#they are CONSTANTLY going missing and driving me up the wall

[championari]

So I’m constantly thinking about Charles and how he could eventually meet Edwin with his feelings.

Here’s something I realized: Charles, despite constantly talking about things he miss, things he wants, he actually has a complicated relationship with desire as a concept.

How I would put it is by taking Supernatural as an example. There’s an episode in Season 5 where the boys meet Famine, a horseman of the apocalypse. However, Dean is not at all affected by him. It’s because due to being the older brother, and a Hunter, Dean was never allowed to consider acting on or even having desire for anything.

You can see where I’m going with this. Charles, like Dean, doesn’t actually believe he should want anything, due to “not being good enough”.

This is something actually touched on subtly in the show through the acting. When Niko says, “I know what it’s like to want something you can’t have.” Edwin directly looks at The Cat King’s bracelet, while Charles stares off into space. When Tragic Mick describes Angie’s light as enforcing a sense of yearning, Edwin looks at Charles, while again, Charles looks off blankly (can’t access screenshots right now). Edwin knows what he wants but is scared of it, while Charles doesn’t know what he wants because he can’t allow himself to consider it. This gives an entirely new meaning to Charles’ hatred of the Cat King. A supernatural entity who describes his kingdom as being about “want and pleasure”. Thomas is the encapsulation of everything Charles was never allowed to have. Charles chases after things that he knows he can’t have, romancing a living girl despite knowing she will eventually leave. Charles can’t consider returning Edwin’s feelings because that would mean he’s been running away from what’s been in front of him the whole time. That what he wanted was always there, at his lowest point, when he thought he deserved it least.

Returning Edwin’s feelings means he was already enough. And Charles can’t imagine that yet.

While I would obviously adore an interaction between Charles and Desire of The Endless, ultimately I don’t think it would do anything. Like Dean, Charles might be completely unaffected by them because he’s spent most of his existence building walls around his desires. Edwin was completely blindsided by Thomas because he never even considered having to think about Desire due to having no attraction to women and that being the dominant narrative of his time. Charles pursues Crystal because he still wants to feel like he has a chance at “normal life” (which as I said is self-punishment by throwing himself at something he knows he can’t have). To accept that he’s in love with Edwin would mean no longer pursuing a living person. Edwin would be it for him, which he kind of already gets but it hasn’t fully sunk in yet. Just like his death

There's also this exchange that drives me nuts:

"You gave up tranquil eternity…for your friend?" "Does that sound like someone who belongs in Hell?"

THIS. MAKES. ME. INSANE. Because Charles, like he always does when confronted with his own wants, completely avoids it. He doesn't respond to The Night Nurse's obvious confusion as to why he ran from Death, and instead turns the conversation back to Edwin. He makes it all about what Edwin deserves, not what Charles saw in Edwin that led him to make that choice. You could say this is practical as time is of the essence, but I think that's the point. Charles throws away the chance to explain his viewpoint on their first meeting, the consequences of his choice to run from Death with a boy he just met and knew for a few hours, and instead remains single-minded on Edwin's safety. Like when Edwin reasonably questioned, "Why are you getting angry?" when he began freaking out over Thomas getting close to Edwin, he says nothing.

There's just so much happening in that head that I can't stop thinking about.

[scarlet-bitch]

"Do the Things You Said You'd Do to Me"

3.7k Eddie Munson X fem!reader, no use of Y/N, little to no description of reader, 18+ explicit content-porn with plot, fluff. No upside down, 90s AU set in '97 Eddie & Reader are mid twenties.

A/N: 90% of the time I'll hear a song and immediately think - I want to write about this. It's not always the song's actual theme but specific lyrics. This idea came to me while listening to Sailor Song by Gigi Perez. Feedback/likes/reblogs are greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading & as always, I hope you enjoy! XO, Scarlet 💋

Eddie's flavor was a mix of tobacco and cinnamon. He could brand it 'red squared,' the taste of Marlboro Reds and Red Hots always lingering on his tongue. Occasionally there was a hint of weed, but he didn't often get high with you. You asked why once, and he mumbled something like, "You get me high enough already."

It was undeniably cheesy but he meant it. You had him dizzy in love, so he liked to be completely cognizant, fully immersed in the moment with you. Unfortunately, right now, he couldn't be present at all.

Eddie had been on tour for a month, with three weeks still to go. You had the pleasure of going to the first few shows, but you had your own job so you were stuck in Indiana while your boyfriend was on the road.

Aside from a few brief phone calls -soft whispers of 'I love you,' 'I miss you,' and dirty vows of what’s to come- you two hadn't spoken while he's been away. You hadn’t been apart this long since before you got together and it was driving you crazy. You didn't just miss him—you craved him.

Craved him so much so, that this past week, you considered picking up a cigarette habit. If that wasn't already pathetic, you actually did buy a pack of Red Hots, stashing them in your nightstand for your late night indulgence. It wasn't enough to think about him—you needed to taste him.

You'd feel ashamed if it wasn't exactly the sort of thing Eddie would love to hear—how desperate you were for him. And god, were you desperate.

That's how you ended up vibrator in hand, Red Hots melting on your tongue, losing yourself in thoughts of Eddie. His pretty mouth-it held the filthiest promises, yet they spilled so sweetly. After the words would leave him he'd always smirk, corners of his plush lips drawing your gaze to his big doe eyes. Those godforsaken eyes-constantly feigning innocence when in reality they were a gateway to a deep abyss that threatened to consume you and without a doubt, you'd gladly allow it.

You're fully engrossed in your fantasy of imagining his gaze boring into your own while his sinful mouth's on your cunt. A lethal combination that always had your back arching off the bed. You could feel the orgasm building, the vibrations teasing you, getting you right to the edge, and then just like that-it's gone. You're snapped out of the moment by a loud ruckus from the apartment hallway. You click the vibrator off, straining to listen, hoping it's just your imagination.

A moment passes, and you don't hear anything else. The walls are thin, so you toss it up to your neighbor’s rowdy friends, who always acted as if no one else lives in the building. You try to refocus on thoughts of Eddie, but just as you click the vibrator back on, the noise came again.

Goddamn horror movies. You shut off the vibrator, tossing it aside, face flushed and beads of sweat gathering at your hairline as you let out a frustrated sigh. This is exactly why Robin offered for you to sleepover after your movie night earlier that evening. You should have accepted her invitation, because now, alone in your apartment, you can’t shake the feeling of Ghost Face lurking in the hallway.

The blissful knot that had been forming has been replaced with one of pure anxiety. As you can faintly hear what sounds like someone shuffling at your doorway. You want to get up from your bed, shut and lock your bedroom door but you're frozen in place. Panicked and second guessing if you even locked the deadbolt.

When you hear the familiar click of your front door, you know that you didn't. Heart racing in your chest as the sound of footsteps enter your apartment. Your stomach drops, and before you can plan your next move—

“Honey, I’m home!” Eddie’s voice rings out.

You shot out of bed, and bolted from your room. There he was, standing in your living room, duffle bag slung over his shoulder. The glow of the nightlight illuminating him, showcasing that smug grin of his. "Surprise!"

“What the fuck, Eddie?” you exclaimed, trying to catch your breath as you walked toward him. “That was terrifying! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

He chuckled, “That would defeat the purpose of the surprise, babe.”

“Surprise?! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

He laughed, stepping closer, his hands finding your waist as he pulled you into his arms. “I’m sorry for scaring you, baby. Harrington warned me you might be jumpy.”

“Um, who the hell wouldn’t be?” You laughed, then pulled away from his embrace. “Wait—Steve was in on this? Was Robin? Don’t tell me those assholes let me watch people get sliced up for two hours knowing you were going to break in!” You exclaimed, flinging your hands out with a scoff of disbelief. “How did any of you think this was a good idea?” You added as you made your way toward your end table.

"First of all, it's not breaking in when I have a key, and it's not like this was the plan, baby! I was supposed to be at Robin's hours ago, but my flight got delayed. They didn’t want to spoil it," he said, tossing the duffle bag off his shoulder. "I've been planning this for weeks. Robin said she tried to convince you to spend the night. She told me you insisted that Scream didn’t even scare you.”

“Well, it didn’t!” you defended as your fingers found the knob of the lamp, twisting it on. “Not while watching it, at least. At midnight when someone's at my door, that's a different story.” You laughed, turning back to him.

“Now that you know it’s just me, are ya still scared?” he asked, with his head cocked to the side and a devilish grin on his lips.

“A little,” you smirked. “The boyfriend's the killer after all.”

Eddie rolled his eyes playfully as he began walking towards you. For the first time tonight, he was fully taking you in: ruffled hair, rosy cheeks, pebbled nipples against the thin material of your oversized night shirt.

"Fuck, sweetheart you look..." His breath hitched, his jeans suddenly feeling too tight. "Did I interrupt something?"

"As a matter of fact, before your grand entrance I was quite busy.. didn't even get to finish." You whispered all sultry and sweet.

He wet his lips with his tongue, a soft swallow as he drank you in. "Guess I got here at the perfect time, huh?"

You nodded as you closed the distance between you both, arms snaking around his neck as his hands came to rest on your lower back, pulling you close, bodies pressed against each other. You could feel how hard he was already. With this proximity, Eddie wasted no time connecting his lips to yours. Within seconds his tongue was eagerly pushing its way into your mouth.

There it was. Smokey cinnamon hitting your tastebuds- heavy on the cinnamon as the candy coating on your own tongue amplified it. It was everything you'd been missing.

You couldn't help but moan into Eddie's mouth, tongues colliding in needy haste. Eddie's hands moved lower, sliding over your backside before bunching up the fabric of your oversized shirt and gripping the fat of your bare ass. He let out a hiss, as you pulled back with his lower lip caught between your teeth dragging it out slowly before letting go.

"Eds," you whispered, eyelashes fluttering up at him. "Would you please, do all the things you said you'd do to me."

A gravelly moan escaped him, the moment the words left your lips. "Come on," he said, taking your hand and guiding you toward your room.

As you both entered your bedroom, you took a seat on your bed as Eddie stood against the doorframe. His eyes landed on the box of Red Hots on the nightstand, raising an eyebrow at you, a teasing smirk on his lips. "I thought I caught that on your tongue."

"Yeah," you giggled. "I... I missed you a lot and I just, I needed to taste you."

Eddie watched as you moved the vibrator that was next to you on your bed, to set it on your nightstand. The full picture of what you'd been up to before his arrival, was now at the forefront of his mind. His cock was straining harder against his jeans as he watched you lean back against your pillows, patiently awaiting his next move.

Before tonight, it had been 27 long days since he last saw you, touched you, fucked you. In less than 36 hours, he would be back on a plane, and another 21 days would stretch before he saw you again. He needed to absorb every detail of this moment—the soft, warm light casting a glow across your features, the hunger in your eyes, and the way your chest rose and fell rapidly with each breath. Your oversized shirt enveloped you, concealing the skin he ached to touch. You looked breathtakingly beautiful, and knowing you had been just as desperate for him made his heart flutter.

"What was my needy girl thinking about while she touched herself, huh?" He asked making his way toward the bed.

"Oh y'know, just your pretty face between my thighs."

"Mmm, my favorite place to be," he groaned, dropping to his knees. His arms came up to your calves, urging you closer to the edge of the bed. Once you were settled, Eddie hoisted your legs over his shoulders, his arms wrapping around your thighs. He slid his right hand up, eager fingers pulling the material of your oversized shirt aside, exposing your glistening cunt. A guttural moan escaped his lips at the sight, the sound making your stomach flip.

"Shit," he sighed. "You're fucking dripping."

You let out a soft hum, anticipation gnawing at you as you watched him take a bite of the soft flesh of your left inner thigh, causing your breath to hitch.

Eddie trailed open mouthed kisses up the expanse of your thigh, his hot breath fanning over your core before he moved to your right thigh, giving it the same treatment until his mouth hovered over where you longed for him most.

"Please," you whimpered.

"If I remember correctly, I believe I said I'd tease you first."

"Eddie..." you whined, frustration lacing your tone. "Please don't. I've waited long enough."

Eddie took pleasure in teasing you, reveling in the intoxicating game of cat and mouse. He delighted in how you'd squirm and beg for his touch, your desperation only fueled his desire. But right now, there was absolutely no way he could drag this out.

"Don't worry, I'm only kidding. Been dreaming of savoring this pussy for weeks," leaning forward and sliding his tongue slowly through your folds.

"Fuuuuuuuuuck," you bucked your hips up instinctively, urging his tongue to press firmer as it fluttered back and forth against your clit. "Yes, right there, fuck."

The vibrations that reverberated from his mouth as he moaned against your cunt made you let out a harsh hiss. He worked quickly, lapping at your clit with an intensity that had your eyes squeezed shut from the sensation. Your mouth went slack, breathy gasps escaping as you realized how easily you were putty under Eddie's touch. In just minutes, you were already on the brink of your orgasm.

You couldn't come yet, not when you hadn't fully taken in the sight before you. Forcing your eyes open, you watched as Eddie devoured your cunt. His big doe eyes looked up at you, lust blown -he looked so beautiful like this. Your fingers threaded through his hair as his palms gripped your thighs, pressing into the doughy flesh.

His tongue moved lower, gliding toward your entrance, and you couldn't help but rut your hips against his mouth, fucking yourself on his tongue. Eddie stayed there for a moment before swirling back to your clit, sucking harshly. He couldn't speak with his mouth full, but those pleading eyes told you everything: he wanted you to come all over his mouth.

"Yes, just like that, Eddie! Missed this so fucking much... ahh, ahhh, missed yo-fuck, ohmygod, I'm go-" You let out a silent scream, as pleasure overtook you. Your legs clamped around Eddie's face, hands moving to squeeze your breasts as he continued to suck your clit. Your back arched off the bed, your entire body quaking from the release of your orgasm. Eddie kept licking at your sensitive cunt, his tongue drawing out every last shiver of pleasure as you struggled to catch your breath as you came down.

In your blissful haze, you watched as he slowly removed himself from between your legs, undressing at the foot of your bed.

He looked so beautiful, you were enamored by it. Your gaze following his tattoos, like a game of connect the dots. Admiring each of them as if this were the first time you were seeing them. You lingered on his most recent addition—a tattooed kiss above his left hip bone. You had a habit of kissing him there, and one day, after leaving a lipstick print, Eddie was so in love with how it looked, he decided to immortalize it in ink.

While you loved it, you also worried he might regret such an impulsive, permanent choice. He only smiled, assuring you, "I’ll forever be yours, so it might as well be branded on me."

"What're you thinking about, sweetheart?" Eddie asked pulling you out of your thoughts, his fingers toying with the waist band of his boxers.

"How pretty you are," you smiled, sitting up and leaning forward, replacing his hands with your own. Your lips brushed over the tattoo, eliciting a shudder from Eddie. You trailed soft kisses across his abdomen to his right hip bone, then slowly pulled down his boxers.

Your breath caught as his cock was revealed -so pretty, hard, and leaking pre cum. You pressed a gentle kiss to the tip, before teasing it with slow, soft licks.

"Christ," Eddie muttered through gritted teeth.

Your fingernails sank into his hips, sure to leave marks as you pulled him closer, taking his tip into your mouth and sucking.

"Ahh fuck," he moaned,

Normally, you'd bob your head, eager to take him fully. But the ache between your thighs was back, more intense than before.

You pulled back, eyes glistening-not from the act, but from the pure desperation you were suddenly feeling.

"I want more," you whined as you moved your hand to stroke his cock. "Want you to fuck me, Eds."

"Is that what'ya want," his hand coming to cup your cheek. "My cock inside you?"

You tightened your grip on his length, a desperate whine falling from your lips as you nodded. "Please."

Eddie inhaled sharply, his eyes fluttering shut at the sound of your voice pleading for him. Your words dripped with honey, sweet and melodic. "Lay back for me, sweetheart, and take off your shirt. I want to see all of you."

You obeyed, your heart racing as he reached for a condom from your nightstand. After rolling it over his length, he climbed onto the bed, settling on his knees between your spread legs.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he murmured, his hands caressing your body, lips kissing the soft skin of your tummy and trailing up toward your breasts.

A chorus of moans escaped you as he suckled and nipped at your breasts. He moved slowly, working his way up to your collarbone and along your neck, every kiss a tantalizing reminder of what you craved.

You grabbed his face, crashing your lips against his in a hungry frenzy of teeth and tongue. "Eddie, stop teasing," you urged breathlessly, feeling him line himself up at your entrance.

He couldn't help himself, he'd been satiated enough from devouring you earlier, he had to taunt you a little. "That's half the fun, baby. Love seeing you so worked up," he growled, his hands squeezing your hips.

"Far past worked up."

He chuckled, "Yeah? Tell me how badly you want it."

"Don't want, need. Need you to fill me, Eddie."

"And I will, baby, I will. But it's been a while, maybe I should take my time?"

"No, I can handle it," you insisted.

"You can also be patient though, right?" He tsked softly, pressing the tip inside slowly. Your breath hitched as you mewled at the sensation.

A stream of praise tumbled from his lips, barely coherent as you saw stars from the stinging pleasure of his cock. He tantalized you with slow half thrusts, and you needed more. Arching your back, you wrapped your legs around him, pulling him deeper, your nails digging into his shoulders.

Eddie thrived on how needy you were, how much you made him feel desired. All he wanted was to give you everything you craved. He inched deeper, stretching you, filling you completely, both of you gasping at the sensation. He stayed still for a moment, savoring the tight warmth around him. "You feel so goddamn good," he groaned, beginning to move.

You were nearly in tears, eyes blown wide as Eddie found a steady pace, your nails now clawing at his back. "Feels perfect," you cried out.

"Sure does, sweetheart. Like you were made just for me," he groaned.

"All for you."

Eddie leaned closer, his left forearm braced against the bed, while his right pressed against your chest his hand gripping your neck gently. Your legs fell open, falling to the sides of his torso, over his spread thighs as he continued to thrust into you, at an increased pace.

The tension coiled tighter, building faster than you expected. You grasped his bicep with your right hand, the other clutching his forearm that was on your chest.

His face hovered over yours, gaze locked onto each others. The lust that once filled his eyes had transformed into something softer—half lidded and glistening, a reflection of pleasure and the surge of emotions swirling between you.

"Missed you so fucking much," he breathed removing his grip from your neck, to instead lace his fingers with yours and rest your hand against the mattress as he continued to pound into you.

You nodded your head, rendered absolutely speechless by the pure ecstasy his cock was giving you.

The room was filled with the sound of skin against skin, breathy gasps and lewd moans, as the two of you continued to lose yourselves within each other.

"That's it, baby. I can feel you, you're so close," Eddie coaxed. "Let go for me, I'm right there with you."

You let your orgasm wash over you, Eddie's thrusts never letting up even as he came with you.

As the height of pleasure dulled, he rolled his hips lazily, his forehead pressing against yours as your lips met in a soft collision.

"I love you," you murmured.

"I love you too," he replied, rolling onto his side to lie next to you.

You cuddled for a while, Eddie's fingers tracing lazy patterns on your skin as he shared stories about the road and the gigs he's played. You caught him up on your job and what life had been like in Hawkins since he’d been gone, telling him all the details about your movie night at Robin's. You even joked that if it had been Ghost Face who "broke in" tonight, as long as you got the same treatment you just received, you wouldn't have minded.

"Halloween '97, here I come. No tricks, all treats—I’ll fuck you with the mask on," he teased.

You playfully nudged him, and he shrugged. "Just saying, I'm open to it," he laughed, reaching over you to grab the Red Hots from your nightstand, popping some into his mouth.

He was beaming at you, eyes bright and wide, sucking hard on the candy in his cheek. "I'll be right back," he said, hopping out of bed and throwing on his boxers.

"Where are you going?"

"I have something for you," he called as he headed into the living room.

You sat up, the comforter pulled over you, eagerly awaiting his return.

"It's not much," he said as he walked back into your room, arms behind his back. "And don't be alarmed that it’s been used."

"Okay," you replied, cocking your head to the side, eyebrow raised with a questioning smile.

Eddie made his way back onto the bed, sitting in front of you. "You weren't alone in going out of your way for uh... reminders," he laughed, revealing a bottle of your favorite perfume. "Sleeping on a bus is rough, okay? The motels aren't any better, and I just needed... you."

A soft giggle escaped your lips. "Oh my god, Eddie."

"I sprayed my pillow. The bus driver gave the me idea, said his wife sends him with her perfume every time he's away. The downside was that it made me increasingly horny. Like, I was popping a boner every time my head hit the pillow."

You were choking on your laughter.

"It's not funny, baby. Do you know how hard it is to jack off on a tour bus? Everyone can hear everything! I had to smother myself with the pillow to keep myself from fucking moaning but that only made it worse. The scent was just intensified, and felt like my head was just buried in your neck while I fucked my hand and I'd just moan louder."

You laughed, heart swooning that he'd been as much of a mess as you. "Well, at least we're both terrible at being apart."

"Tragically lovesick, I think they call it," he murmured, a teasing smile on his lips as he leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to yours.

"When's your flight back?"

"Sunday at noon," he replied.

You glanced at the clock on wall. "So we've got 34 hours left, and I if I remember correctly," you teased using his own words from earlier. "I asked you to do the things you said you would."

"Right," he said a cheeky grin on his lips. "And I think I told you on our last phone call, that when I saw you, I'd make you cum once for every day we'd been apart. Is that right?"

"Mhmm. Only 25 more to go," you added.

"We better get to it then," he smirked.

[areyouwell]

Hi!!! I really love your work- photophobia is my favorite piece of fanfiction ever!!

I don't know if your requests are still open but if they are and you feel inspired I'd like to request a one-shot where Logan and reader are caught having sex by a member of the x-men (you can decide who!!) I'd love to see your take on it <3

Like Animals

Pairing: Logan Howlett x Mutant!F!Reader

Warnings: MDNI

Word count: 3.4k

A/N: im sorry this took so long ;-; work's been driving me crazy and i've been creatively constipated BUT i really liked this request and ngl i was laughing to myself when writing it hehehe. also not sure if this counts as a oneshot or a drabble since it's kinda short but i hope this is what you had in mind!

Taglist: @fries11 (i had a taglist for Phobophobia but this is a more general one if anyone wants to be on it lmk <3)

How many steps could one person do in a single day? It was a question you idly entertained whilst pacing across the floor of the kitchen, having been asked to politely remove yourself from movie night by a mildly irritated Kitty when you were unable to sit still. You’d spent most of your day like this. Anxiously, mindlessly marching from place to place, your body humming with anticipation since yesterday evening. 

It was the longest you and Logan had been apart since the start of your relationship a year and a half ago, and fuck you missed him. It had been roughly three weeks since he’d left, Charles trusting him with gathering intel on some new fucked up mutant slave trade just south of the school. He’d called you, of course he had, and you knew it was purely just to hear your voice, but his calls were few and far between. He was busy, incredibly busy. And whilst you tried to keep yourself busy too, it was hard not to think about him constantly. Not to wonder how he was doing, whether he was okay. If he missed you just as much as you missed him.

But you were pacing because he was supposed to be coming home today. Supposed to, if everything had gone well. Scott was almost as excited as you were, but only because he was happy to finally have his bike back. He was almost inconsolable when he went into the garage to see his prized possession had once again been stolen, and you tried everything you could to hide your amused grin. It was so typical of him, for his last act before he was gone for three weeks to be something that would piss off Scott. 

Fuck you loved him. 

You checked the clock on the wall for the thirtieth time that minute, the hands mocking you with the rhythmic clicking. Quarter past nine. He was supposed to be back an hour ago. Hence the anxious pacing. You resisted the urge to call him, hoping that maybe the traffic was just bad, or he got held up for some reason. He was okay. Of course he was okay. This was Logan you were thinking about. He was always okay. He had to be okay. 

Your teeth gnawed on your bottom lip cursing lowly as you didn’t focus on where you were going and smacked your hip into the corner of the table. If only he knew the things he id to you when he was away. 

With a brief pause, you debated whether or not to go back to movie night. Whilst you had no idea what was happening onscreen, being unable to focus, you think you could understand the fairly basic premise of Night at the Museum. Some guy spends a night at a museum. How complex could that actually be? But remembering Kitty’s flat stare of knowing, you thought better of it. She’d been helpful in distracting you for the last three weeks, but clearly, you’d worn down her patience. Not that you could blame the girl. She called you out for being too codependent on him, and whilst at the time you refuted the claim, you couldn’t help thinking she may have had a point. Maybe.

You weren’t codependent. You just loved him. A lot. Enough to constantly be by his side every minute of every day. And it wasn’t like he was any different. 

Another minute ticked by and you clenched your jaw. Had he gotten lost or something? Why was he making you wait longer than you needed to? Of course it wasn’t deliberate, even if he wanted to, you don’t think he had the strength to do that, deprive you both of the other’s presence, but he really picked a time to be an hour late. 

