss him back.

“Good.” You smirk as you shimmy down until your core is no longer sitting on top of his, leaving kisses down his neck while your hand travels down to palm him.

He sighs when your hand sneaks under his underwear to feel his now fully hard cock. Your hand barely wraps around him as you slide it up and down his length slowly, smearing the precum coming out from the tip.

Every little reaction Mingyu gives you encourages you to continue. Every moan when you squeeze harder, every whine when you pay attention to the tip, every sigh when you leave tiny bite marks around his clavicle, where no one else would be able to see them, but hopefully you.

Your wrist works hard as you notice Mingyu’s breath getting heavier and faster, and the fire inside you becomes impossible to ignore.

“Do you have a condom?” You ask as you slowly stop your movements. The ache between your legs keeps you from concentrating on anything else. If he wanted to, he could slide right in with how wet you are.

“Maybe,” the raise of his eyebrows tells you he’s up to no good and you look at him questioningly, “there’s something I gotta do first.” He slots between your legs with a smirk, hands on both sides of your waist and mouth getting closer to your ear.

“Gonna make you cum so hard you won’t even know your name.” His lips leave a trail of kisses below your ear to your mouth, and you sigh as he connects your lips once again. His hands go down and spread your thighs, taking his time grazing and groping everywhere between your inner thighs except for where you want him the most. You can only sigh and push him more against you, still in shock from his previous words.

One hand ghosts over your somehow still clothed core and you try to grind against it, but he moves it away with a chuckle.

“I need you,” you gasp when his hand presses against your pussy, fingers running up and down your lower lips and teases your hole through your panties, “please Gyu,” the nickname slips out of you with a moan.

“Whatever you want baby,” the not so accidental pet name goes straight to your core, too wet by now.

Mingyu starts a trail of kisses down your jaw to your boobs, paying especial attention to them while helping you out of your panties. You try to press against him, now fully naked, but he pins your hips down with force.

His head goes down leaving wet kisses on your skin and making you needier and needier until he reaches your pulsing core.

“You’re so wet already,” he kisses all around, teasing you endlessly as his hands pins you down so you don’t grind up to him, and his breath fans over your wet hole making you shiver, “so needy for me.”

“I swear if you don’t st-Fuuccck,” his tongue flattens on your core mid-sentence, slowly licking up and down, drowning any thought you might possibly have. He dives into you with no intend of stopping any time soon.

The dreamlike scenario of his head between your legs is in no way comparable to reality. He switches between swirling his tongue around your clit and teasing your entrance, drinking up all the juices you give him.

It's embarrassing how fast you’re getting to your orgasm with just a few minutes of him working you up. You tremble as he tortures your clit with his tongue once again, sucking on it lightly almost making you scream. You don’t care how loud you are, and he loves how you sound, how you moan uncontrollably because of him.

His hair is all disheveled because of your hands, tugging and pressing him closer to your core. He moans as he tastes you, sending vibrations through your whole body.

When you close your legs unconsciously around his head, he spreads you again with force, keeping you from shivering and adding newfound energy to tip you over the edge.

“Feels s-sso good Gyu oh my god,” his tongue teases your hole as his nose perfectly grazes your clit. Your mind is so numb you keep mumbling praises you can’t understand, the only thing you know is your orgasm is so close to snapping, you can almost see it, hear it, taste it.

You tremble in his hold, and he knows you’re close. Your hands on his hair keep him in place as you grind on his face, intensifying everything. He moans as you use him, and the vibrations finally make you snap.

Your legs tremble as his tongue licks you clean of the mix of saliva and your juices. It's when it becomes too much for you that you push his head back, and the sight leaves you more breathless than you already were. His chin is covered in your arousal and his lips are swollen from the work they’ve done.

His head stays on the lower side of your body, kissing your inner thighs as you recover. You can only watch him, his hands touching and massaging every part of your legs he can reach, his lips so close to your core, but teasing around where you’re starting to need him again.

“You look really pretty like this.” His words send shivers down your spine.

“So I usually don’t?” He halts his movements as you tease to look you in the eye but continues after he takes notice of the teasing tone.

“You are always pretty,” you throw your head back against the pillow at his words, “every second of every day,” the kisses on your inner thigh come closer and closer to your core, already gushing with need.

His lips ghost over your folds as he backs away just the tiniest bit to reveal his index finger moving towards his mouth. His eyes connect with yours as he licks his fingers, and the sight almost blocks your airways. You don’t want to stop watching but when his wet finger starts circling around your clit slowly, your eyes shut instinctively.

You feel him collecting your juices when he suddenly dips his finger into your hole. You moan at the intrusion but he’s quick to remove it and he’s back at circling around your wet clit.

He does the motion a few times, finger in then quickly out, circles around your covered clit with the freshly collected juices, and repeat.

“please" only a broken whisper leaves your mouth as your hand stops his movements. Your eyes connect with Mingyu’s after what feels like hours of teasing, and you can see a little smirk forming before following your needs.

His two fingers enter you slowly, letting you feel everything until he’s knuckle deep inside you. You’re so wet and needy from the foreplay that they just slide in.

He stretches your velvety walls perfectly, with a pace hard and deep that has you moaning uncontrollably.

When he finds that perfect spot that has you seeing stars, your hand jolts down to keep his in place and his fingers start abusing your gspot mercilessly. You almost scream when he adds a third finger inside you, squelching sounds filling the rooms with your moans as you get closer and closer to another orgasm.

Your walls begin to spasm around his fingers, letting him know that you're close once again. With your hand freeing his, he thrusts sharper into you, even if your walls close hard around them pushing them out.

All 5 senses explode within you when you feel his tongue toying with your clit again and your second orgasm hits powerfully. His hands help keep you in place as he maintains his movements, prolonging the orgasm as he pleases.

He licks his fingers clean as he climbs on top of you again. Your haze connects with his and you can’t look away as he removes his digits from his mouth and directs them to yours. Almost robotically, you open your mouth to welcome them and lick them clean without breaking eye contact. The mix of your juices and his saliva spike something within you. Your gaze turns to fire as you grab Mingyu by the neck and pull him towards you. Your lips connect with his fingers in between, both of you licking then clean as the same time. Your tongue plays with his fingers, finding his tongue doing the same and intertwining.

Entranced by you, Mingyu backs away once more and can only watch as you lick his fingers like it was his cock. Your eyes still meet his as you swirl your tongue around and eventually stop with a pop.

The speed of light doesn’t compare to how fast Mingyu crashes his lips with yours again. He grabs you by the waist and flips you both so now his back is against the headboard and you're sitting on top of him. His lips guide yours lazily as his hands travel around your naked back, and when you moan when he grinds up to you, he has to stop before he cums straight away.

You’re still recovering from the earth-shattering orgasm he gave you to speak, and he just looks at you with a little smile growing on his face. He pecks you sweetly, but when you don’t respond he worries.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m more than okay,” you chuckle as you feel your face turning pink, “you were kind of a beast down there, I need a second.”

“I could do that every day if you let me,” he sounds way too enthusiastic as he begins a trail of wet kisses on your neck. A moan escapes you when his hands find your breasts and your wetness uncomfortably starts to stain his boxers below you.

“Take these off.” You grab the waistline of his boxers to draw Mingyu's attention away from your neck and it works. He slips them off at the speed of light and you're back on top of him.

Your wet folds finally come in contact with his cock and you both moan at the feeling. With his hands on your waist, he aims to kiss you, but you surprise him by grinding on him and he moans on your mouth, your lips barely touching. His veiny cock grazes against your clit deliciously, clouding any coherent thought you may have. Mingyu’s just as gone as you are, with his hands playing with your boobs and your juices wetting his entire cock, he might just be in heaven.

“I’ll cum If you keep going like that,” Mingyu has half the mind to speak up. It’s a warning, but you take it as a challenge.

“What if that’s what I want?” You wrap your arms around his neck as best as you can as you slowly keep grinding on him, trying to hide the fact that it has as much of an effect on you as it does on him, maybe even more.

“Hmm I don’t think that’s what you want.” His left-hand sneaks between your bodies as the other plays with your nipple and you halt your movements. His fingers quickly find your clit and press on it with a little force, making you gasp.

“You can have anything you want, if you just ask.” His hands pleasuring you everywhere simultaneously blur your mind. You can’t find it in you to form a coherent sentence, so you resume your grinding. It's so slow you can feel every drag against you, every vein against your wet folds, his tip perfectly against your clit. You want nothing more than to feel him inside you, stretching you until your walls are shaped like him.

“Need you inside,” your words come out more of a gasp than anything, “please.”

Mingyu’s hands stray away from your body, quickly reaching the small packet that was waiting on his nightstand and rips it open as you move away from his cock to give him some space. He rolls the condom on swiftly and you stop yourself from jumping on him.

His hands on your waist and yours on his shoulders to stabilize you, you slowly sink on his length. Yours and Mingyu’s moans synchronize as his cock stretches your walls, filling you up until you feel him on your throat.

When you completely sink down on him, he reaches so deep you almost have trouble breathing, reaching places you’re just now discovering. You stay still as your gummy walls hug his length tightly, trying to get used to the new stretch. Sensing your hesitation to move, Mingyu kisses you softly, both of you melting into the other’s touch. Your arms wrap themselves around his neck for the millionth time, like they’re meant to be there until the end of time, and the slight movement causes Mingyu to shift inside you.

His lips muffle your moans as one of his hands sneak back down to stimulate your clit once again. His fingers draw circles on you, you can feel your arousal dripping onto him, and little by little, the stretch stops stinging, the feeling replaced by want and need.

Using his body to support you, you lift your hips slowly. His low groans fill your ears as every vein drags inside of you deliciously.

Without warning, you sit back with force, getting a moan out of the both of you. His lust filled eyes watch you in awe as his hands grab your ass while you’re repeating the motion. The addictive hitting of his cock inside you almost makes you not notice how tired you’re getting.

Mingyu stops you once you sink down again, embracing you with his arms and pulling you towards him. Your chests are flushed together again as he kisses you deeply, his tongue quickly encountering yours, and he flips you over.

Your back hits the mattress and he's between your legs again. He begins a slow pace, thrusting into you until his pelvis barely touches your swollen clit and then almost all the way out. The pace continues to be torturous until he finds the spot he’s been looking for and you almost scream, egging him on to hit it again and again and again.

With force, every thrust of his hips has you seeing stars. You can’t control your noises any longer, even mumbling a few phrases you can’t quite decipher, but that Mingyu seems to like.

The bed squeaks and hits the wall repeatedly but neither of you care. With your legs wrapped around his waist and your nails digging on his back, you can only think about the tight knot on your lower stomach about to burst.

His face is so close to yours, but neither of you have the mind to do anything other than moan in each other's mouths. Any sound you make, he replicates, blessing your ears and sending waves of pleasure to your already so close body.

Your walls are tightening so hard that Mingyu has trouble keeping up his fast pace, but after telling him how close you are, he starts pounding on you so hard you have to hug him so stay in place. Caged between your arms and legs, Mingyu’s body is glued to yours, his hot skin burning him on you as he drills your insides and blurs your brain.

“y-you’re so t-tight, pleasse tell me you’re cl-close,” his words barely register on your mind and your brain can’t work out a response, so he makes sure you hear him by putting his mouth next to your ear, but never stopping pounding into you, “are you fucked dumb already?”

His words shoot straight to your core, pulsing tight around him. Mingyu tries to muffle a moan by chuckling, but you already know the effect you have on him.

“s-so close Gyu, wish you-” you clench around him around him as you say, “wish you could come inside.”

Mingyu’s hips stutter at your words, and he has to slow down his pace to not cum right that second, but doesn’t miss the chance to play your little game, “you’d like that wouldn’t you? Me filling you up until you’re so full you start dripping?” His lips leave a trail of goosebumps below your ear, giving you a few kissed around your neck before going back up to look you in the eyes as he continues his tortuously slow thrusts.

“Yes yes I want it so bad,” you have no idea if what you’re saying makes any sense, but the smirk Mingyu shows is worth it.

“You wouldn’t waste a single drop right?” his thrust become hard and pointed after you nod eagerly, hitting your gspot with force after every word that leaves his mouth, “I'd stuff it back into you, and you’d be a good girl and keep it in.”

The pet name combined with the sharp thrusts send you over the edge embarrassingly fast. Without warning, you’re cumming on Mingyu’s cock, moaning all kinds of nonsense, squeezing him so tight it’s hard for him to delay his own orgasm. His thrusts don’t stop, stretching you orgasm and chasing his, and in no time, you feel his dick twitch inside you as his hips stutter with a moan.

He stills inside you, body draped over yours as you both recover. You're so tired your eyes start closing on their own, but Mingyu sliding out of you wakes you up instantly, triggering a quiet moan out of your throat.

You don’t want him to leave, and he catches your worried eyes as he gets up, “I’m going to grab a towel to clean up, I'll be right back,” he reassures you with a soft hand on your thigh.

After he hands you a clean towel, he gets back to the bathroom to clean himself up.

Alone in his bedroom and all cleaned up, you scan around after grabbing his big t-shirt to wear. It's obvious this is the room he uses in their frequent family visits, judging by the framed photos and the few posters on the walls. Even with only the bedside table lamp on, except the clothes recently scattered around the floor, you can see you clean and tidy the room is, his clothes are packed neatly, only a few items still on his desk.

“That looks nice on you,” Mingyu’s voice startles you, and you find him watching you from the bathroom door.

“Thanks, it’s some guys’, you probably don’t know him.” He chuckles, walking towards the bed as you tuck yourself in.

“And who is this mystery guy?” Mingyu asks as he get in bed behind you, embracing you in his arms with your back against his chest.

“It’s this guy who’s totally head over heels for me,” you turn around in his arms to find him smiling, “and I really like him too.” His eye wrinkles appear as his smile widens, but you don’t notice as you’re too shy to look at him again after your confession.

“He’s really lucky then.” Mingyu, aware of your shyness, grabs your chin and makes you look at him, “do you really?” The question freezes you in place as lock his serious gaze. He’s dying of nervousness inside, worrying about you, and him, and the two of you.

“Yes,” your voice comes out small and careful, but it relaxes him, “I really do like you Mingyu.”

No words can describe the burst of emotions Mingyu feels as those words leave your mouth. He can only hug you tighter and aim to kiss you, but you turn your head away laughing.

“Hey hey hey! What about you! I’m not letting you anywhere near me until you give me an honest reply!” You find yourself play fighting with this giant man for like three seconds before he pins you down.

“Funny thing to say while you’re in my bed, wearing my shirt,” your hands are trapped by his on both sides on your head, he’s all you can see, and you have no choice but to look him in the eyes. “I know I should’ve said it before, but I really like you too, I’m most comfortable when I’m with you, I’ve never felt like this before and I don’t want this to be a quick fling between us.”

His confession has your stomach doing flips and turns, your blood rushing to your cheeks and ears, and your smile to wide it almost hurts. “That's what I wanted to hear.”

DAY SEVEN

Mingyu’s arms now rank first as your favorite place to sleep ever.

After making each other repeat their confessions multiple times – mostly you, but he found he loves the way you blush every time you say you like him – and kissing lazily while wrapped around one another, time flashed by and sleepiness got to the both of you.

The culprit of waking you up from your dream forcefully is Mingyu’s damn alarm, ringing and ringing somewhere in his room. You turn a couple of times, trying to locate his phone without getting up, but it’s pointless.

“Mingyuuuu your phone,” your voice echoes alongside the annoying alarm as you try to wake him up.

“Hmm sorry,” his raspy voice barely reaches you as he gets up and grabs his phone from the pocket of his pants laying on the floor.

He quickly gets back under the covers, wrapping his arms around you and snuggling against you, both of you too awake by now to get back to sleep.

Your eyes are closed, but you can feel his chest rising and falling behind you and his hand caresses your waist through his t-shirt. You lay your hand over his as he kisses your neck softly.

“Good morning beautiful.” You’re too trapped in his embrace to turn around and face him, but you get to hide the blush that creeps up your cheeks at his words.

“Good morning.” Being wrapped around Mingyu’s warmth is addicting, his touch, his smell, his skin. How did you live all these years without them? “Should we get up? Everyone is probably awake by now.” You really don’t want to, but sadly you can’t stay here forever.

“We will, we will,” his hands wander lower and lower on your body, contradicting his words, until they reach the hem of your his shirt and sneak inside to caress your bare skin as he keeps kissing your neck, “are you not wearing-”

The sentence is left unfinished, his state of shock loosens his hug and you’re able to turn in his embrace, cocky smile on your face as he tries to figure you out.

“Oh, I must’ve forgot!” Mingyu joins you in a chuckle, hugging you tightly again and bringing your face towards him. Lazily kissing him, with your limbs intertwined and a little morning sleepiness, everything makes you so dizzy, already needy for him.

His tongue breaches into your mouth, messily dancing with yours as his hand pushes your shirt up and sneak to your core.

You don’t stay still. With your hands you touch and grope every spot of his torso you can reach, earning a few sighs from him, and you slowly start grinding on his hand, coating his curious fingers with your arousal.

Mingyu moans in your mouth when your hand catches his growing bulge, trying to be as quiet as possible in case anyone awake wanders your way.

“You’re gonna be de death of me.” His raspy whisper shoots straight to your core, but you can’t give him a proper reply, his lips go back to yours to shut you up as his fingers run through your wet folds.

Both of your hands work wonders on the other, your hand sneaks under his boxers to stroke him properly while he toys with your clit. It’s getting more and more difficult to quiet down the sounds coming from your mouths, your mind barely able to remember that task as the fire inside you stomach arises.

A knock on the door freezes you both in place. You stop breathing, locking eyes with Mingyu, waiting for the unannounced person to speak up. He looks as scared as you probably are as you both wait.

Another knock makes you get away from one another, and the ruffling sounds draw the attention of the one outside the door.

“Are you awake bro?” Chan asks through the door, luckily not opening it. Your eyes emanate panic as you evaluate every possible outcome for this interaction, but Mingyu motions for you to calm down.

“Hmm yeah, what do you want?” He pretends to just wake up, feigning a loud yawn.

“You know where y/n is? She’s not in her room and Jihyun’s looking for her.” Now Mingyu panics too, trying to come up with any excuse, no matter how lame.

“I don’t know bro, maybe she’s in the bathroom.” Definitely the lamest excuse ever, but it seems to work.

“Right, right, I’ll tell her that, but get up bro! We’re leaving in like an hour!”

“Okay! I’ll be right out.”

You both stay still, listening as his steps get farther and farther until there’s silence again.

“We really should tell him about us, he won’t be mad.” He sounds serious as he picks up your clothes from the floor.

“Take me out on a date first!” You snatch your clothes from his hands as you both chuckle. How would a date with Mingyu go? Outside of this bubble you created, everything could be different, but the change excites you.

The drive back to the city is full of laughter and songs, just like the first day. This time Chan managed to get on the passenger’s seat first, leaving you sitting next to Jihyun’s curious eyes and separating you from Mingyu.

You feel much better than on the first day. Relaxed, with less weight in your shoulders, and a really hot man making eyes at you through the rear view mirror.

Mingyu leaves Chan and Jihyun at his house first, saying it’s more practical to drop them off first and then you. None of them argue about it, and Jihyun throws a wink your way as you get on the passenger’s seat.

“You know, yesterday Jihyun asked me about us, she says everyone’s suspicious.” You mention when he parks in front of your building.

“That’s funny, cause Chan asked me today too, he intercepted me as soon as I got to the kitchen.” He replies and gets out of the car, leaving you hanging for a few seconds before opening your door.

“Really?” Mingyu’s grabbing your bags while you’re dying of curiosity behind him. “And what did you say?”

He chuckles as you walk towards your building, car locked and your bags still in his hands. He only answers once you get to the elevator.

“I told him… that I really like you.” A smile cracks wide on your face. You’ll never get tired of him saying that.

“And did he seem okay with it?” You quickly reach your floor and head to your door, anxiety creeping up on you at the thought of Mingyu being inside your apartment.

“Yeah! He even seemed kind of happy,” you stand by your door just watching him expectantly and he seems confused by your stillness, “are we coming in?”

“Oh yeah just, it’s a little messy I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting to have guests you know.” You turn your door handle slowly, waiting for him to nod before fully opening it.

You walk in slowly, watching his every move and reaction as he steps behind you. He gives it a quick look around before crouching to leave your bags on the floor and walking towards you.

“I like your place, it’s so… you.” His arms wrap softly around your waist, and yours instinctively around his neck.

“How do you know? We’ve know each other for like seven days.” You’re not strangers, you told him stuff you’d never tell anyone else, but you've also known him for a very short amount of time.

“I just know.” The sweet smile he give you melts you in place, if it weren’t for his arms surrounding you, you’d probably fall onto the floor. “And I really want to make that time longer, I meant it when I said forever.”

And he proved to you, time and time again during those seven days, that his words are always true. You have no reason not to trust him, and you always will.

i really hope you liked this >.< share your thoughts!

taglist: @gaslysainz @soffiyuhh @oneandonlyluvv @gyuwoosbabie sorry for the wait

#mingyu au #mingyu smut #seventeen au #seventeen smut #svt smut #kim mingyu smut #kim mingyu au #seventeen fluff #mingyu fluff #kim mingyu fluff #mingyu imagine

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darylbae · 6 months ago

Note

there’s just smth about daryl seeing you injured maybe a broken leg or even an amputated one from a bite and limping, someone holding you up as you walk. he’d almost run over to you and pick you up.

a dumb idea — daryl dixon 🩰

in which you were injured on a run, and daryl can't bare to see you that way without helping.

