#this canvas started out as an oc thing and then They……took over…. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

twistedchatterbox · 1 year

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“i was less before i loved you”

Summary: Love changes people in a way that can't be undone, for better or worse. And for some, they would never want it any other way.

ft. Riddle, Jack, Jade, Floyd, Azul, Vil, Idia Tags. Fluff, Lovesick Boys, GN-ish reader, Queen is a gender neutral term, Slice of Life, Pre-established & Established Relationships, Character Development in the Name of Love, Jealousy(the cute kind), Possessiveness(the hot kind), Heartslabyul is in shambles(comedy), Jack’s part has some OC elements, Jade’s part is written for me, Author! Reader for Vil's part (Neige is your biggest fan), Cheeky proposals(Vil), I need this kind of love in my life-

wordcount: 4615+ | Masterlist & Taglist

With a smile on his face, the young dormwarden let out a sigh he hadn’t even realised he was holding; in his hand was his phone, screensaver was the picture of you and him on your 6th month anniversary where you two were cuddled up together and admiring the view, you the sight, and him admiring you. The redheaded boy never thought he could look that happy, soft, or carefree; expected to be cool, calm and ever-serious, not allowed to be anything a child normally could be, he never thought those were things that felt.. nice. He would often feel disgust, thinking he was “above” the things he was told to be childish, immature. Yet now, that could not be further from the truth or the life he lives.

Riddle admires the charm dangling by his phone, a pair of crowns, modelled after the king and queen of hearts, cute, he thought, resting his head on his idle palm. He thinks back to the date, and the way you reacted when you saw his screensaver the next day, feeling his face bloom in a lovesick flush. Aware of how hopeless he looks, yet not caring one bit, he allows himself to daydream. Scrolling through his phone gallery of your dates, colorful. Oldest to newest, he could tell the difference, only ever allowed in the library as kids, and sticking by that decision half the time, the ticking of years can be distinguished easily as color enters the frame slowly, his childhood photographs, long deleted by him, fading into reds as he took you to a walk on the Heartslabyul maze on your first year on NRC together; blues in the fine china of the cup you held, yellow accents of the tea party preparations. Yet it’s overwhelmed by red, only fading out into a canvas of everything when the gallery of his second year starts, flower garden dates with all the color the sun could grace being merely the start. The cooking courses, school events, camps, everything, it paints a picture that feels so carefree, yet even then, he only finds himself softly gazing at you, unaware of the way he occasionally giggles and squints his eyes; pried of his trip down the memory lane by the sound of a message, he sighs and straightens his posture, not sure when or how he leaned down so much. And checking the source, he fondly shakes his head in a way that can only be interpreted as ‘for you, i could’. “Can we watch the stars from your room today?” it was you, and who was he to deny you? He may have been many things, but for you, he couldn’t claim to be strict. Not by that much, anyway. Riddle is, contrary to what most expect, a very indulgent boyfriend. “Sure” He replied back, not overthinking it. Finding it hard not to grin when you send a whole array of hearts and then some more his way. Your contact name, he found himself admiring again, “The Queen’s Most Beautiful Rose”, and he wondered, would you mind it if he changed to ‘the queen of my heart’ ? As his equal, he reigned no rule over you, yet you held such a perfect, lovely grip over his own heart- it wasn’t like it truly belonged to him when it beat for you, anyway. And he would never have it any other way, “long live the queen of my heart…” Riddle whispered to himself. Getting up quickly and excusing himself wordlessly, he leaves behind confused dorm-mates as he heads straight to his room, he’d have to recheck if he had his favourite sweater clean, knowing your habit of stealing it very well. A fond grin found itself home on his face and he had no intention to hide it, deciding to instead be punctual with his preparations so that the room you two shared was ready for your whimsical plans. He hoped with all his heart, that his habits could aid him in conveying his love for you. Long live the queen, he chuckled mentally.

Jack found himself daydreaming again; this was happening far too often for his liking, yet it wasn’t like he could do too much about it. You, the love of his life, how could he stop thinking about that? He simply didn’t like the taste it left in his mouth, it felt.. less. Like something vital was missing, something that made his head and heart hurt. So he simply did his best to keep up and hope his daydreams didn’t cost him too much. Lately he found himself thinking about rings, bracelets and anything matching, subtle- yes, it was because you mentioned how you wanted to get something matching but wasn’t sure he would like it, so you made him some things he’d like better; last valentines day, thinking about it made his ears flatten, drooping in a saddened motion. It wasn’t your fault, no, it was just his disappointment in himself, did he make you think that you could make him upset by showing affection one way or another? Was he too guarded? Maybe. He’d have to work on it, and that thought struck him out of his daydream- once again- as he silently scowled at his hopelessness; you could not hear his daydreams, what the hell was wrong with him? Upset by himself and determined to do something about it, he grabbed his cellphone, homework could wait for once. Jack wondered, what could he do? Opening his notes app, going through the dates he heard about, places he heard of, things you told him about, he thought maybe, just maybe, a date to the cafe could work? He disliked the one on campus grounds and many of the ones on the island because of the loud or off-pitched music that blasted inside 25/8 the establishments, but if he could find a quiet, nice place, he could take you there. Though, that’d take much time and Jack wanted to see if he could do something sooner, if he could. He did not want to keep you waiting, even if you’d always reassure him good things were worth waiting for, sometimes going as far to say you’d wait your whole life and then some for him if he wanted it. The memory rang clear in his head and lifted tension off his head, cleaning his thoughts like rain, making him breathe, closing his eyes. You recently switched dorms, Heartslabyul to Pomefiore, a change of mindset being the reason, and quite frankly he admired how you acted upon your feelings so quickly. “Time would pass anyway, i didn’t wanna waste it” was what you said, “I know my body- I know my heart, and I knew what I wanted to do.” you murmured, adding on a mumble about how you were sorry if it sounded cheesy. He reassured you that it couldn’t be further from it. And it only fueled him to act thinking about it- wondering, if you needed anything, maybe he could spend the night with you? You always mentioned how you wish you could stay with him in his dorm or have him stay in yours but Heartslabyul was loud and cramped, while Savannaclaw wasn’t known for being welcoming or friendly. Though Pomefiore could work, it was relatively quiet and known for being polite to visitors; especially those on good terms. The wolf beastman looked at his phone, your contact, “Love of my life” made him smile, a picture of you smiling, one he took impulsively; and he asked, “Can I come over?” waiting, wondering if he should elaborate- yet, your answer, barely a few moments later washes over him with relief, “ofc!!!” . If anyone asked, he was coming over to help you move in; no one had to know about the matching bracelets in his bag, that he had been holding onto this entire week.

Jade was used to working on his own, often being the voice of reason, watching from the shadows and generally being a figure that many viewed as someone that could always be reliable if he wanted to be. Though, you coming into the picture always skewed the tides, changing the dynamic, pulling him off this pedestal and making him so much more.. human. In a way that he wasn’t exactly perceived as before, sure most were aware he was not the second coming of the great seven or anything grand, but he was not really seen or considered as someone so affected by feelings. Calm cool , collected and ever calculating, that was it. And even if most missed, his twin and childhood bestfriend couldn’t miss the way he has always had the habit of catering to you, the most to you in any way he ever was. Ever since you had crossed paths before starting life on campus, he had the habit of being a whole lot more different. Different in the way that if others had a feeling or could speculate this or that of him, you could see it for yourself, if you asked him he would never lie; unless it was for your own good, and if it was he would say he can’t tell you yet while trying to find a way to remedy it. Though, you never pried, if it was something that stressed you out, you’d only ask for his time; he was always thankful to comply, and his twin never complained either, saying he can handle himself fine, or that you can call for help if Jade tried to turn you into a mushroom or something. It’d make you laugh, while Jade, pouting one moment and scowling the other, gestured for his twin to leave. Then, there was his first year; the never discussed time-frame of which he adapted a far more sharp, delinquent-like look. It was entertaining for a while, though what surprised even his closest confidants at the time was how Jade did not get tired of that wardrobe for a while, having fun with it for as long as you did. He truly relished in the way his looks and demeanour left you breathless, or the way his advances could make you gasp if he played his cards right; he intended to play those sounds like an instrument, he told you so at some point, yet he knew that you could play his heart to your own heart’s content. Of course, as things changed, he’d adapt, as time passed his style blended into something a lot more sleek and butler-like, while your relationship became a lot more romantic, established. Though he made sure to keep your favourite piercings and earrings in mind, never opposed to putting those on again to give your heart a shock. Which was the exact reason why he was now in front of his room’s bathroom mirror at 5am, an empty mug of coffee waiting until he was done with his cosmetic changes. Jade, even though less impulsive than his twin, was still impulsive at times. So, here he was, giving himself a haircut, deciding to go for a faintly messy low-cut while leaving the front bit of his hair mostly unchanged. Settling for just slicking his hair back, and tucking the black locks of hair behind his ear. He remembered how you suggested a mix of his prior hair style and some things, mentioning how those might look quite ‘hot’ for the lack of a better word if he mixed it in with his current wardrobe; and, he had to agree. And he hoped you would too, rolling up his sleeves, opting for thinner black gloves and putting on some rings on his fingers. Leaving his room quickly after downing some coffee, he headed straight to yours, within the same dorm, barely a few steps away from his. Jade knew you would take kindly to his surprise visit; it happened far too often for you to be shocked by that, maybe the sudden change could, he mused with a chuckle.

Floyd wasn’t exactly sure if he hung around you because you were fun or if you were fun because he was hopelessly in love with you; not that he cared too much about the answer. One way or another, this was what he got, and he would not change it for anything. Sure, some things would change, but what you had between you two wouldn’t. Not in a way that didn’t fit; and he was confident in that. It was odd, to view Floyd Leech, the fun-chasing, mood swinging twin to be.. this. Committed. Serious, dedicated to one thing let alone one person, but here you were; and boyy was he committed. Despite the whispers in the hallway, you’d open your arms open for him to pick you up and spin you, even on days you felt off, you’d ask for a hug, and he’d always indulge you. If he had to ask himself how much of it was for you or him, he wouldn’t miss a beat, saying “if it’s for my sea urchin, it’s for me too” because that is truly how he sees it; if it matters to you, him too, if it’s your happiness then that’s his too, and even when he cannot share or truly understand your pain he wants to do the right thing in a way that matters to you, for you. Loving Floyd simply shows you a side of him no one else really can see, he’s present and always in your mind, but he’s never overwhelming. He frequently checks up on you randomly, as if he has a built in love-fueled gps to find you or some red string of fate only he can see- though, you swear you might begin to see it too day by day- and he never really explains it, not beyond making sure you are safe. And while you are not an immediate mood fix for reasons others expect, you surely always make him feel better; because you stick around but you don’t suffocate, letting him hold you is more than enough but you not only meet him halfway, but go above and beyond too. Even if you don’t realise, your ever-willing nature to meet him halfway or go wherever with him is so, so precious. Whether it be 3am bubble baths or dancing in the rain or making out somewhere hidden in the library during the class hours, you are right there with him and his whims. It doesn’t shock him when his thoughts begin to revolve more and more around you, he has his fun with it, it makes him feel ecstatic, sometimes he thinks of you and then his lovesick mind derails the image to your lips and he just has to kiss you; resulting in you being in his arms, back against the wall, red lips, gasping and not sure just what came across him now, and he always says “i just thought of you-” “-and i had to kiss you”. Well, it surely explains his blown pupils and satisfied grin, though he could use some more kisses, do you mind? Thank you~ He chuckles, intending to pay you back for your generosity tenfold, and then you know -you already knew- that you’ll be there for a long while. Well, class could go fuck itself anyway, you have a lovesick eel who is in dire need of your affection and just won’t let go. Not that you mind… Days come and go, and with Floyd you know none of them are ever wasted, really. You have installed a change of heart in him and it has given him such addictive jolts of new life. Now, I hope you intend to keep him because he is thoroughly obsessed in love with you in the best of ways.

Azul once again found himself going over his schedule, clearing some time for you; you who always stuck around with him even on slow and boring days or the busy days where he never dedicated enough attention to you- He knew you understood how much his business and work meant to him, yes, but he also knew the whispers in the halls about how you were second place and how he was definitely married to his job before you, and he hated it. Azul knew you had to hear these basically everyday or every other day, and it made him wanna do a multitude of things, all of them being stupid, pointless, or not good enough, as none of them solved the issue on any level. Nor would they make you happier, and he had gone through many of those in his head; he knew you didn’t need him to act revenge, after all, that would be counter-productive. He would just spend more time away from you, and what would that get him? After a thorough scolding of love advice from his 3rd executive, who verbally smacked him in the head by bluntly letting him know that his plans would just make him a negligent lover who, albeit accidentally, still somehow decided spending more time away from you while working would solve things. In the end, Azul decided that only one thing was the right choice; making proper time for you. Just you and him, no work, no nothing. So, here was the young dormwarden, planning lunchtime walks and dinner plans for two, asking you if you’d like to spend the nights with him in his room instead, wondering if he should consider taking the next step by maybe hugging you in his merform? Well- The thought was quite ambitious, and he didn’t want to rush that, so he decided to just write it down as a beach picnic. Hoping with all three hearts and crossing his fingers that nothing goes wrong, as he really, desperately wanted to treat you right and make up for the wasted time not spent together. Every day, every exchange, simply knocked the thought more in place; he had been depriving not only you but himself of something so special, the chance to make memories. He found himself more determined than ever to hone his skills so that he could do all that he needed to more efficiently; it’d make it easier for more time together rather than you ‘third wheeling Azul and his contracts’ as Floyd put it. Seriously, these were his childhood friends and suddenly they are acting so salty in your stead?- Well, he supposed he very well earnt it. And now, he would spend what he earnt with you. This became a part of his every day, now, he would properly calculate his time with you alongside his work; because time is time,money is money, and he cannot get back time even if he can wrack his brain for more cash profit any other day. The time he has, he wants to spend so much of it with you, if he you’ll let him, and of course, you do. Azul found himself clinging more and more with every day, not sure what else he could have been expecting- Truly, it should not have shocked him of all people, for an octopus to be clingy is the most predictable of all outcomes. Sure, he took his time, but this development was simply inevitable, not to say you were any less clingy than him; you two were together, more often than not, your arm in his as he treated you like a gentleman in public, and indulged you like the awe-struck, ever-loving boyfriend he is behind closed doors.