You crossed to the window, pulling back the curtain for the umpteenth time and waiting for longer than you should for the peek of headlights around the drive. But there was nothing. Just the moonlit grass and silhouette of trees. You huffed, throwing the curtain back into place. Footsteps echoed through the hallway towards the kitchen, and you dragged a hand down your face. 

“I’m fine, Scott. Just… getting kinda worried now. He should have been back an hour ago.” You couldn’t help pulling back the curtain again, as if anything would have changed in the last twenty seconds. 

“Scott? Seriously?”

Oh. That was not Scott. 

You whipped around, heart soaring as you knew that voice instantly. You could be deaf and still know the sound of his voice. Your lips split into a broad grin as you saw Logan standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, brow raised with a wry smile pulling at his lips. 

“Logan!” You beamed, racing across the room to all but tackle him. He dropped his leather bag to the floor, wrapping his arms around around your middle, spinning with the momentum of your jump. Your legs anchored around his waist, ankles locking at the small of his back as you let yourself bask in his presence, inhaling the familiar scent of cigars and wood smoke. 

“Hi darlin’. Sorry ‘m late.” He breathed, tightening his hold on you more for comfort than anything else. The tightness in his chest finally eased with the feeling of having you back in his arms. Logan always thought of himself as a lone wolf. An outsider. Someone who didn’t need anybody else. That was until he met you and fell absolutely head over heels. Now he could barely stand to be on his own for longer than five minutes before he’d find himself sorely missing your presence. So the last three weeks had been as torturous for him as they had been for you. 

Removing your face from the crook of his neck, you schooled your expression into a scowl. “Where the fuck have you been? An hour, Logan. I haven’t seen you in three weeks and you make me wait another hour?!”

He rolled his eyes at your dramatics, smirking as your furrowed brows deepened. “Roads were closed. Fuckin’ tree blocked the way so I had to turn back n’ find another way round.” He explained, and you reluctantly accepted it. “Not that you missed me or anythin’.”

“Me? Miss you?” you quirked a brow, your scowl dissolving into a mischievous smirk. “In your dreams, Howlett.”

Before he had a chance to quip back, you wrapped your arms around his neck, clinging tight as your lips crashed into his, dragging a quiet groan from his throat as he tasted longing passion on your tongue. His hands slid from your back to your thighs and oh how you missed the way he would grip them, leaving little purple bruises where he dug his fingers into your soft flesh. 

Your brows pinched as he shifted to pin you against the wall, palms kneading your ass whilst he ground his rapidly hardening cock against your clothed heat. You whimpered lightly as his touches became desperate, your teeth tugging at his bottom lip, eliciting a sharp gasp from the depths of his chest. Shifting from his neck, your nails dug into the hard muscles of his shoulders, leaving little crescent dents across the sinewy skin before you the brown flannel from his arms. It was barely clinging on anyway, so why not assist the fall?

“Where’s everyone?” He ground, lips fanning against your lower jaw as he moved to pepper tingling kisses and aching bruises along the column of your neck, his teeth scraping the sensitive skin above your pulse point. You angled your head to the side, allowing him easier access, the scuff of his beard scratching deliciously against the hollow of your throat.

“Movie night– Logan…!” you gasped his name as quietly as you could when his hands left the plush of your ass, using your grip around his waist and the wall to hold you aloft whilst he pawed and kneaded at your breasts through your t-shirt, braless nipples hardening almost instantly. He pinched the pebble through the fabric, tugging slightly and silencing your whine with a burning kiss, hungrily devouring your mouth before you alerted anyone in the living room to the new show playing in the kitchen. 

He growled a gravelly “Good” against your lips, removing your arms from his shoulders to raise above your head, pulling your shirt up and off in a hurried frenzy, almost snarling to himself as you bared yourself for him. You shivered slightly, though not from the cold, quite the opposite. The heat radiating off him kept you warm as you scrabbled to return the favour, your nails scratching at his naval before pulling up the white singlet and discarding it to the ground alongside your own shirt. Your hands fell to his belt, his mouth delivering little bites to your collarbone. Fuck, you needed him now. You needed him yesterday. Hell, you needed him the day he left, because fucking yourself with your fingers wearing his flannel was nothing in comparison to the ecstasy of fucking yourself on his cock. 

“Need you,” you breathed, popping open the button atop his jeans and pulling down the zipper over the incredibly obvious and likely extremely uncomfortable tent in his pants. Logan groaned slightly against your neck in relief, the tip of his cock pulsing and leaking with need. He hadn’t been this desperate for you since–

What the fuck was he saying? He was always desperate for you. In any way, shape or form. For whatever you were willing to give him. Though, luckily enough, you were usually willing to give him everything. 

“Fuck princess, ‘can smell you. Smell so fuckin’ good.” he growled directly into your ear, hot breath sending shivers down your spine. You really didn’t care that you were in the kitchen, nor did you care when he carefully tore through the crotch of your sweatpants with a single claw. Your arousal clouded his senses, the sweet scent of need making his hips buck into you. Especially when he dipped his hand through the tear to find you were naked beneath. “No underwear? You did miss me.” He grinned the same smile as a predator, and you clamped your lips together to stop your own disobedient smile. 

“‘Was in my pyjamas… at least, they were my pyjamas.” You hissed, brows pinching as a curious, delicate finger softly grazed through your slick folds, gathering your dewy arousal on the tip of his fingers before bringing them up to his mouth. A carnal groan rumbled from his chest as he tasted you, his eyes rolling before they closed. Your mouth fell open, chest rising and falling in rapid pants as one of your hands shoved the elastic of his briefs down below his hips, just far enough for his desperate cock to spring from his confines. 

“Impatient?” He smirked darkly as you attempted to grind against him, having to clench your jaw to stop yourself from whining. You shot him an equally wicked look, earning yourself a brow raise before his jaw slackened, your hand circling his length in a tight palm, jerking him from base to tip and using your thumb to slather the head of his cock in his own yearning. He bucked into your hand, a gasp flying from his lips before you slid him through the tear in your sweatpants. But before you could coerce him to drive home, he pulled you from the wall. 

With a small squeak of surprise, your nails clung to his back, tearing angry marks up his spine as he set you back down on the table, leaning over you until you were lying against the solid wood. 

“Say you missed me,” he growled with a smile, clearly deriving pleasure from the way you huffed in frustration. You only responded by raising your hips into his, grinding your now-soaked crotch against his throbbing cock. “C’mon baby, just say it, ‘n I’ll give you everything you want.” he bargained, though finding it incredibly difficult to deny you. He grunted a soft curse when you locked your legs tighter around his waist, forcing his sensitive tip to graze through your aching heat. Fuck he wanted you. But at the same time, he really wanted to hear you say it. “C’mooon, say you missed me. Can’t really deny it.”

“Fuck, yes I missed you. Of course I missed you. Now fuck me already!” You spat through gritted teeth, but he still didn’t claim you the way you wanted him to. 

“How much?”

“Logan?!”

“How much? How much did you miss me?” He grinned and you groaned in frustration. Trust him to find the worst times to wind you up. With a deep breath, you leaned up, holding both sides of his neck as you took the shell of his ear between your teeth. 

“I fucked myself wearing your clothes, whining your name, imagining my fingers were your fingers. Imagining that stupid silicon cock was your cock. That’s how much I missed you.” You whispered, earning yourself a needy groan from the man above you. 

His hips moved as if they had a mind of their own, his hand guiding himself through the ruins of your sweatpants to sink into your leaking cunt, and you both gasped airily at the sensation. Incrementally, Logan pushed inside you, savouring the pulse of your silken walls, the pitch of your trapped whines behind a wall of teeth and lips. Oh how he wanted to hear you, but somewhere in the back of his pleasure-addles mind, he was glad you were keeping quiet. At least one of you was still aware of the time and place. 

Slowly he bottomed out, pressing the coarse hairs of his pelvis against your clit. Taking your hand in his, he trapped it by the side of your head, knuckled turning white as he fought to resist the urge to cum there and then. You felt so fucking good. How did you always feel so fucking good?

“F-fuck, Logan… move.” You hissed, your hips undulating in desperate pumps as you attempted to get him to do something other than just fill you. It felt incredible, but you needed more. What you didn’t realise was that he was hypersensitive. He’d been without you for the last three weeks, with nothing but your voice on the other side of his phone and his own fist to satisfy his craving for you. And it did nothing but make it worse. Did nothing but make him harder for you. 

“Easy, princess. Not– fuck… not goin’ anywhere.” He swore as you deliberately clenched around him, slowly pulling back until only his tip was submerged in your heat, before pushing back in, having to sink his teeth into the meat of your shoulder to muffle his loud groan of ecstasy. You clawed at his closed fist, sharp nails digging into the three spaces where his claws would slide out—an unknown erogenous zone.

Until now.

His cock jumped inside you, shivers of pure electric honey quivering down his spine as he slammed his hips into yours, momentarily losing control of himself. “Shit… shit! Fuck that was– what did you–” 

You did it again, watching his features fall completely slack, mouth agape as he bucked into you uncontrollably, as if searching for a deeper place to reach. Your chest inflated with a sharp gasp as the leaking, throbbing tip of his cock brushed that little bundle of pleasure nestled inside your walls, the tight leash you were holding on your voice loosening slightly as he thrust into you sharply, having found just the right angle. 

“Yes… fuck, yeah, there, right– shit, right there!” Your eyes fluttered closed, your body set alight as he set a determined pace, the table shifting slightly with each delicious thrust, your ecstasy climbing higher and higher and you let yourself be completely consumed by pleasure. 

“Yeah?” he growled, gasping into the side of your neck as your other hand scratched up his back as if you were trying to get past his regeneration and leave lingering marks. He loved it when you got rough, it drove him fucking crazy when you tried to leave your marks on him. There were times he hated his mutation for that because nothing would push him higher than knowing he could look in the mirror and see your desperation sucked into his neck or torn into his back. 

“Fuck! Logan, I–”

“Are you fucking serious?!”

At the first sound of a foreign voice outside of your bubble of rapture, your mutation flared, blinking both you and Logan out of sight. Though, if you could teleport, that would have been a whole lot more beneficial. Because now poor Scott had to bear witness to your spontaneous kitchen table tryst. 

Had to bear witness to Logan’s bare ass. You almost wished you had his perspective…

“Maybe he didn’t see us…” you whispered as quietly as you could, and though you couldn’t see Logan smile, you knew he was grinning from ear to ear. 

“I wouldn’t hold out hope.”

“I can fucking hear you. On the table? Seriously? Everyone eats there. I eat there!” He lamented, and you craned your neck to see he’d covered his already covered eyes with his hands, his face a nice shade of bright pink. 

“Like you and Jean are any more discrete in the danger room, Summers.” Logan barked, and you snorted a laugh which quickly turned into a gasp when he shifted slightly. You couldn’t even hide the way your cunt pulsed the moment you heard him walk in, and you knew Logan would have given you a look of intrigue. 

“That’s not– You’re still going?!”

“You kinda walked in at a bad time.” You could hear just how hard Logan was trying to keep his shit together whilst still being under the influence of your arousal, like a siren to a sailor. 

“Exactly. It’s rude to walk in on a lady without knocking, I could have been naked!” You bit your lip to stop yourself from moaning aloud as Logan shifted again, deliberately this time. Oh, how you wished you could see his face right now. 

“In the kitchen?!” 

You snorted a laugh, earning a low groan from Logan as your walls convulsed around his cock, your thighs tightening around his waist. You could almost hear his teeth grind together as he continued his battle to stop from pounding into you there and then. 

“You might wanna go, Scott. Logan’s getting impatient.”

“You can’t even see him, how’d you kn– OH FUCK’S SAKE!”  He huffed, turning on his heel and storming from the room, no doubt to tell Kitty and Ororo he’d just caught the two of you fucking like animals on the kitchen table. 

When you were certain he was gone, you released your grip on your mutation and the visage of Logan’s sweat-slicked face greeted you, a crooked grin pulling at his lips. 

“You liked that, didn’t you?” He asked lowly, nipping at your jaw. “Could feel you gushin’ around me, princess. You liked it when he walked in. You liked it when we got caught.” Feeling boneless, Logan pulled you up with him as he stood, sliding his still-hard cock from your twitching cunt. 

“Shut up…” You mumbled, attempting to latch your lips to his. But he pulled back from you, that same shit-eating grin still shining. With a huff, you hopped off the table, stooping to snatch your t-shirt from the ground. 

“My little exhibitionist. Who knew?” Logan wrapped his arms around your naked waist and you leaned back into his chest, your teeth sinking into your lower lip as you felt his cock press against your ass. “‘M not against extending invitations. Just to watch. Nobody gets to touch you but me.” He growled, a possessive edge cutting into his tone, one that made you slightly weak at the knees, as if you weren’t already struggling to stand. A fresh wave of arousal curled in your lower gut, and you turned in his arms, eyes like heated coals.

“Bedroom. Now.”

“Just the two of us?”

“Now, Logan!”

With a dark chuckle, he bent to pick you up, hands braced against the backs of your thighs much like he had when he first walked in. 

“Yes ma’am.” He murmured, before finally letting you capture his mouth with your own, teeth clashing and tongues dancing as he blindly carried you up to bed to finish what you both started. 

[adabird]

-MHA TEACHER’S + HERO’S

-PREFERENCESES + HEADCANNONS

Within the following story, there may be PROGRESSIVE or NSFW moments. Please be aware, you are responsible for your own internet consumption.

MDI

I was thinking about doing like LOV members preferences and headcannons!

ALSO thinking about writing singular headcannons for mha teachers? LET ME KNOW!

SHOTA AIZAWA - ERASERHEAD

-THICK THIGHS-

Shota is really into thick thighs.. He especially gets feral after a long day at work, when he’s come home to see you in panties and his t-shirt.. because you ‘missed him too much’ while he was away.. He’s always taking the seat next to you, needing and squishing your thighs while he talks. He also enjoys it whenever you sit infront of him, facing him while you drag your stocking clad feet up his legs.. Drives him ABSOLUTELY insane whenever he’s driving and you take one of his hands, into one of yours placing it on your thighs while caressing one of his fingers. And don’t even get started when you start to feel a little insecure. PAL. HE LOVESSSS your thighs so NO, he’s not going to leave you and he doesn’t want you to change. AT ALL!! you’re his baby ❤️

HAZASHI YAMANDA - PRESENTMIC

-BUBBLE BUTT-

Hazashi is freakyyyyy. Like, he’ll invite you to his studio while he’s recording, just to have you sit on his lap. shh you can’t make any noise though! He loves to look at your butt, admiring you, telling you that ‘it was looking at him first’ that’s why he was practically eye-fucking you.. (WOW MB) Anywho! He also loves pinching your butt whenever you two are in elevators, walking up stairs, standing next to each other, literally anytime.. He’s always on you or touching you, even in non-sexual ways. He’s just that kind of person, and that’s how he shows his love for you ❤️

TOSHINORI YAGI - ALLMIGHT

-TINY BOOBS-

Toshinori really has a size kink. LIKE. No matter how gigantic your jugs are, or how tall you are, you’ll look small standing next to him. And he also really has a thing for hands 😻.. LIKE! He’s always guiding you through walkways or hallways with a hand on your shoulders.. If you ever have makeout sessions he’s sure to lift you up, having you stratal his hips while he pushes you up to the nearest wall. AND BRO. I really feel like he has a secret wife/husband. AKA YOU. You would walk into U.A., going to his office to find him becuase ‘he forgot his lunch this morning’. It was really just a plan to have all his kids meet you. He’s also the one to get really horny really easily!! Especially if you run your hands through his hair..❤️

NEMURI KAYAMA - MIDNIGHT

-LIPS-

GIRL. GIRL. GIRL. GIRL. She’s always got some part of her, touching you. She’s the type of person to just sit there and admire the way you talk, watching as your lips change shape to form whatever story you’re telling at the moment. She loves watching the blush crawl up your neck after she crashed your face into hers, pushing you to make out with her. She also gets jealous really easily, which causes her to constantly grab at your hips and neck.

RUMI USAGIYAMA - MIRKO

-ARMS-

OKAY! Rumi is definitely the dominant one in the relationship.. She has a thing for arms, but her own..? Like she loves wrapping you into hugs, tugging you into her like a pillow. She’s also really into your confidence.. The number one thing she enjoys to do with her arms would probably be pushing you up a wall while making out. It gets you both really turned on and gets the situation all steamy.. Before the two of you started your relationship, and were ‘just friends’ she was really into cornering you in the bathroom stalls, before making her way to kiss up your neck. (IN A CONSENSUAL WAY!!!) ❤️

TAMAKI KEIGO - HAWKS

-HIPS-

Keigo is really like a bird, so when his ruts come up, he has to consider your body, in terms of, ‘are you able to hold his baby’s’ ‘are your hip’s wide enough’ ‘are your hips narrow enough’ ‘do you want little birdies’? all really good questions. But he really loves to hold and to kiss your hips. Whether they’re wide, narrow, or if they carry love handles or not.. He doesn’t care! He loves YOU and your body, no matter what! He’s definitely always searching for your validation, and he’s always grooming himself to your standerds.. He makes sure you take care of yourself too , and are always feeling comfortable in your own skin..❤️

TAISHRIO TOYOMITSU - FATGUM

-TUMMY-

GAWD!!! My man, my man.. OKAY! Taishiro is really all about body positivity, and imidetly attracted to someone with a funny personality. Personally, I believe he tends to find chubby, and thicker people more attractive! But, he does go for personality!!! So dont be discouraged! He really likes laying on your tummy, and squeezing it.. He makes sure you love your body too! and makes sure you feel confident in your own skin! He eats a lot, and so will you.. But he also makes sure that you feel safe whenever you go out. He’s definitely the type of walk on the outside of the sidewalk, and the type to take the seat faced by the door in case of any attacks! ❤️

I hope you enjoyed! And PLEASE!!! Message me any ideas for any MHA characters you would like to see!! I don’t judge!

Later tonight I will be releasing a Monoma x Reader reaction! So stay tuned!

- ONIE OUT!

[caughtthedarkness93]

Ok, I guess I gotta talk about that one scene in Dragon Age: The Veilguard eventually because I've heard about discourse regarding it and it's driving me up a wall with how some of the criticism ignores key context from the rest of the story that informs how it's written. Spoilers for Taash's storyline follow below the cut.

So I mainly have seen this referenced on TV Tropes because I am not on the hellscape that is Twitter, but people, it seems, have been criticizing the scene where Taash comes out as nonbinary to their mom for how they get pissed at how their mom takes it. Often this is used to frame Taash as being unreasonable as their mom is struggling to understand what that means.

And I feel like that criticism kind of misses a big part of what that scene is actually about. Because Taash's relationship with their mom is complicated. This is something that their storyline stresses repeatedly. Taash has fond memories of growing up with their mom and knows that she basically gave up her whole culture to ensure that Taash wouldn't be forced into a soldier's life. It's clear that their mom is still very attached to Qunari culture and she outright expresses a couple times that she feels like being a Qunari scholar equipped her extremely poorly to actually raise a child. That checks out - under the Qun, that would be someone else's job entirely.

So this informs a lot of Taash's relationship with her - Taash recognizes that she gave up a very privileged position with the Qunari for their sake. Because she wanted a better life for them than what they'd get there. That's a huge sacrifice.

However, you watch how they interact, you can see that Taash's mom is also very critical of them and very controlling. She doesn't care much for Taash's privacy, tries to make a lot of their decisions for them without putting a lot of thought into what they actually want, and she is extremely critical of them sometimes about things that don't really matter.

So we get to that scene late in their storyline - the Lighthouse dinner. I think the critical mistake a lot of people make when looking at this scene is thinking that it's about how she reacts to Taash's gender identity.

Which that informs it, sure, but there's more to it. When Taash yells that nothing they do is good enough for their mom, it's not a reaction to how she responds to their identity, it's a reaction to the way their whole relationship has been built up throughout the game. It's the straw that broke the camel's back. And it's true to Taash's character.

One of the things that I like about Taash is that they're someone who likes a straightforward, direct solution to most problems. Thing in your way? Break it. Big scary monster? Kill it. They like to be able to take the most simple, direct path through a problem, preferably one that involves slaying a big monster, and Veilguard constantly puts them in situations where that isn't an option. And in those situations, they struggle a lot. Taash struggles to get along with Emmerich because that involves overcoming internalized prejudices (and understandable ones too - necromancy is something that would probably make a lot of people uncomfortable irl and for a culture where cremation is the norm and undead can be a legit issue, that would go, like, quadruple - of course they're uncomfortable with Emmerich). That's not an easy thing to do because it involves a lot of introspection and interrupting thoughts that you've been trained to think. Taash questions their gender identity. Definitely no easy, straightforward way to solve that. They angst a lot over being afraid they're broken somehow for feeling these things. A fraught, complicated relationship with a parent who sacrificed everything so that you would have a better life, but can't seem to bring herself to let you actually live it the way you want? Can't hit that with an axe.

And ultimately, that's what's happening in this scene - the whole game, we've seen Taash struggle with this really complex, nuanced relationship, this mother who clearly loves them and wants the best life possible for them, but struggles to understand what their child really needs and often says or does things that are hurtful. In this scene, this bubbling, brewing resentment, definitely exacerbated by Taash being outside their mom's orbit and with a team that has more faith in their skills and abilities, finally comes to a head.

The scene is only about Taash's identity on the most surface of levels. Yeah, that's what sparks the argument, but it's not what the argument is about.

[ijustmissyouraccenths]

The Alchemy

AU where Harry is the star quarterback at his college and y/n is an English major.

Based very loosely off The Alchemy by Taylor Swift

CW: Smut

Word Count: 6,871

Leaving my family to go to University was a bittersweet decision. My heart tugged at the thought of being away from them, but my passion for mastering the art of English pulled me towards my dream. My family had always been my biggest supporters and I wanted to make them proud by becoming an English professor. This meant leaving behind my comfortable life in a small suburban town in Florida to study abroad at one of the most prestigious universities. The campus was nestled in the very heart of where literary greats had once roamed and created their masterpieces. It was as if the walls exuded inspiration and creativity, urging me to chase after my dreams with even more fervor. Though I missed my family dearly, I knew that this journey would lead me to become the best version of myself and honor their unwavering support and love.

It was a whirlwind of experiences as I made my way through the unfamiliar streets. The currency conversion was a constant challenge, with every transaction feeling like a game of guesswork. And then there was the driving - on the opposite side of the road no less - which required all of my concentration to avoid any mishaps. But perhaps most daunting of all was the non-stop partying at pubs, a culture shock for someone like me who had grown up in a small town in America.

Thankfully, I was able to find a flat that was within walking distance from the school, and even luckier to have another American girl as my roommate. Mia was a sweet, bubbly girl from the middle of nowhere Kansas, embracing every aspect of British culture including the pub scene and the charming local lads.

Living with Mia meant constantly having people over, and it seemed like every night brought new faces into our home. I didn't mind too much, mostly enjoying the lively atmosphere and meeting new people. However, there were definitely some moments that tested my patience, like when one of Mia's friends named Arthur ended up getting sick and leaving his mark in our kitchen. Despite these occasional hiccups, I was grateful for this experience abroad and all the unique encounters it brought my way.

Though Mia's social butterfly nature could be trying at times, I appreciated her warm companionship in this foreign place. It was on one such night, after we had cleaned up the remnants of Arthur's ill-fated escapades, that we found ourselves cozied up with mugs of tea and watching the rain patter against the windows. 

Mia was unusually pensive as she stared out into the drizzly Manchester night. "You know," she began softly, "sometimes I wonder if I'm chasing the wrong dreams. My parents wanted me to become a doctor or lawyer, something stereotypically successful, but I just wanted adventure. Now here I am, living it up in England, but it all feels...empty, like I'm still searching for meaning."

I nodded thoughtfully, sensing the vulnerability in her words. Though Mia put on a bubbly facade, there was more depth to her than met the eye. 

"I think the great thing about being here is that we have time to figure it all out," I offered gently. "We're writing our own stories, not just following someone else's script." 

Mia smiled, some of the spark returning to her eyes. "You're right. That's exactly why I love being here with you."

As the rain continued to drum against the windows, Mia and I sat in comfortable silence for a moment, each lost in our own thoughts. Finally, Mia turned to me with a curious expression.

"Do you ever have doubts about your dreams, too?" Mia asked, her voice tinged with vulnerability.

I considered her question for a moment before responding, "All the time. Sometimes I wonder if I'm on the right path or if I'm just going through the motions."

Mia nodded understandingly, her eyes reflecting the shimmer of uncertainty. "It's scary, isn't it? The idea that we might wake up one day and realize we've been chasing a dream all along."

I placed a comforting hand on Mia's shoulder. "It is scary, but it's also part of the journey. We're allowed to question and evolve along the way."

She smiled weakly, her gaze drifting back to the rain-splattered window. "I guess that's what makes life interesting, right? The uncertainty of it all."

Our conversation was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door. Mia got up to answer it, revealing a group of our friends who had decided to brave the rainy night for an impromptu gathering.

