#they're attempting to get it all fixed up again so they can get around the mojave faster (my little headcanon for fast travelling

[vault81]

Had the geck reinstalled for 5 minutes, and I'm already making the twins a player home in goodsprings lmao

[sukunasteeth]

Sukuna has never said no to you.

It didn’t matter what the request was, simple or complicated, easy to fix or a days-long job, Sukuna was always at your side, completing the task as fast as he needed to to keep you satisfied. He would love to deny it, you’re sure, but evidence proves time and time again that he puts your needs and wants at the top of his priority list. 

And you were curious how far you could go with it.

The two of you are sitting in your underwear at the breakfast nook, warming yourselves in the bay window while the morning sun starts on the leftover night time chill. It wasn't quite time for breakfast, still too early for the both of you. In the meantime, you sip on your morning brews, preserving the comfortable silence. Sukuna is flipping through the day's newspaper, his eyes are groggy with sleep and he hasn't said more than a handful of words to you yet. He wasn't a morning person.

You were starting to change that.

"Kuna," You call to him, nudging him with your foot from your corner of the window bench.

"Hmm?" He doesn't look up from the paper, but his hand reaches down and grabs your foot, pulling it into his lap. His thumbs start to subconsciously knead at your muscles.

"I want these." You hold up your phone, which you had previously been scrolling through in an attempt to find something ridiculous for this exact moment. You were sure you had found it, something even Sukuna would find unnecessary. 

And yet, he merely glances at your screen, takes in the sight for all of two seconds, and then returns his attention to whatever news article he was in the middle of.

"My wallet's on the counter." He clears the sleep from his throat not sparing a second look. 

You blink at him in surprise.

"D-Did you even see what it is?" You flip your phone around to make sure you were displaying the correct thing. 

Sukuna is frowning before he looks up again, curious at your persistence. He gently cups your hand, bringing it only a minuscule amount closer to examine your screen a second time. 

You were on one of the most luxurious brand’s websites, showing him an incredibly regular pair of panties, no straps, no details, all black- with one of the most outrageous price tags you had ever seen for something so ordinary. 

Sukuna cocks a brow at you over your phone, "Can't imagine you need more panties when you're constantly stealing my boxers. But whatever, hand it over. I know my card number-"

"Kuna," You interrupt him with a surprised laugh, holding fast to your phone when he tries to pluck it out of your hands, "they're a thousand dollars."

He glances back, his eyes focusing lower on the screen where you know the price tag to be. The newspaper in his hands drops down, momentarily forgotten by what he sees. For a moment, you think you've found his limit.

"Wait, are those red one's assless?" He points just below the price, where the recommended products are depicted. "Get those too."

You drop the phone down so that he meets your eyes, which are wide with shock.

Sukuna always took care of you. Always insisted on being the provider of any single thing that you may need; a warm meal, a soft bed, anything your eyes twinkled at that was available for purchase- even if you would never think of buying or owning it. Granted, you never wanted much in terms of material possessions, so you didn't realize the true extent of Sukuna's leniency until now.

It was slightly intimidating, and part of it felt wrong. Sukuna had money, plenty of it, but that didn’t mean he should feel the need to spend copious amounts of it on you just because you could ask him to. He was giving you too much power, it felt like.

You huff through your nose, frowning at him, which only has him tilting his head further to the side in question.

You ignore it, setting your phone onto the window seat and crawling your way closer to him, until you can gather up his face in your hands and lock his gaze into yours.

He glares at you past smushed cheeks, but doesn't make a move to break free of your hold, humoring you. "The hell are you doing-"

"You know you don't always have to say yes to me?"

Now that has him taken aback. His mouth automatically opens for a witty response, but your question seems to have effectively taken the words from his mouth. You can see the cogs in his head turning, and what you wouldn't give to peer inside his mind and hear his thoughts.

It takes him a moment, but eventually that familiar confident smile stretches across his sleepy face. His hands seem to instinctively slide their way up your bare legs until his fingers grip your hip bones, pressing into you. 

He hums, "When have you ever said no to me?"

You scoff, ready to give him a prime example, but end up coming up short. The two of you loved to tease each other with disobedience, but in the end you were eager to give Sukuna anything his heart desired. You loved to please him, it was one of your favorite things to do, in fact.

"You never ask anything ridiculous of me." You remind him, smiling as one of his warm hands slides back down your waist and dips into the pair of his boxers you were sporting that day. 

"You know what's ridiculous?” His voice wraps around your throat, and suddenly has you swallowing past the delicious grip. You're folding into him before you even realize it, at the mercy of his calloused hands. "The implication that I wouldn't do just about anything for you."

You can't help but sigh hopelessly, although it comes out as a desperate noise that pleads him for more. You really were all his, just like he loved to tell you.

"Now hand me your phone." It's a whisper, coaxing you. "I wanna see you in red."

You can’t say no. 

At least it was mutual.

[pinkanonwrites]

"Oh! That's What That Does?!"

All art by @archie-sunshine

G1 Rumble/ Mechanic Reader - 2400+ Words NSFW, Valveplug, Plug 'N Play, Mild Sparkplay, Accidental Stimulation, Edging, Human Reader, GN Pronouns

Ahh, the inherent eroticism of repairing your machine.~ I've had this one cooking for a while, so I hope you all enjoy! I've also gotten pretty attached to this mechanic Reader, so they'll likely pop up again with other cassettes (and maybe even some other Decepticons!)

NSFW WRITING AND IMAGERY BELOW THE CUT!

“Ey… EY! Careful wit’ dat! It’s touchy!”

“Rumble,” You groaned, pinching the bridge of your nose. “You're making this way more difficult than it needs to be.”

“I wouldn't be complainin’ if you'd stop touchin’ all up on bits that don't gotta be touched! Rootin’ around in there like I'm one’a your crappy organic machines!”

Removing your hands from Rumble’s open chest, you tossed them roughly into the air. “Y'know what? Fine. Do it yourself. Better yet, get Frenzy to pull the shrapnel out of your chest. That'll go great.”

You would have slid off of Rumble’s lap and stormed off, if not for his massive servos closing around your wrists with an unexpected delicacy. Your efforts to remove your hands only reinforced his grip, using just enough force to keep you from leaving without crushing your wrists entirely.

“H-Hey, no need ta be so hasty! Look, I’m just steamed cause'a the battle, dat’s all. Frenz’ can't do dis, it's gotta be someone more… dainty. Y’know. Little human hands and all dat.” The harsh glow of his visor had dulled slightly as his gaze cast down to your hands. You rolled your eyes, wrists finally slipping from his grip as you settled back in. 

Dangling wires and sparking shrapnel dotted his open chest cavity, illuminated by the light of his spark chamber. Rumble had staggered off-balance into your workshop whining about the prodding pieces of broken metal keeping him from transforming properly, yet you’d barely managed to get two wires back in place before he started squirming and whingeing and slinging verbal abuse at you.

 Not that you weren't used to it, any interactions with Rumble and Frenzy usually involved some level of bullying. Fortunately, the two cassettes are also incredibly predictable. As soon as you would threaten to take away or withhold what they're asking for, they’d start falling all over themselves with apologies and placations. After all, you may not have been the only mechanic in the area, but you were certainly their favorite.

“Are you going to actually let me work? Or are you going to start yelling at me again?”

“Yellin’? Who's yellin’? Yer the mechanic here, my spark is in your squishy little hands. Do your magic, doc.” He sat back again, servos clutching the edges of your workbench in a show of effort, a genuine attempt to keep them still (or however genuine any show of rule-following from Rumble could be.)

“That's what I thought. Now let me actually fix a few things before you start whining again.” Your gloved hands dipped back into his chest cavity, skirting the edges of his spark chamber to pick away at the bits of loose shrapnel stuck in some of the wires. His frame shuddered, a hiss of steam escaping through his dentae as your knuckles brushed the underside of the spark casing.

“C-Careful,” He said again, with significantly less bite to his tone.

“Does it hurt?”

“Somethin’ like dat.”

“I'll be careful, so let me know if it gets to be too much.” You smoothed a palm down the armor covering his stomach, flinching back when you heard another sharp hiss of steam.

“I’m fine! It's fine! Just… do ya gotta be all on top’a me like dis?”

“I can't reach properly if you're laying down. If you're standing you might keel over on me, and I really don't feel like being squished to death today.” He let out a low grumble as you jacked another cable back into its proper port. “I'll try to be quick, that way you won't have to worry about my ‘human germs’ and you can get outta here. Deal?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just-”

“Be careful. I know.”

And with that you went to work, separating and organizing cables, taping off leaky tubing and removing pieces of scrap metal as gently as you could. Every once in a while Rumble would jerk or twitch beneath your touch, letting out a muffled curse or huff but sparing you from his usual complaints. It was… uncharacteristically quiet, for sure. This was the most extensive repair you'd ever done on him, though, so maybe he was just having surgery jitters.

“Okay, I've gotten most of the shrapnel out. But there's a piece right behind your spark casing.”

“Well? Get it outta there!”

“I'm going to, but I need to get my whole hand in there. I'm warning you now because it's going to be bumping up against your spark casing a lot. I'm going to do my best but you have to tell me if it hurts too much.”

Rumble let out a long, pathetic groan. “Actually doc, maybe you can just leave dat one in there? F-For funsies?”

“Eh?! Rumble, I’m not gonna just ‘leave it in there’! It's gotta come out.”

“Something's gonna come out if you keep proddin’ around in there like dat…”

“What was that?”

“Gh! Nothin’! Don't worry ‘bout it!”

“...Okay. I’m gonna start now. Are you ready?” Rumble only responded with gritted dentae and a tense nod. Working your gloved hand under his spark chamber, you could feel the ambient energy making the hairs on your arm stand on end as you felt for the jagged edge of broken metal. Your glove blocked your view entirely, so you were left blindly groping your way up the metal surface, feeling for anything bent or out of place. When your fingers could no longer reach any further while still avoiding the casing, you slid forward and ducked slightly into Rumble’s open chest, the back of your hand pressing up against the underside of his spark chamber.

CLANG!

You jumped, and if it weren't for Rumble’s arm wrapping around you and almost crushing you into his open chest you may have jostled the sensitive chamber even further. You slid your hand back again, easing off of the reinforced glass, and his grip receded.

“What the hell was that? And what was that clang?”

“I said don't worry ‘bout it!” He hissed, voice glitchy with static. “Everythin’s totally normal, I dunno why you're getting all jumpy ‘bout- MMNGH?!” You moved your hand up again into the same position, and Rumble let out an embarrassingly high whimper. You glanced up at his face, a flush of pink behind the usual grey and beading with coolant… and something clicked.

“Oh my God are you getting off on this?”

“N-No!”

Behind you you heard a sharp snikt, and the sound of pressurizing hydraulics.

“...Maybe?”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“H-Hey, don't go gettin’ a big head or nothin’! A bot’s spark chamber is sensitive! Don't go thinkin’ this is cause of your squishy frame or your soft little digits or nothin’!” He seemed to almost shrink in on himself, face plate practically glowing as his shoulders pulled up around his helm. You'd never say it to his face, but he looked surprisingly… small, at this moment. You heaved an exhausted sigh.

“Okay. Okay. I'm going to get this last piece out, alright? It's the last one. And whatever happens while I'm doing that..? It just happens. We won't bring it up again, no need to be embarrassed. Deal?”

“‘Deal?!?’” He squawked, positively scandalized. “How do I know yer not gonna gossip with Frenz’ the next time he's in for a tune-up?”

“Well Frenzy usually never lets me get a word in edgewise, first of all.” You huffed. This was way more than you'd signed up for. “I'm not going to make fun of you, Rumble. Let’s just get you patched up, then you can head home. Okay?”

His mouth was pulled into a tight, wobbly frown as he glanced down at you, choking out a single word. “...Promise?”

“I promise.”

“...Slag. alright, let's get dis over with.” He lolled his head back against the table with a clank, resigning himself to his fate. This time, when your knuckles brushed his spark casing, he couldn’t stifle his soft moan. Your fingers felt further and further up, until almost your entire hand was behind the glass bubble containing his pulsing spark. Finally, you could feel the jagged piece of metal. You wrapped your fingers around it and gave it an experimental tug. It stuck fast, and your hand bumping against Rumble's spark only pulled another surprised moan from him.

“W-Watch it!” He yelped, sounding too fucked-out to come across as actually threatening.

“It's really stuck in there. I'm going to start working it out, so let me know if you need me to stop.”

“Wh… workin’ it out? Whadda ya- ohhh…~” 

With your thumb and forefinger gripping the edge of the broken metal, you began to wiggle it gently back and forth to ease it from the plating and wires around it. Each time you moved the back of your hand rubbed up against the far side of his spark chamber, warmth radiating through your glove as Rumble started to vent more harshly.

“Slag… slag! Don't think it's ever been touched back there before. Feels… feels crazy.” He moaned. The metal of your work table shrieked and crumpled like cardboard under his iron grip, desperate to keep his servos off of himself or, Primus forbid, you. The piece stuck firm, and as you braced your other hand against the outside paneling of his chest to readjust your balance he let out a sharp, staticky yelp. “S-STOP!”

You froze immediately. “Are you okay? What's wrong?”

A few shuddering vents were your only response for a moment, Rumble’s visor lights flickering frantically as he tried to steady himself. “Whooo… Almost blew my top for a second there.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey! Yer the one that told me to tell ya if I need ya to stop! I'll be slagged to the Pit before I let some ‘squishy’ run my charge like dat.”

“...Can I start again? I’m making some progress here.”

“...Y-Yeah. Yeah. Yer good.”

You let out another soft sigh, trying to focus on the rhythmic sktch sktch sktch of metal on metal rather than Rumble’s shivering whines. His vocalizer pitched and warbled with static, attempts to stifle his own words slowly giving way to a deluge of fucked-out babbles.

“Ah! Gh! Ohh, mmnh, stupid little hands feelin’ all- nnh!~ Jus’ get it outta there! Please?”

I’m working on it. You’re doing good, just hang in there.” Your placations only resulted in another desperate moan. After what couldn’t have been more than another thirty seconds or so, he blurted out again.

“Ah! Stop!”

You retracted your hand for a moment, letting Rumble gasp for breath above you in a futile attempt to cool his core. You rubbed at his chest paneling as he shivered beneath you hard enough that you thought bolts were going to start coming undone. Even the paneling you were seated upon was burning up, heat seeping through the fabric of your coveralls. His glowing face plate was slick with coolant. Without thinking, you reached up and swept away a bead of it with your thumb, making him jump.

“H-Hey, quit dat…” He groaned, all bite lost from his tone.

“Rumble… The more you keep stopping me the longer this is going to take.”

“You think I don’t know dat?!” One of his arms draped dramatically over his face. “I’m tryin’! But you just keep pokin’ around in there and it’s all touchy and it’s makin’ me feel like my spike’s gonna burst and I can’t take it anymore!” He sniffled. Could Cybertronians even sniffle? You weren’t sure, but he sounded close to tears.

“Rumble… Have you ever actually edged yourself before?”

“Whu- Whuh? How’s dat any of yer business?”

“I’m just thinking…” You ran a placating hand down his shivering plating. “If you haven’t it can be really overwhelming, and-”

“I can handle it! I-I can!”

“Let me finish. It can be really overwhelming, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself further. Just… take a deep breath for me, okay?” You took a slow, steadying breath, and after a second he mimicked it. “Good. Just think about letting go, okay? I’m not going to judge you. Just think about it.”

He let out a low, pitying grumble, peeking at you from behind his arm plating. “...You can start again.”

Once again, your hands dipped into his chest cavity. Only this time you slid both hands up behind his spark casing, gripping as much of the broken metal as you could reach. As you rocked it back and forth Rumble’s moans returned with a fervor, one servo finally flying to cup your lower back.

“Ah! Ah! Slag, oh slag please! Please don’t stop I’m so fraggin’ close.” He fisted the back of your uniform, crumpling the cheap fabric between his digits. “C’mon, c’mon c’mon c’mon I need it!”

“Shh, I’ve got you baby. Just let it happen.”

With a metallic shriek and a gush of brackish oil the shrapnel popped free, the force enough to send you sprawling if not for Rumble’s servo in the small of your back. Of course, said unexpected force also slammed the backs of both your hands right into the underside of his spark chamber, and Rumble’s voice box screeched into a wail of radio static. Something hot and sticky splattered up the back of your coveralls; said something you decidedly were not going to look at until later. His frame rattled and shivered beneath you, steam venting and joints glitching and spark pulsating a near-blinding glow.  Finally, after a burst of noise and sparks and twitching, he went slack beneath you, helm clanking against the workbench as his optics flickered.

As delicately as you could, you removed the oil-slick shrapnel and let it clatter onto the floor before shedding your gloves and dabbing at his face plate with the cuff of your sleeve. With the whir of an old monitor blipping back to life, his visor blinked back up to its standard brightness.

“Whuh… Wheh?” He garbled.

“How you feeling, hun?”

“Like I got struck by lightnin’... but in like a nasty way.”

You choked back a snort. “Well, I’ve got all the worst of it over with. Feel free to rest for a while if you need it. I’m gonna go change my jumpsuit.” 

He let you slide off his lap without a fight, not even commenting until you’d turned around to make your way over to your office. Only then did he let out a low, salacious whistle when he’d finally caught sight of the back of your uniform.

“Comm me next time yer free, doc. Then I can repay da favor.”

[heavyhitterheaux]

No Judgments

See Me Through You Blurb

Synopsis: You and Joe do the 'We listen and don't judge' TikTok challenge 🤭

Pairing: Husband!Joe Burrow x Wife!Reader

Requested by: a few gorgeous anons 💕

Series Masterlist

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

After wiping your mouth and rinsing it out with mouthwash from your sudden episode of morning sickness, you made your way back into the bedroom where your husband was still peacefully sleeping.

You attempted to climb back into the bed without waking him up, but feeling the weight shift made him flutter his eyes open. Joe had never been a really deep sleeper, but since he found out you were pregnant, usually he wakes up at the smallest noise and it left you surprised this morning when he didn’t feel you get out of bed the first time.

“Baby, you okay?” He asked as he pulled you towards him so he could wrap his arms around you and kissed the top of your head.

“Your children won't let me be great and made me throw up again.” You quietly answered and you had now grown frustrated since it seemed like the morning sickness wasn't only happening in the morning, but throughout the day.

“You want me to make you some tea?”

“Yes, please. I'm miserable.”

Joe then placed his hand on your belly and began to rub small circles on it as he noticed that your bump was actually starting to show.

“Babies, stop making mommy sick so she can sleep. Daddy’s orders.”

“Hopefully they'll listen to you because clearly they pay me no attention.”

“When they hear ‘the voice’ for the first time, they're going to be running for their lives.” Joe said, referring to the first time he heard it and made sure to stay out of your way for the rest of the day.

“I still to this day have no idea what you are talking about when you say that.”

“It's a voice you make when you get really annoyed. Ask Ja'Marr, he'll back me up.”

“I just think you two are being dramatic.”

“Says the most dramatic person in the room….”

“Husband! Take it back!”

“Nope, it's facts and I'm not going to lie to you.”

All you did was roll your eyes in response as Joe raised his eyebrows at you.

“Don't catch an attitude with me because it's something you didn't want to hear. Fix your face.”

“I'll fix mine if you let me ride yours.”

“I… These pregnancy hormones are giving me a run for my money and got me fighting for my damn life. One thing at a time and let's get your nausea under control first.”

Later on in the day, when Joe was sitting at the island in the kitchen, you went and sat next to him while setting up your phone. He quickly noticed and looked over at you.

“Whatever it is, no.”

“But baby! Pleaseeee?!”

You knew Joe hated being in front of a camera, but you loved doing TikTok challenges with him from time to time.

Sighing and finally giving in, he put his phone down to give you his undivided attention.

“Okay, what are we doing?”

“We listen and we don't judge challenge. I sent you a few so you would have an example to know what to do.”

“Only because it's you. Let's get this over with.”

“Yay! And I want you to go first.” You told him as you pressed record.

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“When I feel like I'm getting sick, I act like I'm so drained so I can't do anything so you'll baby me.” Joe was the first one up and smiled at you when he was finished.

“What the? I baby you anyway! Like 98% of the time.”

“AHT! No judging. You just take it to a different level. Moving on.”

“You are literally MY baby though. My 6’4 baby and I'm 4'11, but who's to say anything about that? I love you bad and I see you're using it to your advantage.”

“To get endless cuddles from my wife? Hell yeah I'm taking advantage of it.”

“Okay, next.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“So after you fall asleep since your bedtime is like 6 pm.. like a grandpa…” You started to say, but was immediately interrupted.

“9 during the season!”

“Stop interrupting me, husband! After you fall asleep, I go and buy things on your phone and make sure to delete the notifications so you don't find out.”

“BABY!”

“HEY! I BUY YOU THINGS TOO!”

“And you hide the packages too because I literally never see any of them.”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“Fine. Keep your secrets.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“When we were at LSU and we were just friends, I memorized your schedule and knew you had a lot of late classes and I would purposely wait for you if it was dark outside to walk you to your car to make sure you were safe. And it gave me a chance to spend more time with you.”

“So, that's why it seemed like you were always around? Aww, you love me!” You told him as you pinched his cheek.

“And don't you ever forget it.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“During last season when I saw you wore THOSE PANTS, yes you know the ones I'm talking about, after I specifically told you not to because they looked crazy and you wore them anyway, you kept asking if I've seen them but I hid them somewhere in our house and they have been hidden for so long that I forgot their location.”

“I LOVE THOSE PANTS, BABE!”

“THEY ARE HIDEOUS, BABY. NO!”

“I'm making it my mission later to find my pants.”

“I know Ja'Marr probably bought you those ugly ass pants.”

“AHT! You're judging!”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“When you're mad at me, I purposely go into the cabinet and make all of the jar lids tighter so you have to come and talk to me.” Joe confessed and you rolled your eyes and crossed your arms at the same time.

“SERIOUSLY? And here I am thinking I'm a weak bitch! I can lift almost as heavy as you can! And a jar lid is what does me in?!?”

“Works every time.”

“I'm going to have to do it myself next time.”

“Like that will ever happen…” Joe said and you playfully rolled your eyes.

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“Okay, so….” You started to say as you glanced at Joe and he sighed knowing that something crazy and out of pocket was about to come out of your mouth.

“Oh shit, here we go.”

“Sometimes, I purposely piss you off and I don't know that you know you do this but your voice gets deeper and it turns me on so bad. Like your voice by itself turns me on, but when you get mad, whew. Sign me up for EVERY position. It's happening now and I'm just thinking about it. Gets your girl all hot and bothered.” You quietly said as Joe stared at you since you were now squirming in your chair and trying to keep your legs as tight as possible.

“Are you seriously squirming over there? And I’m not surprised by this in the slightest. Just wait until we're finished with this, I'm about to turn you every way but loose. And hold on! I thought we were keeping this PG!?” He asked as he leaned over and kissed you.

“Don't threaten me with a good time and when are the videos we do ever PG? Especially when it's something like this? And don't get me started because I will literally rip off your clothes at this very moment.”

“Good point and see? And that's why you're pregnant now.”

“Because my husband is fine as hell and I'll fu-” Joe's eyes went wide as he promptly covered your mouth with his hand and in protest, you licked it, making him look at you dumbfounded.

“No! Do not finish that sentence. This is really about to turn into something else if you don't stop. And did you just lick my hand!?”

“I wanna lick something else too, but I'll save that for when we turn the camera off.” You tried to whisper, but failed miserably.

“BABY QUIT IT!” Joe pleaded and all you did was shrug.

“I was like this before you married me and you should have known that once this ring was on my finger, I was about to be ten times worse.”

“Hmm, that's putting it lightly.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“I hide some of your perfumes so that you'll only use my favorite ones that I've bought for you.”

“Babe! How many have you hidden!? And here I am thinking that I've lost them!”

“Hmm, not telling.”

“You're annoying.”

“I'm cute and you love me.”

“Survey says that both of those responses are correct.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“So, when you got hurt during your rookie year, I was watching the game and saw it happen and my heart immediately dropped. Because we literally had an argument hours before that game and we weren't talking and now I think back on it, I had no idea what the argument was about. But, I low-key felt that you getting hurt was somehow my fault. I remember packing my things and getting on a plane and crying the entire way there and I honestly didn't know if you wanted to see me at that point. Because I had sent you a text right before the game and you didn't respond. And to this day, I still feel like that.”

It was quiet for a few seconds before Joe said anything.

“That… baby that wasn't your fault. It was a bad hit. And of course I wanted to see you. You were actually the first person I asked for. I never knew you felt like that.”

“I hate seeing you in pain and I…. I'm about to cry again.”

“I can tell, hormones.” Joe replied as he wiped your eyes for you.

“But I came back from it because of you and how you helped me. You being there was enough. You love me bad, don't you?” He asked as he was trying to get you to smile.

“So much, and you know it.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“Ever since you told me you were pregnant, I watch you until you fall asleep to make sure you’re okay. Doesn't matter how long it takes or if I have to get up early. You're my priority.”

“And, I'm about to cry again. Damn these hormones.”

“You are literally MY person and I don't know what I'd do without you.”

“Ladies, get you a husband who treats you like the queen you are every day because….. shoutout to Jimmy and Robin because the two of them gave me one of the best things that ever happened to me.”

“Wait… ONE of the best things? I'm not THE best thing!?”

“Hmm, you're top five.” You replied as you shrugged.

“Uh? You mean number one?”

“If it makes you feel better, the top five things all have to do with you.”

“That sounds suspicious, but I'll let it slide for now.”

“I love you Joseph Lee Burrow!” You exclaimed as you kissed his cheek and wrapped your arms around him.