Vil Schoenheit and scandal should not belong together in a sentence. Not in his manager’s’ worst nightmares; fuck no, oh hell no. But truly, some days he cannot afford to give a damn, after all, he has an engagement ring ready for you two’s graduation night already, if he’s already committed with a promise ring already, then you can very much be with him under public light as well. Though some people surely do make him wanna keep you under wraps or just straight up wrap YOU up in caution tape with the words “committed lover of Vil Schoenheit” on it already! Honestly, he just might. He just fucking might one of these damn days. Vil sits down on your shared bed, arms crossed and with a glare that could surely kill somebody; somebody name Neige-fucking-Leblance. Does he NOT get the memo? You have promise rings and introduce yourselves as soulmates at this point! Does he actually have to go through with the most ridiculous idea and make the fashion statement of the century with fucking caution tape?! And then you laugh, suddenly cutting off the memory of his thought process from what feels like a few hours worth of seething rage. Seeing the sunflowers in your arms still makes him scowl but your laugh simply makes him confused, and faintly offended in some ridiculously specific genre. What was so good about sunflowers anyway? He would get you red Sage Flowers, red Tulips, Primroses, Marigolds- And perhaps he should, Vil decides. Then you gather your breath, telling him that this was Neige’s letter about your latest nomination for creative stage-writing; since you have begun adapting books into proper scripts recently, apparently one of your most recognised adaptations as of lately was one of his favourite fairy tales from childhood. The guiding star of your nightsky then remarks how Neige says that too often, you reply with a shrug and ask if he wants to make a guess which ones; Vil decides he likes that one, starting a tangent that almost sounds like a detailed thesis, making you joke about how he might think of Neige more than you. Vil shakes his head curtly, saying his love for you outweighs his distaste for the most annoying person in his world. “How charming~” you joke, letting the conversation get back on track, and talk about how so many people you never expected to end up sending you mail. “Ah, didn’t think that he was a fan of mine of all people, guess the world is a small place” You wheeze out, and Vil snarls, “Yes, dearest, quite small that it feels cramped.” making you roll your eyes before you lean to his side, pressing a kiss to his cheek, making his gaze soften- somewhat. He then sighs, deciding to dig through some videos he has queued up on his sagetube page; he has wanted to learn some new recipes lately, and this could just be the best timing to look through those, humming to himself with the voice of an angel and the looks that could seduce god, you steal a glance in his direction to admire your long-term boyfriend, wondering just how did you get so lucky? One minute he could raise hell, only to then sing like an angel the next moment. Truly, this might as well be Vil Schoenheit’s world, and everyone else was renting it; you like to say it to banter, but some moments like now, you find yourself believing it. The range of his expressiveness has always been endearing to you, if only he didn’t have to limit himself, you think to yourself sometimes; returning to reading through fan letters, and a smug look makes it’s way to Vil’s face as he sees you picked up his one too, good. He wouldn’t want his proposal to wait too long, that ring in the ‘fanmail’ will surely gain him your most beautiful reaction.

Idia Shroud, willingly stepping out into sunlight, subjecting himself to grass? More likely than you think. He laughed at the thought, not displeased by the slightest. Now, actually getting himself ready to face the sun was a whole other topic than you, honestly; the outside world scared the fuck out of him, you were the opposite. It was like a juxtaposition that made his brain hurt and heart twist, making him blue screen in all senses. But he was working on it. Closing his eyes and thinking of your previous dates when things went okay. Reminding himself that even if he fucked up a little, you’d just roll with it or help him out– it’s hard to crack you, he should know by now. And he knows, which is why he’s doing his hell-bent best to beat it into his stubborn insecurities. His calm breathing exercise soon ends, a little sooner than he’d like and luckily the thing that catches his eyes is the phone charm resting on his desk. He gazes softly at it, reaching out and deciding to attach it to his phone. Idia knows it’s silly, but you must’ve been too given, y’know, you gifted this to him. So he doesn’t mind. A charm of a skull and a small will-o-wisp, you said how it reminded you of him and Ortho, to which his brother was ecstatic about; starting a small obsession over the symbolisms, and you indulged that, often telling him quick tad-bits, sure his little brother had the literal internet at his disposal but neither of them ever used it for that topic. They preferred hearing it from you, it was objectively better. Special. And then he thought over his favourite kind of dates, the type he was getting ready for; a nightly walk, whenever you two went out for this, Ortho would escort you to the dorm and Idia would take the wheel from there. It always has- and maybe will- make him anxious, but he will continue trying even when the nerves get to him, sometimes you two returned early- but it didn’t stay that way. Idia would hold your wrist strongly and say ‘wait’, getting up in a minute of half an hour, to try again. Sure he was an emotional wreck, but he was worse than his ‘stupid emotions’ as he put it; meaning he was too stubborn and spiteful against himself. Hey, at least it works. Sometimes he wondered, how were you so patient? And then he would remember, the way you asked why Hades waited for spring too; the way he would always diligently wait for his wife to return back to his side. And before he could get flustered over the comparison, you added even more; “You already wait for me in your room like him; and I know you would wait for me if things were reversed too, I can't keep you waiting for too long, can I?” ..haa, damn be cheesiness, he straight up said “I’d wait seasons for you too,”. To be fair, limited time chances like that cannot be wasted; and your reaction was absolutely priceless. Though, it’s been running tracks in his head and heart ever since. Seasons, patience, due diligence. Idia wouldn’t consider himself to be unrealistically cheesy, he doesn’t know what exists beyond death’s door- damned be the irony- let alone the next life, spring. But he knows that in this life, he would wait seasons for your return. He can vow to love you for the entirety of this life, his life. ..Hm, maybe he could take a few other pages from the Greek legends, since you two already have the shared hobby of bingeing everything to do with them. Definitely no library date yet, though, hells no. It’s probably gonna take years for him to even do these night time walks often enough for him to be considered “normal” but really, for the first time ever, Idia can say he doesn’t give a single fuck. As long as you are there for him that long and stay even after, he doesn’t give a fuck how long it takes or what it makes out of him.

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foxymoxynoona · 4 months

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Over the Falls (Ch. 5)

Sexy Banner & bar by @borabae-gx

Summary: Jungkook sees a lot of things as a pool tech. It’s… fine. It pays the bills between mornings on the water and evenings rocking out with his garage-band. His favorite thing to see on the job has been Grace Birch –older but a hottie, wealthy but nice, and unfortunately very married. At least until Grace learns what her husband has been up to behind her back. Now that she’s free, Jungkook finds himself wondering: what does it take for a guy like him to catch the eye of a woman like that?

Genre: Poolboy Jungkook x Rich Divorcee OC

Tags: Age gap (older woman), socioeconomic gap, Surferboy JK, drummer/guitarist/vocalist JK, Wealthy divorcee OC, househusband

CW: Mature/Explicit, Infidelity (not between JKxOC), language, alcohol, recreational drugs, lots of explicit sex, ageist/racist/classist remarks down the road, outdoor sex, beach sex

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six

The scent of coffee wafted around the kitchen, the gurgle and sigh of the Keurig tinkling coffee into her mug. For a moment, Cafe Bustelo overpowered the smell of drying paint. She dragged her finger impatiently along the warming mug, her nail catching the glaze coating the blues and browns of the stoneware ceramic. She’d bought a set of these when Tim had dragged her along to Germany one year –ostensibly for business meetings but shockingly they all took place at Oktoberfest events and the most expensive BierHalls to be found in Munich. Grace had spent most of her time wandering the museums and historic churches and a lively marketplace where she’d found the handmade mugs.

She loved those mugs. She decided they made her think of beauty and independence and times when she had made the most of being dragged around as a trophy by her ex-husband, so the mugs were allowed to stay. The other option would have been to donate them; no way would she have allowed Tim to keep something she’d carefully selected for its beauty, which he refused to use because “it’s like drinkings from rocks.”

The second the coffee was done, she snatched the mug up and breathed the scent deep into her lungs. This was one of the small things she was trying to make more space for in her life: the scent of coffee, the crisp look of freshly done nails, the warmth of a steamy bath at the end of the day, perhaps with a glass of wine and a mystery novel perched on the edge.

She glanced at her nails, then turned her grip on the mug so she couldn’t see them. Her nail tech was going to have a fit. They were a mess, but she didn’t see the point of getting them fixed until she was done with the cabinets. Which would be soon!

She tentatively touched the doorless cabinet above her, testing the dryness of the most recent coat of paint. One more, she felt like, and probably the same for the cabinet doors that had been outside drying overnight. The new hardware sat in a box on the marble counter. She couldn’t wait to screw those in and put the doors back on. Having work finished on a central room was going to feel so fucking good.

The rest of the house seemed to call to her, reminding her of all the in-progress things standing between her and her finished home. But at least she was almost to the fun part, the filling out part. The walls and ceilings, once dark and oppressive, were now white and taupe throughput, a much more fitting canvas for the art she intended to collect. There would be furniture to buy once the floor guy was finished restaining all the wood, and plants to tuck everywhere she could fit them, and functional space to fill out. When she hosted, did she expect folks to congregate in the living room or the dining room or the deck? What would she need to make them comfortable?

It was easy for her daydreams to run away with her and to feel impatient about it. She was trying to romanticize and enjoy, but the truth was she felt late to be starting a new life from scratch. She’d already done this! She’d already worked so hard to make dreams a reality… Sometimes starting fresh was fun and at other times utterly demoralizing.

The remodel of the master bedroom and bathroom were the most frustrating right now and the living room wasn’t far behind, but at least the kitchen would be done soon. She hadn’t even been in the house eight weeks yet. She sold houses, she knew the settling in took time. When she’d moved in with Tim though, it had been such a simple, straight-forward process. He’d wanted something totally move-in ready, no updates needed, and he’d never wanted her to “fuck with it” much in terms of personalizing. They’d ordered whatever they didn’t already have between the two of them in a week and paid for expedited shipping to get it done quick.

This time, she wanted quality, even if she had to wait for it.

Which she reminded herself daily, hourly. Every time she noticed more “little things” she suspected she would want to do later, once this big things were done. A re-do of the downstairs bathroom, turning the downstairs guestroom into a work out room, adding at least a pool shed–

“Breathe out,” she told herself, lifting the coffee to her nose again. One thing at a time. Well, several things at a time, but not all the things at a time. She could chip away at things around the house until she had it exactly the way she wanted it, even if it took years. There was no rush, no one to impress, no expected interruptions to this pursuit. Life stretched before her with blue skies and gentle breezes. She could do whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted. No husband, no kids, no real financial worries once this shitty divorce was behind her. So long as Tim didn’t successfully clean her out. Thank god her lawyers were going to make sure that didn’t happen.

She breathed out again. Yoga that morning on the deck outside the master bedroom had given her the strength to keep the stress at bay. Yoga and a healthy dose of snuggles from her partner in crime.

Foam headbutted against her leg and curled around, stepping on her toes and then ducking down for a nibble. He was an odd cat, that was for sure. She loved him. She gave him a little scratch behind the ears and then lifted him to ride on the crook of her arm as she gathered avocados, eggs, and her favorite artisanal bread. Foam sniffed and stretched, then pulled back quickly when she let him sniff each ingredient, no longer interested. She set him down and pulled the Everything Bagel topping from the painfully bare spice drawer. The glass bottles of her collection had broken during the move and she hadn’t had time to order replacements.

Foam wove in and out of her legs as she cooked before dashing off to chase ghosts, which so far seemed his favorite pastime. At first she had thought he might hear mice or insects in the house –but of course he wasn’t hearing anything! Nor could she find any evidence of pests, thank god. Just a silly little cat living out his best life.

Coffee and avocado toast and eggs arranged, she was just carrying it out to the outdoor dining room when she heard the back gate grind open. She’d only given the code to a couple of the contractors she trusted enough not to show up in the middle of the night and murder her –namely the woman managing the bathroom remodel and the pool guy.

JK’s truck crunched to a stop on the gravel, muffled music breaking the quiet stillness of the morning. He banged out a drum solo on the steering wheel, then the music abruptly shut off seconds before he stepped out, still singing along. It was only eight, earlier than she’d expected him, though he wasn’t on some set schedule. He looked shockingly awake and she suspected that meant he’d been out surfing this morning; other days he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed at ten.

“Surfing this morning?” she called over as he lowered the tailgate of his truck, so he’d know she was there and not think she was just standing around gawking.

He stopped what he was doing and grinned over at her; it caught her off-guard, that grin, like he’d known she was there and expected her to ask. He grabbed a big white bucket and hauled it closer, at which point she realized his hair wasn’t just wild today but wet, like he’d just hopped out of the shower.

“I was out, yeah,” he said. He didn’t look it now, more bundled up than she’d ever seen him in a gray hoodie and long pants.

She worried he’d noticed her look him over and teased, “You look cozy. Not very beach bum.”

“I took a cold shower before I came here,” he said. “So… I’m cold.” He grinned wider, dimples showing on each side of his mouth.

Damn. He had quite a smile.

“Do you want coffee or tea?” she asked.

“Nah, hate the stuff. I’m more of a Bacchus-D guy.”

“I’m not familiar.”

“It’s an energy drink,” he answered, shrugged.