Rick had chosen you for a run, not alone, but for you to go. He'd seen you were quick, efficient with your melee weapons, and were probably one of the best choices. You were joining Rick and Glenn, Daryl having to sit this one out by Rick's orders. He hadn't cleared the prison in full yet, so he wanted Daryl back here to keep watch. Daryl and you weren't exclusively a thing, neither of you had spoken about it at all, but everyone else could see it was waiting to happen. You were currently just really good friends hiding your feelings for each other, or at least thinking you were hiding your feelings for each other. You were sat in the backseat of the car, happily talking to Glenn as the car rolled towards the gates. You glanced out the window to see Daryl, sulking at the gate yet picking his arm up to wave at you. You returned the gesture, a sweet smile on your face that Daryl had become addicted to. One of the many addicting things about you.

Your positive-for-the-end-of-the-world attitude had come to an end when you'd ran into a building to find some cover, the darkness of the building rendering you blind as your leg had been impaled by a broken bit of a glass shelf. You let out a cry, falling to your feet as Rick and Glenn rushed over to assist you. "You good?" "What happened?" Rick had turned a flashlight to your leg, seeing your jeans ripped and stuck to your leg with the amount of blood. You almost passed out at the look of it, the glass had lodged itself in there pretty snug. "We need to get her back, now," Rick demanded, wrapping an arm around your back and coordinating with Glenn to get you safely to the car. Rick had taken his shirt off and tied it around your leg above the wound, before beginning the drive back to the prison. Glenn had trained his eyes on you and your leg for most of the drive, making sure you were still alive and not dying back there. The drive felt like hours, you felt like closing your eyes but Glenn was adamant on talking to you. Telling you about Maggie, telling you about how sweet Daryl seems to be around you, and you knew it was a distraction tactic, to keep you awake and not looking at your completely blood soaked shin.

You heard the rattle of the gates as they'd slid open for the car, and you felt a short burst of relief to be back. "Dar..." You managed to speak, wincing as Rick had reached for your hand to pull you out. "Daryl." Rick and Glenn had their arms under yours, carrying most of your weight for you. Until Daryl had heard the commotion and come out to see what the fuck people were shouting for.

Daryl saw you. Your leg, completely red from the knee down, being assisted into the prison. He wanted to help, he wanted to ease your pain even just a little. Dropping his crossbow to the ground, he'd paced over to you, relieving Glenn and Rick of their duties. "It's okay, I got ya," he cooed, "I got 'er," he'd lifted you, arms clinging to you as he led you to the cell block. "It's okay, sweetheart." Your blood loss wasn't fatal, thankfully, but Herschel was about to have you on the mend in no time.

You'd been allowed to rest, peeling your eyes open after having slept a while. The first thing you were aware of was the pain in your leg, which was thankfully still there. It was still light outside, so it must not have been long at all. A bottle of water and some pain meds were sat at your bedside, and you'd desperately taken them in order to ease your pain. "There's my girl." You heard, and Daryl had entered your cell and sat at your side. "How's the leg?" You chuckled. "It's seen better days." You could've sworn you'd spotted a smile on his face for a moment. "Were you scared? Did you think I was gonna die?" You teased, poking his arm and smiling innocently up at him. "No," he answered, "you're a fighter. I know that." There was something he was keeping to himself, you could see it in his brain. Almost as if he wasn't allowing himself to say it. It had been a tough process even getting to a friendly level with him, he had always kept his feelings to himself. But you liked to believe you were making progress with him, you wanted to. "What's on your mind?" You asked sweetly, your voice like honey, and he was addicted. God, he was addicted. He wanted nothing more than to have you night and day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But he didn't know the first thing about flirting, or even dating. "Nothin," he grumbled, and you sighed dramatically. "Come on, Daryl," you exclaimed, "talk to me. I need some sort of stimulation for my brain." Your voice was light, but you meant it. He paused, almost debating whether or not to say it. "I just care about ya, is all. When I saw ya bein carried in, my mind just stopped and all I wanted to do was make sure you were okay. Told Rick it was a dumb idea." You smiled, poking his arm again. "You care about me, that's sweet. I care about you, too." He grabbed your hand as it made contact with his arm, and just held it between his own. This was his way of expression, to show you how he felt without ruining it with his words. The pair of you just sat in silence, hands interlaced, a stupid grin on both your faces as you stared at each other. Adrenaline was pumping through your veins, a wave of confidence taking over you as you leaned up and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. Once Daryl had registered what you'd done, he'd turned his head, closing the small gap between you both for a delicate kiss. He was so gentle, his hands still holding yours firmly, and you wanted to do this forever. "I hope that speaks better than I do." He admitted, and you just laughed, resting your head on your shoulder. "Now get some rest, I don't want to see ya on your feet for the rest of the day."

#daryl dixion imagine #daryl dixon #daryl dixon incorrect quotes #daryl dixon x reader #daryl fanfiction #daryl imagines #daryl x female reader #daryl x reader #daryl x y/n #daryl x you #daryl dixon fanfiction #twd daryl #the walking dead daryl dixon #the walking dead daryl #twd daryl dixon #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon imagine #daryl dixon twd

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brunchable · 16 days ago

Text

It's not a Meet-𝑪𝒖𝒕𝒆, it's a Meet-𝗨𝗴𝗹𝘆. 《 Chapter 1: Alpine the Traitor. 》

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x f!Reader Themes: It's not a meet-cute, it's a meet ugly, Grumpy Meets ✨️Sunshine✨️, Opposites Attract, Sassy Pet Matchmaker, Enemies-to-Lovers (Lite), Destined to meet again, Bucky is a hidden softie. Summary: Breaking into a stranger’s apartment wasn’t on your weekend agenda, but neither was meeting the grumpy-yet-irresistible guy who owns the couch—and the cat—that you somehow claimed as your own. A/N: This story will be OUTSIDE of MCU but Bucky's traits will be mixed comics/mcu. I'm starting to feel sorry for this fanfic just sitting at the bottom of my files.🥲 Credits to me for the Banner lmfao. credits to @khaer for the divider.

tags: @winchestert101 @lomlbuckybarnes @lveegsoi @itsshellzy @almosttoopizza

@aami98 @hextech-bros @hzdhrtss @winterslove1917

Bucky had just finished hauling up the last of his bags from the car—bags that totally did not contain guns and knives—when he remembered his phone. Cursing under his breath, he jogged back down to grab it, leaving the door ajar. He barely noticed you—leaning heavily against the hallway wall, guiding yourself as if it were the only thing keeping you upright.

You squinted at the numbers on his door, murmuring, “Close enough,” and stumbled inside, fully convinced you’d found your friend’s place.

Inside, you called out, “Sarah?” and squinted around the room. No answer. Instead, a small, white cat trotted up, eyeing you with a mix of caution and curiosity.

“Oh,” you cooed, crouching down with all the coordination of a newborn giraffe. “Sarah… Did you turn into a cat?” You narrowed your eyes, trying to decipher the situation. “Blink twice if you did.”

Alpine regarded you with a slow, deliberate blink—just one. But that was enough for you in your current state.

“Good enough,” you muttered, and, relieved to find some familiar “face,” you scooped her up and flopped onto the couch, pulling her onto your chest, where she curled up in a perfect loaf position. Alpine settled comfortably, purring like a tiny motor. Within moments, you’d passed out, leaving Alpine to stand guard.

When Bucky returned, he slammed the door shut, grumbling about the freezing cold. He shrugged off his coat and turned toward the kitchen, not noticing anything unusual—until he caught sight of a figure—clearly not his—was sprawled on his couch, hair fanned out over their face, Alpine loafed comfortably on their chest like this was some kind of routine.

He froze mid-step, staring in confusion. “What… the fuck?”

Today, of all days, he’d planned to finally try that yoga routine his therapist had been nudging him about. Some deep breathing, a little stretching—it was supposed to help calm him down, give him a “reset” for the week. He’d even managed to get Sam off his ass about it, promising he’d “channel his inner Zen” or whatever the hell Sam had been calling it. But no, apparently not. He couldn’t even have a boring day without someone or something interrupting it. Why was that too much to ask?

Approaching cautiously, with a slight kick to your feet, he muttered, “Hey. Hey.”

Bucky then crouched down, pushing your hair back to get a look at your face.

“Are you serious right now?” he muttered, folding his arms, staring at his cat as if this were somehow her fault.

Alpine responded with another blink, clearly unimpressed by Bucky’s lack of decorum. She even seemed to settle more firmly into her loaf position on top of you, as if claiming this random drunk intruder as her new, favored territory.

Bucky huffed, waving a hand at Alpine. “So you’re just… okay with this?”

Another blink. Obviously Bucky.

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Unbelievable. I’m out here, feeding you, scooping your litter box, and the first stranger who walks in, you act like we’re running some kind of Airbnb for drunks?”

Alpine gave him a barely noticeable shrug and started grooming a paw as if she couldn’t be less bothered then once she’s satisfied she began kneading your wool jacket over your chest.

You mumbled something incoherent, and Alpine lifted her head, giving Bucky an irritated blink, as though he’d just disrupted her personal masseuse session. You need to be quiet.

“Oh, she’s real cozy, huh?” he muttered at Alpine, who merely blinked at him, still looking protective. Bucky scoffed, not quite believing the attitude his own cat was giving him.

“Unbelievable. You’re supposed to be a guard cat,” he grumbled under his breath. “I leave for two minutes…”

Bucky tapped your shoulder with growing impatience. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. You wanna explain why you’re passed out on my couch?”

You groaned, one eye cracking open just barely. The light was harsh, and everything was blurry. You squinted up at him, your drunk mind trying to process the face hovering over you, looking both rugged and annoyed.

“Sarah?” you mumbled, voice thick with sleep. “You… You look taller.”

Bucky snorted. “Do I look like a Sarah to you?”

You blinked, vision focusing on his piercing blue eyes and grumpy expression as he glared at you like an unsolvable puzzle. You turned to Alpine, who remained loafed on your chest, staring up at Bucky with the same serenity. You whispered to the cat with drunken seriousness, “Sarah, is this your boyfriend?”

Alpine let out a soft, approving purr, which only made Bucky’s scowl deepen.

“Oh, great, now I’ve been promoted to boyfriend status?” he muttered, looking at Alpine.

Turning back to Bucky, you hiccuped and gave him a pointed look.

“Listen, Sarah…” you said, gesturing clumsily to Alpine, “your boyfriend has a really grumpy face. Like, so grumpy. He should smile more.”

Bucky fought back a laugh, his irritation softening slightly. “Listen, whoever you are, this isn’t your friend’s place. You broke into my apartment. Drunk. And now my cat apparently likes you. You need to leave.”

You thought hard, eyes crossing slightly as you tried to remember where you were going.

“I was… Sarah’s… Or, uh… close enough,” you mumbled with a shrug. “Your cat’s nice, though. Real polite.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bucky deadpanned. “She’s a real gem. Five-star host, obviously.”

Deciding he’d had enough, Bucky reached down to lift Alpine off your chest, carefully sliding his hands under her. But as soon as he started to pull her away, Alpine let out a loud, drawn-out, angry growl—a sound that was surprisingly menacing for such a small cat, vibrating through the room with an unmistakable warning. Alpine's eyes snapped open, and with surprising speed, she swatted his hand—claws barely out, but enough to make her point.

“Hey!” he hissed, jerking his hand back, staring down at the cat in shock. Alpine blinked up at him, her expression one of supreme, unbothered defiance, as if to say, Move me again, and you’ll lose more than just a little dignity.

Bucky raised his eyebrows.

“Wow. Really?” He shook his head, folding his arms, clearly offended. “You’re seriously gonna take her side? My own cat, my loyal companion, defending some random drunk who stumbled in here like it’s her couch?”

Alpine blinked once, slow and smug, then proceeded to loaf herself more securely on your chest, her purr rumbling louder as if she were demonstrating just how much she preferred this arrangement.

Bucky muttered under his breath,

“Unbelievable.” He took a step back, eyeing Alpine like she’d betrayed him. “All the kibble I’ve fed you, and this is what I get? You’re practically giving her a welcome package. Should I grab her some slippers and a robe too?”

He leaned down, whispering conspiratorially to Alpine. “You do realize she’s drunk, right? Probably smells like tequila.” Alpine’s response was a pointed yawn, entirely uninterested in Bucky’s objections.

Bucky sighed, casting one more disgruntled look at Alpine.

“Alright, fine. Guess I’ll just let Miss New Best Friend crash here. Enjoy your girls’ night,” he added with an exaggerated huff, trudging toward the kitchen, throwing his hands up as he muttered, “Unbelievable. Me? Pushed over by a cat.”

× × × ×

You blinked awake as something soft flicked against your nose. Groaning, you swatted at it, only to realize it was a fluffy white tail waving in front of your face. The tail flicked again, tickling your cheek, and you opened your eyes to see a cat—definitely not Sarah’s cat—perched on the back of the couch, watching you with a bemused expression.

Sitting up slowly, you rubbed your eyes, glancing around the unfamiliar apartment, your stomach sinking as your surroundings started to come into focus. This was… not Sarah’s place. You caught the scent of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air, and that clinched it—Sarah hated coffee. She was this tiny blonde British girl who would only ever be caught sipping tea.

You slowly turned, your eyes scanning the room until they landed on a figure leaning casually against the kitchen counter. He was tall, rugged, handsome, holding a mug of coffee in one hand. His white t-shirt clung to his frame in a way that hinted at the strength underneath, and his grey sweatpants hung low on his hips, making him look both comfortable and effortlessly put together.

“Good morning,” he said, raising his mug slightly in greeting.

You stared at him, your heart racing, immediately bracing for the worst. Your mind raced through the most terrifying scenarios—where am I? Who is he? And how exactly had I ended up on a stranger’s couch?

The man’s smirk widened, clearly seeing the panic flash across your face. He raised a hand, shaking his head.

“Relax,” he said, a chuckle slipping into his voice. “Whatever you’re thinking, none of that happened. You broke into my apartment drunk, thinking it was your friend’s place.”

You swallowed, piecing it together, though your cheeks were still burning.

He took another sip, clearly amused. “I should’ve called the cops,” he added, eyeing you with a raised brow. “But my cat kinda likes you, so… we’re good.”

Your eyes flicked to Alpine, who was still perched on the couch, blinking at you like she was saying, Nice meeting you, bestie.

“I… I should go. I am so, so sorry! And thank you,” you blurted, scrambling to your feet, cheeks flaming. You tried to make a quick exit, but in your panic, you tripped over your own foot, your arms flailing as you tried to keep from crashing to the floor.

Bucky moved fast, grabbing you by the shoulders to steady you. “Still asleep?” he said, his tone a mix of amusement and concern as he looked down at you.

“Oh, yeah… kind of,” you mumbled, cheeks still red as you immediately pulled away, trying—and failing—to fix the cowlicks in your hair. Bucky raised an eyebrow, clearly holding back a laugh, which just made you more determined to escape. Without another word, you darted out the door, his words about “forgetting something” barely reaching your ears as his doors clicked closed.

You practically crashed into the apartment across the hall, banging on the door until it opened. Sarah’s familiar face, complete with wide, panicked eyes, greeted you.

“Oh my god, Where were you?!” she shrieked. “I was worried sick! I almost reported you as a missing person!”

“Oh, crap,” you said, cheeks somehow getting even redder. “My bag!”

Meanwhile, back in his apartment, Bucky was shaking his head with a smirk, looking down at Alpine, who had just strutted over to rub herself against his legs as if she hadn’t just completely turned on him.

“Oh, now you’re giving me love?” he muttered, scratching her head as she purred. “Unbelievable. All it took was one random drunk person breaking in, and you were ready to switch sides.”

Just then, he heard a tentative knock at the door again. Bucky opened it to see you standing there, looking like you wished the floor would swallow you whole.

“My bag,” you mumbled, eyes darting anywhere but his face.

“Your bag,” he said at the same time, fighting a grin.

He strolled over to the coffee table, picking up the bag and handing it over. “Try not to break into any more random apartments, yeah?” he teased.

You clutched your bag, stammering out a mortified.

“Thanks,” then bolted down the hall like your life depended on it, leaving Bucky chuckling in the doorway as he watched you practically trip over your own feet again in your getaway.

× × × ×

You sat on Sarah’s couch, head throbbing, as she handed you a couple of painkillers and a glass of water.

“Did you and Rhys fight again?” she asked, her voice edged with impatience. “Girl, just break up with him already. He might have an uncanny resemblance to freakin Alexander Skarsgård, but the man’s a walking red flag. Who goes clubbing when they have a girlfriend?”

You groaned, eyes still shut, leaning your head back against the couch, the memory of last night’s fight replaying in painful detail. It had started as a small gathering with friends. You’d dressed up, hoping for a nice evening out with Rhys, just the two of you, maybe a dance or two. But halfway through the night, he’d disappeared, leaving you wandering through a packed club. When you finally found him at the bar, he was leaning in close to some girl, laughing in that charming way he had, as if he didn’t have a girlfriend waiting for him.

When you confronted him, his expression softened instantly, and he tilted his head, giving you that familiar, reassuring smile.

Rhys cut an imposing figure, his broad shoulders and lean, muscled frame commanding attention even in the crowd. His hair, a shade of sandy blonde that fell just to his shoulders, framed his sharp jawline, giving him an untamed look. He had the kind of intense blue eyes that seemed to catch every flicker of light, their color only deepening as he’d looked down at you.

"Hey, don’t look at me like that. We were just chatting," he’d said gently, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt you. Don’t you trust me?”

The words, so soft and warm, had made you hesitate. Even as your frustration lingered, the way he looked at you, the way his hand rested gently on your shoulder, all felt carefully designed to melt away any resistance.

“Come on,” he’d murmured, his voice low and soothing. “You know you mean the world to me. I’m here with you, aren’t I?”

He’d turned back to the bar then, smiling as he resumed his conversation, leaving you feeling like maybe you had overreacted, like maybe your frustration had been misplaced. And yet, as you watched him easily slip back into the crowd, that familiar sting of doubt remained. Eventually, you’d ordered a drink, then another, drowning your frustration until the room started to blur, and you’d finally stumbled out, too tipsy and weary to care about anything but leaving… only to end up on Bucky’s couch instead.

“It’s not that easy. I love him, my parents love him…” You trailed off, knowing she’d heard this all before. Your parents and his parents were practically inseparable—best friends for years, even business partners in some way. Rhys De Armande’s family ran a chain of luxury hotels, and you were set to inherit your family’s shopping mall empire. “You know how it is. Everyone expects us to work out.”

Sarah made a frustrated gesture, squeezing the air in front of her like she was trying to strangle it. She dropped her hands the second you opened your eyes, but the exasperation in her face was hard to miss.

“Well, clearly, he doesn’t love you back,” she said flatly, crossing her arms.

You winced, the truth landing harder than you’d expected.

“Ouch,” you muttered, looking down, unsure if the ache in your chest or your pounding headache was worse.

You sighed, swallowing the painkillers and rubbing your temples. “Can you cut me some slack, please? I just embarrassed myself in front of your hot neighbor.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow, her frustration giving way to curiosity. “My hot neighbor?” she asked, smirking. “Oh, this I have to hear. What did you do?”

You groaned, covering your face with your hands. “I thought his apartment was yours… so I kind of broke in, passed out on his couch, and, oh yeah—made friends with his cat.”

Sarah burst out laughing, her exasperation melting into full-on amusement. “So, let me get this straight… you broke into Bucky’s apartment, passed out, and had a bonding session with Alpine?”

Your ears perked up at the name. Bucky. That name was way too cute for a guy who looked like that. You peeked out from behind your hands, curiosity piqued. “Bucky? Are you guys… close?”

Sarah smirked, clearly seeing through you. “Why? Are you interested?”

“What? No!” You quickly protested, cheeks heating up. “Just curious. You know, making conversation…”

She raised an eyebrow, a knowing grin spreading across her face. “Right. Well, he’s single if you want to ‘make conversation’ with him too.”

You groaned, grabbing a pillow and smacking Sarah with it. “Stop it! I’m not interested!” you protested, but your cheeks were still burning.

Sarah just laughed, holding her hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright! Whatever.”

Before you could throw another retort her way, your phone rang, buzzing loudly from the table. You grabbed it, and the second you answered, your dad’s voice boomed through the speaker, nearly blowing out your eardrum.

“Where are you?!” he barked. “The meeting started fifteen minutes ago! Do you have any idea how unprofessional this looks?”

You winced, holding the phone slightly away from your ear as you muttered, “Sorry, Dad… rough morning.”

“Well, get here now,” he snapped. “You’re soon going to be the CEO here in New York. Start acting like it.”

The call ended abruptly, You let out a long sigh, muttering, “Crap.” Then you turned to Sarah. “I have to go.”

She eyed you up and down, barely hiding her amusement. “What, like that?” she asked, gesturing to your tousled hair, wrinkled clothes, and less-than-polished look.

Grabbing your bag and hopping as you attempted to shove one foot into a high heel, you shot her a determined look.

“I’ll make it work.”

You bolted out the door, heels clicking down the hallway as you frantically tried to compose yourself. Just as you reached the elevator and started jabbing the down button repeatedly, you saw him—the hot neighbor himself—coming out of his apartment, Alpine perched comfortably on his shoulders like some kind of royal cat.