“Stop trying to change the subject and I know for a damn fact you didn't just call me by my full name. I get anxious when you do that.”

“Wait, huh?”

“We've gone over this a million times. My name is BABY to you. When it comes to you I don't know who Joseph is.”

“And he calls me the dramatic one.”

[jensthwa]

the rhythm of our hearts (KYS x reader).

part of the love's an uncharted path universe ★.

SUMMARY:

Yeosang, with his camcorder and his looks from afar, ignites your curiosity in a way that makes you act a little dumb and against your friend’s judgments. When you finally get tired of him not approaching you, you decide that the night is young and life’s too short to not find an answer to your questions. On a dirty rooftop, your newfound friendship with him might just be the most surprising outcome of the whole ordeal. Is it enough to make you stay, though?

PAIRING: law student!yeosang x dancer!afab reader.

GENRE: strangers to friends to lovers (slow burn).

WORD COUNT: 17.5k (jesus christ)

WARNINGS: SMUT ☽ (MINORS DNI) (in the next part), attempt !!! at comedy, dual pov, reader uses female pronouns, drinking, a tease of violent behavior, choi yeonjun shows up in this story again AND almost beats yeosang up, step up 3d inspired scene as you can see from the banner of the story lol, yeosang gets accused of being a stalker but there's no intentional stalky behavior i promise!!, yeosang is shy, many implied conversations (lol sorry, just know that they talked and talked on that rooftop okay?), unbearble chemistry (sigh), so much unnecesary yearning, the inevitable passage of time, the slowest of burns guys i'm so sorry i promise next part will be juicy i just needed to stablish them, lap sitting, almost kisses the same way gabriela and troy from hsm2 were almost kissing, wooyoung being a menace (you know the deal).

NOTES: this fic is part of a pocket universe you can find in my navi link or in the link at the top of this post. there's a lot of things here that only make sense if you read the other stories first but if you ignore them (since they're not at the core of the story) it can be read as a separate thing lol. this is 100% self indulgent, as all fics should be, and i think i've re-read it so many times that if you find a typo or something that just doesn't make sense, you can blame it on english not being my first language i guess lmao. i hope you enjoy it and if you do feel free to send to my askbox/reblog/type in any feedback or thoughts! <3

POSTED: 05/27/2025

permanent taglist: @kyunlov @monsta-x-jagi @tinyelfperson @0115degrees @strawberrymars98 @faerouzia @honeybeehorizon @daniela-f-uwu @ultrapinkvoidbouquet @kyeomooniee @getouttamygrillxoxx @fairylover68 @sushiinmidnight @hwalighters @qveenbunni @calmoistorm @yoonglesbae @potatomountain @beckxisxinxlovexwithxjin @svintsandghosts @lemonkait00 @blue5ummer @fancypeacepersona @hyukssunflower @i-love-ateez @miracle-sol @alsomimi @xielian-i-guess @e3ellie @mady-66 @hwallazia @st3ft0n3s @ginevrsstuff @hotteokkay @xylatox

masterlist.

The neon lights reflect on your skin as you move through the crowd, foreign sweat mixing with yours in the process. 

It’s packed tonight, hardly any free space for you and your friends to claim as yours but you manage. There’s a free table that you all but run up to and when you and your friends crash into it, you all laugh before fixing it in its place. 

Routine takes over and the same person suggests going to get you all your usual drinks, which you say yes to. You don’t want to get distracted and you need to scan the premises to figure out if the person you’re looking for is here tonight. 

You don’t actually know his name. You know your friend Yeonjun almost beats him up, you know he’s been filming something (you) around the club for what seems months now. This person has never actually spoken to you before, hence the almost getting beat up by your most protective friend. 

Taking into account all the red flags, it’s a little crazy that you still feel the need to look for him in between the dancing bodies and the people making out in the dark corners of this club. Your club. Where the bouncers know you and the bartenders discount your drinks because you and your friend group are one of the regulars here. 

It took you a while to gain this status, one you’re very proud of. It’s a reminder of what you’re sacrificing everytime you decide to show up, what you’re risking. And even though it’s been a while and you’re an adult who can make their own decisions, the same adrenaline rushes through your veins everytime. As Yeonjun returns with your drinks and hands you yours with a flirty smile, the same feeling takes over your body, never really growing old. 

The first time you came here, you were a freshman. You came of your own volition, knowing no one at the time. You see, as a ballet dancer there’s a lot of restrictions, a regime you must follow to fit in with your classmates that you, up to the middle of your first semester, followed at face value. You didn’t have any reason not to, after all this was what you’ve worked so hard for, for years and years. 

Years of special diets and hours of training and practice to get where you were, full scholarship in what was supposed to be the first steps of your ballet career. So you followed these restrictions not because you were supposed to, or because your family forced you to pirouette a certain way in the path of perfection, but because you wanted to. 

As a child, you sat down and watched every single dance movie available on your local cable. You watched the nutcracker and then you watched the barbie version of the same tale over and over again until you knew the steps by heart, even if you didn’t know the name of them or how to execute them properly. 

You loved the way they all looked while dancing, the delicate atmosphere in such complicated moves and the ability they had to hook the audience in without saying a word, all they could convey even through a screen. So, in a way, it became your dream to be immortalized the same way. 

But in having that dream, you created this aura of expectation around you that you fell prisoner of the second you understood what it meant. The second you begged your mother to sign you up to classes and then you begged your father to take you seriously when you said that ballet was what you were going to do for eternity, you got trapped into it. Your father swore at the time it was just a phase and you, stubborn as the man in front of you, needed to prove him wrong. 

And you did prove him wrong. You grew in the industry, you started to get eyed by recruiters early on and you gained scholarship after scholarship, made valuable contacts and stayed friends with people who are able to move you forward in case you fall behind on something. You were smart about it, you are smart about it, but yet again the pulsing of your heartbeat syncs with the beat of whatever noisy song is blasting in the club’s speakers and you forget the strict regime and the diets and the sacrifices made to get where you are. 

It’s the same type of rush you felt when you were told someone was following you, filming you. The usual panic one can feel at the thought of being stalked dissipated the second you realized he didn’t have any cruel intentions towards you or the rest of your friend group. You did, kind of, save him from getting beat up by Yeonjun.

You had to rush towards a campus that’s not yours and make your way through the crowd of nosy people to get to them, but as soon as Yeonjun saw you he stepped away from the guy and followed you and your friend Kazuha out of there. You did spare the guy a glance and recognized him from the club, gave him a tiny smile and made sure he was up on his feet before fully centering your attention on your friend.

And pushing him in the chest as hard as you could. 

Kazuha sighed, pushing his chest as well “What’s wrong with you, Yeonjun?” 

“He’s been filming us— Filming you!” He pointed in your direction and you shook your head.

“I thought we established he’s not dangerous! And even if he was, Yeonjun, you could get in serious trouble for just— Behaving like a criminal!” 

“Like a criminal?!” 

“Like a punk with not one care in the world!” You answered, nodding and reinforcing the jab at your friend, who looked like a child being scolded for something they didn’t do. The thing is, if you didn’t get there on time, he probably would’ve. 

Yeonjun is a great, loyal friend. Always has been. And so you obviously forgave him and now, as he takes your finished drink from your hand and settles the cup down into the table just to drag you to the dancefloor, you think you read his intentions clearly, his looks and smiles lately and the way the carefully grabs your waist to move to the rhythm of the r&b track playing.

Understanding has been taking over you these past few days. 

But it doesn’t really matter when he has a rooster of people waiting for his texts and calls, patiently staying in place until he gives them the time of day and you know that’s the treatment he would give you too if you give him a chance. 

So you ignore the spark on his eyes as you sway your hips and turn around, your back against his chest and your butt against his crotch as he follows the rhythm you’re marking. Always taking the lead, always guiding everyone else’s steps makes it easy to ignore everything around you, when you close your eyes and let the atmosphere take you completely too. 

It’s like everything else disappears. The expectations and the fact that you have to wake up early the next to massacre your feet in order to continue your career, your graduation approaching fast, the last showcase and the weeks that follow it, in which you'll have to wait for an offer, for an opportunity. 

It’s just you and the music and Yeonjun hands spinning you around and around again. It’s just you and the ache on your feet and your heavy breathing being muffled by the sound around you, drowned by the rest of the heavy breathes everyone else is letting out. It feels so familiar and yet so exciting, like you’ve never experienced it before. 

Euphoria moves around you in what it feels like a neon glow, it makes everything feel slowed down and too fast and, most importantly, it makes your heart beat in a way no other thing or being makes it beat. 

Except maybe when you open your eyes and catch the stranger who’s always filming staring right at you. 

He’s far away, but you can see him clearly. He’s the only one on the floor standing still, camcorder in hand and you notice that he’s filming someone else, not you, but he’s staring in your direction either way and it makes you smile a little. 

There should be a limit at how much a person is allowed to stare at another before it makes it creepy. Again, there’s a thousand red flags you should be considering but the only thing it brings to you is unsated curiosity. 

And so you don’t think twice before detaching yourself from Yeonjun and moving in the stranger’s direction. Neither of them expect it, because the guy opens his eyes a little wider and you hear your friend’s voice over the music. 

“Y/N, are you serious?! We’ve been here less than forty minutes!” 

What he means is that you’re about to disappear for the rest of the night, like you usually do. It’s not that you always leave your friends behind, especially not when you come here with them to share the night with the group, but you do tend to disappear for like an hour or two. 

And the term disappear is something they use only to bother you because, in reality, your location is shared with all of them and the way you get lost is usually in between the dancing bodies. If they look hard enough, they’ll be able to easily find you. 

Unless you found someone to kiss for the night. They don’t bother looking for you then. 

However, it is a little early to disappear on them. It must be around eleven thirty or twelve, twelve thirty at the very least. You tend to do your rounds at two, two thirty, normally. Maybe that’s why the stranger makes that face. Maybe he has you studied, your behavior noted down in that head of his you want to decipher so badly. 

You have been wondering for a few weeks now why he never approaches you. He seems contempt just to film you from afar, but tonight is different. He’s not filming you. 

There’s a tint of jealousy in your chest at the sight, a small crease in your forehead when you approach him. 

He takes a step back.

You want to laugh a little, but you take the hint, if he’s sending any in your direction. Getting into his space fully is not in your plan anyway. 

Yeosang shouldn’t be here. He should be studying or having dinner with his friends or something. 

He really shouldn’t be here. 

But he can’t help himself. Earlier, in his and Yunho’s dorm and while editing the footage he’s gotten in the last week or so, he decided that he needed clearer shots of the Hongdae club he’s been frequenting. 

It’s only a happy coincidence that that’s the club you usually go to, the one where he can find you most of the nights. Very convenient, really. 

Ugh, who is he kidding? 

There’s this magnetic pull that he hasn’t been able to shake off ever since he saw you for the first time. At the very same club, a year before he started to go there with the purpose of seeing you. 

You were alone, not with the people he usually recognizes. You were dancing around a table, making some of the people sitting down at it laugh before becoming entranced with the way you moved. You tend to have that effect on people, he noticed earlier on, because when you move it looks simple yet extremely interesting, it looks natural, it looks almost magical and Yeosang convinced himself that the reason he kept coming back to that club specifically was because he needed to figure out how your movements were so sharp and yet so smooth at the same time. 

It’s his fault, really, because he’s shy and he should’ve just talked to you right there and then but he convinced himself he wasn’t going to see you ever again after the last time he went and you weren’t there. 

And then he joined a film class. An elective, one that he had in his curriculum for the last year and half of his career. He chose it because everything else seemed boring or too in touch with his law degree, which he was growing a little exhausted from. 

The only respite he had from studying endless pages about special criminal evidence rule was his cheering practices, and he had been benched for awhile for missing some of the important routines in order for him to get all his concepts right before his exams. And now he has to get ready for the internship he’s planning to apply to with a firm he’s been dreaming about since he was in highschool.

So joining that film class was a little stupid on his part, but he enjoyed it for the most part, before the final project was announced and the thing that came to mind was you and your dance moves. 

He had somewhere to start: a little documentary about dance and nightlife in Seoul. It’s a theme simple enough for him to do a little research, a few interviews that reflect the cultural significance of it all in modern society and he had Yunho and his dance team to avoid the need to go out of his way to look for more interviews or content outside of them. 

The thing is, his artistic vein itches every time he thinks about not including you in the film. He has zero justification for the way his chest hurts when the thought of putting his curiosity and tiny crush to rest crosses his mind. 

So he’s been filming from a distance and he’s been careful not to make you or your friends uncomfy ever since he decided to focus more on the nightlife aspect of the documentary instead of the dance part of it. That one time your friend found him, confronted him and pushed him to the ground for filming you all without clear consent doesn���t really count. 

That day, you smiled at him sweetly as you pulled your friend away from him. That had to mean you were okay with it, right? He should just ask you to clear the air up… But he had permission from the club manager to film anyway! 

He has a script, he has an outline of how he wants the film to turn out and he has almost everything to sit down and finish editing it before actually starting making an effort with that law firm and the internship… 

But he’s unable to shake the need to have you in the documentary. Anything will do, really: an interview, a clear shot of you dancing for the camera, anything to have you and his little obsession with the way you move immortalized on tape forever. The way you dance deserves it, the way you seem to control the ambiance around you, the people, the music, the club… He has never seen anything like it before. 

He swears he has been gathering up the courage to actually speak to you instead of lingering around like a creep. 

And tonight is the night.

He has to play it cool. He got there a little later than usual, he’s actually talking to the people he’s filming this time, he asks them for permission and then proceeds to talk with them as well as he can over the music. 

He pretends he doesn't see you and your friend group, including the guy that almost fixes his face, in the corner to the left of the dancefloor. He’s gathering the courage to walk over there and apologize for the misunderstanding, explain the nature of his documentary, ask you all formally to use the footage he has and ask you for a short interview with the questions he already has written down in the notes app on his phone. 

The person he’s filming has gone silent suddenly, just dancing to the r&b song playing and Yeosang does nothing but film them. He’s about to resume conversation when his eyes involuntarily look for you again. 

And he catches you on the dancefloor, the friend who almost punched him twirling you around to the beat of the song and grabbing your waist afterwards. 

There’s that magnetic pull again, that inability to look away from you even though he’s filming someone else. Your body glows in the red neon light and he’s mesmerized by the way you seem to be in your own world, encapsulated in your own bubble with your eyes closed and your body moving to the rhythm. 

He’s unable to look away even when your eyes open and the first thing you do is look at him. His breath catches, his eyes widen and he feels a little sweaty suddenly but he still holds your gaze, his eyes still follow you as you step away from your friend and move through the ocean of dancing bodies. 

Towards him. 

You are walking in his direction. 

Oh, God. Are you going to speak to him? Is this real life? He feels unsafe, unprepared all of the sudden. He takes a step back as you almost reach him. 

And then you smile widely, feline-like, like a big predator who’s playing with its prey just for the fun of it and he seems to get what you’re trying to do. For some reason, he feels like he reads your mind when you look down at the camcorder and then at him again. 

He bows at the person he was filming before, the ghost of the interview he was doing vanishing, before he could get any information that actually helps him or his script, and then his eyes follow you. You’re already walking away when he points the lens in your direction. 

Swallowing hard, he moves in between the dancing bodies to follow yours. He adjusts the lighting in his camera as he moves, he catches the neon before lowering it and finally catching you in the hallway of people that his friends like to call the makeout hall (because it’s kind of dark, the only lights that get to it are the neon ones nearby and the occasional moving leds that move around the club every few seconds so it’s intimate enough to kiss the one you like for the night). 

But no one is making out with anyone. There’s some people chilling against the wall and a few others dancing and they all smile as you move through them to the rhythm of the song playing. Some guy grabs your waist and dips you low and Yeosang smiles as he catches the moment clearly, the lead beams lighting up the space at the correct time to catch you coming back up. 

As he passes people by, they all try to dance with him as well. He shakes his head a little when the same guy grabs his waist and Yeosang blushes when he looks back up and you’re laughing at him. He shakes his head again but you keep moving, so he moves as well and he loses you when you turn the corner. 

Quickening his step, he follows as smoothly as he can but when he reaches the same corner you’re gone. 

Swallowing thick nerves down, he tries to ignore the exaggerated beat of his heart at the thought of that being the only interaction with you that night. He looks around and frowns when he can’t find you at all. Just when he thinks he can see you with your arms up, a guy that’s clearly too intoxicated to be in an environment like this gets in front of him and dances for the camera. He puts his hand on his shoulder and moves him to the side and the dude goes away easily but when he looks up that mirage he had of you in front of him is gone. You’re gone. 

Looking at the screen of his camcorder, he tries to zoom in and hopefully distinguish you between the dancing bodies and moving lights but he can’t see you, he can’t— 

He feels a presence over his shoulder, a little behind him. Entranced and a little terrified, he turns his head slowly. 

He’s almost nose to nose with you when he does. 

His breath catches. You’re close to him, your face almost resting against his shoulder as you pretend to look at the screen a few seconds longer than him. When you look up, there’s a tiny smile curving your lips upwards and Yeosang can’t help but to give you one back. 

“What are we looking for?” 

Oh. 

He realizes he’s never heard your voice before. He certainly imagined it but whatever it was he knows it doesn’t make it any justice.

Even with the loud music, you’re so close and you speak loud enough for the sweet velvet of your timbre to make him inhale a sharp breath. There’s this slight edge to your stare, a flirtatious energy in the way you laugh at him when he opens his mouth and then closes it again, not really sure of what to answer.

“Cat got your tongue?” 

“Y-you,” he manages to stammer out and then he swallows hard again. “I w-was… I mean, you disappeared for a second.” 

“I just went back around,” you point with your thumb over your shoulder to the entrance of the makeout hall and he nods, understanding, spacing out and hyperfocusing on the situation at the same time. “I thought you were able to keep up,” you pause, eyes tracing his face for a quick moment. You lean in, lips dangerously close to his ear and then you say clear as day the words that might be the reason he loses his sanity: “Can you keep up?” 

Yeosang is a mildly competitive person. He is competitive for the love of it, not because he feels like he has to win. He likes to win, however, it’s not going to be the end of the world if he doesn’t. That’s something he tells himself often, with the career path he’d chosen there’s going to be a lot of highs and a lot of lows, same with cheering, same with anything he ever does in life, really. 

So why is his heart beating so fast at the thought of you daring him to keep up? It’s not the end of the world if he can’t keep up, really. 

But he feels the need to prove you wrong somehow. He senses that you see him like a coward, and in a way he is one, but tonight is the night he finally gets to meet you, to tell you his name, to know yours. 

So he nods once, gaze still holding yours and breath still caught in his throat “Try me.” 

That seems to be the answer you were looking for. You smile fully and Yeosang commits it to his memory, takes a mental picture of it before you’re stepping away and into the crowd of sweaty bodies again. 

And this time, Yeosang is able to keep up. 

He follows you swiftly through the crowd, he doesn’t get caught between the bodies, his eyes don't’ let go of your silhouette at all as you guide him up the stairs, looking over your shoulder only once when you bump into a couple making out against the wall and laughing at them when they shoo you away with their hands. 

His heart is beating so loud he feels it in his ears, the throb of it on his throat and he swallows down the feeling in an attempt to stay calm as it gets louder and louder. You turn a corner he’s never even seen before, into a dark hallway where he has to squint his eyes to not trip over anything. No one else is there and his nerves spike, only to come crashing down when he slams into something, into you. 

Your back against his chest and you don’t really say anything as you try to get a door in front of you two open, he hears the clink-clanking of the lock and he hears you softly curse when you fail at getting it right the first time. It makes his lips curve slightly upwards, it makes this whole thing a little less surreal and a little more human. 

He’s not sure why his body is registering it as a dreamlike experience in the first place. 

The music has faded away slightly. He can tell there’s speakers nearby but none in this space, so that might explain why no one is here. Couples making out and people grinding against each other have a behavior pattern he easily recognizes even if he doesn’t participate in either normally: They like being seen. 

Yeosang could never understand that. 

Even as you get the door open and guide him to what looks to be (judging by some cables on the floor, the pvc pipes and the back of the neon sign that always greets him at the entrance) the rooftop of the club, you hurry him inside and close the door behind you. Resting against it, Yeosang watches as you take in a breath and let it out slowly. 

“Sorry, I’m one of the only few allowed here and we don’t want anyone else finding out they can access this space.” 

“Oh,” he nods, focusing on the camcorder screen again and filming the roof with all his might. He wants to turn to you, keep looking at you in the lights the streetlights cast against the roof and both your faces. “And you got this special treatment because…?” 

“I will answer your questions…” he hears you say and that’s when he takes the chance to look at you, curiosity glinting in your eyes in a way he’s sure it’s reflecting his. “But first you have to answer mine.” 

Yeosang is not sure why he’s trying to play everything off in a cool manner when he’s sure you can see right through the way he puffs out his chest and secures his stance before saying a simple: “Fair enough.” 

And you do, you laugh and peel your back from the door only to walk a few steps, nearing the edge of the roof. You sit down there and his heart quickens before dropping for a completely different reason than before. 

You must see it in his face because you laugh again and shake your head “There’s a tiny balcony, owner’s office. You can come and see if you want.” He doesn’t, instead he nods “I believe you,” he clears his throat and closes the screen of his camcorder, recognizing that maybe this is not the moment to have it ready to record, although he wants to keep fresh and in video everything that’s happening right now. 

That’s the only way he would believe it did happen tomorrow, when he wakes up confused and wondering if he dreamt the whole thing. 

Your smile looks pretty real, though. And also it looks pretty, period. 

“Are you afraid of heights?” 

“Is that your first question?” He can tell he’s stalling, prolonging the moment unconsciously and he swallows his monologuing back down and shakes his head. “No, I’m not, I just trust you.” 

“Why? You don’t know me.” 

“My camera does,” he shrugs, looking down at it and then back up at you again. “I feel like I get to know you a little every time I edit a clip of yours, too.” 

“That camera almost got you an ass whip. You’re welcome, by the way.” 

It’s his time to huff out a laugh “Well, you didn’t exactly give me any time to say anything to you that day.” 

“Well,” you tilt your head, your eyes focusing on the ground for a few seconds, “my friend didn’t exactly give me a choice either.” 

“Thank you.” He finally says, after a bit of silence where the memories of that day came back: The confusion, the realization, the push to the ground and the look you gave him as you pulled your friend away. He’s actually very thankful, taking into account that he wouldn’t know how to throw a punch and not feel bad about it five seconds later. 

“It was really dumb on his part, but I mean… You understand, right?” 

That your friend wanted to beat his ass instead of talking it out like normal human beings? No, he doesn’t understand but he nods anyway. 

“You’ve been filming us for a while now. He thought you might’ve been…” You trail off, not really wanting to say it so he says it for you.

“Stalking you.”

“Yeah,” there’s a soft smile on your lips that leads him to believe you didn’t think that yourself. Is either that or you feel a little bad for him, which is way worse, so he decides to trust his first thought. “What’s all the filming for?” 

“A documentary.” 

That seems to surprise you, your eyebrows raising and falling and your eyes widening a little bit. 

“On clubs?” 

“Dance,” he corrects with a tiny smile of his own, “and the nightlife in Seoul. It’s for my class.” 

“Oh, right, you’re going to school,” you nod as you remember probably the only piece of certain information you have on him, or so he thinks. “So you’re studying to become a filmmaker?”

“A lawyer, actually.”

“Wow,” huffing out a laugh, you shake your head in a little disbelief, “didn’t expect that at all.” 

Yeosang laughs too, a nervous sound more than anything. 

“I don’t look the part?” 

Pausing, you take him in: from his outfit (he is sporting all-black attire today, black shirt, black short sleeve button shirt on top of it and baggy black pants) to the way he stands a safe distance and your eyes even go from his face to his hair. He feels like staying still while you gather whatever information you need to answer, but then he also has the need to fix his fringe and tug his button shirt down a little even if it does nothing. 

“You look like a very artistic guy.” 

“And lawyers are not artistic,” he nods and then squints his eyes at you a little, joking at the best of his abilities right now. “Is that what you’re trying to say?” 

“I just never met one who was,” you say in return, squinting your eyes back at him. “Guess now I have.” 

He can literally feel himself blushing. 

This is bad. This is very bad. 

Lucky for him, you don’t notice or, if you do, you don’t make any comments about it. 

There’s another beat of silence that stretches and Yeosang decides to walk around the roof. He’s careful to not step on anything he’s not supposed to as he walks towards the back of the club’s sign. 

He turns to you after looking at the metal foundation of it for a solid minute, blinking rapidly when he finds you got up and walked closer, standing where he was before “Do you have more questions?” 

“Why me?” 

Yeosang swallows hard for the umpteenth time tonight. He has a hundred million ways to answer that question and he’s trying to pick the one answer that doesn’t give any more of this weird crush he has on you fully away. 

However, he can’t help to go the truthful route about it. 

“I like the way you dance. I… I saw you a long time ago, before picking up the film class, and I was just completely, um…” He pauses, tongue wetting his lips in a nervous tick and he swears he sees you follow his unconscious movement with your eyes, but it hardly matters when he's at a loss for words. “I was really entranced by your dancing, I guess you could say. And so when I started the documentary and saw you again I just… There’s no way I couldn’t have you in it, even from afar.” 

“And why didn’t you explain this to me before?” 

“I don’t know.” 

He answers that too quickly, without any hesitation and it makes him blink a few times before laughing it off. 

“I mean, I wanted to, I just n-never found the right time, I g-guess.” 

Slowly and after a few seconds, you give him a nod. 

When you open your mouth to answer, Yeosang feels like everything's in slow motion: Here it comes, the moment you call him a coward, the moment you mock him for taking so long in approaching you. Even tonight, he wasn’t the one who initiated this, you were. 

“You’re shy.” 