“Ah.”

“I’m good though. Thanks. Figured I’d get an early start today scrubbing that baby down.”

She had the urge to bite her toast and realized she was just standing there, holding her plate and her mug, still wearing the tank top and leggings she’d done her yoga in. A tap made them both look back at the French doors, where Foam was pawing to get her attention.

“That your cat?”

“I should hope so,” she laughed. “Isn’t he cute?”

“Yeah. I’m more of a dog person but cats are ok.”

She didn’t know why that made her feel a bit put off. You could be a dog person but still think cats were cute. Or you could just be polite and say yes, your pet is cute.

“I’ve never had a dog or a cat,” he continued. “Once I had a bird.”

“What kind?”

“Oh, it was wild. Like a bird that you just see in the yard. It had a hurt leg so I took it in. My mom was pissed,” he laughed.

“So… what happened to the bird?” she asked, because it seemed like the right question to ask.

He grimaced and admitted, “I don’t know. She told me she took it to a rescue but… I doubt it.” He looked to the side and scowled. “She’s kind of– I don’t have a good relationship with my mom.”

“Oh.”

“But I do with my stepmom, I don’t have like sad puppy syndrome or anything,” he quickly clarified. “I’m not weird about women just because my mom probably killed my bird.”

“You think she was capable of killing it?” Grace asked, not quite sure what else to say. He was an interesting character, this JK, telling her all of that first thing in the morning.

“Even if she just tossed it out, it probably died, right?” He shrugged, like he’d learned to live with this. Grace decided not to mention she’d been dragged along on duck hunts several times as a teenager until she threatened to become a vegetarian. It was natural to search for those types of thematic connection when someone shared something personal, as a way to comfort, and yet this conversation felt like it didn’t quite follow the rules of etiquette she’d learned growing up. Conversations with JK rarely did.

“I’m sorry. That sounds… upsetting.”

“Anyway,” he said, and stretched, allowing a glimpse of a tanned toned stomach. “I’ma get started.”

“Need anything at all?”

“Nope.” He grinned and waved and grabbed his bucket in one hand. “Actually can I give you a CD to put on?”

“Sure…” Actually she’d been looking forward to her quiet breakfast but fine, music could be ok.

It felt too awkward to sit outside to eat anyway, since it might seem like she was just watching him, even though she couldn’t see him at all once he hopped down into the empty pool. Instead she ate in the kitchen, windows open to hear the music, trying to identify the heavy drums and shout. It sounded like… old rock music? But maybe it was a modern band that only sounded old, like Greta van Fleet.

Foam leapt into her lap and she scritched under his chin, almost asking if he liked the music –would he be able to feel the vibrations from this far away? She wondered if he’d enjoy it up close. She kinda liked it. It sounded like the thing she would have listened to as a teenager to piss off her parents, if she’d been that kind of teenager. Maybe it was the kind of music you listened to even into adulthood to piss off a mom who’d killed your rescue bird. Yikes.

But it was endearing, him being the kind of guy who’d bring home a wounded bird, expecting to take care of it. That was charming.

She bobbed her head along to the music as she chewed her toast and scrolled through a digital copy of The New Yorker on her iPad. She was trying to get back into breakfast being a routine rather than something to grab on the go or skip, now that her time was her own. She used to love slow, coffee-laden, literature-infused breakfasts, but over the years she’d lost them in favor of the hustle. It became a bagel on the way to a house showing, a parfait halfway through the morning when she realized she’d forgotten to grab something between yoga and the list of phone calls to make with her clients’ real estate attorneys and inspection officers and the occasional mortgage broker. An occasional brunch with friends had done its best to keep breakfast alive as a tradition, waiting for her to return to her roots. Growing up, her family ate breakfast together every morning.

It took her long enough to notice the harsh buzzing to also recognize that the person held the buzzer for a painfully long time. Grace startled and Foam vaulted from her lap, back claws leaving red lines of nearly-cut skin in his haste. She winced and hobbled to the console by the back door to see which damn door had something going on.

An older woman with a visor and long-sleeved shirt and large sunglasses stood at the back gate, her lips pursed so tightly the camera seemed to zoom in on them.

“Hello, can I help you?” Grace asked.

“This is a nice neighborhood, you know!” the woman shouted. “Turn that horrible noise down right this instant! Good people are trying to have a good morning and you’ve got the gall to–”

Getting yelled at by an irate neighbor was not on Grace’s to-do list today.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ll look into it,” Grace interrupted her. Curious if the music seemed louder away from her house –where she could hear it but not excessively– she stepped outside. She could see the shadow of the woman’s feet still standing at the gate, shuffling like she couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. A small dog stuck its nose under the gap.

The music didn’t seem that loud to Grace, even directly on the patio where the speakers were. Still, not excessive. She thought this had just revealed she had at least one annoying old lady neighbor, but maybe a weird acoustic was happening and causing it to somehow seem louder elsewhere, so she walked the perimeter of the yard.

The inside of the pool briefly distracted her from her investigation. She hadn’t come to look since JK’s friend had finished draining the pool the other day, nor when JK had come by to do an inspection of all the pumps and filters and heaters and decide what needed to be replaced (everything, unsurprisingly.) The water had been green and slimy before but she hadn’t realized there were plants beneath the surface. It looked like the bottom of an aquarium down there, with actual patches of moss or grass or whatever it was, and leafy plants, and who knew what else!

Something went flying through the air and landed behind her.

“What was that?” she asked, worried JK was going to cover her grass in slimy shit.

“Oh!” His eyebrows raised and he stiffened in surprise at seeing her. “Uh, a frog.”

“A frog.”

“Would you um… rather I catch them and put them somewhere else? They’re just frogs though.” He looked so completely guilty that she half expected the frog was a lie but when she looked back at the blob, it was in fact a frog.

“Won’t they just come right back in?”

He looked around at the ecosystem he was charged with dismantling, thinking about it, then answered with that familiar confidence he had, “Nah, there won’t be anything good for them down here once I finish today. All this will be gone.” He spread his hand out, gesturing to the whole pool. Grace didn’t see how that was possible to do in a single day. “Hey, did you know there’s all this pretty tile at the bottom?”

“No,” she admitted. He crouched and dragged a bunch of plants to the side and wiped at the muck with his hands to reveal a glimpse of small bright-blue tiles.

“It’s kinda cool. I feel like a– what are those guys that dig up dinosaurs?”

“A paleontologist?”

“Yeah. Hey, don’t laugh at me, smarty. English isn’t my first language,” he said. She was positive she had not laughed at him but quickly checked herself.

“I didn’t laugh! I would never.”

“I know, I’m teasing.”

“Oh.” It was a horrible thing to tease about. It kept her from asking what she was curious to know now, what his first language was. She worried there wasn’t a way to phrase the question that wouldn’t sound racist, especially since he might be joking about that, she realized. He might be messing with her, waiting for her to ask what is your first language? She couldn’t quite understand this man, or how to tell when he was serious or teasing. She used to think he was always serious and polite but now she wondered if he’d been teasing a lot. Or making fun. She suddenly felt very self conscious about it.

“She doesn’t like being teased,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine! I just would never insult you like that.” The self conscious feeling got worse. It was like he’d read her mind!

“I know that’s why it’s funny… so, frogs? Stay, go? Put ‘em in a box to toss at that lady?��

“Oh, you heard that?” she asked, glancing over to the gate. The woman’s feet were gone but she had the sixth sense she hadn’t gone far.

“Yeah, I even turned it down from where you had it. Guess you were partying last night?”

“That’s where we left it the other day! I didn’t think it was that loud but thanks. I guess I don’t want to go to war with my neighbors just yet.”

“Guns n’ Roses is a good thing to go to war with a neighbor over though.”

Instantly she thought of the band’s logo design, something she’d seen printed on the T-shirts of trendy twenty-somethings. She didn’t know their music but she did know they were an older band and felt very proud of herself for having blindly guessed correctly.

“Maybe once I’ve established myself…” She trailed off, contemplating now just where that woman could live. She’d already gone around to all the neighbors on this street with boxes of pain au chocolates from Republique and her business card which had her phone number and email on it, putting her best food forward. It amused her that every single one of them had seemed so surprised by the introduction. None of them knew each other, she understood. This wasn’t that kind of neighborhood. Her previous one hadn’t been either. But it was the way she’d been raised! Her parents would be severely disappointed when they came to visit if she couldn’t name her neighbors and wave to them when they passed on the street.

She had not met this woman yet though.

“And how do you do that, exactly? Establish yourself?”

“Hm?” Belatedly she processed the question and answered, “I prove myself to be a good neighbor.”

“Which means quiet music? Lame. Guess I’m the shittiest neighbor but no one’s egged my house yet.”

“Maybe at least quiet until ten. I guess folks around here are late sleepers.”

He was coming towards her and she instinctively backed up, watching with dumb curiosity as he leapt up to grab the pool edge and pulled himself out the way she might if the pool was full of water. He’d done it so quick and fluidly that it startled her; there was no other explanation for why it felt like an adrenaline shot through her.

He dusted off his hands but the muck remained.

“Folks,” he muttered, she didn’t know why. “Well, what’s the verdict on the frogs?” She blinked at him, her mind dragging confused at how he’d gone so quickly from standing beneath her in the Jurassic Park of her empty pool to now looking down at her. How had he actually pulled himself up that way? She never would have that upper body strength.

He added, “I’ve got a bucket in the truck, I can take ‘em with me if you don’t want them in your yard.”

“And do what with them?”

“Kill them probably, like mother like– no, shit! I’m joking!” he laughed because her face had failed not to react to such a blunt answer. In an instant his face went from an intense, lowered-brow stare to lifted eyebrows, softened eyes, a supplicating smile. “I wouldn’t kill them,” he quickly assured her. “I’ll set them loose in a park pond or something.”

“Won’t that upset the balance of the ecosystem there?”

“Uh… don’t know, don’t care? It’s fine, they’re just frogs.”

“They can stay, I don’t mind some frogs as long as they aren’t going to live in the pool,” she assured him. Because obviously she couldn’t be like his mom. And his jokes were weird and kind of flustering her. “Maybe I should make a pond somewhere… They’ll eat the bugs in the yard, won’t they?”

He grabbed two blue tubs and tossed them right down into the pool before answering, “I’m not an expert on frogs but I’ve heard they do that.”

OK, that made her crack a smile.

“You don’t watch Planet Earth documentaries in your spare time?” she teased.

He seemed to take this seriously though and gave her a curious look as he admitted, “Ah, no. A documentary? You watch those for fun, huh?”

“That’s a very normal thing to do,” she said, a combination of flustered and annoyed by the way he grinned at her.

“Watching documentaries for fun?”

“Yes, don’t you like animals?”

He laughed and held his hands up, like he didn’t understand what she was talking about, and assured her, “Yeah I do. And I like the earth. I watch little clips of stuff that come across my feed.”

“What feed?”

“Tiktok?”

“Oh, isn’t that…” She cut herself off before finishing for teenagers? “I’m not on that.”

“YouTube has short animal things too. I’ve probably watched one about frogs but if I tried to watch like an hour of frogs, I’d fall asleep.” He nodded, as if thinking through it more and growing more certain.

“That’s a shame. You really learn a lot and they’re beautiful…” What the fuck was she talking about, preaching nature documentaries to this guy? God, he brought out weird behavior in her. Not her best, sadly.

“Know what’s even better than a nature documentary? Being in nature, riding the waves. I bet I could make you a better documentary while I’m out than like the mating cycle of two-tone shrimp or whatever. I see animals every time I’m out. You ever had a seagull snatch a hotdog out of your hand?”

“...no, I have not,” she could say with certainty.

“Scared the shit out of my sister,” he snickered. “You want to learn about nature, you should be out in it.”

“I go out into nature,” she clarified. “I hike. I… travel. But I’m not trekking through the forests of Madagascar the way documentary filmmakers are. I’m certainly not taking an Arctic cruise.”

“Why not? God, if I could afford to go see all that crazy stuff…” He shook his head, then grabbed a sort of rake lying on the ground. It thwacked her leg as he lifted it, not hard enough to hurt, but he flinched like he’d been the one hit and apologized.

“You may be more adventurous than I am,” she suggested, not sure what else to say.

“Nothing stopping you now though, right? Now that you’re free.”

Free. What a word to use. She liked that better than ‘divorced.’

“I don’t think getting divorced made me suddenly athletic.”

“You work out, I’ve seen you,” he argued. He suddenly clutched the handle of the rake to his chest and looked stunned, like he’d said something he hadn’t meant to. His reaction made it weird; what he’d said on his own wasn’t, because he’d come over when she was coming up from the gym, that would have been fine. But again, he looked so guilty! His face was more expressive than she’d realized before. “I mean, you know, yoga or whatever it is you do.”

It was kind of fun watching him squirm instead of herself for once.

She crossed her arms and leveled a serious look at him as she demanded, “Is that how you got that video that we promised never to talk about? Do you peek in–”

“Fuck no, I swear I don’t!” he cried. “I swear I’m not a window creeper. I just happened to see that one time because they were making so much noise–”

“Lovely, thank you.”

“I just meant— I just know you work out because you’ve come out to say hi after you’ve clearly been working out,” he said. “At least I think so? I don’t know, I don’t know what you do in your house. I swear that’s all I meant. I don’t look in windows. Not one of my hobbies. I just surf and play in my band and thrash my roommates in video games and… and hang out with my family. That’s it, that’s my life.”

He seemed sincerely panicked now, but not guilty. Grace studied his face. He sure could flip back and forth quickly between sexy smirk and doe-eyed innocence. She wondered how intentional it was. She didn’t really know much about JK, after all. Maybe he fucked women over too.

Well, not her at least, because he just worked on her pool and did a good job of it.