“Come on, come on!” you muttered at the elevator, jabbing the button with increasing impatience, as if sheer willpower could make it descend faster. You could already hear your father’s voice echoing in your mind, and he would never let you live this down. Not a chance. It didn’t matter that this was the first time you’d been late for anything in your entire life. Nope—he’d latch onto this one time like it was a pattern, probably bringing it up every chance he got, even at family dinners. “Remember that time you couldn’t be bothered to show up on time?” you imagined him saying. “Such a fine example of leadership.”

You groaned to yourself, muttering under your breath about stubborn elevators and high-strung fathers.

Just then, Bucky strolled up beside you, eyeing your frantic button-mashing with lowkey amusement.

“You know,” he said casually, voice smooth and annoyingly calm, “that’s not going to make it come any faster.”

You barely spared him a glance, shooting back with a quick retort. “Well, it makes me feel better, so kindly mind your business, Bucky.”

He tilted his head, smirking as he watched you fidget, clearly entertained by your frustration.

“Mind my business?” he replied, eyebrow raised. “Hard to mind my business when someone broke into my apartment and decided my couch was a free bed.”

You pressed your lips together at the reminder, but he wasn’t done. He nodded toward the button you were still jabbing. “And at this rate, you’re gonna break it.”

You gave him a sharp look, though you couldn’t keep a smirk from tugging at the corner of your mouth, still pressing the button.

“Fine, if I break it, I’ll pay for it.”

Just then, the elevator doors slid open, and Bucky stepped aside, gesturing for you to go in first with a slight, amused bow. You rolled your eyes but stepped inside, pressing the ground floor button as he followed you in, Alpine still lounging contentedly on his shoulders.

Both of you watched the digital numbers light up above the door as the elevator started its descent, the silence thick in the small space. Every second felt drawn out, and you found yourself fidgeting slightly—until Bucky’s voice broke the quiet.

“Hang on,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at you, “I never actually told you my name.”

You raised an eyebrow, feigning a bored expression as you responded with dry sarcasm. “Right. I just happened to guess it was Bucky.” You looked back at the numbers, pretending you weren’t the least bit fazed.

He chuckled, clearly entertained. “Good guess,” he replied, his tone teasing. “Or maybe Sarah’s been talking about me.”

The elevator doors slid open with a soft ding, and you bolted out like you were escaping a hostage situation, heels clicking rapidly against the floor as you made a beeline for the lobby exit.

Behind you, Bucky strolled out casually, watching your hurried pace. “In a rush to break into someone else’s apartment?” he called after you.

You spun around, walking backward as you shot him a parting smirk. “Only if they’ve got a cat that likes me better than them.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, hands slipping into his pockets as he stopped just a few feet away. “Good luck with that. Alpine has high standards.”

“Clearly,” you quipped, nodding toward him with a playful glint in your eye. “She chose me.”

With a final grin, you turned and hurried out the door, leaving Bucky chuckling to himself in the lobby.

× × × ×

You burst through the lobby doors of your family’s corporate building, the adrenaline still pumping as you navigated the familiar halls. Just outside the large meeting room, two of your loyal assistants, Maddie and Rachel, were waiting, eyes widening when they saw the state you were in.

“Oh, boy, you’re cutting it close,” Maddie whispered, quickly reaching up to smooth down your slightly disheveled hair while Rachel adjusted the collar of your blouse. Their hands worked in quick, practiced movements, fixing stray strands, smoothing wrinkles, and making sure you looked like the composed heir they all expected.

“Lincoln’s inside, waiting to give you the rundown,” Rachel muttered under her breath, straightening the hem of your blazer. “And, fair warning—your dad’s pissed.”

“Of course he is,” you muttered, barely holding back a sigh.

Lincoln, your efficient and ever-loyal secretary, materialized at your side, tablet in hand. He gave you a quick once-over, his eyes critical but sympathetic.

“Your father has been asking for you every five minutes,” he said, voice low as he handed you a prepared file. “You know how he is about timeliness, especially with these quarterly planning meetings. He’s expecting a full report on the upcoming seasonal marketing strategies and wants to discuss new potential store locations.”

You took a deep breath, pulling yourself together as best as you could, letting the details sink in. Your role here wasn’t just about looking the part; you were expected to lead the department, spearhead initiatives, and show the board that you were more than just your family’s name. Today’s meeting would cover everything from quarterly revenue projections to upcoming promotional events designed to boost foot traffic and online sales—a lot to cover, and all under your father’s sharp eye.

Lincoln leaned in, voice calm and steady. “Just stick to the report we prepped last week, and mention the new partnerships. Show them you’re already thinking ahead to next quarter.”

You gave him a quick nod, grateful for the support. “Thanks, Lincoln.”

He patted your arm reassuringly, then gestured to the door with a slight smile. “Now go in there and remind them why you’re going to be the new boss for the biggest branch in New York.”

With one last steadying breath, you opened the door, stepping confidently into the large conference room, your father’s expectant gaze immediately landing on you as you took your seat at the head of the table, ready to tackle the day.

× × × ×

As the meeting wrapped up, you exhaled in relief, seeing nods of approval and satisfied smiles around the table. Despite your rushed start, you’d managed to present the quarterly strategy with confidence, outlining new initiatives that had the board talking excitedly about the future. More than one member voiced their high hopes for you officially stepping in as CEO, and the weight of their approval felt both thrilling and daunting.

One by one, the board members filed out, each giving you a nod or a polite word of encouragement. Soon, it was just you and your father, Richard, who lingered behind, his expression carefully unreadable as he adjusted his cufflinks and regarded you with that familiar, assessing gaze.

After a pause, he finally spoke, his tone mild but pointed. “How old are you?”

You straightened slightly, eyes meeting his. “Twenty-six.”

He raised an eyebrow, nodding as if in thought.

“Twenty-six,” he repeated. “And yet, you’re acting like a teenager sneaking in after curfew.” He didn’t raise his voice, but the weight of his disappointment was clear. “You’re going to be the CEO of this company, Y/N. The board expects more from you—and so do I.”

You held your ground, forcing yourself to stay calm under his scrutiny. “I understand, Dad, and I’m sorry for being late. But I delivered the report, and the board was impressed.”

He inclined his head slightly. “This time, yes. But if you want to lead this company, you need to take this seriously, every single day. There won’t always be room for excuses.”

You clenched your jaw, swallowing back the urge to say something defensive. “Understood.”

Richard sighed, his expression softening just a fraction. “I don’t just want you to be capable, Y/N. I want you to be the best. You’re representing the family, our legacy.” He glanced at the empty room, then back at you. “Don’t let anything get in the way of that.”

You gave a small nod, feeling the weight of his words settle over you. “I won’t.”

With that, he gave a brisk nod, signaling that the conversation was over, and strode out, leaving you standing in the quiet room, feeling both motivated and under pressure to prove yourself all over again.

As the door closed behind your father, you let out a long breath, allowing yourself a brief moment to unwind. But before you could gather your thoughts, the door opened again, and in filed your loyal team—Maddie, Rachel, and Lincoln—all of them looking at you with a mixture of pride and relief.

“Good job, boss,” Maddie said with a grin, giving you a thumbs-up. “You handled that like a pro.”

Rachel nodded enthusiastically. “Seriously, you were amazing. You had the whole room nodding along.”

Lincoln, ever the composed one, offered a rare smile of approval.

“Smooth presentation, just what they wanted to hear.” Then, without missing a beat, he pulled out his tablet, ready to spell out your schedule for the rest of the day. “Alright, here’s what you have lined up…”

He scrolled for a moment, then continued, “You have a quick check-in with the marketing team at noon to review the upcoming promotional rollouts. After that, lunch with a representative from Luxx Retail—an initial discussion on the new partnership. Then, at three, a meeting with the creative team to discuss branding updates for next quarter. And finally, a call with our international partners at five.”

You blinked, taking in the jam-packed lineup. “Wow… it’s going to be one of those days, huh?”

Lincoln smirked, tucking the tablet under his arm. “Welcome to CEO life.”

Maddie and Rachel chuckled, Maddie reaching over to give your shoulder a supportive squeeze. “Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. You nailed the hard part; the rest is just the victory lap.”

You smiled, feeling a little more ready to tackle the day ahead with their support. “Thanks, guys. Let’s make it happen.”

× × × ×

Bucky adjusted his stance, loading another round as he and Steve stood side by side at the shooting range. The low hum of the ventilation system and the muffled sound of distant shots created a steady background noise, setting the tone for another session. Steve glanced over, eyebrow raised as he watched Bucky with a hint of curiosity.

“So, you’re telling me some random drunk girl broke into your apartment last night and just… passed out on your couch?” Steve asked, trying to keep a straight face but failing.

Bucky rolled his eyes, lining up his aim as he replied, “Yep. Walked right in, curled up on my couch, and Alpine decided she was her new best friend.” He took a shot, the loud bang reverberating through the range. “I left for two minutes to grab my phone from the car, and there she was when I came back.”

Steve couldn’t hold back a chuckle as he reloaded his own gun, shaking his head. “And let me guess, Alpine was all for it?”

“Of course,” Bucky muttered, setting up for another shot. “The little traitor acted like she’d known her for years. The girl even thought Alpine was her friend ‘Sarah,’ or something like that.” He paused, lowering his gun and glancing at Steve, still in mild disbelief.

Steve laughed, raising his weapon and aiming down the range. “Man, only you would have a meet-cute that involves a breaking and entering.”

Bucky snorted, firing off another round. “Yeah, if you call that a meet-cute. Girl’s got sass, I’ll give her that. Told me off for ‘minding her business.’”

Steve lowered his gun, giving Bucky a pointed look. “And you didn’t call the cops?”

Bucky shrugged. “Didn’t have the heart to. Plus, Alpine seemed pretty happy with her there.” He paused, smirking slightly. “Besides, it was kind of… entertaining.”

Steve shook his head, grinning as he took another shot. “Only you, Buck. Only you.”

After a few more rounds, the air around them settled, and Bucky took a breath, lowering his gun and glancing over at Steve with a thoughtful expression.

“So,” he started, reloading his weapon more slowly this time, “are they asking you to go back? Back to duty, I mean. Avengers stuff.”

Steve paused, his own gun lowered as he considered Bucky’s question.

“Yeah,” he admitted after a moment, nodding. “Got a call last week. They’re pushing for me to come back, but I haven’t given them an answer yet.” He glanced over at Bucky. “What about you?”

Bucky shrugged, his expression neutral, though there was a hint of something else in his eyes.

“They’ve reached out a few times, nothing urgent. Mostly checking in.” He looked down, absently running a finger along the barrel of his gun. “Guess I’m still on the roster if they need me.”

Steve studied him, picking up on the unspoken hesitation. “You miss it?”

Bucky exhaled, glancing down the range before answering. “Some days, yeah. But… sometimes, it’s nice not to have everything be about missions and orders. Almost feels like I could have something close to normal.” He smirked a bit, adding, “Well, if my version of normal includes strange women breaking into my apartment, anyway.”

Steve chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder. “Guess we’ll see where things go. But for what it’s worth, you’ve earned a break, Buck. Normal or not.”

Bucky nodded, and they both lined up to fire another round, the familiar weight of duty lingering between them.

542 notes · View notes

pucksandpower · 7 months ago

Text

Fashionably Challenged

Max Verstappen x Reader

Summary: you and Max may not exactly be the paddock’s most stylish couple, but you wouldn’t want it any other way

You wake up to the sound of Max rummaging through the closet of your shared hotel suite. Rolling over, you see him laying out two matching outfits — the Red Bull Racing team polos, skinny jeans, and sneakers you’ve grown accustomed to over the years.

One set for him, one set for you.

“Morning, liefje,” he says, catching your gaze. “I have our outfits for the day ready to go.”

You smile sleepily. “Thanks, babe. You know me too well.”

Max grins as he walks over and climbs back into bed, throwing an arm around you. “Of course I do. Can’t have my girlfriend showing up to races looking anything less than perfect.”

You laugh and playfully shove him. “Oh shut up. You know I’d show up in a potato sack if I could.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” he says with mock seriousness. “I would never let you embarrass me like that.”

“Embarrass you?” You scoff. “Please, like you even notice what I’m wearing half the time. You’re just as bad as me when it comes to fashion.”

Max opens his mouth to protest but then shuts it, shrugging in admission. “Okay, fair point. But that’s why I always get you the same thing I’m wearing. So there’s no way we can mess it up.”

You consider this for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We make a pretty fashionably challenged couple.”

“The most fashionably challenged,” he agrees with a laugh. He pauses, gaze growing serious. “But I like it that way. I like that we match.”

Warmth blooms in your chest. “Me too.”

The morning passes quickly as you get ready for the race. True to form, you both pull on the matching outfits without a second thought. As you’re walking out to the car, Max stops you.

“Wait,” he says, taking your hand and turning you to face him. He looks you up and down appraisingly. “You look perfect, just like always.”

You can’t help but beam at the compliment. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

He grins. “Not nearly enough.”

“Well I do,” you say, leaning in to kiss him. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, schatje,” Max murmurs against your lips. “Now let’s go kick some ass today.”

The race goes well, Max taking the checkered flag to the roar of the crowds. As you’re waiting to congratulate him, a podcaster approaches you with a microphone.

“Hi there,” she says brightly. “I’m Lottie from The Racing Line. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple quick questions?”

“Oh, um, sure,” you’re a bit caught off guard.

“Great! So first off, you and Max always seem to be wearing matching outfits to the races. Is that something you two purposely coordinate as a cute couple thing?”

You feel your cheeks flush slightly. “Oh no, not at all actually. The truth is neither of us have much fashion sense at all. So Max just gets me the female version of whatever he’s wearing to make it easy.”

The podcaster looks disappointed. “Oh, I see. So it’s not some adorable couple tradition then?”

“Well, I mean, I guess in a way it kind of is?” You say quickly, feeling guilty. “Neither of us are really into fashion, so we end up matching by default anyway. I think it’s sweet that we always end up coordinating without even trying because we’re just so in sync.”

She perks up at that. “Aww, okay, I can see that! So even though it’s not on purpose, you’ve made your own cute little tradition out of it just by being so aligned. That’s really romantic.”

You nod, smiling softly. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Well thank you so much for your time,” she shakes your hand. “And congratulations to Max on another win!”

“Thank you,” you reply as she walks away.

A few minutes later Max emerges, helmet under his arm and face lit up in that way you love. You throw your arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Congratulations baby, you were amazing out there as always.”

“Thank you, schatje,” he says, squeezing you close. He pauses, smile turning teasing. “Did you enjoy chatting with that podcaster earlier?”

You pull back, eyes narrowing. “You saw that, did you?”

He chuckles. “Of course I did. I always notice you.”

“Well then you also saw me have to completely backtrack and come up with some sappy story for why we match when she thought it was a cutesy couple thing,” you say dryly.

Max shrugs. “It kind of is though, isn’t it? Maybe not on purpose, but it’s become our thing.”

“I guess you’re right,” you admit. “I told her it was romantic how in sync we are, always coordinating outfits without even trying.”

“Hmm, I like that,” he says, grinning. “We really are pretty in sync, aren’t we? Two fashionably hopeless peas in a pod.”

You laugh. “That we are.” You look at him fondly. “But I love our way better than being one of those obnoxiously coordinated couples.”

“Me too,” he agrees. “Though I will admit ...” His gaze grows more serious. “Part of the reason I like matching is because it makes me happy to walk around wearing the same thing as you. Like we’re a unit, you know?”

Your heart skips a beat at the soft vulnerability in his voice. “Max Verstappen, you big old romantic,” you tease gently.

He shrugs but you can see the pleased look in his eyes. Sudden understanding washes over you.

“Wait a minute … is that why you got me the same outfit the first time? Not just because you thought it would be easier, but because you wanted us to match?”

Max stays silent for a moment before breaking into a sheepish grin. “You caught me.”

“Oh my god!” You shove his shoulder playfully. “You big sap!”

“What can I say? I like having my girl on my arm looking like the power couple we are,” Max says, pulling you close again. “Fashionably challenged or not.”

“If only everyone out there making you out to be the villain could see the cuddly teddy bear you really are. I absolutely love it,” you murmur, stretching up to kiss him. You can feel him smile against your lips.

As you break apart, Max squeezes your hand. “Come on, let’s go celebrate. In new matching outfits, of course.”

You pretend to roll your eyes exaggeratingly but allow him to lead you towards the exit, your hands intertwined. You truly wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

You and Max are curled up on the couch in your hotel room, his arm draped around you as you lean into his side. It’s a rare quiet moment between races and you’re savoring the feeling of Max’s fingers gently carding through your hair.

“Hey Max?” You say after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

“Hmm?” He hums in response, not looking away from the football match on the TV.

“I got an interesting offer today.”

That piques his interest and he turns his head to look at you. “Oh yeah? What kind of offer?”

You take a deep breath before answering. “A sponsorship deal, actually. From Oscar de la Renta.”

Max raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Wow, that’s … really great, liefje. I’m so happy for you.”

But something in his tone makes you frown slightly. “Are you though? You don’t sound that excited.”

He gives you a half smile. “No, no, I am! That’s a huge opportunity for your career and image. Having that kind of sponsorship deal is amazing.”

“But?” You prod knowingly.

Max lets out a breath, smile fading. “But I guess part of me is a little disappointed and maybe … worried?”

“About what?”

“Well,” he shifts uncomfortably. “I like being the one who picks out your outfits for the races. Our little unintentional matching tradition has kind of become my thing, you know? I’m worried if you get sponsored by some big designer brand you won’t wear the outfits I pick out anymore. That we won’t match.”

His tone is carefully casual but you can hear the undercurrent of vulnerability. Your heart clenches in your chest.

“Oh Max ...” you murmur, reaching up to cup his cheek. “You really like our matching outfits that much?”

He averts his eyes but nods. “Yeah. I know it sounds silly, but I just … I like how in sync we are. How happy it makes me feel when we show up to the races looking like a real team. Like we’re truly partners in everything. I don’t want to lose that.”

The softness in his voice breaks your heart a little. You take his hand and give it a squeeze.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that,” you tell him gently. “Because I never would have accepted that offer anyway.”

Max blinks in surprise. “You wouldn’t?”

You shake your head. “Not a chance. First of all, they were pressuring me to only wear very high-end stuff, none of which really feels like my personal style. But more importantly ...” You lean in closer, maintaining eye contact. “They don’t have a men’s collection. So they couldn’t sponsor you too.”

Realization lights up his gaze. “Oh ...” he says softly.

You nod. “Exactly. I told them thanks but no thanks. Because no designer wardrobe is worth giving up what we have.”

Max looks stunned. “You … you turned them down? Just to keep matching with me?”

“Of course I did,” you say affectionately, poking his chest. “I would never give that up. How could I say yes to some fancy sponsorship that meant not having my fashionably challenged other half by my side, both looking like total goofballs in the one outfit the world thinks makes up the entirety of our closet?”

A slow smile spreads across his face and he pulls you into his arms, hugging you tightly. “God, I love you,” he murmurs into your hair. “So much.”

You relax into his embrace, overwhelmed by the rush of affection. “I love you too,” you whisper. You pull back slightly to look at him. “Did you really think I’d give up matching with you over that?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, looking a little sheepish. “I guess a small part of me was worried maybe you’d be tempted by the glamor and exposure of being a designer brand ambassador.”

“You know me better than that,” you affirm. “Our matching looks are too special to me. I adore everything about our little tradition — the fact that it started because neither of us cares about fashion, to you always picking out my outfits, and how happy it makes both of us to show up to races coordinating with each other.”

You take Max’s hand, intertwining your fingers. “Don’t you see, my love? It’s not really about the clothes at all, it’s about us. About how perfectly aligned we are in this little part of our lives. And I wouldn’t change that for the world.”

Max’s eyes have gone suspiciously bright, his free hand reaching up to cradle your face. “But liefje … you could have had any designer clothing you wanted.” His voice is thick with emotion. “You turned that down … for me?”

Unable to find the words, you just nod, blinking back your own tears.

“I can’t believe it,” Max breathes out shakily. “You never cease to amaze me.”

You offer him a watery smile. “Well believe it, my love. Because there’s nothing in the world more precious to me than you and our bond. I wouldn’t sacrifice that for anything.”

A single tear escapes to trail down Max’s cheek and you quickly brush it away with your thumb. Seeming at a loss for words, he pulls you into a fierce hug, tucking your head under his chin as you settle into his embrace.

“I love you,” he finally whispers into your hair. “So damn much.”

“I love you too.” You pepper kisses along his neck and jaw until you reach his lips, capturing them in a deep, slow kiss that tries to convey every unspoken word of devotion and adoration.

When you finally break apart, Max gazes at you with an intensity that makes your breath catch.

“God, you really are perfect,” he murmurs, running a hand reverently through your hair. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

“No,” you shake your head with a soft smile. “I’m the lucky one. To have someone who loves me so fiercely, someone I love just as much in return.”

Max lets out a watery chuckle. “I think we’re both the lucky ones then.”

You settle back against his chest as he wraps his arms securely around you. For a while neither of you speaks, lost in your own thoughts as you simply bask in each other’s presence. You let your eyes drift shut as Max’s fingers resume their gentle motions through your hair.

Eventually you break the silence.

“You know we’re going to have to get even cuter matching outfits now to make up for it,” you murmur teasingly.

Max’s chest rumbles with laughter against your cheek. “Deal. Anything you want, schatje. I’ll make sure we’re the most adorable fashionably challenged couple at every single race from now on.”

You smile at the warmth and conviction in his voice. “No one could ever call us uncoordinated.”

“Never,” Max affirms, dropping a soft kiss to the top of your head. “We’re perfectly matched in every way that matters.”