Instead, he’s relieved by the knowledge that you’re more understanding than what he initially thought. Yes, he is shy. He’s shyer than usual when it comes to pretty people, even more when they poke at his curiosity and fascination. 

“I should’ve guessed that you were, hm,” you nod again, laughing a little aftwards. “I don’t know why I thought there would be this whole mystery behind you not coming over and talking to us.” 

“Have you thought about it before?”

Yeosang swears he said it in his head. To his account, he asked the question in his mind while he nodded and came up with a response that takes him out of the hole he dug himself in. But you look up at him with raised eyebrows and a curl to your lips that he’s growing used to.

“I have,” you answer without an ounce of shame pouring out of you. You seem proud of it, even, and Yeosang wonders if you're as outspoken in every other aspect of your life as you are with him. “When someone films you from a distance and doesn't even tell you their name it makes you wonder just a tiny bit.” The last part seems to be a joke and Yeosang's lips curl upwards in return. 

“I'm Yeosang,” he doesn't extend a hand for you to take, he stays put in his place as his own name sounds foreign coming out of his mouth. “I… I'm s-sorry I didn't introduce myself before. I'm—”

“Shy.” You answer for him and he shrugs a second later. 

“That's not really the reason, I… Oh, this is going to sound so weird,” he mumbles under his breath but you manage to hear him and laugh a little, shaking your hand to signal that it doesn't matter. “I thought it would, I don't know, break the magic a little?” 

Your expression turns from slightly amused to slightly disappointed again in a second and he regrets following your lead and being honest with you as well. 

“The magic?” 

He needs to find better words to explain himself, but nonsense comes out of him without a second thought and he can physically feel himself cringing at the words. 

“Yeah, like it would actually force me to get this over with,” he shakes his camcorder and then closes his eyes, eyebrows scrunched as he, once again, attempts to climb up the hole he dug himself in. “—I mean, talking to you would mean asking for the interview that I want to ask for and, once I get that footage, I feel like I'm never going to see you again.”

Getting in out in one breath, Yeosang opens his eyes to find you staring at him with something he can't figure out. 

It goes away after you scan his face with your eyes and find something he doesn't know what it is. 

“That's a little dramatic, don't you think?” 

Now, when you put it like that…

He huffs out a laugh and then takes in a little bit of air that he desperately needs “I guess.” 

Laughing at him for what it feels like a thousand times tonight, you look at him up and down and seem to consider something. After a few seconds pass, your smile turns soft and it’s your turn to take in a breath. 

“Y/N.” 

“Hm?” 

“My name,” you say, almost cutting him off. “You didn’t ask.” 

Yeosang wants to smash his head against the neon sign. 

“O-oh of course, sorry. Y/N,” he repeats with a nod. “Pretty. Your name!” He corrects himself immediately. “I-I meant your name is pretty, not you— I mean, you are! You are really pretty a-and…” 

Yeosang watches helplessly as you seem to revel in the state you put him in with the simple whisper of your name and the accusatory joke. 

But you don’t mention it, only turn around and let your knees touch the floor, near the edge of the rooftop again. This time, you rest your chin in your hand and your elbow against the edge and you signal at him to sit down next to you. 

He does. 

“You wanted to interview me?” 

Now he can answer that without messing things up “Yes.” 

“Hm,” your eyes turn from him to the part of the street visible from the angle you’re both sitting at and then your brows almost touch each other as you think. And think. And Yeosang can do anything but stare at your profile and swallow hard at the realization that the neon lights and the darkness of a club would never do your beauty justice. 

Now, he had seen you in broad daylight before. But it was quick and he was mildly distracted by the almost getting beat up emotions so he didn’t appreciate it fully. Now, even though it is nighttime and the neon sign casts a shadow over you, he realizes it’s the first time he gets to see you upclose. 

Up close and in silence, not like the few minutes before where he managed to embarrass himself like no one has probably ever embarrassed themselves in front of their crush. 

“I think,” you say, after a while of just staring at the street where he was quietly watching you instead, “that you really overestimated me and how interesting I can be.” 

“What makes you say that?” He asks in a whisper and you smile, turning to him.

“My story is no different than the story of my friend Kazuha downstairs. Or my classmates. Or any other ballet student in this city.” 

“You do ballet?” 

There’s this trace of surprise on your face that must mimic his, but he thinks it’s because you thought he knew that already. 

“Yes, I’m… I go to K-Arts, Yeosang.” 

“I didn’t know that.” 

“You didn’t?” 

He laughs a little again and shakes his head “Not a stalker, remember?” He attempts to joke and it works because you’re scrunching your nose and nodding the second after. 

“Right, we already established that.” 

“Mhm.” 

“Well, I go to K-Arts. I’m a senior, I’m supposed to focus if I want to get into the university’s dance company fully and all.” 

That catches his attention “Fully?” 

“Yeah, I don’t mean to brag or anything,” you start and your tone gives away that you are, in fact, bragging. Yeosang doesn’t mind it a bit. “But I’m good at ballet, too, not just at… Shaking my ass to a Kendrick song.” 

He giggles and you roll your eyes with a smile on your lips still. 

“So I have joined them for a few performances based on my grades and skills and all of that.” 

Humming, Yeosang looks down at his camcorder and then at you again “And all of your classmates get to do the same?” 

“No,” you answer in a murmur, frowning. “Why?” 

“Then that makes you different from, at least, some of them.” 

He can’t tell if you look annoyed or impressed at the fact that he managed to turn your words against you, but you blink rapidly a few times and Yeosang speaks up before you can tell him anything in return. 

“Let me interview you. This film probably won’t leave my classroom and then it will gather dust in my hard drive for eternity after I pass the class, but it would feel very incomplete without you.” 

You say nothing and he clears his throat, feeling a little dumb for even trying but before he can backpedal on the offer, you’re speaking. 

“Right now?” 

The question doesn’t have any shyness laced to it, but it’s soft. It’s like you can’t believe fully that he wants to interview you and he wants to ask if that’s the case, but he also doesn’t want to accuse you of anything or, worse, assume your feelings. 

He’s big on assuming, he’s trying to be better. 

“Oh,” he shakes his head quickly. “Not if you don’t want to! I… D-don’t feel pressured to say yes, I was… Was that too pushy? I’m sorry.” 

“Yeosang—” 

“I mean it! I have pleeenty of footage. My friend Yunho actually it’s on the documentary too! He’s such a talker, he loves to talk, so I have like a thousand hours worth of interviews and—” 

His rambling comes to an end when you hand closes over his on the rough material of the edge of the roof. He looks at it and then at you and he notices he’s breathing a little hard and that his heart is racing so fast he can barely hear the already faint sound of electronic music and the voices that served as your background music since you two got up there. 

“I want to do it,” you assure him and he swallows hard when your thumb traces three small circles on his skin. One, two, three and then your touch is gone and he can finally breathe. “Just not tonight. I look like a mess.” 

“You truly don’t,” he mumbles without really thinking about it and you smile. 

“Do you have something to do tomorrow night or can you come over here for the interview?” 

“Here?” 

“Mmmhm,” you look around the roof and then at the back of the neon sign, and then you turn a little and point to where the light the neon sign casts is clear and cover a spot on the roof large enough for both of you to sit. You get up and he doesn’t. “That must look cool on video, don’t you think? I got a lot of pictures there already.” 

When you turn around, that’s the first time Yeosang catches a trace of shyness on your face. 

“If you want.”

He smiles fully, widely and the corners of his mouth hurt a little because of it. 

You walk backwards, towards the door and Yeosang knows you’re making your big escape so he doesn’t follow you at all. “See you tomorrow, then?” You yell when you almost reach the exit and he nods.

“See you tomorrow!” He yells back and, when the roof is devoid of that life you seem to bring into everything or so he thinks, he turns to the street and catches the bouncer looking up at him.

He looks angry.

He’s also a very big dude.

“Shit.” 

Yeosang believes that it was a blessing to romanticize the idea of who you were before actually meeting you. Because, as much as he thinks you’re the prettiest person he’s ever seen, his crush tells him that he wouldn’t mind becoming your friend instead. 

He came back the next night and the night after that and the night after that… No, wait, that night he stayed in and studied for a quiz he had the next day and then the next day he went back to see you at the club. 

It was obvious by the third night that the both of you were using the interview and documentary as an excuse. Yes, Yeosang did film a few bits and precise questions here and there, but the rest of the time you two spent together was just an endless conversation that he could stay in for the rest of his days. 

Not one dull moment, Yeosang had never met anyone who makes him talk so much. He usually just listens to his friends and adds to the chat if needed but you don’t even need to ask him a question to get him going.

It makes his heart soar, it feels fulfilled of a need he never even knew he had: Being heard. 

Being heard and understood. 

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to do anything at all.” You tell him one night, on week two of this extended interview. 

He doesn’t even have your number yet. 

But he’s unable to think about the rationals and specifics of whatever the hell is going on when he’s staring at the stars, his back on the cold and dusty roof, his head next to one of those pipes and his arm brushing against yours. 

“Nothing at all?” 

“No,” you breathe out, your other arm resting above you, your fingers reaching and ghosting the hairs that stick out of the hat he’s wearing. “I want to dance and then I want to eat something yummy and then I want to sleep. I don’t want to…” you trail off.

And he understands.

“You don’t want to worry.” 

“Exactly,” you return right away, in a whisper and then after two seconds you turn to him. 

He’s already staring at you. 

“I don’t want to worry.” 

“I don’t want to worry either.” 

Yeosang is not sure where this vulnerability is coming from. 

Maybe his mind tricked him into thinking he was better off not sharing certain things with the people who love him the most. 

He’s glad you’re allowing him to explore that talkative part of himself without any real judgment. You give him faces and once over when he says something silly, something not usual, something out of his comfort zone in terms of sharing… And then you go back to being understanding, to furthering the conversation and actually ask him about it instead of talking over it like he notices he’s been allowing others to do all these years. 

Not that they realized they were doing it either. His friends have never been malicious in their actions or intentions, but they are much more outgoing than he is. 

And so are you. 

But you seem to have a special interest in what he has to say. 

And so it becomes really difficult not to share and grow closer every night. It comes to a point where he can start to read your eyes and expressions, where he starts telling what you’re feeling without actually asking about it. 

One night, as you both sit under that part of the roof that catches the neon light of the club’s sign, he catches you staring at his camcorder with something somber crossing your features. 

“We can stop doing this anytime you want, you know?” 

His murmur takes you out of whatever is actually going through your head and that little crease in between your eyebrows goes away, softness coating your eyes a second later and, when they look up at him, he all but feels his heart stop. Which is incredibly dangerous. 

“Did you get all the videos you need already?” 

“Maybe,” he shrugs, “but that’s not why I keep coming back here. I feel like you know that already.” 

Lips curling upwards in a soft smile, you nod “I want you to tell me anyway.” 

Yeosang hesitates for a second, trying to find the way to put into words what he actually meant by that, but he fears he doesn’t really know either. 

He decides to go with what his heart is telling him “I like spending time with you beyond the interview.” 

Your smile grows wider. 

“Me too,” you whisper back, like it’s a secret. “You’re also not a good interviewer, Yeosang.” 

It’s silent for a second and then you both laugh. 

“Ouch,” he pretends to be hurt in between laughs and you push his arm a little. “Noted.” 

Laughter dies and you seem to be thinking something over. You open your mouth and then close it and Yeosang imagines you’re weighing the possible outcomes of what you’re about to tell him. Although, when you do, he doesn’t think it’s anything crazy. 

“I want to see you in daylight,” you start and before he has the chance to agree, you keep going. “I mean, I already did, at your school. But that was for like… thirty seconds. And I wasn’t really paying that much attention to you. But now I am and I want to see you under the sun.” 

Yeosang fucking blushes.

Again. 

His reply comes as soft as if he’s not having heart palpitations and shortness of breath at the moment.

“I’m sure we can arrange that.” 

You nod and then blink a few times, thinking it over it seems. 

“It’s spring,” you start and Yeosang nods, “and I like flowers…” 

He takes a mental note of that.

“And there’s a pretty glass dome at the botanic greenhouse…” 

Setting his lips on a straight line so he doesn’t laugh at how cute you look trying to invite him to it without actually doing it, Yeosang contains himself and then nods one last time “Tomorrow?” 

He enjoys making you smile so wide. 

“At ten.” 

When gets to his dorm, Yeosang tries everything in his power to not label it as a date. 

You’re friends.

He’s happy being your friend. 

If he could tell his heart to keep it down, he would. 

Kazuha frowns at you, arms crossed as she leans into the doorframe of your room. 

You both live in one of the bigger dorms, Zuha’s family has money and she brought you along after insisting she didn't want to be alone in this two bedroom apartment with a shared bathroom. 

Because that's what actually is, a freaking apartment. 

It's truly more than what you deserve, truly, but she's not one to back down when she truly wants something. 

Like right now. 

“So you're going on a date with this guy.” 

“Yeosang,” you correct her, “and it's not a date.” 

She sighs, a little exasperated, and shakes her head at a flower-pattern dress you hold up for her approval. “Too on the nose. What do you call it then?” 

“Hanging out with a friend.” There's really no doubt in your voice even if you're scavenging your closet for something that makes you look extra nice. “So, not a date.” 

“You haven't stopped talking about him so I guess you can see why I assumed it was a date.” 

You look up at her, a smile pulling at the corners of your lips “Then you know his name is Yeosang. Caught ya.” 

Zuha rolls her eyes and you decide to go with one of your regular feel good outfits, one that you know makes you look good without trying much. 

“I don't care what his name is! That's not my point!” 

“Then what's your point?” 

“He's a… dude.” 

“That I've formally known for almost a month.” 

Throwing herself in your bed, your lips curl upwards again when you catch her dramatic expression and hear the over exaggerated huff she lets out. 

“Could you maybe communicate what you're actually thinking instead of doing… whatever this is?” 

She braces herself in her forearms and looks at you with a frown “You said it was cute the last time!” 

Last time you went out with someone, she means. It was nothing serious, merely a movie and a dinner and a kiss at your doorstep before deciding dating took a lot of effort and a lot of time you didn't have. 

So that's why this thing with Yeosang is not a date. 

Expectations can't go up if it's not a date. 

But last time your friend was also just being dramatic to commit to the overprotective bit, saying Yeonjun rubbed on her and what not. 

This time, you can tell she means it. 

So you give her a look and her indignant expression dissipates until she's pouting and letting herself fall on the bed again. 

“I mean, why can't you hang out with him in the club? Where are we all three minutes away?” 

She's so cute. 

“Because I told him that I wanted to see him during the day and the club is closed.” 

“You invited him?” 

You stare at her disbelief with a raised eyebrow and her expression goes away when she realizes the dramatics are truly not working on you. 

“Okay, I’ll shut up.” 

Smile widening, you shake your head at her “There’s truly nothing to worry about, Zuha.” 

“You’re my best friend,” she argues, with a pout, “of course I worry.” 

Kazuha lets out a tiny screech when you pout back at her because she knows that, in the next few seconds, you’re going to tackle her with a bear hug.

And that’s exactly what you, before she even gets the chance to stand up from your bed. She pushes you to the side and you both stare at the ceiling for a second, giggling and breathless. 

“You must really like him if you asked him out. You don’t ask people out.” 

Suddenly, you feel like your breath is fully taken away. You think about it for a second but there’s no use in denying the obvious. You were never someone who fought to suppress their emotions, someone who shy away from what they truly want, but when it comes to things like this (love or attraction, you suppose) it’s a little complicated. 

Because you have no issue going home with someone you met at the club, making out with them in a dark corner outside of it or in the middle of the dancefloor if the time calls for it, but you don’t ever talk to them. 

Not like you’ve been talking to Yeosang, anyway. 

“I really do.” 

When you hear her sigh, you both giggle again.

And then she helps you get ready with soft city pop coming out of your laptop’s speaker and hooks one of her necklaces around your neck. It has your birth flower as a pendant and, when you ask how she has this, she simply answers: “Boys will give you anything as a gift as long as it looks feminine enough. He didn’t know my birthday.” 

It’s no mystery why she’s exclusively dating women now. 

Fifteen more minutes pass and, just as you’re heading out the door, a paper slides underneath it. You hear the heavy steps of the building’s manager (who is insistent in delivering mail the old way, just to get a chance to snoop in your personal lifes) as they pass your door and the next one and only when the sound completely disappears, you pick the mail up. 

One envelope is for you, one is for Kazuha. 

And it suddenly hits you both. 

The company results. The ones that tell you if you got in or not. 

Gulping, you notice the difference between your envelope and Zuha’s. Hers has the K-Arts logo and yours is blank. 

Your gut tells you what the results are before even opening it, but you follow your best friend to the couch and sit down in front of her before rushing her to open the envelope. There’s barely an ounce of patience in your system as she reads the words and you follow the movement of her pupils. 

“O-oh my god, Y/N, I got in!” 

“Into the company?” 

“Yes!”

You’re sure your neighbors are tired of hearing your screams. Of joy, of anger, of whatever. They must be tired.

But right now that’s the only possible reaction and your heart is heavy with both happiness and pride. You’re so proud of her, you tell her as much and hug her and then get up and jump up and down a little with her still in your arms before the moment passes.

And now it’s your turn. 

If she notices the difference in appearance of the envelopes, or the way your face falls with worry and your fake smile doesn’t even hold, she doesn’t mention it. 

It doesn’t take even half a paragraph to read your rejection from the company you’ve dreamed of joining. 

“Wha… Why?” your friends ask and you shrug. 

“It doesn’t say— Wait,” you notice that the letter is folded at the bottom so it could fit properly inside the envelope. When you unfold it and read the text, you let out a scream of surprise. 

Zuha pushes your shoulder and then leans in, trying to read as well “Read it the entire thing to me!” 

“They rejected me here but it says: However, we took the liberty of sending your profile to the internationally renowned classical ballet company, The Royal Ballet, and they have decided to offer you a spot in their school to further your education and train with their techniques for no longer than a year.” You stare up at Kazuha and her mouth is hanging open, her eyes are wide as well and you feel the familiar prick of tears in your eyes, but you blink them away. “If your performance is up to their standards, they have decided to offer you a spot as a member of their corps de ballet, with a full salary after six months of your second year with them.” 

Lowering the letter, you stare up at your friend again. There’s silence for a few seconds where you two try to make your brains compute the information and what it all means, what it all implies, what would happen if you say yes to this opportunity.

When you say yes to this opportunity. 

And then you’re both screaming again, her arms around you as she pushes you up to your feet to jump in a circle, excitement pouring out the both of you. You realize you’re crying when a sob escapes you and she stops jumping to hug you even tighter. 

“You deserve this, Y/N. Of course they wouldn’t let you stay in this small company, of course they wouldn’t— Oh, your makeup!” She reprimands when she pulls away to catch your eye, but her thumbs are swiping away the tears either way. You pout. “A full salary after a year and half, too!” She pauses and her mouth mirrors yours, her eyes filled with tears as well. “I’m so proud of you.” 

“Zuha…” 

“— So, so proud.” 

It isn't until she pinches your cheeks that you remember you have somewhere to be. 

“Oh fuck, what time is it?” 

She rolls her eyes. 

“He likes you,” she says with a tiny smile, “he’ll wait.” 

That calms your sudden panic and you nod, her fingers pinching your cheeks one more time. 

“Okay.”

“He better.” She adds in a threat and you laugh. 

“Okay.” 

Yeosang waits for you, just as your best friend said. 

He leans against the entry wall with squinted eyes because the sun is shining bright today and before you get to him you get a second to take in how he looks in the daylight.

His skin glistens slightly, like he put on moisturizer and sunscreen before he got here (all green flags in your opinion) and he’s dressed in all black again, casually. You realized that when he goes to the club he’s a little dressed up, as you are every night as well. Or, at least, the way he stylizes his clothes makes him look different. 

It’s okay, you think, I’m also someone else entirely during the day time. 

You ignore the weight in your heart at the thought that you’re possibly leaving him and this newfound friendship behind in a few months. 

Why is it that the good things, the ones that excite your spirit, always last so little? 

“I realized,” he starts as soon as he sees you, a smile brightens up his face immediately, “that I don’t have your number.” 

That didn’t even cross your mind. It should’ve, but it didn’t. You see, you can’t even start imagining a text thread with Yeosang. With him, everything feels like it should be this way. 

With him, in front of you. In person. 

Your heart aches a little again but you push it away. You won’t let very obviously good and rewarding news get in the way of this not-date. 

Even if you’re dying to tell him. 

Instead, you shrug and offer him your sunglasses “You never asked.” 

He looks at what you're offering and frowns and then you point up at the sun. 

“It’s bright inside as well?” 

You nod. 

“You’ve never been?” 

He smiles like he’s been caught and your mouth drops open, a little scandalized by this new information. 

“Yeosang!”

“You never asked.” 

Rolling your eyes, you head to the booth that sells the tickets to go inside but he hurries to get in front of you… Two tickets in hand. 

Coming to a full stop, you tell your heart to behave. It shouldn’t react this way over something so simple. 

And yet, it does. 

“I forgive you for twisting my own words against me.” 

“I forgive you for being late,” you’re about to tell him he’s doing it, again, but then he drops his head to the side and looks at you with a little worry in his eyes. “Is everything okay?” 

More than okay, actually. Everything is spectacular and I haven’t even told my parents about the offer. I haven’t told you and I might be getting your hopes up even though I’m leaving. Oh, I also didn’t get in the company I told you about. And I’m terrified of leaving the country and possibly spending the rest of my days somewhere I can’t even call home.

“Yeah,” you nod and, to possibly distract him from the way the pitch of your voice went up a little, you take his arm in yours and start walking towards the door, “everything good. Got a little too carried away with the whole get ready part of the day.” 

If he notices the way you’re not even glancing in his direction, he doesn’t mention it at all. 

“Well, you look beautiful.” 

Now, that makes you look at him. 

He coughs a little and looks away. 

“You always do.” He adds and you all but laugh at the way he’s so bold and then so shy. 

“You look really good too, Yeosang. Always,” you add as well, bumping your hip into his softly. “Now that I’ve seen you in broad daylight, I can confirm.” 

Now it’s his turn to laugh a little and he turns to you as you walk down the initial part of the building. There’s a few rooms to walk through but you both seem to disregard that, walking straight to the conversatory automatic doors. Your breath gets a little caught up in your throat. 

He truly is a beautiful man. 

“Not an ounce of disappointment?” 

Faking an offended gasp, you shake your head. “Not at all!” 

Yeosang nods, taking a look around the room. 

“Good,” his voice comes out in a murmur, but you are close enough to hear him. “I’m glad.” 

Finally, you only smile and look around the room as well. 

It’s been awhile and there’s some things that have changed, but the place gives you the same feel it did when you first came. Like a year after it opened, because it was packed every single day before that. Now, not so much. You see a woman with two kids and a stroller, an older man with his hands behind his back walking around without staring at the plants much and a tourist-looking couple taking a picture in front of a massive potted plant. 

It was hot then and it seems even hotter down, the humidity clinging to you almost immediately. They are trying to replicate a tropical forest in this area, so the plants that thrive in the conservatory climate all require this level of humidity anyway. You should’ve mentioned that, or remembered it before even stepping in. 

You came with your family, you took pictures in front of some plants you’ve never seen before, you bragged about it to the kids in your ballet class and then never returned. But it is really—

“This place looks so not like I expected it to look.” 

Not only does Yeosang manage to make it seem like you both are thinking about the same thing all the time, he also sparks your curiosity like no other person ever has. 

“How come you’ve never been here?” You ask as he lets go of your arm, taking out a small (but semi-professional) digital camera. He doesn’t turn it on, just secures the cord around his wrist and turns to you at the questions. 

“I don’t really enjoy crows. I guess I said that I would come when the buzz of the opening died down and then never remembered to check it out after that.” 

His answer makes you tilt your head as you think. 

“You don’t like crowds?” 

He shakes his head at you. 

“But you went to the club almost every single night?” 

Again, he looks like he’s been caught doing something ridiculous. There’s shyness oozing off of him, but also a hint of shame that you don’t like at all. 

“Is it the right time to admit that I went to that club to see you?”

You squint your eyes “And to film your documentary.” 

“Yes,” he nods, “but there’s only enough footage one can get before it becomes a little obvious that I was there only for you. Not only the last few weeks, I mean…” 

You’re guessing he’s expecting you to be a little freak out by that, but you’ve both discussed this before, that first night when you two finally got away from the crowd to talk. So you’re not freaked out but you are a little nervous because you know what it means.

You’ve always known what it means. 

It’s just a little bit heavy on your heart today because you know you can’t fully carry this out without hurting him or yourself in the process, not when you’re leaving anyways. 

Again, you almost let that feeling ruin the moment, this moment, these days that’s exclusively for the two of you to enjoy. Those feelings don’t belong in this, in the soft embrace of Yeosang’s company and understanding. He also deserves to enjoy the little tour you’re about to give him, to enjoy the ambiance the fake waterfalls and rocks provide. 

“Okay,” you say with a smile that seems to get rid of the shame in his expression, “I’m flattered— and glad, to be honest. I enjoy your company.” 

“I enjoy yours.” He says back and offers you his arm again. You take it without thinking twice. 

“Let’s see how much you enjoy it after I talk your ear off with my guided tour.” 

He laughs “I get one of those?” 

“For free,” you add with a nod, turning to him, “or, well, the small price of your sanity.” 

He pretends to think about it for a second but after you squint your eyes at him in suspicion and fake offense at all the thinking, he concedes. “Sounds good, reasonable even.” 

“Mhm.” 

Feeling giddy, you go on and on about the place. About what you remember from the actual guided tour you paid for back in the day. About the plants and the importance of the place during the cold winter months and Yeosang listens to you even though what you’re explaining is obvious. 