"Come in, come in!" Mia exclaimed cheerfully, ushering everyone inside. The room quickly filled with laughter and chatter as our friends settled in.

As I looked around the group, my eyes landed on a few familiar faces who have crossed paths with me several times before. Among them was Arthur, a friendly face that always brought a sense of comfort and familiarity. As everyone piled into the room, my gaze wandered to him - Harry Styles, the renowned quarterback of our school's football team. I couldn't help but feel a tinge of excitement at being in the presence of such a well-known athlete. When I first arrived from the United States, I had assumed the term "football" referred to what we call soccer back home. But as I soon discovered, American Football was just as beloved and popular in the UK.

Harry noticed me looking his way and met my gaze. There was an intensity in his green eyes that made me quickly avert my own, focusing instead on my friend Grace who was animatedly sharing a story next to me. 

I tried to tune into her words, but my thoughts kept drifting back to the handsome footballer across the room. By all accounts, Harry was cocky, brash, and a bit of a player. And yet, I couldn't deny there was something magnetic about him. He carried himself with a self-assured swagger, his athletic frame filling out his clothes in a way that betrayed his strength. 

I scolded myself internally. Just because he's nice to look at doesn't change the fact that he seems like an arrogant jock. Still, when our eyes met again, I felt a flutter in my stomach I couldn't ignore. 

Harry said something to his friend that made the group erupt into laughter. He flashed a crooked smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. I quickly looked away once more, but the image of his smile lingered in my mind.

Get it together, I told myself sternly. Harry is off-limits. With his reputation, getting involved would only lead to trouble. I turned my focus back to Grace, pushing all thoughts of Harry's eyes, smile and broad shoulders out of my head. 

For the rest of the night, I avoided looking in Harry's direction, though I could feel his gaze on me periodically as the hours wore on. By the time people started trickling out, I felt certain I had avoided any direct interaction with the dashing footballer. 

That is, until I went to lock the door behind the last guest and found him standing there. He flashed that crooked smile again as he leaned against the door frame. "See you around, Y/N," he said, holding my gaze for a moment before disappearing into the night. I stood frozen, my heart racing as I replayed those five simple words in my head.

As I stood there in shock at Harry's unexpected presence, I couldn't help but feel a mix of emotions swirling inside me. His parting words echoed in my mind, leaving me slightly breathless and unsure of what to make of the situation. Gathering my composure, I locked the door behind him and turned to find Mia watching me with a knowing smile.

"Looks like someone caught your eye, Y/N," Mia teased, nudging me playfully. "Harry Styles, huh? Quite the charmer."

I flushed slightly at her comment, trying to brush off any implications. "Oh, come on, Mia. It's not like that," I deflected, hoping to downplay the significance of the moment.

But Mia wasn't convinced. "Sure, sure," she replied with a wink. "Just remember, not all that glitters is gold."

Her words lingered in my mind as I bid her goodnight and retreated to my room. Sitting on my bed, I couldn't shake off the image of Harry's smile or the way he had looked at me in that brief moment by the door. The conflicting thoughts swirled in my head, leaving me restless and contemplative.

The following day at school, as I made my way through the bustling halls, I noticed a familiar figure leaning against the lockers up ahead. It was Harry, his usual confident demeanor on full display as he chatted with his friends. As our eyes met briefly, he flashed a grin in my direction before turning back to his conversation.

Feeling a surge of boldness, I approached him tentatively. "Hey, Harry," I greeted him, trying to keep my tone casual despite the flutter in my stomach.

"Hey there, Y/N," he responded with a smirk, his green eyes twinkling mischievously. "Didn't think you'd show up here again so soon."

I felt my cheeks flush at his words. Clearly he was referring to my abrupt exit last night after our brief encounter at the door. I scrambled to think of a clever response. 

"Well, we do go to the same school," I pointed out, trying to keep my voice light despite the nerves I felt. 

Harry chuckled, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he regarded me with amusement. 

"True enough," he conceded. "But I got the sense you were trying to avoid me last night. Did I make you nervous?"

His bluntness took me aback. I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. Harry's eyes danced with mirth at my flustered state. 

"Cat got your tongue?" He teased. 

I took a steadying breath, determined not to let him get the best of me. "You wish," I retorted, hoping the bravado in my voice sounded more convincing than I felt. 

Harry laughed, a rich warm sound that made my knees weak. Our eyes locked and in that moment, it was like the noisy hallway melted away and there was only the two of us.

"Feisty. I like it," he murmured. Before I could respond, the warning bell rang, snapping us both back to reality. 

"See you around, Y/N," Harry said with a wink before disappearing into the swarm of students heading to class. 

My body froze in place, heart thudding against my ribs as I gazed at the infamous Harry. He exuded an undeniable air of trouble, and yet, as our charged banter replayed in my mind, I couldn't deny the adrenaline pumping through my veins. With a determined stride, I made my way to class, refusing to let this boy be the cause of my tardiness.

I took a seat in my Studies of Shakespeare class, the one subject I truly loved. The works of William Shakespeare never failed to captivate me, and if you could understand the Elizabethan lingo, his witty humor shone through brilliantly. Unfortunately, this particular teacher seemed to have a talent for draining all the life and humor out of these masterpieces.

I tried to focus as the professor droned on about the themes in Romeo and Juliet, but my mind kept wandering back to my encounter with Harry. Something about our charged banter had awakened feelings in me that I didn't quite understand. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a folded piece of paper land on my desk as if taken out of a scene from a movie. I looked around furtively before opening it. In an unfamiliar scrawling handwriting it read:

"What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." - H

I felt a thrill run through me and quickly tucked the note into my bag before the professor could notice. So Harry was in this class too? I scanned the room subtly until I spotted him a few rows behind me. He caught my eye and gave me a roguish wink.

I turned back to the front, trying to ignore the simmering exhilaration I felt. Over the next few days, the notes kept coming during Shakespeare class, each with a quote or two from the Bard himself. They were usually cheeky and flirtatious, hinting at some blossoming rapport between us.

I found myself anticipating each one, my heart skipping a beat when I would spot a new folded note on my desk. Our eyes would meet across the room, a hidden smile just between us.

After class one day, as I gathered my things, I sensed Harry approach my desk. "So when's our study session?" he asked nonchalantly, though there was a glint of something more in his eyes. I hesitated, knowing I should keep my distance, yet unable to deny I was intrigued.

I nervously tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, trying to appear nonchalant. "Well, I don't know... I've heard you're not the most dedicated studier," I teased, giving him a playful smile.

Harry chuckled, his eyes sparkling mischievously. "Oh, but that's where you're wrong. I may not look like it, but I'm quite the Shakespeare aficionado," he replied with a grin.

I raised an eyebrow in skepticism. "Is that so? Well, I suppose we could arrange a study session... if you can prove your expertise," I challenged, a hint of challenge in my tone.

His grin widened, accepting the challenge. "Consider it done. How about we meet at the library tomorrow after school?" Harry suggested, his gaze unwavering.

I hesitated for a moment, the thrill of anticipation coursing through me. "Alright, it's a date then," I agreed, feeling a rush of excitement at the prospect of spending more time with him.

As the final bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, Harry flashed me one last grin before disappearing into the bustling hallway. My heart raced with both nervousness and exhilaration as I packed up my belongings, eager for our upcoming study session.

The following day at the library, I found myself anxiously scanning the room for Harry. My pulse quickened when I spotted him sitting at a table in the corner, a stack of Shakespearean plays spread out in front of him.

I made my way over to him, feeling a mix of nerves and excitement swirling inside me. "Ready to impress me with your Shakespeare knowledge?" I asked with a teasing smile as I took a seat across from him.

Harry flashed me a charming grin. "Just watch and learn," he said confidently, picking up a copy of Romeo and Juliet and flipping to a random page.

As he began to recite lines from the play with passion and flair, I couldn't help but be captivated by his enthusiasm. His eyes lit up as he delved into each line, bringing the centuries-old words to life in a way that was both mesmerizing and captivating.

By the time our study session ended, I found myself completely enthralled by Harry's interpretation of Shakespeare's works. As we gathered our things to leave, he turned to me with a twinkle in his eye, he knew a lot more about the works than he let on to.

Harry turned to me, “So now that I’ve shown you i’m smart, I know Shakespeare, when are you coming to one of my games?” he asked confidently.

I was taken aback by his forward invitation. Attending one of his football games felt intimate in a way that made me nervous. 

"Oh, um, I don't know..." I fumbled over my words, suddenly feeling shy. 

Harry tilted his head, giving me a crooked smile. "Come on, it'll be fun. I'll even give you a personal tour of the field afterwards," he joked. 

I bit my lip, considering it. There was no denying I felt drawn to him, despite trying to keep my distance. And the thought of seeing him command the field sent a little thrill through me. 

"Alright, I suppose I could stop by," I finally conceded, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear self-consciously. 

Harry's face lit up. "Brilliant! Our next game is on Friday. I'll leave a ticket for you at will call," he said eagerly.

I nodded, butterflies taking flight in my stomach. "Okay, yeah. I’ll see you then," I replied softly. 

Harry gave me a dazzling smile and I felt my knees go weak.

Friday night arrived and I found myself filled with nervous excitement as I made my way to the football stadium. I couldn't believe I had actually agreed to come watch Harry play. As I approached the ticket booth, I gave my name and they handed me the ticket Harry had left for me. 

I found my seat in the packed bleachers and waited anxiously for the game to start. When the players rushed onto the field, I immediately spotted Harry's mop of curly hair. He looked focused and determined as he took his position on the field. 

As the game began, I was immediately drawn in by Harry's commanding presence on the field. His movements were fluid and precise, each pass and dodge executed with passion and skill. With each successful play, the crowd erupted into thunderous cheers, mirroring my own excitement. It was impossible not to join in, jumping to my feet and cheering for Harry along with everyone else.

At halftime, Harry made his way over to the sidelines, sweat glistening on his forehead and tattooed arms, his chest heaving from exertion. As he scanned the crowd for familiar faces, his eyes locked onto mine and a wide grin spread across his face. He waved enthusiastically, causing my cheeks to flush as I shyly waved back in return. 

In the second half of the game, Harry's presence seemed to radiate even more brightly. With each touchdown he scored, his fists pumped triumphantly in the air. The crowd roared and cheered as he ripped off his helmet and hoisted it victoriously above his head, his teammates swarming around him in celebration.

As the stadium emptied out, I stayed behind with a swarm of butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I couldn't wait to see Harry once again. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he emerged from the locker room, his hair still damp from his post-game shower but his eyes shining with joy.

"So, what did you think?" he asked eagerly as he approached me.

"You were truly spectacular out there," I gushed earnestly. A wide grin stretched across Harry's face.

"Come on, let me give you that promised tour," he said playfully, offering me his arm. Laughing, I happily took it and followed him onto the empty field, my heart racing with excitement and admiration for the amazing athlete by my side.

Harry led me onto the empty stadium field, the night air crisp and cool against our skin. He pointed out spots on the grass where pivotal plays had happened, describing them with a passion that revealed his deep love for the game. 

I found myself enthralled, leaning into him as we walked, his arm solid and warm beneath my hand. When we reached the middle of the field, he turned to face me. His eyes were soft, searching my face in the dim glow of the stadium lights. 

"You know, I was afraid you wouldn't come tonight," he admitted quietly. 

I tilted my head. "Why's that?"

He shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips. "You never seemed to like me much before. I figured I wasn't your type."

Heat rose to my cheeks. He wasn't wrong - I'd unfairly judged him as arrogant and cocky. But tonight had shattered those assumptions. 

"I guess I realized there's more to you than meets the eye," I said softly. 

Harry's smile widened. He lifted his hand, gently tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. My breath caught at his touch. Slowly, he leaned in. I let my eyes fall shut in anticipation...

But suddenly, the stadium lights flickered off, plunging us into darkness. We jumped apart in surprise. 

Harry laughed. "Guess that's our cue to head out." 

He took my hand, interlacing our fingers, and led me towards the parking lot. I walked close beside him, hyper-aware of his palm pressed against mine.

As he towered over me, Harry's eyes scanned the street, searching for a car. "Where did you park?" he asked, his voice deep and smooth.

I shifted nervously on my feet, avoiding eye contact. "Oh. Uh. I didn't drive. I just live around the street," I murmured, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment. The thought of navigating English roads was terrifying to me.

A warm chuckle escaped from Harry's lips as he looked back down at me. "I can drive you home, love," he offered, extending a hand towards me. His scent wafted towards me - a mix of cologne and something woodsy - and I couldn't help but feel a flutter in my stomach at his closeness.

As Harry and I walked towards his car, our hands still entwined, I felt a sense of excitement and anticipation build within me. "So, tell me more about this amazing game-winning touchdown," I teased, trying to break the silence that had fallen between us.

Harry laughed softly, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he glanced at me sideways. "Oh, you mean the one where I body-slammed the other team's runner into oblivion?" He pretended to flex his muscles playfully. "That was pretty epic, if I do say so myself."

I shook my head, feigning disbelief. "You're such a show-off," I said with a grin. "I bet you were the star of the school playground too."

Harry snorted. "Hardly. I was more of a loner growing up. Spent most of my time with my nose buried in books."

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "And here I thought all jocks were brain-dead."

He laughed again, his laughter echoing through the empty streets as we walked towards his car. When we finally reached it, Harry unlocked the door and gestured for me to get inside. As I slid into the passenger seat, I couldn't help but notice how perfectly he filled the driver's seat - broad shoulders tapering down to narrow hips and long legs. The image of him all sweaty and wet from a shower flashed through my mind, making my cheeks heat up again.

"So," Harry began as he started the engine and pulled out onto the road, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, "tell me more about yourself."

I felt myself blush even harder at his directness but decided to play along. "Well," I said slowly, thinking quickly. "I'm a huge bookworm too - Harry Potter is probably my favorite series ever."

Harry chuckled softly as he glanced at me briefly before looking back at the road. "I can see why you fit right in here in England then."

We drove through the quiet streets in companionable silence for a while before Harry spoke up again. "You know, you don't have to act all tough around me," he said quietly, his eyes still on the road as he slowed down at a stoplight.

I turned to face him fully now, surprised by his words. "I wasn't trying to be tough," I said defensively. "I just didn't want you to think that... well, never mind what I didn't want you to think," I muttered under my breath.

Harry's face softened into a gentle smile as he reached out to brush a strand of hair behind my ear once again - a gesture that sent shivers down my spine despite the warmth of the car interior. "It's okay," he murmured soothingly as he took my hand in his once more and squeezed gently before letting go when the light turned green again.

The rest of our drive was filled with more easy conversation punctuated by moments of awkward silence broken only by the sounds of our breathing and occasional traffic noises outside. When we finally pulled up outside my house I found myself hesitating before opening the car door knowing that this was goodbye.

Under the dim glow of the street lamp, I tentatively turned to face Harry. "Thanks for...for tonight," I stammered out, suddenly self-conscious under his intense gaze. 

His emerald eyes twinkled mysteriously as he simply nodded and began unbuckling his seatbelt. His eyes never left mine, setting off a simmering warmth between us that was hard to ignore. 

"I should probably walk you to your door," he said softly, accentuating each word with an inexplicably seductive lilt. My heart pounded in my chest as we exited the car and made our way towards my apartment.

Once at the front door, we stood facing each other in silence, the air around us thick with unspoken words and desires. I felt his strong fingers gently cradle my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. The intensity of this simple touch sent sparks racing down my spine, pooling heat in places I hadn't even known existed.

"Can I come inside?" His voice was barely a whisper but it echoed loudly in my ears.

My mind screamed caution but my body had other plans. “Yes,” I breathed out, unlocking the door and pulling him inside.

Inside, Harry's lips found mine in a searing kiss that left me breathless. His tongue teased against mine, creating a warm and delicious friction that sent shivers down my legs. As he pressed his hips against me, I could feel the unmistakable hardness growing between us. Our hands roamed freely over each other's bodies, exploring new territory and seeking pleasure through every touch.

Harry's fingers made their way to the waistband of my skirt, pulling it down over my hips and letting it fall to the ground. He lifted me up onto the edge of a nearby table, spreading my legs slightly as he stood between them. The feel of his fingers brushing against my inner thigh caused me to gasp and arch my back in anticipation.

Harry pulled back abruptly,“I’m sorry,” He started, “that was really inappropriate.”

As Harry apologized, his eyes were drawn to the hint of my arousal peeking out from between my legs. His hesitation vanished as his fingers brushed against my wetness once more, this time without pulling away. He groaned in approval and leaned forward, pressing his lips against mine once more. I craved him in the worst ways.

Our tongues tangled as he pushed me back onto the table, spreading my legs further apart. His hands found their way under my shirt, skimming over my stomach before lifting it up, exposing my bra-clad breasts. He took a deep breath, inhaling my scent and trailing his fingers lightly across one tight nipple.

"Harry," I moaned, cavinginto his touch. "Please don't stop."

He smirked wickedly down at me before pulling back slightly. In one swift motion, he yanked my shirt over my head, tossing it aside carelessly. Grabbing hold of both sides of my bra, he pulled it down too with such force that my breasts were freed from their confinement.

I gasped at the sudden rush of air hitting my sensitive nipples but before I could catch my breath, he took one of them into his mouth sucking hard while pinching the other between two fingers, teasing it mercilessly.

"Fuck," I whimpered, clawing at the table underneath me as pleasure coursed through me like lightning. The intense mix of pain and pleasure sent waves of desire crashing over me as I felt myself becoming wetter with every passing second.

Sliding one hand down towards his pants, I slowly undid the button and zipper before slipping my hand inside his boxers to grip him firmly around his growing erection. He groaned into my breast at the contact sending shivers down my spine.

"You want me to fuck you?" he whispered hoarsely against my skin leaving a trail of saliva along my collarbone as he ran his tongue upwards caressingly .

"Yes," I breathed out between parted lips unable to form complete words due to the intensity of emotions running through me. 

My heart raced as his erection throbbed in my hand. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin, mixed with the desire that seemed to emanate from him. His other hand slid down my back, over my ass cheeks, and gripped them roughly, pulling me closer against his hardness.

"Do you have any idea how fucking sexy you are? You and your little shy good girl act" he growled into my neck, nipping at the skin there softly. With one swift movement, he lifted me up onto the countertop, pushing my legs apart with his hips. His mouth trailed kisses along my jawline, down my throat, and on my breasts. 

I arched my back slightly offering myself to him more fully as he took a hungry mouthful of one of my nipples into his mouth sucking on it hard while pinching the other between his fingers causing a sharp intake of breath from me which made him smile devilishly before moving on to devour the other one.

My body trembled with anticipation as he bit my neck playfully, his rough hands sliding over my hips and ass cheeks before pulling me against him. His cock twitched against my wet core, making me whimper in want. "You like that, don't you?" he growled, his voice low and husky. "You're so fucking beautiful."

"Harry," I moaned, my voice reduced to a desperate whimper as he continued teasing me with his words and touches. "Please..."

The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, along with our ragged breathing and the occasional moan. I could feel myself getting lost in the sensations, my body responding eagerly to his movements. His hands were everywhere, tracing over my curves and gripping me tightly as he pounded into me.

My own hands were roaming his back, digging into his flesh as I tried to hold on to something amidst the overwhelming pleasure that was coursing through me. Every inch of my body felt on fire, and I couldn't get enough.

"Fuck," he grunted, his face contorting with pleasure. "You feel so good."

I whimpered in response, unable to form any coherent words as he continued to move inside me relentlessly. My whole world had narrowed down to this moment – his body against mine, the sound of our bodies coming together in a perfect rhythm.

My mind was blissfully blank as he increased his pace, his thrusts becoming rougher and more urgent. I could feel my climax building up within me, like a fire threatening to consume me whole.

And then it hit me like a tidal wave – intense and all-consuming. My back arched off the counter as I cried out his name, my body trembling with pleasure as every nerve ending exploded with ecstasy.

He followed soon after, letting out a loud groan as he spilled himself inside me. We stayed still for a moment, trying to catch our breaths and bask in the aftermath of our passion.

But eventually reality came crashing back around us. Panic started creeping up inside me as I tried to gather my thoughts and make sense of what had just happened. 

As I lay there, my heart still pounding in my chest, he gently pulled out of me and straightened up. His eyes, dark with desire just moments ago, now softened with a mixture of tenderness and regret.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of our heavy breathing. "I shouldn't have let things go this far."

I sat up slowly, feeling a mix of emotions swirling inside me – confusion, guilt, and a lingering sense of pleasure that refused to dissipate. 

"It's not just your fault," I murmured, avoiding his gaze as I tried to gather my clothes around me. "I wanted this too."

He reached out a hand to touch my arm, but hesitated before making contact.

"We should talk about this," he said finally, his tone serious. "About what it means for us."

I nodded slowly, feeling the weight of his words settling between us. What had started as a moment of passion had now morphed into something more complicated, something that demanded attention and discussion.

As we dressed in silence, the air in the room felt charged with unspoken thoughts and emotions. The intensity of our physical connection lingered like a ghost between us, refusing to be ignored.

We began to gather our clothes from around the room, now tainted with the evidence of our reckless choices. Harry buried his face into his shirt before pulling it on, perhaps ruminating on what just occurred, or maybe trying to drown out the reality with the lingering scent of his cologne.

"Y/n," he started after a long silence, pulling his trousers up. His voice sounded strained, an indication that he was struggling with the right choice of words. "I... I didn't mean for this to... I mean, I like spending time with you." He sighed heavily, rubbing his face between his large palms.

I remained silent as I fastened my bra. The finality in his voice was suffocating, making it harder for me to breathe with each passing moment. I felt my heart thumping loudly in my chest – a crude reminder of the complication we had willingly dived into.

"I like you, Y/N," he said finally, his voice a hoarse whisper. The words hung in the air between us, hovering like a dense fog, obscuring any clarity that might lie beyond.

I stopped fumbling with my blouse, my fingers stilled by his confession. "Harry," I began, my voice barely audible. Fear clung to me, making my words tremble.

"I know," he cut me off before I could finish what I started. "I know we're both in different places... Me with football and you with your studies." There was a tingling silence after his statement, as if he was waiting for me to confirm or deny his declaration.

I sighed heavily, tugging at the hem of my blouse, feeling the cool fabric against my still heated skin. "It's not that simple Harry," I admitted, blinking back tears that had started to sting my eyes. "This," I motioned around the room, encompassing our discarded underwear strewn haphazardly around the room - a silent testament to the passion that had just consumed us, "this complicates things."

He ran his hand through his tousled hair and nodded solemnly. "I understand," he replied, a hint of resignation etching lines onto his face. His gaze was heavy with something akin to regret as it met mine.

My breath hitched in my throat at the intensity of his stare. I wanted desperately to reach out and ease the burden that seemed to weigh heavily on him. But reality was an insidious shadow that lurked in our midst, reminding us of the impracticality of our desires.

"I think it's better if we keep our distance for now," Harry broke the silence after what felt like an eternity. His words were like cold water dousing the fire that our bodies had kindled only moments ago.

A feeling of sudden emptiness clawed at me. His words, though probably said in goodwill, felt like a punch to my gut. I swallowed hard, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over.

I nodded, unable to bring myself to utter a word. He stepped towards me and for a moment I thought he would pull me into his arms one last time. But he merely extended a hand that I shook lightly, the gesture felt impersonal after the intimacy we had just shared.

Without another word, he turned and left the room. I stood still in the silence that followed, the sound of his departing footsteps echoing in my ears long after he was gone.

Mia came home later that night, oblivious to the charged atmosphere that still lingered, suffocating and heavy in the air. Her chatter about an extra credit assignment she’d completed was a stark contrast to the silence that had enveloped the room just hours ago. 

“Y/N, are you okay?” she asked suddenly, noticing my distant gaze. I gave her a weak smile in response before excusing myself to bed.

As I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, Harry's words echoed through my mind. "I think it's better if we keep our distance for now." His voice was etched into my memory, roughened by regret and something else I couldn't quite place. His face bore an expression that told me this was as hard for him as it was for me.

The next day was a blur. My classes seemed trivial compared to the turmoil swirling in my mind. My interactions with others were mechanical and flat as if I was watching myself from outside my body.

Football practice was going on when I walked past the field on my way back from the campus library. My eyes instinctively sought out Harry among the sea of players. I found him focused on his game, every muscle in his body straining as he kicked the ball towards the goalpost.

His world seemed unchanged—still revolving around football—while mine felt like it had been knocked off its axis.

The following weeks were no easier. Everywhere I went, I could feel his presence like a phantom pain - a dull ache that refused to fade away. In every conversation, every song playing in the background, every corner of campus - Harry was there.

I knew we had made a rational decision, given our circumstances. But my heart couldn't comprehend what my mind had already accepted.

Months passed and winter set in, blanketing Manchester in white. Serene and beautiful yet so melancholy it mirrored my mood perfectly. The once familiar campus looked different under the soft glow of the snow as if to mirror the change that had occurred in my life.