You sigh contentedly as you snuggle further into his embrace. In that moment, you know he’s absolutely right. You couldn’t imagine a better match than your Max.

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januaryembrs · 6 months ago

Note

Hi! May I have a hot chocolate with Aaron Hotchner and a splash of angst please?

OVERPROTECTIVE | Aaron Hotchner x Reader

description: keeping your relationship with your boss is difficult when he gets so damn overprotective

length: 2.5k (Em doesn't know how to go small on things)

warnings: mention of a knife? mention of feeling sick? mention of a wound?

“Sit down, Agent,” His voice was a growl that made you stop loading up your gun, Emily and Derek freezing in their seats to witness the catfight when they caught the heated glare exchanged between the two of you. Your fingers paused on the cartridge, clicking it into the ammunition vault before switching your glock onto the safety, turning to face your boyfriend with a sneer on your face.

“Agent?” You tested the water with a raised brow, seeing if he would double down with his attitude once he seemed to have realised he had crossed some sort of line with his words.

“Prentiss and Morgan are going after the suspect, I want you here with Reid mapping out the geographical profile,” He ordered his teams, though you were quick to catch how he couldn’t meet your eyes as he turned to Dave, his fingers fixing his cuffs the way he did when he was thinking about something, “Dave, I want you with JJ at hostage negotiation, he still has the girls and might not be willing to give them up so easily-”

“Surely we’d be more use in the field, I mean, we’ve gotten pretty much everything out of the profile that we can.” Reid tried to point out, only for Hotch to turn to him with a scathing frown.

“Is there something wrong with the orders I’ve given, Reid?” Aaron asked, his tone particularly cold, and Spencer was quick to look flustered, ever the teachers pet who loathed being told off.

“N-no I just thought,” He spluttered, quickly packing up his files as Hotch gave him a sharp look, “We’ll stay here, it’s fine,”

Your Unit Chief barely acknowledged him as he huffed, turning and heading for his office, “Wheels up in ten,”

But you weren’t going to let him slip away that easily, especially not with an attitude like that.

“Baby girl, think about what you’re doing here,” Morgan tried to call as you paced after him, your expression ruthless as you stalked behind the man, “Starting a fight with the boss is not going to win you any favours, sweetheart,”

Except he wasn’t just your boss, only they didn’t know that.

Aaron could tell you were hot on his heels even without hearing Morgan’s desperate attempt to help. To them, it must look like one of their colleagues was about to make a huge misjudgement on just how harsh their boss could be when he wanted to. Every single one of the BAU had gone head to head with Aaron at some point, it was only natural for eight people who spent day in, day out with one another, but not one of them had left the interaction feeling good about themselves.

As a boyfriend, Aaron was almost a complete antithesis of who he was at work. His words were butter smooth, his touch gentle as lace, his heart surprisingly tender for a man who had seen the worst humanity had to offer. And he respected you, he was kind, he was soft and mallowed out, and it had started bleeding into his demeanour at work in the five months you’d been dating. He’d come to work with a skip in his step, you showing up around five minutes later now you guys had coordinated sitting in his car for a little longer to avoid suspicion. Aaron seemed to find your eyes in moments of worry, and it usually only took a small smile or a passing touch of your hands that could easily be explained as an accident to calm him down.

But he had changed last week, when an UnSub had managed to catch your shoulder with a knife.

It was a surface scratch, nothing a few stitches and a dose of painkillers hadn’t cleared up, and you could already feel the scab peeling off, but since then Aaron had been stiflingly overbearing at work.

You shut the door behind you, already seeing the way he rubbed at his temple with calloused hands, and you knew the sigh was coming even before you heard it, low and tired, like he didn’t want this argument here.

“What the hell was that?” You said, your tone clipped as you stared furiously at his broad shoulder blades where he still had his back to you, “Spencer did nothing wrong, he was just trying to help, and he’s totally right, we’d be so much more use with Morgan and Prentiss-”

“If you have an issue with how I run my unit, you can take it up with Strauss,” Aaron snapped, barely looking over his shoulder, “Until then, I expect my orders to be followed, agent,”

You crossed your arms over your chest, and he knew by the way you’d gone quiet you were staring daggers at him. Taking a shaking breath, he looked at you finally, and felt his resolve crumble almost immediately when he saw how truly seething you were. So much so he didn’t even catch the hurt in your expression until you began speaking.

“Is it just ‘agent’, now?” You asked, your voice cracking as you swallowed quickly, “It’s not honey, or love, or sweetheart? Or is that only when you want the girlfriend version of me.”

Aaron stopped, whatever witted and crass remark that had about to fly out of his mouth vanishing, and he wished the rest of the team would just clear out of the floor, because he wanted nothing more than to pull you in for a tight hug and tell you in every way he thought possible that he was sorry he was being so cruel.

But he couldn’t. Because he could feel their eyes on the two of you from here. Here he had to be SSA Aaron Hotchner. Here he couldn’t protect you when creeps were coming at you with knives or stalking women who could easily be your twin. Here he had to stop himself from being so pliant under your touch.

“You know why I can’t,” He said coldly, his eyes begging and weak, yet they were the only thing that gave him away. His jaw was tense and his brows furrowed, and to anyone else on the floor it looked like he was giving you a stern talking to.

Except you just scowled, “Can’t be my boyfriend or can’t stop worrying that something is going to happen to me in the field?” You said, and his lips pressed together tightly, because sometimes he hated not being the only one in the relationship that was a profiler. Of course you knew what it was about, you’d seen it in his face when the two of you were being intimate and he caught sight of the bandage, how he’d been completely distracted and tense for the rest of the evening, “That’s what this is about, right? All of this for a tiny cut on my shoulder that’s going to be gone within a week?”

“Two inches to the right and that guy could slashed your throat,” He snapped, the truth a sore spot for him, and you shook your head, throwing your hands up in despair.

“How many hits have you taken, Aaron, huh?” You bit back, and he ground his teeth for lack of response, “It’s an occupational hazard, it’s not a big deal, I mean Reid and Penelope have taken bullets for us, I just think you’re being a little overprotective here,”

“I can’t lose you, can you not see that?” He snarled back, his voice rising so high with his frustration he felt his cheeks warm, and in a split second he looked like a wounded animal stuck in a bear trap, cornered and scared and waiting on the inevitable.

Your mouth dropped in guilt, the fight dying out of your chest because you got it then, you got it why he was being so defensive. He was too slow to stop something from happening to Hayley, and here, right in front of him, was his sparkly new girlfriend risking her life like that wouldn’t be anyone’s worst nightmare.

You felt terrible, and judging by the way he seemed to bite the inside of his cheek, he did too. Perhaps for shouting at you, perhaps just for being too intense for a relatively new relationship, but before you could attempt to come to an understanding, Spencer opened the door, his eyes shooting between the two of you as the silence became a medium for your tension.

“Rossi wants to know if you guys are ready to head out?” He asked sheepishly, waiting for another snarl of anger from his boss, only to see Hotch looking more like he had a sour gummy shoved in his mouth as he avoided all eye contact.

“We’re staying to do the profile, Spence,” You said solemnly, and he seemed to not want to poke at a sleeping bear, nodding and leading the two of you out to the drawing board, flicking one last look at Aaron where he was sorting some files around his desk, most likely looking for something to keep his shaking hands busy.

Sighing, you closed the door behind you and tried to ignore the pain in your shoulder.

–

He thinks you’ve probably caught the subway home with Spencer by the time they get back. The sixth floor is quiet, his bag heavy with the reports he could easily leave for Monday morning, except he wants to take his mind off the fight the two of you had. He cuts through the middle of the desks, Emily’s coffee cold and stale, Spencer’s cardigan stranded on his chair. He thinks about how he could show the youngest agent he’s sorry, because he shouldn’t have snapped like that, shouldn’t have made him feel small just because you were so totally in the right to be looking at him like that.

He was immediately confronted with your coat and bag when he opened the door to his office, the two of them leaning against his filing cabinet like they were waiting for him, and he thought it was strange until he saw the culprit, or more so saw your shoes placed neatly under the sofa, your socked feet peeking over the end of the cushions.

His gaze trailed to your face, calm and smoothed out, like he hadn’t seen the way a frown marred your face that moment he’d left the office as you’d been consulting the giant map he’d pinned up in the round table room. You were fast asleep, one hand tucked beneath your head as a pillow, your knees squishing out to accommodate your body on the two-seater.

Aaron drew a deep breath, gently sliding his bag off his shoulder and letting it sit on the floor beside your shoes, his hand immediately reaching for your calf with a gossamer soft embrace, his fingers squeezing you lightly and dancing up the length of your leg up to your hip. His other hand found home on your head, caressing the roots of your hair as he murmured your name.

He said it again, a little louder, when you didn’t stir, and it was only then that your eyes fluttered behind your lids. Blinking slowly in the low light of his office, his desk lamp the only source of beige glow, you smiled on instinct when you saw his brown, puppy-dog stare, kicked and hurt as he looked down at you.

Which was when it came back to you in a shooting pain, the last time you’d spoken, the tone and formality, as if he didn’t know you at all outside of these four walls.

“You waiting for me?” He asked, his hand continuing its rhythm over your crown, and you nodded under his attentive gaze.

“I didn’t want to go home alone, I wanted to make sure we were okay, and I knew you’d come here,” You said, and he smiled with an exhausted expression like he had the weight of the world bearing down on his back.

“Of course we’re okay, honey,” He replied, his hand migrating from your waist to grab your knuckles, bringing them to his dry lips to kiss softly. He sighed softly, looking down to where your fingers meshed together, “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. Or Reid. But especially not you,”

You let go of his rough fingers to bring a hand up to his face, cupping his cheek gently so he would look at you with those mournful noir hues.

“Aaron, I’m gonna get bruised sometimes. This probably won’t be the last time, and it probably won’t be the worst one either,” He grit his teeth like the thought of it being even deeper, in an even more lethal spot, made him physically ill, “But I need you to trust in me, trust that I’m going to do everything to come home to you at the end of the day, the same way you do everything to come back to me. Alright?”

Aaron sighed, leaning in to press his forehead to yours as you nudged your nose against his.

“You make it so difficult for me to think straight when I’m meant to be your boss, you know that?” He murmured, and there was something boyishly teasing in his tone as he did so, so much so you smiled with him. Leaning in, you kissed him softly on the mouth, your hand moving to the back of his head to pull him closer

“You will apologise, won’t you? For hurting Spencer’s feelings,” You implored, breaking away from the embrace for a moment, until Aaron tried to dodge your question by kissing over your jaw. But you stood your ground, despite the fact you felt your eyes fluttering in pleasure, “Aaron, he’s sensitive,”

“First thing Monday morning, I promise,” He said, though you half guessed it was just to please you, since he was already aiming for your neck, his hand grazing the hem of your shirt.

“So, I know we’re in work, but I take it this is boyfriend Aaron I have now,” He hummed in confirmation, your skin pliant and warm under his lips, and he caught the splutter in your breath when he kissed your jugular the way you liked, “Okay well seeing as you’re boyfriend Aaron, I got to tell you, honey, my boss was being a total worms-for-brains today,”

Aaron stopped, drawing away to look you in the face where you hid a snicker, and he quickly found the humour in it too as his fingers gripped around your stomach, “Oh, so it’s like that is it?”

You went to say something in rebuttal, only to feel his hands quickly start tickling your stomach, and you squealed in protest, grabbing at his wrists in an attempt to stop him. But it was no use. Aaron’s laughs, tired and groaning as they were, filled his office, and yours quickly symphonied them.

You didn’t even get a chance to tell him that Spencer definitely, definitely knew you two were dating.

#Aaron Hotchner x reader #criminal minds x reader #aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotchner fanficion

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peppermintquartz · 4 months ago

Text

Chimney is striding towards a tall, dark-haired man who is currently checking the cockpit of a helicopter. Time is of the essence, but they will still need to wait for Hen.

Tall guy has a nice ass, Buck thinks vaguely, a little distracted by all the activity that's going on around them. He wonders if the choppers get to go out every day. He would, if he were a pilot.

When the guy turns around, it is to reveal a handsome face: chiseled jaw, aristocratic nose, straightforward gaze, generous lips and - oh - a cleft chin. That face breaks into a broad smile, the lines crinkling at the eyes and around the mouth adding to the overall attractiveness of the features.

"Howie, hey!" Tall Handsome Guy hugs Chimney tightly, enveloping the shorter man in a sincere embrace. "Long time."

Wow. Buck blinks at the show of affection. When he gets closer, he sees that Tall Handsome Guy is actually about the same height as he is, but with a more angular face - that jawline is to die for - and he is broader in the shoulders. Even more handsome up close, too, which is totally unfair.

"This is Tommy, Tommy Kinard. He used to be at the 118," Chimney introduces. "Used to have a fat head, but he grew out of that."

"Thanks to you," says Tommy. He holds out a hand to Eddie and Buck.

Eddie shakes Tommy's hand first. "Eddie Diaz."

"Pleasure. And you are...?" Tommy turns to Buck.

Buck takes the proffered hand. Good God his hand is so big and strong. "Uh, Evan. E-Evan Buckley, hi."

"Hi Evan," says Tommy, smiling at Buck, the smile as warm as his hand. The name Evan sounds cozy and welcoming coming from Tommy, and for a second when Buck meets Tommy's eyes, he almost forgets to breathe. No man should be this good-looking, Buck thinks. Tommy clears his throat and his smile turns a little cheeky. "I'm gonna need that hand to fly the chopper, kid."

"Oh! Oh, right, sorry. I was just, um, thinking. About Cap and Thena."

"Yeah, we're gonna need Hen to show soon with some coordinates," Chimney says, looking antsy. "Can't go flying all over the Gulf of Mexico."

Tommy shrugs. "We'll do what we can. Wait, I see a car pulling in. Might be her. Get in the backseat, strap yourselves in. Once I get Hen clear of Melton, we'll dash. Hopefully she has a good cover story..." His cheeks puff out and he lets out an exaggerated exhale. Then he grins at the three. "If we're all arrested, can I blame it on you, Howie?"

"Yeah I really twisted your arm with the 'Please help us save Cap and Athena'." Chimney climbs in after Eddie.

"You know it's because of your irresistibly pretty face," says Tommy dryly, helping Buck get in, a hand on his elbow. "Alright, put those helmets on. Careful, Evan."

Buck manages to catch Tommy's faint frown just before the pilot takes his seat and starts up the engine, go over his checks or whatever pilots do. Tommy's concerned, which isn't a surprise. They're asking a huge favor.

But it's so cool that he is throwing in his lot with them, just like that. Buck doesn't think there are many people who would do this. Tommy Kinard really is pretty cool.

"Alright. She's ready to go when we are," says Tommy. He opens his door and slides out. To the trio, he says, "Don't touch anything. I'm gonna hang out near Melton and run intercept."

"We'll behave," Eddie says, holding up his hand like a Scout.

Tommy only rolls his eyes and chuckles before jogging away to the main hangar. Buck can't help noticing how the flight suit pulls over the man's shoulders and ass as he moves.

Wonder what his workouts are like, Buck muses. Maybe more squats and lifts.

Now, all they have to do is wait for Hen to show.

edited on AO3

Tommy's POV

#evan buckley #tommy kinard #chimney han #eddie diaz #first meeting #bucktommy #tevan #kinley

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inkdrinkerworld · 6 months ago

Note

I saw you're looking for more post prison spencer and sunshine reader!

What about sunshine reader having a badass moment and save spencer from an unsub? Spence would definitely be worried but amazed at the same time

Only if you want to write it haha thanks! I love your writing always ❤️ 💕

cw: mentions of episode '300' and Spencer and Garcia being taken by the cult. Spencer suffers from a busted lip, broken nose and being in love, so does the reader :)

You were cold with worry and anger. They’d taken Spencer and Penelope from right under your nose. You were gone twenty minutes and the entire BAU is shut down and ripped open because they’re gone.

Then Penelope came back, disheveled and shaking and you were seeing red. “We’ll find him, Penny.” You whisper to her as you strap your kevlar vest on and set your guns to your hips and boot.

“Be safe.” She says, gaze wild as Tara ushers her to a seat and you all begin filing out to an SUV.

When you get to the field, you can hear Spencer talking but you’re not focused on that.

Emily would have you sit down in her office after this is all over to tell you that you were militant and that you probably hadn’t done everything by the book, but you don’t care.

You take down two of the guards Ben’s believers have hovering the entrances, and you wait till you catch Spencer’s eyes before breathing out slowly.

Emily and Matt cover your sides as you sneak around to the back of their altar.

You’re moving outside of your body, your mind just focused on freeing Spencer and getting to him safely. You just feel your body, using your training to knock them out rather than shoot at them.

“FBI,” JJ announces and then the gunfire ensues.

You’re aware of taking down two more members of the believers who try aiming their guns at you and Spencer before Emily, Luke and Tara are barking orders.

“Hands where we can see them. Everybody on the ground!” Your ears feel stuffed with cotton, all you can see is Spencer; his face bruised and his nose looking a little more crooked than it usually is.

You cut Spencer free of the rope, arms around his neck as you hold him close.

“They burst your lip.” Your hands bury themselves in his hair, holding his face close to your shoulder.

“I’m okay,” he whispers back. Eyes closed and breathing you in. “How’s Penelope?”

You sigh, “She’s okay, a little shaken up but I’m gonna call her. Let her know we saved you.”

He breathes a laugh through his nose, pulling away and finding you more worried than he’d expected.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been with them.” You know Spencer’s trying to make this situation seem lighter but your frown worsens.

“Spencer, that is not the comforting thought you think it is.”

He laughs outright this time, walking with you back to the SUV. You call Penelope as soon as you’re back in the car.

“Hey Pen, we got him and we’re on our way back to you.” She breathes a long sigh over the phone.

“I’m okay Garcia, thank you for helping save me.”

The phone call doesn’t last much longer, and you use the time to just stare at Spencer as you sit next to each other in the back.

“They broke your nose. And you’re going to mottle on your pretty cheekbones.”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “I set it already, plus the bruising can be helped if I ice.”

It’s your turn to roll your eyes, your hands hovering near Spencer’s face. He leans into your hand and you smile, your thumb grazing his bottom lip and your index finger brushing his nose.

“You should take martial arts classes,” you say softly.

“I don’t like cardio, not that type anyway.” He says the last part so quietly you almost miss it, but you choke on your gasp all the same.

“It would help stop all these abductions. You could disarm your attacker much easier if you did,”

“Jiu jitsu, I know. It’s too coordinated and I’m too clunky at that sort of stuff.”

Your eyes glint with mischief as you pull away your hands from his face. “But you’re good at other types of cardio?”

He smiles, his dimples popping out making you want to poke his cheek.

“How’re you feeling? No shaking with the adrenaline comedown?” Spencer deviates from your loaded question with one of his own. His eyes scan your entire body, focusing on your eyes and your hands.

“I’m just tired now, Spence. Kicking ass is tough. Is the adrenaline supposed to do that?” He nods, you lean your head on his shoulder.

“Yeah, you can sleep but I think it might be better to stay awake so you can do your reports once we get to Quantico.” Spencer knows how anal you are about doing your reports right after wrapping a case when the memories and details are fresh and unstained by how you wish things went.

“No, I can do it. I won’t forget it if I sleep,” you yawn. “Plus, I could feel your eyes on me the entire time so you can look it over to make sure I didn’t miss any details.”

Spencer laughs, Emily and Luke filing into the SUV as he strokes your arm, lulling you closer to sleep.

“You’re ridiculous, but I’ll look it over for you, sweet girl. Get some sleep.”

Emily cuts Spencer a look from the rear-view mirror that has his cheeks flushing but he ignores it in favor of setting his cheek to your head and closing his eyes as well; the smell of you flooding his senses as he starts dozing off.

#spencerreid #spencer reid #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x black reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x sunshine!reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x yn #spencer reid x y/n #dr spencer reid

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gurugirl · 1 year ago

Text

Bad Morning

professor!harry x professor!y/n

A/N: Started writing this a few days ago and then I got a request just now that just went so well with what I was already writing and this pic is giving these vibes so... here is the result. + a little background if you're interested.

Summary: You run late to an important meeting with your colleagues and Professor Styles decides to punish you.

Word Count: 3650

Warning: 18+ only, NSFW, smut, spanking with a paddle, slight degradation, punishment, barely proofread

It really had been just a shitty morning all around. Your alarm went off on time but in your half haze of sleep, you shut it off instead of snoozing it and so when you finally did bolt out of your bed to get ready you knew you’d be late for your meeting.

You didn’t even have time to button up your shirt properly. Running to your car carrying your bags in one arm with your mug of coffee in your free hand sloshing all over the ground and a toothbrush stuck in your mouth you knew you looked like a maniac.

Speeding down the street to get to the university (you were lucky it was only a 15-minute drive) you found a hair elastic to pull your strands into a bun the moment you parked. You’d barely touched your coffee, well, most of it was on your skirt, and your toothbrush fell into the floorboard below your feet when you opened your mouth to curse at the slow driver in front of you.

Parking in the closest spot you could find you quickly smoothed your hair down and tied it back with the elastic, thankful that you’d even found one, and grabbed your bags before running at full speed to enter the building and run through the hallways toward the science labs where Mr. Styles and the rest of the science and tech professors were likely waiting for you.

Today was a big day. You would be settling on a plan for the range of your experiments and choosing which students to bring along the following week to the energy conversion laboratory in Colorado.

“Ms. Y/L/N. How nice of you to finally join us.”