You drag him to the second floor and then to the seed room (a room where they explain the different types of seeds) and then to the library and then to the cafe to take a tiny break from the heat that follows the conservatory and the rooms around it. 

Yeosang takes photos the entire time. He records, he takes your picture in front of an emulated dessert and a few cacti with tiny and beautiful flowers blooming from them. He lets you take his arm and, by the time you’re both out of the dome and into the path that leads to the park attached to this botanical garden, you’re both walking shoulder to shoulder. 

And your pinkies are brushing. 

“You shouldn’t have,” you say to break the comfy silence you’re both in as you enter the bridge connecting one side of the park with the other. “Next time they’re on me.” 

Shaking your coffee cup, he huffs something close to a laugh but when you look at him from the corner of your eye, his face is flushed. 

“Love when you say that.” 

Behave, beating heart. 

“What?” You ask in a whisper. 

“When you say there’s going to be a next time.” 

Oh, the universe is funny. Silly. A goof, a meanie even, for playing with your emotions this way. 

“Yeosang…” 

You can tell the moment he makes the decision. One that takes a lot of bravery, one that steals the breath from your lungs and makes a shiver run down your spine. He intertwines your finger with his, slowly, with a caress when you reach the end of the bridge and move to the side to let other people, who are not even paying attention to you, pass by. 

A few seconds later your hand is fully intertwined with his and you try no to cry because he’s looking at you with a speck of hope in his eyes. Hope for a future you can’t offer.

Because you’re leaving. 

“You told me that you like when I tell you things,” he starts and you lick your lips, nodding as a reply because you can’t find your voice even though you should. You should stop him. You should stop this. “And I feel like there’s no point in not saying out loud what you already know. Because you know, don’t you?” 

Even now, when there’s a joke at the tip of your tongue, the only thing you can do is soften your kind of worried expression and nod again. 

“I like you,” he breathes out and he doesn’t say it in a whisper, like you expect it. 

He doesn’t say it in between kisses and loud music, with the purpose of getting you into a dark secluded corner and having his way with you, or with the intention of getting you home and ghost you the next day like you’re used to. 

When Yeosang tells you that he likes you, it comes with the soft spring breeze grazing your face and a halo of light behind him. It comes with the sun coming down, with the tiredness that comes with spending the entire day laughing and talking and walking around with someone you care about, with the faint smell of coffee and the cold of your cup freezing the palm of your free hand even though you feel warmth spread inside of you. 

“I don’t expect you to say it back because we just met a few weeks ago. And I also don’t want you to think that my tiny crush is what motivated me to include you in my documentary. Or film you. Or be a borderline creep around you or your group of friends in the club, I just— I’m okay being your friend,” he clarifies and you want to huff out a tiny laugh because he looks so nervous and yet his voice doesn’t waver once, not like when you first met. He’s sure of what he’s saying and you believe him immediately, too. He let’s go of your hand to gesture with his, “I’m okay with you not liking me back. I’m sure I’ll grow out of it or tell you if I can’t move on, but—” 

“Breathe.” 

“—But I want you to stay in my life. I like spending time with you and I—” 

“Yeosang.” 

He blinks, realizing that he’s word vomiting for literally nothing. 

Because, at his confession, you can’t help but smile widely. And then that smile shrinks a little at the sudden realization that you need to tell him. 

Now. 

But you want to give him the grace of not outright rejecting him at the edge of the bridge.

“Come here.” 

Taking his hand back in yours, you ignore his confused stare and drag him towards where you initially wanted to enjoy your coffee: There’s a small pond where you can sit at a reasonable distance, to not interfere with the birds drinking from it and the fishes swimming in it. 

From your bag, you take out the tablecloth you stole from your living room table (with Zuha’s permission, of course) and lay it down on the grass before practically throwing yourself in it. 

As you sit, Yeosang does as well and you let out a sigh, thinking about the pond. 

Admiring it from a distance, like Yeosang admired you for months. 

Possibly the same way you’ll have to admire him now that you’re leaving. 

“I didn’t get in.” 

He turns his head to you, a frown creasing his eyebrows “What?” 

“They rejected me today, that’s why I was a little late,” you curve your lips into a tense smile and at the realization that you might be feeling a little guilty for lying to him (you are), he shakes his head. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize for something so silly, I don’t mind waiting for you,” he says and you can’t help but take the meaning of his words and extend it to the situation he knows nothing about yet. “What do you mean they rejected you?” You shrug as an answer and he lets out a breathy, indignant laugh “Why would they do that?” 

The fact that he’s getting offended on your behalf assures your entire being that he cares. He cares, he cares, he cares and you’re about to leave someone who cares about you behind. 

You’re about to leave so many people behind. 

“They rejected me because another company wants me to join their team and they probably wanted to narrow my options,” you shrug again and you watch as his face turns from offended to confused to surprised to happy for you in just a few seconds and he changes his weight to his knees, his arms opened and you answer the question before he even gets to ask. “The royal ballet.” 

“The royal ballet?” 

You roll your eyes, wacking the arm closest to you with minimal force “Do you even know what that is?” 

“Of course I know what that is! Y/N!” He wiggles his arms and you get on your knees as well, rounding his neck with yours, hugging him close to you. He hugs you back and it’s tight, it’s warm, it’s friendly and at the same time it feels weighted with his romantic feelings towards you. You enjoy it, you enjoy it even more when he sways you side to side, like something within him knows he has to comfort you. “Congratulations!” 

“Thank you,” you return softly and start following his movements, swaying you both as well until it gains enough impulse to make you fall against the soft material of the tablecloth and grass almosts gets in your eye but you pay it no mind because Yeosang’s arm is under your head and he’s so close to you that you feel like screaming (in the best way possible). “If you know what the royal ballet is, do you know where the main school is located, right?” 

He nods.

“You understand they want me to go there, right?” 

He nods again and you take in some air. 

“Yeosangie…” 

He smiles at the nickname. 

“I like you,” you start, soft again as if saying it louder would make the words that follow it hurt any less. They hurt you, they are going to hurt him as well. “But I think we should be friends, I think— No, I’m sure I’m taking their offer.” 

Yeosang stays quiet for a few seconds. You cuddle into his touch further, without really wanting it to and he raises his hand, his knuckle caressing your cheek softly. 

It’s not a platonic touch, it’s not a platonic scenario either despite what you just told him and you’re sure he’s not doing it on purpose. You’re not doing it on purpose. 

It just feels natural to move closer to him. To revel in the feel of his fingertips against your skin. 

“You do know I didn’t show up at the club night after night just to be romantically involved with you, right?” 

Nodding, his hand on your face slips down a little and he cups your chin with your fingers. 

“I’m happy with us being friends, I’m happy with you staying in my life.” 

“But I’m leaving…” 

“London it’s not that far… It’s like—” 

He looks like he wants to say something but instead he frowns and looks to the sky, a slight pout on his lips you feel the need to kiss. 

“Yeosang?” You ask after what feels like a minute.

“Eight hours?” 

“Huh?” 

He laughs a little “I think it’s an eight hour difference. I can stay up late, you can wake up early, we can find a way to keep in touch.” 

Turning back to you, his hand cups your cheek instead and his thumb slides against the skin. When he turned back to you, he moved a little bit closer. You’re sure it wasn’t intentional but then the words he said just a few minutes ago make your heart race.

I’m happy with us being friends.

Why? You don’t want him to be happy with you two just being friends. You want him to kiss you. You want him to not understand you and to disregard your wishes and tell you he wants you forever. 

You know that you couldn’t extend the same sentiment to him. But he’s patient and kind and so, so polite and you’re not sure how anyone here or all the way in London could compare to him. 

Again, your heart is mourning the loss of something you never truly had. 

But you try to learn from his patience and let out a tiny sigh before resigning your result to insist on whatever you two have going on. 

“Okay.”

It’s your turn to look at the sky above you, the orange gradually fading into the perfect canvas for stars to paint allows you to finally, finally let the entirety of the news sink in. 

“Oh, my god.” 

“Hm?”

You sit up straight, mouth open and a crease in between your brows.

“Oh my fucking god. I’m going to London and my parents don’t even know about it yet.” 

“They don’t know?”

“I had a date with you!” Looking at him, you don’t miss the way he blushes and you feel yourself heat up a little too at your choice of words. “Only Zuha knows… She was with me when we got the envelopes.” 

“Well… Do you feel like you want to tell them in a special way? Because you can just call them, if you want.”

Gulping, you shake your head slightly “M-my mom hates calls.” 

He pauses for a bit, you see him blink twice and then stare at the corner of his lips as they lift up a little.

“Are you nervous about telling them?” 

You realize you are. You’ve never been nervous about telling them anything at all. They celebrate your successes and help you through your hard times even if you hold your chin up and insist you’re okay. You’re sure they’re going to be over the moon about the news. 

Why are you hesitating to tell them, then?

“Do you… Do you think they’ll let me go?” 

He smiles fully now, sitting up as well. “I think they’re proud of you and they’ll be proud of you whether you’re here or in London,” he shrugs and then he adds, “I’m proud of you.” 

It makes you smile. 

“And I just met you. I can’t imagine how they must feel,” your eyes roll instantly at the attempted joke but you huff out a laugh anyway, “and they’ve known since forever, I mean—” 

You extend your arm to push him a little and he falls back down into the tablecloth with a fake cry. “Shut up.” 

“Did I lie?” 

“Kang Yeosang, shut up.” 

The next few months feel like a montage you can see in one of those coming of age movies. Not a romantic comedy, but a coming of age. 

You tell your parents about London and they go through all the stages of grief before congratulating you and telling you they’re proud, they’re happy for you. You tell your friends and it’s a similar experience, except that, instead of celebrating with hugs and a dinner at a fancy restaurant, they drag you to the dinner at a fast food joint at the side of the street and then to the club. 

They celebrate Kazuha’s acceptance into the university’s company as well, of course, and the next morning you both nurse a hangover that repercutes on you days after that as well. It’s all worth it, it is every time but Zuha and you make sure to complain every day until it fully goes away. 

You still hang out with Yeosang. Every single time there’s an ache in your heart that dreads the moment you part (for the day but also… forever, maybe?) and you conceal it with smiles and teasing jokes that don’t cross the line. You hang out with him at his dorm, which you were hesitant to do at first but he explained: 

“My roommate is never here anymore. His girlfriend got a new apartment and so he basically lives with her.” 

You turn to the side of the room, where there are pictures of said roommate with Yeosang and a few people you think you recognize from the club, but you also can’t be sure. You take the guy in every single picture is Yunho, his roomie, and the girl he’s kissing on the cheek is his girlfriend. She looks your age, so you turn to Yeosang with a raised eyebrow and he laughs a little.

“They’re rich.” 

“Him included?”

“Mhm,” he sighs, clicking away on his computer to chop some footage and add some in its place, “he likes to cosplay being poor.” 

“That’s insane.” 

He gives you another affirmative sound and you move around the tiny space two times before calming your nerves of being alone in a room with him and sitting down in his bed, facing his left side since he’s sitting at his desk. 

“More room for you, I guess.”

You notice his smile fading bit by bit, lips forming a tense line a second after. “It’s a little lonely,” he admits. “All of my friends are really busy lately. Which, you know, it’s fine. It’s life. We’re all growing up and I feel like I can’t quite catch up to them.” 

“You did just get into the firm you wanted to, though. You feel like you can’t catch up to the direction they're going?” 

He smiles “Well, first of all, I got an internship—” 

“And they’re giving you the job after the internship ends, we all know this, Yeosang!” you interrupt him and he gives you a look that makes you smile for a second before pretending he’s annoying you. “Whatever.” 

“Like I was saying— I got an internship in the firm, not into the firm,” he finally gets to say and you look back at him, the somber look returning to his face after the second of respite your interruption provided. “But, I mean, we’re starting to see each other less and less— Should I keep this in?” He points at the screen and you frown at the sudden change of topic but then, when you see a frame of you making a weird face for the camera as he sets it up, you get why. 

“Don’t you dare,” you extend your leg and push your feet into his side, he recoils like you stabbed him with something but then recovers quickly. There’s a second where you both smile, your leg coming back to the bed, and then you push a little for the feelings he was explaining before. “You’re seeing each other less and less?” 

“Yeah. I get it, obviously, Hongjoong has this mini tour he needs to plan— That’s my friend who’s in a band,” he explains, “so he’s barely in our hang outs anymore. Yuhno just found love for the first time ever so he’s in the honeymoon phase and the rest of them are just trying to survive their last year of college or jobs.”

“Like us,” you nod.

“Like us,” he whispers in agreement, “and yet we still have time to see each other. I’m guessing some of them see each other often, too, I just… Never really had that with any of them. They’re good friends, the best of them really—” 

“And that would be my group of friends, but okay.”

He laughs and then continues. “But I never really… Connected like that, one on one, with anyone. Jongho, maybe, but he’s going insane trying to keep his grades up to stay in the team and maybe go pro for a few years afterwards and—” 

Sliding to the edge of the bed, you get up from your position to bring your arms around your friend. You can tell it’s really getting to him. You have your own shit going on, the whole I’m leaving my whole life behind and starting over, kind of, in a new city thing but you haven’t put yourself in the shoes of those you’re leaving behind, their own worries about their futures plaguing their thoughts as well. 

“It’s all too much… And I haven’t even finished editing the documentary.” 

“You’re almost done.” 

“It’s due in five days.” 

“You’re almost done,” you repeat, pulling away a little while looking down at him. He looks up, almost pouting. “You got this, Yeo.” 

And then the inevitable tension that comes into the room the second you two touch for longer than five seconds enters and you both let go at the same time. You swallow hard, he coughs and then the topic of conversation switches until you both forget the fact that electricity runs through both your spines whenever you hold each other. 

So Yeosang never touches you. He holds your hand, hugs you goodbye but he never insists. By your final performance, two days later, where he is in attendance and sits next to a very (but not as much as before) skeptical Yeonjun, you wonder if the small bouquet you see on his lap all the way from the stage is a purely platonic gesture. 

Because when you do your final bow as a student, eyes filled with tears, and get down to the backstage, the first person you see it's not your dad, your mom or Yeonjun. It's him. 

But the bouquet he extends to you it's as beautiful as it is not unique. When he sees Kazuha, he offers a similar one to her and she accepts, breathless, emotional and a little bit confused. 

So you start to wonder if he stopped liking you as the days went by, you start to wonder if you're the only one who fell deeper even though you're the one who decided for the both of your to not pursue the constant tension between you both, to put aside your confessions in honor for your friendship to flourish and outlast the incoming physical distance your future is going to put between you two. 

That's why you don't entertain the thought much, just lean in to give him a hug that screams I'm in love with my friend to all of your classmates, Yeonjun and your parents (who you see from the corner of your eye entering the room before you close them), which doesn't really help your case at all. 

“Thank you, Yeosang,” you whisper into the skin of his neck, for only him to hear, “for coming, for being there for me, for the flowers and for everything.” 

“You sound like you're saying goodbye to me,” he whispers back, pulling away just a bit so he can see you. “You're not leaving yet. Let's not do that until then, please?” 

And because you've been learning a lot of things from him, patience being one of them, you smile a little and nod in agreement. 

But you don't miss the way his eyes take in your features and stop to look at your lips for a few seconds too long. You can't help when you do the same, either. 

Your heart sings a hopeful song. A dumb, dumb melody filled with wishes of the things you can't indulge in, not right now, not ever. 

Because that song has a beat you think you’ll be able to dance to, choreograph it in a way only you and him understand and you’re so sure it will give you the same euphoric feeling being the middle of the dancefloor at a packed club or performing variations of your favorite classic characters on stage give you. 

And that is enough to make you want to stay. 

But you can’t. 

Your acceptance to the royal ballet proposal, once it came into you and Zuha’s shared apartment, has been already emailed and signed, sealed, delivered through physical mail.

It’s confirmed that you’re leaving later this month, at the start of the new semester for them. 

For you as well, you guess. 

And since you learned that, time seems to turn into thin dust in your hands, slipping from your fingers and blowing away in the wind. 

So you really should put a stop to your feelings for Yeosang, but they only grow stronger. 

You move back home to try and spend a little more time with your family and that makes his dorm farther away than before but you still show up to see him edit anyway. 

And when he finishes the documentary, he refuses to show you it because he claims he needs time and a bigger screen. 

But you're not sure you two have that much time at all. 

And involuntarily do that thing where your face drops even though you're still smiling and his lightbulb lights up. 

“A farewell screening party!” 

“A… A what?” 

“You know,” he clears his throat a little and you see him blush, “a party for you and for me at the same time. It can be your farewell party and the screening of my documentary because God knows Yunho will force me to show it to all of our friends either way.” 

You purse your lips, clearly trying not to laugh and he levels you with a look. 

“What?” 

“Nothing, that’s…” you cough your giggles away, “adorable.” 

“Right.” 

You take a sneaky step forward and he barely notices but his eyebrow raises. He seems to know what you're trying to do but you're a little bit distracted by the edge on his expression so your lack of immediate action makes him lower his guard. 

And you lunch for the computer without thinking twice. 

“No!” 

“You're not even going to let me see a snippet of it, Yeosang?!” 

You laugh but avoid him and you’re literally opening the video library of his computer when you feel two hands grab your middle and pull you back. He falls into Yunho’s mattress and you fall with him. 

Squeaking and then letting out a laugh, you realize too late that Yeosang has pulled you into his lap, his palms secured on your hips, his breath on your neck. As you turn your head to look at him, smiling slowly fading from your lips and his, you also notice that this was not what he intended to do in the first place. 

But you’re both frozen in place. 

Eyes not looking up at his face, you open and close the palms of your hands over the part of his chest and arm you’re just realizing now you’re holding. You blink a few times and from the corner of your eye you see his adam’s apple bob, you hear the sound of him swallowing tightly and feel against your shoulder the rumble of his chest when he speaks, low and soft, unsure like he doesn’t really know what’s the correct volume to use right now. 

“It’s a surprise.” 

“A surprise,” you repeat in the same tone, dumbly, a little bit distracted by his scent, “of course,” and then you frown, curious as always. “Why is it a surprise again?” 

He huffs out a short laugh. “If I tell you, it’ll ruin the surprise.” 

“Of course.” 

You should move. He should let go. Someone should do something because this is blurring the lines of your friendship entirely. 

But his lap is comfy and you can feel his heart beating against your skin and, instead of being in high alert and in a reactionary mood, your body just relaxes against him. 

He feels it and the touch against you relaxes as well but stays in its place. Yeosang’s head moves a little bit forward, his chin resting against your shoulder like the action alone is not enough to make the butterflies in your stomach go insane. 

“I just hope you like it.” 

The tremor on his voice gives away that he’s genuinely nervous about it, so you tilt your head and let your temple touch his. 

“I probably will, Yeo.” 

Lifting his head a little, your nose bumps slightly with his nose and your eyes widen at the feeling. 

It truly shouldn’t be this difficult. You should lean in and kiss him or he should lean in and kiss you but the boundaries you drew stand tall in between you. 

You wonder if the need that burns in his eyes when you look at him also burns in yours. You wonder if he sees it. You wonder if it’s enough to make the spoken rules of your relationship crumble. 

Breath shaking a little, you push a bit forward, lips parted and waiting for him to take the last step, to confirm that the rules and boundaries and the conversation you two had about the nature of your dynamic goes to hell and you get to finally have him like you want to have him. 

Yeosang looks like he’s thinking the same thing as you and, just when you’re about to close your eyes again and let this whole thing be…

The door swings open. 

And you practically fly off his lap, trip with a pair of shoes that are not yours and shouldn’t be there in the first place and almost fall to the floor. A hand you are not familiar with catches you and you look up to find Yunho of all people preventing your face from banging against the floor.

“Are you okay?” He asks and you turn to Yeosang instead of replying, for some reason. 

Yeosang is very still, paralyzed in fear even for a few seconds before his brain seems to catch up to the situation because he stands, grabs your shoulders and stabilizes you fully on the ground. 

You clear your throat and then turn to Yunho: “I’m fine,” you say, voice very small and the answer is a little dumb because everyone can see you’re clearly not fine. “Thanks.”

“Of course…” He turns to look behind him and that’s when you realize. 

Oh, this is mortifying. 

There’s three other people behind him: Wooyoung, who you recognize because one time he facetimed Yeosang while you two were together and you catched a glimpse at the screen, and two other guys you assume Yeosang has probably mentioned before, but you can’t recall their names right now.

Your head is not functioning properly right now. 

“This is—” Yeosang starts.

“Y/N!” You say for him with a nod and a big smile. 

“She’s my friend that I met at the club and—” 

“Your co-star,” you point to Yunho, “supporting actress of the documentary, really, I’ve seen him edit it and you are the main star.” 

“— her name is Y/N.” Yeosang finishes.

You clasp your hands together in front of you and it makes a loud noise, bow a little too. “That’s me.”

From the corner of your eye you see how Wooyoung turns around, trying not to laugh, and then one of the guys punches him in the arm. 

“We can, uhm…” Yunho is trying really hard not to laugh as well and you fail to see what about this embarrassing situation they found funny. “We can come back later if you guys want.” 

It’s even more embarrassing when both you and Yeosang basically scream a: “No!” at the same time. 

Which only makes Wooyoung break into a giggle that’s soon muffled by the hand of the second guy you don’t recognize at all. 

So you turn to Yeosang fully, leaning down to pick up your bag from where you dropped it on the floor. 

“I have to go and help Zuha with the—” 

“Oh, that’s right! Of course.” 

You don’t need to help Kazuha with absolutely anything. 

“And I guess you need to tell them about the party—” 

“Yup, I’ll tell them, um…” 

There’s an awkward silence for what feels like forever (two seconds, max) and then you both give each other a quick hug before you’re practically running for the door. 

“It was very nice to meet you all.” You say and it sounds weird because your throat is dry and you stumble it out. 

You don’t wait to hear their responses as you grab your shoes from the floor and then open and close the door behind you fast. 

Yeosang can deal with whatever they’re going to do, the ways they’re probably going to tease him. They’re his friends after all. 

And even though you feel the heat of the embarrassment on your cheeks and your heart racing, you smile at the laughter you hear through the wood of the door. It follows you as you walk through the hallway and there’s only one thing going through your head as you get secure your bag around your shoulder and start to head home: 

There’s the possibility Yeosang would’ve kissed you if they never walked in. 

There’s the possibility he still wants you the same way you want him. 

Yeosang has never been more flushed in his entire life. 

He watches you back until the door closes and then a second of silence passes by before everyone starts to laugh.

Everyone but him, because it’s not funny at all. 

Lips still aching at the thought of kissing you, he barely gets time to roll his eyes at his friends before they’re all but throwing him on the bed and tickling his sides. 

He doesn’t really want to laugh but his body’s reaction leaves him no choice. 

“You should’ve texted me that you had a girl over or something, dude!” Yunho starts and Yeosang huffs in response. 

“I thought you said the two of you were just friends, though?” San asks and he all but rolls his eyes. 

“What did you just see, Choi San? I swear to god you and Yunho are—” 

The mentioned one gasps dramatically and cuts Wooyoung mid sentence “What did I do now?” 

“Clueless!” Wooyoung says and he laughs a little at that. 

They stopped tickling him but they’re all still on top of him on the bed and the mattress makes a weird noise at that. It’s a dormitory mattress, after all and it can barely handle two people. 

Or you in his lap, he guesses. 

Dear God. 

Seonghwa sighs like a mother tired of her children’s shenanigans and even though it’s hard to see with three bodies on top of him, Yeosang sees him with his arms closed at the edge of the bed “Guys, could you all just… Get off Yeosang for a second?”

“Yeah, he needs to explain himself!” Wooyoung is the first one off of him and he feels like can breathe better. 

“There’s no explaining to do, you sound like Gyuri.” 

“I beg,” Wooyoung pauses dramatically, for effect and everyone in the room groans, “you pardon?” 

“No, sit the fuck down.” 

“Okay,” Yeosang says now that he’s free and he stares at his friends, at San first. “We are just friends and it’s not what it looks like.” 

“So you weren’t about to kiss her?” 

He short circuits at that “Well—” 

“You were?” 

“Guys,” Seonghwa interrupts once more, “let him talk.”

He feels like it’s the first time in forever since he’s been able to speak about anything with his friends. His heart feels at home and yet his nerves spike, his head hurts a little too and it might be the endless hours of editing catching up to him or the thought of you leaving that makes it hurt. Either way, he needs to tell them.

“I was about to kiss her and it wouldn’t have been a mistake because we didn’t want to, because we both like each other,” he explains, “so we do want to but it would've been a mistake because she’s leaving.” 

“What?” 

“You didn’t tell me that,” Yunho lets out softly and Yeosang shrugs. He’s the one that knows the most about you since he’s the one Yeosang has been able to speak with the most these past few months. 

“That party she was talking about,” he doesn’t really answer Yunho but addresses everyone in the room, “I need help organizing it. It should be a viewing party and a farewell party as well. She got accepted into the Royal Ballet.” 

“Huh?!” 

Now everyone turns to Yunho at the sound he lets out and he’s covering his mouth and then shrugs as well, a little ashamed of himself. 

“I’m not a ballet guy but I know what that is. They were on tour here last year… And I went.” 

“Are they good?” San asks and Yunho nods frantically as an answer. “So that means she’s good as well.” 

“She is,” Yeosang feels himself deflating, falling into the mattress with a longing sigh. “She lied to you, she’s actually in most of my documentary.” 

“I think you forget I’ve seen you editing it before, Yeo.” Yunho laughs.

“Mhm.”

He looks at his friends and both Seonghwa and San look like they want to press him to speak about his feelings but they’re biting their tongue, Yunho’s leg goes up and down and he looks like he's about to apologize for something dumb but no one talks. Yeosang doesn’t want to talk about it, either. 