One evening, as I was walking back from the library, I spotted Harry sitting alone on a bench, bundled up in a thick coat, his breath misting in the frigid air. His eyes were trained on the football field, currently blanketed by snow, and his hands were tucked into his pockets, his usual energy replaced by a pensive quietness.

I hesitated, weighing my options. We hadn't spoken since that night – the night when our worlds collided and then abruptly fell apart. But something drew me towards him – an inexplicable magnetism I had been fighting for so long.

Stepping tentatively closer, I cleared my throat to announce my presence. "Harry," I said softly, trying not to startle him.

He looked up at the sound of my voice, surprise flickering across his features before they settled into guarded neutrality. "Y/N," he responded with a curt nod, but made no move to invite me to sit.

Taking a leap of faith, I lowered myself onto the bench next to him, maintaining some distance while also bracing for the icy cold through my jeans. For several minutes we sat in silence, lost in our own thoughts as we stared out at the snowy field.

"I've missed you." The words slipped out before I could stop them.

He turned toward me then, his emerald eyes soft and searching as they met mine. His lips opened as if to say something but closed again as if reconsidering his words.

"Y/N..." His voice trailed off and there was a long pause before he continued. "I’ve missed you too."

Relief washed over me at his confession but it was quickly replaced with a gnawing sadness as I realized that missing each other wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between us. Our realities were still the same - he was still the star football player with ambitions bigger than Manchester itself and I was still an English major trying to carve out a place for myself in academia.

“Do you ever think about…?” I started, swallowing hard as I tried to voice the question that had been eating at me.

“Us?” He completed my sentence, his voice barely above a whisper. His gaze was heavy but he held it steady, openly showing the vulnerability he usually kept hidden beneath his star athlete facade. “All the time.”

The honesty in his confession hit me harder than I expected. We were both stuck in our respective worlds, looking at each other from afar but never truly reaching out.

I took a deep breath, feeling the biting winter air fill my lungs before exhaling slowly. “We can’t keep doing this, Harry,” I said finally, breaking the silence that had fallen between us.

He looked at me then, his gaze filled with understanding and something else I couldn't quite place. “I know,” he replied softly, his eyes never leaving mine.

The future was uncertain and full of challenges. But if there was one thing I had learnt from this whole ordeal, it was that some chances are worth taking. No matter how daunting they may seem.

[helenazbmrskai]

Monster in me & you: 3

Monster in me and you part 3 (prev. like chalk and cheese)

Pairing – Yan! Taehyung x READER

Genre – Yandere AU, Smut, Angst

Summary – You have episodes when you isolate yourself from everyone, and Taehyung has a hard time navigating through them, but once they’re over, the moments he gets to spend with you are rewarding.

Warning – mentally unstable reader, stalking behaviour, insinuated childhood neglect, unprotected sex, dom! reader, handjob, riding, lovemaking, cunnilingus, cumplay, multiple orgasms, dirty talk

Words – 3,2k

Rating – +18

part 1 // part 2 // masterlist

Sometimes there’s this feeling that you don’t want to deal with anyone. Your mindset shifts and turns up in this dark place that you only leave when the time is right. No force can make it go away.

The moodswings it pushes you into are unpredictable.

It’s hard for Taehyung when you do that anytime that switch flips he’s grovelling at your feet fighting for your attention. It’s hard for you to be in his space and your mood constantly changes with a flicker of emotion. Any sane person would have left you alone, but not him, the hard words that you say just fly over his head. You could tell him the meanest thing in the world and he would still be smiling at you.

He’s so crazy about you.

You can yell not to touch you or speak to you, he would surprisingly obey. The only command he doesn’t respond to is ’go away’.

He refuses to leave even when you’re sick of him. The four walls are not helping you to feel better. On some better days you leave the apartment to breathe in some fresh air, do some grocery shopping or buy something just for you. In the corner of your eye, you could see his silhouette watching you from afar walking behind you a few steps back. He’s not stalking you because he’s monitoring you per se, he’s just worried about you in his sick way. He was never good at expressing himself and never learnt how to show these things. In his head, some things just work abnormally due to his childhood neglect.

Living with him for quite some time you learnt how to read him like an open book.

Whenever you had a question about his life before you he answered without being too emotional. With busy parents, no one paid any attention to him his other two siblings had their lives going on as well leaving the small Taehyung alone most of the time. Taehyung doesn’t have a strong opinion on anything, he’s endlessly patient and sometimes drives you up the wall with how calm he is. He likes anything you like. He does anything you ask him to do. If you asked him to be your pretty obedient doll he would do it.

His obsession is choking you but other times when you have these episodes and he stays by your side till the very end you appreciate his devotion.

Once you calm down and the anger fades and these feelings pass by you’re able to be yourself again. Even since you were a child you had these episodes where you were unable to communicate with people. You didn’t want to be near them, talk to them or just be in the same room as them. There were weeks when you would isolate yourself from everyone and your habit comes with a cost each time. Some friends left you when they couldn’t reach you, tired of waiting even your family contacted you less and less.

At first, you thought it would be better to be alone when you feel like that so you can avoid hurting people.

Taehyung is the first one that you cannot shake off. His presence over some time even becomes quite calming. He became like a pillar that’s unshakeable.

You don’t remember when Taehyung sat next to you or when he put a film on the tv. Your eyes start to focus on the action movie that’s playing and your surrounding materialises in your vision. You realise that you have a soft blanket thrown over your lap and it’s very warm. Taehyung sits on the other side of the sofa mindful of your comment not to touch you even when usually he’s curled around you in situations like this.

You realise you miss him.

He did all those little things for you when you felt like you were at your lowest. He’s deprived not just of your love and interest but physical touch as well, you could tell from how tense he’s been sitting. His hands are placed on his lap intertwined as if he wanted to make sure his hands will not wander absentmindedly.

His head perks up when he feels you moving around. You slowly rest your head on his shoulder as if to break the silence yet he doesn’t react. You could feel his hands shaking as he let them rest on either side of his torso. He’s making the position more comfortable so you can actually lean against his chest.

It’s sweet how he’s nervously watching out for your reactions. He doesn’t dare to hold you so you find his hand in the darkness and place it on your thigh relaxing more into his embrace. Taehyung lets out a shaky breath near your ear you could hear the relief in his small sigh. He finally lets his chin rest on your shoulder in a relaxed manner. The tension he had before left his rigid muscles entirely by the time you two cosied up to each other. He wraps himself around you touching you wherever he can.

”What is this movie about?” Your face slightly turns to catch his eyes. There’s no surprise that his gaze was already on you by the time you looked at him. He blinked flatly two times before he looked back at the screen.

”I don’t really know.” His response was sheepish and you couldn’t stop yourself from laughing at how cute he looked right now.

”Were you looking at me the entire time?” It’s pointless as you already acquired the answer from his embarrassed stare. Your body turns sideways resting on his thighs. Slowly you wrap your hands around his neck smiling when he shudders the moment your lips make contact with his skin. Your pointer finger trails down his chin listening to his little gasp of pleasure as you kiss down his neck.

”Sorry for ignoring you.” You had to say it out loud as guilt rips through you. It hits you each time one of those episodes ends.

”Don’t say sorry.” Taehyung shakes his head without thinking. You melt into his shy kiss as he presses his lips on yours for a moment.

”Do you still love me?” The answer should be obvious but there’s still doubt in you. Taehyung doesn’t waste his time in proving his love to you, he doesn’t want you to spend another second imagining that he’s not in love with you, obsessed with you.

His feelings will forever be unchanging. He shows it to you with each touch and kiss. Holds you close to his body, and caresses every inch of you as your mouth fully explores his. His tongue slides smoothly over yours sensually, even when he’s kissing you so deeply he cannot keep his happy noises down.

He’s very happy that you’re finally touching him. His cock is getting harder and harder the longer you kiss him.

Afraid that his excitement will place pressure on you he tries to hide his hardness but miserably fails when his hips buck into you from below after a playful bite on his lower lip makes him jolt. He whines with tears in his eyes when you rub the tip over his pants. It’s so easy to make him cry. Finding his pathetic attempts amusing.

”You can touch it.” You encourage him to pull his cock out of his pants. You give him space so he can wrap his veiny hand around his shaft. His hand is so much bigger than yours that he has no problem stroking his length and rubbing the tip with his thumb. Taehyung calls out your name each time he moves his hand, seeking approval from you.

Sealing his moans with your lips, you continue to dominate the kiss as he barely manages to follow your movements, the noises he lets out keep interrupting the flow but you don’t mind kissing him dumb.

Both of your lips are wet with saliva and swollen from the heavy makeout when you break it. Taehyung stops pleasuring himself when you get up from his lap but you reassure him it’s fine if he continues. Once you start taking off your clothes one by one his hand moves again, and watching you uncover yourself results in more fresh precum sliding down his length. The sounds he lets out are sinful.

”Come here.” Once your panties are down your legs you put one leg up on the couch to give him comfortable access. His hand finds leverage on your standing leg holding you by gripping your knees his face buried in the apex of your thighs. You don’t need to give him more guidance as he slips near the edge of the couch.

Taehyung eagerly opens his mouth to taste you, the tip of his tongue pointedly flicks over your clit sending a wave of thrill all over your body. The muscles in your legs tense up caging his face between your thighs to keep him there. He wasn’t going to move anyway. Opens his mouth wide flattening his tongue he moves the wet muscles up and down your slick folds collecting your musky taste is his only response.

You hear his laboured breathing and feel the cooling air around your heated mound. His mouth is as busy as his hand that picks up where he left off dragging his cock up and down pleasuring himself throughout never ceasing his fervent licking. Parts your folds with long strokes finding each nerve in your pussy that makes it throb.

”You can cum anytime.” You tell him between moans of your own that he can let go if he wants and he does. He cums from fisting his cock that’s the only time his tongue slows down and gives you harder licks, desperate to let it all out but maintaining his duty to get you closer to your orgasm as well.

His hand is covered in cum unsure if you would let him he asks you with puppy eyes if he could still touch you with his filthy fingers.

”Hmn, go ahead.” You smile, finding his expression so hot as he looks so exhausted and content with just one orgasm. Your fingers curl in his hair scraping his scalp a little that only makes it harder for him to keep his eyes open. He always loved it when you played with his hair especially when he’s going down on you.

Taehyung rubs his cum coated fingers over your folds spreading the whiteness all over before collecting more from his oozing tip and pushing it into your hole. His wet fingers move with squelching noises but the loudest noise is your joint moans when he enters you. One finger is barely enough to sate you as you ask him to put another in, move it faster and harder. He obeys without you having to ask he could tell from the impatient hip thrusts that tried to push his fingers in deeper.

Your entire body feels like it’s on fire as Taehyung goes back to abusing your enlarged clit with his precision licks. Paired up with his fingers curling and thrusting just at the right speed and place it doesn’t take long for you to cum around his digits. He doesn’t let up his efforts unless you’re shaking and pulling away from overstimulation. He tries to clean you up even when his face becomes a wet mess in the process.

”So dirty.” You wipe his face with your thumb but the gesture does little to help him clean up. His cock is half hard as you wrap your fingers around it still wet from his previous release. ”I’m your dirty b-boy.” Taehyung holds onto your hips pushing his face into your stomach mumbling as you start a slow pace, pumping his length into fullness.

The whiny moans are subdued as he pushes his face more into your skin. Getting too hot to handle you let him go just enough that he could get rid of his last remaining clothes. ”Please, I’ll be real good. Your good boy. Fuck me, please. I don’t know how much more I can take.” Laying down naked on the couch his erection standing tall as he rests against the soft pillows he continues to beg and plead. Moving on top of him, you impatiently roll your hips trapping his cock between your stomachs the friction has his head thrown back and ask you desperately to finally fuck him.

”Fuck me, use me.” His voice cracks and raises as you keep grinding, his pleasure is getting desperate.

”I’m not going to use you this time.”You can feel his cock throbbing against your opening. Warm, hard and slick and the veins throb and pump all the blood into it. You can feel it pulse through the palm of your hand. You guide him into you slowly sitting down till each inch deeply penetrates you.

He barely registers your answer in his mind, confused his eyebrows furrow for a second before you show him the way. Firmly placing your hand on his back you arch it and replace the space with pillows until he’s almost half up.

”I won’t fuck you either.” You place a kiss on the corner of his mouth, whispering, moving down his chin and neck with more marks.

"Fucking you is no longer enough." Breathlessly rocking your hips back and forth you push his seated cock against your clamping walls. Tae squirms under you, and both of you pulse around each other.

His glassy eyes barely focus on your naked form towering over him. His heart is beating one mile per hour under your fingertips. "No, n-no. Please." He panics when he doesn't understand what you mean. Even if he tried with your teasing movements he couldn't do more than gasp and caress the skin on your hips and waist.

You silence him by sealing his lips with yours, your tongue prods into his mouth without resistance. Your passionate actions only rile him up further, his cock twitches inside you and he's barely able to kiss you back properly with his constant moans and whines interrupting. Your hot tongue steals his breath away as you chase his taste.

It makes you smile how he chases after you pull away. With your fingers, you kneed the flesh of his shoulders and arms giving it a few squeezes.

You kiss the corner of his pouty mouth and leave more traces behind on his neck and chest. Some slight movement of your hips is enough to make his back arch, he must be painfully hard right now.

"I'll move slow like this." True to your words you start moving slowly your hips going up and down on his cock, putting more strain on your thighs. Both of your palms are placed on his rapidly moving stomach for leverage. This way you feel him inside intensely the slow drag of his cock against your walls hits each nerve warming you up.

"Does it feel good making love to me?" Your moans mixed with your words against the shell of his ears almost make him blow his load at once. Taehyung takes in a shaky breath his fingers leave small dents on your skin as he holds you so tight, fighting against his need to cum. It’s the closest you’ve ever felt with him emotionally and physically.

Showing him is way more fun. "Yes, I love it. Don't stop, it feels so good. Yes, yes, yes."

Seeing how your words start to make sense in his head. He realises that you not wanting to use and fuck him would mean that this is going to be a new level at being intim with each other. He keeps chanting yes between desperate moans.

It's all new, there's no urgency in your hip rolls and if he conccentrates enough he could feel how you tighten around him when his curved tip hits a favourable spot, your warm wet pussy is practically shaped around his cock, you fit him like a glove only made for his size to satisfy you.

The veins lining his thick length and the pulsing is felt with every thrust.

"I can't hold it, it feels too good." Taehyung tries to stop your movements by digging his nails into your sides desperately but he doesn't have the strenght to halt your strokes when it feels so good.

He's not the only one feeling that way as your walls are getting tighter around him, you can feel the pleasure building with each drag of his cock. "Just a bit more." You mumble completely lost in the feeling at the moment. You barely register how he tenses up underneath you, trying to cater to your wishes.

"I-I can't," His tears are free falling at this point but even as he says continuosly that he can't he keeps holding it in as you ride him.

Caressing the back of his head you push his face into your neck holding him close as you feel yourself getting over the edge.

"Good boy, you can cum now." Giving him permission is all he needs to release his hot seed deep inside you, his cock throbs and pulses with his cum oozing out, your mixed fluids ruining the sofa beneath you.

"This was amazing." You sigh with a hint of satisfaction in your voice. Your light chuckle paints a smile on Taehyung's face. Nuzzles with his nose into your rapidly beating pulse point. He soothes your beating heart with wet kisses along your chest and neck.

"I love you." Drunk from his previous high Taehyung kisses the words into your skin, caresses your back with his big hands shaping soothing circles with his fingers as you both calm down.

"I love you too," Taehyung freezes hearing your confession. This is the first time you ever said that to him. He actually start contemplating in his head if he just imagined it but when your gazes met he became sure he heard you right. You looked at him with such a tender gaze that he practically melted into you.

He held you close to his chest and you hugged him back just as strongly.

"Love your cock too." With a little smirk you kiss the corner of his lips, the little confession is enough to stir him up. Realising that he's still inside you with his cum slowly dripping from your hole it helps little to keep himself composed. Sex always feels good with you, you just know what he likes without him having to explicitly tell you. Everytime he thinks it cannot get any better it just does.

"Did you have fun?" It's a lighthearted question as you wipe his tears away and he chuckles when you pepper his face with small kisses.

"I always do." Taehyung kisses you back, slowly pushing his tongue into your mouth to convey his sincere feelings. "No matter what you do I'll always love you. You can hit me, curse me, yell at me."

His confession should be alerting. No one should tolerate being hit or disrespected but it does make you feel calm. Knowing that he will never leave you.

"Good." The shared kiss is full of passion.

[cosmicdahlias]

You Know What You Do To Me

a ford x reader fic

MINORS DNI

You work as Ford’s assistant, you’ve been teasing him by acting like a little harlot. You went too far and now you’re going to be punished for it.

warnings: smut, oral, mdom

i’ve really enjoyed writing these fics! it’s been so long since i’ve been passionate about something like this 😭

It was another afternoon working at the Mystery Shack. You were dusting shelves, thinking about later tonight. You had two jobs, by day you sold overpriced knickknacks for your boss, local con artist Stan Pines, and by night you worked for his brother, Stanford. Before he even came back through the portal you were a big fan of his work, Dipper regularly lent you the journals during your breaks. You pored over the material, longing to meet the author.

When you met him it was a typical day, typical as things get in Gravity Falls. You were helping Soos fix up the place after the town had turned upside down, he filled you in on the cause. A portal, Stan had a brother who had been missing for 30 years, and more importantly this brother was the mysterious author you so desperately wanted to meet.

You were in the process of nailing a shelf back to the wall when you heard a door open behind you. You turned to see a man who looked nearly identical to Stan, but better posture, and somehow… cooler. You knew instantly this must be the man behind the journals. Your heart skipped a beat, not just from the excitement of finally getting to see the author, but because you couldn’t get over how handsome he was.

He looked at you and you felt yourself turn into a puddle. You could’ve sworn you saw his cheeks flush slightly, but convinced yourself you were seeing things.

“OH MY GOD THE AUTHOR IS LOOKING RIGHT AT ME!!! BE COOL!!! BE COOL!!!” You thought rapidly.

He made his way over to you and extended a hand to you, six fingers, the symbol on the journal’s cover made so much sense.

“Stanford Pines, you must be one of Stanley’s employees.”

“Y/n. You’re… the author of the journals.”

“You’ve read my journals?”

There it was again, the faintest tint of red on his cheeks.

“Yeah, multiple times. Your nephew lends them to me sometimes. I’ve always been into the weird and paranormal.”

“Well it’s always a pleasure to find someone who appreciates my life’s work.”

-

In the weeks that followed Ford would ask you to become his assistant. He insisted he was getting too old to do these things on his own. You loved working with him, unraveling the mysteries of this town. It gave you a sense of purpose.

The tension between you two was more than palpable, but neither of you had been willing to admit it to each other yet. Your time together was filled with stolen glances and flushed cheeks.

As you finished dusting a snow globe your mind wandered to your mentor. You had been pushing the limits lately, trying to get his attention. You wore more and more revealing clothes, you would drop your pen just to have an excuse to bend over in front of him, you would find reasons to stand close to him. You could tell it was driving him crazy, he would awkwardly excuse himself and disappear for ten to fifteen minutes, returning breathless.

But you started to think yesterday might have gone too far. You were sitting to the right of him as he was writing in his research notes, you pulled up your skirt slightly, slipping a hand down to your-

“Y/n, can we talk?”

You jumped, Ford had a habit of moving silently. A valuable skill when you’ve spent the last 30 years in other dimensions constantly staring death in the face.

You let your heart rate settle. “Yeah, sure.”

“Good, follow me.” He motioned you with his hand.

You both walked down the stairs to the basement where his lab resided, he turned to face you.

“Look, y/n, I know what you’ve been doing.”

You turned scarlet. You decided to feign ignorance.

“What do you mean?”

He exhaled a deep breath, massaging his temples. “Don’t play this game with me, you know exactly what you’re doing to me. Wearing shorter and shorter skirts, giving me bedroom eyes, finding any reason to bend over in front of me, and then yesterday-” he paused “yesterday you went out of your way to drive me crazy. You sat next to me, hiking up your skirt and you-“

He drew a shuddering breath, stepping awfully close, his chest almost touching yours “teased your clit over your panties, knowing full well you were in my peripherals. And you did that on purpose, stopping whenever I looked your way just to torture me, not letting me savor such a gorgeous view. I thought about you all night, I came with your name leaving my lips. And now-“ he pulled out a chair “you’re going to sit in front of me and touch yourself.”

“Ford-“

“No, you were so eager to do it yesterday, what’s stopping you now?”

You felt yourself grow wet under his words, you sat yourself down in front of him.

“Take off your panties, go ahead, take them off.”

You slipped the fabric down your legs and off your ankles letting them drop to the floor in front of you.

“Spread your legs, let me see you. Pull that skirt up.”

You obeyed his instructions.

“Now, slip a finger in your cunt and use your wetness to stroke your clit.”

You let your finger travel down to your dripping pussy, you traced little circles on your clit. You let out a sigh, Ford was watching you touch yourself, you had dreamed of this.

A growl rumbled in his throat, he watched you hungrily. His cock strained in his pants, he wanted to touch himself, but he couldn’t, not yet. You moaned softly, your brow furrowing in concentration.

“Faster, don’t stop.”

You picked up your pace, rubbing frantically, your moans growing louder, echoing through the lab. You hoped no one upstairs could hear you.

“Tell me how it feels.” He demanded.

“Mmmh, Ford, it feels so good.” You whimpered.

“That’s right, I know it does.”

He stepped close to you, a hand on the back of the chair, looking straight at you. You could smell him, fresh pine and leather. Your breathing became shallow and erratic, you were getting close. Ford could sense it.

“Are you going to cum?”

“Y- yes.”

“Good, look at me.”

You locked eyes with him, he stared at you intently. The feeling on your clit was becoming overwhelming, you were going to cum, dear god you were going to cum for him.

“Nhhh, ah hah, Ford.” You pathetically whimpered out, you couldn’t form a real sentence if you tried.

You felt yourself right on the edge, god you loved this, you loved putting on a show for him, you gritted your teeth in anticipation.

“Stop.”

“Wh- what?”

“You heard me, stop touching yourself.”

You withdrew your hand, your orgasm ruined.

“Why did you- I don’t understand.”

“You’ve been teasing me for weeks, with yesterday being the final straw. Now you’re going to see how it feels. Actions have consequences and you’re going to learn that. You don’t get to cum.”

He pulled you up by your arm, he grabbed your face and kissed you sloppily in pure hunger and desire. He let you go and dropped his hands to his belt buckle, undoing it.

“You need to see what you’re doing to me.”

He slipped his pants down enough to reveal his thick, hard cock. Fuck, he’s big. You bit your lip instinctively.

“Stroke my cock, now.”

You wrapped your hand around his shaft, your thumb massaging the head. He let out a groan of approval and you began pumping his cock. He started kissing and sucking on your neck, he was going to mark you so everyone knew you were his property. He started to buck into your hand, a bead of precum forming at the head. He throbbed, moaning into your neck.

He took your face in his hands again, god you loved when he looked at you.

“Get on your knees and take my cock in your mouth.”

“Yes sir.”

He throbbed at “sir” no one had ever called him that, he liked it. He made a mental note to encourage you to keep saying it.

You dropped to your knees and took his full length in your mouth.

“Fuuuck baby you’re so good at this, no one’s ever taken me all the way down before.”

He grabbed a fistful of hair and began fucking your mouth aggressively. You choked and pulled back. He chuckled.

“Oh poor baby, guess I spoke too soon, I’m sorry sometimes I forget how hard it is to handle a cock like mine.” He taunted while stroking your chin with his thumb. “I’ll try to slow down, it helps if you make an effort to breathe out of your nose.”

He resumed face fucking you, this time with a slightly more gentle rhythm, but you still felt the inclination to gag. You attempted to steadily breathe out of your nose and felt the urge subside. He clenched his jaw and picked up his pace again, you were really struggling to take him, he liked it that way.

His hips stuttered and bucked against your mouth. He could feel his orgasm rising.

“Baby slow down, slow down you’re gonna make me cum.”

You decided to ignore him, continuing to work your mouth on his cock.

“Stopstopstopstop. Stop!” He growled.

He seized your hair and pulled you off of his cock, knocking you backward. He reached out a hand and pulled you to your feet, then raised a hand and brought it down hard on your ass.

“You need to listen to me, next time I won’t be so nice.”

You savored the idea of being left with a six fingered welt. He lowered his hands to your hips and spun you around. He pressed himself against your back, his hard cock throbbing on your ass. His hand gripped your throat and he whispered in your ear.

“I’m going to fuck you senseless until I finish inside of you and you’re not going to cum, do you understand?”

You nodded fervently.

“Good, you’re so cute when you listen.” He said while slipping his thumb in your mouth.