You rolled your eyes as you quickly sat down on the floor, dropping your bags down before you crossed your legs and raised your brows at your devastatingly handsome colleague, “Sorry. Bad morning.” Was all you could say as you dug your notebook out. You hated how attractive he was. That you noticed how well-built he was and how he carried himself like he owned everything around him. And as much as you hated it (mostly because he was such a dick) you often imagined him taking you into his office out of nowhere. Spanking you and spitting dirty words into your ears. You even imagined him slapping you with those ringed fingers and fucking you with what you were sure was a nice big cock.

Professor Harry Styles was quite intimidating, though. You and all the staff thought so. He wasn’t unreasonable but he was very strict. Your teaching and working style was totally opposite of his but since you were both in the same department, your paths crossed often. Daily. Which meant you had plenty of fodder for yourself late at night when you were alone.

You shook your head at your dirty thoughts.

You and the other science and tech professors were in the process of planning a huge trip to a specialty lab your university didn’t have. It would be a costly trip and the school was footing most of the bill after raising close to a quarter of a million dollars for the “excursion”.

Everyone spoke in turn with their ideas and shared which of their students they’d like to bring. Each professor would choose two students (of those who volunteered to take part in the trip and experiment).

You’d selected your two and then offered an idea about coordinating schedules for the experiments and taking turns. You opened your notebook and explained your thoughts based on the notes you’d taken, “So, then on the third day, the third group can follow the timeline we set in place for group number 1–“ you continued to rattle off timelines, and looked up at Harry who did not appear impressed by you at all. In fact, his glare had you forgetting for a moment where you were going with what you were saying and you paused briefly before finally finishing your thought.

The entire meeting went like that. Glares from the head science professor aimed at you, making you feel tiny and unwelcome. You were a new professor but you’d earned your spot and you weren’t going to let him intimidate you (except for in your fantasies). You’d apologized for being tardy and while it was unfortunate that you’d showed up nearly thirty minutes late to a very important scheduled meeting, what was done was done. You couldn’t go back in time and have a redo. Though, you wished you could.

Everyone stood up when Harry clapped his big hands together and indicated that the meeting was over. You had no classes that day, as it was Saturday (another reason you’d slept through your alarm because you’d been out the night before).

You stuffed your notebooks into your bags and stood up, pushing your glasses back up to the bridge of your nose after they’d slipped the tiniest bit. You also hadn’t had time to put your contacts in. Obviously.

And just as you were about to make a beeline for the door and get out of there before anyone could talk to you, you were stopped in your tracks when you heard the low baritone of Harry calmly speaking your name.

You turned to look behind you at the tall man and realized he was dressed quite casually in a Mickey Mouse t-shirt that said I love you, the love being a red heart balloon. It was cute. And it almost made him less intimidating. Almost.

“Yes, Harry.” You addressed him by his first name the way he had just addressed you by yours as you turned to face him. He was already taking long-legged strides toward you, his face set in a serious expression, just as it had been for the duration of the meeting.

You stood in your spot as three teachers left the room and Harry stood over you, “Come to my office.”

That was all he said. And it wasn’t a question, but rather a command, which honestly you were used to with him by that point.

Harry had been at the university for quite some time. His office was one of the nicer and bigger ones. You’d seen it before in passing but had never stepped in until that day.

“You were late today,” Harry spoke as he closed his door behind him and then made his way across his office toward you. He sat at the edge of his desk and crossed his ankles together.

“Yeah, I know.” You scoffed. What was he playing at?

“Care to explain to me why you were so late to such an important group meeting?”

You blinked your eyes and began to sit in one of the chairs he had in front of his desk but he stood quickly and grasped your elbow, “I didn’t say you could sit.”

You looked down to where he was touching your arm and back to his face, “What are you doing?”

Harry pulled you to stand facing his desk and brought your arm down so your palm was flat on his desk, “Teaching you a lesson. If you want to survive being a professor at this university you need to learn discipline and respect.”

You turned to watch him as he stood behind you. You honestly were so confused by what was happening but when you looked at his eyes and noticed that he was dragging his gaze down your backside you stood up straight and removed your palm from the desk, “Mr. Styles! You are out of line. I was late, yes, but–“

He stepped in toward you, pressing his chest to your back, grasping your wrists, and making you place your palms back down onto the wood, “Do not move, Y/N. Not until I tell you to.”

He moved away from you and circled his desk to face you, opening a drawer with a key as he spoke, “We both know you have an attitude that needs fixing.”

You were suddenly feeling hot and embarrassed as your breaths deepened. Everything that was happening was straight out of your fantasy. It was as if you were writing this whole scene out from start to finish. You wondered where this was going. You were curious what he would do next.

Your eyes widened and your mouth dropped open as you watched him lay a paddle across his desk in front of you.

“Couldn’t even dress yourself properly. Look at you,” he gestured to your haphazard buttoning job and you realized your bra was exposed as you looked down over yourself. You laughed and looked back up at him but his face was not amused.

“I was in a hurry. I’m sorry if this offends–“

“Please stop talking.” He lifted the paddle up and rounded his desk to stand behind you.

The sudden awareness of what was going on had your skin pimpling with goosebumps. You were wearing a knee-length skirt and realized that all he had to do was lift it to expose your bottom to him. Your white panties covered your bum but it wouldn’t be hard for him to paddle you right through the thin material.

As your thoughts grew lewder about what was coming and what Mr. Styles would do you squished your thighs together and adjusted your palms as you turned to look over your shoulder at the professor.

“I’m going to give you 30 paddles to your bottom. One for every minute you were late. How does that sound for a punishment?”

You inhaled deeply and looked down at the leather-wrapped paddle and back to his eyes. It was wild that he’d even suggest it all. And so casually too? But of course, you understood that he was asking permission. Perhaps this was the beginning of some sort of thing you and he would have in secret.

You nodded slowly, “Yes, professor. I think that’s fair.” You gulped down your saliva. You had never been spanked with a paddle before so you hoped saying yes was the right choice.

Harry grunted as he let his eyes drop to your ass and when you felt him pull at your skirt and lift it up ward you held your breath and closed your eyes, turning to face his desk again.

But the small little groan you heard from behind you had your eyes popping open. It sounded like the groan of a man who was turned on. Frustrated. You sure hoped that was the case.

“Can you keep quiet like a good girl?” His dark tone was pinched as you felt his warm hand brush over your ass before pushing the material of your skirt up to your waist.

“Yes, sir.”

The shuttered breath he let out as he groped your ass, palming at the material of your panties had your heart thumping hard under your ribs. He was enjoying this.

“Good.”

The suddenness of the first hit had you rocking forward quickly and yelping. You hadn’t been prepared for it. You’d been spanked with bare hands before. Not with a paddle.

“Shh… said you could be a good girl for me. One more outburst and I’ll stuff these panties into your mouth.”

You didn’t know why but that idea had you moaning softly and rolling your eyes to the back of your head.

The next strike you were prepared for. You gritted your teeth and panted as he brought it down again on the other side, “That’s three. From now on, I need you to count for me. Keep track so I don’t. have to.”

You breathed out heavily and nodded, “Yes, sir.”

4, 5, 6, 7… All within range of you being able to tolerate the pain and keep your little noises in.

But 8? For some reason 8 came down especially hard and stung like a mother fucker so you gasped and cried out loudly.

The paddle was suddenly placed on the desk next to your hand and you tilted your head to look at your colleague as he met your eyes. Blown-out pupils and puffy, bitten lips. He looked like sex. He’d always looked like sex but in that moment…

“Tell me what happens when you can’t keep quiet.” He leaned over you, one palm down on the desk, his other smoothing over the cotton of your panties softly.

You gulped hard and blinked the tiny bit of tears away that had formed in your eyes, “You said you’d stuff my panties into my mouth.”

“S’right. At least you know how to listen. Too bad you don’t know how to keep quiet.”

You nodded, “I’m sorry, sir.” You really didn’t want him to stop. It hurt but you loved the way it felt to have this man standing over you and spanking you. Watching you. Enjoying the view he had of you.

“So what should I do, then?”

You gasped when you felt his thumb push under the elastic of your panties and slip over your bottom, “Take my panties off and put them into my mouth. Like you said.”

Harry’s lips turned up into a sinister grin and you watched his tongue swipe over his bottom lip before he nodded and moved behind you, both hands now in the elastic of your cotton panties as he dragged them down your thighs.

You felt him pause his motions and once your ass was fully bare to him. You were sure with the way you were leaned over his desk that he could see your pussy too.

“Fuck…” his words were whispered into the room before he gently tugged your panties the rest of the way down your legs and you stepped, one foot at a time to have them removed completely.

When his hands found your bottom you felt him massage your cheeks and suck in a sharp breath, “You okay?”

It was the first time he sounded as if he were truly concerned about you. Perhaps he could see the marks he’d given you with the paddle. Or maybe it was just that you were so exposed to him in that moment.

“Yes, sir. I’m fine.” Your voice was a little shaky. You were on edge completely. You’d be thinking about this tonight for sure, and for many nights to come. But you still hadn’t determined if it was even really happening.

Harry leaned over you and you felt the cloth of his pants brush against your ass, “Mrs. Y/L/N, you are absolutely soaked. Did you know that? Had to be careful pulling your wet panties down your legs and now looking between your thighs I can see how much you are enjoying this. Not much of a punishment is it?”

His deep voice traveled down the shell of your ear and to your neck as you softly moaned and shook your head, “No. It’s not much of a punishment. I like it.”

You heard him chuckle before lifting your messy panties up to your face, “Open.”

You complied as he shoved the cotton into your mouth and then returned to his position behind you.

“Since you can’t count for me anymore I’m going to do it for you now.”

The 9th swat came down and the sting of the paddle against your bare bottom made you yelp out, though it was nice and muffled just as Harry had hoped.

The progression of each of his swats only made you drippier and pushed you further away from reality. And as he counted, the higher the numbers rose, you could hear the lust and pain in his voice. He was putting himself on edge by just watching you squirm and get wetter and wetter between your thighs.

At number 21 you didn’t know what you were doing anymore. You needed to end your misery. Without much of a thought in your brain (you were hardly able to connect your thoughts together by that point) you removed one hand from the desk as you leaned forward further over the wood and spread your legs before you began rubbing your clit.

Harry stopped quickly and you heard the clunk of the paddle fall to the floor and then his hand was grasping your wrist, yanking it away from your pussy, “What the fuck are you doing?”

You felt fuzzy and so far beyond caring about anything but coming you moaned in muffled words as you tried to speak through your panties. You could barely open your eyes as you felt his hand on your chin to turn your face toward him.

“You are dirty, aren’t you? Naughty, dirty, disrespectful professor,” Harry pulled the panties from your mouth and you gasped softly, drool falling from your mouth over his hand that remained at your jaw.

“Is there no punishment that will set you right?”

His own face was flushed and his eyelids were heavy with lust.

You thought about his question but you had no answer for him. You couldn’t put your thoughts together to form a sentence even if you wanted to. You moaned and reached a hand for his forearm as you turned your body toward his, causing your skirt to fall and cover your bits.

Harry pulled you in close and pressed your bottom into his desk, spreading your legs and lifting your skirt back up to expose you to him. He kept his eyes on yours as he used his free hand to softly swipe at the damp skin just next to your pussy. You bucked your hips into his hand and he laughed, “And desperate too.”

The hand he had at your jaw smushed your cheeks together harshly, “And because I’ve been so good I think I deserve a treat. Don’t you?”

You moaned again and nodded, “Yes, sir.”

He grunted as he moved his hand from your face and began to unbuckle his pants. You looked down to where his cock was clearly engorged and pushing against the material of his pants, He got his zipper down and found his way back between your thighs, pushing you down flat to your back, “Can I have a treat?” He thumbed at your clit as he looked into your eyes and you nodded, “Yes. Please.”

“You sure? Because I have something very specific in mind. Want to know what it is?”

Nodding your head you reached for the collar of his t-shirt and pleaded with him, “I want to know. Please…” you hoped he’d fuck you. Hoped he’d rail you right on his desk just as you often imagined him doing.

He laughed darkly as he pulled his briefs down and his cock came in your view. He began stroking himself right over you, using his foreskin to pump his cock quickly and upward over his tip, repeatedly yanking and pulling as he looked from your pussy to your face, “This is my treat. Gonna fuck my fist and come all over your pussy.”

You watched in awe. His long cock and his fist jerking himself was the hottest thing you’d ever seen. You groaned and bucked your hips upward, “Please, Harry…” you whined.

Harry had one palm flat on the desk as he kept himself angled over you, his cock above your pussy, so close but not close enough for your liking. You wanted him inside of you.

He laughed as he continued pulling at his shaft and he began to pant his next words, “Not gonna fuck you because that would be a nice treat for you too. And you’ve been naughty, Y/n. So you don’t get my cock.”

You scrunched your brows together with a pout and brought your own hand down to your clit and moaned. Harry gasped as he neared his end but slowed his pumping as he slapped your hand away from your pussy, “You don’t get to come. This is your punishment,” he grunted as he got back to fucking himself with his fist.

You watched in awe as he began to slightly tremble and his soft moans got more frequent.

And just as you heard him cough out one loud moan you knew he was coming before you even felt the first drop of come spurt over your pussy. You took the moment to swipe his come up and your arousal and lift your fingers to his mouth, shoving your digits past his lips as he poured his hot sperm all over your wet pussy and down your thighs.

You moaned as he wrapped his mouth around your fingers, his palm still milking his cock, draining everything he had all over your labia. You felt his come drip down past your entrance and to your bum as he licked and sucked your fingers.

You’d never seen anything more erotic in your life. You wanted to come too but to watch him come on your pussy as he sucked on your fingers was worth it.

When he’d finally emptied everything he had he let go of his dick and you pulled your fingers from his mouth with a smirk on your face.

He pulled his pants back up and looked at the mess he’d made, “Guess you’re gonna have to go home and clean that up aren’t you?”

You sat up and watched him as he lifted your panties up and handed them to you, “Was thinking I’d just run to the bathroom first–“ “No. I want my come smeared all over your pussy and those panties full of your spit and your arousal. Want to know you had to sit in traffic all dirty and desperate.”

You scoffed but began to pull the panties up your legs anyway.

When you stood up and turned to look at the professor he was tucking his laptop into his bag, his eyes already on you, “Maybe next time, if you’re good for me, I’ll let you come.”

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tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons · 8 months ago

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Terrible Visions

A scrambled timeline is a timeline that has proceeded much like ours, except that some particular facet has been mixed up all over the place. For example, in the scrambled timeline we will consider today, our world's fictional stories have been told by different people, and in different ways.

Bryan Lee O'Malley, in this alternate timeline, is best known as the cartoonist responsible for Homestuck, a popular comic series about a group of children who become embroiled in a cosmic-scale video game known as Sburb. Although Homestuck is probably most often associated with the cult classic Edgar Wright-directed film adaptation released in 2016, the comics themselves are highly-regarded, and the film brought a new audience to them. Netflix has commissioned an animated continuation, The Homestuck Epilogues, which is due to be released soon.

Andrew Hussie, on the other hand, is a figure you're likelier to know if you're overly online. His "MS Paint Adventures" series - most notably including Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which is kind of like Homestuck but weirder and hornier - have firmly remained a fixture of obsessive Twitter fandom culture. It doesn't help that the best-known iteration, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, is infamous for stretching thousands of pages of meandering digressions out of a simple and focused narrative starting point. Scott Pilgrim fans have developed something of a toxic reputation, which is not entirely deserved - although of course Knives discourse is interminable, and back in the fandom's heyday there were reportedly incidents of fans assaulting each other "for being evil exes".

Scott Pilgrim fandom was very big back in the day, though, and consequently it was a nexus for other creative figures who would go on to surpass Hussie. Perhaps foremost among these is indie developer Toby Fox. He was literally living in Hussie's basement when he produced ROSEQUARTZ, a universally-beloved retro Goonies-like RPG about a human hybrid boy born to a race of gem-based aliens. He's now developing an episodic spiritual successor, RAZORQUEST, with more overtly dark themes. It revolves around an inheritance dispute among a demon-summoning family.

Other foundational figures in this timeline's internet culture include Alison Bechdel, who helped get the webcomic scene started. Although she's now more seriously acclaimed for her personal memoirs, her gaming webcomic Press Start To Dyke, which premiered in 1998, was once everywhere. It had a broad appeal, and at its height, it was common to see even straight guys sharing pages from it. Time has not been especially kind to it, though, and at this point its main legacy is test.png, a meme spawned by one of the comic's most ill-advised pages.

Then there's John C. McCrae, more often known by his pseudonym Wildbow. A prolific and reclusive author of doorstopping "web serials" - long-form fiction published online - McCrae's best-known serial is still his first, Wind, a noir superhero story set in an alternate history where capes are mostly just a subculture of unpowered vigilantes. Wind landed in a culture already rife with comic book deconstructions, like Alan Moore's 2002 graphic novel Worm Turns, but it nonetheless managed to stand out from the pack with its extensive cast of characters and its themes of coordination problems and the end of the world. Later McCrae web serials include Part (the first "Otherverse" serial; an urban fantasy story about a couple who die in a car accident and find that they have become ghosts), Tear (a "biopunk" story set in a collapsing underwater city), Warn (the controversial Wind sequel), and Play (the second "Otherverse" serial, set in a small Indiana town that helps hide a psychic girl from the CIA).

Last and perhaps least, we should discuss J. K. Rowling. Far and away the most famous of any of these authors, Rowling's name is inseparable from the YA series that she debuted with, the Luz Noceda books, which remain her one successful work. Although it was heavily derivative of older fantasy novels - like Jill Murphy's Academy For Little Witches, or Philip Pullman's Methods Of Rationality trilogy - Luz Noceda was still a monumental and unprecedented success in the publishing industry, and the film adaptations were consistent blockbusters. The final book, Luz Noceda and the Watcher of Rain, contained some allusions to a romantic relationship between Luz and her recently-redeemed associate Amity. Rowling confirmed that this was her intent in subsequent interviews and indicated that she had fought her publishers for it; the film would then go on to escalate matters slightly further.

There have been many lengthy and heated online arguments as to whether the references in the book itself constitute text or mere subtext. Whatever your stance on this discourse, a new complication has been introduced recently: although she has put out no official statement on the matter as of yet, it has become quite apparent from Rowling's shrinking network of contacts and her conspicuous silences that she is certainly TERF-sympathetic, and likely an outright TERF herself. For many, this is leading to a critical reevaluation of the social values inherent in the Luz Noceda series; others, to say the least, are holding off on that kind of reappraisal.

Anyway, Scott Pilgrim just beat Luz Noceda in a Twitter poll for Most Gay Media, and people are piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed

#the scrambled timeline

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scrompsautobotsrchives · 2 months ago

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Amica Endura

Part 2 of the rewrites, Hopefully I can remake the magic. Word count:1.4K

Amica endura is a cybertronian word for one's only best friend. The person you stick with for years, and intend to stick by for years to come, and for bumblebee's case, It's y/n.

It's been nearly a year since that faithful day when you got him out of the dealership and you have proven yourself otherwise, he liked you a lot, and you were a perfect friend to him... But only a tiny problem... More than likely he needed permission from a prime, the prime being Optimus, but where was he ??

So late at night when you were asleep, he drove out and took the roads to hopefully find him, just a hint... anything... Soon after almost an hour of driving...

"Ca... ll... Au...ts" A signal was picked up, Bee froze in his place and began to adjust his signal to hopefully hear the message better.

"Calling all Autobots, If you can hear this, meet me at these coordinates" The prime's familiar voice flooded his ears !! Yippie !!!

And soon he sped his way to the location of the signal, oh god it's been ages !!

Optimus transformed at a nearby hill and tried to boost the signal range, Please hope his crew is alright... He looked down sadly before hearing the familiar rev of his faithful companion.

Bee whirred in excitement as he transformed and stumbled in front of him happily as he found him. "Oh captain, My captain !!" His radio scratched. "Glad... to... see you again"

Optimus looked down and gave a gentle nod, he was so goddamn happy. "Bee... good to see you too"

After a bit, Bee started to shift from side to side a little nervously "I can... say something ??" He finally said.

Optimus raised an optic brow. "Go on then" Fully turning to his comrade, giving him his full attention.

Bee stood there for a little bit before opening up his chest cavity to reveal his spark, Optimus looked down at him, and a moment passed before he seemed to understand. "Who is it ??"

He started to grow more nervous, oh god this was it. "Human..."

Optimus blinked again. "A human... You've been mingling with humans" He said firmly, he was only worried.

Bee nodded

"Impossible, It won't be happening" Optimus looked out into the open. Immediately abrasive of the idea.

"They are my friends..." Bee whirred angrily, kicking the ground before going on a rant. "They didn't... See me... as... junk... they helped... me find... my voice !!"

"No... we cannot trust them, the humans will protect what is there's, we can only trust our own kind"

Bee gave him the softest eyes. Now come on, who can't say no to them !! "They... mean a lot"

Optimus looked back out into the open after a while. "If they mean so much, bring them here"

He beeped softly, but you were at work tomorrow, he can't just say before you leave.

But before he could say, Optimus picked up another signal from a familiar rev head. Bee beeped again, he has an idea. "Let's go to the mall..."

The next night, you were leaving work and making your way to the bus station, But you didn't make it until a car started to rev in front of you. But the fear slowly dissipated once you realized what car it was

"Porsche 911 Carrera" You looked around it, holy flipping cow... you then noticed on the steering wheel a familiar logo that Bee also had on his steering wheel, was it... one of them ??

The car revved again, clicking open the door. You frowned, So hesitantly you hopped in, knowing that is what it's likely asking... the car feels nice... And before you knew it, the door slammed shut, the engine roared and sped off down the road.