So Wooyoung comes to the rescue. 

“A farewell party, now that’s something I can help with!” 

San laughs “And a viewing party, don’t forget about the viewing part.” 

“The documentary first and then everyone is getting drunk and silly, okay?” He points at Yeo Sang and he nods, reluctantly because he knows what that means. 

“I think I actually have a place for it,” Yunho swallows tightly and Yeosang scrunches his eyebrows in worry. “I mean, I was going to tell you all when we were together but, uhm, I think I’m starting my own dance studio. I received a… fat check this month.” 

“Are you sure that’s not the money your father is giving you to try and get you in his company long term?”

“Whatever!” Yeosang laughs and San gets up and puts a mouth over Wooyoung’s mouth for the second time in the last thirty minutes. Seonghwa rolls his eyes. “I got a place and it has a second floor I’m planning to make into a setup for video games and whatnot. I already ordered the projector, it’s what I’m trying to say,” he shrugs and looks at You Sang again. “We can have it there, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he agrees softly. 

And as San lets go of Wooyoung and Seonghwa sits next to him to give him a hug (because he knows that’s better than any words right now), Yeosang can’t help but wonder if now that the party is happening and him and your friends are saying goodbye to you for good, it’s finally time to let go of his feelings for you.

But then, as he watches Yunho sit down in his bed, in the same space where he had you on his lap and with his lips close to yours, the voice in his head that’s been nagging him about the whole thing all these months returns. 

And it laughs at him.

It laughs at his wishful thinking and then it reminds him that there’s no letting go of his feelings for you. Those are there to stay, for a good while, as long as you stay the same person and as long as your smile brings him peace. As long as your happiness brings him his, as long as the rhythm of your feet mark the rhythm of his heartbeats, he’s yours. 

He 's yours. 

Do you want him to be yours?

If you read all the way down here: THANK YOU SO MUCH. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. part 2 will be out..... someday in the next few weeks (I promise I'm working on it!)

© jensthwa, 2025.

[variousqueerthings]

the doctor being a part of the noble family has the energy of an addams family cousin -- imagines rose being in a school play and the doctor fixing up some gizmo to open up a tiny gap to some part of the universe where stars shine particularly brightly for midsummer night's dream, and accidentally almost levels the school by misjudging how close they are to this one very dense planet (people in the audience confusedly waving at aliens who are just as confusedly waving their tentacles back from a thousand years in the future a million light years away. everybody afterwards talks about the great special effects, but they're not sure what it has to do with the story)

people trying to figure out who this "the doctor" person is and why he's living with the nobles, and always trying to catch out that there's something going on, but the doctor's answers to all their inquiries are so lowkey bonkers as to bamboozle any further attempts (so where are you from again? oh just this place, well, I say place, planet, well, I say planet I don't actually know these days, but somewhere certainly... is Ipswich a place? how do you know mrs noble again? we travelled together for a bit, and then, well you know how it is when you get hit with a face full of radiation, ey *snort-laughs at his own joke* and what's your name again? doctor, the "the" is a pronoun, it can get confusing I know, but people on this planet choose their names all the time, you'll catch up)

just this house gremlin in a setup that nobody from the outside understands, toddling about, showing up at every event that rose has going for her, wearing little pride pins that might be partially for himself as well as for rose (gay??? one of those trans ones????), always seems to be talking about strange places that nobody has heard of but doesn't want to admit to, occasionally goes eerily still and unnerving around people who are cruel and mean, knows a lot about history, but peppers it with facts that can't possibly be true, gets on very well with shaun who always answers questions with "the doctor's part of the family, youknow?" they do not know, but at this point it's too rude to keep asking

[moonbeamwritings]

“Nanamiiiinn,” Gojo croons, dragging out the end of that stupid nickname with a knowing smirk. Nanami heaves a sigh at the sound. It's tolerable enough coming from Itadori, sure, but it's insufferable when Nanami knows Gojo is using it to goad him on.

“I didn’t take you for that kind of guy,” Gojo continues when Nanami doesn't answer. He bends at the waist to speak into Nanami’s ear, a hand curling around the back of his chair to trap him in the seat. “Comin’ into work with lipstick smeared all over your face.”

Nanami can't help but roll his eyes. "Ha ha. I'm not whipping out my phone just so you'll say 'HA! Made you look!'" Gojo's attempted the same juvenile prank one too many times for Nanami to have any sort of faith in this new line of teasing.

"Oh?" Gojo's stepped around the table to drop into the seat across from him, a smirk evident on his features. "Don't believe me, huh?"

Before Nanami can stop him, Gojo is pulling out his phone and taking a picture with an audible click. Smugly, he turns the screen so Nanami can see for himself.

The photo reveals a shiny pink smudge across the high point of his cheek and dotted on the corner of his lips. Nanami's nose wasn't spared in the onslaught either it seems, one mark crossing the bridge while the other is perfectly placed on the tip.

"It's a good look for you!" Gojo assures him, smiling down at the photo. "It's not every day I get to see you look so..." He thinks for a moment. "Soft."

Nanami rolls his eyes, again, and rubs the pad of his thumb at the corner of his mouth. "You're insufferable."

Gojo's mouth is agape. "I won't take credit for such a masterpiece, Nanamin. You know me better than that!" The comment seems to spark something in the other sorcerer's mind, and Nanami does not like the look that crosses his face. Not one bit. "But I have my suspicions as to who our little lipstick owner may be."

When Gojo starts marking the possible suspects by counting on his fingers, Nanami decides to quit while he's ahead and see himself out, his quiet time thoroughly ruined. He moves to stand, but Kugisaki and Itadori enter the room before he can get too far.

The teens greet the pair, and Nanami has one foot out the door when Kugisaki's eyes narrow in on him. He feels stuck beneath it, like he's suddenly trapped in quicksand.

She gestures to his nose. "You've got something there." A pause. "And there."

"I'm aware, thank you."

"Is it-" Itadori leans closer to inspect the situation, too. This is nightmarish, Nanami thinks, embarrassed at being so scrutinized. "Is it lipstick?"

Gojo's response is snide. Immediate. "It is."

Nanami shoots him a glare over Kugisaki's shoulder. Oh, if looks could kill.

"I've seen this shade before." Kugisaki says, fixing Itadori with a puzzled expression. "Do you think it's-"

The whole interaction is innocent, Nanami knows. The teens aren't trying to rake him over the coals. They're not intending to prolong his suffering. But with every second of debate, Gojo's grin only grows, the answer to the mystery coming closer and closer to his grasp.

Kugisaki's face alights with excitement when she finally puts a face and name to her thought. "Oh, I know!"

Oh no.

Your name falls from Kugisaki's lips as if in slow motion. Every letter, every agonizing second drawn out in near comedic fashion.

The look on Nanami's face must give him away because Gojo is up out of his chair in record time, an accusatory finger pointing in his direction. "I knew it! I knew you two were a thing!"

Nanami ignores the display entirely, nodding politely at the students. "Have a nice afternoon, you two."

He retreats down the hallway to the echoing sounds of Gojo's elation, making his way towards the nearest bathroom to rid himself of the pink marks. Nanami had noticed your lipstick this morning, had even complimented it, and he was clearly so wrapped up in your kisses that he hadn't thought to check for any evidence of them as he made his way out the door.

You're partially to blame, Nanami decides as his phone starts to vibrate with messages from you – no doubt having already seen the picture Gojo took. You could've, should've, warned him before he left the apartment looking like this.

He reluctantly opens his phone to half a dozen texts from you, ranging from telling him how funny it all was to how cute he looked with little kiss marks all over his face.

This is all your fault.

The three dots pop up, and then: You weren't complaining this morning!

He wasn't, that much he can't deny. Nanami would've stood there all morning accepting kisses if you'd let him.

My reputation is ruined.

It adds to your charm!

Nanami starts to remove the lipstick as best he can, but he knows it won't make much difference. Gojo will still tease him for it, and you'll still pepper his face with kisses every time you see him — lipstick or not.

[maomao-words]

Hello, can I request some Solo-leveling hcs with Jinwoo with a timid s/o becoming even MORE timid with affection after his second awakening?

Sure their s/o is getting diststant may be due to insecuritues but The ACTUAL reason is that they're getting shy is because s/o can't handle looking at Jinwoo for too long. They can barely keep eye-contact because he's even HOTTER now (pre-awakwning was hard enough for their s/o, but now? post-awakening? A challenge unmatched and s/o is fighting for their life not to melt when Jinwoo initiates affection)

I think it would be even funnier if reader can actually sense jinwoo's shadows and Jinwoo overhears their s/o telling their assigned shadow (who is hidden at the time) about why their getting distant and asking for advice.

(maybe with a suggestive end?? Only if your comfy tho)

(Also this is super self indulgent, and You mentioned you liked details, so i added alot. Ajdbidb.I hope this is okay!)

Thank you!

✒️ nonnie

I really wanted to write an angsty piece (again lol) but the people (my readers) voted against me (◕︿◕✿).

Thank you for the highly detailed request! This is my favorite type of asks!!

Here's some fluffy HCs of our favorite monarch!

No TWs, just endless fluff.

Solo Leveling: Jin Woo with a shy and timid reader.

Jin Woo has always treasured you. He utterly adored your shy demeanor and timid attitude. He cherished the way your cheeks always seemed to be dipped in vivid crimson and dusted with rose-tinted pink. He was constantly enthralled by how your small hand would barely curl around his arm, your gaze hiding away each time he attempts to meet it, the tips of your ears fiercely flushing whenever Jin Woo tugged your closer to his past lean body.

Now, even with all the upheavals and changes surrounding Jin Woo, the hunter never doubted that your comforting bashfulness and feather-like touches would change, nor would your ever-steady love waver.

But Jin Woo was wrong. Your once delicate kisses became scarce, almost absent, as you shied away from your lover's touch. The hand that used to tenderly brush the strands of hair out of Jin Woo's eyes was now hesitant, almost afraid. Instead, you merely satisfied yourself with pointing it out for Jin Woo to fix himself, a weak smile grazing your lips each time this happened.

Jin Woo felt wronged. He felt robbed of all that he has been treasuring even before his second awakening into an S-class. He constantly attempted to ease his way back into your familiar routine, giving you ample space to get used to his new appearance, while still trying to soak up whatever crumbs of affection you were willing to give.

Despite it all, you remained distant. And Jin Woo was starving for your affection, confused as to why you have been keeping what's rightfully his away. But more than anything else, Jin Woo was terrified that your distance was due to the media calling you unworthy of the strongest S-class in the globe, or the way people cruelly shoved their noses into your private life without any regard for your wishes. Jin Woo has been taking care of them all, for you, and will continue to do so in order to protect your happiness.

He wanted to eliminate all possible sources of your insecurities, for he has always seen you as his one and only queen. All other opinions be damned. Jin Woo had no fucks to give to people who did not know you the way he did. Did not know your resilience, kindness, and loyalty, and all the tears you have shed just to keep your heart from becoming jaded.

Only when Jin Woo exchanged locations with one of the several shadows he assigned to you, stumbling upon a conversation you were having with one of your guards, that he finally came close to finding out the truth behind your distance.

Your words were practically a whisper, adorable cheeks painted in the color that Jin Woo was dying to peck, as you sat at the sill of your window. Your guard was stationed nearby, keeping a respectful distance as mandated by his monarch, but otherwise attentively listening to you. You were reluctantly mumbling about how utterly smitten you were with Jin Woo, how fast your heart danced and twirled each time your lover came close to you, and how dizzy you felt whenever your gaze met his own.

You have been in love with Jin Woo ever since his E-rank days. You have never stopped loving him. Not now, nor tomorrow, nor ever. You had only grew more aware of him. More attracted, more attached, more enticed, and simply captured by him.

Jin Woo laughed. A soft sound that startled you into your feet as the blush across your face deepened in color. Your guard took his leave after bowing twice, one for his king and another for his queen. Jin Woo's heated gaze never left your form as he slowly made his way toward you.

If you claim you are being tempted by him, all Jin Woo could do was to make drown in him. Enough to stop all other thoughts in your mind. Enough for you to never leave his side.

[dodgeballstuckonthegymceiling]

Hello! I am craving angst, so I was wondering if you'd be willing to write the Welcome Home cast with a human reader who's been fatality injured, or dying in some form?

Id love it for Specifically Wally and/or Eddie, whichever you are most comfortable with of course!

Feel free to ignore this, if you please. Either way, I hope you have a good day, afternoon or night. 💚

Angst time! Didn't outright kill the reader, but the neighbors think you might die. Ended up doing a fair bit of research about poisoning for this. Left my main source at the end!

If you like my work, please consider commissioning me or leaving a tip on Ko-fi (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

Frank, Wally, Eddie, Barnaby and Julie & Reader who got poisoned

★ Its not impossible. Lots of things could go wrong. If you eat something spoiled or stored improperly you could get sick. Some plants growing around Home might be poisons, even if they look edible.

★ It was an accident, just a simple mistake. Frank was making a salad with fresh vegetables scorched from his very own garden. Rhubarb was added. While the stalks are safe for you to eat, the leaves can be toxic. He didn't know that.

★ Three hours latter and you find yourself vomiting into a trash can. Trembling as waves of nausea hit you. Several neighbors have crowded around you, concerned. The feeling of your stomach cramp is similar to being stabbed in the gut.

★ You hear the sound of Eddies voice. But cant to make out what he said. Someone, probably Julie, places a hand on your back. An attempt to comfort you. What followed only lasted two days. But nobody could forget the pain you went through.

Frank

★ Frank looks mortified, gripping his notebook a little too tight. flipping through it like he can somehow fix this. The paper in his hands crinkling slightly. “I didn’t know! I should’ve checked!” But he hadn't. And now he's convinced you might perish.

★ Eddie had to help him calm down. Placing a hand on his shoulder and telling him that you'll be fine. Even though Eddie was shaken up himself, he managed to stop Frank from spiraling. "They're gonna be okay. We got help. You cant go blaming yourself, now..."

★ Once the worst is over, he apologizes about ten times. Maybe more. No matter what you say he'll still feel a little responsible. Each day you don't feel well, he brings you a new bouquet. So you have something nice to look at while recovering.

Wally

★ He kneels beside you as the worst of it takes its course. The usual smile on his face is strained, and it almost slips. Almost. Wally doesn't speak, ask questions, or says anything to comfort you. What would he even say? Nothing like this has happened before!

★ You spend a few nights with him in Home, so the sentient building can keep an eye on you. In the night he sleeps next to you. Listening to your heartbeat. It's a reminder that you'll be okay. That you're still alive.

Eddie

★ He was the first to find you. Walking into a sight he hopes never to see again. Eddie keeps his voice steady, but his hands are not. "Hey, hey, you're gonna be alright." He says like a promise. "Hold on. Let me go get Frank!"

★ If he's not helping you with something, he's fiddling with his hands. Too nervous to sit still. How could he? You hates seeing you in pain. It makes him feel helpless. If you need anything, anything at all, he'll get it for you.

★ Eddie stays around. Just to be sure you have everything you need. Even if you just need company. Trying to keep you in good spirits "See? you'll be right as rain in no time!" Also, he makes you take it easy for awhile.

Barnaby

★ For the first time in forever, he refrains from making jokes. From teasing anyone or pushing franks buttons. The poor guy is dealing with enough right now. Barnaby is the calmest out of everyone, though it's just a brave face. Internally, he's freaking out

★ When everything calms down he finally cracks a joke. You're not doing great, but its an improvement to earlier. "You had me worried there, kid." Voice lighter than it was before. He's really glad you'll be okay.

Julie

★ While you empty your stomach into the trash can, she stands beside you. And pulls your hair away from your face. She's never seen you like this before. Until now, she didn't think you could cry. But here you are. Trembling and broken in a way she cant fix. And she hates it.

★ She yelled at the rhubarb growing in Franks garden. Upset that they made you so sick. "What's the big idea!?! Shame on you!" Julie shouts. Voice loud, sharp, and laced with betrayal. She'll never trust rhubarb again.

Score:

[unluckilyimnot]

Late night – portgas d. ace

In which you're drunk and you fantasize about Ace and it goes wrong (not really).

Note: first (and failed) attempt for my ace ver. of bed chem. I'll do something sweeter than that. again first time writing with him so he might be ooc. I didn't really like it at first, I wrote that at 3am but my bestie told me it was fine so here it is.

Fluff, mention of alcohol, being drunk and wanting to sleep with someone. Don't ask for smut. ~3k.

m.list | rules (read before asking for anything!)

You knew you shouldn’t think that. It was out of place, you’ve drunk one too much and he’s your superior. And yet there you are, another glass full of rum in one hand, the other holding your head from falling and your eyes fix on Ace, a few steps away.

He looks so hot, it’s taking all the space available inside your brain at the moment. His hair’s falling perfectly around his face – it doesn’t matter how many times he pushed it away, it always falls back perfectly. His hat’s resting on his shoulders, his weight is put on his arm as he holds his drink with his other hand – showing off his muscles for anyone to see. You wished you respected yourself enough to stop there. Stop looking. Stop your train of thoughts from going from his arms to his hair, fantasizing about your fingers dragging their way up his arm to his hair, grabbing it just enough for him to sigh. Your cheeks flushed at the thought.

You drank your glass in one go, receiving cheers from your crew. Ace’s eyes fell on you, a cocky, happy smile on his lips and you caught a light of excitement in his eyes that matches with half of the people sitting in the deck at the moment. The sun has disappeared for a moment now, the night is dark, full of stars and the light reflecting on his face is too much for you. It’s overwhelming, imagining him with you : strong arm holding you like you weigh nothing, pulling you on his laps, whispering things so sweet in your ear when you can feel him hard between your legs. It’s intoxicating. You shouldn't think about that, dream about that.

You shake your head, trying to push it away but it seems like it can only get worse when you think of him kissing your neck all the way down your chest. It’s too much, you shut your eyes, taking a small breath in before getting up.

“They're gonna be sick,” someone laughed, you can’t picture who, and honestly – you’d rather be sick to death right now.

You ran to the other side of the ship, far from the small party, from all the alcohol. Far away from Ace. Holding the fence with both hands, you take a deep breath. The salty air cleans your mind a little before an awful wave of shame hits your face. You bury your head in your arms before letting out a loud groan – they think you're sick anyway, so it doesn’t matter. If they even hear you. Ace is still on your mind, half naked, touching you, grabbing onto your skin harshly as he whispers sweet words to your ears and you sincerely think of jumping and drowning in the sea. Until you hear his voice.

“You’re alright there ?”

At first, you’re sure you’ve imagined it ; he’s everywhere, you can feel him on your skin when he’s not even next to you. Until he grabs your arm at your lack of response. You met his eyes lace with concern, his smile smaller and the fun disappeared in the background. You gulp hardly, almost choking on air. His hand is so hot on your cold skin, it does the opposite of grounding you, now thinking about his hot skin all over yours.

“Yes,” you choked out, pulling your arm away.

You stumble away from him, still holding onto the fence. You can barely stand, he can tell – anyone could. You’ve probably drunk your weight in alcohol tonight, you went too far. You felt hot, too hot. Your vision was betraying you and you failed to dodge his hand as it landed closer to your wrist.

“You don’t seem fine to me,” he chuckles, trying to not go too far when you want to keep your distances so bad ; but he doesn’t want you to get hurt. “I’ll take you back to your bunk, come on.”

Why does he have to care so much ? Why couldn't it be someone else. Anyone ! Thinking that he was the first one to make a move and make sure you were ok made your heart ache. He was so sweet without meaning to, or maybe he does but it never really seemed like it. He jokes around too much, flirts too much. Him doing both so well makes your heart beat faster, only for him. It scares you, so much, because as much as you want him, there's no universe he wants you back. Tears picked up at the corner of your eyes.

“Please, Ace, leave me alone,” you begged, looking around, anywhere, so your tears will go away and you won’t meet his eyes. “You're the last person I need right now.”

You speak quickly, not thinking twice and certainly missing the hurt written on his face. Your head hurts, it's spinning like crazy. Yeah, you could've gotten some help, but thinking about him in your bed was the main problem of the night. Thinking about how good you'll be for each another was the problem. You didn't need him close to your room, let alone inside it. Not until you were sober and could make sense of all of that in your head. He clears his throat.

"Don't move then, I'll get Marco," he says quickly as well, walking away without a second glance or at least you think so.

You can't miss the hurt in his voice, the faux smile he puts on when he's hurt and you hate it. But you know you can't fix that right now, right ? You can't think straight and you're scared you're gonna say something dumb. Your feet can barely hold you up and you can tell your knees are getting weak – but you push it away and follow him.

"Wait, Ace !" you yell out his name, looking for him. You're getting closer to the stairs and, as much as he doesn't want it, he's quickly back by your side before you can reach it. You grip his open shirt, fingers brushing on his chest.

"I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry, I'm–" you struggle to find your words, you don't even know what you're trying to say.

What you know is that you melt under his hot and soft touches. His hands are holding your arms carefully to not hurt you, but it’s still firm so you don’t have to hold your weight alone – you're not complaining anymore. His hands on you are meticulous, not going too far. It costs him at the moment and you're still mumbling nonsense. Your emotions are a mess, the last thing you want is to hurt him, you need to do something about it and it almost made you forget the heat in your core to have him close.

"It's fine," he tries his best to not be cold but he can’t even look at your face. You're flustered and desperately looking for his eyes this time. Your hand ends up on his chest, catching the rhythm of his heart. You want to lean in, hold him close, tell him how sorry you are.

"You're all over my mind, it's intoxicating," you're shaking your head. "It's hard having you around, I'm sorry, but I love you please I never meant to hurt you." You can feel his heart beating faster under your hand and you can tell his cheeks turned pink.

Ace covered his face with one hand, rubbing it before hiding his lips as his eyes fell on you. “You’ll be the death of me…”

You can’t figure what he just muttered but you can’t find the need to care – he’s looking at you, it’s enough. “I’m sorry, Ace.”

“I know, I know !” he doesn’t know what to do with his own body after that, or what he can do at all. “Can I help you then ? Or are you gonna argue agai– Hey !”

Before he could finish his sentence, your legs gave up on you and your vision went dark. He’s left there, with your body in his arms as you passed out – your head gently laying on his chest now. He groans, cursing under his breath before holding you close and coming down the stairs. You’re not really heavy for him, that’s not the problem.

The problem is that he can’t get your words out of his head. You saying ‘I love you’, being so desperate for him to look at you, to say you were sorry… And the hell did you mean he’s all over your mind ?! There’s a lot of things on his mind at the moment, too many for him to keep a track of and the alcohol surely doesn’t help.

Your weight is comfortable in his arms, when he stops beside your bunk he has a hard time letting you go. You seem so vulnerable, he lays you down eventually, staring at you for a second. There’s a small frown knitted on your face, he has to ease it down with his fingers  before sitting on the floor, next to you.

“The hell you meant I’m all over your mind…” he’s not getting over it. He doesn’t know what to do with it but it for sure works him up.

You were all over his mind all night, and it’s not the first time, so knowing you might feel the same felt – strange. The fact that you rejected him probably because of that left a bad taste on his tongue. He wants to talk about it tomorrow, but will you even remember ? He sighs as he thinks about it. It can’t be helped at the moment.

The next morning, you woke up with the worst headache you’ve ever had but also with a huge glass of water next to your bunk and a small note. 

Drink a lot today. Can we talk ?’

You don’t need a sign to know who it is, his bad handwriting says it all. You flush when you read it. You don’t remember well what happened yesterday, but you’re sure you must have said some bad shit to get a note from Ace.

You lay back on your bed, groaning at your blood pulsing in your temple like crazy, but it’s better than to get up and face him for now. What even happened after you left the deck ? You remember Ace coming to check on you, crying a little and running – or at least try to – after him. The rest of the night is blurry, you can’t figure what you did or say after crashing into his arms, and the only reason you’re sure you crashed into him is because you can still feel his warmth around you. It’s bitter sweet, you love it and hate it at the same time. You don’t want to crave it like you do.

You’re so lost in your mind, you missed the knock on your door. Twice. It makes you jump when the door opens out of nowhere in a loud creak and Ace’s face comes out of it. He looks at you with big eyes at first, seemingly lost and you can feel your cheeks turn hot. Pulling the cover closer to your chest, you winced at the pain in your head.

“Headache ?” he asks softly, a small grin on his lips as he walks in. He has another glass of water in hand but he keeps it for himself when he sees the first one barely touch. “Drink,up, it’s gonna help."

You nod and drink it all straight. You can feel the coldness running down your body and sigh in relief afterward. It doesn’t help in a second, but you already feel better. He gave you the second after you gave it a long stare. It’s awkward, you don’t know what to say, neither does he. After a moment, the silence is so thick you don’t know how to break it. So you clear your throat. 

“I’m sorry for last night,” you start carefully. “I don’t really remember what happened, or what I said but I was mean, wasn’t I ? I didn’t mean to.”

“You said that last night already, don’t worry,” It took him a second to answer, his eyes lost on the floor next to your bunk. “It’s forgotten already. You were drunk.”

There’s another silence. You sit up and let your legs hang over the edge, trying to catch his eyes since he doesn’t say anything ; he seems lost in his mind, and it’s never a good sign. Your fingers brush his arm gently, trying to bring him back with you. “Are you alright ?”

He shrugs, trying to play it cool but his eyes say something else. “You said you didn’t mean it… You think it works for everything you said ?” there’s a subtle hope as he stares back at you making you gulp hard.

“I don’t know, what did I say ?” you tried to joke, lightening the mood but you’re scared. What if you went too far and told him you wanted him that way ? What a mess it would be, but you guessed he would’ve been more cocky about it.