He bent you over his desk, papers falling to the floor, one hand gripping your shoulder, the other on your hip. He pressed the tip of his cock into you before forcing the rest of his length inside of you. You started to scream out in pleasure, but Ford instinctively clasped a hand over your mouth.

He slapped your ass again. “Quiet, stardust, do you want everyone to hear you?”

He began to pump his cock inside of you, his hips slapping against your ass. You tightened around him and he groaned loudly.

“God I love the way your pussy squeezes my cock, it’s so fucking perfect.” He panted between thrusts.

He fucked you with a brutal intensity. He was doing this for his own pleasure, not yours. Like he said, you didn’t get to cum, not after what you had done yesterday. He pulled out and you whined, paused for effect and slammed himself back in. You threw your head back, moaning his name.

It felt so goddam good to finally fuck you like this after all the moments he had to steal himself away from his work to just to stroke his cock because you were incessantly teasing him. He had imagined you bent over his desk like this thousands of times. The image of you taking his cock like a good little whore was all the could picture whenever he caught you staring at him.

His grip on your shoulder and hip tightened, nails digging into your flesh. He was fucking you faster and faster, he wanted so badly to know what cumming in you felt like. You started to move your hips back onto him. Oh my god he couldn’t believe you wanted him this badly.

“Goddammit yes baby fuck back on my cock like that, you’re gonna make me fucking cum.”

You whimpered in approval.

“Would you like that stardust? Huh? Do you want me to cum inside of you?”

All you could manage was a weak “Uh huh.”

He panted like a dog, he was gonna breed you like one. Sweat began go form on his forehead, his glasses fogging.

“You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted this, wanted you. When I first met you I thought you were so fucking beautiful. I spent that night stroking myself to the cute Mystery Shack employee. I thought it was just a lonely old man’s fantasy that you would ever show me any interest, but then you started working for me and you would look at me with those eyes. God those eyes, so full of lust and want.”

You felt his cock throb inside you, he was close.

“I’m going to fill you up, have you dripping with my cum. Tell me you want it, I want to hear you beg.”

“Please, I need your cum in me. I need it so bad.”

“Call me sir.”

“Ahhh, hah, please sir, cum in me.”

He moaned loudly as he fucked you with a ruthless intensity. He buried himself deep in you as he came, your name escaping his lips. He didn’t stop fucking you, the feeling was overwhelming but he couldn’t help himself.

For a while there was nothing but the sounds of your heavy breaths. He began to slowly pull his cock out of you, cum spilling onto the floor. Jesus fucking christ he needed to draw this later.

You stayed bent over his desk, legs shaking. He grabbed you by your waist and pulled you onto his lap as he sat in his desk chair.

“Are you alright? I didn’t take it too far, did I?” He said stroking your hair.

“N- no, it was incredible.” You said between haggard breaths.

“Good, now here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go upstairs and finish the rest of your shift. You are to keep your panties off and let my cum slowly drip out of you. And then later tonight you’ll stay here and I’ll reward you by letting you cum on my tongue and cock, if, and only if you heed my instructions. Do we have a deal, stardust?”

Your heart thumped wildly in your chest. Having Ford to yourself all night? Holy fucking shit yes.

“Deal.” You smiled.

“That’s my baby.” He said cupping your chin and pressing a kiss to your cheek.

-

You ascended up the creaking stairs back to work. Mind still buzzing with the moment you had just shared with Ford.

“There you are. I was startin’ to think you ditched, but then I- whoa, what happened to you, kid? You look like you’ve been hit by a bus.” Stan said in his gruff voice.

You caught your reflection in the window, your hair was a mess. You quickly attempted to fix it.

“Ah, uh, I was just helping Ford fix some stuff.”

Stan stared at you for a second before a smirk creased his lips.

“Oh yeah I bet he fixed you real good, kid.”

You turned beet red “No, that’s not what I-“

He laughed. “Look, I’m just happy you two finally hooked up. I was gettin’ real sick of watching you two ogle at each other like horny repressed teenagers. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bet to settle with Wendy.”

“Great, Stan. Thanks for not making things awkward.”

[ravenromanova]

I fucking hate you

Parings: Bucky x Female avenger reader

Warnings: Enemies to lovers, Mean Bucky (only for a little). SMUTTTTT DO NOT READ IF YOURE UNDER 18+! Daddy kink, Metal arm kink, Praise kink, Hate fucking, Breeding kink, Unprotected sex, Oral (m and f), Fingering. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDERAGE

Summary: When you and Bucky are forced to have a therapy session after a mission gone wrong you two find another way to let the anger out.

Kinktober masterlist - Main masterlist - Send me requests!!!!

~

The sound of the clock ticking mixed with a pen tapping against a notebook drives you insane as you stare at the wall. It’s been thirty minutes of silence with neither you or Bucky daring to speak first. In your eyes this session was pointless. He was the one who fucked up the mission and yet youre paying for it by having a therapy session with him.

The mission was a simple intel mission… or it should’ve been until Bucky went off the rails and got the both of you captured. Luckily you were able to get yourselves freed before anything bad happened. But nevertheless you were told by Fury and Maria that you two needed to fix the issues between you. Honestly you didn’t hate Bucky as much as you led on but he could be such an insufferable asshole sometimes.

He would constantly pick on you like a small child, belittle your powers and abilities, and not to mention he would constantly ditch you during missions. So since he wanted to be an asshole you decided that being a petty bitch would get him to stop… You were very wrong and that just seemed to make it worse for you.

All in all you were completely infatuated with the super soldier but it was clear he had no interest in you. So you kept up the petty bitch act and that just meant the two of you were constantly at war with one another.

“This is a waste of time, It wasnt even my fault the mission got fucked up so im not even sure why im here.” You state crossing your arms looking at Dr.Raynor.

“The reason youre here y/n is so you and James can work through whatever it is going on in hopes that you two start getting along” The older woman says with a slight shake to her head.

“I wouldn’t have a problem with him if he wasnt such a dick” Your words made Bucky whip his head to look at you with a scowl on his face.

“Oh im the asshole? What about you huh? You’re a fucking pest and not to mention the weakest one on the team” He scoffed looking back at raynor.

“THE WEAKEST ONE? The only thing special about you came from a fucking test tube” You retort feeling yourself about to explode from rage.

“Oh so that’s how we are gonna play this?” He asked cocking his head to the side with a smug smile.

“You act like youre tough shit when in all reality take off the arm and take away the serum then what are you? A amputee with a military background.. You aren’t that special” Your words hit a part of him he didn’t know existed anymore.

“Okay enough you two!” Dr.Raynor said before Bucky had the chance to respond. “This is ridiculous! Throwing insults back and forth wont help whatever is going on between you two” She continued and you and Bucky huffed.

“It definitely makes me feel better knowing miss priss over here gets knocked down a few pegs” He mumbles under his breath.

“Okay that’s it! I’m fucking done. I cant do this shit anymore. You wanna hate me? fine. Guess what? I fucking hate you too” You said standing up abruptly and slamming the door as you exit the room.

Bucky and Dr.Raynor both looked at each other and sighed. “Why cant you just be honest with her?” She asked him making him roll his eyes.

“I dont know what youre talking about” He shakes his head making the older woman groan.

“Dont play dumb James. We both know how you feel about y/n you are just to chicken shit to tell her” She retorts raising her eyebrows at the solider.

“You’re a terrible therapist” He retorts shaking his head at her comment. Yes Bucky was madly in love with you but he didn’t think you’d feel the same after his past and how he’s treated you.

Ever since Bucky had come back from being blipped he found it difficult to readjust to life yet again. So he did what he always did he threw himself into his work. Avenging became the only thing he did day in and day out. He had met you during a meeting when you were introduced as the newest Avenger. You were all bright and bubbly towards everyone even him.

Naturally he avoided you not wanting to taint the sunshine that shined from within. But despite him being a dick to you, you still smiled at him during training, said good morning whenever you saw him in the mornings. You were just always sweet to him for some reason even though he had never shown you kindness. Well that was until six months ago when one day you were just as bitchy to him as he was you.

For some reason that hurt Bucky more than he thought possible. He didn’t think he would miss your sunshiny attitude until it was gone. The two of you started fighting amend arguing over everything for the past six months. The entire team was annoyed by the sudden escalation in you and Bucky’s relationship. Normally he would just be cold to you and that was it. But now you’ve started fighting back which was a surprise to everyone since you were normally so quiet. Bucky missed the ray of sunshine you used to be but he also didn’t want to taint you with his presence.

But nevertheless Bucky kept up his whole thing of messing with you and you started being bitchy right back, which was why the two of you were forced into therapy together.

“Go tell her how you feel James, That’s youre homework for the week” Dr.Raynor said breaking Bucky out of his thoughts.

“And if i dont?” He pushed tilting his head. The woman looked at him then sighed.

“If you dont ill make sure you and Peter are assigned on the same missions for six months” She threatened and Bucky’s eyes widened at the thought of being stuck with parker on missions.

“Okay okay no need to do all that” He said standing up and putting his hands up in defeat. The older woman laughed to herself as she watched Bucky walk out her office.

Bucky had left the office to go and find you but had no luck. He had looked for you in all of your normal spots kitchen, living room, game room, your room but you weren’t there. It wasnt until he decided to check the training room that he had found you. You were at the punching bags hitting them as hard as you could to get out your anger.

“Y/n?” He said softly as he approached you carefully not wanting to startle you. You had turned around to face him with your chest heaving and your face sweaty.

“What Bucky?” Your voice dripped with venom as you spoke. Bucky had ran his hand through his hair sighing a little.

“Look i just wanted to say im sorry” He said and you looked for any hints of sarcasm or anything in his eyes but found none.

“I’m sorry im gonna need you to repeat that” You brought a hand to your ear acting like you didn’t hear him.

“I’m sorry for being an asshole. I never meant to hurt youre feelings doll” Bucky repeated but this time adding in a nickname that made your heart race.

“i-its okay” You stutter out not really fathoming the fact that Bucky is apologizing or that fact that he used a nickname to address you instead of an insult.

“No its not- i-i just dont know how to handle my emotions properly and i took it out on you when i shouldn’t have” His hands didn’t their way to your hips as he speaks. Your eyes go to his wands on your waist and then back up to him.

“It’s okay Bucky i get it” You say as your hands find their way to his shoulders. Bucky’s flesh hand moved to cup your face as he looked into your eyes making you melt. He slowly rubs his thumb against your cheek making you smile and lean into his touch.

“Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?” The question comes out shaky when you speak.

“Because it wasnt until you said that you hated me that i realized i fucked up and treated the one person who has never looked at me like a monster like shit. And i couldn’t stand the thought of you hating me.” He said honestly and for the first time you could see genuine emotion in his eyes.

“And whys that?” You ask stepping a little closer to him with a small smile.

“Because im in love with you” Bucky admits bringing you into a passionate kiss. You wrap your arms around his neck and deepen the kiss earning a small groan from him. The two of you get so wrapped up in each other you forget to come up for air.

“I-I love you too” You admit after you catch your breath making him smile. Bucky then picks you up and you wrap your legs around his waist. He then carries you out of the training room and takes you to his.

When he brings you back to his room he lays you down on the bed before getting on top of you. He slots himself between your legs as he brings you in for another heated kiss. You moan into the kiss as you feel his hands roam all over your body. Bucky’s hands find the hem of your shorts and pull them down your thighs not breaking the kiss.

“Please” You whisper against his lips feeling his metal hand graze your dripping core. He sits on his knees and takes off you shirt then bra before sucking on your nipple. You throw your head back in pleasure letting out a moan.

“Oh fuck” Bucky takes his metal hand and finds his way in your panties and starts playing with your clit. “Yes daddy” You whimper breathlessly feeling the cool metal come into contact with your heat.

“Oh you like that kotenok?’ He asks after he releases your nipple with a pop. You nod your head and whisper a ‘Yes’ and start bucking your hips against his hand.

“Please please fuck me” You beg moving your hand down to his clothed crotch.

“So needy” He mocks unbuckling his belt and drops his pants on the floor before taking off his boxers and shirt. Once he’s fully naked in front of you, you cant help but stare at his reddened cock standing at attention for you.

You sit up so you come face to face with the red tip and wrap your hand around the base of his cock. His eyes go wide and his breath catches in his throat when you lick the pre cum off his slit.

“So good” You whisper before you hollow out your cheeks and take him into your mouth. His hands instantly find their way into your hair trying to resist fucking your throat. You tap his thigh letting him know he can use you as he pleases.

Bucky then grips onto your hair tighter and starts to thrust into your throat. “Fuck kotenok” He whines feeling your tongue graze the vein of his cock. You open your throat as much as you can so you can fully take him and sink down to the base of his cock.

“Fuck- i-im gonna cum if you keep doing that” He grunts feeling your throat open and close around him. His thrusts gets sloppy as he feels himself about to finish. He abruptly stops thrusting and pulls himself out of your throat making you whine.

“As much as id love to make you swallow id much rather breed that pretty pussy” Bucky says wiping the drool off your chin making you nod your head. You quickly get on all fours in front of him and wiggle your ass making him smack it.

“Yes daddy” You moan in delight feeling his metal hand come into contact with your soft skin. Bucky smirks and smacks the other cheek making you moan happily.

“You like that baby?” He coos rubbing the red marks he’s left making you shiver.

“Mhm” You nod backing your ass up against his cock. He takes the sign and slowly eases himself into you before bottoming out.

“So tight” He groans pulling out then thrusting back in. You scream in delight feeling his thick cock stretch you out. You weren’t a virgin in the slightest but Bucky had definitely been the biggest you’d ever taken.

“S-So big daddy” The words come out broken as you feel his tip kiss your g-spot.

“You can take it baby. Take daddy’s cock be a good girl and take it so i can fill you up. Would you like that? Do you want me to breed you and make you a mommy?” He asks wrapping his metal arm around your neck bringing you up to get a new angle.

“OH FUCK YES” You scream at the new angle feeling him in a new way. The thought of Bucky breeding you makes your eyes roll back and your brain go fuzzy. “Please-please fill me up daddy” You bed as his thrusts get harder.

“Oh i will kotenok dont worry” He says squeezing his hand a little around your neck. You never thought in a million years you’d have all your fantasies come true but fuck were you loving it.

“G-Gonna cum daddy… can i cum?” The question is choked out making Bucky smile.

“Yes baby cum for me im right behind you” He said and that’s when the coil in your stomach snapped and you came all over him. Feeling your warm walls clench down on him sent him over the edge, and he wrapped his flesh at around your stomach holding you close as he came. Bucky’s thrusts slowed down as he fucked his cum into you ensuring none would leak out.

“Fuck baby” He groaned in your ear giving you kisses up and down your neck and collarbone. “You did so good kotenok” Bucky praised slowly pulling out but still holding you close. Once he pulled out he laid you against the pillows and settled in between your legs again.

“T-Thank you daddy” You said in a fucked out haze trying to catch your breath. Bucky kisses from your chest down to your thighs and then settles his face in front of your pussy. He spreads your wet folds with his flesh hand before leaving a kiss on your clit.

‘Too sensitive daddy-cant-please-“ You protest trying to close your thighs but failing as he holds them apart.

“Just wanna taste you baby” He whispers giving your thigh a kiss. Not trusting your voice you opt your nodding and letting him do what he wants.

He slowly licks a stipe from your hole to clit making you whimper and cry out. Bucky groans at the way you taste and starts eating you like a man starved. His lips wrap around you clit and starts sucking lightly making you claw at his back.

“Yes yes yes” You chant feeling another orgasm about to rip through you. He picks up the pace and starts sloppily eating your pussy making you feel like never before.

“Gonna cum!” You scream arching your back off his bed and gripping the sheets as you finish on his tongue. Bucky groans in satisfaction and licks you clean before bringing you into a messy kiss.

“So fucking good” He praised after he broke the kiss. You smiled at him and feel back against the pillows in a haze. You felt the bed dip and you saw Bucky walk into the bathroom and grab a wet cloth. He came back to the bed and cleaned you up while telling you how good you did.

“You’re so perfect” He whispered in your ear laying down next to you. You crawled over to him and laid your head on his chest looking up at his pretty blue eyes.

“Not too bad yourself” Bucky laughed at your comment bringing you in for a loving kiss. “I could get used to that” You said with a cheeky grin on your face making him roll his eyes in faux annoyance.

“You better because now youre stuck with me” He said giving you a wink. The thought if being ‘stuck’ with him gave you butterflies and make you melt even more into hin.

“I think id be okay with that” You said pretending to think about it making Bucky laugh. He ran his hand through your hair and admired your beauty. In all of his 106 years on this earth he never thought he felt this way about someone. That was until you.. And he’ll be damned if he ever lets you get away again.

~The end~

I do not give permission for my work to be copied or translated on other cites

[irisintheafterglow]

love me from your point of view

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺ now playing: ariana grande - "pov"

summary: you teach sakusa kiyoomi how to love, in spite of the cameras and the gossip.

wc: 8.45k

cw/tags: pro!sakusa x rockstar!reader, fem!reader in mind but no specific pronouns used, strangers to lovers, character study, explicit language, minor injury (blood/glass tw), mentions of drinking and alcohol, angst with happy ending <3

note: this is my contribution for the lovely sel's "and there's something, this feeling" collab to celebrate one year of @seiwas ! this is the longest fic i've written to date because i tried my best to go a character-driven route that i've always admired sel for rather than my usual plot-driven route. i hope you like this and happiest of anniversaries my wonderful sel :))))

likes, reblogs, and replies are appreciated :) check out the rest of sel's event here!

Sakusa Kiyoomi hated cameras. Unfortunately, in his line of work, they were essentially gnats buzzing constantly around his head. They were always trying to make him do something, look here or there, pose with his shoulders angling this way or that. After the commands came the interrogations, nosy reporters sniffing around his private life for something sellable. Then there were the phone cameras and the fans behind them, and they could be a hit or miss depending on if they respected his boundaries. When he was in highschool, he could get away with avoiding socialization; but now, as a striker for one of the most famous teams in the country, socialization was a required skill. 

“I’m happy you agreed to go with us, Sakusa,” Bokuto says for the fifth time since they parked at the venue in the heart of Tokyo. It was a little irritating, the way they kept thanking him for his presence like he’d back out if they didn’t continue expressing their gratitude. He couldn’t leave, even if he wanted to; Atsumu insisted on being the one behind the wheel and the car narrowly avoided a collision after Hinata said he’d missed the exit. “We know you’re still a little grumpy because of the drive, so don’t feel the need to talk to us right now.” 

“Hey, if you wanted to leave so badly, you could just call a car,” Atsumu points out, “but I know you secretly like spending time with us.” Sakusa fixes his teammate with a stare that could be perceived as a grimace, but his friends know him better than that. Sakusa wasn’t angry, he was bored. It was originally Bokuto and Hinata’s idea to see some artist he didn’t listen to in concert, saying that it was ‘a once in a lifetime experience’ and that the artist hadn’t played in the country in over a decade. He was vaguely aware of some songs, mostly because his teammates cranked the speaker volume during conditioning. Still, it wasn’t his ideal Saturday night, especially before a big game. “And, guess what?”

“Holy shit, box seats!” 

“We have our own bathroom!” Bokuto and Hinata’s shouts of excitement drown out the rest of Atsumu’s sentence and the security guards are barely able to open the doors as they tumble into the private section. 

“Yo, Shoyo. Be careful of that railing or you’ll fall into the general audience,” Atsumu warns while Hinata willfully ignores him, staring out over the crowds slowly filing into their seats. “Pretty cool, ain’t it?” Sakusa nods once, approaching the balcony and then deciding against it when he catches the telltale flash of a phone camera. Like clockwork, he and the other Jackals would be on every update page within ten minutes. A small object appears from behind the balcony wall, floating upwards in a thin arc before falling back to the seats below.

“The hell are they doing?”

“Sakusa, fans are trying to give us bracelets,” Bokuto beams, holding up his forearm halfway-covered in colorful beads. “Apparently it’s a tradition with this artist.”

“I don’t like gifts,” Sakusa deadpans, his mouth taut in a frown. “Tell them I can’t take it.”

“Too late,” Atsumu says, snagging a vibrant purple bracelet as it’s tossed upwards. He looks down at the eager fans below and claps, gesturing for them to throw more. “We’re already taking ‘em, so they’re gonna wonder why you’re not taking them too.”

“If they’re real fans, they’ll know I don’t like gifts,” he counters with narrowed eyes. 

“C’mon, Sakusa. Take one, at least,” Hinata says. His shorter teammate carefully pulls one off and slides it onto his wrist. The pattern alternates between yellow and lime green beads, with letter beads in the center spelling ‘NOKMLYDANOEW.’ It looked like Bokuto and Akaashi’s cat stepped on their computer keyboard. “The letters are an acronym for a song, I think. It’s an inside thing with the artist,” Hinata explains, leaning his bracelet-covered arms against the railing and waving to excited fans. 

“I’m gonna see if they have time to meet us backstage. The fans’ll go berserk.” Bokuto’s words make Sakusa’s eye twitch involuntarily. Staying longer than expected of him was a surefire way to make him irritated and they knew that. 

“Yeah, they’re not the only ones who will benefit from a little meet and greet,” Atsumu whispers cryptically and it’s impossible not to see the way he looks Sakusa up and down. 

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” 

“It’s nothing, really. Don’t worry about it, man,” Bokuto reassures him with a pat on the back, but he doesn’t budge. 

“No, I’m interested. What’re you on about, Miya?” 

“Trust us, it’s nothing!”

“Just grab a soju and relax, Sakusa–”

“They’re trying to set you up with the artist!” Sakusa flinches, turning slowly to his teammates that shrink away like vampires in direct sunlight. Hinata looks mortified, his hands slapped over his mouth as if to seal off what was already revealed. Atsumu and Bokuto shrug, giving him guilty smiles and showing their palms to convey their surrender. “That’s…that’s what they were talking about before we picked you up,” Hinata continues sheepishly. 

“This whole thing is a blind date?” He seethes through gritted teeth, the lights of the stadium starting to give him a migraine. “You guys brought me here to set me up?” 

“All we’re trying to do is have you meet someone new,” Atsumu says gently, stepping forward and then abruptly backward when Sakusa looks like he’s about to commit a homicide. “We think it’ll be good for you.” 

“I don’t care about new people. I have work and you idiots to keep me busy,” Sakusa argues, crossing his arms over his chest. The beads on his arm press into his skin and he fights the urge to rip the entire thing off. “Why would I wanna meet some musician I don’t listen to?” 

“Even if you don’t listen to their music,” Bokuto replies without hesitation, “You should read through their lyrics sometime; I think you’ll find a lot of stuff you can relate to. I bet they get just as much bad publicity as we do.” 

“As if,” he scoffs. “I don’t need someone with a purple guitar telling me what I think.” 

—

“You said there were volleyball guys in attendance, right? If they’re still here, I should probably meet them,” you say to your publicist as you step out from the automatic riser that brought you below the stage following the last song of the show. The sound of your platform boots echo on the linoleum in the back halls of the stadium, your exit music faintly audible from above. “Who are they?” 

“There’s four in total, along with some managers and press. They’re on a team called the MSBY Jackals, with an outstanding record in the sport. From what I’ve seen, three of them are pretty nice.” The two of you, along with a handful of security guards, climb into a waiting golf cart. 

“And the other one?” 

“Toss-up. He might not even talk to you.” You take a sip from your water bottle and briefly glance at the photo your publicist has pulled up on her phone. You can guess which one is the quiet one from his face in the photo alone, staring blankly at the camera while his other teammates smile brightly. 

“He looks like he’d kill me in my sleep,” you observe bluntly. “The type of serial killer people make fan accounts about.” 

“In his defense, I don’t think this is his type of crowd,” she shrugs, her attention flicking to the way you stretch your legs in the seat of the small vehicle. “Sore?”

“Beyond belief,” you chuckle, wincing as a small stab of pain shoots through your calf. “I think I might need a little more padding on the soles, if possible. Chunky heels, in all their wonder, were not made for three hour shows.”

“I’ll see what I can do. You focus on turning back on for the players.” 

After a few more minutes of sipping water and stretching out your legs in the backseat of the golf cart, you pull up to the loading dock where the four athletes are waiting. Two of them, one with iced tips and the other with vibrantly orange hair, practically jump in place when you arrive. The grumpy one lingers at the back of the group; the blonde player extends his hand to you as you step out. 

“Thank you so much.” You greet them with a practiced smile and hope your exhaustion isn’t too visible. “Did you enjoy the show?”

“I couldn’t stop screaming the entire time and I think my voice is shot.” 

“You are incredibly talented.” 

“It was wonderful!” 

“Oh, I’m so glad. It’s such a pleasure to meet you all,” you say warmly, truly wanting nothing more than to curl up in bed and sleep for 24 hours straight. Even when his friends chatter your ear off, the curly-haired one at the back doesn’t say anything. The short one with orange hair and the widest smile introduces himself as Hinata Shoyo, excitedly leading you to each of his teammates: loud Bokuto, flirty Atsumu, and reclusive Sakusa. You’re left alone with Sakusa when the other three rush off to find a bathroom, having been too excited to use one during your show. 