"Woah Woah WOAH !!" You held on for dear life.

The car revved again and went faster just to tease you a little bit, it wasn't long before the police got involved from all the stunt's its been performing.

"Pull over !!" One officer managed to get next to you.

"I'M NOT DRIVING !!" You screamed out.

They flicked the lights on and tried to speed up, but not on this autobot's watch, he has a few tricks up his sleeve.

He swirled around and started to drive in reverse, first blinding the cop and soon rearranging with you safely in back to front. The cherry on top was then he started to make clones of himself and you, You looked to your left to see a clone of you flipping off the cop, and on the right, the clone of you gave a thumbs up.

The car swerved onto an offramp while the cop was distracted, making him crash into a guard division, You were getting to your final destination, speeding off into an abandoned warehouse.

"Yo yo yo slow down !!"

The car skidded along the ground, flinging you out as gently as it could, and soon beginning to transform.

"Woohoo !! That felt good !! Get some oil pumping you know ?? Damn. I've been cooped up forever dude, I can't tell you how old it gets. 'Mirage, stay hidden. Mirage, don't draw any attention to yourself. Mirage, Big is just a movie, you'll never be a real boy.' But that was fun man, your fun dude"

You were just rushing off from the adrenaline, looking up at him with slight fear.

"Oh right, this is probably a lot for you huh ??" He smiled softly as he kneeled to your height.

You scrambled up and grabbed a nearby pole, ready to defend yourself. "Back up !!'

"Hey woah woah, what's with the aggression. I thought after the car chase we were cool ??"

"What are you, some kind of possessed car ??"

"Nah, that's not real man, I'm an alien"

"Like... Like ET ??" Now where did that come from.

"ET !! The little ugly guy in the basket ?? Look at this face !!" He pointed to his adorable face before then holding out a fist for you. "The name mirage !!

You were a little hesitant.

"Come on, give me a little... give me a little... give me a little tap... give me a little tap..."

You then hesitantly fist bumped him.

"There ya go now were friends !!"

Soon you heard more revving, one light and one super heavy.

"Oh great the gang's here"

You looked behind and saw Bee driving in and transforming, Then soon back at the front, you saw a truck driving in and transforming, this one was super tall than Mirage and Bee !!

Bee quickly jumped in between you and Optimus, He knew Optimus meant well, but go easy on them ok !! Optimus stopped to look at both of you before then picking you up and getting a closer look.

"Who... Who are you ??" You frowned.

"I am Optimus prime" He looked at you firmly.

"Bee... what's going on ??"

Bee whirred softly as Optimus continued. "Who are you... Y/n"

'I... I'm just a normal kid... I found Bee in the car shop alright... I ain't even seen nothing I don't even know nothing" You closed your eyes and looked away.

Optimus looked at you firmly before you noticed his optics softened, Out of a sort of apology, before he then gently placed you back down. He still felt like he couldn't trust humans... But he is open to seeing where this will go, if this is what bee wants, he won't stop him.

"Bee ??" You looked over at him.

He whirred softly, putting his focus on you and kneeling down, Unlatching his chest cavity. "Y/n- my best... friend. Most... Important friend"

Your eyes softened when you looked at his spark, It was so bright.

Bee gave you the softest look. "I want... to be your friend- forever" Soon closing his chest cavity, you looked over at the other two.

"What happened ??"

"Dude... He just offered you ultimate friendship" Mirage chimed in, still amazed by the sight.

Optimus nodded to him and you. "Amica endura, The strongest form of friendship that a cybertronian can ever offer. An eternal oath" He explained to you.

"It's never been done with a human before, so consider yourself the first" Mirage chimed again.

Bee looked at you softly, whirring in hope.

You smiled up at him. "Your my best friend bee"

He beeped happily before scooping you up and holding you close.

Optimus didn't say anything, He didn't feel it was his place, just watching... But he couldn't help but twitch a small small.

Be nuzzled your cheek as you held him close as well. His spark pulsing warmth against his chest, His radio scratched... "I'll love you till the day that I die"

Taglist: @callofdudes

#transformers #platonic #reader insert #transformers imagine #transformers x reader #bumblebee #mirage #bumblebee imagine #bumblebee x reader #mirage imagine #mirage x reader #transformers rise of the beasts #optimus prime x reader #optimus prime imagine #optimus prime #transformers rotb #rewrite

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months ago

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Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns

But "why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?" is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren't Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it's just down to youth's appetite for novelty, but that's only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs.

"Switching costs" is the economists' term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps and purchased media. Switching from an airline where you're a high-status frequent flier to another carrier means giving up on free checked bags and early boarding.

In an open market, rivals have lots of ways to lower these switching costs (it's an open secret that you can call an airline and say, "Hi, I'm a 33rd Order Mason on American Airlines, will you make me a Triple Platinum Diamond Sky-Baron if I switch to Delta?"). Of course, big incumbents hate this, and do everything they can to increase their switching costs, finding ways to impose high switching costs that punish disloyal consumers who have the temerity to go elsewhere.

With social media, lock-in comes for free, thanks to the "collective action problem." Getting people to agree on a given course of action is hard, and as you add more people to the picture, the problem gets harder. It's hard enough to get half a dozen people in your group-chat to agree on where to go for dinner or what board-game to play. But once you're reliant on a social media service to stay in touch with friends, relatives around the world, customers, communities (say, rare disease support groups), and coordination (like organizing your kid's little league car-pool), the problem becomes nearly insoluble. Maybe you can convince your overseas relatives to switch to a Signal group, but can you do the same for your small business's customers, or your old high-school pals?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

Taken together, switching costs and collective action problems make platforms "sticky," and sticky platforms inevitably enshittify.

Platforms, after all, generate value. They connect end-users with each other (say, little league parents) and they connect end-users to business customers (you and your small business's customers). That value needs to be parceled out among end users, business customers, and the platform's shareholders. A platform can make life better for business customers at its end users' expense by increasing the number of ads (hello, Youtube!), and it can make life better for its shareholders at its business customers' expense by decreasing the share of ad revenue given to publishers or performers (oh, hello again, Youtube!).

From a platform's perspective, the ideal state is one in which end users and business customers get no value from the platform, because it's all being captured by the platform's shareholders. But if Youtube interrupted every 30 seconds of video for ten minutes of ads and paid the video creators nothing, both users and creators would ditch the platform – and advertisers would follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab8sKg8Ko8

So platforms seek an equilibrium: "what is the least value we apportion to end-users and business customers without triggering their departure?" Maybe that means giving more value to end-users (for example, keeping Uber fares low by suppressing wages), or to business-customers (crowding more ads into your social media feed).

Every business – including brick-and-mortar, non-digitized ones – wants to find some kind of equilibrium between the value going to its suppliers, its customers and its owners, but digital businesses have an advantage here: digital systems are flexible in ways that analog, hard-goods businesses are not. Digital businesses can alter pricing, payouts and other dynamics from moment to moment – second to second – and make a different offer to every supplier and customer. They have a bunch of knobs, and they can twiddle them at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Well, not quite at will. Businesses face constraints on their twiddling. If they get too greedy, users or business customers might weigh the cost of staying against the switching costs and decide it's not worth it. But the more expensive – the more painful – a platform can make leaving, the more pain they can inflict on the people who stay.

In other words, there's two ways to keep a customer or supplier's business: you can make a better service so they won't want to leave, or you can make leaving the service so painful that they stay even if you mistreat them.

There's three ways a digital company can make things worse for their customers and users without losing their business.

First, they can eliminate competition (think of Mark Zuckerberg buying Instagram to recapture the users who'd fled Facebook to escape his poor management):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Second, they can capture their regulators and avoid punishment for trampling their suppliers' or users' legal rights (think of how Amazon has raised the price of everything we buy, both on- and off Amazon, through its "most favored nation" deals):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Third, they can use IP law to prevent competitors from modifying their services to claw back some of that value (think of how Apple used legal threats to block an Android version of Imessage, blocking Apple customers from having private conversations that included non-Apple customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Companies can't just use this tricks at will, of course. Antitrust laws can block companies from making anticompetitve acquisitions or mergers. Regulators can punish companies for cheating their customers, workers and users. Technologists can come up with clever ways of modding or reconfiguring existing services with "interoperable" add-ons that let users bargain for better treatment by refusing to accept worse:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Day in, day out, the decision-makers at tech companies test these constraints, twisting the knobs that shift value away from users to shareholders. Their bosses and boards motivate them with "KPIs" that dangle the promise of huge bonuses and promotions for any manager who successfully enshittifies part of the company's products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Decades of pro-corporate, pro-monopoly policy has loosened those knobs. 40 years of lax antitrust meant that companies had a lot of leeway to buy or merge with rivals – that's changing today, but it's tough sledding:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

As sectors grew more concentrated, they found it easier to capture their regulators, so that they no longer fear punishment for price-gouging, spying, or wage-theft, so applying the same amount of torque to the "break the law" knob cranks it a lot further:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Once you've captured your regulators, you can aim them at your competitors. A monopoly-friendly policy environment has transformed IP law into a bully's charter, allowing powerful companies to strangle would-be competitors who dare to offer their customers tools to shield themselves from enshittification, like scrapers, ad-blockers and alternative clients. Big companies can crank the enshittification knob all the way over and know that smaller rivals knobs won't turn at all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

At one point, bosses faced one more constraint on knob-twiddling: their workforce. Many tech workers genuinely cared about their users' welfare, something bosses encouraged as a sneaky trick to get techies to put in long hours without exercising their leverage by quitting rather than destroying their lives to meet arbitrary deadlines. These workers would fearlessly slap their bosses' hands when they reached for the enshittification knob, threatening to quit rather than allowing the products they'd given so much for to be enshittified. Today, after hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs, tech workers are far less like to challenge their bosses' right to twiddle, and far more likely to get fired if they try:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

All this means that tech bosses don't have to change their approach at all, and yet, their services will grow steadily worse. The boss who twiddles the enshittification knob in exactly the same way as he did a year or a decade ago will find it turning much further, because his customers are locked into his platform, his regulators won't protect them, the same regulators will stop his competitors' attempts at countertwiddling, and his workers fear losing their jobs too much to speak up for their users.

That's the contagion that produced the enshittocene: the forces that constrained companies (competition, regulation, self-help and labor – all melted away, allowing every company's MBA-poisoned knob-twiddling leaders to shamelessly caress their knobs with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Which is why people want to leave platforms. When a platform loses its users, those users have weighed the switching costs against the pain of staying and decided that it's better to bear those costs than to stay.

So why have Tiktok's younger users found the costs too high to bear, and why have their elders remained stuck to the platform?

For that, we have to look at the unique characteristics of young people – characteristics that transcend the lazy cliche that kids are easily bored, fickle novelty-seekers who hop from one service to another with unquenchable restlessness.

Whether or not kids are novelty-seekers, they are, fundamentally, a disfavored minority. They want to do things that the platforms don't want them to do – like converse without being overheard by authority figures, including their parents and their schools (also: cops and future employers, though kids may not be thinking about them as much).

In other words, kids pay intrinsically lower switching costs than adults, because a platform will always do less for them than it will for grownups. This is a characteristic kids share with other supposedly technophilic, novelty-seeking "early adopters," from sex-workers to terrorists, from sexual minorities to trolls, from political dissidents to fascists. For those groups, the cost of mastering a new technology and assembling a community around it is always more likely to be worth bearing than it would be for people who are well-served by existing tools:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Pornographers didn't jump on home video because of its superiority as a medium for capturing flesh-tones. Home video was a good porn medium because it was easier to discreetly get into the hands of porn consumers, who could, in turn, discreetly view it. The audience for porn in the privacy of your living room is larger than the audience for porn that you can only watch if you're willing to be seen marching into a dirty movie theater.

Every new technology is popularized by a mix of disfavored groups and neophiles, who normalize and refine it – and yes, infuse it with their countercultural coolth – until it becomes easy enough to use to become mainstream. As more normies drift into the new system, the switching costs associated with leaving the old system declines. It gets easier and easier to find the people and services you want in the new realm, and harder and harder to find them in the old one.

This is why tech platforms have historically experienced sudden collapse: the platform that gets more valuable and harder to leave as it accumulates users gets less valuable and easier to leave as users depart:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

If you're a Gen Z kid on Tiktok, you experience the same enshittification as your Millennial elders. But you also experience an additional cost to staying: as late-arriving adult authority figures become more fluent in the platform, they are more able to observe your use of it, and punish you for conduct that you used to get away with.

And if you're a Millennial who isn't leaving Tiktok, it's not just that you experience the same enshittification as those departing Gen Z kids – you also face higher switching costs if you go. The older you get, the more complex your social connections grow. A Gen Z kid in middle school doesn't have to worry about losing touch with their high-school buddies if they switch platforms (they haven't gone to high school yet – and they see their middle school friends in person all the time, giving them a side-channel to share information about who's leaving Tiktok and where they're headed to next). Middle-schoolers don't have to worry about coordinating little league car-pools or losing access to a rare disease support group.

In other words: younger people leave old platforms earlier because they have more to gain by leaving; and older people leave old platforms later because they have more to lose by leaving.

This is why Facebook is filled with Boomers. Yes, their kids bolted for the exits to avoid having their parents (or grandparents) wading into their sexual, social and professional lives. But the reason the Boomers were late joining younger users' Facebook exodus – or the reason they never joined it – is that they stand to lose more by going. Facebook deliberately cultivated this dynamic, for example, by creating a photo hosting service designed to entice users into uploading their family photos while disguising how hard it would be to take those photos with them if they left:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The irony here is that tech has intrinsically low switching costs. All other things being equal, a new platform can always build a bridge to ease the passage of users from the old one. There's no (technical) reason that moving to Mastodon, or Bluesky, or any other platform should mean cutting ties with the people who stayed behind.

A combination of voluntary interoperability (where old platforms offer APIs to allow new services to connect with them), mandatory interop (where governments force tech companies to offer APIs) and adversarial interop (where new companies hack together their own API with reverse-engineering, scraping, bots, and other guerrilla tactics) would hypothetically allow users to hop between networks as easily as you change phone carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Tech platforms tend to offer APIs when they're getting started (to ease the inward passage of new users) then shut them down after they attain dominance (locking the door behind those users). The EU is tinkering with mandatory APIs through the Digital Markets Act (though bafflingly, they're starting with encrypted messaging rather than social media). Restoring adversarial interoperability will require extensive legal reform, which is getting started through Right to Repair laws:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law-apple-lobbied-to-kill/

The people who are stranded on social media platforms shouldn't be mistaken for uncool, aging technophobes. They're not stubborn, they're stranded. Like the elders who can't afford to leave a dying town after the factory shuts down and the young people move away, these people are locked in. They need help evacuating – a place to go and a path to get there.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/21/involuntary-die-hards/#evacuate-the-platformsr

#pluralistic

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bakuettes · 4 months ago

Text

Catch My Drift 🏁 chapter 1

Street racer!bakugo x Street racer!reader

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: cursing, douche bakugo, slight misogyny, alcohol consumption, drug use, illegal activities etc

Kanjozoku; The term Kanjozoku is derived from the combination of the words “kanjo” (meaning ring) and “zoku” (meaning group).

Kanjozoku primarily consists of young car enthusiasts in cities like Osaka and Tokyo who have a passion for speed and a desire to showcase their driving skills.

Osaka was the place to be. Not where tourists go to take pictures and try japanese cuisine, maybe pick up a few souvenirs from the large amount of little gift shops that littered the streets but where a community of young adults with the passion for racing congregate. The night was still young, the sounds of tires screeching against the cold pavement and engines roaring was heard over the heavy base of 2000s club music. Girls dressed in scandalous outfits mingling with the guys posted up next to their pimped out rides. You could practically feel the vibrations of the noise in your head.

Three cars lined up with the drivers sitting on the hoods of their prized possession. A bright orange 1993 Mazda RX-7 FD on the far left. The car’s color was comparable to an orange or maybe even the warm sunsets that would settle over japan. The next car over was a 1993 Toyota Supra Turbo Mark IV. The bright colorful lights that surrounded the meet reflected beautifully off the cars mustard yellow chrome. The third and final car was a looker. Silver 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 with royal blue detailing along the sides and on the hood. A royal blue flexivity rear wing with matching led lights underneath the body.

It was Bakugo’s baby. Spent years modifying and perfecting it. He was a skilled driver sure but having a car like his? Most would be intimidated to challenge him. “Yo Mina, let’s get this race going!” the orange mazda driver shouted. it was hard to find anyone in this crowd but said woman emerged from the sidelines with a confused look on her face. “Woah woah, wait a second.” She looked around the lot, once overing the lined up vehicles. “where’s your fourth at? i’m counting only three.” mina crossed her arms, unimpressed. the yellow toyota driver spoke up first “it was supposed to be joaquin but he caught the grave yard shift man.”

once you were scheduled to race it was a hassle to find new drivers, the time and place was set in stone. it wasnt that often when scheduled racers were a no show but then again many get caught racing outside of meets or their car needed more time to be repaired. It was a waste of mina’s time. she was the flag girl, not their fucking coordinator. “Na, y’all either find a fourth or you don’t race. How’s that sound? Times ticking boys.”

By standers erupted in shouts of anger and disappointment. they wanted to see a race, most of them drove well over an hour to be here! gas wasn’t cheap and neither was Minas time. Hearing the crowds complaining mina sighed and pitched them an idea. “Alright! i hear you guys, relax. How about this, why don’t i find y’all a driver and we settle this now?” bakugo smirked, nodding in agreement. he never said much but he also never needed to. his aura spoke volumes. “bring ‘em on.” he wasn’t nervous, he knew his talents and was confident. resting the palms of his hands on the hood of his car, he tilted his head towards the other racers, waiting to see hear their answers. “Anyone i want?” mina questioned with a grin that would give the cheshire cat a run for his money. “anybody baby!” orange jululis shouted, raising his arms to the side. cocky bastard. mina rolled her eyes and turned away from the drivers, pulling out her phone from her bra. there was a whole list of people she could call but there was only one person she knew who could end this race quickly.

she could hear the static from the other end of the phone. “y/n, you wanna race tonight?” it was quite for a moment before you spoke in to the speaker “i’m always down, send me your lo.” your voice was smooth like silk but sultry like a vixen. it sounded like you’ve been up for a while so mina didn’t feel bad for calling you so late. she knew you came alive in the night anyway. your energetic friend squealed before gathering herself together. “you got 5 minutes hun!” and then the line went dead.

it never took much convincing to get you out. when mina called you it was 12:15 am, meaning you only had exactly 5 minutes to get there. the meet lot was about 20 minutes out. you arrived there in 4, only a minute left to spare. the sound of you engine had heads turning (a certain blonde as well) as you slowly pulled through the crowd, careful not to hit party-goers. the hot pink body of your 2000 Honda S2000 was hard to miss. everyone knew who was inside and that fact alone made them scream louder. you never really cared too much though, it wasn’t like you had vocals like mariah carey. you didn’t have the ability to move like michael jackson. you were just a damn good racer and that was enough for them apparently.

all three racers turned their heads in the direction of the obnoxiously loud honda, tensing up at the sight. well, all except for one of course. bakugo had no idea why everyone was so fucking hyped. who was that? and why’s everyone acting like they’ve never seen a pink car?? “Racers!” mina yelled excitedly “here’s your fourth!”. your black stiletto boots were the first thing he saw exit the car. then it was a black leather hat. he glanced over at the others to study their reactions and they all had excitement swirling in their eyes. maybe even a hint of nervousness? bakugo didn’t have time to be sure because before he knew it, you were leaning back against the hood of your car crossing one leg over the other. “oh shit, it’s y/n.” you weren’t new to this, you were true to this. the air was crisp and cold, you probably should’ve brought a jacket because this top (if it could even be considered one) with this miniskirt wasn’t doing you no type of favors.

from the corner of your eye you could see a blonde headed man with spikey hair almost looking annoyed as he walked over to mina who was standing in the middle of the road. “no offense but i’m not racing a damn girl. you never said it would be a girl.” you rolled your eyes, who the hell does he think he is? a race is a race. why did it matter who was behind the wheel? you best friend looks beyond over this shit, she’s been annoyed her this whole night and she’s about to lose her patience. “you said anyone i wanted, i wanted her! stand next to your car before nobody races.”

“you scared spikes?” he turned his head to the side, watching you push yourself off the car and strut to the middle where he and mina stood. he sized you up, shamelessly checking you out. “what the hell did you jus call me?” he wasn’t scared. why would bakugo be scared of some princess nobody? “can you even drive with those heels on?” your outfit was impractical he thought. a miniskirt that just barely covered the expanse of your ass (not that he really minded) and what looks like a triangle bikini top. if you were to bend over then— no. now’s not the time to thirst over you. even if he did think you were hot.

“i’m just askin.. why wouldn’t you wanna race me if you weren’t scared?” you’ve dealt with his type before, cocky, thinks they’re better than everyone and so on. he’s got sharp red eyes with a piercing gaze. you let your eyes trail away from his face down to the hardened muscles on his chest. clearly well built and his black tshirt was doing nothing to hide it. “man whatever,” your eyes moved back to his hearing the sound of his voice. “i’m not doin this, find somebody else.” he wasn’t scared, he just felt that he could be using this time to race against someone on his level. why’s it that the egotistical men somehow always find you? you would’ve just let him go but you hated the feeling of being looked down on. he’s no better than you, he doesn’t even know what you have to offer. do you did what you do best, you uped the ante.