Your fingers are now brushing his hot skin without failing, grounding him in with you instead of drowning in overthinking. You wait for him to talk, not forcing him to, but you’re ready to wait for him. “You said you never wanted to hurt me because you loved me? You meant it ?”

Your heart stopped. Of course you said something like this and you want to hit your head on the wall for it, but you can’t back down now. “Yeah, I care for you Ace. You’re important to me."

“Enough for you to love me ? You also said I was all over your mind all night, that’s why it was hard to have me around.”

You flushed at his words, bringing your hand back to your chest as if he just stripped you off all your clothes. Why did drunk you speak so much, huh ? They were talkative for sure and you hated it. Your eyes fell on the floor and it was your time to avoid his gaze. You couldn’t say you didn’t mean it like that, you don’t want to see him hurt even if it breaks your heart.

“Hum, enough to love you,” you whisper, scared it’s gonna ruin everything. Closing your eyes hard, you wait for him to answer but nothing comes. Instead, he can feel his head leaning against yours. His forehead touches yours and you open your eyes, his are shut. A sigh of relief leaves his lips.

“You were on my mind too, you know,” he started softly, his voice low. “I was scared you’d never want to talk to me again if you knew.”

You can’t help the chuckle that left your lips, catching him off guard. He straightened his back quickly, leaving his hands on his lips – a suspicious look on his face. “What was that ?”

“You have no idea what I think of you, so don’t worry. It can’t be worse.”

With that, he laughed and the heavy, awkward mood lifted up by itself. And, without really putting words onto it, you knew how the other felt. It was still new, too soon to start something but you could laugh with each other openly. Ace could put your hair behind your ear without feeling like a creep and you could stay close to him without going crazy.

It’s simple, it feels like you’re already together for a lot. Yet, there’s still a lot on Ace’s mind. He took his time, until he knew he could do it without regretting it. Waiting for you to fall asleep in his arms, for you to hit his arm playfully when he goes too far with a joke without being upset, for you to open up to him – only then did he say it.

It was dark and rather cold outside, but he still found you sitting by yourself on the deck, looking at the stars. He can’t really get cold but he knows you do for sure, so he’s surprised to find you without a thick shirt on.

“Keeping the stars all for yourself ?” he chuckles as he sits beside you, making you giggle.

“I wouldn’t dare, they’re for everyone,” you answer. It sounded more deep than you meant to, but it’s fine. He has people to share them with too. For a while, neither of you talked but it’s comfortable now. He doesn’t have to play a role with you, neither do you and things got a lot easier after you two accepted that.

“You’re not cold ?” he asks finally, worried because of the shivers on your arms.

“Yes, I am.” It was blunt, unapologetic and it made him laugh out loud. Oh, how he loves you.

“Come here,” he grins as he gestures to you to come closer.

He doesn’t have to say it first. You sit up immediately and move between his legs, now resting in the hot embrace you learned to know. You let out a satisfied sigh as you get comfortable in his arms. “I thought you'd never say it.”

You made him laugh again, it happens more now you noted. You like it. His head finds the crook of your neck and he rested his nose there, inhaling your scent before sighing as well. His arms tighten around your waist, pulling you closer. You call out his name softly, but he doesn’t answer. He’s feeling good, safe – at home.

“I love you too.” His voice is low, you barely heard him but your heart would never miss this. It felt like the right moment : under the stars, you safe in his arms as he warms you up during a cold night. He wants this to last forever.

More important, he never actually told you he loved you when you already did and he felt bad for it. He doesn't know why he hesitated for so long when every cell in his body was craving for your soft touches and words, but now it was done and he never felt happier.

“I didn’t even say it…” you argued but your cheeks were flush red.

“You did,” he confirms. “A while ago. I didn’t forget, never.”

Before he can make sense of it, you're turning around and grabbing his face with both hands before your lips rested on his for a second. It’s a small peck but it feels like you’ve been waiting for this all your life. He’s taken by surprise but quick to bring you back for another kiss, longer but gentle, careful. His hands don’t leave your waist, his thumbs drawing patterns on your cold skin before breaking the kiss.

“I love you,” you whisper anyway, not waiting for anything in return.

He nudges his nose with yours, a big smile on his lips as he hears your laugh at the cute gesture. He couldn’t ask for more and he wouldn't dare. He was lucky enough to be loved so gently.

Let me know if you liked it ! ♡

[ifyoucandaniel]

I want to thank you for making your list of recommended long batfam fics. I have been making my way through it and I am really enjoying them! ESPECIALLY cards on the table (I also love Dark Matter but I had already read it). Please let us know if you ever get more long batfam fic recs 🥺

okay so ive been waiting to answer this until i had gathered a good chunk of new long fics and ive been getting a lot of similar messages asking for recommendations, so here is another list of my fav long batman fics!

Jason and the Three Terrors by @cdelphiki, 220k, ongoing, T. if i can get you to read one thing, let it be this. ohhh my god where to even begin, this is a fic where jason stays with the league after his dip in the lazarus pit for a little while and winds up being charged with getting damian, his cousin, and his sister out of the league safely. this fic is just so fucking good, cdelphiki always writes such seamless relationship growth and watching jason go from "im dropping these brats off first chance i get" to "im a single mother of three and i need to provide for my kids" is phenomenal. 1000/10, the writing, the kids, the relationships, please do yourself a favor and read this.

A Collision of Masks by Movaz, 169k, completed, T. !! guys. this is such a good dick grayson-centric fic. this is set in an AU where batman never joined the justice league so the justice league knows very little about batman inc. and consequently dick never joins YJ so the YJ team is tasked with checking out a new hero called nightwing in bludhaven and police officer grayson is tasked with helping the team in their investigation :) really good fic exploring dick juggling all his identities and finally gaining people he can rely on! i actually did a bind of it so you know i love this story so much

Life Happens by @cdelphiki, 176k, complete, G. ok so this fic is probably one of the most beautiful stories of growth and love i've read. its about tim and damian being transported from their world into ours where they're only comic book characters and they start to build a life for themselves here. cdelphiki is one of the most amazing authors, im currently going through all of their works, but this one has just stayed with me and i dont think anyone should pass it up. watching tim and damian grow together and seeing damian have a real childhood and just the whole concept of life happening wether you want it to or not is so beautifully done. cannot recommend enough.

Honoring Promises by LananiA3O, completed, 14k, T. okay this isnt actually a long fic, but its one of my favorite fics ever and i need it on this list. if you're like me and you love UTRH aus where instead of sticking around as red hood after bruce threw a batarang at his throat jason fucks off and disappears to live a normal life, this is for you. from dick's pov, he realizes jasons last letter was a last attempt at reaching out and stalks him until he finds out what really happened to his little brother. i think about this every day and wish it was 10000 words long

The Time Before by @cdelphiki, 80k, completed, G. at this point this is basically just a cdelphiki fic rec lmao when i said everything by them was good, i meant that shit. this is a fic where jason is sent back into time when he was 9 years old but still has all his memories from the future. he goes to bruce for help despite wanting to do literally anything else and is surprised to realize maybe everything isn't how he remembers it 10 years in the future and maybe theres a chance he can go home when hes older again. once again cdelphiki hitting me in the feels with this one, really amazing study on how time and pain can change how you perceive and remember things and also just forgiveness and fixing mistakes and accepting mistakes were made. very good, highly recommend

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors by Sophene, 80k, completed, batlantern, T. I have no excuse for this, this is such a fun and funny fic i love it so much. basically HOA president single dad bruce with his 10 million adopted kids and then hal jordan moves in next door and plays his music too loud at 10pm on a school night and throws parties and bruce has a stick up his ass about it. i really really love the shift in hal when kyle comes to live with him as his ward (? i cant actually remember if hes adopted or just a ward) and seeing him finally understand why bruce acts the way he does when it comes to his kids. also seeing bruce just being a tired dad 90% of the fic when he isnt glaring at hal is so good.

Option C by CasualGeek, 78k, completed, T. this has, in my opinion, a very unique and interesting premise. basically, what if instead of becoming red hood, jason comes back to gotham and manages to get Joker put on trial for the murder of sheila haywood and get the insanity plea thrown out. really interesting approach to batman and joker and jason technically doing things through the legal justice system and what that means for him and the people around him. very good, read it all in one sitting

butcherbird, fly away home by e_va, 41k, completed, M. lost days jason todd loml! basically what if when jason was off on his world tour one of his tutors kidnapped bruce wayne and jason has feelings about it against his will. "what if lost days jason was stuck in the same room as a sick bruce for more than 10 minutes and actually had to talk to him without punching him" AU and i throughly enjoyed it. @darlingatlas recommended this one and she never misses with the jason recs

this kind of weather by r_astra, 55k, completed, T. this is the fic something in the static was originally inspired by and if you know me, i love that series, and i love this fic too. another what if jasons mom didnt die until later and social services gets involved before he can bolt and bruce seeks him out with some very interesting news. i love fics that display jason’s relationship with crime alley and him being one of them. very good, i love jason so much

ok now these aren't actually long fics but i need to get them out here because i love them so much and highly recommend!

To My Brother by a_silly_gander, 7k, completed, T. Lost days jason au where he starts sending post cards from his travels to dick on a whim while we follow his time away and the people he meets. i love this one so much, please read it if you love jason and dick, its so special to me.

Enhanced Fashion Sense is a Perk of Being a Cat by 12pt_timesnewromanfont, 23k, complete, G. selina breaks into drake manor to steal a cat artifact and accidentally meets the drakes ten year old son they left home alone. then she starts keeping tabs on him and eventually adopts him and makes him stray. i really love selina finding tim before bruce and taking care of him <3 10/10 i wish selina would adopt me

[spiriteddreams]

nanami kento likes to be on time to everything. but when you're pressing kisses to his lips, his nose, his cheeks, he finds that he doesn't quite mind running late this time. after all, it's to meet gojo, so for all he cares, the white haired sorcerer can wait for an eternity as he indulges in your love. his hands rest on your waist as you stand between his legs, humming to yourself as you help to straighten his tie and press another kiss to his lips.

"i'm going to be late," he murmurs, but you don't miss the way he chases after your lips, searching for another.

your hands run up his chest until they're resting on his shoulders and you roll your eyes fondly and say, "you don't seem to be in a rush." it's the truth, but really, how can he be in a rush when you're looking at him so sweetly, holding his gaze as if daring him to be the first to look away. he pulls you closer instead, curling his fingers around you as he hums nonchalantly.

"i'd much rather be here with you," nanami admits. you feel your face warm at his words, so simple and yet said in that signature low voice of his, laced with all the love and adoration he holds for you. he's never been the best with his words, and you know this. without having to say it, you know exactly what he's saying.

nanami kento expresses his love through his actions. he swears to love you in the flowers he brings home everyday after work, and in the morning coffee that he brews as you sluggishly climb out of bed after him. he seals his promises with the slow kisses that you share in empty classrooms of tokyo jujutsu tech, as if you were both still in school, young and chasing after one another but too afraid to make the first move.

"you know i have to get to work too," and yet you don't make an attempt to pull away form him either. "i promised shoko i'd buy her a coffee." nanami hums and you can feel the way his fingers start to gently press into your clothes, subtly pushing you towards him. he doesn't have to say it, but you know that he wants you to indulge him just a bit longer. a glance at the clock in your room has you sighing softly.

"kento," you say softly. he savors the way you say his name, searing it into his memory as he fixes you with a knowing look, a smile tugging up on his lips as he tilts his head just barely.

"one more, for good luck?" he teases. you huff out a sigh, knowing that he'll ask for another, and then another, and before you know it, both your lips will be swollen and eyes glassy as you're rushing to leave home.

he chuckles, as if reading your thoughts. "i'll need all the luck i can get if i'm meeting with gojo." you hate to admit that this time, he has a point. in the back of your mind, you wonder how long it'll take for nanami to pull out his phone and send you a text, asking you to come save him from the sugary eccentric sorcerer who's roped him into training one of his new students.

"for good luck then," the kiss you give is chaste, far too quick for his liking and he doesn't care if you laugh at the way he sharply pulls you back in. the kiss he presses to your lips is searing and you nearly stumble forward had it not been for your hands immediately moving to grip his shoulders. you lose yourself in the moment, hands wandering just as his do.

it's only when the sharp ringing of your phone cuts through the room that you pull away to reach over to see shoko's name on screen. she doesn't even give you the chance to greet her when you pick up, instead opting to say, "i hope you're not sucking faces right now."

"if you're upset about your coffee running a bit late, i'll buy you another one tomorrow," you reply fondly. nanami huffs next to you, eyeing your phone as if contemplating grabbing it and tossing it across the room so he could pick up where you left off.

"i'll hold you to that," shoko sighs. it's silent for a beat before she speaks up again, "hey nanami, gojo's been texting me nonstop. he said you're not answering your phone." the sorcerer in front of you mumbles something under his breath as you bid shoko goodbye, promising to bring her coffee soon.

"i suppose that's our sign to go," you step out of his grasp and nanami nods as he tucks away his phone in his pocket. already, he's thinking about coming home and making dinner this time. he's thinking about what flowers the corner store might have today when you pat his chest and go to cup his cheek.

"have a good day my love," you smile at him. and in every silly cliche way possible, nanami's breath catches in his throat. this is what it must feel like to be in love, the kind of love that the books you ask him to read try to describe, but never fully capture.

"i'll see you later," he says softly, already leaning towards you, "text me if you need anything." you both hesitate, go to pull away, but fall back into one another for one last kiss before you go, your giggles still echoing in nanami's mind as he turns to go meet gojo.

nanami's always liked to be on time, but for you, he'll make every exception.

reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! <3 a/n: this is me coping and trying to emotionally prepare to watch the episode later

[kawhh]

Angry, dark, Quinn....I dare not speak. I think he would become so remorseful though. Especially if there's lingering effects of his behavior. His girl only speaks to him when spoken to, will gingerly sit on the couch or get in bed with space between them, involuntarily flinching when he tries to touch too fast. Like he wants to be dominant, but he doesn't want you to hide any thoughts or parts of yourself from him, he needs your love and attention more than air. He glues himself to you to refamiliarize you both with his touch and is near reverential.

He truly hates himself for how he reacted. The guilt makes him nauseous. He can't sleep. He can't rest. He can't get comfortable. He can't care for you. He can't soothe you.

It makes him feel like ripping his heart out of chest to escape the emotional agony. He's supposed to protect you. You're supposed to feel safe around him, to turn to him for comfort. For warmth, for safety.

You're supposed to just know and understand how he'd burn the earth for you. He'd do anything for you. He needs you. He'd suffer through anything for you. Drop anything for you. Quit his whole career for you.

The fact that he lost control over his anger? Lost control around you? Focused that towards you? Even thinking about it makes tears well up in his eyes, his arms shaking in panic. It almost sends him into a panic attack, how you're acting around him.

You look so scared of him. So small and afraid. Every noise he makes, you jump. Looking towards him like he's going to snap again. He doesn't know how to fix it.

You shrink in on yourself in bed, not wanting to touch him. Not wrapping yourself around him like you usually do. He can hear you whimper in your sleep. He's sleeping on the couch now, not being able to stand hearing you and doing nothing about it. Not wanting you to lose sleep with your worry of touching him.

The signs of the bruising from his grip.. they're still there on your skin. Every single time he gets a flash of one, it's like he's been shot. Feels like he's been shot. He thinks he would rather have been shot.

The way you'd usually lean into his touch - now you treat him like you're allergic to him. You don't start any contact. You don't even look like you want to. Every attempt by him making you freeze up, looking at him with that look that fucking shatters his heart.

He needs you. His possession over you isn't a one way street. He's supposed to provide for you. To make you laugh. To make you want to marry him. To give you every little thing you want in life. To be a physical shield for you.

He doesn't want to make you feel forced into forgiving him. He doesn't want to manipulate your emotions, make you feel trapped.

All he can do is spend every single moment of his time on his knees in front of you, speaking his regrets into your skin. Over and over and over again. Apologising, waiting for the moment you feel safe enough to speak up, to give him any hope of being the man he needs to be for you again.

[indulgentdaydream]

Bliss and Misery

Dad!Jason Todd x Fem!Mom!Reader || Angst; Hurt/No Comfort || Word Count: 1,643

Warnings: dead dove.

i know how much you guys love my domestic!jason fics :3 so here's this one that's been bouncing around in my mind:

The morning sun stretched its fingers, slowly finding its way centimetre by centimetre in order to reach into the small apartment bedroom. The soft warmth spread over Jason's face, giving him a slow and subtle wake-up call.

Jason almost doesn't want to wake up. The plush covers are pulled up to his shoulders. One arm lays over his stomach, resting against the cotton fabric. The other stuffed underneath the pillow, beside his head. He hasn't even opened his eyes yet, but he can feel your presence beside him.

Slowly, he blinks, adjusting to the daylight. He pulls his hand out from under the pillow and runs it across his face. He vaguely remembered something about needing to be up for something. Something about helping Dick with something or another.

He turned his head to the left and all possible worries about sleeping vanished when his eyes found you.

Jason couldn't help but smile. The sight of his girl curled up in the sheets beside him making him feel warmer than the sun ever could. You looked as completely at peace as he felt in the moment. The sunlight stretched over you, as well, illuminating every feature of yours. All of which he loved without a second thought.

Loved as if it was second nature.

As if it was breathing itself.

Here, with the comforter pulled up to your chin, face squished against the pillow, and a small pile of dried drool forming on it, you were safe. He was safe.

You were safe and he was safe and this was everything he had ever wanted to give you.

Peace. Safety. Comfortability.

Love.

He takes the hand resting across his stomach and reaches out to you. There was a stray lock that had fallen out of place. He wanted to fix it for you before it could wake you out of annoyance.

Then he heard the quick padding of feet coming down the hallway.

It filters in through the bedroom door, left open a crack, getting louder with each little slap of a bare foot rushing down the hall. Jason smiles at the sound.

Obviously, he's not the only one awake.

From where he's laying, Jason can only see the top of the door. He listens as the padding feet stop right outside of it, before it begins to slowly creak open. Jason pushes up onto his elbows to get a better look.

There's a small face poking their head around the door, a curious look on their face as they peer up at the bed, trying to determine if their parents are awake. As soon as Jason's head comes up into their view, a large, bright, slightly toothy smile spreads across their whole face.

Jason holds a finger to his lips as your shared toddler pushes the door open the rest of the way. Luckily, it doesn't bang loud enough to wake you up.

"Come to my side," Jason whispers.

The sound of quick padding feet picks up again. Jason lays his head back against his pillow. He gets a second more of peace before there's a small head, covered with dense, black curls, that's appearing next to him, barely visible over the edge of the bed. Next, there's tiny hands. They're reaching up and gripping at the blanket, attempting to pull themself up, only to no avail.

Jason turns and reaches down. He lifts them up with no effort, sitting them onto his chest. His voice is groggy, still full of sleep, as he whispers "Hiya, baby."

A fit of giggles rings throughout the room. His baby leans forward. Two hands settle on either side of Jason's cheeks. His baby grins at him still, two eyes staring into his own, matching ones, and matches his whisper, "Daddy."

Jason chuckles to himself. He gently grabs his toddler's hands, pressing kisses and pretending to nibble on the little, pudgy fingers.

Another round of giggles sound out, a bit louder than before.

You shuffle in your sleep, a small puff of air leaving your lips. The movement grabs the attention of both your baby and your husband.

Your baby flops down, suddenly, off of Jason's chest. They land between you two, on the mattress. One pudgy hand is pushing themself up, the other reaching out to your face, instead. Their whispering voice calls out, "Mommy!"

Jason turns onto his side, facing you, and pulls them back. He gently holds them to his chest with an arm around them, “Shhh," He whispers into their ear, "Mommy’s sleeping.”

"Mommy s'eeping.”

Jason laughs quietly smiling as their baby looks back up at him with that same, bright grin. They look up at him with your eyes, before looking back at you.

...

Your eyes?

Jason shuffles lower in the bed, putting his face next to his baby’s. All four of their eyes are focused on you.

“Isn’t she so pretty?" He whispers, "Look at how pretty Mommy is.”

You look so peaceful. So cozy. So beautiful. With the blanket wrapped around you, your limbs comfortably spread out. Your entire life right in front of you, yet you were blissfully unaware.

“Pretty,” Their baby whispers.

Jason grins, patting their stomach, “Yes. She’s very pretty isn’t she?” Jason lets go of their baby, “Go wake her up.”

Their baby squeals out a fit of giggles again. They immediately crawl forward between the small space. Their hands come down quick, making Jason flinch in preparation for the accidental blow, but they land gently on your face. Their lips come down to messily kiss your closed eyelid.

“Mommy,” they whisper loudly.

You let out a small groan. Your baby grins, gently patting your cheek. You peer one eye open, "What is it?"

Jason grins wide, his hand coming over to smooth over your upper arm through the blanket, “The wake up call came in.”

Their baby sat back on the mattress as you lifted your head, “So you were the first victim," your eyes squinted at the morning light coming in through the window behind Jason, "and you just let ‘em continue their rampage?”

Their baby scoots down to lay between their parents, their face level between theirs, still smiling and happy as could be.

“I was already awake,” Jason smiles, “I let you have five more minutes before the attack began.”

You hum, closing your eyes again, "What a gentleman."

“Mommmmy,” your baby dragged out the word, their little hand reaching out and touching your cheek.

You hum and peak an eye open again, “I’m awake, darling.”

Jason chuckles and leans over, “You better be. We’ve obviously slept in enough according to the little one."

You let out a small laugh. He presses a light kiss to your lips.

A small squeal sounds.

Jason looks down at the look of betrayal on their toddler’s face. Their little hands raise up in question. It makes him laugh wholeheartedly.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he leans back down to the toddler instead. You're laughing with him, “Are you feeling left out?”

Jason kisses their cheek. You lean in and kiss their other cheek.

Jason looks back at you, a warm smile on his face. He begins to reach his hand out to cup your face.

His phone starts to ring.

He frowns. You aren't reacting. Neither is your toddler.

His hand hits the pillow where your head should be.

The sheets are cold.

The room is dark. It’s the middle of the night.

There’s no one in front of him. It’s just him in his empty, cold, uncomfortable bed.

There's no warmth. No sunlight. No comfortable blanket. No padding little feet.

No you.

He sits up, throwing his feet over the side of the bed, tossing the covers off of himself. He rubs a hand over his face. One glance at his phone shows that it’s Dick calling. No chance he’s picking up.

Not now.

Jason holds his head in his hands.

Why did he ever break up with you?

To protect you from himself, of course. All he had wanted to give you.

Peace. Safety. Comfortability.

and...

Love.

The phone stopped ringing. A moment later, it started up again.

His life is dangerous. He was dragging you down. You were better off without him. You had the chance to choose a different path than he had.

A path that lowered your chance of sudden death just by association.

But… if that’s the life that he could’ve had with you… a life he hadn’t fully considered himself ever being able to have…

God.

Why did he ever leave?

The sight of that little smile, held in his arms, lit up by the morning light, made his stomach churn so violently he almost darted to the bathroom.

What would their name have been? He didn't know the gender in the dream.

He would have let you name them. He was never good with names.

He thought back on their eyes. He would have wanted them to have your eyes. He would have wanted them to have every single one of your features. It was always easier to those who were as gorgeous as you. Even if you rarely believed him when he tried to convince you that you are.

The phone stopped ringing again.

A text came through. You promised.

Yeah, The image of you laying in the bed, your toddler laying beside you, both smiling up at him, flashed through Jason's mind, I did promise her, didn't I?

Jason lifts his head, shaking it a little to clear his thoughts.

He had made his bed, and now he was laying in it. And it wasn't the one that had you and your shared child in it.

He picked up the phone, cleared his throat, and redialed.

He ignored the tears still falling down his face.

And the sight of your contact that was still favourited.

my bad guys I was in a mood...

[ginnsbaker]

All Of Your Pieces (7 - Fix the Dead)

Chapter Summary: A conversation with Wanda about the twins’ rapid growth leaves you both struggling with guilt and loss. Clint’s attempt to contact you through a vintage radio ends in disaster, as Wanda tightens her hold on her fragile reality. Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female Reader Chapter word count: 3.9k+ | Chapter Tags/Warnings: None

A/N: So, cat's out of the bag--Reader is actually alive. Three more chapters until we close part 1! // More author's notes here.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

“Please, talk to me.”

You look over your shoulder. You've been pretending to sleep for almost an hour now, and just when you thought Wanda had drifted off and you could sneak out to spend some time alone with a book in the living room, she surprises you.

With a soft sigh, you turn to face her. The sight that greets you instantly breaks your heart. Even in the darkness, with only a sliver of blue moonlight seeping through the window to illuminate her face, you can see her lonely, anxious expression.

“What is there to talk about?” you whisper back.

Wanda reaches out to touch your hand, but you pull it back slightly. “I can feel your sadness,” she murmurs. “Is something wrong?”

You take a deep breath, burying half of your face in the pillow, your throat tightens and your eyes begin to sting at her simple inquiry into your well-being. You want to remain silent, but you know you can't—and shouldn't—hide your feelings from Wanda. Your efforts are superfluous anyway, she always has a way of seeing right through you.

You give a small nod, unable to voice out more.

Wanda sits up slightly, propping herself on one elbow. She knows it’s only a matter of time before the doubt and fear catches up to you. “Did I do something?” she asks softly.

You bite your lower lip, struggling to hold back the feelings swelling up inside you like a dam ready to burst. “It's the boys,” you finally say.

Her disarming green eyes search yours earnestly. “What about them?”

You sit up fully, pulling the blanket around your shoulders. “They're growing up too fast, Wanda. One moment they're babies—I’ve barely held them—and the next they're ten years old. I feel like we're missing out on so much.”