“I didn’t take you for the bracelet type, Sakusa,” you comment, clocking the single bracelet on his wrist. “The colors are nice, though. They go with your eyes.” You let some of your facade come down, mostly because you figured you didn’t need to be as energetic around this one compared to the others. 

“Yeah, Shoyo let me have one of his. Didn’t realize you had such a passionate fanbase,” he states and you fight the urge to laugh. “Or such a large one.”

“You didn’t think I had fans, Sakusa?” His eyes widen ever so slightly and the chuckle slips out before you can stop it, his ears turning a shade pinker. 

“Not what I said,” he backtracks, avoiding eye contact. “The show was good,” he continues unexpectedly, and you find yourself appreciating his praise more than you should. It was a triumph, in your mind, every time you won over a new listener, and he was no different. At least he wasn’t one of the guys harassing you in your Instagram messages. 

“I appreciate the compliment,” you say and catch his ears turning even redder. As much as he was trying to seem offputting, you could read him like a book. “You guys are in town for a game?”

“We’re playing not tomorrow night, but the night after. Coach would kill us if he knew we were going out before a big game,” he answers and you nod, gears starting to turn in your brain. It would be a headline tomorrow that the four players came to your show, but it would break the Internet entirely if you attended their game, especially in the middle of a sold-out tour. It was the kind of publicity you needed to drown out the tabloids. 

“My last show of this city is tomorrow night, but I can get away with skipping a rest day. Would it be weird if I came to watch you play?”

“You want to watch me play?” Sakusa echoes. The tiniest little smirk plays on the corner of his lips. Ugh. For all his introvertedness, he still had the ego of a pro athlete. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“I meant you guys. Don’t think I forgot about the players that actually came to talk to me,” you correct quickly. You exhale through your nose and shake your head with a small smile. The enthusiastic conversation behind you tells you that the rest of the team is returning. “Fine. Maybe I do wanna see who you are under all that antisocial attitude.” 

“Have fun with that. I don’t like new people,” he says, testing you. Too bad you were used to men that probably weren’t healthy for you. “There’s no changing that.” Your forehead throbs at his pure audacity, but you manage to keep an unbothered expression. 

“Good thing I love a challenge.” 

—

“I didn’t think they’d actually show up,” he mutters, taking another look at the large screens projecting the image of you in a VIP box. Sakusa didn’t recognize you without your concert makeup and stage outfit until Shoyo practically knocked him over in excitement. Seeing you smiling and catching your eye, even from at the bottom of the court, made his stomach turn in a way he wasn’t used to. 

“I can’t believe we didn’t think of that first,” Bokuto beams, sending a powerful serve that barely cilps the top of the net. Sakusa finds his eyes drifting to your box, his scowl deepening when you blow an exaggerated kiss to his teammate. His next serve he puts more effort into, but when he looks up, you’re not even watching. Not only were you crashing his game, you were distracting his team. “Nice plan, Sakusa! Maybe we can become friends with them and go to each others’ events.” 

“That wasn’t my intention,” he cringes, the idea of spending more time with you making him nauseous. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the fact that you were making an effort to engage with him and his friends was outlandish. And all because he invited you to a game? Didn’t you have anything better to do?

“You thought inviting them to the game would scare them away, huh?” Atsumu’s watching Sakusa carefully, inspecting his disgruntled expression under a microscope. “Believe it or not, Omi, some people actually want to be around you…despite how difficult you make it sometimes.” 

“I don’t remember asking for your input,” he threatens, but the blonde Miya merely shrugs, impervious to Sakusa’s warnings. “Can we agree to ignore their presence? Focus on the game. It’s your job.” Atsumu and Bokuto share a look, with typical Hinata none the wiser. Whether they knew it or not, your attendance was throwing off Sakusa’s entire concentration. The average spectator wouldn’t notice the change in Sakusa’s behavior; if anything, they would think he was functioning at a higher level than he usually plays. His serves are stronger, his spikes are sharper, and his steps are quicker than any other player on the court. Fans rave on social media about how focused he is in the game, and the reporters scribble in their notebooks the pressing question for the post-game press conference: Why are you playing so well today? 

“I always play that well,” he mutters, his lie drowned out by the lively conversation around the booth in the corner of the restaurant. The Jackals had cinched an easy victory and Bokuto and Hinata dragged you from your box to get dinner with them. Sakusa sits at the edge of the booth, flanked by Atsumu, followed by Bokuto and Hinata. You sit at the other end, laughing at some dumb story being recounted. It made his forehead pound. “You just don’t notice.” 

“Yeah, right,” Atsumu snickers with another sip of beer. “Admit it, something’s pissing you off.” Maybe I do wanna see who you are under all that anti-social attitude. Your words linger in the back of his mind and fire him up again, unknowingly furrowing his eyebrows and incriminating him. “Yep. Knew it.” 

“Shut the hell up, Atsumu.” He hated that his normally-idiotic teammate was on the cusp of exposing the truth, not to mention the fact that he’d downed one too many soju bombs and was feeling pushier than usual. 

“Is it ‘cause they actually listened to you and showed up?”

“I told you to shut up,” he hisses through gritted teeth. You’re laughing so hard that tears are starting to prickle at the corner of your eyes. It’s the kind of laugh where no noise is actually leaving you and you’re fanning yourself with your hand. Gross. 

“Aww, look at little baby Omi-Omi, finally having a feeling over someone wanting to get to know him,” Atsumu gushes and Sakusa’s ears burn. He threatens his friend with an indescribable death to no avail. “I knew you had a heart under all that coldness!” 

Sakusa’s fist clenches around his glass and he realizes his mistake a split second before there’s a sharp crack! and sudden pain prickles in his palm. “Oh shit, man. I–” His teammate swears under his breath when drops of dark red and amber starts to trickle down Sakusa’s arm, staining the white napkin on his lap. He grinds his teeth down to keep from crying out, the whiskey in his shattered cup burning his raw skin. 

“What happened?” You’re by his side in an instant, your perfume flooding his senses in a way that makes him dizzy. “Jeez, Atsumu. What’d you do?” 

“Why are you blaming me? He’s the one who was holding the cup,” Atsumu says defensively and you shoot him a look. “Fine. I got him riled up and he did,” he gestures to the mess on the table, “that.” 

“Could one of you call your driver please? I think it’s time you three head back to your hotel,” you recommend calmly. 

“What about Sakusa?” Hinata asks as he climbs out from the booth, dragging an apologetic Atsumu and a very buzzed Bokuto toward the door. “He should probably get that checked out.”

“I know. I’ll stay with him,” you reassure him and, after a brief pause of thinking, the short spiker nods and heads for the exit. Sakusa is rigidly still, save for the involuntarily twitching of his injured fingers. “C’mon, let’s go,” you say, gently guiding him out of the booth and grabbing some unused napkins to catch the bleeding. He follows you wordlessly, a million thoughts stewing in his eyes that he refuses to verbalize. He knew he didn’t like you when you tried to read him after your show, but the alcohol in his system was making him despise you. 

You, sitting with him on the way to the nearest hospital. You, carefully looping the elastic bands of his mask over his face before leaving the car. You, politely declining a fan’s attempt to introduce themselves while you’re checking him in at the reception desk. You, listening intently to the doctor as she says that he’ll need stitches in his right hand and that they’ll need to pick every last particle of glass from his palm so that it doesn’t become infected. You, ignoring your vocal coach’s orders for a rest day and staying by his side from 11:00pm to 3:00am when the doctors finally finish his hand. 

He despises you and his pride becomes a gag in his mouth once you drop him off at the Jackals’ hotel, rendering him unable to choke out a simple ‘thank you’ as you continue to treat him with unending kindness. You’ll get hurt if you keep being nice, he thinks to himself, and the way you flinch like you’d been shot tells him he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. He hears you murmur Sleep well, Sakusa, as he shuts the door with his left hand and stalks away, lost in the trenches of his mind. 

—

“But, I’m not sure if it should be the A minor to keep with the chord progression or go to E to create some tension.” Your producer nods at you, his chin resting on his knuckles as you strum your latest song idea on your purple acoustic. It’d been a few days since your late-night trip to the emergency room with Sakusa, and you decided to spend a few hours in the studio before catching your flight to your next tour city. “And when I tried to do it on piano, I just wanted to change the key entirely.” He opens his mouth to speak but is abruptly cut off by three insistent raps on the doorframe of the control room.  

“You have a visitor,” your publicist informs you, peeking her head into the room with a slightly bewildered look in her eyes. “He says it’s urgent.” Your eyebrows dip but you stand anyways, walking through the halls of the recording space until you reach the lobby of the building and stop in your tracks. 

What the hell was he doing here?

“Hey,” Sakusa greets and you blink at him, like he was a figment of your imagination that would disappear if you ignored him. It’s impossible to ignore him, though, considering the outrageously large bundle of flowers cradled in his arm. He follows your eyeline, muttering, “I didn’t know which ones you liked, so I just…bought all of them.”

“I’ll, uh,” your publicist glances at you for a brief moment, giving you an unreadable look before gingerly taking the bouquet from the Olympian in the lobby. “I’ll take these and have them brought to your next hotel, okay?” She dismisses herself, leaving you alone with him. 

“Why are you here?”

“Are you busy right now?” You cross your arms over your chest, annoyed that he replied to your question with a question of his own. Since dropping him off at the team’s hotel, you’d come to peace with his hatred for you even though you’d tried to be nothing but cordial; maybe he could tell that you wanted to be friends for the publicity, you theorized. 

“I’m in a recording studio doing my job, so yeah,” you reply and allow all your suppressed attitude to rear its head. To your surprise, he doesn’t immediately fire back at you. If anything, Sakusa looked uneasy, nothing like the cold confidence you previously saw. “What do you want?”

“Do you have time for lunch?” 

“Oh, now you’re interested in my company,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. In the time following that night at the hospital, you hadn’t received any updates other than an unprompted photo of hungover Atsumu. “Unless you’re ready to apologize for how much of an asshole you’ve been, I don’t wanna hear it.”

“I wanna start over,” he says as you turn your back on him to return to the studio. “One meal,” he proposes, “and if you want nothing to do with me after that, I’ll leave you alone.” You check the wall-mounted clock and make your decision. 

“You get two hours.” 

By the time you sneak through the back of a restaurant and sit down to eat, your stomach is turning itself inside out. You thumb through the menu eagerly, ignoring your present company until water glasses are set out and orders are taken. 

“Look,” you begin, peering at him in the dim light, “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

“That makes two of us,” he agrees. “You go first.”

“Truth is, I didn’t go to the game to see you, or any of the Jackals, for that matter,” you admit. “I went to get the tabloids off my back and give them a different reason to talk. I didn’t mean to mess up whatever dynamic you guys had going, so for that I am sorry.” You can’t see much of Sakusa’s expression, but you can tell his eyes are on you by the way they shine like a cat’s. It was off-putting, but also drew you in like a black hole. “Is your hand doing okay?”

“It’s better now,” he replies. “Doc’ told me that if we’d left that glass in for longer, it would’ve been more serious.” You nod and take a drink from your water as an excuse not to respond, to see if he would go further. “I, uh,” he swallows thickly, steadying his nerves. “I’m sorry for being avoidant and just being a general asshole. You didn’t deserve that, and I’m…incredibly remorseful.” A puff of air leaves your nostrils in amusement and he can hear you smirk from across the small table. 

“I appreciate the apology, and the apology lunch. Wanna start over without our respective teams breathing down our necks? Friends?” You stick your open hand toward him and he shakes it without hesitation, sealing your deal. “Awesome.” 

“You said ‘tabloids.’ What do they say about you?” Your smile fades and for a moment, he thinks he’s pushed too far too soon. He’s on the brink of apologizing again when you exhale an unsteady breath. 

“The tame ones call me an industry plant,” you explain awkwardly. “The–uh–bolder ones call me a slut.” His nostrils flare and he’s glad there’s no glass in his hand again, otherwise he couldn’t promise it wouldn’t be shattered. “The big drama came from me leaving the producer who’d helped me start my career. The media got the wrong idea, said I’d slept my way into working with him, and left when I’d had my fill.” Sakusa slowly stretches his neck from side to side, willing the sudden tension in his body to relax as he starts to see red. “I hope you can see why I wanted to give them a different reason to talk.” It’s more of a struggle than he expected to keep his voice steady. 

“What actually happened? With the original producer?” You hum in lieu of answering, grateful to catch the approaching servers out of the corner of your eye. 

“I’ll tell you another time,” you dodge, giving him a smile that he can tell is off. “For now, can we eat? I’m so hungry I’m about to eat these silly little herbs in the centerpiece.” 

—

Sakusa stays in Tokyo longer than the rest of his teammates, who depart on the team jet for the next game. He says he wants to do a little more sightseeing, despite having an apartment in the most expensive highrise in the city and knowing the streets like the back of his hand. The truth was, he wasn’t ready to give up the…thing…he’d established with you. He fell into an odd sort of routine: saying goodnight over text, calling you in the morning and telling you what time he’s picking you up, choosing the best places that can shut down for the world’s biggest rockstar on a day’s notice. You were in town for three more days and ended up spending every waking moment of them with Sakusa. 

“You’re really good at dodging the cameras,” you remark over a shared cup of ice cream on your last day, digging your spoon past the numerous toppings you’d insisted on adding. “How do you do it?”

“It helps when I’m not surrounded by the three biggest noisemakers on the planet,” he deadpans and you giggle, a sound he was increasingly becoming fond of the more time he spent with you. “I’m pretty good at laying low. People don’t know where I am unless I want them to know.” 

“Everyone seems to know where I am before even I know,” you frown. “I envy you; I really do.”

“I don’t,” he shrugs.

“Why not?” 

“When you’re trying so hard to avoid people, they tend to stop looking for you. Makes my job easier.” Your lips part in an oh of understanding. “But, I guess you’re here, so either you truly care about my wellbeing or you’re clinically insane.” You burst out laughing, so much so that you snort and have to cover your mouth with a napkin. “My running theory is that it’s a mix of both,” he declares with a rare upturn at the corner of his mouth. 

“Oh, shit,” you mutter once you’ve caught your breath and checked the time on your phone. “I should go. My plane leaves soon and my manager’ll kill me if I’m late. She’s already iffy about me staying in Tokyo this long.”

“What’s your next city?” 

“Madrid. I’m starting the European leg,” you reply while you pack up your things. He stands, walking you to the door of your waiting car. His eyes instinctively scan the surroundings street for cameras, and he subtly positions his body to block you from any passing eyes as you climb into the car. The window makes a humming noise as you roll it down. 

“Have a safe flight.” 

“Don’t be a stranger, yeah? I’ll miss you, even if you don’t want me to.” He memorizes the way the afternoon sunlight catches in your eyes, how each thump of his heartbeat seems louder when you’re near. Something is wrong in my brain, he thinks to himself. Once he’s completely sure your car isn’t being tailed, he dials Atsumu on the drive to the hotel to collect the rest of his things.

“You land already, Miya?” His car purrs beneath his fingertips as he speeds through the busy streets. 

“Safe and sound,” his teammate confirms. “Though jet lag is starting to hit Shoyo and Bo. How were the rest of your dates?” 

“They weren’t dates,” he argues, his hands unconsciously gripping the wheel tighter in indignance. “I was just thanking them for that night.” 

“Yeah, and a bit more than that, I figure.” 

“I don’t even know why I bothered calling you,” he groans.

“Because you want me to say ‘I told you so,’ right? That it was a good idea for me to bring you to that show. You know, a trip to that conveyor belt sushi place will suffice as repayment.”

“In your dreams, Atsumu,” Sakusa deadpans. 

“C’mon, Omi. I know you wouldn’t keep spending time with them if you didn’t feel some kind of tug.” 

“Tug?”

“Like you’re drawn to them,” Atsumu gushes and Sakusa feels like gagging. “Intimately.” Sakusa definitely didn’t think of you that way…right?

“You’re such a pervert.” His disgust is clear, and his speakers blow out with Atsumu’s screams of Not like that! and You don’t even pull enough for me to make fun of! “I’m at the hotel now so I’m gonna hang up. Not sure again why I even bother talking to you.”

“Because I’m your best friend,” Atsumu answers. “See you soon, my sweet Omi~” 

“Remind me to punch you when I touch down.”

—

“How was the show a few nights ago?” 

“Amazing, as always. Almost fell on my ass running around to meet people at the barricade, but thankfully kept my balance,” you chuckle, running the pad of your thumb over the petal of a purple gladiolus. “You can probably see a clip of it on all the fan pages.”

“You think I follow fan pages about you?” 

“What? I follow fan pages about you,” you insist. “User ‘omi-omisbigtits’ has some pretty funny posts of you.” Sakusa groans from the other end of the line.

“That’s the one fan account I have blocked because they post such heinous things,” he recalls. “Did you scroll far enough to see the one where I’m at the zoo and–”

“You’re running away from the peacock, yep,” you finish. Out of the various presents and letters your fans gifted you, you find yourself drawn again and again to the pot of sword lilies. “I screenshotted it and made it your contact photo.”

“I’m never sending you flowers again,” he mutters, but you hear it, snapping your head upwards. 

“These were you?” Your jaw drops so forcefully that it aches. “You’re the mystery flower sender? No one would tell me who sent these!” 

“Because I told them I’d sue if you found out it was me,” he shrugs and you roll your eyes, a grin creeping onto your face. 

“Why’d you want to send them anonymously?” Upon inspecting the color further, you realize where you’ve seen the shade before. 

He’d sent you flowers that matched your favorite guitar. 

“I didn’t wanna distract you before your shows. I was aiming for subtlety.” You blink in disbelief. Sakusa had sent you flowers the night before you started your show run in Paris, knowing you would be at the venue for soundcheck. Maybe he did care about you and your career.

“Well, you failed,” you state, staring at the large bundle of purple taking up half the space on your dressing room’s side table. “This bouquet is the opposite of subtle.”

“Bouquet? I ordered you one stem.”

“No,” you restated. Even though you’d never video called Sakusa before, you switch on your phone’s camera anyway to show him the absolutely gargantuan amount of flowers he mistakenly sent you. “You ordered this.” To your surprise, he turns on his camera as well. His face contorts into such a shocked and puzzled expression that you snort out the water you were sipping, burning your nostrils as tears prickle your eyes. “Stop looking like that, I can’t breathe!”

“What do you mean, ‘stop looking like that?’ I didn’t mean to send you the whole rainforest!” You choke out another uncontrollable laugh, turning the camera to face yourself and setting it in front of your vanity mirror. “Alright, at least you got them.” 

“Yes, and I really appreciate you sending them.” You can tell he’s not used to having his camera on, as he keeps tilting the phone at odd angles and barely showing his face half the time. “What’re you doing right now?”

“Just in bed.” Or a snowstorm, from the looks of it. 

“Why does it look like your poor phone is in a typhoon?” 

“You’re literally so annoying,” he grumbles, reluctantly positioning himself so that he’s sitting against the headboard. With the new point of view, you also notice very quickly that he…is completely shirtless. “Better?”

“Yep, yeah. That’s fine,” you force out, clearing your throat aggressively while the image of his very broad shoulders assault your brain. “Sorry that I didn’t send you flowers for your game.” 

“The guys would give me shit about it if you do, so I’m glad you did not,” he replies. “Though, it does suck not having you around.” 

“This is the closest I’m ever getting to you saying you miss me. I should commemorate it with a plaque.” Sakusa clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes, but you can tell he’s trying not to smile. He must’ve taken a shower recently; his curls look slightly wet and dangle haphazardly across his eyes. You have the sudden urge to run your fingers through it, and then the even more sudden urge to slap yourself for thinking in such a way. 

“What city are you in now? I know you just finished up Dublin.” His voice snaps you out of your daydreaming. 

“Paris,” you manage to reply without too awkward of a pause. “You?”

“Paris.” 

“Huh? I thought your next game was in Brazil,” you ask. His face goes still for a moment and you figure it’s probably frozen from bad service, wherever he is. “Hello?”

“Sorry, you broke up for a second. What were you saying?”

“I was asking why you were in Paris.”

“I’m not in Paris,” he states. “I’m in Seoul.” 

“Isn’t your next game in Brazil?” He pauses for an almost imperceptible amount of time.

“Game schedule got rearranged. We’re in Seoul, then the States, then Brazil.” 

“Oh. I see.” A loud series of knocking on your dressing room door makes you jump. “Ah, I’m sorry. I need to go.” 

“Rockstar duties?”

“You know it,” you yawn, taking one last indulgent look at the exposed muscle on his shoulders. “Hopefully we both get some rest for the coming days.”

“Yep. G’night.” 

—

There was a little bit of lingering guilt on his end after you hang up; the fact that he’d lied to you about his whereabouts didn’t escape him. 

He wasn’t sure what came over him, what sentimental demon temporarily possessed him to take a plane to wherever you were (Paris, not the lie that he gaslit you into believing) and buy a last minute ticket to your show. His emotions and desires were thrown completely off balance; he truly didn’t care if he was up in the nosebleeds if it meant he got to see you. Thankfully, a wealthy couple had bought out an entire area of club seats for their granddaughter’s birthday, but decided last minute that they wanted to fly to Cancun. It made him a little anxious, having all that space to himself, but he figured he could have his guards and team invite family to make it a little less lonely. It didn’t matter how many strangers he needed to meet or how much he had to spend. 

He just wanted to see you. 

He finds himself in a familiar position from the first time he went to one of your shows, rooted under the awning of the expansive lounge area and just out of sight from fans. His arms unconsciously cross over his chest and the beads of the bracelet he’d dug through his luggage to find presses against his skin. But, this time, he isn’t annoyed by the pain; if anything, it reminds him that he’s actually here with you, even if you don’t know it yet. 

I’m pretty good at laying low. People don’t know where I am unless I want them to know. His words echo back to him and he makes his decision, stepping out into the stadium lights and resting his forearms on the railing. 

He wants you to know he’s there. 

The first fan to notice is a girl in purple, slapping her friend furiously until they both are gawking at him. One pair of eyes becomes two, which becomes five, which becomes twenty, until hundreds of phone cameras are pointed at him and snapping photos. The sentimental demon possesses him again and he sticks up an involuntary peace sign, even going so far as to smile to look less bored. They scream for him and he thinks the sentimental demon is Atsumu, because he finds himself imitating his teammate’s movements. His hands clap together and he gestures for fans to toss him bracelets, which become an impossible shower as dozens are thrown at once. By the time the lights dim and news of his presence is trending across the continent, his arms are covered in sleeves of rainbow beads. 

— 

The ache in your feet is immediately replaced by adrenaline when your head of security informs you who came to the show. You don’t bother waiting for the golf cart to bring you to the back of the stadium and take off sprinting, chunky heels and all. They’re calling after you to hold on to let the rest of your team catch up, but you don’t listen. The stadium staff look at you fondly but also have a reasonably startled reaction to you running like you’d escaped from an asylum. 

You round the corner absolutely heaving and his face breaks into a wide smile. You’d never seen him look like that before, never at his games or during any of the time you’d spent together. It was an expression reserved for only you in this moment. You don’t remember if he catches you or if you embrace him first, but soon enough your face is tucked into the crook of his neck, eyes squeezed shut and grinning like a lunatic. His arms are rock solid around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer until you can hear his heartbeat slamming against his ribcage. Neither of you speak for a few minutes because you don’t feel the need to; only when you pull away to hold his face with your hands do you manage to articulate words. 

“You’re here,” you breathe. “You’re actually here.” Recognition blinks onto your face and you suddenly frown, lightheartedly slapping his shoulder, saying, “You lied! Your dumb ass said you were in Seoul!” 

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he concludes unapologetically. “I did slip up with my story a few times, though.”

“Yeah, you got your own game schedule wrong.” 

“To be fair, some games did get rescheduled, which is why I’m able to be here. Our next game’s in Seoul, which is why I blanked and said that instead,” he explains and you respond with an exasperated eyeroll. “Find it in your heart to forgive me?” 

“I see right through you, Sakusa Kiyoomi. You don’t…uhm…” He comes close enough that you can count his eyelashes and it takes you a few seconds to recompose yourself. “Mmm, you wanna kiss me so bad, it makes you look stupid,” you challenge and hope he doesn’t hear the butterflies going wild in your stomach. 

“Maybe I do,” he smirks and it only makes the situation more sweat-inducing. “I missed you, after all.” Your eyes flutter closed as he leans in but instantly shoot back open, gently pushing him away as he pouts. “What is it?”

“Take me out to dinner, first. If you apologize sufficiently for being a terrible liar, maybe you’ll get a kiss,” you propose and he’s already lacing his fingers in yours. 

“Good thing I love a challenge.” 