“15 grand.” you raised your voice a bit. silence fell over the crowd. “i’ll give you 15 grand if you agree to race tonight and win, that applies to the other racers too” you say to the other two drivers still next to their cars. that made him stop dead in his tracks. were you insane? you’re acting like that’s pocket money. fuck, he doesn’t know if he should do it. he didn’t need the money, but his sister did. he tries to help his mother out the best he can, this would cover at least two months worth of bills. gritting his teeth he turns around starting directly at you “don’t start to regret this when you lose ma.” got ‘em, you thought with shit eating smirk.

you walked past him, shoulder checking the man who’s name you still don’t know. he looked at you, staring at your ass as your skirt rode up with every step you took. you must’ve felt bakugo’s stare because your hands grab them hem of the denim and pull it down, throwing him a flirty smile over your shoulder. the tips of his ears turn a shade of pink. he quickly looks to the side, licking his lips attempting to play it off as if the whole meet did see the interaction. all the racers start getting into there respective cars, starting them up. mina struts to the middle of the street once again only this time with a checkered flag. her brown skin was glowing, the lights reflecting off the body glitter she wore.

“Racers!”

mina exudes confidence. you hand your left hand on the wheel, the other hand tightly gripping on to the gear shift. foot tapping on the gas a bit. you were high off adrenaline, you lived for moments like these.

“Start your engines..”

bakugo couldn’t help but stare at you. the look in your eyes. ‘s like you got off on this, the wicked smile on your lips doing nothing to make him think otherwise. he wasn’t fazed though, he had this in the bag. maybe even after he wins he could take you out but that was something he’d ask later, he needs to focus. the flag drops.

“GO!”.

and you were gone.

𝐀/𝐍!!: okay why was this way harder than i thought? 😭 please bare with me ik im not that advanced in writing. i also don’t know a lot about cars but i research by chapter. lmk how u like it so far and i promise to produce better work as time goes on!

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doctorbitchcrxft · 8 months ago

Text

Wendigo | Supernatural Series Rewrite | Dean Winchester x Reader

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: canon violence, canon gore, Dean's a dick but so is the reader

Word Count: 8817

A/N: Happy Saturday! Enjoy the next chapter!! Taglist/Requests are open!!

Mobile Supernatural Series Rewrite Masterlist

Supernatural Series Rewrite Masterlist

Supernatural Series Rewrite Playlist

You were curled up against the backseat of the Impala writing in your journal and humming along to Dean’s Foreigner cassette tape when Sam jerked awake in the front seat. You jerked up as well, concerned.

Dean shot his brother a worried look. “You okay?”

Sam blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, I'm fine.”

“Bull. Nightmare?” you asked.

The younger brother just cleared his throat in response.

“You wanna drive for a while?” Dean asked.

You and Sam gave him an incredulous look.

“Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that,” he laughed.

“Just thought you might want to. Never mind.” He rolled his eyes and returned them to the road.

“Look, man, you’re worried about me,” Sam sighed. “I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay.”

His brother just hummed in response.

“I’ll take you up on that driving offer, though,” you chimed in.

“Not a chance, sweetheart.”

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“And I told you I wasn’t listening.”

“Dick.”

Dean just scoffed in response.

Sam’s unfolding of a map brought the conversation back on track. “All right, where are we?”

“Just outside of Grand Junction,” you answered. You leaned over his shoulder and pointed at the spot labeled “Grand Junction” and drew a trail with your finger over to a spot labeled with the coordinates Dean had found in John’s journal.

Sam hesitated before speaking again. “You know what? Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon.”

Dean shook his head. “Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica—”

“We gotta find Dad first,” Sam finished.

“Dad disappearing and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence.”

“Wait, showing up again?” you asked. Even after poking around at Stanford, this was the first you’d heard of a previous encounter with the creature.

“I thought Sam would’ve told you,” Dean said.

“Told me what?”

Sam turned to face you. “You remember what I said about my mom dying? She died the same way Jess did.”

You nodded in solemn understanding.

The car went quiet again; the silence only broken by the older brother. “Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do.”

Sam scanned the map again. “It's weird, man. These coordinates he left us. This Blackwater Ridge.”

“What about it?” you asked, putting your chin on Sam’s shoulder to look at the map.

“There's nothing there. It's just woods.” He put down the map, looking past your head at Dean. “Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?”

Dean just shrugged in response.

The three of you found yourselves in a ranger’s station in Lost Creek National Forest just outside of Blackwater Ridge. You and Sam scanned a three-dimensional map of the forest atop a large table in the center of the room.

“So Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote.” The brunet tapped his finger against the ridge’s label on the map. “It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place.”

However, his brother’s attention could not be pulled away from a picture on the wall. “Dude, check out the size of this freaking bear.”

You walked over to him, and he was right. The thing was massive. The man standing behind its corpse looked like a dwarf in comparison.

“There’s about a dozen or so grizzlies in the area,” you added.

You and the boys were startled by a ranger’s voice coming from behind you. “You three aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?”

“Oh, no, sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper,” Sam assured him, laughing awkwardly.

Dean grinned and raised a fist. “Recycle, man.”

‘I could hit him. Jackass.’

The ranger obviously did not believe him. “Bull.”

Your eyes flicked to Dean, who was unmoving.

“You're friends with that Haley girl, right?” the ranger continued.

“Yes. Yes, we are, Ranger— Wilkinson.” Dean faltered only to read the ranger’s name tag.

“Well I will tell you exactly what we told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?”

You shook your head.

“You tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine.”

“We will.” Dean paused only for a moment. “Well, that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?”

“That is putting it mildly.”

You laughed. ‘I’m sure we’d get along great.’

“Actually,” Dean stopped the ranger from leaving the room. “You know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother's return date.”

The ranger eyed Dean curiously, but still got him a copy of the permit.

Dean laughed smugly as the three of you left the station, waving the paper around.

“What are you, five?” you asked him.

“Listen, sweetheart, I consider this a major success.” You quirked a brow at him, mildly annoyed he called you that stupid name again. “This eliminates a lot of the groundwork we normally have to do.”

“Fair point,” you shrugged.

Sam broke the somewhat comfortable silence. “Are you cruising for a hookup or something?”

Considering the thought you’d just had, you were taken slightly aback. “What do you mean?”

“The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?” Sam was more talking pointedly at Dean and not you. You came to a stop on your respective sides of the Impala.

You couldn’t quite see Dean over the top of the car. “I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?”

You could practically feel the look Dean was giving Sam.

“What?” the brunet scoffed.

“Since when are you all shoot-first-ask-questions-later, anyway?”

“Since now.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, biting the inside of your lip. “Really?’ you muttered, getting down into the car.

***

Sam walked a little further up the walkway to the Collins house than you and Dean did.

“Forty-five minutes in that copy room for this?” you inspected Dean’s small, fake park ranger ID.

“Can’t rush art, sweetheart.”

“Now you’re just working it into every sentence because you know it aggravates me.”

"Yup,” Dean chuckled.

You smirked lopsidedly and Dean knocked on Haley Collins’s front door. A quite beautiful, dark-haired girl opened it moments later.

“You must be Haley Collins. I'm Dean, this is Sam, and (Y/N), we're, ah, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother Tommy.”

Haley hesitated. “Lemme see some ID.”

Dean held up the ID you’d previously been inspecting to the screen door. The girl looked between the ID and Dean.

“Come on in.”

“Thanks.”

The door swung open, allowing Haley to catch a glimpse of the Impala. “That yours?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice car.” She began leading the three of you into the home.

Dean looked back at Sam, mouthing something excitedly to him that you couldn’t quite make out. You rolled your eyes. You decided then and there you would push your attraction to him to the side for the rest of the time you were working with the brothers. To you, he was just an asshole playboy.

Sam’s voice broke you out of your thoughts. “So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?”

You took in the sight of the table set for dinner and a young boy who looked to be about thirteen already picking at his plate of food.

Haley entered the room with a bowl and placed it onto the table. “He checks in every day by cell. He emails, photos, stupid little videos—we haven't heard anything in over three days now.”

“Well, maybe he can't get cell reception,” you suggested.

“He's got a satellite phone, too.”

‘Well, there goes that theory.’

“Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?” Dean threw in.

The teenage boy clanked his fork against his plate, sharply stating, “He wouldn't do that.”

You eyed the boy, getting a read on him.

“Our parents are gone,” Haley said. “It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other.”

You nodded in understanding. As much as you were trying to dislike her, it wasn’t working all that well.

“Can I see the pictures he sent you?” Sam asked.

Haley pulled out her laptop to show Sam the folder of pictures and videos her brother had sent her. “That's Tommy.” You could hear the sadness in her voice.

She clicked through to the most recent video.

A scruffy, presumably twenty-five year old man appeared onscreen. “Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow.”

Something flickered past outside the young man’s tent. Your brows furrowed.

“Well, we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing,” Dean assured her.

“Then maybe I'll see you there,” she answered. “Look, I can't sit around here anymore. So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself.”

“I think I know how you feel.”

Your eyes flicked over to Dean, growing angry at what you assumed to be an attempt at seducing the girl.

‘She’s mourning the potential loss of her brother, and you’re gonna try and charm her? Asshole.’

The younger Winchester once again broke you out of your thoughts. “Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?”

“Sure.” Haley clicked away on her laptop again.

***

You and the boys wound up at a bar. The table was covered in newspapers, John’s journal, and beer bottles; some full and some half empty.

“So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found.”

You gestured to John’s journal, which Sam slid over to you. You began flipping through it.

“Any before that?” Dean asked.

Sam pulled out a newspaper to show his brother. “Yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack.”

You leaned across the table, squinting at the headline. You felt Dean’s eyes flick to your breasts that had subsequently been pushed up in your wife beater as you leaned over.

You glared at him. “Stay focused, Winchester.”

Dean rolled his eyes, apparently unable to find his way to a witty response. You turned your attention back to the headline that read, “ GRIZZLY BEAR ATTACKS! UP TO EIGHT HIKERS VANISH IN LOST CREEK AREA.”

Sam pulled out his laptop. “Before that, 1959 and 1936. Every twenty-three years, just like clockwork.”

“You have WiFi in here?” you questioned.

“Don’t need it. Just wanted to look at Haley’s video.” He pulled it up from a folder on his screen.

“Oh, shit. I almost forgot. Can I see that?” You hopped off your stool to get between the two brothers. “Watch this.” You clicked through the three frames of the video containing the shadow you’d seen flash across the screen. “That's three frames. That's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move.”

Dean reached across you to hit Sam’s shoulder. “Told you something weird was going on.”

Sam rolled his eyes, closing his laptop. “Yeah. I got one more thing.” He put a newspaper article between you and Dean. “In 'fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive.”

You skimmed the article briefly. “Is there a name?”

The only survivor of the attack in the article Sam showed you and Dean was a child at the time. He now lived a life of what appeared to be solitude. He drove a beat up truck that was parked haphazardly in his driveway and lived several miles out of the city. You took in the poor old man’s messy house as he led your trio into his living room.

“Look, ranger, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a—”

Sam interrupted him. “Grizzly? That's what attacked them?”

Mr. Shaw lit a cigarette, took a deep puff, and nodded.

“The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?” Dean’s tone was slightly pointed. “What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing?”

The old man continued to take drags of his cigarette. He seemed almost scared to entertain any other explanation aside from a grizzly bear attack.

Dean continued to pressure him. “If we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it.”

Mr. Shaw shook his head. “I seriously doubt that. Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make.” He sat down in his recliner. “You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did.”

Sam sat down opposite the old man. “Mr. Shaw, what did you see?”

“Nothing. It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar. Like... no man or animal I ever heard.”

“It came at night?”

He nodded.

“Got inside your tent?”

“It got inside our cabin. I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it.”

You tried to keep your face from conveying your intrigue and tinge of fear.

“Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming.” You could see Mr. Shaw becoming lost in his mind.

“It killed them?” Sam continued.

“Dragged them off into the night.” The old man shook his head as if to shake away the memories. “Why it left me alive... been asking myself that ever since.” He took a brief pause before reaching to the collar of his wife beater. “Did leave me this, though.” He pulled it down to reveal three long, deep claw mark scars. Through morbid curiosity, you were tempted to run your fingers over the jagged edges of the scarring. You couldn’t imagine how painful and angry the marks must have been when the poor man first got them.

“There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of a demon.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Shaw. We’re sorry about your parents,” you told him, turning away. “Have a good night, sir.”

Mr. Shaw seemed too caught up in his own head to respond with more than a wave, letting a cloud of smoke slither out of his mouth.

*** Later that night, you and the boys had just booked a room in yet another crappy motel.

‘One of these days I’ll treat myself to a stay in a halfway decent hotel.’

Before the three of you would be turning in for the night, you were headed to Dean’s car to pack your bags for the early morning you were about to have.

“Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors.” Dean broke your train of thought. “If they want inside, they just go through the walls.”

“So it's probably something else, something corporeal,” Sam said.

“Corporeal? Look at you, smartass,” you laughed.

“Shut up. So what do you think?”

“The claws, the speed that it moves…” Dean trailed off. “Could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog. Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's corporeal. Which means we can kill it.”

“True,” you started. “But how are you gonna know what to bring to kill it with if we have no idea what it is?”

“Just trust me on this one,” Dean replied. “There’s not much a gun won’t be able to take care of.” He let the door to the motel almost completely swing shut behind him; nearly hitting you in the face.

You caught it just in time. “Right, right. Just like you ‘took care’ of Constance by shooting her.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Dean raised a brow at you, just barely turning over his shoulder to give you his response. He started busying himself in the weapons box in the back of his car.

“I mean, just barely. Nearly caught me in the crossfire.”

Dean rolled his eyes, sighing dramatically. “And what a shame that would’ve been.”

“Hey!” You shoved his shoulder with yours.

He glared at you in response.

Sam, who had been quiet the last few minutes, spoke up. “We cannot let that Haley girl go out there.”

His brother was rummaging through the weapons box; haphazardly throwing guns into his duffel bag. “Oh yeah? What are we gonna tell her? That she can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?”

You found a shotgun that was slightly smaller than the rest, giving it a once over before moving to put it in a duffel bag of your own. Before you could fully get it settled in the bag, Dean took it from you.

You went to protest, but Sam cut you off by saying, “Yeah,” as if it was obvious.

Dean turned his attention away from you and your shotgun long enough for you to steal it back.

“Her brother's missing, Sam,” he tried to reason. “She's not gonna just sit this out. Now we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend.”

Dean seemed to notice you had taken the gun back and glared at you. He picked up his own duffel, and you closed the weapons cavity.

“Finding Dad’s not enough?” Sam countered while you closed the trunk. “Now we gotta babysit too?”

You and Dean gave Sam a look.

“What?” he snapped.

You shook your head.

“Nothing,” Dean replied. He threw the duffel bag at him and walked off.

***

You yawned and pulled yourself into a tighter ball on the backseat of Dean’s Impala. You hadn’t gotten much sleep last night for a reason you couldn’t quite place.

“Don’t get too comfortable, sweetheart, we’re here,” Dean told you.

“Fuck.” You grabbed yours and Dean’s duffel bags off the seat next to you and got out of the car to feel loose gravel grating against your boots.

A man who looked to be in his late fifties was up ahead of you next to a Jeep with Haley and the teenager you recognized as Haley’s younger brother. You approached the other three from behind Sam and Dean.

“You guys got room for three more?” the older brother asked.

Haley crossed her arms. “Wait, you want to come with us?”

“Who are these guys?” The older man pointed at your group.

“Apparently this is all the park service could muster up for the search and rescue.”

Sam headed past everyone, and you followed.

You assumed the middle-aged man was the guide Haley had talked about hiring the previous day. He was very skeptical of the three of you. “You're rangers?”

Dean’s confidence never wavered. “That's right.”

“And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?” Haley was apparently skeptical, too.

“Well, sweetheart, I don't do shorts.”

‘That’s what he calls me.’ You couldn’t quite understand the pang that went through your chest when he used that nickname for her. You pushed the thought aside once again, reminding yourself that you weren’t special in Dean’s eyes. To you, he was becoming more of a playboy asshole with each passing moment. You hoped your attraction to his beautiful green eyes and sharp jawline would soon turn to disdain.

Speaking of which, he appeared next to you as the guide spoke once more. “What, you think this is funny? It's dangerous back country out there. Her brother might be hurt.”

You turned around, trying to explain Dean’s attitude away. “He knows that. He just has a funny way of showing it.” You hoped Dean didn’t miss the bite in your tone. And from the way you could feel his glare burning a hole through your skull, you were sure it wasn’t lost on him.

The guide shook his head, brushing past you and the brothers. He headed into the forest, and you followed a few paces behind. You would never admit it, but the woods had always unsettled you just a bit. You tightened your grip on your bag and pushed forward.

Dean had apparently learned the guide’s name from Haley while you were lost in your own anxiety. “Roy, you said you did a little hunting.” He quickened his step to pass you and get up next to Roy.

“Yeah, more than a little.” The response came gruff and disinterested.

“Uh-huh. What kind of furry critters do you hunt?”

You could feel where this was going. ‘Don’t fucking provoke him, Winchester.’

“Mostly buck, sometimes bear.” The disinterest was ever present in Roy’s tone as he continued to scan the treeline in front of him.

Dean passed him up, doing that obnoxiously confident backwards walk again. “Tell me, uh, Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?”

Suddenly, Roy grabbed Dean’s jacket roughly. You nearly flinched.

“Whatcha doing, Roy?” Dean’s tone had hardened.

Roy grabbed a stick, and peering around Dean you could see the jaws of a bear trap close around it inches from Dean’s boot.

“You should watch where you're stepping. Ranger.”

‘Damn.’

Roy dropped the stick and took the lead once more.

Dean turned around to the rest of the group. “It's a bear trap.”

You scoffed.

You could hear Haley’s quickened step crunching leaves as she passed you to catch up to Dean. “You didn't pack any provisions. You guys are carrying a duffel bag. You're not rangers.” She grabbed his arm, spinning him to face her. “So who the hell are you?”

The teenage boy passed his sister and Dean. You and Sam hesitated behind Haley, shooting Dean a quizzical look. Dean jerked his head for the two of you to go on. You followed Sam forward, but hung back close enough that you could hear Dean and Haley’s conversation.

“Sam and I are brothers, and we're looking for our father. (Y/N) is—” you were interested in this explanation, “—a friend of ours.”

‘Oh, so we’re friends now.’

“He might be here, we don't know. I just figured that you and me, we're in the same boat.”

“Why didn't you just tell me that from the start?”

“I'm telling you now. 'sides, it's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman. ...ever. So, we okay?”

‘Wonder how many times he’s used that line.’ You caught that same squeeze happening in your chest happening again. You desperately wished to get ahold of yourself and snap out of it. ‘He’s just pretty to look at. He’s a complete douche. Get it together, girl.’

You had missed Haley’s response to Dean’s “heartfelt” admission, but heard “And what do you mean I didn't pack provisions?” You heard the rustling of a plastic bag behind you, and remembered the bag of peanut M&Ms he had bought at a gas station before coming here. You heard Dean start walking again, and you hurried ahead to catch up with Sam and not look like you were snooping.

Dean had apparently noticed you were hanging back and chuckled to himself. Your cheeks burned with embarrassment.

He walked up beside you. “Jealous?”

“What?” you turned to him, feigning disgust. “Fuck no.”

“So… you were just snooping because…?”

You wanted to smack the smug grin off his face. His amusement at your aggravation riled you up even more. “I was just curious what she thought of us. And to be frank, I don’t exactly trust your ability to explain things away. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” You knew he didn’t believe you. “That’s all.”

You petulantly stole the bag of peanut M&Ms from him.

“Hey! (Y/N)!”

You marched on.

“This is it. Blackwater Ridge,” Roy announced after what felt like hours of walking. Your anxiety around getting lost in the forest was only deepening. That was what it all boiled down to. You had a fear of not being in control, and the idea of a place where every “landmark” looked the same, wildlife ruled the terrain, and being alone in it was pretty much a death sentence, scared you pretty severely. Not to mention, the time you almost bled to death in the middle of the woods had another hunter not found you.

You had no means of identifying where you’d come back from. All the trees seemed the same to you. You had no idea how you were going to get back to the car at the end of the day; if you were even going to make it out of here by the end of the day. You had been walking for so long that you were sure you’d be sleeping out here tonight. The thought of that frightened you even more.

What truly unsettled you was that the sounds you had been hearing up until you made it to Blackwater Ridge— crickets, leaves rustling, birds chirping— all of it had been silenced.

“I'm gonna go take a look around,” Roy announced.

The younger Winchester stopped him. “You shouldn't go off by yourself.”

Roy’s snark almost rivaled Dean’s. “That's sweet. Don't worry about me.” He waved his gun around and pushed between the two brothers to head deeper into the forest.

Dean turned to the rest of your group. “Alright, everybody stays together. Let's go.”

‘Great. More fucking woods.’ You marched forward, trying to put on a brave face.

Sam’s eyes softened when he caught sight of you. “You okay?”

Apparently, your “brave face” wasn’t as brave as you thought. “Yeah, why?”

“You look… kinda nervous.”

“Yeah, I am. I’m, uh, kinda scared of the forest, honestly.”

“Aw, sweetheart,” Dean’s mocking tone interrupted your vulnerable moment. “You’re scared of a little woods?” He jutted out his bottom lip, feigning a pout.

“Fuck off, Winchester. I’m fine.”

“Whoa, touchy. Relax.” Dean held his hands up in surrender. “Was just poking fun, that’s all.”