“Fuck,” he huffed. “I swear I’m not a creeper. I felt like a fucking creeper taking that video but I didn’t think you’d believe me any other way and I knew you deserved not to be with that piece of shit so… yeah, sorry. I swear I’ve never looked through your windows– through anyone’s windows!”

Ok, he looked like he was literally starting to sweat.

“I believe you,” she relented.

“Ok good I’m going to shut the fuck up and just clean your pool now…”

She didn’t like that it was all so awkward between them now though. She hadn’t meant to leave him squirming, she’d just gotten briefly thoughtful about how little you could ever actually know anyone. She hadn’t even known her husband, of course she didn’t really know JK either. And he didn’t really now her and now he was anxious. She could recognize the power dynamic. She could imagine the damage done by an errant accusation like that from a wealthy customer, just one phone call to his boss.

“I mean it, I believe you. You don’t seem like the type.”

“You’re familiar with the type of guy who looks through women’s windows–”

“Maybe not that in particular but I was married to an asshole for years so…”

“True.” That seemed to have placated him, a weird sort of peace offering she hadn’t expected.

“All right. Cool. I just don’t want you to worry that like… I’m not an asshole or a predator or anything.” He held his hands up, the rake handle still deftly held in his fingers. Not that it weighed a lot, but it still demonstrated an impressive finger strength. Drummer, she remembered. Damn. “I swear,” he continued. “I’ve got two sisters, I babysit my nephew a lot, I’m a good son to my stepmom.”

His insistence continued to be weird but in a way she was starting to equate with him. He talked so much sometimes, like he had no idea when to stop. Her lawyer would hate him.

She couldn’t help it, she propped her hands on her hip and pointed out, “Lots of assholes are good sons though. I think it’s more telling what your ex-girlfriends would say.”

“Ah, that I’m great in bed but not going anywhere in life and I spend too much time with my family and my band,” he quickly rattled off. It obviously wasn’t even a brag or a joke, he meant it sincerely, he had been given this direct feedback.

Grace couldn’t help it. She laughed. She covered her mouth and laughed and he responded with a crooked grin like he was relieved she found this funny.

“What, do you give your exes a poll?” She couldn’t help herself. “God, I can’t imagine what Tim would have written.”

“Well none of my exes were like that asshole.” He shrugged. Which was kind of refreshing, actually, that he didn’t take the opportunity to claim his exes were all crazy bitches. Low bar? Maybe she’d just been hanging around the wrong men all her life.

Damn. Maybe Tim really had done a number on her expectations of men. Most of her friends were women. Actually, maybe all of her friends were women… was that just a natural order of things, or was it because Tim had always tensed up if she mentioned other men… she hadn’t thought about that until right now.

“You ok?” JK asked, looking at her like something embarrassing had flashed across her face.

“Yes, just… every day realizing new things about myself and the type of men I’ve had in my life…” She trailed off, realizing she was saying too much while talking to a man. But not a man in her life. Well, a man in her life, but not in a relationship way. In an employer-contractor type of way, that was all.

“Well don’t think too hard about it, you deserve to just have some fun now.”

Whyyyyy did he say things like that? With that smirk? With the rake propped against the ground and held out from his body, showing off the flex of his muscles as he swayed it playfully, possibly a bit coy?

She was imagining things. The whiplash from the weird things he said and the weird things she thought and that thing he kept doing with his tongue in his cheek that she couldn’t figure out if he was doing it without realizing it or to be sexy except obviously he wasn’t trying to flirt or be sexy right now as he dug amphibians out of her pool –see? She was losing her mind.

“You can leave the frogs,” she decided, not sure if she’d already said that. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

“Wait!”

She’d turned but hesitated at his call, much too loud, as if she was already halfway across the yard. She hadn’t even begun to move.

“Uh, what about you?”

“Hm? What about me?”

“I answered what things I do for fun. What about you? What do you do for fun?”

Grace found herself baffled by the question. Why would he ask her that? Her pool guy? She stared at him, trying to comprehend what would lead him to ask such a flirty question. It was flirty, right? She definitely hadn’t asked that… had she? Oh god, had she flirted with the pool guy? No. Definitely not! And he definitely wasn’t either. No way, not possible. Maybe it was just friendly.

Did men sincerely ask friendly questions of women? No, right?

“I don’t know, you know, normal things.”

“Like…”

“Like… reading books. Going to museums. Yoga. Travel… brunch….” She could see clearly on his face that she was growing more foreign to him by the second, which made no sense because she was listing the most normal things for a woman to do. “Not a museum guy?” she guessed.

“I got kicked out of one once… haven’t been back.”

“Wow, real bad boy, huh? What did you do?”

“I laughed too much.”

“That’s not true,” she said with a sigh.

He looked immediately and obviously offended and defended with that innocent look again, “It is true!”

“What, was the artist standing right there or–”

“...maybe,” he admitted. Cheeky grin back. “It was a lot of nudes. The guy was definitely exaggerating…”

“Ah, a dick measuring contest?”

“Trust me, you would have been giggling into your little nails.”

“My nails?” she gasped and immediately closed them into her fists. Really?! The guy was going after her nails?!

“Yeah? You know, tee hee?” he demonstrated, covering his mouth with one hand. “The little polite lady laugh? I don’t think you’d laugh loud like that.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t think you know how.”

“How… to laugh?”

“Yeah, loud.”

“I… what a weird thing to accuse me of…? I know how to laugh.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he shrugged, clearly not believing her.

“Maybe you just aren’t very funny.”

He threw his head back and laughed, eyes scrunched tightly closed, full rows of white teeth on display.

“Now that, that is definitely something my exes have said on the morning after survey,” he laughed. There was a joke to be made there about him saying “morning after” and not “end of relationship” but she couldn’t figure it out quickly enough. Instead his laugh flustered her. People didn’t usually think she was very amusing, that was true.

He shook his head, still winding down, and added, “But hey I don’t think they went home with me because I was funny, so…” He shrugged and looked down at himself, as if inviting her to do so. It was kind of crass. She refused and kept her eyes leveled at his face, as if she didn’t understand.

This seemed like it was maybe nudging against inappropriate, didn’t it? This was definitely more than she needed to know about her pool guy. Her pool guy didn’t need to know what she did for fun. She didn’t need to know what women said the morning after fucking him. She was glad now that her answer had bored him instead of giving any indication she was flirting back.

“A sense of humor is really important.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Oh right, that’s what drew you to your ex, huh?”

She leveled a stern look at him, which he met only with a cheeky grin. Ok, this had definitely gone on long enough.

“Weeeell,” he dragged out. “Now that I know how boring your life is, I’d better get this pool into shape so at least you’ll have something exciting in your life.”

“I’m remodeling my house. That’s pretty exciting.”

“You think my music is quiet enough for your bougie neighborhood?” he said, which she thought meant it was another joke but she didn’t know what that word he’d said was and she wasn’t about to ask.

They’d had an entire conversation over the rock music. If the nosy lady complained about this, Grace would have to correct her.

“It’s fine,” Grace assured him.

“Do you know who it is?”

“You said it’s Guns n’ Roses.”

“This is Iron Maiden.” He suddenly pulled the rake across his body and played it like a guitar along to the music and mouthed the lyrics.

“I thought you’re a drummer.”

“You can be more than one thing, you know.”

She didn’t know what to say. He seemed to be doing that to her a lot, leaving her unsure what the right next thing to say was. He was a hard one to figure out. He didn’t follow the normal rules of polite conversation and while she spoke with plenty of people who didn’t, none were quite as baffling to her as this guy. He was weird and borderline inappropriate. Maybe more than borderline.

“I will keep that in mind,” she said, pulling on professional real estate agent persona because it was all she had left. “Thank you, let me know if you need anything else.”

“You got it!” he called after her, then immediately began singing the song. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see him jump down into the pool like a movie superhero. The mucky wet sound of his landing made her glad she was paying him to deal with that. Hopefully frogs were the worst thing he found, but maybe there’d be snakes or dead things too, who knew! She might not ever know. He’d handle it. That, at least, was very nice, to not have to worry about it. He might be odd, but he was a great pool guy.

Great in bed. Definitely not something she needed to know about her hot pool guy, what the hell was wrong with him, telling her that?! She didn’t think he, young and clearly with women dancing at the ends of his fingers, was trying to flirt with her, old divorced idiot. Was he mocking her? But nothing he said ever seemed unkindly meant… teasing, not mocking… unless her Bullshit Rader was as bad with him as it had been with Tim.

Maybe, she considered, JK was just really bad at conversation. Guess you could be if you moved through life looking like that and being Great in bed.

The scrubbing was a bigger job than he’d expected. Getting the plants out was no big deal and he’d made good headway power-washing the green hue out of the grout lines. He’d called for Grace to come once he got the power-washer hooked up, so she could watch the grand unveiling of all that pretty blue tiles from beneath what had to be at least eight years of muck.

To his gratification, she had been just as excited as he was, she got it. He didn’t have to explain himself at all to her! He thought pools were pretty cool and he got to see some really nice ones and this had once been a really nice one, that’s what he would have defensively explained if she looked at him like he was making a big deal out of nothing. A swirling mosaic of overlapping waves in shades of blue covered the bottom of the pool, hand-tiled, not quick-lay blocks. It was rad as hell, someone had put a lot of time and money into this thing.

Sadly, the glass tiles had not weathered the neglect. The grand unveiling revealed a significant number of them had chipped and dislodged over time. He didn’t think that came from sitting underwater, but that it had sat empty for a while at some point, which was way worse. Judging by the large ring of busted tiles in the deep end, he suspected someone had dropped something. Maybe someone had tried to skateboard in this thing? If so, they’d eaten shit pretty bad.

Darker thoughts came to mind. Jungkook blamed it on watching too much Walking Dead the night before and decided not to suggest those things to Grace in case someone really had died or something and she’d freak and want the pool ripped out. It probably wasn’t a body anyway, it would have had to fall from higher than that, right? He didn’t really know the physics of it but probably. Not big enough for a car driving in. Maybe someone dropped a table or threw a chair.

He really needed to not watch Walking Dead right before bed.

But he could fix it! The only thing really sad about the damage was that it was going to cost Grace more money than he’d estimated. He did give her the option of trying to fix it cheap but she didn’t want cheap. She didn’t even bat an eyelash at the number when Bob texted him the time and materials estimate. He felt bad to add to the project cost, he should have predicted there might be an issue like this but he’d assumed the water meant it hadn’t sat empty!, so he pushed off the decision to Bob –only for her to not even care. Bob had offered Kyle to take over the tiling job but Jungkook was confident he could do it, and Bob knew he was good for it. Jungkook had done plenty of repair jobs with Tyle Kyle and there wasn’t enough damage to warrant two guys, he could handle it. Grace wasn’t in a rush. Also that guy was a such a fucking flirt with customers, Grace didn’t need that guy bothering her.

The sun wasn’t out today. The waves had been too choppy for him to hit that morning, and he’d slept through dawn anyway and then had a morning of pools to clean before he could make it over to Grace’s.

Damn, it really felt wrong still to call her Grace. It felt like… like calling a doctor by their first name or something. He hadn’t called her Grace out loud yet –not that he was talking about her to anyone anyway, but it would feel weird to call her… what, Miss Arison? Yeah that made him sound like a fucking second grader. If somehow she ever came up in conversation, he was going to have to just avoid calling her anything…

He chipped away at the broken tile, thinking normal thoughts like that about the woman who’d hired him to repair her pool.

He shivered in the shade and crouch-walked around the space, hammering away at the chisel to pop out the busted tiles. The replacements sat piled beside the pool, hauled over first thing to get that sweaty task out of the way, but this was tedious and he found himself wondering if he should have let Tyle Kyle help with this part after all. He’d been here over an hour without a sight of Grace anyway. Her car was in the driveway but she hadn’t even come out to say hello. There was no way she didn’t know he was here, with how loud that fucking gravel driveway was, and he’d put on a Tori Kelly CD because he had a suspicion Grace might like Tori Kelly, just based on the things she’d said about the things they’d listened to so far.

He glanced towards the house over the edge of the pool and contemplated pushing the buzzer to ask if he could use the toilet as a way to get attention. He supposed it was just dumb luck that so far his work days at the house had aligned with days she was also outside a lot. She was fun company every time she wandered over to chat for a couple minutes. She was easy to talk to and never asked something stupid or acted like she was judging him or whatever –unlike some women his own age he could think of who acted like conversation with him was such a fucking chore. So what, they just wanted a fuck and get the fuck out? Maybe he wanted to just shoot the shit sometimes, huh? And it wasn’t one-sided, he was down to listen.

Annoyed with the state of conversation in his life, he took it out on the tiles, crawling across the bottom of the pool to find the cracks in the design. At least he had Jimin and Taehyung, they talked to him, but lately they were both so busy… Yoongi had taken some extra hours to get the amp they needed for Flowerfest so he’d bailed on dinner plans Jungkook tried to make, and it wasn’t a big deal, but it wasn’t like Jungkook made plans with just anyone. He’d put effort into texting him about why didn’t they hang out and cook and whatever.

Yeah and while he was thinking of things that annoyed him, he was positive Yoojin was texting with a fucker and if it was her fucking ex again, Jungkook was going to fucking lose it. The guy had commented on a photo Yoojin had posted of Max’s birthday –months late, to be clear– and Yoojin had responded with a fucking laughing emoji and wouldn’t answer Jungkook’s question about whether she was laughing at him or with him. Fuck, if she let Jordan slide back into her life like that… and Max’s life, especially! If she was going to fuck around that was one thing, but Max deserved better than a flake for a father and Jordan had made it pretty fucking clear he had no interest in his own son…

The crunch of feet on gravel was his alert that Grace had stepped from the house. Immediately he popped his head out of the pool and spotted her looking around the back of his truck. He wasn’t there, obviously. He waved at her from the pool when she looked further around, then felt kinda stupid about it and dropped back down. Let her come to him, that kind of thing.