— 

In spite of his attempts to ignore the cameras and the footsteps that were always a few feet behind him, there was a pit in his stomach every time Sakusa was in public with you. He couldn’t figure out why he was so irked, but the feeling made it difficult to enjoy how you smiled at him in quiet moments and pointed out things he’d never think to notice before. Most perplexingly, you didn’t seem bothered at all by the cameras. It was like they disappeared as soon as he came into your proximity; you barely spared them a glance in favor of beaming up at him. 

Even though you agreed that there was a feeling more than platonic between you two, he hadn’t mustered up the urge to kiss you properly, opting for your forehead or your hands instead. It didn’t seem to bother you, the way he only reserved showing his affection when you were out of view. But, he slips up the night before you have to part ways, him for his next game and you for your final European date. The dread he’d experienced for days felt like intuition telling him something was inherently wrong, like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff he didn’t know the height of. 

It comes crashing down when the tabloids catch him holding your hand.

“Can you believe this?” You snort, showing Sakusa the headline as he forces down the bile in his throat. “They think you’re my next ‘big catch,’ like you’re a fish or something,” you chuckle obliviously, leaning into him on the living room couch of his hotel suite. He manages a pained mhmm and watches as you continue to scroll through the news site, the photos of him holding your hand and grabbing your waist flying by like a nightmarish film reel. He rubs his palms back and forth over the fabric of his sweats, feeling suddenly feverish from every single point where your body was touching his. Clearing his throat, he swallows thickly and you finally look at him, concern pinching in your eyebrows. Your voice is gentle and you reach up to feel his forehead; he dodges your hand and you carefully hide your disappointment. “Hey, are you feeling okay?”

“We can’t do this.” His heart sinks as you sit up and blink at him, his words registering slowly in your mind. “I can’t…I can’t do this with you,” he sputters out. You exhale a single time and he watches your eyes flick from side to side, your brain running a thousand miles a minute.

“I don’t understand.”

“We need to stop.” You laugh forcefully, like you were commanding your body to feel lighter. 

“If this is a joke, Kiyoomi, it isn’t funny–”

“It’s not a fucking joke; you need to stop being with me,” he snaps and the room falls silent. The only thing he can hear is his heartbeat rushing through his ears, his face hotter than the sun. 

“Why?” Your voice breaks and so does something in him, his jaw clenching unconsciously. 

“You need to stop being nice to me,” he says through gritted teeth, “because I can’t guarantee I’ll be nice back.” This is how it always ends. Push them away before things get messy. This is how it works for Sakusa Kiyoomi. 

“But you have been nice,” you fight back, your grief morphing into unfiltered rage as you stand and scream at him. “You sent me flowers. You bought me dinner. You flew across the world to see my fucking show!” 

“That doesn’t matter. None of it mattered.” His composure wavers momentarily, unreadable emotions flashing across his face. “You can’t be close to me without getting hurt.” He gestures to your phone, the paparazzi image of you two together brighter than a Times Square billboard. 

“Who said it needed to be that way?” 

“Everyone did!” He stands without warning and you flinch backward, stumbling against the coffee table. “People think I’m an asshole, so that’s how I choose to stay. At the very least, I can predict things and prevent people from getting too close. You’re too close.”

“But you’re not an asshole. You’ve shown me that much,” you insist, arguing with his back as he starts to retreat into the master suite. What you say next makes him freeze, trapped in an endless time loop with you. 

Tell me you care for your friends. 

“What?” He’s seething as he turns, meeting your eyes. “What the fuck do you mean, do I–”

“Do you care about your friends?” You repeat, stepping closer to him. His eyes are burning, molten to the core even when you refuse to shrink away. “If Bo, Shoyo, and Atsumu were dying in a fucking fire, would you save them?”

“Of course I would,” he spits indignantly. “What kind of–”

“Then you have the capacity to love, Kiyoomi, as much as you don’t want to admit it.” You’re crying, tears streaming uncontrollably down your cheeks. Why are you crying? He never wanted to make you cry. What did he do to make you cry? 

“Because the last time you loved something, people scorned you.” They told him his passion was suffocating. They told him he was walking a path that one could only walk alone. He’s frozen, his feet left immobile on the hotel carpet. He makes no sound beside shaking exhales and can sense nothing but your voice coming closer.  

“You made it your career to prove that it’s worthy of your love…but you forgot how to love anything else.” Time slows. He doesn’t remember when your face appeared so close to his. He can see a universe behind your eyes and he wants nothing more than to hold you and call you his. His passion was suffocating. It would hurt you. It would burn you. It would–

“I wish you could love yourself as much as I love you.” 

One breath, and then another. 

A crack in an eggshell. A hole in a fortress. 

You are an asteroid completely obliterating the planet he considered himself. 

And when he finally kisses you properly, he understands just how freeing being destroyed could be. 

—

Sakusa Kiyoomi did not like cameras. They were gnats buzzing around his head, calling for him to look this way and that, catching his every reaction to whatever crossed his path. They were broken whispers that floated to his ears, unintelligible conversations that stayed as voices in his head. He did not like cameras, but he found that looking at you was infinitely better than looking at anything else. 

“You doing okay?” Your murmur is the only thing he hears, quieting the rest of the chatter around him. Swaths of dresses and suits brush against his arms and he fights the instinct to shield you from view, despite being sat in the very center of the huge theater. It was the biggest award show of the season, and he’d made a vow with himself that he wouldn’t ruin tonight for you. With your hand in his, as long as he had physical contact with you, it was easier to keep the doubts in his mind at bay. “I’m feeling fine, if that’s what you need to know.” 

“I’m doing okay as long as you’re okay,” he confirms softly, barely sparing a glance at the giant lens a few feet from his face. “I’m here to celebrate you. I won’t let them bother me tonight.” You beam at him, opening your mouth to say something when a commotion comes tumbling down the aisle. “Actually,” he mutters as his three teammates trip over themselves to find their seats in the rest of the row, “Do you think I can have one nasty scowl? I promise I’ll behave otherwise.” 

“Having a rockstar best friend is like, the best thing ever,” Bokuto declares before you can respond to Kiyoomi. 

“I’m so glad Omi finally got his head out of his ass, too,” Atsumu drawls with an unbothered yawn that makes Sakusa’s blood boil. The blonde Miya sibling had been very vocal with the press about playing as the matchmaker, pointedly dodging questions about his own romantic status. “I think I’ll secretly have ‘I told you so’ engraved on the inside of your wedding rings.”

“Over my dead body,” Kiyoomi grumbles and you smile, squeezing his hand once. He squeezes back, pressing a rare public kiss to the side of your head. You shift your body to lean more closely to his and your wrist presses down on something wrapped around his wrist. 

“What’s under your sleeve?”

“Hmm? Oh, this?” He pulls back the freshly ironed fabric to reveal a familiar pattern of green and yellow beads, out of place compared to the rest of his formal attire. “Got it from a concert,” he smirks knowingly. “The show was cool, but I think I’m in love with the artist.”

“Yeah? You never figured out what that acronym stands for, did you?” He shakes his head and you point at each letter bead, explaining, “No one knows me like you do, and no one ever will.” 

“Well, isn’t that fitting?” The lights dim and the orchestra starts to play its signature fanfare, spotlights gliding in aimless directions across the audience. “Thank you for helping me understand.”

“The meaning of the lyric? Of course, I think of you every time I sing it, now,” you smile. 

“No, about what you said that night when we argued.” He feels a familiar blush creeping up his cheeks. “About loving me how you love me.”

“And do you get it now?”

“I do,” he nods, glancing at the colorful bracelet on his wrist and your fingers intertwined with his. “I just needed a little bit of convincing.” Your head settles on his shoulder and he lets you, allowing himself to relax in spite of the sea of cameras surrounding him. 

“Good thing I love a challenge.”

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! commissions and nsfw requests can be sent through my fiverr! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

[adrixivy]

I can imagine the Avengers playing UNO one day for game night and after that day, everyone is extremely petty, stingy, extremely aggressive or has an attitude to someone and it’s all because of something that happened that one day they decided to play UNO.

(I played UNO with my family earlier and I was constantly screaming. I got +16. SIXTEEN. So this was what inspired this post)

Clint, throwing dirty looks at Tony everytime Tony walks into the room: *glares and rolls eyes at Tony before looking away*

Tony, sighs exasperatedly: Is this because I plus 20 your ass that game night?

Clint, mocking him: iS tHiS becAuSE I pLUs 20 yOuR aSs- YES. YES IT IS.

Tony being Tony ‘Money is my superpower’ Stark: I bought your kids everything on their Amazon wishlist yesterday. I bought Ms Barton’s wishlist too. And your new trick arrows are restocked and some upgraded

Clint, smiling politely and in the kindest voice possible: Thank you very much, I’ll tell you Peter’s cards from the vent the next time we play UNO

Peter with his advanced hearing: MR BARTON NO!-

——————

Bucky purposely walks away from Steve everytime Steve is trying to go up to him for a kiss or hug or just be close to him (Yes I’m a stucky fan)

Steve sighs and wipes a hand down his face: Is this because I changed the color when you were on one card during game night?

Bucky nodded and dramatically said: You betrayed me-

Steve, screeching: IT’S JUST A GAME?!-

Bucky, screaming back: YOU DON’T LOVE ME-

Steve, dumbfounded because UNO is making his lover hate him: WHAT-

———————

Peter flips onto the ceiling whenever Tony enters the room, renames all of his protocols, purposefully gives Tony the wrong tools and messes up Tony’s clean set-up of tools that it drives Tony up the wall because he thinks Peter is going through some rebellious phase before he notices Peter being kind to literally everyone else except him

Tony, tired and stared at his kid hanging upside down as he plays Dress to Impress with Ned and MJ on HIS personal starkpad meant for his work: Get down from there, kid. I need the Starkpad.

Peter ignores him and he tries remembering what he did before he scoffs in disbelief as he realised what Peter is annoyed about

Tony: Is this because I kept skipping your turn during game night? I told you I didn’t have the colors and those skip cards were the colors I drawn!

Peter: I had ONE card but because you kept skipping my turn, MR BARTON WON! MR BARTON-

Tony, sputtering: IT’S JUST A GAME-

Peter, screaming back: IT’S UNO!-

Tony on the verge of tears: I’M SORRY DON’T HATE ME-

Peter immediately jumps down, puts the Starkpad away and hugs Tony. The two share a hug and Peter forgets everything that what Tony did to him in game night

——————

Natasha throws a dagger that just barely misses Steve and Clint everytime they enter the room. Steve is wondering where she keeps those daggers and Clint knows where but knows she won’t stop because she’s incredibly petty. Extremely so.

Clint: Nat, my no.1 friend, my sister from another mother, I swear you gotta stop this-

Steve: I really don’t appreciate those daggers being thrown-

Steve is immediately cut off as Clint shoots a look at Steve that says ‘You’re an idiot!”. Nat simply stares at them blankly and Clint immediately grabs Steve and yanks him down to take cover as Natasha pulls a gun out of nowhere and shoots where they previously stood

Clint, knew it was coming but is still afraid as the two just narrowly dodged the bullets: I’M SORRY WE KEPT CHANGING THE COLOR BUT IT WASN’T THAT DEEP-

Steve, panicking and worried for their lives: JUST BECAUSE OF UNO?-

Clint, can’t believe Steve is asking an obvious question: YES JUST BECAUSE OF THAT!

Steve: I TOLD YOU IT WAS A BAD IDEA-

Clint, the one who told Steve to mess with Nat together and is regretting he ever did and is genuinely sorry he made the reluctant Steve join him: I’M SORRY I DRAGGED YOU INTO THIS-

It took Natasha a few hours to calm down and it was just because Clint summoned Peter ‘Puppy’ Parker to calm her down. Nat still gives slight nasty looks but she isn’t so petty about it anymore which was an absolute relief for the two

—————

Sam is glaring at Peter everytime and Peter sticks his tongue out to annoy and piss Sam off. The two always had somewhat of a small beef but it amplified more after game night. Probably because Peter was purposely aiming to attack Sam by always adding plus cards when it’s Sam’s turn next. It sucked more for Sam when Peter actually won.

Sam, sending Redwing to shoot small nerf darts at Peter: Take that you midget-

Peter, huffing and shot a web at Redwing which immediately made the small robotic bird stuck onto the ceiling: *sticks tongue out before giggling*

Peter laughs harder when he heard Sam screaming ‘MY CHILD’ with his advanced hearing

——————

Wanda and Peter teamed up during UNO and sneaked some cards to each other when one needed a certain color. And the entire team is always dumbstruck whenever one of the two kept winning for 5 rounds straight, not knowing Wanda is reading their minds on what color they have and their secret way of communicating

Wanda wins three times in a row and her and Peter is giggling. The whole team is confused af because how are they doing this-

(They totally forgot about Wanda’s abilities during the game. UNO is a serious game where all your remaining braincells is used on the game and nothing else matters)

——————

Rhodey joins for one game and is immediately done because his cards somehow stack all the way to 30 cards. He just needed a blue and he kept drawing cards until FINALLY he pulled a blue and Tony’s turn was next so imagine how furious he was when Tony placed a blue reverse and out of his 30 cards, he didn’t have a SINGLE reverse or power card. He tweaks and the whole team is laughing at him as he grumbles and complains about how they’re ganging up on him and UNO is a completely unfair game. Tony kept laughing till there was tears. He always found it fun to annoy tf out of Rhodey.

Rhodey, fuming as he fails to get one blue card: WHO THE HELL SHUFFLED THIS CARDS-

The whole room erupts into laughter at the sight

——————

Thor is the only one that doesn’t seem affected by the game and isn’t petty at all because there’s probably worse games in Asgard and he had dealt with way more petty people when it comes to games. Honestly, he probably imagined it as a game with Loki. Loki was always petty with games and everytime Thor won, he deals with attitude from Loki for weeks. UNO was basically child play for him.

——————

Bruce doesn’t ever participate in UNO and the team believes its for the best because if he joins, the big guy will come out and play for him instead (He’s smashing everything. Not as in the game. Literal smashing)

It’s literally impossible to not get mad at people in UNO.

Best believe UNO is a game that’s banned from game night forever after that day as the amount of attitude and danger in the tower increases by tenfold.

[bitethedevil]

A House of Hope (Modern!AU Raphael x Tav): Chapter 1

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Fic summary: Tav lives at her mom's place after a tough break-up with her former boyfriend. Rent isn't cheap anywhere, but one day her mom finds her someone online who presents a tempting new living situation that won't break her bank account.

Tav moves into the Haven estate and becomes a part of Raphael's House of Hope project: a project that helps unfortunate souls to get back on their feet. Although, something is not quite right about the house and her fellow tenants. That's not to mention her odd landlord who seems to be hiding something...

AN: I've been wanting to write a Modern!AU with this bastard since forever. Here we are. It's not entirely a Modern!AU but that will make sense later. Warrning: This fic contains some heavy subjects such as substance abuse, dementia, death, homelessness, and mental illness.

Tav was lying on the couch, sipping a beer and scrolling through apartments listings on her laptop.

She was utterly fucked.

Finding an apartment was hell. It hadn’t been easy when she first moved out four years ago with her boyfriend either and that had been with two incomes. She was a university student with a shitty low paying job as a cleaning lady on the side. 

Though she couldn’t live at her mom’s place forever. They were driving each other insane. She needed to get as far away from that woman as humanly possible. Her mom was constantly in her business, and it was driving her up the wall.

She huffed and shut her laptop with a smack after yet another disappointing search. Everywhere that she could afford rent, the deposit was so expensive that you could almost buy a small house for it outside the city.

She placed her laptop on the coffee table and gave up for the day. She grabbed the blanket at the end of the couch and pulled it over her. Her eyes closed for another back-breaking sleep on her mother’s couch.

Tav stirred awake when she heard her mom come home in the morning. The door was slammed, the keys clinking loudly as they were thrown on the table in the foyer, and of course she made sure to crinkle the bag in her hands as loudly as humanly possible. She did it on purpose to wake her up.

“It’s noon, darling,” her mom shouted from the kitchen. “You shouldn’t sleep all day, it will give you a headache.”

You give me a headache, Tav thought before reluctantly opening her eyes. She grabbed her phone on the coffee table and pulled out the charger to check the time.

“It’s nine in the fucking morning,” she groaned. “Let me sleep.”

“Yes, but I want to go about my day, and I can’t do that with you snoring in my living room.”

Tav sighed at the cheery yet incredibly condescending tone.

She had really not missed living with her. Especially now that she seemed to have changed so much with her ‘staying positive’ bullshit and playing caring mother all of a sudden. It was somehow worse than when they just yelled at each other like when she was a child.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Coffee?” her mom asked from the kitchen.

“Sure,” she replied.

“I have something for you,” her mom continued from the kitchen. “A really nice man contacted me on Facebook, and we met today to talk about you.”

Tav closed her eyes and took a deep, tired breath.

“Remember when we had that talk about online safety and pyramid schemes a little while ago?”

“Yes, yes,” her mom said. “But this isn’t like that. This is about your living situation. I saw pictures and everything. This is perfect for you, and it’s very cheap too.”

“Mhm…”

Her mom came around the corner with a cup of coffee for her. Tav forced a smile and muttered a ‘thanks’ as she took it.

“There’s pictures.”

“You mentioned…”

Her mom sat down in the armchair beside the couch. She grabbed her reading glasses from the table and pulled out her phone. Tav watched as she struggled to use it.

“Do you want help?”

“No, I got it,” she replied, “Oh, here. Look.”

Tav squinted at the screen as her mom showed her picture after picture. Tav smiled and then burst into laughter.

“Mom…” she said. “This is such a scam. That is literally a manor, not student housing.”

“No, listen,” her mom protested. “I met with the owner, and it’s real. All the parts of the house I just showed you have been made into apartments. It’s perfect, Tilda. There’s nature around and it’s far away from the city…”

So that you can’t get into trouble with your connections in said city, was what she really meant. So that you can’t contact your drug-dealing, deadbeat ex-boyfriend who you lived with for four years…who you still love but can’t be with because you can’t handle being near drugs at the moment.

“…It’s beautiful, and it has so much history. The owner told me. You wouldn’t have to think about a thing, since there is everything you could ever need there. There’s even a little shop a short walk away, so that you don’t have to worry about taking a bus to get groceries! Isn’t that great?”

“Okay, okay,” Tav said and held her hands up to stop her. “Let’s play your little fantasy game and say that this place is real, which it is not…”

“It is real,” her mom stated again. “It’s a part of this Hope program or whatever he called it.”

“Right, whatever,” Tav said. “How would I even get to my lectures if it’s in the middle of nowhere? What about my job?”

“There’s a little bus that drives the residents to the nearest bus stop,” her mom continued in an excited tone. “How do you think the other residents get around? Besides, he told me that some of the other people living there just work at the manor. So, you would only have to leave to go to your classes.”

“Feudalism is alive and well, I see. How wonderful…” Tav mumbled and sipped her coffee. “I don’t know, mom. This so clearly seems like a scam, especially if you say that it’s cheap.”

Her mom sighed in frustration.

“I will have the nice man call you,” she said. “I can send him your number and then you can talk with him yourself. You can’t stay here forever, darling. Give it a chance.”

Tav rolled her eyes. She knew that she would have to do it in order for her mom to shut up about it. She had gotten her stubbornness from her, unfortunately.

“Fine,” Tav grumbled and sipped her coffee. “Give my private phone number to some scamming weirdo then. I’ll talk to him.”

Tav was sweeping the sticky floors of the kindergarten she cleaned in when she felt her phone vibrate in her back pocket. The number wasn’t one she recognized. She picked it up and then put it on speaker before laying it on a table. She was the only one in the building anyway and she had to finish her work.

“Yeah, hello?”

 “Do I have the pleasure of speaking with Tilda Avon?” A deep, smooth voice rang through the phone.

“You do,” she replied. “Who is this?”

“You are speaking with Raphael, the owner of the Haven estate,” the voice spoke. “Your mother informed me that you might be interested in knowing more about our House of Hope project.”

The name made it sound like it was some weird program for stray dogs or orphans. She rolled her eyes.

“Sure,” she said in a forced, friendly tone. “Though I’m currently in the middle of work, sir, so if I could get back to you, that would be lovely.”

“I will keep it brief then. I was calling to ask if you would not rather see the estate for yourself? I have an apartment that has been freshly renovated that I can offer you. Does tomorrow at two fit into your schedule?”

“You know, I think I might have a thing there, unfortunately.”

“How odd,” the voice spoke with a tinge of amusement. “Your mother assured me that you had no plans…but of course, I can accommodate with a later time if that fits better into your no doubt very busy schedule.”

These scammer types were always so persistent. Tav pressed her lips together in frustration.

“Tomorrow at two sounds good,” she said in a forced, cheery tone.

“Splendid.”

“How do I get there?”

“I will have a car sent for you,” the voice spoke. “I look forward to meeting you, Tilda.”

“Likewise,” she gritted out and ended the call.

She took a deep breath. She was going to kill her mother.

Her jaw dropped slightly as the house came into view from the car window. She had seen the pictures, but it was huge. A monolith of Elizabethan architecture.

The car came to a stop outside the stairs up to the main entrance. A middle-aged man with dark hair and a charming smile came down to greet her. He opened the car door for her and gave her a hand to get out.

“Welcome to Haven,” he said. She recognized the voice from the call she received the day before. “You must be Tilda then. Or Miss Avon, if you prefer. A pleasure to properly meet you.”

“It’s just Tav, actually,” she said with a slightly forced polite smile. “Only my mother calls me Tilda. Nice to meet you too, sir.”

“Tav, is it?” he repeated as if to see if he pronounced it right.

“T. Avon, Tav,” she explained. “There were two Tilda’s in my class when I was a kid. It just kind of stuck. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t catch your last name when you called me?”

“Just Raphael,” he said with a smile and gestured for her to follow him.

Raphael pushed open the doors to the main house and started leading her through it. It was disgustingly lavish inside.

“This is the main part of the house,” he explained. “This is where I live. If you choose to stay with us, you will be living in the outer eastern wing. You will have a shared entrance with your neighbor, but besides that, you have total privacy as you would with any apartment in the city.”

“Right.”

She looked at all the portraits they passed. No doubt they were of the former owners of the house, but she could not help noticing that none of them looked like him. They were all pale, blue-eyed ladies and lords that looked nothing like the olive-skinned and brown-eyed Raphael.

“Should I spare you the history lesson?” he asked and turned to her with a smile while they walked. “I find that so many who come here have already done their research on Google and Wikipedia and whatnot.”

He spoke the names of the sites as a true middle-aged man who had never touched a computer before.

“I haven’t really done any research, no. You can still spare me the history lesson, though. I’m really only here for a place to live.”

“I can appreciate your honesty,” he said with a slight chuckle. “Very well. Let us keep it brief then: This manor has been in my family for centuries and it is very old.”

“Great,” Tav said with a smile at his brief description.

“I will show you the highlights and then leave you to explore for yourself, should you choose to stay here,” he said. “You will be given a map over the entire estate and its side buildings. Too often have new tenants gotten lost trying to find their way back to their apartments.”

“Sounds great. My sense of direction has always been a bit lacking.”

She turned around when she heard footsteps following them over the marble floor. An older man with greying hair was following them around, she noticed. Raphael turned too when he saw her looking.

“John,” Raphael called out in a smooth tone. “Come greet our guest.”

John avoided the gaze of both of them and stayed put. Raphael looked at her and then smiled before they kept walking.

“John is a bit shy,” he said and then leaned in to whisper. “He is at that age where he forgets. His mind is starting to go…”

“Ah,” Tav said.

“Though the House of Hope project welcomes anyone,” he said. “Most of the residents here have one issue or the other that makes living elsewhere difficult. Your mother told me about your little…indulgence problem.”

She almost froze at how he just threw it out there. She quickly tried to gather herself again.

“I don’t know what my mom has told you,” she quickly said. “She has a tendency to exaggerate. I don’t have a drug problem. I had a problem, but it’s done. I’m clean…and have no access to them any longer, besides.”

“I am not here to judge you, Tav,” he said in a sympathetic tone. “Like I said, we welcome anyone. Now. Should I show you where you will be living?”

She was still a bit thrown off, but she gave him a nod. He smiled and turned to call out to the old man who was still trailing them.

“John, would you be a dear and fetch me the tenancy agreement?” Raphael said and then turned back to her. “Come.”

The apartment was nice. Really nice. It was much bigger than the shoebox apartments she could afford in the city. It had everything she needed too: a private bathroom, a bedroom, a modest but nice living room, and even a small kitchen.

Its furniture was in the same red and gold color scheme as the rest of the house. The apartment itself was no mansion, but it would probably be the fanciest place she had ever lived in regardless.

“You can replace the furniture in here with your own, if you please,” Raphael said. “Though, please do not paint or make new holes in the walls. Other than that, this would all be yours to do with as you please.”

“It’s really nice,” she had to admit and then looked at him. “How much?”

There was a quiet knock on the door. He smiled and opened the door where the old man was waiting outside with a few papers. Raphael took them from him.