“Okay, well, it wasn’t funny. So, fuck off.” You rushed ahead, still white-knuckling the duffel bag on your shoulder.

Before Dean could catch up to you or respond, Roy called out from quite a bit ahead. “Haley! Over here!”

Haley took off in the direction of Roy’s voice, closely followed by you. Haley froze at the sight in front of her. “Oh, my God.”

In the clearing Roy had found, bloodied, torn open tents surrounded mutilated camping supplies and backpacks. Deep gashes in the tent material and the surrounding trees were jagged and stained with blood around the edges. The sight wasn’t making your queasiness any better.

“Looks like a grizzly.”

‘No, it doesn’t, Roy,’ you thought.

Haley’s backpack hit the ground next to you, and she tore through the campsite; screaming her brother’s name.

Sam moved to quiet her down. She kept screaming. A much harsher “Shh!” passed Sam’s lips, finally getting the girl to settle down.

“Why?” she questioned defensively.

“Something might still be out there,” he answered.

Dean called his brother’s name from the other end of the campsite. You followed Sam over to the sound of Dean’s voice.

You crouched down next to Sam. Dean snapped a stick and pointed to a set of drag marks on the ground. “The bodies were dragged from the campsite. But here, the tracks just vanish. That's weird. I'll tell you what, that's no skinwalker or black dog.”

The three of you stood and returned to the campsite to find Haley crying on the ground over her brother’s broken and bloodied phone.

“Hey, he could still be alive,” Dean told her. She shot him a confused and slightly angry look.

Out of nowhere, a scratchy male voice started gutturally calling, “Help! Help!”

Roy was quick to run to the shouter’s aid. However, you weren’t so sure it was a real person screaming like that.

“Help! Somebody!” came again.

The brothers started off to follow Roy.

“Wait, guys!” you called, not wanting to be left alone despite your hesitation.

“C’mon, (Y/N)!” Sam called.

You dropped your duffel in your rush to follow Sam’s voice. When you found where the group had gathered, you could see the brothers searching the treeline. You licked your teeth, upset that your intuition was right. Your group had found no one.

“It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?” Haley said, confused.

“Everybody get back to camp,” you ordered.

You followed the path you were pretty sure would get you back to the mangled campsite. Thankfully, your sense of direction was right, but all of your supplies had been taken by the time you returned.

“Our packs!” Haley exclaimed.

Roy grumbled, “So much for my GPS and my satellite phone.”

“What the hell is going on?” Haley was catching on.

“It’s smart. It’s trying to isolate us so we can’t call for help. It knows we won’t last long without supplies,” you stated.

“You mean someone, some nutjob out there just stole all our gear.” The guide’s voice was hard and angry.

“I need to speak with you two. In private.” You pulled the brothers aside by their jackets. Dean shrugged your hand off him.

“Can I see your dad’s journal?” you asked. Yours had been taken along with your duffel bag.

“No, why?” Dean asked petulantly.

“Please, dude, c’mon.” You were not in the mood.

“Give it to her, Dean,” Sam chimed in.

Dean rolled his eyes and handed it over.

You flipped through until you found a page marked by a First Nations-style drawing of a tall figure with long claws labeled “Wendigo.” You looked up at the boys expectantly.

“Oh, come on, wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or, or northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west,” Dean responded.

“Think about it, Dean, the claws, the way it can mimic a human voice,” you tried to reason.

“Great.” He took his pistol out of his belt. “Well, then this is useless.”

“I told you guns don’t work on everything,” you quipped.

“Shut up.”

Sam took the journal from you and handed it back to his brother. “We gotta get these people to safety.” He led you and Dean back to the group. “All right, listen up, it's time to go. Things have gotten...more complicated.”

Haley seemed pissed. “What?”

“Kid, don't worry.” Roy’s tone was almost patronizing. “Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it.”

“It's not me I'm worried about. If you shoot this thing, you're just gonna make it mad. We have to leave. Now,” Sam countered.

“One, you're talking nonsense. Two, you're in no position to give anybody orders.” Roy was now getting in Sam’s face.

“C’mon, Roy, chill out,” you told him, pressing a hand to Sam’s chest to keep him from stepping to Roy.

Sam let you keep your hand there, but still bit back at Roy. “We never should have let you come out here in the first place, all right? I'm trying to protect you.”

“You protect me? I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you good night.” The guide was so close you could smell the chewing tobacco on his breath.

Sam still refused to back down. “Yeah? It's a damn near perfect hunter. It's smarter than you, and it's gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your stupid sorry ass out of here.”

Roy laughed mockingly. “You know you're crazy, right?”

“Yeah? You ever hunt a wen—”

Dean pushed you out the way and shoved his brother back. “Relax!”

Haley got between you, the boys, and Roy. “Stop. Stop it. Everybody just stop. Look. Tommy might still be alive. And I'm not leaving here without him.”

You considered for a moment the implications of what may happen if you allowed them to stay.

Dean broke the silence. “It's getting late. This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves.”

“How?” Haley asked.

“I’m not gonna sugarcoat this,” you began. “We don’t really have the time for the ‘monsters under the bed are real’ talk. This thing is a Wendigo. I’m gonna start carving some symbols into the ground. No one crosses the circle once I’ve drawn it. Got it?”

Haley nodded at you. “What can I do?”

“Build a fire with— sorry, I never caught his name,” you gestured to the teenager next to her.

“Ben,” Haley told you.

“Ben. You two start gathering enough wood and tinder to keep a fire going. Don’t go too far, though, please.”

She and Ben nodded at you before setting off.

“Thank you,” you called after the Collins siblings. “Sam, Dean, help me with the Anasazi symbols.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean said. You were surprised at his compliance.

After a while of scuttling across the forest floor drawing a circle of Anasazi symbols around the campsite, the sun had set. Haley and Ben had long since returned and were tending the fire. As you finished the last symbol, you brushed the dirt off your hands on your jeans.

Haley looked up at you from her place by the fire. “One more time, that's—”

“Anasazi symbols. It's for protection,” Dean explained. “The wendigo can't cross over them.”

Roy laughed, feeling the need to assert the fact he thought this was bullshit.

“Nobody likes a skeptic, Roy,” Dean told him, clearly fatigued of the man’s attitude.

Roy turned his attention back to the treeline with his gun over his shoulder. You followed Dean over to where Sam sat away from the group at the edge of the campsite.

“You wanna tell me what's going on in that freaky head of yours?” Dean asked his brother.

“Dean—” the younger one began to protest. You sat down next to him.

“No, you're not fine.” Of course, he already knew what Sam was going to say. “You're like a powder keg, man, it's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?”

You laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got enough of that attitude with just him, Sam.”

Dean nudged the tip of your boot with his harshly. You returned his glare petulantly.

“Dad's not here. I mean, that much we know for sure, right? He would have left us a message, a sign, right?” Sam’s mind was clearly going a mile a minute.

“Yeah, you're probably right. Tell you the truth, I don't think Dad's ever been to Lost Creek.”

You decided to just sit back and listen for a moment before throwing your two cents in.

“Then let's get these people back to town and let's hit the road. Go find Dad. I mean, why are we still even here?” Sam threw his hands up in frustration.

“This is why.” Dean held out his dad’s journal to his brother. “This book. This is Dad's single most valuable possession—everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. And he's passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people, hunting things. The family business.”

Sam shook his head. “That makes no sense. Why doesn't he just—call us? Why doesn't he—tell us what he wants, tell us where he is?”

“I dunno. But the way I see it, Dad's giving us a job to do, and I intend to do it.”

Sam’s eyes began to well with tears. “Dean, no. I gotta find Dad. I gotta find Jessica's killer. It's the only thing I can think about.”

“Okay, all right, Sam, we'll find them, I promise. Listen to me.” Sam looked up at Dean. “You've gotta prepare yourself. I mean, this search could take a while, and all that anger, you can't keep it burning over the long haul. It's gonna kill you. You gotta have patience, man.”

Sam looked away again, still fighting the tears congealing in his water line. “How do you two do it? How does Dad do it?”

You let Dean take that question. “Well for one, them.” He gestured to Haley and Ben. “I mean, I figure our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little bit more bearable.”

You paused, looking down at the dirt and twigs below you before speaking. “It’s kind of the same for me. I don’t have a family anymore.” You felt Dean’s gaze on you, but kept the burning in your cheeks at bay. “This is really all I’ve ever known. I know I couldn’t go back to a normal life after all this. So, I do what I can to help everyone else’s lives feel a little more normal. Not everybody needs to know what’s really out there. It kinda brings me peace knowing I’m helping somebody else live their life relatively worry-free.”

Dean continued. “I'll tell you what else helps.”

You looked back up at him.

“Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can.”

You smiled at Dean genuinely for the first time.

A twig snapped, breaking you and the boys out of the little bonding moment you’d just had. The same, slightly unhuman grainy voice screamed out again from somewhere in the trees. “Help me! Please!”

Dean stands with his gun. You thought about pointing out the fact that it was useless, but decided to keep it to yourself.

“Help!” the strained sound came again.

Sam shined his flashlight through the tree line.

“He's trying to draw us out. Just stay cool, stay put,” Dean told the group.

“Inside the magic circle?” Roy quipped.

“Shut up, would you?” You snapped, narrowing your eyes at him.

“Help! Help me!” The voice seemed to become more distant before a low growl emanated from just outside the circle.

Roy pointed his gun at the sound. “Okay, that's no grizzly.”

“Oh, now you believe us,” you quipped.

“(Y/N),” Dean warned, still facing the outside of the circle.

Something rushed past where Haley and Ben were standing. She let out a scream.

“It's here,” the younger Winchester stated.

The guide shot at the rustling bushes, and then again. “I hit it!” He took off before you could protest.

“Roy, no!” you immediately ran after him.

You could hear Dean behind you addressing the Collinses, but barely registered it while trying to follow Roy.

“Roy! Come back!” you called.

“It's over here! It's in the tree!” the man called back.

Just as you reached him, something grabbed onto Roy’s shoulders and began pulling him up into the tree above.

“Roy!” you grabbed his ankles, doing your best to pull him back down to the ground.

Roy was screaming above you, and the Wendigo’s strength was too much for you. Roy’s screaming was cut off sharply by a snapping sound. In that moment, you knew he was gone. You let Roy’s legs go and dropped back down to the ground.

The Winchester brothers appeared at that second, rushing to your side.

“You okay?” Sam asked, helping you up. “Where’s Roy?”

You shook your head. “He’s gone.”

You and the boys headed back to camp to find Haley and Ben huddled together. Haley was caught off-guard by your return, and nearly took you out with her makeshift torch-weapon. “Shit!” she yelped. “You scared the crap out of me!”

“Sorry,” you laughed. “Easy, tiger.”

She threw her torch back into the fire. “Where’s Roy?”

Your smile faded. “I tried to help him. I’m sorry.”

She nodded somberly. A saddened, heavy air fell over your camp as the remaining five of you tried to go to sleep before your undoubtedly busy day tomorrow.

Haley and Ben settled down near the fire with tatters of backpacks and tent material as pillows and blankets respectively. You and Dean forced Sam to lay down and rest because it was evident via the bags under his eyes that he’d had none over the last several days.

“I’ll take first watch,” you told Dean, settling your back against the stump of a tree near where Sam had started falling asleep.

“Not a chance, sweetheart.”

“First of all, stop calling me that,” you snapped. “Second, it wasn’t a suggestion. I’m taking first watch. Go to sleep.”

“Why are you so insistent on this?” Dean furrowed his eyebrows at you.

“Why don’t you trust me?” you countered.

“I don’t know, maybe because you’re the last person to have seen my dad before he ‘mysteriously disappeared’?”

“You’re not seriously suggesting—” you scoffed, and Dean cut you off again.

“Maybe because I don’t even know you. Maybe because you so readily agreed to just hitch a ride with Sam and I the day Jessica died. Maybe those are some good reasons not to trust you.”

“Dean, I had nothing to do with your dad’s disappearance. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m on my own. Sorry that I was just excited to finally have someone willing to take me along with them. And I don’t give a shit about you, honestly. I do give a shit about Sam, though, and I’m not gonna leave while he’s in this headspace. And I wanna help you find your dad.”

“Why do you care so much?” he hissed in retaliation.

“Because I don’t have any family. I want to help reunite yours. Like you said earlier, it helps you feel a little better and sleep a little easier at night.” Your voice had softened considerably, and you turned your attention from Dean to your hands folded in your lap.

“Fine, but after we find my dad, you’re gone,” he responded after a moment.

“Fine.” You turned away from him, hugging your knees to your chest. “I’m still taking first watch.”

“Whatever, (Y/N).” You could hear Dean moving around behind you.

“Goodnight,” you said.

All you got was a huff in response.

At some point that night, Sam was actually the one to take over your watch. He’d woken up from a nightmare, and you knew he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep any time soon. You did your best to get some sleep despite your heightened sense of awareness from your unsettling surroundings and the anger you still felt at Dean after your argument.

When you did awaken, Sam was sitting against the tree next to you, Dean was talking to Haley about the origin of Wendigos, and Haley was grilling Dean about how he knows about monsters.

“Kind of runs in the family,” was all Dean answered her question with.

You felt Sam push off the tree behind you. You still hadn’t rolled over from your sleeping position.

“So we've got half a chance in the daylight,” Sam announced to the group. “And I for one want to kill this evil son of a bitch.”

“Well, hell, you know I'm in,” you heard Dean respond.

“'Wendigo' is a Cree Indian word. It means 'evil that devours',” Sam explained.

You began stretching while Dean continued educating Haley and Ben. “They're hundreds of years old. Each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, or other times a frontiersman or a miner or hunter.”

“How's a man turn into one of those things?” Haley asked.

“Well, it's always the same,” the older Winchester continued while you started to make your way over to them, brushing leaves out of your hair with your fingers. “During some harsh winter a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help. Becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp.”

“Like the Donner Party.” That was the first you’d ever heard Ben speak.

“Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities. Speed, strength, immortality,” Sam continued.

“If you eat enough of it, over years, you become this less than human thing. You're always hungry,” Dean finished.

“So if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?” Haley waited for the answer with baited breath.

“You're not gonna like it.”

“Tell me.” Haley steeled herself.

“More than anything, a wendigo knows how to last long winters without food. It hibernates for years at a time, but when it's awake it keeps its victims alive. It—” Dean seemed to be searching for the right words, “—uh, it stores them, so it can feed whenever it wants. If your brother's alive, it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, and safe. We gotta track it back there.”

“And then how do we stop it?”

You spoke up for the first time, holding an empty beer bottle, a white cloth, and a can of lighter fluid you’d found from near the camp. “Guns are useless, so, Molotov cocktail, baby.”

You could swear Dean cracked a smile at you, but you refused to acknowledge it.

The sun had risen much higher since your crew had first started walking. You had passed multiple trees with bloodied claw marks on them. It was starting to unsettle you, quite honestly. You’d just passed the seventh or eighth claw-marked tree when you decided to bring Sam’s attention to your thought process.

“You know, I was thinking, those claw marks are so clear and distinct. Not at all as jagged as they were on Mr. Shaw’s scar or the tree where the thing snatched Roy. They were almost too easy to follow.”

Almost as if on cue, a low growl rumbled from above and trees rustled. Haley looked up before jerking herself out of the way. And good thing she had, because Roy’s corpse soon landed where she’d stood.

Dean inspected Roy’s corpse while Sam helped Haley up. “His neck's broke.”

The growling continued.

Upon hearing the sound, Dean started to bark out, “Okay, run, run, run, run, go, go, go!”

You immediately split. You were always quite a fast runner and light on your feet. You and Haley took the lead of the group and could hear the boys’ thundering footsteps behind you.

Before you knew it, the growling had landed right in front of you. You and Haley were brought to a skidding halt before the creature. Haley yelped as the creature grabbed your legs and began dragging the two of you. You took the bag of peanut M&Ms you’d stolen from Dean out of your jacket’s inner pocket. You let the bag’s contents out slowly as sticks and rocks scraped up your dragging body. The last thing you felt was a sharp pain on the back of your head before you vision blacked out completely.

The next time you came to, the first thing you felt were your aching wrists and hands on either side of your face. You could faintly hear Dean calling your name, and your vision began to get less hazy as Dean’s voice became more clear.

When Dean’s annoyingly beautiful, worried face finally came into focus, you said the first thing that came to mind. “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper.”

You could hear Sam laughing behind Dean and Dean sighed. If you didn’t know any better, you would say he sounded relieved.

Sam reached above you to cut your wrists down. “You okay?”

Despite your aching joints, you said, “Yeah.”

Sam helped you over to one of the cave’s walls. “You sure you're alright?”

“Yeah. Yep,” you groaned. “Where is he?”

“He's gone for now.”

“Oh, thank god,” you breathed, making Sam laugh a little. “Oh, sweet.” You noticed the stolen duffel bags next to you and started rummaging through yours. Haley let out a shriek, causing you to jerk your head in her direction. She’d found her brother, and thankfully, he was alive.

“Cut him down!” Haley ordered. Sam got to work.

You found a flare gun in Dean’s duffel bag, saying, “Check it out.” to the rest of your group.

“Flare guns. Those'll work,” Sam responded, grinning.

You laughed, throwing one of the guns at Dean who caught it easily. He twirled it around his finger, smirking at you.

“Enough fooling around, let’s go,” Haley urged. She shouldered her brother, and with Ben’s help, started moving down the mine shaft.

You and Sam held up the rear of the group while Dean took the lead. Amidst the clunky shuffling of Tommy’s weakened body down the shaft, you could hear the same deep, low growling you’d heard in the forest.

“Looks like someone's home for supper,” quipped Dean, scanning the corridor ahead of him.

“We'll never outrun it,” Haley said.

Dean looked back at you and Sam. “You thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Sam responded.

“I don’t,” you chimed in.

“You’ll catch on,” Dean shot back. “All right, listen to me. Stay with Sam and (Y/N). They’re gonna get you out of here.”

“What are you gonna do?” Haley asked the older Winchester.

He winked at her, shooting her that same smile he’d shot you one of the first times you’d met him. You fought the urge to roll your eyes. He started yelling moments later, walking away from you. “Chow time, you freaky bastard! Yeah, that's right, bring it on, baby, I taste good.”

‘I bet he does.’ You surprised yourself. ‘What? What the fuck? He’s an asshole.’

Sam’s voice brought you out of your head. “All right, come on! Hurry!”

Your group rushed down the tunnel. You stayed in the rear, and Sam headed up to the front. He began leading your group down to where you could faintly see a bit of daylight peeking through.

And then, the growling again.

“Fuck,” you muttered. “Get him outta here!” you instructed the Collinses.

“(Y/N), no,” Haley told you.

“Go!” you urged her.

She finally nodded and started pulling her brothers down the tunnel with her. You aimed your flare gun at the direction where the growling was coming from.

“C’mon, motherfucker,” you grumbled, scanning the tunnel.

“(Y/N)!” Sam called from behind you.

You wheeled around to come face to face with the Wendigo. In your startle, you missed your shot with the flare gun. Your only other option was to take off after the three Collins siblings, closely followed by Sam.

“Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry,” Sam ordered the group. “Get behind me.” Given Sam’s size, he was able to hide all three Collinses behind him. You knew your pistol was no use, but you still aimed it at the creature anyway.

The Wendigo approached, taking its time in getting to you.

“Hey!” you suddenly heard Dean from behind the Wendigo. It wheeled around, only for Dean to shoot it in the stomach.

Flames curled up the Wendigo’s horribly disfigured body in twisted tendrils. The creature let out a howl before collapsing to the ground in a pile of burning embers.

Dean was revealed behind where the Wendigo previously stood. “Not bad, huh?”

Despite yourself, you grinned.

A quite chipper, clearly freshman EMT had patched you up upon your return to civilization. You had an uncomfortable laceration on your neck, a few scrapes above your eyebrow, and your wrists burned from where you had been tied up. You’d survive, it would just take you a few days to recover from.

You watched from a short distance as Haley approached Dean, both of whom had been patched up. You scowled as Dean smirked lasciviously at Haley and couldn’t help the bile rising in your throat when Haley leaned in to kiss Dean’s cheek. She said one final thing to Dean before walking toward the ambulance carrying Tommy with Ben.

“Thanks, (Y/N)!” she called to you.

You waved at her with a lopsided smile. She returned your grin before hopping into the back of the ambulance.

Sam motioned for you to come back over to Dean’s car.

“Man, I hate camping,” said Dean as you approached.

“Me too,” you shivered.

“Still scared of the woods?” he asked you, his tone slightly patronizing.

You ignored his tone and answered earnestly. “Definitely. Probably more so, now.” You crossed your arms over your body and hugged yourself.

A moment of silence passed before Dean addressed his brother. “Sam, you know we're gonna find Dad, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” he nodded. “But in the meantime? I'm driving.”

Dean lolled his head to the side dramatically before tossing the keys to Sam. Recalling your fight with Dean at the campsite, you hesitated to get in the car when the brothers did.

“(Y/N), what are you doing?” Sam asked out of the driver’s side window. “Let’s go.”

You nodded, conceding, and hopped into the backseat. You threw your legs up on the leather beside you and stared out the window. Out of the corner of your eye, you could swear Dean was staring at you.

Series Rewrite Taglist: @polireader @brightlilith @atcamillanorrman @jrizzelle @insomnia-bookworm @procrastination20 @mrs-liebgott @djs8891

#dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x y/n #dean winchester x you #dean x reader #dean x y/n #dean x you #supernatural #dean winchester #supernatural series rewrite #spn #spn series rewrite

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