Wanda swallows hard. The twins’ childhood has lasted barely a week. Having lost her own childhood at a very young age, she knows the pain of missing out, and she desperately wants her children to experience a proper childhood. But here in Westview, Wanda has learned to look on the brighter side of things. At least you both have Tommy and Billy; you're a complete family. They're happy with who they are and what you have together as a family. At least you're here with her, raising them, no matter how short the time given to both of you.

She reaches for your hand again, and this time you let her hold it. “They're just exploring their abilities,” she says, repeating the assurances she's been telling herself. “You know how kids are…”

You don’t look entirely convinced by that, so Wanda sits up too, tightens her grip on your hand. “They're special. You know that their abilities make them different,” she points out.

“Different doesn't mean we have to skip their entire childhood,” you reply bitterly. “I didn't get to see their first steps, hear them say ‘Mama’ for the first time. Those moments are gone, and I can't get them back.”

Beside you, she tenses. You don’t need to look to know she understands—she wasn’t there for those moments with the boys either.

“Doesn't it bother you?” you ask. “Even a little?”

Wanda glances away for a second, quickly blinking back any sign of weakness before she looks at you again. “It does. But I've been so focused on keeping everything together that I didn't stop to think about what we might be losing.”

You take a deep, shaky breath, feeling bad for thinking Wanda didn’t care. She just seems so… tolerant of it all.

“I’m sorry,” you say, scooting closer and wrapping your arms around her. “I bet you wanted those milestones just as much as I do. Just…forget I said anything.”

Wanda leans into your embrace. “No, you’re right to bring it up. They’re missing out on so many things, too.”

“How can we fix this? Can we even fix it?” you ask.

Wanda understands it’s not about whether she can intervene—it’s about whether she should. She could easily use her powers to stop the boys from skipping ahead. But it’s the ethics of it that she’s wrestling with ever since she did it to you. 

“Maybe next time, I could… ensure things go differently?” she suggests carefully. 

The implication of her words doesn’t go over your head. “Wanda, we can’t do that,” you tell her softly. “I... I don’t think we should do anything without their consent, even if we think it’s for the best.”

Wanda pulls back in shame. “You’re right. I’ve been making too many decisions for everyone.”

You gently hold her cheek, making her look at you. “It's okay, Wanda.”

She fights the urge to disagree, to shake her head and confess that it's not okay. She's made these choices for you too many times, and it’s clearer now than ever how much she’s overstepped, compromising your privacy and trust.

“Maybe we can talk to them?” you suggest, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“You think they’ll listen?”

You offer her a sleepy, crooked smile. “I hope so,” you say. “But even if they don't, we'll be there for them, whatever they choose.”

You gently coax her to lie back down, and Wanda instinctively pulls your head to her chest, letting you rest your head against her. This time, you drift off quickly, soothed by the steady beat of her heart into a deep and dreamless sleep.

–

“Why keep it a secret?” Monica demands though not unkindly. She can’t wrap her head around why you’d choose to disappear and fake your own death, especially now that Wanda is back from the Snap. While it's undoubtedly a relief to learn that someone isn't dead, Monica can't help but feel disappointed by this turn of events.

All this time, they believed they could persuade Wanda to abandon her fantasy in Westview. But now, with everything she desires apparently right here, why would she ever choose to leave?

And more importantly, how would she ever allow any of them to leave?

“Also, how do we know you’re not lying again?” Darcy adds quickly.

Clint raises a hand to calm the room, nodding toward the television where you just appeared, very much alive. “Clearly, there's evidence that she's there,” he says calmly, pointing out the obvious. “Living and breathing just like the rest of us.”

Everyone quiets down, accepting his point. It checks off one of the many questions they've had since this whole thing started.

“She wanted it this way,” Clint then tells Monica, in response to her question earlier. “Believe me, it hit the kid hard, watching Wanda turn to ashes right before her eyes... I lost my family that day too. But at least I was spared from seeing it happen.”

Monica can only imagine what it was like. She was snapped away, but she counts herself lucky she wasn’t one of those left behind to endure the absence.

“Does Y/N know that Wanda returned from the Snap?” Darcy asks.

“Yeah,” Clint says. Everyone looks at him, expecting more, but it’s clear he meant to keep his answer short and sweet.

Jimmy taps his pen against his notepad. “So how did Wanda find her?”

“That's the million-dollar question,” Clint says, glancing back at the screen now showing only static. “Last I heard from Y/N was about five months ago. She settled in Reykjavik. Wanted to live a quiet life.”

Monica crosses her arms, the gears in her head haven't stopped turning since finding out you’re really alive. “And now she's in Westview, starring in Wanda's show?”

“Doesn't add up,” Clint agrees. “Y/N was determined to stay hidden.”

“Maybe Wanda found out Y/N was alive and pulled her into this reality she made,” Darcy says.

“Or perhaps Y/N reached out to Wanda,” Jimmy suggests.

“She wouldn’t,” Clint counters gruffly, dismissing the idea outright. After a second, he adds, “And if Y/N didn't want to be found, she wouldn’t be. She was always skilled at vanishing.”

Monica thinks it over. “But Wanda's powers have grown exponentially. Maybe she picked up on Y/N’s presence somehow.”

“Still doesn't explain why Y/N would play along,” Clint counters. “I know her. She wouldn’t agree to this.”

Darcy shrugs. “Unless she’s being controlled by Wanda.”

Clint clenches his jaw. “Y/N's strong-minded. It'd take a lot to manipulate her. Besides, Wanda wouldn’t do that to her.”

“Clearly,” Darcy scoffs. Clint’s lips press into a thin line, struggling to hold back a retort to that.

Jimmy flips through his notes. “From what we've observed, she seems... compliant. But there are moments where she looks almost aware.”

“You noticed that from the show?” Clint asks.

“Not from the show,” Monica clarifies, standing up. “From me.”

Clint gives her a puzzled look.

“Oh, I forgot to mention—I’ve been inside the Hex.”

“You were there? How did you manage to get out?” Clint asks, both horrified and a little impressed.

Monica sighs. “I mentioned something that referenced the real world. Wanda didn't like it. She literally threw me out of town.”

Clint runs a hand through his hair, processing this new information. “So, she really is controlling everything in there, and anyone who challenges that gets expelled?”

“Exactly,” Monica nods. “And now that we’ve found out that the real Y/N is in there with her, it looks like Wanda’s got everything she wants. That throws a wrench in our plans.”

Clint rubs his chin thoughtfully. “And your plan was to...?”

“To...” Monica trails off, suddenly realizing how naive it sounds. “...talk her out of it.”

Clint furrows his brow and lets out a noncommittal “Hmmm.”

“I know how it sounds,” Monica says, a hint of color rising in her cheeks. “But I thought if I could just reach her, reason with her, maybe I could get through. I've lost people too—”

“We all have,” Clint replies. “Though maybe not to the extent she has.”

“Parents, brother, best friend, lover...” Darcy ticks off Wanda’s losses on her fingers. “That's pretty much every key relationship in a person's life.”

“So, what do you suggest we do?” Jimmy asks, turning to Clint, who looks like he’s been hit with a freight train over the last five minutes. Overwhelmed would be an understatement—he probably needs an Advil after this conversation.

Clint exhales sharply, mulling it over while the others watch him, waiting.

“I'm usually a man of action,” he says slowly, “but sometimes it's better to try talking before jumping into a fight. Only, I don't think it's Wanda we should be trying to reach out to.”

“Then who?” Monica asks.

Clint licks his lips. “Y/N.”

–

“Where’s Sparky?”

It's odd to see the boys without their four-legged companion ever since they adopted him. He's been their whole world lately, and even Wanda spends her breaks between chores playing with the puppy. 

Billy and Tommy exchange uneasy glances. “He... ran out the front door,” Billy says, his voice papery-thin.

“What do you mean he ran out?”

“We tried to catch him, but he was too fast,” Tommy reasons.

You take a deep breath, trying to keep your frustration in check. “Guys, you can't just let your pet run off like that. What if he'd been hit by a car? I'm… I’m really disappointed.”

“We’re sorry,” they mumble, eyes fixed on the floor.

“This is why I asked you boys to wait,” you say gently. “Maturity doesn’t just come from aging yourselves up—it takes time and experience. Do you understand why that matters now?”

They nod, a little slower this time. “We understand,” Billy says quietly.

“Alright,” you sigh, unable to stay upset for long. “Let’s go find Sparky. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

The three of you set out into the neighborhood, calling Sparky's name. It's around four in the afternoon, with about two hours of daylight left—plenty of time to search. After half an hour of knocking on doors and showing neighbors pictures of the scruffy Jack Russell, you begin to worry that finding him might require a more extensive search. The boys look really upset, and you feel guilty about reprimanding them earlier, even though you knew you had to be honest about their oversight. Just as you're about to suggest checking the park behind the townsquare, Agnes appears behind the bushes on her lawn, cradling something in her arms.

“Agnes?” you call out, a sick swirl of hope and dread twisting in your stomach.

“I…” Agnes approaches slowly, her face somber. Even before she gets close, you can already tell that whatever she’s carrying is limp and motionless. “I didn’t wanna come until I’d wrapped him up…”

Wanda pulls up just then, fresh from the grocery store. She’s barely out of the car when she notices you and the boys, your somber expressions stopping her in her tracks. She hurries over and follows your gaze. “What's that?” Wanda asks.

“Found him in my azalea bushes,” Agnes says, sidestepping the question. You glance at the twins, your heart sinking at the sight of their scared, regretful faces.

“I don’t know how many leaves he ate,” Agnes continues, her voice dropping even lower. “I didn’t find him until it was too late. Tommy, Billy, I’m so sorry.”

The brothers break forward. “No! Sparky!” they cry, tears streaming down their faces.

Your eyes sting as you pull them close. “I’m so sorry, guys,” you whisper, holding them tightly. They cling to you, their tear-soaked faces pressed against your shirt, and for a moment, the world feels still. But a moment later, they pull back, exchanging a glance—a silent conversation you’ve come to recognize all too well.

“Wait,” you say in panic, quickly stepping between them, as if the act alone could stop whatever plan is forming in their heads. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Boys, stop,” Wanda says, kneeling down to their level. “The urge to run from this feeling is powerful. But growing up isn't the way to avoid getting hurt. It…it teaches you to face it, feel it…learn from it. Trust me, I know.”

Billy wipes his eyes. “But it's too sad,” he whispers.

“I—”

Tommy, unlike his brother, has fire in his eyes. “You can fix anything, Mom. Fix the dead,” he pleads.

“You can do that?” comes Agnes’ voice behind her. 

You turn to your wife, who seems struck silent by Tommy's request. You know Wanda is powerful, her abilities growing stronger by the day, but reversing the natural order of things—that feels impossible and wrong.

“Some things can't—and shouldn't—be fixed,” you say, looking from one twin to the other. “Some things are final.”

“It's not fair,” Billy mumbles, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

You swallow hard. “I know. But maybe we can give Sparky a proper goodbye.” Agnes takes that as her cue to hand Sparky back to the boys. Wanda stands a few steps away, her face unreadable. The twins clutch the dog tightly, tears streaming down their cheeks.

You reach out toward your wife. “Honey—”

But Wanda steps further back, her eyes avoiding yours. “I... I need to start dinner,” she mutters, turning away before you can say more.

“Wait, can we—” you start, but Wanda’s already turning away, disappearing into the house.

–

The boys try to skip dinner, claiming they're not hungry, so you play your ace and order pizza, knowing they can't say no to that. Wanda just gives you a wary look and announces she's heading to bed early. You make a point of eating a good portion of Wanda’s dinner—not just to avoid waste but because you genuinely enjoy her cooking—before you tuck the boys in for the night.

After making sure they're settled, you decide to check on Wanda. You find her in your bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed staring out the window.

“Wanda?” you say softly.

She doesn't turn. “Are the boys okay?” she asks quietly.

“They're handling it,” you reply, approaching the bed. “They needed you.”

She sighs, shoulders slumping. “I couldn't... I didn't know what to say.”

“You don’t have to fix everything,” you say softly, sitting beside her. Your hand rests on her shin, fingers starting to massage in slow, soothing circles. “Sometimes just being there is enough.”

When she finally looks at you, your breath catches. Her eyes are swollen, red from crying. You reach for her hand, but she keeps it clenched in her lap. “I feel like I’m letting them down. Letting you down,” Wanda says quietly.

“Are you kidding? You’re an amazing mom to our boys. And the best wife I could ever ask for.”

She scrunches her nose, clearly struggling to accept your words. You smile, finding it endearing how shy she still gets whenever you compliment her.

“Thank you,” she whispers, lacing your fingers together before kissing the back of your hand.

“Have you eaten anything?” you ask.

Wanda shakes her head. “Not really.”

“Well, let's fix that,” you say, standing up, pulling her with you. “Come downstairs with me.”

“But you've already had dinner,” Wanda says.

You smile. “There's always room for dessert.”

–

Darcy practically jumps out of her seat, pointing excitedly at the screen. “That's our shot!”

Monica, Jimmy, and Clint look up from the reports scattered across the table, their brows furrowed in confusion. Hayward’s team is still stuck, unable to figure out how to get equipment through the barrier without it being warped into something unrecognizable. The working theory is that anything era-appropriate to Wanda’s “show” might make it through intact.

“A shot at what?” Jimmy asks.

“Reaching Y/N through Wanda's kitchen radio!” Darcy exclaims, already grabbing her coat. The others scramble to follow her outside to where her equipment is set up, ready to put their old theory to the test. 

Darcy starts adjusting the dials on a makeshift transmitter hooked up to a vintage-looking radio. “If we can sync up with the frequency of the broadcast, we might be able to get a message through,” she reminds them, her breath forming clouds in the cold.

Clint eyes the gadgets cluttering the back of the truck. “Is this really going to work?”

Darcy smirks. “Well, considering traditional methods aren't exactly panning out, it's worth a try.”

“Someone should keep an eye on things from the inside,” Monica surmises.

“I'll head back and keep watch,” Jimmy volunteers, already walking back to the tent. “I’ll radio in if it works.”

Monica turns to Clint with a thoughtful expression. “Who do you think should try talking to Y/N?”

“I'll give it a try,” he says. “Maybe hearing a familiar voice will help snap her out of it.”

Monica nods. “Good idea. She trusts you.”

Darcy comes up to them with the transmitter. “Alright, it's ready to go. Just press this button when you're ready to speak,” she instructs, handing the device to Clint.

Monica grabs her radio and contacts Jimmy. “Agent Woo, what's the situation inside?”

“Wanda is sitting at the dining table. Y/N is alone in the kitchen, looks like she's preparing dinner.”

“Thanks,” Monica smiles slightly. “Perfect timing. She's alone—we can reach her now.”

Clint nods, stepping closer to the microphone. “Here goes nothing,” he mutters. He presses the button and speaks into the microphone. “Y/N, it's Clint. Can you hear me?”

–

You’re pouring two glasses of wine, waiting for dinner to finish heating, when the old radio by the sink crackles to life.

“Y/N, it's Clint. Can you hear me?”

You freeze, hand hovering over the glass. The voice is faint, broken, but you heard your name. 

And his.

Clint? Why does that sound so familiar?

You glance at the radio, its dial unmoved. Adjusting the antenna slightly, you try to wait for another message to come through, but only static follows. You resume what you’re doing, only for the radio to speak again—directly to you, it seems.

“Jesus, Y/N, wake up! Come on!”

Your hand trembles violently, forcing you to set the wine bottle down before it slips from your grasp.

Heart pounding, you stare at the radio. “Hello?” you whisper, not really sure you believe what's happening. It feels like a dream. Other than your wife, who could even make a radio do this? 

And why would they need to talk to you?

“Finally! We've been trying to reach you. Listen, you have to—”

Before he can finish, a sharp burst of static erupts. The radio sparks violently and explodes right in front of you. You barely have time to shield yourself as fragments fly past, one slicing across your cheek. Wincing, you touch your face and your fingers come away smeared with blood.

“What was that?” Wanda's voice calls from the other room. You can hear her hurried footsteps approaching, but you can’t seem to move or say anything, too shocked to respond.

She appears in the doorway, eyes widening as she sees the blood on your cheek and the smoking wreckage of the radio. 

“You're hurt!”

In a flash, she’s on you, her hands checking your face, her thumb brushing near the cut. She tries to wipe away the blood, but it keeps coming, stubborn and unrelenting.

“I-It's nothing…”

“We need to clean this up,” she says, too calm, like it’s normal to find you bleeding after a radio exploded.

“I'm fine, really,” you insist weakly, but she’s already fetching a cloth and pressing it against your wound.

As she tends to you, her eyes dart quickly to the destroyed radio. “These old things can be so dangerous,” she murmurs.

“Yeah…” 

Someone named Clint had tried to reach you. Who is he? And why did the radio explode? There are too many questions swimming in your head, overwhelming enough to numb the sting of your wound.

“You're shaking,” Wanda notes softly. “Maybe you should sit down.”

“Maybe,” you concede, allowing her to guide you to a chair.

She kneels in front of you, dabbing gently at your cheek. “It's not deep. You'll be okay.”

“Thanks,” you mumble absently. 

Wanda purses her lips. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

You’re quiet for a second, unsure if you should tell Wanda what just happened or ask her about Clint. But something inside holds you back.

“I’m fine,” you say, reaching for her hand as she tends to your wound, and lightly kissing her palm. “Promise.”

–

Jimmy stares at the screen, where the words “We'll be right back!” are now plastered, replacing the live feed. The broadcast had cut out the moment you answered Clint's call with a hesitant hello. He runs outside, where Clint, Monica, and Darcy are huddled around the equipment. The cool air bites at his cheeks, but he barely notices.

“The broadcast’s down,” Jimmy says, slightly winded. “The second Y/N responded to the radio, it switched to a standby screen.”

Clint's hand falls away from the microphone. He knew it was a long shot with Wanda just a room away. “Now she knows we're trying to make contact,” he remarks grimly. “I’m sure Wanda will find a way to block any future transmissions from here out.”

Darcy doesn’t look up, her fingers flying over her tablet. She curses under her breath, scowling at the screen. “Yeah, looks like she’s already on it,” she mutters.

Monica rubs her hands together, exhaling into them for warmth. “Alright, clearly this isn’t working. We need a new plan.”

“Uh, guys…?” Darcy cuts in, looking around. “Is it just me, or does it seem way emptier out here tonight?”

Everyone stops, taking in their surroundings. Sure enough, the area is quieter than usual—just a couple of guards lingering near the barrier and not much else.

Jimmy crosses his arms, his eyes fixed on the tent serving as a Command Center. “Either everyone’s on break at the same time, or Hayward’s pulled them all into a meeting.”

They exchange uneasy glances, the same thought running through their heads. What’s this meeting about—and why does it feel like they’ve been deliberately left out?

[fairytales-and-folklore]

What To Do When Your Emotionally Constipated Werewolf Boyfriend Gets Cursed By A Witch: A Guide

Teen Wolf » Sterek

Title: What To Do When Your Emotionally Constipated Werewolf Boyfriend Gets Cursed By A Witch: A Guide

Author: fairytalesandfolklore

Fandom: Teen Wolf (Masterlist)

Relationship: Derek Hale x Stiles Stilinski

AO3 Rating: Teen & Up (a complete collection of author's notes, inspiration credits, content warnings and tags can be found on AO3)

Summary: Derek gets cursed by a coven of witches with an inability to lie and a compulsion to blurt out whatever he's thinking and feeling at any given moment. The ironic thing is, everything he says is incredibly nice, heartfelt, and affectionate, leaving his packmates wondering: who are you and what have you done with our emotionally constipated surly alpha?

"Hey, maybe true love's kiss will break your curse," Stiles jokes one night when they're all crowded around the dinner table sharing Italian takeaway. Derek practically shoves his entire fist into his mouth to stop himself from blurting out, maybe you should give it a try. Luckily, Stiles is too busy screeching about burning his tongue on a scalding mouthful of mozzarella to notice.

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Derek heaves a long-suffering sigh as he approaches the clearing along the mountainside, home to one of the most powerful covens Beacon Hills has ever seen, swathed in protection spells so thick it's a wonder he'd been able to track them down at all. He hopes like hell they'll be able to fix this, because otherwise, he is so, so screwed.

Mother.

Fucking.

Witches.

• • •

It starts at a pack meeting late one night in mid-October, all twelve of them crowded around the living room of the reconstructed Hale house in varying states of worry and boredom, half-empty pizza boxes scattered across coffee tables and couch cushions, trying to figure out how to solve the recent problem of witches in Beacon Hills.

According to Derek, a powerful coven has encroached upon their territory, stirring up mayhem all over town — people disappearing and reappearing at random, animals transfigured into objects and vice versa (that was a wild day at the cat café), townsfolk spontaneously sprouting mythical appendages (unicorn horns, fairy wings, mermaid scales, the works) and not taking any notice until they pass by a shop window and everyone rushes out to compliment them on their SFX skills, and, of course, the occasional body-swap. All in all, it's been relatively harmless, more like practical jokes in the spirit of the season than anything truly nefarious, but Scott figures it's best they put a stop to it before someone gets hurt.

Derek and Scott had been reluctant when Stiles first pitched the idea of a co-alpha blended pack dynamic, but so far, it's been working out surprisingly well. They've been seeing eye to eye on things a lot more lately, the pack growing stronger, learning to trust and rely on one another, now that they're one united front. And on the days where they clash, Stiles, self-appointed emissary, is quick to jump in and mediate. Derek had always assumed that Stiles would be biased and favor Scott, but he's actually quite good at balancing between the two of them, seeing the merit of both of their sides, translating miscommunications in a way both Derek and Scott can understand.

Today, however, is not one of those days. Scott's arguing for one plan of attack, Derek for another — one of them says something monumentally stupid just to bruise the other's ego, and just like that, all hell breaks loose, tempers flaring, insults flying. Stiles, bless him, makes a valiant attempt to intervene, but he's so overwhelmed by the looming threat of mercurial magic-wielders that he ends up interjecting his own panic into the situation, and suddenly it's the lacrosse locker room all over again, pacing back and forth until he's just an anxiety-ridden blur, freaking out over what horrible thing the witches might be planning.

"The full moon falls on Halloween this year, and a whole-ass coven of powerful witches just happens to show up in Beacon Hills?" he frets, words tumbling out of his mouth so fast it's a wonder he doesn't run out of breath. "You can't tell me that's just a coincidence. What if they're planning some kind of ritualistic sacrifice?"

"Stiles, I highly doubt that could happen twice in the same—" Allison interjects in an attempt to soothe his nerves, but Stiles just barrels on like he hadn't heard her.

"I've seen Hocus Pocus! I know what they're after!" he practically shouts. "It's the virgin thing all over again, and in case it isn't obvious, I still haven't fixed that particular problem. Seriously, how many times is my life going to become a fuck or die trope?"

Derek blinks a couple of times, lips parting slightly as he watches Stiles's frantic pacing come to a sudden halt.

"That settles it," Stiles declares with a decisive nod. "I need to have sex. Right now. Someone needs to sex me right fucking now."

There's a scuffle of laughter from the far side of the room, and then Erica's shouting, "Derek will do it!" at the same time Jackson snickers, "Derek, that's your cue."

Derek closes his eyes and lets out a weary sigh. Of course they'd jump all over that. Of course. Because somehow, over the span of the past couple of years, nearly everyone in the pack has gotten it into their heads that Stiles and Derek have got a thing for each other, and apparently, they're feeling particularly cocky today. 

He supposes he should be used to it by now. Derek has lost count of the amount of times he's caught them all muttering things like Jesus Christ, just fuck each other already and get a goddamn room under their breath every time the two of them start going at it, throwing empty threats and half-hearted insults at each other in the weirdest brand of flirting anyone has ever seen, or the way they all make gagging noises claiming they're choking on the thick layer of sexual tension permeating the air every time Stiles and Derek so much as glance in each other's direction.

Or the way Erica had full-on cackled that one time she'd caught Derek burying his face into a pillow that Stiles had spent the entire pack meeting holding, fidgeting with it until he'd unraveled the threading in one of the corners.

It's fine, Derek thinks. He's got a sewing kit around here somewhere, he can mend it later. He is a little concerned, though. He thinks maybe Stiles had just been nervous about the topics addressed during the meeting, scared for his father's safety at the idea of yet another potential threat, but he doesn't smell any hint of fear on the fabric. It just smells good. Like Stiles. Like pack. Like home. 

And— there's a hint of something else there too, something that Derek can't quite place, but it's making his heart do this funny flipping thing inside his chest.

"Oh my god, you guys are so stupid for each other, it's sickening," Erica says, but her tone is playful, almost fond. 

"What?" Derek says distractedly, like he's genuinely surprised to find himself with company.

Erica rolls her eyes. 

"The pillow, Derek," she says, pointing at it like it's incriminating evidence. Derek wraps his arms around it and pulls it closer to his chest, tucking it under his chin.

"The fucking pillow Stiles used as a goddamn boner shield all meeting," Erica smirks. "You do know why he had it, don't you? Come on, you can't tell me you didn't do it on purpose."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Derek snaps, but it's less heated and more defensive than anything else, and suddenly he won't look her in the eye. 

Erica heaves a theatrical sigh. 

"Next time you show up for a pack meeting straight after a workout, make sure you remember to put on a fucking shirt so Stiles doesn't have a heart attack, will you?"

And then she's laughing again, whipping around the corner and strolling up the stairs to her and Boyd's room, before Derek can do more than splutter.

Derek pushes the memory out of his mind, filing it away under things we refuse to talk about, along with the rest of the ever-growing mountain of Stiles-related incidents.

He's about to laugh it off, roll his eyes and tell them all to shut the fuck up as usual, but instead, what comes out of his mouth is—

"Okay."

Spoken in the softest fucking cadence he didn't even know he possessed.