He was being an idiot. He shook his head at himself and tried to look busy surveying his work as he listened to her footsteps across the gravel, then more quietly along the deck and walkway.

“Good morning. I didn’t know you were here,” she immediately said. He couldn’t help but think she sounded a little put out about it, which he liked.

“How did you miss me driving across that gravel? Sounds like a fucking landslide every time,” he complained. Fuck, his voice had hitched when he looked up at her and he hoped she hadn’t noticed. She was dressed up today, a little skirt suit, dark blue, blousy white shirt.

Wait, damnit, did he have a thing about skirt suits?! He’d never had a thing about that before. Usually he thought they made a woman seem… mean. Not in a good way, in an principal’s office way. But her legs looked fucking whatever as she balanced on one foot and brushed the gravel out of the slip-on sandals that didn’t match the look at all. He liked the combination. A lot.

“Well it’s good, means no one can– well, I was going to say it means no one can sneak into my house without my knowing but I guess you basically did…”

“Yeah, get a dog or something, don’t rely on gravel,” he scolded. Instantly agog. Surely she wasn’t being serious…

“I have a really good security system, I was only joking. You’re on candid camera!” She said it like it was a joke. He didn’t understand and waited for her to explain more. “Oh, it was an old TV show…”

“Never heard of it.”

“It… nevermind.” He wished she had explained it so he’d understand the joke but she didn’t.

“You’re dressed up,” he pointed out at the same moment she said, “You’re making a lot of prog– oh, I… yes.” She looked down at herself as if remembering and added, “Yeah, long morning and then I got wrapped up in stuff and haven’t changed yet.”

He couldn’t help it, he had to know and asked, “Is that what you wear to sell houses?”

“Uh… sometimes, why?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what real estate people wear,” he quickly shrugged. It wasn’t that he thought she was only good at her job because she looked like that in a skirt suit but he did feel like it probably helped. Like were inspectors not going to give her whatever she wanted?

Ok, he really didn’t know anything about what buying or selling houses meant.

“It’s not uncomfortable as long as you get a nicely tailored suit,” she told him. “Well the shoes get a little uncomfortable… not these. Obviously I wear heels.”

“Obviously,” he repeated, and smirked, because she was talking more about her outfit than he’d expected and it was kinda cute.

“But I wasn’t selling houses this morning, I was– nevermind. This looks tedious.”

“What were you doing that’s not selling houses?” he asked because why not? Sometimes she seemed confused enough by his nosy questions to answer them, even if he knew they were kinda borderline not okay to ask the lady paying your boss. “That sounds suspicious. Do you actually sell houses or do you launder money for the mob or something?”

“Actually I was at a funeral.”

“Well fuck me.”

“No,” she gasped and covered her mouth. “It was a joke.”

“Which part was, the funeral?”

“I wasn’t at a funeral,” she laughed and touched her forehead and flinched like she was not someone used to telling jokes and was positive she’d done it wrong. Which made it even funnier. He liked that kind of almost-mean humor. He didn’t know she had it in her. He was glad she was talking to him but it was even better if she was joking.

He didn’t want to be standing down in the pool anymore and pulled himself up onto the ledge while teasing, “Well now I’m even more convinced you work for the mob.”

“I think if I worked for the mob, my ex would already have been ‘taken care of,’” she suggested, complete with air quotes –only to quickly correct, “Oh shit, now if something happens to him I’ll be the first suspect.”

“I think you’d already be the first suspect.”

“Oh. True…”

“But I’m offended, actually. You think I’m going to rat you out?” He’d meant to sit casual and cool on the side but it put him on eye level with the fabric hugging her thighs so he decided to stand instead. “I’m ride or die.”

“Are you offering to help?” she laughed. “We should change the subject…”

“I’m saying I wouldn’t rat you out. What’s the amendment that says I wouldn’t have to say anything in– no wait, that’s only for a husband, right?”

She nodded and laughed, “Yeah, that’s only spouse privilege. You’d be legally compelled to turn me in.”

“Well… nah. They can try and catch me first.” He crossed his arms, trying to look like someone experienced in flouting the law.

“We should probably be careful what we say out here, that neighbor lady might be listening. Oh my god, I didn’t tell you– yesterday I drove around the front of my house coming back and I swear she was peeking through the cracks in the gate.”

Jungkook could not have explained why he was so excited by her excitement to tell him this.

Immediately he assured her, “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

“She hates me.”

“She’s a nosy bitch,” he snorted.

“Well… that may be a bit much but… I definitely think she’s not thrilled I’m living here, but I haven’t figured out yet where she lives. She’s not on this street so she must be a couple over.”

Jungkook immediately considered this and pointed out, “She’s like eighty-five, how far can she walk?”

“Oh my god,” Grace laughed. There was a brighter laugh! “She’s like in her sixties, JK, she’s not that old.”

“Isn’t that old?”

“How old are your– nevermind,” she said and held her hands up. “We’re off topic.”

Jungkook took his time, letting his face do the talking before asking, “Was there a topic?”

“I’ll let you work,” she suggested and turned to go.

“Oh, you were telling me what you got dressed up for this morning.”

“I don’t think I was telling you that,” she countered. Then shook her head at some thought Jungkook would have loved access to before she ruined the topic with honesty, “I don’t mean to make it sound secretive. It was just a divorce mediation bullshit thing.”

“You wore that to see your ex?”

Her face immediately scrunched up, transparently unhappy, as she said, “I wore this to a court mediation I had to endure his presence for… why?” He worried he’d insulted her somehow without meaning to.

“Oh, just seems mean which, good for you.”

“Mean?”

Damnit, the compliment wasn’t any good if he had to explain it!

“You know, because, like….” He waved his hand and looked away from her, wanting to get back to work now. It sounded so stupid to say something like you look nice and it’ll make him jealous. Because the stupidest thing was, Tim was a fucking idiot who didn’t appreciate his hot wife and probably was too busy trying to screw her out of money to even notice how she looked. “Like dressed to impress or whatever.”

“Oh. Right, well, I need to look professional around lawyers and obviously I don’t want to look like my life is falling apart.”

Jungkook looked around her yard, across the back of the mansion she lived in by herself, her shiny car, all of it, and snorted, “Yeah, it definitely doesn’t look like that.”

“Speaking of falling apart…”

For the briefest moment Jungkook thought she meant him. But very quickly he realized of course she meant the pool, which currently was looking worse as he ran around prying out the broken tiles.

“It’ll get worse but then I swear it’ll get better. I got a late start today but it’s going. I should be able to get a lot of the tiles replaced today before I have to head out.”

She held her hands up and assured him, “No criticism from me. It’s fascinating to watch the process.”

She hadn’t asked, but he wanted the chance to brag and continued, “Yeah, I’d be willing to stay later but I’m supposed to watch my nephew tonight. Uncle-nephew time is very important.”

“That’s really sweet. How old is he?”

“One.” Yep, that’s right, I’m good with babies.

“Well he’s lucky to have you.” He liked the words, but the tone she used was disappointing. He didn’t think she sounded that impressed. Maybe she didn’t like babies? Or families? Or involved uncles?

“Do you have any nieces or nephews?” he asked.

“Yes, though none are close by,” she said, obviously distracted and looking at something in the yard. “You know what, it’s a really nice day –if I’m not going to bother you, I think I’ll try to get some gardening done.”

“Gardening?” he repeated, before reminding her, “Hey, it’s your house, lady.”

Her smile seemed more sincere then as she agreed, “It is. I was in such a bad mood after this morning, but I think some time in the yard will be just the thing. You can turn the music up if you want, this is nice. Who is it?”

“I’ll start it over. It’s Tori Kelly. Promise you’ll protect me from bitchon freeze lady?”

“It’s pronounced bee-shaan free-zay,” Grace whispered, “and you shouldn’t go around calling women bitches.”

“No, it’s the dog!” he insisted. She pursed her lips and gave him a look like she didn’t believe him, and he wasn’t sure if it was worse for Grace to think he was cleverly calling the woman a bitch or that he genuinely didn’t know how to say that breed of dog. “The little white yippy ones at dog shows.”

“Uh huh.”

The look she tossed him over her shoulder had no right being as sexy as it was. He knew she didn’t mean it sexy, but damn. The things he’d do if he let this fantasy roll…

Later. Fuck. He tucked that little look away into his pocket, eyebrows raising at the way that look and pencil skirt combination were going to play out when he took a shower tonight…

When she’d said she was going to work in the garden, she really meant it. Jungkook restarted the CD once she reappeared from the house, changed into a different blousy shirt and blousy pants and a wide-brimmed sunhat, which he supposed was what you should wear when gardening but it all looks so summery and fresh, not like what you actually wore digging around in the dirt. Like what you wore in a photoshoot or something. She had a bucket of gardening tools, all clean and new looking. She had a little purple pad thing which he eventually figured out was for her to kneel on, like a princess.

Needs a pillow under her knees, he noted for that later fantasy. That made sense, since she was older.

He’d expected her to wander around pruning things that probably didn’t need it, watering things, maybe sweep some leaves off the patio. He was prepared to swoop in and save her when she screamed upon finding a bug unexpectedly. He’d only tease her a little about it. Never in their conversations had she mentioned any skill at gardening and she didn’t seem like someone who’d done a whole lot of digging in the dirt. Maybe she’d clip some flowers to take into her rich house so she could post to insta bouquet from my own garden and call it a day.

That is not what she did.

Grace got it into her head that pulling a bunch of plants out of the ground was the gardening that she herself wanted to do. He watched with mounting fascination as she pulled out a shovel, shears, and one of those little gardening spade things, and tore her way through a flower bed like a berserker. He didn’t even hide that he was watching as she’d bend at the waist, wrap her hands around the base of a pretty thick plant, and yank with her whole weight –without budging a fucking thing. Then she’d dig around the base, bright yellow gardening gloves like little gopher hands, then go back to the bend and yank.

The spank bank content she was blessing him with today was starting to make him feel kind of predatory. It was too generous.

He’d just decided to be a better man and focus on getting the last of the broken tiles out when she yelped, “FUCK!”

Jungkook was out of the pool and across the yard to her side in a matter of seconds, already bracing for the toe she must have sliced off with the shovel, or a rake spike to the eye, something that had caused that cry.

She grimaced, clutching her gloved hand.

“Shit, did you cut your finger?”

“I… I broke a nail,” she grimaced, slowly opening her eyes. The pitiful look she gave him did something really stupid in his chest. “And I just got them done…”

For the first time in his life, Jungkook understood what Taehyung meant about high maintenance girls being good. If you’d told him six months ago he’d find it endearing for a woman to cry over a broken nail– No, in fact, he’d found it very prissy and annoying in girls he’d dated before! But something about the way she gingerly removed the glove and looked down at the manicure with the same dread as if a bone was going to be sticking out, it just made him want to take hold of her head and kiss her forehead and tell her you beautiful idiot, go get your nails fixed and I’ll rip the plants out for you.

Then he actually looked and saw the broken nail and he turned quickly away and hunched his shoulders and made a strangled noise.

“What’s that?!” she cried.

“Jesus that looks bad. Do you need to go to the hospital?!”

She laughed and insisted, “It’s not that bad.”

“Is it bleeding?”

“Oh my god, are you bothered by blood?”

“No, I get fucked up all the time surfing, but nails… how bad is it?”

“JK…” Her laughter at least reassured him that she was not, in fact, badly hurt. “It just scared me more than it hurt. I guess it’s fine… but I’ll have to file it down and go get it fixed… damnit.” He glanced over his shoulder, only to startle when she thrust her hand into his view. “See? It’s fine.”

“It’s bleeding,” he insisted, and grabbed her hand to show her, mainly so he could control where it was and not look.

“Oh. A little bit…”

She, shockingly, did not seem that bothered by it. So was she high maintenance or not?! Meanwhile Jungkook felt like chills were rolling up his spine because there was a part dangling. He’d seen people knock their teeth out on boards. He’d been adjacent to a bar fight where a dude busted his face open. He and Mo had gotten into so much shit as teenagers and it never phased him but this…

“Maybe you should go lie down,” he suggested because he wasn’t sure what else you were supposed to do. “Does your nail lady do house calls?”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Grace was clearly laughing at him.

“Ok, it’s freaky looking,” Jungkook told her defensively. “It’s really broken.”

“I’m going to go file this down before you faint,” she teased.

“I’m not going to faint.”

“Maybe you should lie down.”

He rolled his eyes aggressively and announced loudly, “I’m going back to my work where I manage to use a hammer and chisel without breaking a nail.”

“Oh, you want to put acrylics on and make this a competition?”

It had Jungkook laughing all the way back to his pool and helped him endure the boring part where she went inside and fixed her nail. He figured she might be done for the day, but eventually she was back and pulled her gloves on and went back to the flower bed and picked up her tools and got back to work.

Damn, what a woman.

He put on a new CD and an hour passed. He was to the point now he could start filling in the replacement tiles, which was going to be fun. He stood on the edge of the pool and looked down, surveying, calculating if he’d brought the right amount and shades. And maybe watching out of the corner of his eye as Grace tried to pull a rather large shrub out of the ground. She had a grip on it and pulled in repeated short jerks, like a dog playing tug, which Jungkook thought was probably brutal on her muscles and didn’t seem like the right way to go about that.

Just as he opened his mouth to offer some help, some of the shrub ripped from the ground and smashed her in the face, sending her tumbling backwards onto her ass. Dirt flew everywhere, covering her eyes and mouth; she spluttered, trying to slap it away as he once again flew to her side.