“Thank you,” he said to John and then handed the tenancy agreement to her. “Everything you need to know is in here.”

She skimmed over the text until she got to the numbers. Her eyes widened and she looked up at Raphael.

“You’re kidding?” she said. “This is practically nothing considering the state of this place.”

Raphael gave a shrug, a smile still plastered on his face.

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“What’s the catch? There must be something I’m missing.”

“No catch, I can assure you,” he said. “What you see is what you get, my dear.”

Her eyes narrowed further. She scratched her head and looked over the apartment again, as if looking for some deadly fungus growing in the corners or water dripping from the ceiling that she had missed. Nothing.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “You’re obviously not doing this for profit, so what is it then?”

“Charity, mostly,” he said. “I have no family left here and it gets lonesome living alone in this grand stone tomb. I have no lack of space and there is no lack of unfortunate people who deserve a fresh start. It would be a sin to keep it all to myself. Besides, I rather like the company of the tenants living here.”

“Hm,” she hummed, almost convinced.

She looked at down at the tenancy agreement again. Raphael sat down in an armchair and gestured for her to sit in the one opposite him.

“Yes, please, read it through carefully before you sign on the dotted line. If you have any questions, do not feel shy to ask.”

She nodded. Her eyes skimmed over the letters as carefully as they could with the pressure of Raphael sitting there, watching her closely while she read it through. After a few minutes she nodded again and then looked up at him.

“Do you have a pen?”

A wide smile spread over his face as he produced a pen from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

Once Raphael left the apartment, she walked around a bit. She threw herself on her new bed and then took out her phone. She found her mom’s name in her contacts and called her up.

“Yes darling? Did you say yes?” her mom’s voice spoke through the phone.

“I did—”

She was interrupted by the sound of excitement from her mom who quickly began babbling about something.

“Yeah, great, sure,” she said and interrupted her mom’s excited rambling. “Mom, why did you tell my new landlord that I have a problem with drugs? Could you please not air my dirty laundry to strangers in the future?”

“Oh, you are so sensitive, Tilda,” her mom said. “I only did it because he said that it was a place for unfortunate people, and I thought if I told him he would be more inclined to let you stay there. And it worked, so you’re welcome.”

“In the future, don’t tell people about that, yeah? Who else have you told?”

There was silence from the other end of the line.

“Mom?”

“I might have told Ms. Nguyen from downstairs and Timothy from work, but I needed someone to share the burden with, darling.”

“The burden of my personal issues? You are unbelievable,” Tav said with a scoff. “It’s not as if I was doing lines off your toilet or smoking weed at your place. I haven’t touched any of that since Luke and I broke up.”

“Do you want a medal for that? You shouldn’t have touched it in the first place.”

Tav gritted her teeth.

“Don’t turn this on me just because we were talking about something you did. Just…respect my privacy a little bit. That’s all I’m asking. I don’t feel like fighting right now. It’s been a long day.”

There was a beat of silence from the other line.

“Is it nice?” her mom said, changing the subject entirely. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? It looked so pretty in the pictures. I can bring you your things tomorrow if I can get Timothy to drive me there. Oh, it’s going to be so good for you, darling. Are there other people your age living there?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met the others. I’ve only talked to that Raphael guy.”

“Oh well, get out there then. It’s good to know your neighbors. Make a good first impression. I have to go, but you have fun and tell me all about it, yes?”

“Right. Bye.”

She closed the call with a sigh.

She looked around her new apartment once again and took a deep breath, shaking off the frustrations she had felt at her mother’s words.

A chance to start over, she thought. She felt a sliver of positivity, of hope, for the first time in a long time.

[celiastjamesoscar]

Comfort Holds

Pairings: Sam Carpenter x fem!reader

Summary: A long day at work leads the best kind of de-stressing at home: Sam holding you.

Warnings: light cussing, mentions of overdoses, extremely soft Sam, Sam and R showering together, not proofread

AN: a real quick one in celebration of me passing my logic exam! I promise I will crank out some longer ones soon!! I also hate how I couldn’t find a good Hozier/Taylor/Lana song to fit this and it’s going to drive me nuts :(

My Masterlist

Word Count: 1.7K

With a soft sigh, you clocked out of work. Today was rough; it seemed like dispatch could not leave you alone, and the calls were the worst. Just today alone, you had four overdoses, which was a new record. On top of that, you also helped deliver a baby, which was a first. You didn’t hate your job, but sometimes you wished for a simple desk job. Something that wasn’t constantly putting stress on your body.

You locked the ambulance before leaving the station and getting into your car. Being an EMT was fun, and you enjoyed it, but just like any job, it had its ups and downs. As you put your key into the ignition, your phone dinged with a message, and your heart fluttered when you read the name.

Sammy Bear 🔪🖤: When will you be home? I miss you.

-Sam

You rolled your eyes with a small smile as you read the text. No matter how often you told her not to, Sam continued to sign her texts. At this point, you were convinced she was doing it to irritate you.

Y/N ❤️: Babe, I have you saved in my contacts. You don’t have to sign your name

You watched as the bubbles appeared and disappeared for several minutes, and you were starting to get worried you had upset Sam when she sent you a picture. The breath in your throat got caught, and your mouth started to water as you admired the jaw-dropping picture your girlfriend had just sent you.

It was a picture of her lying down in bed on her stomach. The angle at which it was taken had a perfect view of her cleavage, especially with the necklace that had your first name initial resting between her breasts.

The picture was effortless but still breathtaking, and you couldn’t believe how you managed to pull that gorgeous woman.

Sammy Bear 🔪🖤: Just answer the damn question.

-Sam

Y/N ❤️: …Not even 5 minutes

As soon as you sent the text, you drove your car and quickly hurried home to Sam. You two have been dating for almost six months, the best six months of your life. It took you several months to break down Sam’s mile-high walls, but after enough late-night conversations and you taking care of Tara while she was at work, Sam slowly allowed herself to be vulnerable with you. Sam didn’t trust easily; hell, sometimes she didn’t even trust herself, but when she was with you, she knew that she could trust you with her heart and her world: Tara.

Once you had won the approval of Tara (a trial that consisted of her forcing you to watch all of her favorite movies and shows), Sam finally opened up her heart to you, and within a week, you two were officially dating.

Within record time, you parked your car outside the Carpenter apartment and hastily approached Sam. When you reached the door to her apartment, you knocked three times and patiently waited for Sam to open up.

“Took you long enough,” the woman in question stated while opening the door. Like in the picture, she only wore a sports bra and leggings, and your mouth began to water as you admired her abs.

“I tried my best to get here quickly,” you retorted while entering your shared apartment. Technically and legally, it was Sam’s apartment, but you were over so much that you two started calling it your ‘shared’ apartment, and you couldn’t be happier.

Once Sam shut the door, you moved to hug her, but she quickly stepped back from you. “Y/N, I love you, but you smell,” Sam defended as she walked into her room, “go take a shower and change, then we can cuddle.”

You grumbled as you followed her and went to your shared dresser. The top two rows were for Sam, and the bottom two were for you, not that the factor in determining who was on top pertained to your sex life at all. No way.

Rummaging through the dresser, you pulled out a pair of shorts along with a baggy t-shirt and a pair of underwear and then carried them into Sam’s bathroom. You turned on the shower and stripped out of your dirty clothes, and deciding to see if Sam was lying, you smelt your shirt. You hated agreeing with your girlfriend, but it didn't smell good.

You threw your dirty clothes into the hamper before stepping into the shower. You were in the middle of washing your face when you heard the bathroom door open. “Hello?” You called up, and when your lips moved, you got soap in your mouth.

As your luck would have it, you were frantically trying to get the awful soap taste out of your mouth when Sam violently pulled back the shower curtain.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Sam!” You exclaimed as you touched your heart, “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Sam gave you a small laugh and racked her eyes over your body. “You look pretty,” she stated when her eyes reached your face, silently laughing at your startled face covered in soap.

“Thank you,” you replied before sticking your face under the water and washing off the soap. By the time it took you to get the soap off, Sam had undressed and stepped into the shower behind you. Her firm, muscular arms embracing you from behind.

“I miss you, baby,” Sam mumbled against your neck as she hugged your back, kissing your neck. “I missed you too,” you replied, leaning against Sam’s hold and relaxing.

Sam hummed against your neck as she held you tighter. You were her home, and she only ever felt entirely safe in your presence. In time, she planned to make a wife out of you, but only if you wanted her. Sam would move Heaven and Hell for you; she would fist-fight God himself for you, but she would never do something you weren’t okay with. So, if you were crazy enough to grant her your hand in marriage, Sam’s life would be complete.

“How was work?” Sam asked as she let go of her hold on you, grabbed a shampoo bottle, and put some on her hand. “It was rough, to say the least,” you replied with a weak smile, even though Sam couldn’t see it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam asked as she set down the bottle and rubbed the soap together in her hands. “Not really,” you replied while Sam massaged your scalp and applied the soap to your hair. You knew about Sam’s past drug addiction, so you didn’t want to tell her about all the overdoses you encountered today. “But,” you cheerfully stated, “I did help deliver a baby!”

“Oh yeah? Who would trust you with their baby?” Sam teased while she ran her fingers through your hair. You huffed at her words, “A woman who is shooting a child out of her vagina at rocket speed, that’s who.”

Sam laughed at your response and turned you to face her, “You’re a smart-ass, you know that?”

“I know, but I’m your smart-ass,” you said with a smile as Sam gently pushed you backward into the running water of the shower. “Yes, you are,” Sam replied as she began washing the shampoo out of your hair.

It wasn’t rare for Sam to wash your body, as it was her own way of worshiping you. She loved touching your body in more intimate ways than sex, and she also loved that you trusted her enough to allow her to connect with you in such ways. The respect you both had for each other was undeniable, and your love was sacred; no one could ever shake it or ruin it.

For the remainder of the shower, you and Sam took turns washing each other’s body. And when it was time to get out, you both dressed in clean clothes and brushed your teeth. It wasn’t much, but you would kill for these domestic moments with Sam.

“Come here,” Sam said as she climbed into her bed and opened her arms to you. You smiled at her as you turned off the bathroom and bedroom lights and got into bed next to her.

Within a second, Sam had her arms wrapped around your waist and was pulling you into her chest. You placed your head on her chest as one of her hands left your waist and gently rubbed your back.

“Sam? Can I ask you a question?” You asked after Sam had turned on the lamp next to her bed. “Of course, my love,” she responded as her fingers lightly danced across your back, even though you felt her tense up.

“Can you please try not to snore tonight?” You pleaded with beady eyes as you looked up at her, and you could see her visibly relax. “Y/N, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but I do not snore,” Sam declared with a hurtful look in her eyes.

“Oh come on, you big baby,” you jolly teased as you propped yourself up on the bed with your elbow and looked at Sam’s big, brown eyes, “You snore, and you know it.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yes, you do! I even recorded you, Sam!”

“That’s a fake video,” she defended, “Why do you hate me?”

Now, this question was her favorite card to play. No matter what you two argued about, this one never failed her. When Sam played this card mixed in with her puppy dog eyes, she knew you were a goner.

“Sam,” you whispered as a hurt look quickly replaced your teasing, “You know I love you.”

“Then why do you insist I snore when I do not?” Sam questioned as you unpropped your elbow and laid back on her chest, listening to her comforting heartbeat.

“Because I love teasing you, Sam. And because your snoring is awful, you should seriously get it checked out,” you responded sarcastically. “Haha, you’re so funny,” Sam dryly replied but hugged you tighter, telling you she was joking.

The two of you talked about your day for several more minutes before you yawned, and Sam reached over to turn off the bedside lamp. You were still lying on her chest as sleep slowly took over your body whenever you heard the faintest whisper, “Delete that video of me snoring.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist: @elduster @silentwolfsstuff

I stole the text messaging part from the great @maskthedwarf <3

[7ndipity]

Mine

Namjoon x Reader

Summary: Joon gets easily jealous, but do you mind, really?

Warnings: Swearing, Joonie’s kinda possessive, very suggestive

A/N: Thanks to the lovely anon who requested this! Sorry it took a few extra days, this month’s been a lot, but we’re finally starting to feel better! This one started off angsty in my drafts but somehow turned out way more suggestive than I planned (At what point should I start a blog for spicy fics? lmk)

Masterlist

Requests are open

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on in Namjoon’s head that evening, mouth pressed into a hard, thin line as he only half followed the conversation he was currently in the middle of, but you could feel the weight of his eyes constantly tracking you from across the room as you talked with one of the other artists that were at the event Joon had invited you to as his plus one.

You fought the slight urge to roll your own eyes as you caught his hard stare through the crowd, trying your best to ignore him for the moment and keep your focus on your own conversation.

This was starting to become a recurring situation between the two of you; if he saw you getting too close (in his opinion anyway) to another guy, or sometimes anyone at all, his stubborn jealousy would rear its ugly head, turning your normally sweet and understanding boyfriend sour and possessive.

He, of course, vehemently denied that that was what it was, that the other person was just giving him bad vibes and he was just looking out for you, although you couldn’t help wondering if/when he would notice that the those ‘vibes’ he kept picking up on was just their interest in you.

Almost as if on cue, you felt a familiar pair of hands land on your waist, thumbs rubbing soothing patterns against your sides through the fabric of your outfit, though it was unclear whether it was meant to calm you or him.

“Having a good time?” He asked, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek. You didn’t miss the way his tone went up at the end in annoyance, despite his rather feeble attempt to mask it.

“I am, what about you?” You replied, tilting your head to look back at him.

“I think I’ve had my fill of socializing for one evening. Shall we go?”

“Do we have to?” You asked.

“I would like to.” He said, leaning closer. “I’ve also had my fill of other people stealing your attention from me.” He whispered in your ear, making you shiver.

The car ride home was unusually quiet. You noticed that he was still tense based on the way he was gripping the steering wheel, but you chose to leave it be, leaving him the responsibility to present the topic to you if there was something truly bothering him.

You barely made it through the door though before he was on you, catching you in a bruising kiss as he pressed you back against the wall.

“You drive me fucking crazy, you know that?” He mumbled against your lips. “Couldn’t stand the way they kept looking at you.”

“They weren’t.” You gasped between kisses.

“You don’t see what I do.” He said, trailing kisses over your jaw and down your neck to your pulse point.

“Who cares?” You replied, hands struggling to find purchase on his shoulders.

“I do.” He practically growled.

“You shouldn’t.”

Your response made his head whip back up to look at you. “Why the fuck not?”

“Because they don’t matter.” You said, cupping his face in your hands, feeling the heat of his skin against your palms. “I only want you, no one else. You believe that, right?”

He sighed, instinctively leaning into your touch. “Of course I do, I just don’t like people thinking that they can take what’s mine.”

“Yours?” You raised your brows at him. ”What, like you own me?”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not! You belong to only yourself. But-” He stopped, unsure of how to continue.

“But?” You urged, catching him off guard as you wound your hands into his hair and gave a quick tug.

His eyes darkened. “But you're mine.” He pressed another hot kiss to your mouth, stealing your breath as he spoke. “You’re mine and I’m yours. Only yours.”

You relented for the moment, letting yourself get lost in the feeling of him as his hands ghosted over your body, making you press even closer to him.

"Mine."

[bluemirrorangel]

fem outsiders hcs

So i already did this for DPS but I wanted to do an outsider's version.

Darry:

Name: Shayanne ‘Annie’ Darrel Curtis, Named after her mum.

Pins her hair back to look more ‘professional.’ 

Works as a secretary for a roofers firm.

Was really popular in high school, she was voted cheer captain in her senior year but her parents died so she had to drop out.

Lost all her friends after dropping out to raise her sisters.

Has a second job as a babysitter on the weekends.

Bails the others out of jail so much that the police call her on impulse.

Used to go ‘skiing’ with her friends, she never actually skied herself but sometimes she misses the snow.

the  Curtis’s don’t have an open door policy anymore but a specific knock you use when you need a place to stay.

Keeps loose change in a pot in her room for emergencies.

Used to have a crush on Elvis Pressley in highschool.

She still has his posters on her wall.

Used to share a room with Soda but moved into her parent's room after they died.

The strongest in the gang and the most ‘physically’ intimidating.

Soda:

Name: Soda Curtis

She wears her hair in a beehive-type ponytail with flipped ends.

Still works at the DX but more at the cash register because she’s better with People and  Stevie is better with cars.

Had a boyfriend called Andy

Instead of Sandy cheating, getting pregnant and running away, Soda has a pregnancy scare that makes Andy run away.

After Windrixville  she starts spending time with a Soc boy ‘Sheridan.’

Still known around town for her looks.

Wanted to be a cowgirl when she was a kid.

Wants to start taking night classes in her twenties to get her high school diploma.

Doesn’t go to Vietnam.

Starts working night shifts as a waitress at a 24-hour diner in her late teens-early twenties.

Ponyboy:

Name: Ponygirl ‘Pony’ Curtis

Only greaser on the girls' track team.

Has her hair in a Ponytail. Annie used to plait it for her but she’s too rough.

Wants to be a writer.

Saving up for a camera.

After her hair was bleached and cut, up in Windrixville she got mistaken for a boy.

The shortest girl in her class.

Wears her dad's old shirts.

Needs glasses.

Scared of fire and loud noises after Windrixville.

Doesn’t consider herself popular but she is well-known.

Gets freckles in the summer.

Always has a lighter.

Got closer to Curly after Windrixville.

Stevie taught her how to drive.

Steve:

Name: Stevie Randle

Shoulder-length brown hair she spends a ridiculous amount of time curling it.

The best engineer at the DX but constantly underestimated.

Banned from dealing with customers due to her lack of filter.

Fiercely overprotective of Soda when it comes to guys specifically Socs.

Considers Pony a little sister.

Has a boyfriend ‘Evan’

Short temper.

Only stayed in school to look out for Pony.

Has always looked up to Annie as a female role model because Annie helped teach her after her mum left.

Insecure about her height.

Loves drag races.

Hates the Beatles.

Can actually sing quite well.

Twobit:

Name: Kathy ‘Twobit’ Mathews

Has a younger brother called Keith.

Short curly red hair.

Had a thing with a boy soc ‘Marshal’

Still drinks too much.

Annie’s childhood friend

Dips french fries into milkshakes.

Loves butter popcorn.

Has an issue taking things seriously.

Can walk on her hands.

Can’t sit still.

Actually enjoys movies but can’t watch them quietly.

Johnny:

Name: Jane ‘Janey’ Cade

Wears her hair down but greases the front.

The quietest member of the gang.

Surprisingly sarcastic.

Almost as fast as Pony.

Wears hand-me-downs and a big denim Jacket Dallas gave her to try and curb any attention.

Can be shockingly violent when scared.

Secretly protective of Pony.

Great at picking locks.

Once fell asleep in the boot of Stevie’s car during a game of man hunt.

Dallas:

Name: Dallas Winston

Really messy long blonde hair, like canon Dallas she’s not a fan of grease so she just let’s it tangle.

Just as violent specifically towards older men.

Like Sylvia but worse.

Cares deeply for Pony and Janey.

Only smokes winstons.

Kicked out of school for violent behaviour. 

Can NOT hold a steady job for the life of her.

Hates kids.

Orphan.

The most intimidating one in the gang in general.

Regularly gets into fights with Tammy Shepard.

Tim:

Name: Tamara “Tammy” Shepard.

Wears her hair up.

Leader of the Shepard outlet.

Runs her gang like the U.S. Navy.

Started looking after her siblings around sixteen after their parents walked out on them.

Doesn’t do much crime herself out of fear of being taken from them permanently.

Like Annie but a delinquent.

Deeply threatening.

Lives in constant fear of dying too young.

Taught Curly and Angelo how to fight.

Curly:

Name: Shirley ‘Curly’ Shepard

Waist length curly hair 

Steals make up from anywhere.

Has a deeply flawed understanding of love

Uses her femininity and attractiveness to her advantage.

Like Angela but more rabid.

Her idea of romance is dining and dashing with Pony.

Only smokes Marlboro’s 

Steals Pony’s flannels.

Hates pepsi

Smarter than people give her credit for.

Leaves lipstick marks on EVERYTHING.

leave a ship or fandom suggestions for headcanons, fics or just questions in general and I'll do them if you want :)

[thestrangesthell]

"Let's get married on your favourite holiday."

"Will you marry me on Halloween?"

"That's in two days!"

I re-watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (casually, this time) and ended up slowly descending down another theory stairwell.

Rory's pathetic proposal uncovers a previously-unknown (though unsurprising) fact about Lydia:

Halloween is her favourite holiday.

While this detail comes as a shock to absolutely no one, it triggered a brand-new headcanon to emergency land straight into my brain.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could have been set at literally any time of year. The season has very little impact on the plot (with the exception of adding to the overall atmosphere and aesthetic). The main driving force is a few comedic gags with the Shrink Heads, Trick-or-Treaters and sets up the plot device for Astrid to fall head-first into Jeremy's trap.

Why does that matter?

Well, let's talk "psychic" connections.

Now, whether you believe Betelgeuse truly has a "psychic connection" with Lydia or not, it's fair to say the man is 100% spying on her.

Black and white motifs appear throughout the movie, insinuating a persistent presence of Betelgeuse. The first time we see this is during the Ghost House footage. A painting can be seen on the back wall and, in the night-vision camera, appears to be black and white stripes (or wiggles - if we're going to get really specific).

Again, we see black and white stripes on the man in the audience (whom Lydia "mistakes" for Betelgeuse) and later with the clown costume kid at Astrid's school.

Lydia also outrightly says:

"I feel this [his] presence."

There's not much more I can say here to convince you that Betelgeuse is an omni-present false protagonist.

The long and short of this point is that Betelgeuse is constantly checking up on Lydia. Whether it's to make her see him, sense him, miss him - it's all a part of his plan. The key thing is that he is able to do it.

Now, let's jump back to Rory's shit attempt at a proposal.

In this scene, Rory specifies Halloween is Lydia's favourite holiday. If we consider that fact that Betelgeuse is omni-present, he learns this too (although I'd place a lot of money on the fact he already knew and/or assumed this).

Now, let's jump in the line again, but this time, to the scene where Lydia summons Betelgeuse.

"I can't believe I'm doing this..."

After confirming that Lydia's daughter "is screwed," Betelgeuse bargains with Lydia for something in return in exchange for his help.

No where in this scene does Betelgeuse suggest or directly insinuate marriage. He simply asks for a way "to get away from her [Delores] permanently."

This could range from any number of things from Lydia's help putting a stop to Delores' plans to an outright exorcism.

It's Lydia who assumes that marriage is what he is after.

But look at him. He isn't going to complain. The man is delighted.

Anyway.

My point is that Betelgeuse must know that Lydia is engaged. Rather than make it awkward for her, he lets her make the call as to whether or not marriage is on the table.

Although I'm sure he also knows she's not exactly enthralled by the prospect of marrying Rory.

Now, let's cut to the wedding itself.

"If I don't do it now, I'm never gonna do it!"

I can't help but wonder, was Lydia talking about marriage in general, her marriage to Rory, or her marriage to Betelgeuse here.

(Side note: I headcanon that Lydia never got married. Not even to Richard. But that's a post for another day...)

After making make Rory make a fool of himself (say that three times fast), Betelgeuse sets the scene. He knows time isn't on their side, (yet still sings 90% of MacArthur Park like a lovesick idiot) and does some very specific things that round off my entire point:

He changes Lydia's original dress to something more of Lydia's taste. We know he was present while Lydia and Rory talked wedding plans in Charle's study, so we can assume he also saw what Rory ordered in from Soho.

He pulls out a lipsynch/floatation number à la Jump In The Line (which Lydia begs the Maitlands to do in the 1988 movie).

He gives her his literal heart.

And (most important to my point), he "crashes" Lydia and Rory's wedding to make sure it still takes place on her favourite holiday.

The wedding in Beetlejuice (1988) is as romantic as it is slow and steadily paced. That is to say, it's a complete shit show.

Betelgeuse is a manic mess of pleaseletmeoutintothelivingworldpleasepleaseplease and rushes everything in order to get his freedom. The idiot even forgets to have a ring at hand...or, ya know...finger.

Another sidenote: While I (personally) DO believe he has some type of strong feeling for Lydia in the first movie, he clearly wants his freedom more than a wife. He's been hurt by love before and literally snorts at the idea that he has to get married in order to get out "for good."

So...why is Halloween so important?

It's a day that's special and meaningful to Lydia.

And Betelgeuse is trying to make the wedding special and meaningful to her.

With a dress she would love, a song, floating in the air with her, calling her "one of the loves of my [his] life", taking it slow, throwing in a cheeky head spin to keep it strange and unusual - doing it all on Halloween.

He pulls out every single stop to make it as perfect as he possibly can.

Plus, if my headcanon that Lydia has never gotten married is true, the least Betelgeuse can do is embarrass Rory even further and make his attempt look even more pathetic.

So...yeah. Halloween was more than just a spooky setting. In my heart, anyway.

Happy Halloween 🎃