The room falls dead silent. Everyone stops what they're doing and just stares at him. Derek's heart picks up speed as his brain catches up with his stupid, stupid mouth. His eyes widen like he can't believe he just said that out loud, like he had absolutely no control over it. Because truthfully, he hadn't. He chances a look over at Stiles, and— if he wasn't so shocked and terrified by what had just happened, he'd have laughed, because Stiles has got his mouth hanging open comically wide, eyebrows practically disappearing into his hairline as he fixes Derek with an incredulous stare.

And then Stiles bursts out laughing.

"Oh my god," he says, practically wheezing, hand clutched over his heart. "You really had me going there for a minute. You're messing with me, just like Danny. I've never heard you joke like that before."

And then everyone else starts laughing, and Derek forces himself to join in, pointedly avoiding the looks of what the fuck plastered all over Boyd, Isaac, and Erica's faces, internally screaming his own chorus of what the ever-loving fuck because that definitely hadn't been a joke and Derek definitely hadn't mean to say that out loud.

Amidst his panic, the query who the fuck is Danny? nettles at the back of his mind, and he can't decide if he's more offended by the fact that someone else propositioned Stiles for sex, or that the fact that they weren't actually serious about it.

• • •

At first, Stiles assumes it's a practical joke, or some kind of bizarre six-months-late April Fool's prank. It has to be, because over the course of the week that follows, Derek stops being a sarcastic asshole toward Stiles, and instead, starts showering him in compliments. Stiles is just going about his life, cracking self-deprecating jokes, but instead of smirking and adding an insulting quip of his own, Derek has started to become like, aggressively nice, getting almost angry whenever Stiles insults himself.

"God, I'm so stupid," Stiles sighs as he crosses out the wrong answer to a math problem he'd been working on at Derek's kitchen table.

"Hey, don't talk about yourself like that," Derek growls, brow furrowed like he's genuinely offended by Stiles's offhand remark. "You're one of the smartest people I've ever met."

Stiles stares at him, highlighter cap falling out of his open mouth.

Derek blinks a few times in rapid succession, dropping the stack of playing cards he'd been shuffling for their upcoming game night onto the kitchen counter with a deafening clatter. He looks just as surprised as Stiles feels.

"Uh…thanks, man," Stiles manages, a tell-tale blush prickling the back of his neck as he buries his nose in his textbook and doesn't resurface for several minutes straight, having retained absolutely nothing on the page.

A few days later finds Lydia, Cora, and Malia all roaring with laughter as Stiles walks them through his intricate twenty-five step plan to get someone to want to sleep with him before the next full moon. Mock-insulted and mostly joking, he says, "What, you don't think there's at least one person out there who wants to get with all of this? I'm a goddamn snack, I'll have you know."

"Shut up. No you're not," Derek snaps, glancing up from the book he'd been pretending to read in the far corner of the living room. And then, like he just can't help himself, immediately follows it up with, "You're a full course meal."

Stiles pauses, staring at him in disbelief. 

Derek suddenly goes very rigid, eyes widening ever so slightly in alarm. He slaps a hand over his mouth, like he's physically restraining himself from saying anything more. 

And then Stiles bursts out laughing. 

"Dude, that's funny. I'm gonna have to start using that," he says, penciling in the pick-up line as step twenty-six.

The thing is, it isn't just compliments. Derek has also started to become, like, weirdly affectionate, in his own gruff, sourwolf way. He's started talking more — Stiles is fairly certain Derek has spoken more over the past week than he has in the past two years — his expressions becoming softer, a wider range of emotions smoothing away the frown lines as he opens up about his past, sharing pieces of family history, little anecdotes and personal stories and random facts about himself. 

Stiles collects them like a memory magpie.

Derek prefers pancakes over waffles. 

Derek likes the color red. 

Derek has the entire Harry Potter series in pristine hardcover. 

Derek used to sit at his grandmother's feet and untangle yarn for her while she knitted him and his siblings cozy winter hats and sweaters. 

And it'd be really endearing if it didn't make Stiles wildly uncomfortable, because this is Derek we're talking about — a guy so emotionally constipated, it looks like it's causing him physical pain. Over the years, Stiles has come to expect a certain dynamic between the two of them, one that straddles the line between half-hearted insults and playful banter, and this whole weird new nice guy routine that Derek has suddenly got going on is starting to make Stiles suspicious.

He starts to get really paranoid, thinking Derek must have somehow found out about his — well, he wouldn't call it a crush, exactly — and is just fucking with him, just to be a dick. Like, maybe he caught Stiles staring at him during pack meetings one too many times, or— oh god, what if he can smell the arousal coming off of him in waves whenever they lock eyes, and he's finally put two and two together after all these years and figured out that the reason Stiles's heartbeat goes haywire every time Derek so much as glances in his direction isn't because he's scared of him, or because he's had too much caffeine.

Or— oh fuck. Maybe Derek had heard him that one time he'd jerked off in the shower to the thought of Derek pressing him up against his bedroom wall, and gasped out Derek's name as he'd, uh, crescendoed, before strolling back into his room wearing nothing but a sated, shit-eating grin and a towel wrapped around his waist, only to find the real Derek sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for him. 

Stiles nearly jumps out of his skin and drops the towel, shouting all manner of colorful obscenities. The look on Derek's face is…interesting. Stiles can practically feel Derek's eyes boring into him, trailing over every inch of him, lingering on the border where his towel meets his hipbones and swallowing thickly, and Stiles can't help but follow the movements, entranced, watching his Adam's apple bob up and down and wondering how it would taste under his tongue, and oh god, now his body thinks it's time for round two and he's tenting his towel and fuck fuck fuck oh no—

And then Derek clears his throat a little louder and more aggressively than normal, and they both avert their eyes, and Stiles controls himself long enough to ask why Derek is here, and then Derek slowly turns his back so that Stiles can hastily get dressed, handing him a slip of paper with a weird symbol on it that he's hoping Stiles can decipher for him.

"So, uh…out of curiosity…exactly how long were you here before I stepped out of the shower?" Stiles asks as Derek grips the frame of his bedroom window, one foot already out on the roof. The crack in his voice is hard to miss.

"Long enough," Derek says cryptically, which could either mean "I heard you" or "you kept me waiting," and Stiles is honestly not sure which one is worse.

A loud crash snaps Stiles back to the present and he looks up to find Erica climbing through his bedroom window, followed swiftly by Boyd and Isaac, tumbling into a heap onto his bedroom floor. Try as they might, the leather-clad trio have never quite managed to replicate Derek's finesse when it comes to breaking and entering.

Before Stiles can get out even so much as a what the fuck, they're rounding on him, talking over each other in a worried frenzy, insisting that there's something very very wrong with Derek. Stiles's heart starts to race, mouth going dry, and he's already going through his mental rolodex of potential cures and fix-its, when they say the most ludicrous thing he's ever heard in his life.

"We think that Derek's been cursed," Erica says.

"By a witch," Isaac clarifies.

"And now he can only say really nice things," Boyd finishes.

"What," Stiles says flatly, and then he's snorting with incredulous laughter.

"I'm sorry, run that by me again. You think Derek's been hit with a…what, a nice guy curse?" he snickers. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

"You don't understand," Erica says seriously, bracing her hands on either side of Stiles's shoulders. "Tonight, he told us that he's proud of us and that he loves us."

Stiles's mouth drops open in shock.

"And that's not all," Isaac chimes in. "We tested it out. Asked him to tell us how he really feels about Scott, and do you know what he said?"

"What?" Stiles eyes him warily, preparing to launch into a one-man Scott McCall defense party.

"That Scott's a good kid with a heart of gold," Erica scoffs, like it's physically painful for her to recall. "Can you believe that?"

"Holy shit," Stiles says, genuinely stunned.

And suddenly it all clicks into place, the reason Derek has been so unnervingly kind to him these past few days. He's been cursed. Stupid as it sounds, there's no other explanation for it.

"Yeah, so…as you can see, Derek needs help," Erica says, like being nice is some kind of terminal illness.

"And what makes you think I can fix this?" Stiles asks.

"Duh, you're the brains of the pack," Erica grins at him, like it's obvious.

"Derek said that if anyone is clever enough to find the answer, it's you," Boyd tells him. And that's…well, weirdly nice.

• • •

So he researches, and he researches, and he researches, and he doesn't come up with a single damn thing, because never, in the history of witchcraft and wizarding lore, has there ever been a curse that made someone say nice things.

Still, it keeps happening. Derek keeps dropping nice bombs fucking everywhere, every single time he opens his mouth. And it sucks, because it's really starting to have an effect on Stiles. Derek will say something really sweet to him, and he'll find himself starting to give in to that hope he's been harboring for years, and then he has to shake himself really hard and remind himself that it's just the curse talking, that Derek doesn't actually mean anything he's saying. 

Except—

Well…lately, it's like all of their interactions have this weird sort of romantic, sexually charged undercurrent to them, and Stiles can't help but notice that Derek doesn't act like that with anyone else but him.

He'll compliment Lydia on her intellect. Kira on her katana wielding skills. Allison on her archery. He'll tell Cora and Malia how grateful he is to call them family, how brave and strong and resilient they are. He'll tell Isaac, Erica, and Boyd how proud he is that they've come so far and learned so much, not just from him, but from Scott as well, who makes a great leader. He even tells Jackson that he thinks he could go pro in lacrosse, if he wanted to. 

But with Stiles, it's much more frequent, much more specific. Little details he shouldn't notice about him. If Stiles didn't know any better, he'd think Derek was flirting with him. 

"Red is a great color on you." 

"You smell like the forest after it rains."

"Your moles and freckles remind me of star maps." 

"I like the way your smile lights up your eyes."

"You have really soft hands." 

One time, he literally just said the word, "forearms," with a wide-eyed expression on his face before bolting out of the room, leaving Stiles standing alone in the middle of the living room with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a paintbrush held aloft in one hand.

And it all just keeps tumbling out of his mouth like dulcet word vomit, like he's physically incapable of restraining himself. 

Not only that, but Stiles could almost swear he keeps catching Derek just staring at him at random intervals, but whenever he looks up, Derek's gaze quickly shifts away and the tips of his ears redden a little bit like he's embarrassed at having been caught looking at Stiles, and it's like they've switched places, because out of the two of them, Stiles is supposed to be the blushing idiot, the one saying all of these stupidly candid schmaltzy things. Stiles is the one who notices all of Derek's little details, not the other way around. 

It's so unnerving that Stiles starts to wonder whether Derek has been spiked with something even worse, like a love potion. Stiles buckles down and hits the books even harder, losing sleep as he continues to search for a cure.

• • •

They're crowded around the kitchen table one afternoon after classes let out, shooting the shit about what they think the coven could possibly be up to, when talk turns to childhood nostalgia and they all start arguing over which Hogwarts house they'd each get sorted into if they were witches. 

Scott gets a unanimous vote for Gryffindor, but his triumphant smile fades when Erica insists that Stiles belongs in Slytherin with her and Lydia, and that Derek is some kind of Gryffindor/Slytherin hybrid. Isaac thinks they're all squibs. Boyd says that Stiles would get eaten by the giant squid before he even had a chance to be sorted. Stiles gets heated, slapping the table and arguing that Derek is obviously a Hufflepuff. 

"Think about it," he says. "He's all about family, incredibly loyal, selfless to a fault, patient to a fault when it comes to that creepy uncle of his, believes in hard work and fair play, strong sense of upholding justice. Case in point, Derek is the perfect Hufflepuff."

"What the hell is a Hufflepuff?" Derek's sudden interjection makes them all jump, and Stiles chokes on air because there's no way in hell Derek just quoted A Very Potter Musical. Eleven pairs of eyes whip to the doorframe where Derek is standing, balancing half a dozen pizza boxes in one hand, one eyebrow arched like he's seriously reconsidering his choice in packmates. And then his entire frame relaxes, broad smile spreading across his face as he strides toward the kitchen table and sets the stack of boxes down.

"Just kidding. I've got a prefect badge with a black and yellow badger crest on it hidden in my sock drawer," he says, and Stiles doesn't miss the way the tips of his ears burn scarlet after he drops that little anecdote.

"You're all wrong, by the way," he adds, almost as if compelled to keep talking. "If anything, Stiles is a Ravenclaw. Naturally curious, avid learner and researcher, creative and clever. And I mean, sure, he's got some positive Gryffindor and Slytherin qualities, too. We all do. Bravery and cunning kind of comes with the territory. But Stiles is a textbook Ravenclaw. Plus, he looks good in blue."

Derek pauses for a moment, wide-eyed expression fixed to the kitchen floor as he sucks in a steady breath and then very slowly releases it back out through his nostrils. He shakes his head as if to clear it, and then promptly walks out of the kitchen at a quick stride, leaving Stiles staring after him, open-mouthed.

(And if Stiles winds up at the local craft store the following morning, picking out the softest black and yellow yarn he can find and cramming a copy of Knitting For Dummies under his arm so that he can maybe learn how to knit Derek a Hufflepuff scarf for his birthday this year…well, what of it?)

• • •

"Hey, maybe true love's kiss will break your curse," Stiles jokes one night when they're all crowded around the dinner table sharing Italian takeaway.

Derek practically shoves his entire fist into his mouth to stop himself from blurting out, maybe you should give it a try.

Luckily, Stiles is too busy screeching about burning his tongue on a scalding mouthful of mozzarella to notice.

• • •

They're in Derek's living room late one evening, nearly a fortnight after the initial incident. Everyone else has gone home, or gone up to their respective rooms. Everyone except for Stiles, who had opted to stay behind to do a bit more reading in an effort to find a way to cure Derek of what Stiles has been affectionately referring to as the curse of the compliments, tucked away into a leather armchair in the far corner of the room, while Derek sprawls out on the couch, exhausted after a run through the woods.

He doesn't know when he had gotten so comfortable around Stiles, allowed himself to become so vulnerable and unguarded, but he ends up falling asleep, lulled by the sound of Stiles's steady scribbling as he takes notes and hums thoughtfully to himself, altogether missing the affectionate smile that spreads across Stiles's face as he glances up in Derek's direction and falters mid-sentence around a half-formed question. A little shiver winds its way down Derek's spine, and Stiles immediately bolts upright, scattering notes and highlighters everywhere as he moves to wrap Derek in a patchwork quilt draped over the back of the couch.

As Derek drifts into an easy slumber, he dreams about Stiles. It's that same dream he's had countless times before, only this time, there's no impending danger, no kanima stalking around the edges of the swimming pool — just the two of them, clutching one another, breath coming out in heated gusts that spiral over the top of their heads. 

It's all so vivid, like he's reliving it, only through a different lens. He can feel the bruising grip of Stiles's arms as they wind around his torso, the way Stiles's heartbeat crashes against his ribcage, reverberating against his back. In this memory, Stiles isn't holding him up because he has to — because this time, Derek has full control over his body. He twists around in Stiles's arms until they're facing one another, breath ghosting over each other's lips, and then he's backing him up against the edge of the pool, fingertips tracing the curves of his reddened lips before surging forward and capturing him in a kiss.

He can feel everything, the press of Stiles's body against his own as Stiles arches into him, writhes against him, like he can't get close enough. The feel of Stiles's lips and teeth and tongue against his throat as he buries his face into the curve of Derek's shoulder. The way Stiles whispers his name against Derek's ear, desperate and longing, with a soft affection that makes him want to weep. 

And it's all too much, too much, too cruel because it isn't real. 

Derek wakes with a gasp and Stiles's name on the tip of his tongue, only to find the real Stiles hovering over him with a blanket grasped in his outstretched hands, staring down at him with wide eyes, mouth hanging open.

"Sorry, I was just—" Stiles falters, taking a cautionary step backward and averting his eyes. "You were shivering. I thought you were cold."

He holds out the blanket like it's a peace offering.

"Oh…uh…thank you," Derek says softly, reaching out to take it and tampering down the electric shock that jolts through his chest as his hand brushes against Stiles's fingertips. 

"And um…you were kind of talking in your sleep?" Stiles poses this next statement as a question, like he's giving Derek an out, eyes cast toward the ceiling as he attacks a phantom itch on the back of his neck.

Derek bolts upright, alarmed.

"What did I say?" he asks, fully aware of how frantic he sounds.

"You, uh…well, you sort of said my name. And you were kind of like, breathing really heavily," Stiles offers, chancing a glance over at Derek. 

"Is everything okay?" he asks, shifting into concerned pack dad mode, leaning in closer and placing a comforting hand on Derek's shoulder.

"Whoah, your heart's beating really fast," he breathes, brows narrowed in concern as he searches Derek's face for a fault line, no doubt feeling the erratic thrumming as he presses his fingertips against Derek's collarbone. "You okay? Nervous about something?"

Without missing a beat, and absolutely hating it, Derek says, "Yes."

"You want to talk about it?" Stiles asks softly. "What's got you so worked up?"

You, Derek muses with something caught between a smirk and a grimace. Seconds pass before he comes to the horrifying realization that he's just said that out loud. Stiles pales, absentmindedly digging his fingertips into Derek's shoulder, where he seems to be fused.

"I make you nervous?" he asks, his voice soft, disbelieving.

"Yes," Derek grits out against his will.

"Why—" Stiles pauses, swallowing thickly. "Why do I make you nervous?"

Derek stares at him, eyes wide, wondering how in the hell he's going to get himself out of this one without revealing too much.

"I was dreaming about that night at the pool," he says slowly, choosing his words very carefully. "That's why I said your name."

And technically, technically, it's the truth. Just not all of it.

"Oh," Stiles visibly deflates, a gust of breath he didn't realize he'd been holding rushing out of him. He quickly shakes it off. "Yeah, that's gotta leave you with some pretty heavy PTSD, huh?"

Derek nods, pressing his lips together to keep the truth from spilling out.

"Hey, Derek?" Stiles says suddenly, a heart-clenching combination of guilt, sadness, and determination in his eyes. "You know I wouldn't have just left you there, right? Despite what you might think, I wasn't just looking out for myself that night. Literally the only reason I let you go was because I thought if I could get a hold of Scott, we'd both have more of a fighting chance. And if Scott hadn't showed— I would've held you up all night, if I had to. After everything we've been through, I just…I hope you know that by now." 

And honestly, Derek might as well be back at the bottom of that pool, because right now, he feels like he's drowning. He just stares up at Stiles, not trusting himself to speak, his throat uncomfortably tight, the corners of his eyes prickling.

"And I'm not just saying that to be nice," Stiles continues, cutting through the tension just as easily as he'd created it. "I'm not the one who's under some weird kind of nice guy curse, or anything. Which I know must be an absolute pain in the ass for you, but don't worry, I'm doing everything I can to find a cure, and then you'll be back to the surly, grumpy Sourwolf we all know and love."

Stiles gives Derek's shoulder a reassuring little squeeze, fixing him with an affectionate half-smile before slinging his backpack over his shoulder and slipping out the front door. Derek stares at the leather armchair scattered with books and leaflets and highlighters until the Stiles-shaped imprint in its cushions fades away, and then he's stalking up to his bedroom, dragging the quilt and the pillow that always smells like Stiles with him and wrapping himself up in it like a burrito.

• • •

Stiles nearly has a heart attack when his bedroom window slides open at a quarter to midnight on the full moon, and Derek comes tumbling inside, a little breathless, but looking determined and resolute. He squares his shoulders, looks Stiles directly in the eye, and says, "Now that I'm no longer cursed and can say this without being compelled to, I've got something I need to tell you."

Stiles prepares for an onslaught of…well, something bad, because that's just his life now, isn't it? That's just been his life for the past several years, ever since the night he decided, hey, looking for half a dead body in the woods sounds like fun and next thing he knows, his best friend is a werewolf, and then everyone around him is a werewolf, or a kanima, or a kitsune, or a banshee, or a darach, or—

What he isn't prepared for is for Derek to start waxing poetic about all the things he likes about Stiles. Because oh right, on top of everything else, there's also witches and Derek has been cursed. Only it's weird, because it's not quite as nice as it has been over the past couple of weeks — in fact, he's pretty sure there's a couple of insults disguised as compliments thrown in there that Stiles doesn't even have time to register because he's just so shocked by what Derek says next.

And I think I might be in love with you.

I think I have been for a while now, I just didn't realize it.

Or maybe I just wasn't willing to admit it.

I guess it took being cursed to finally admit the truth.

And that nervous little laugh he huffs out afterward. Sweet Jesus.

Every inch of Stiles is on fire.

"Oh fuck," he says, a surge of adrenaline burning through his veins like the world's worst shot of fireball whiskey. Derek's smile withers, because yeah, oh fuck isn't exactly at the top of the list of things you want to hear after you've just poured your heart out, and the look Stiles gives him is nothing short of devastating. 

"Oh fuck, I was right," Stiles groans, burying his face into the palms of his hands like he's about to cry. "It's gotten so much worse. You're not just cursed, you're delusional."

It hits Derek like a punch to the gut. He barely registers the blur of red and blue as Stiles bounds off the bed and bolts to his desk, rummaging through haphazard stacks of journals and leather-bound books with spiderwebbed spines. Derek watches him with a kind of cautious curiosity, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

"Don't worry, Derek," Stiles reassures him in a tone that's anything but, shoving the cap of a highlighter off with his teeth and circling a passage in one of the many, many pages of his chicken-scratch notes. "I promise we'll fix this. There's got to be something in here about love potions, because it's clear to me now that you've been spiked with one. We'll catch the witch that did this to you and make them pay."

And just like that, it all clicks into place. The knot coiling in Derek's stomach unclenches, and then he's laughing unabashedly.

"You're such a fucking dumbass sometimes, you know that?" Derek says as his laughter subsides, the gentle fondness of his tone clashing with the bite of his words. "I haven't been spiked with love potion, Stiles. And I told you, I'm not cursed anymore."

Stiles freezes, caught off guard, because it's the first time he's heard Derek's sarcasm in over two weeks, and he kind of hates how much he'd missed it.

"Are…are you sure?" he asks, wincing at how small he sounds.

"Dead certain," Derek replies with a shit-eating grin that shows all of his teeth, looking for all the world like he's physically struggling to hold back his amusement.

And that's when it hits him. If Derek was still cursed, if he'd been poisoned with some kind of love potion, he wouldn't be able to throw insults and sarcastic quips at Stiles. It would go against the very nature of the spell.

Which can only mean one thing: Derek isn't cursed. He's perfectly fine, and he's fucking with him. 

Stiles can't believe he learned two-color brioche for this asshole.

"Fuck you," Stiles says harshly, watching with a sick sort of satisfaction as it wipes the smirk right off of Derek's stupidly handsome face.

"Wait, what?" Derek balks, blinking rapidly like he'd just been struck over the head.

"Fuck you for thinking it's funny to mess with a guy's feelings like this," Stiles spits, hating the pathetic tremor in his voice.

"Stiles, what are you talking about?" Derek asks, eyes wide with worry, like Stiles is the one who's delusional. 

"The way I see it, there's only two options here," Stiles barrels on in spite of the anxiety-fueled adrenaline twisting through his veins, heat rising in his cheeks. "Either you've been cursed or spiked with amortentia or — I don't fucking know, some kind of spell that makes you think you have feelings for me, or you were never actually cursed at all, you've figured out that I'm the one who's in love with you, and you've just been saying all of this nice shit to me to…I don't know, wind me up? Make me look like a jackass? Or maybe you just like hurting people."

That last one stings, lends venom to the bite in Derek's voice.

"Option C," Derek grits out, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Fucking Peter got involved with not one, not two, but seven witches from the same coven, and started a civil war — which explains all of the weird shit that's been happening around town lately, apparently they've been trying to curse him and each other — got caught in his own web of lies and fled the scene, but not before hitting my house to pack supplies so he could skip town. The coven tracked him down, but couldn't follow him inside because of Deaton's protection spells, so they just assumed he was hiding out in there, and placed a curse on the sole proprietor. Little did they know, the house is in my name. So, lucky me, I got the full blast of it."

Stiles gapes at him for a few moments, eyes trained on the rapid rise and fall of Derek's chest as he struggles to recompose himself. Anything involving his creepy, murderous, and now apparently two-timing (seven-timing?) uncle always gets him so riled up.

"So, what? You actually were cursed and that's the reason you've been saying nice shit for the past two weeks?" Stiles asks with crossed arms and narrowed eyes, but his tone is several shades softer than it had been a few moments ago, curiosity piqued. 

Derek heaves a long-suffering sigh, but he can't help the small smile that tugs at the corner of his lips.

"You still don't get it, do you?" he says with the tone of someone trying to explain something obvious to someone who's very, very stupid. "It didn't make me say nice shit, Stiles. It made me incapable of lying, like Peter lied to all of them. It made me more open and vulnerable and vocal about the things I already felt, stuff I tried to keep hidden. And it made me realize just how much I hated doing that. Because yeah, it was definitely embarrassing at times, but it was also kind of nice, not having to keep it in anymore. And I realized that everyone around me seemed happier for it, that I was able to make the people I care about feel good, just by being honest with them about how I really felt about them."

"Which is why," Derek sighs, pausing to glance up from the floor and lock eyes with Stiles. "As soon as they broke the curse, I came here…to see you…to tell you that I— what I told you."

All of the air rushes out of Stiles's lungs.

"So everything…" he manages, just barely, to keep the choked disbelief out of his voice. "Everything you've been saying to me these past few weeks…and everything you said to me just now…that was real?"

Derek offers him a small, affectionate smile that nearly breaks him in two.

"Yeah, dumbass. I meant every word."

Stiles stares at him for a moment, rooted to the spot, and Derek can practically hear the cogs turning inside his head as he processes it all and plays catch-up. And then he's smiling, this big, goofy grin spreading across his face as he bounds across the room and throws his arms around Derek's neck with such gusto that he knocks them both backward onto Stiles's bed, swallowing Derek's surprised huff of laughter in a kiss.