“Hold on, hold on,” he encouraged, grabbing her massive water bottle. “I’m going to pour water on your face, hold on.” He figured that was enough warning and dumped it over her forehead, but she gasped and choked like she was dying. He didn’t know what else to do but pull his shirt off and wipe the mud from her face.

“Oh my god it’s in my mouth!” she cried, dirty tongue hanging out as she wiped his shirt across it. He froze, certain she didn’t realize what he’d used to wipe her face off, not sure how to react to her licking his shirt. “It’s everywhere!” She wiped at her eyes and brushed at her hair.

“Yeah, what are you doing, lady, you have a yard guy! Let him pull this shit up!”

She let out a deep sigh through her makeshift mud mask and looked up at him with those eyes again and said, “Well I want only native plants in here and these are invasive.”

“Ok? I’ve seen your yard guy, he can get ‘em out of here.”

“But he got all booked up and can’t come for a couple weeks–”

“So wait.”

“You know I like to be able to do things on my own though,” she insisted and damnit if he wasn’t flattered that he did know that about her. “It’s just ripping up some plants, it’s not rocket science.”

“Well the plants seem to be winning.”

“No they aren’t, I’ve got almost all of them out,” she argued and pointed to the pile of her defeated foes.

“That one got you pretty good though.”

“Yeah well… I’ll win in the end. Don’t give me that look, I realize this is a little pig-headed but I spent two hours in a room with my ex-husband this morning, it was either rip out plants or tear down a wall and I don’t know which ones in the house are load-bearing so…”

“I was going to suggest boxing but maybe not with your nails.”

She snorted, “I can’t imagine what my mother would say if she called and I was boxing. I come from more… yoga people, you know?”

“Hm… drumming.” Instantly he thought of setting her down at his drum kit, showing her the ropes, then showing her how it’s done, her sliding into his lap all admiration–

“I have absolutely no rhythm,” she admitted.

“You just need someone to– oh, damn, you’re bleeding.”

“Again?”

Without thinking he brushed the blond whisps of her bangs away from her forehead, where a decent cut had now bled enough to show through the mud.

“How bad?”

She flinched as he brushed the dirt away and he suggested, “Not bad. Sorry, I don’t want to hurt you, but you should get the dirt off and wash it good.”

“Fine,” she sighed with an obvious huff, like this was all his fault. He found that funny too. She was a little bit of a brat, huh? As to be expected of a rich white lady. At least her brattiness seemed harmless. He half expected her to stomp off like a toddler when she returned to the house, shaking dirt off like an angry cat.

As soon as she was gone, Jungkook grabbed her tools and began hacking at the roots. If she was so fucking stubborn that this shrub had to come out today, fine, he’d help before she actually busted her tailbone or eye socket. The piece she’d managed to unearth lay limp across the path, a martyr for a cause Jungkook wouldn’t let stand. At least he had the wherewithal to realize that she had probably been trying to pull up what were actually several trunks at the same time. The roots were all twisted together and he went to town snipping them, snip snip snip until he could wrestle one, two, three of the trunks out of the ground and toss them on top of the other one.

“What are you doing?” she called, running over like he was doing something. It gave him a jolt of panic; had she decided she didn’t want the shrub out after all and he’d just killed her bush?

“Saving you from yourself,” he offered. She’d put a bandaid on her forehead over the cut and it looked adorably stupid.

“The roots have to come out too,” she said. “I didn’t cut because I thought that was the easiest way to pull them out…”

“Just brute strength? They didn’t want to come out that way, I tried. And before you say anything, I’m pretty strong.”

“But now how am I going to get the roots out?”

“We’ll pull them,” he insisted. He wrenched another trunk out, yanking several times to pull up as much of the roots with it as he could, which was certainly more than she would have been able to do. Dirt went flying but only thwacked him in the stomach and he tossed it aside, then brushed it away from his skin. Grace watched this quietly.

“One more,” he said. “Then you’re done, right?”

“Except I have to get the roots out.”

“Geez, woman, one thing at a time.” He shook his head at her doubt in his method. Hers hadn’t been working so great! He bent at the waist and crouched and took hold of the last, thickest trunk as close to the roots as possible. The cut ones snaked all around, and he suspected he was only going to be able to get it partway out of the ground before he’d need to hack at more of the roots.

“Excuse me?”

Oops.

He gave her his most charming smile and said, “Sorry. Lady. Um… Miss Arison? Feels weird to call you Miss though–”

“Grace is fine– wait for me to help!” She rushed forward.

“I don’t want you to get hit,” he grunted out, giving the trunk several sharp tugs to test the hold. It wiggled. That was good.

“We’re stronger together.”

He was not sure that was true, but she was so damn determined, and her closeness as she pressed against his side and wrapped her hands just above his was kind of nice.

“Put your gloves on,” he scolded, and at least she did that, grabbing them where she’d ripped them off. She had a bandaid around her broken nail finger and it made him shudder again. Then she was back by his side, and damnit if he didn’t have the urge to just playfully knock her over, body her to the ground. She was still covered in dirt, crumbs of it in her hair and around the edges of her face. He could make it worse, press her down into it–

She yanked and he scolded, “Wait for me! We’ll do it together.” Oof that combination of words paired with where his mind kept trying to wander –this was a problem he’d need to handle. He shook his head. “On my count ok? Pull a little each time like one–pull, two–pull–”

“Ok ok I’ve got it. Wait! We should have goggles.”

He’d been about to pull and just let go and sat down on the lawn.

“I’ll be right back.”

She ran off and he sighed and shook his head. He definitely wasn’t going to finish the tile today. Not that he minded another day added to his work here, but she really did make projects difficult, didn’t she? He could already have the bush out of the ground. In fact…

He stood and grabbed it, ready to just do it on his own when she started shouting from the house, “Don’t you dare, JK! Wait! Wait for me right now or I will…” She trailed off, clearly unable to think of a threat as she slammed the door and ran back to him, two pairs of goggles in her gloved hands. “Safety is important! It will be traumatizing for both of us if I have to drive you to the hospital with a twig sticking out of your eye!”

He rolled his eyes because he did not think that was likely to happen, but he took the goggles and put them on.

“Happy now?” he asked her, knowing he looked ridiculous –but also secretly a little glad she’d insisted and provided the safety gear because actually he’d be kind of fucked if he had to be out of work for a while. And he didn’t want to lose an eye. He liked his eyes.

“Do you want a mask in case dirt flies into your mouth?”

“Nah, I’ve had worse things in my mouth.”

Her eyebrows raised but she didn’t say anything.

“You have a sick mind,” he teased her, thrilled she’d displayed this bit of juvenile depravity.

“What?!”

“I saw that look,” he snickered, and crouched to reach the trunk again.

“What look? There was no look!”

“I saw the look.”

She crouched as well and grabbed the trunk, her hands right above his, and insisted, “There was no look. I don’t know what kind of things you put into your mouth. OH, do you want gloves? Don’t you have work gloves?”

“Just pull the fucking plant or I’ll never get your pool done. Ready? One –yeah, rock your body like that.”

Well shit. He heard it too. He’d meant because when he said one, she pulled afterwards like he’d told her to do, using her weight to tug!

He quickly let go of the plant and insisted, “I meant that purely professionally–”

“Pull the fucking plant, JK,” she said right back and he kind of loved her a little in that moment. He took hold, counted again, tried not to let his mind wander to the way she crouched and tugged and grunted and how her hands looked wrapped around –though admittedly he was not as thick as this trunk, sadly.

At three, they both pulled back, legs straining, feet sinking into the dirt. The plant stretched and a bunch of roots popped but it didn’t come out.

“Ok one more time,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

She nodded, gasping for breath.

Again they counted, again they pulled, and this time Jungkook could walk his hands further down, and dig his fingers into the roots beneath the trunk. They strained and pulled and her feet slid out from under her, rendering her mostly ineffective, but still she pulled!

Enough roots finally snapped and the plant went rocketing over their heads to land in a defeated heap behind them. Grace simply laid the rest of the way, and Jungkook stretched out beside her because why not? The damn thing was out, and a lot of the roots with it.

“There. Done,” he beamed at her through his own strained breath.

“I still have to get the roots out.”

“Make the yard guy do it! Damn, you’re really determined, huh?”

“I am.” She beamed at him, lying next to him in the dirt, and damnit if that wasn’t a moment ripe for kissing… and grabbing… and maybe fucking, yeah? Right there in the dirt under the shade of the trees… animalistic. He’d never done something like that. Could be cool.

But he wasn’t so fucked in the head not to know his little fantasy was one sided. Obviously he wasn’t going to do something aggressive like that. It helped when she started to giggle.

“What?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“You are covered in dirt.”

“Yeah you too.”

“That plant put up a fight but we won.”

“With minimal blood.”

She sighed loudly, “God I wish I could jump into the pool to cool off.”

“Jesus, lady, I’m working on it!” he laughed, knowing she wasn’t actually complaining but eager to pretend he was offended.

“No, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that as a complaint!”

He pushed to his feet and continued to pretend, “Fine fine I’m going, I’ll get back to work.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she cried, and grabbed his arm. “I really wasn’t complaining! Thank you so much for helping me and– here, let me get you something to drink and–”

He grabbed her arm too and pulled her to her feet before admitting, “I know, I’m just playing with you. Jumping in the pool would be great. It’s going to be a great fucking pool.”

“I know. It’s worth the wait.”

“Lots of things are worth the wait.”

“I know…”

“So I’ll get back to it.” He grabbed his shirt from the grass and shook it out because the sheen of sweat was now leaving him quite cold in the chillier air. He didn’t mind the dirt or blood on the fabric, but she grabbed it from his hands.

“I’ll wash this for you.”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“You have a sweatshirt, don’t you? I’ll wash this, it’ll be done before you leave. It’s the least I can do. I can see my blood on it.”

“It’s not much blood.”

“Do you want something to drink? I don’t have those Bacchus-D things you like but I have water or lemonade or wine or… oh, I got Sprite.”

“For me?” he asked, surprised into it.

“Yes, you want that?”

“Sure. Ok. Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say as she walked off with his shirt to get him a Sprite she’d bought for him. She was nice. It made him feel a little bad for the depraved things he thought of doing to her –but they were nice depraved things! He was a giver, even in his fantasies, he’d make her cum really hard, definitely harder than that asshole little Timmy ever had.

She seemed almost meek about it when she brought him a Sprite and a wet towel to wipe his face with and also a box of Girl Scout cookies. He wasn’t going to say no to Girl Scout cookies!

“I really appreciate it. You don’t have to keep helping me like that,” she insisted. “Or at least let me Venmo you some money or something for the extra help–”

“Nah, it’s fine. Seriously. Thanks for the cookies and Sprite though.”

To be honest, he was a little annoyed by her offer of money. He appreciated it but still, couldn’t they just be friendly enough he could help and it wasn’t a big deal? He couldn’t imagine Tim-tim racing over to help her rip up plants, so it made him feel superior.

“Ok well I promise not to get into any more trouble while you’re here.”

“Better than getting into trouble without me,” he argued.

“I don’t always need saving, you know.”

It was like he could read it on her face, hear it in her voice, that she was getting a little defensive. He’d just meant to be playing with her, but he’d seen that defensiveness from her come up enough now to recognize it. She wanted to be independent and strong on her own. Ok, he could understand that, especially with her ex. He did think she was strong and independent and all that. Smart and nice and a really good eye for things, and not afraid to get her hands dirty. He could see the cabinets installed and her kitchen looked nice as hell.

“I know, you just need some muscle sometimes.” Yeah, he heard how that sounded. To make it better or worse, he flexed his bicep; probably it was for the best he had his sweatshirt on so she couldn’t see. At least she’d know he really did mean strength and not dick. Though he’d be happy to help her with that too, if she wanted.

She did not want.

“Well, thank you,” she said again, and that was that. He couldn’t think of an excuse to keep her there any longer, so he went back to tiling and she went to clean up the gardening mess she’d made and dig out the remaining roots. He heard her hiss again at one point and wondered if she’d broken another nail. If so, he didn’t want to know.

By the time he was wrapped for the day, he’d managed to replace all the missing tiles in the bottom of the pool, but not yet started the new tile pattern she wanted around the lip. She brought him his freshly cleaned shirt, hanging on a fucking wooden hanger. The shirt was still warm from the dryer and he couldn’t bring himself to pull it on his sweaty body. When he went to fold it to carry with him she insisted he just take the hanger with him, so he did because damn, that was a nice hanger.

He drummed on the steering wheel, singing along to the Green Day CD as he headed home. Dookie had come out a few years before he was born but come on, everyone knew Green Day. Even Grace had known Green Day. She said her brother had the album and listened to it in secret and it made him want to ask her about her brother, if he got into trouble too or if listening to Green Day was the worst thing he ever did. Rich kids could go hard, but they could also just be bratty over nothing, if he’d learned anything from the couple somehow stuck in his public high school.

The memory of Grace singing along to I went to a whore, she said my life’s a bore when she hadn’t realized he was listening made his smile grow. It was the first time he’d heard her sing and he regretted it was too quiet to really hear, more like talking. Did she sing well? He wanted to know! She said she couldn’t but maybe she was just humble, possibly the first humble rich person to ever exist.

By the time he parked at his parents’ apartment that afternoon, he was showered, changed, and his favorite jacket now hung on the wooden hanger in his closet. He bounded up the steps and pulled out his key and sang out,

“Helloooo, favorite uncle is heeeere.”

Max’s shriek of delight revealed his location: systematically pulling the take out containers from the low cabinet in the kitchen.

“K!” he called. “Hi, K! Hi!”

“My man Max,” Jungkook greeted and scooped Max up to blow a raspberry on his cheek. “Where’s your mama?”

“Just getting ready.”

“Ready for what?” Jungkook asked, eyes narrowing as she came around the corner. She had a headband with a floppy bow on and it fell across her forehead in a way he thought looked silly and also reminded him of Grace’s silly bandaid.

Apparently it made him smile without meaning to because Yoojin crossed her arms and demanded, “What are you so happy about?”

“Huh?”

“You’re smiling like an idiot. You’re in a good mood, I can tell. Get a girl or something?”

“What a weird question to ask your brother but no.”

“Come on, I’m a cool sister. You can tell me if someone finally took pity on you–”

“Why do I have to meet someone? Why can’t I just be happy about… you know, life. Good waves and a new amp–”

“So you didn’t meet anyone, you’re just being weird. Whatever, that’s fine. Seems like you two will have fun,” Yoojin cooed to Max. “Uncle JK isn’t grumpy today!”

“Screw you, I’m never grumpy. You’re the grumpy one this week.”

“Um, I’m in a great mood, I’ve got a new job and everything,” she pointed out. He didn’t think desk girl at the gym was going to pay great but it was definitely better than her big fat paycheck of $0 she’d been making before.

“Hope it’s great.”

“Day two,” she beamed. “Be good for Uncle JK, my big Max Man.” She took Max for a moment to hug and kiss and giggle with before handing him back.

Max immediately told Jungkook a stream of gibberish he couldn’t make any sense of.

“Good luck!” Yoojin called and was gone. Max frowned for a hot second, then waved at the closed door, “Bye bye! Bye bye bye. Akka?” he asked Jungkook.

“What’s that?”

“Akka? Akka?” He whined and reached towards the cabinets.

“Akka… banana? Apple? Rice cakes? Crackers?”

“Yaaaay.”

Jungkook bounced Max on his arm, tossing him playfully over to the other arm, as together they went to dig out all of those things and see which was right. Maybe Yoojin was right, he did feel pretty light and energetic. Had he been cranky lately? He didn’t think so. But he felt very much the opposite of that right now. Maybe he’d get dinner started before Appa got home. He felt like he could manage that while also playing with Max. He felt like he could kind of do anything right now, if he could retile a pool and pull a stubborn plant out of the dirt. The ache in his shoulders felt good.

Her pool was going to look so fucking good. He wondered if she’d remember him when she swam in it. He wondered if she still had that white bathing suit. That tile was going to have a great view…

Stephanie raised a bejeweled, manicured hand and easily waved at Grace over the heads of those in the restaurant. She was so tall, always the first one to be spotted in a crowd –a skill she had put to good use with some modeling in New York in her 20s, though she’d ultimately condemned the industry and moved into a completely different role: art lawyer.

A wave of greeting rolled around the pulled-together high tops as Grace slid onto the stool between Alicia and Stephanie, Ashley and Catherine already sliding drinks around to make room for whatever she ordered.

“She lives!” Ashley cheered.

“Girl, you had us worried,” Alicia scolded, waving with a tortilla chip. “Like you just disappear and we’re hearing about your divorce but– hey, don’t elbow me, she knows she’s divorced, we know now, no need to make it some big thing it’s not.” Alicia glared at Catherine, always the more subtle among them.

Catherine corrected, “Maybe we talk about something before we go right into it?”

“There’s nothing to go into,” Stephanie argued. “Tim’s a dick. Fucking good riddance. Welcome back.”

“Is there a club?” Grace asked as their voices continued to bubble and churn over each other in the busy restaurant. She wasn’t sure what club connected these women other than being 30-somethings. Stephanie lived life floating from one dalliance to another and loved it; Alicia hadn’t had anything serious in five years since she called it off with her fiance, but Victoria was married with a son, Ashley was engaged, and Catherine newly married, to a much older but allegedly wonderful man. Grace had only met him at the wedding –it was a bit of a fast thing– but he’d seemed nice.

“The club of not being hitched to a prick,” Alicia explained, then raised her hand to gesture for their waiter. Her thousand-watt smile no doubt bewitched him as it did everyone and he was with them in an instant, nodded as she gestured to Grace. “Our friend has arrived and would like a very strong drink.”

“Alicia,” Grace complained. She laughed and assured the waiter, “It doesn’t have to be any stronger than usual but an amaretto sour, please?”

“Coming right up, normal strength,” he told her. She could see why her friends had obviously immediately made buddies with him in that way sexy women and handsome waiters do. His teeth were shockingly white in his tan face, his blond hair streaked by the sun, the cut a little long like had been heartthrob popular when they were children in the 80s and 90s. He could have walked off the set of Saved By The Bell with that chiseled jaw. Was he a surfer? He looked like a surfer. She wondered if he knew JK.

“Don’t leave, we want to order appetizers too,” Victoria said, as if he’d started to run. He had not, too busy grinning at Stephanie’s flirty banter.

“Did you want to pick something out?” Ashley asked Grace, handing her the menu while Victoria rattled it off, Alicia adding and Stephanie subtracting from the things she said.

Grace waved it off with, “No, I’m just along for the ride.” She’d heard once that there was always a dominant one of a friend group, a sort of leader who drove the planning and the food ordering and such. Well in this friend group there were at least four of them and yes, the squabbles erupted sometimes, but it was beautifully upfront and direct. Her other social circles had the kind of conflict that was all all simmering resentment and gossipy whispers and passive aggressive snark at brunch. This group addressed disagreements –of which there were plenty– head on, sorted them, and moved along.

“Aren’t you going to write this down, Matt?”

Matt gave them a charming grin alongside the assurance, “Don’t need to, I remember every word you’ve said.” Then he rattled off their list of appetizers-as-entrees like a showman pulling off an audience participation trick. They acted duly impressed as he gathered the skinny menus and then turned his grin to Grace, “I’ll be right back with your normal strength amaretto sour.”

By the time Matt set the drink in front of Grace, her mind was already spinning from the onslaught of updates from these girls. They were women on the go, all of them, busy and bright and ambitious. Fear of their opinion was, secretly, one of the instigating factors in her pursuing her real estate license years ago. Too many brunches having to admit that her day consisted of pilates, social calls, and a dash of volunteer work. Not that they’d begrudged her –in fact they’d sighed about how lucky she was. But she could see the near-pity in their eyes at her having nothing of her own to compare to their director of marketing promotion, success with fundraising for the new start up, the completed surgical residency. They had all started out privileged, though not quite the status she came from, but for them it had only been a launching off point, not a totality.

So Grace had given real estate a try, because she loved houses and interiors and homes, and it turned out, she’d loved it. She still loved it. She credited these women for keeping her grounded and stable –and realized in letting herself get wrapped up in their energetic, overly loud conversation just how much she had missed them. Why had she not spent time with them since her divorce?

“Ok so how did you figure out he was cheating on you?” Ashley suddenly asked, turning to Grace expectantly her mouth full of food.

“Oh.” Grace covered her mouth and chewed dramatically to look like she was rushing to answer. She was not.

“Oh don’t ask her that,” Alicia gasped. “That’s so rude!”

“Yeah don’t ask for the juicy details!” Catherine scolded.

Victoria gave Grace a devilish grin and teased, “So are they? Juicy?”

“Ladies ladies,” Stephanie intervened. “This is a ruined marriage here. A betrayed woman. Our friend, not the latest season of Love Island.”

“All the more reason to care,” Ashley insisted.

Grace did not think Stephanie and Catherine had defended her very strongly, but didn’t wish to be enigmatic about it either. Maybe listening to her friends curse Tim to hell and back would be cathartic.

“Can I have another one of these?” she asked Matt as he came by to check on them. Her friends took it as a sign and laughed and clapped while he just grinned and promised not to keep her waiting. He was obviously just flirting for his tip, but the wide eyes and raised brows as he departed were followed quickly by poorly stifled giggles.

“Well well, he didn’t say that to any of us,” Alicia snickered.

“He has been checking by our table a lot, right? More than his other tables,” Victoria mused, tapping her chin.

Grace rolled her eyes and scolded, “You’re all terrible. I am in the middle of a… rancid divorce.”

“Which you filed.”

“Which I filed,” she confirmed. “And which I will not speak about the details of because with my luck he’s got a private investigator following me for dirt he can use in court.”

“He wouldn’t,” Catherine gasped.

Stephanie guffawed, “Of course the piece of shit would.”

“It’s been longer than six months, right? Isn’t that how long it’s supposed to take?” Ashley asked. “I looked it up.”

“Six months and a day if it’s mutual and simple. Unfortunately…” Grace trailed off as Matt returned, fast indeed, and set the drink in front of her.

“Anything else I can get you ladies right now?”

“Ladies,” they groaned. “Might as well call us Ma’am! How old do you think we are?”

“Twenty-eight,” he said, his face leaving it unclear whether it was a joke.

Alicia snorted and flapped her hand at Catherine, joking, “You know he’s young if he thinks we want to be twenty-eight!”

“We are women in our thirties and you couldn’t pay me to go back,” Victoria agreed.

“Seriously, can you remember when it felt like we’d be dead at thirty?”

“Yeah but there is that thing that happens when you sleep funny…” Grace suggested, because Matt looked like he wasn’t sure what was going on and if he’d said the right thing or not. When her friends just stared, she continued, “You know, where apparently you slept wrong or sneezed wrong and now your neck is convinced you’re–”

“Batman!” Alicia and Stephanie cried together. That was not what Grace had been going to say, but she could understand what they meant when they both stiffened their necks and turned their whole bodies.

“Not me, thanks, it’s got me reaching for the–”

“Ibuprofen,” Catherine suggested, but Ashley corrected, “Percocet.”

“Oh Lordie,” Alicia giggled.

Grace grinned up at Matt, “I’m so sorry about my friends. I think we’re fine for now.”

“I agree,” he said, and winked, and sauntered off.

Grace startled, not sure if he’d meant he agreed they were fine or agreed they were fine. The wink?

Stephanie had, of course, seen, and elbowed her, teasing, “Eh, eh? I think he likes you in particular.”

“He’s our waiter.”

“Seriously though, I ask you this… so what? We’re not talking about marrying the guy,” Alicia said.

Victoria nodded, then leaned in close and stage-whispered, “We’re talking about fucking.”

“Jesus, how many have you had?” Stephanie laughed. She playfully nudged Victoria’s drink away from her.

“I have a three year old, you know I can’t hold my vodka anymore,” Victoria laughed and slid it back.

Ashley motioned for everyone to wait while she chewed, wait while she swallowed, then safely said, “I hope you know you’re way too hot to sit around.”

“Yeah, take it from me,” Alicia agreed. “We’re not saying to rush anything. I get it, babe. I’ve been there. Don’t sit around wondering what the next thing is, just grab what you want and have a good time.”

Catherine passed a napkin to Victoria, who had just dragged her sleeve through her plate, and assured Grace, “You’ll know when you’re ready for something new.”

“I can’t imagine being ready for something new,” she admitted, because she was just a little tipsy and so were her friends, so it felt safe to have a moment of vulnerability in this trendy gastro-pub. “I mean the pool guy is the one who caught Tim and let me know… My husband! It was mortifying.”

“That’s right, he sucked.”

“Let it out, let it out.”

“No, that’s… that’s all I had to say,” she laughed, and sucked down the last of her drink. “It was unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant!” her friends repeated and giggled into each other’s shoulders. She rolled her eyes.

Stephanie patted her arm, sighing, “Grace, my dear old friend. I think Ashley and Victoria may be right. You’re so…”

“So what?” Grace pressed, eyebrow arching.

“So bottled up,” she tried.

“So careful,” Catherine suggested.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Ashley sighed. “I’m a doctor so I say this with a medical degree backing: you need to get fucked good. You need to fuck someone good, just get all that anger out and like… cum your feelings and your frustration and your brains–”

“This is medical advice, hm?” Victoria asked, barely holding it together. She and Alicia caught each other’s gaze and lost it.

“It is! Grace is always so proper and polished and I just– aren’t you mad? You did everything right and that loser fucked you over.”

Grace nodded, feeling herself fade away. Sure, she was mad. Really mad. But as much as she was enjoying this time out and knowing her girls were in her corner, she didn’t have the same spirit that Alicia and Victoria and Ashley had to just rage about it. It felt… private. Painful. Shameful.

Also she didn’t know the first thing about finding someone to fuck.

“You deserve to get a little wild,” Alicia told her. “Not crazy, don’t do something you’re going to regret, but like…”

“Take the waiter home,” Ashley suggested, then pretended to be innocently watching the TV over the bar as Matt returned with another round of requested drinks. Grace knew she might regret this come tomorrow. The hangovers were another part of their 30s they ought to have warned Matt about. He didn’t look like he’d reached his yet, but probably not far off. Maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine? Surely not younger than that… though it was possible JK was skewing her ability to guess ages because he had such a youthful face.

“Anything else I can get for you?” Matt asked her, and Grace had the horrifying fear she might have been staring. His blond hair was really beautiful. She’d never been with someone like that, surfer guy, sunkissed cheeks, hair that would drape around his face–

Oh good god.

“No,” she said quickly, and buried her face in her drink. “Last one. Cut me off after this.”

“If you say so,” he smiled and was gone again, laughing when Victoria and Ashley called something after him that Grace completely missed in her embarrassment.

Catherine managed to steer conversation away from fucking and over to a hospital workplace drama of Ashley’s that got them all as rabid as they’d been for details of her divorce. Grace was more than grateful for the break –which seemed intentional, judging by Catherine’s smile. Despite Grace’s misgivings about Catherine marrying a wealthy man in his early 50s when she herself was only thirty-six, she seemed happy and like things were going well for her. Maybe it wasn’t all older men who sucked, just her not-yet-ex husband in particular.

But a younger guy… could Grace really see herself taking someone like Matt home? She watched him glide between tables in his all-black uniform, crisp below the neck, a little wild above, his smile radiating sunbeams upon whoever he addressed. A younger guy would have no reason to pursue her though, not when he looked like that and could catch women his own age, easily. She wasn’t old or anything, and thought she looked her age in an attractive way, but still, what unique thing, what special draw did she really have that would lure someone in for a night of… that? She was wife material, not a brag-worthy catch, but she didn’t want to be anyone’s wife again for a long time. Probably never.

God, she really couldn’t imagine going through marriage again. A wedding? What a nightmare.

She’d lost track of Matt, which meant he surprised her suddenly appearing at her shoulder.

“You look like you need something,” he said, and you could have heard a pin drop at the table.

“I… do not,” she told him.

“Are you sure?” He leaned in close and joked, “Look, I’ve got connections here. I can get you anything you want. Amaretto sour? Glass of sparkling water? One of those chocolate cakes with a strawberry on it which it’s not even supposed to come with, but I know a guy…”

It wasn’t possible. Was he flirting with her?

Suddenly he laughed, “It’s me, I’m the guy. I can just put a strawberry on the cake. If you want one.”

“She wants the cake,” Alicia assured him.

“She definitely wants the cake,” Ashley agreed.

“Honestly I think we may all want the cake?” Victoria asked, looking around.

Grace could only nod as Matt went to get some unknown number of chocolate cakes. She actually didn’t want the cake. She couldn’t figure out if anyone was actually talking about cake because all she could understand in the moment was that a good looking man might be flirting with her out of everyone at the table. Had he overheard about her divorce? Worse, had her friends put him up to this before she arrived?

But their giggles seemed sincere as they kept wiggling their eyebrows at her and dug into chocolate cake.

“Why don’t we ever treat ourselves like this?” Ashley demanded. “We should always be getting the chocolate cake.”

“It’s better with the strawberries,” Catherine said.

Stephanie smirked at Grace and agreed, “Thanks for getting us the strawberries.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Just being hot,” Alicia assured her.

Grace was not sure what to make of this. She didn’t even want the cake but felt rude not to at least have a few bites. The strawberries were not in season and were a little sour. She downed it with water to stave off any headaches tomorrow, and waved Matt over for the tab.

“We should go to Mexico or something,” Ashley sighed. “So we can actually stay out instead of work and significant others– shit, I mean, not that you have to–”

“Hey, I’m single too,” Alicia pointed out.

“Yeah but by choice, I just didn’t mean to–”

“Shut up, Ashley,” Victoria laughed. “Go back to slicing people open instead of talking.”

“Rude!” But she gave Grace an apologetic look that was more painful than the reference to significant others. She wasn’t bothered by that!

Cards rained down into the tray for Matt, and upon his return he made a playful show of calling names and passing the booklets out for them to sign.

In Grace’s booklet was an extra slip of paper, on which he had scrawled: I get off in twenty or I’m off Saturday if you feel like grabbing a drink (amaretto sour, normal). 31, if it matters. –Matt

Grace slapped the book closed, face instantly aflame. Seriously?! Couldn’t he lose his job doing something like that?? Not that she was going to file a complaint or anything because, well, in this particular situation she felt flattered, not bothered.

Should she do it–

NO, of course she shouldn’t do it! She’d had enough drinks for one night, any more would be courting disaster. And coming back Saturday felt like such a thing, and she wasn’t ready for a thing, she wasn’t even actually divorced yet. And what if drinks led to something, hm? She hadn’t been with anyone but Tim in a decade. She’d made a fool of herself and her ego just couldn’t handle that right now, disappointing someone who looked like he might be the actual biological son of the ocean.

Not that she wouldn’t like to surrender herself into the experienced arms of someone who could really “fuck her brains out” –as Dr. Ashley ordered.

She was mortified by her own inability to do anything with this obviously dream-like scenario. She tucked the paper into her pocket, afraid it might fall out of the booklet and get noticed by one of her nosy friends. It felt rude not to say anything back but she didn’t know what to say, just tipped him very well and scurried out of the restaurant between her friends so she wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact.

Grace made sure her friends were all safely in cabs, caught her own, and was home, in-bed, unfucked by 10.

“Shit.” Jungkook’s brow lowered as he flipped the keys around on the ring, confused by the lack of house key. He patted his pockets despite knowing that at no point had he removed the house key from his keychain and put it in his pocket. He checked the ring again, eye twitching with annoyance that it had not reappeared. The metal ring was a little loose, but loose enough for a key to fall off? One single key? Not the three mystery keys that he had no fucking clue what they went to but only his very useful housekey? Eomma and Appa’s key was still there, his car key, the garage key, an old gym locker key… no house key.

He resorted to knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell in case anyone was home. It was almost eight, someone ought to be home.

No answer.

A crack of thunder rattled the frame of the house and, like it was the sound of the sky breaking, torrential rain fell in a sheet so physically heavy Jungkook felt like he’d been hit by a wave. He scurried to his car and ducked inside, poking around between and beneath the seats to see if his key had fallen out there. He found two guitar picks, a pacifier of Max’s, someone’s melted lipstick, and three half-empty water bottles and made a note to vacuum out all the sand when he had a couple quarters, but no key. Maybe it was in his work truck… but he was wearing baggy sweatpants today with shallow pockets, the little metal fucker could have fallen out anywhere.

Well, good thing they kept a spare key in the garage. He had to brave the rain again to dash from driveway to the garage, lifted the door just enough to duck under, then went for the lock box stuck to the underside of the tool table they did not own any actual tools for. The box was there but he had to try each of their birthdays because they all kept resetting the passcode. It unlocked on 1-2-3-1, hinting Taehyung had been the last one to open it, which meant he’d know who to murder because the spare key had not been replaced.

“Fucker,” Jungkook sighed.

He returned to the front door and pounded again as another crack of thunder rattled the windows. Thunderstorms were unusual, it gave everything a sort of suspense-movie feel. He fished out his phone and tried calling Taehyung and Jimin but neither answered like the assholes they were. So Jungkook could either drive back to work and see if the key fell out in his truck or go hang out at Eomma and Appa’s until someone answered.

Another thought occurred to him. He’d been at Grace’s that morning, finishing up the final patches and protective coat over the tile before it would be time to fill it –meaning he was (sadly) just about done with the project. When it was time to go, he’d asked to use her bathroom because she had one just off the back patio, and then they’d spent a few minutes talking about how he would fill the pool soon, and then about some road construction going on nearby and whether that was annoying her because he was looking for any conversation to prolong his departure, and it was possible he’d spun his keys around his finger while they talked.

When one more round of banging on the door and calling Taehyung and Jimin and then Taehyung again didn’t get him anywhere, Jungkook jumped back into his car and set off for Grace’s house. The rain came down in sheets pushed sideways by the rain, making it hard to see, so he drove slowly. It made it an even longer drive, they lived in different parts of the city and there was traffic at this hour (haha, there was always traffic) and the traffic was slower because of the rain too except for the occasional shitbag flying down the road, two blocks at a time, as if they’d get there faster. More like kill someone on the way.

Eventually he got to her place and punched in the back gate code and pulled in. Her yard beyond the reach of the motion light looked like a shadowy lush forest in the downpour and it made him jealous. At his house the rain was annoying and he was worried the garage would flood again but here there was something refreshing about it, like the LA smog couldn’t reach. He knew he shouldn’t talk shit about the rain, in a month they’d be in another drought and longing for a storm like this. They didn’t happen often. But it was definitely going to flood his garage again and they needed to practice in there tomorrow!

If he had a yard like this, he could enjoy it. Instead he just thought of missed surfing and angry oceans and leaky garages.

He ran from his car to the back door; for some reason it made him recall being a little boy attempting to dodge the raindrops, back before he became a surfer. Once you got hooked on surfing, you got used to “wet” and “dry” being states of mind.

She he had apparently not heard the gate open or his car on that crunchy-ass driveway. Instead she moved around the kitchen making dinner, washing dishes it looked like, mouth moving like she was singing or talking to someone, completely unaware he was about to knock on her backdoor. She didn’t look like she was dancing but she could just be really bad at it.

He felt only a brief flicker of guilt for interrupting her evening. He’d be quick. In and out and gone before she knew it. He knocked on the door.

At first she didn’t react at all, so he knocked again harder.

This time she spun around with a visual gasp, her hand shooting out to grab something in defense –a sudsy spatula which flung soap all across her counter, which Jungkook noticed only peripheral to the wide, terrified look on her face.

Oops.

He would have hoped that settled as soon as she saw it was just him, but the shift to her expression was only slight as she crept towards the door, as if he was actually just someone else in a JK costume.

“JK?” she verified when only panes of glass and a couple feet separated them.

“Hi,” he said. He gave her an awkward wave. He hadn’t expected to scare her. “Yeah, just me.”

“What are you doing here? It’s–” She broke off, glancing at her wrist but there was no watch there. Her voice was muffled through the door, which she hadn’t opened.

“I know, sorry,” he said. “I lost my keys.” Thunder cracked right as he said it, drowning him out.

“What?”

“I lost my keys!” he repeated, louder.

At this point she unlocked the door and opened it, spatula still in hand, and said again, “What? Please don’t be here to murder me.”

“What?” he repeated as thunder rattled the frame of the house and rain pummeled the patio behind him because he thought she’d just said something about murder.

She leaned further out the door and asked, “Why are you here so late?”

“Did I leave my keys here?”

“Your keys?”

“Did I drop my housekey when I used your bathroom today?”

“Oh. I– no!!” she shrieked so loud that Jungkook took a step back because yeouwch right in his fucking ear. It left him unprepared for her to suddenly lunge forward. Maybe she tripped. Either way, she collided bodily with him and they sprawled together to the ground, her fully on top of him and his ass taking the beating on those fancy patio stones.

“Foam!” she cried and tried to leap to her feet, only to knee Jungkook in the groin, almost a fatal blow. He managed to twist just enough, just in time, so she at least missed direct assault on his balls but it still left him shuddering.

“Fuck,” he groaned and grabbed her arms to lift her off him so he could take a moment.

She stood and looked forlornly around the yard, spatula clutched in both her hands. The tree cover made things pitch black and her yard lights weren’t on so it was impossible to see anything through the torrential curtain now that the motion light had clicked off.

“What just happened?” he asked, dragging himself up, testing out his body to make sure her knee hadn’t just done permanent damage to his future as a father, should he care to. He couldn’t even enjoy the moment she’d been sprawled on top of him!

“Sorry,” she said, distracted, like she didn’t really mean it. “You let my cat escape!”

“What?”

“I mean… sorry, it wasn’t your fault, I shouldn’t have opened the door but–”

“Why would your cat run out into a thunderstorm?”

“I don’t know! He’s… special.”

Jungkook joined her survey of the yard, half expecting a very regretful cat to come streaking back, but no such luck. Lightning lit up the yard but there was no sign of any cat.

“He’ll come back,” Jungkook assured her. And for good measure, called, “Here, kitty kitty!”

“He’s deaf, I can’t just leave him to roam the world! He’s an indoor cat! He doesn’t know anything about– shit,” she huffed.

“Oh.” Now he felt like an asshole to have called for the cat but it’s not like he could have known! He’d never thought about the fact cats could even be deaf.

She seemed to only just notice the spatula in her hand. She tossed it back into the house, then turned and promptly ran into the rain –no umbrella, no jacket, no shoes.

“Foam!” she called, only to break off with a curse, “Fuck, he can’t hear me…” as she disappeared behind some tall bushes towards the front of the house.

In a flash of lightning, Jungkook thought he saw a blur of motion in a very different part of the yard.

He thought hunting for her cat in a thunderstorm was only going to end in failure but he’d seen people do dumber things over pets. He’d never had one, but maybe if he had a dog or something, he’d do the same thing.

Maybe not. It was really coming down out there. He saw the shadow of Grace jogging along the edge of the yard and couldn’t just let her search alone. At least he had to try since apparently she really cared about this cat of hers.

Another clap of thunder this time preceded the shriek of an animal which for a brief moment he thought might be Grace. Just as quickly he realized it must be the cat because it didn’t sound like a noise classy Grace would make and it was from the wrong part of the yard. The yowl sounded terrified and Jungkook knew he had to help find this dumb little cat.

Jungkook took off in the direction it had come from, hand shielding his eyes from the rain as he tried to make sense of the moving shadows. At least her motion light activated and gave him some help but it was so fucking bright it left swirls dancing across his vision when he tried to see in the shadows again.

“Foam!” he called out of habit, then cursed. She had so much stuff in her yard –bushes and trees and plants and shit– and usually he thought it was cool but right now it made it hard to find a shivering wet beast. At least in the denser parts the rain was less of a slap against his face, but still it dripped from his hair and ran down his nose and chin, and he was used to being soaked from his time in the ocean but it was beginning to feel like he’d never be dry.

“Foam, where are you?” Grace called, a desperate edge to her voice.

“I think he’s over here,” Jungkook shouted back.

“Where? JK?”

But Jungkook couldn’t answer because he’d spotted the cat, miserable and shivering and panicked. The cat looked up at Jungkook with his spooky reflective eyes and something in his expression made clear he was about to take off again and Jungkook felt sure he would be even harder to find a second time.

So he did the only thing he could do. He grabbed the kitty by the scruff of the neck and dragged it, writhing and chirping into his arms. It was wet and hard to hold and shockingly strong though, so he felt like there was no choice but the next move: he shoved the cat under his shirt and held it there as he dashed towards the house.

Which the kitty, to be clear, did not like. He thrashed and tried to escape, first through the bottom, then through the top. He’d managed to get his head stuck in the pit of Jungkook’s sleeve just as Jungkook reached the back door of the house. He flung open and then shut the door behind him to try and wrench the cat out in the kitchen, only to realize he’d slammed it in Grace’s face and opened it for her again.

“You got him?!” she gasped, as if it wasn’t obvious from the weird clicky cries yodeling from Jungkook’s armpit as he tried to drag the cat out the bottom. The cat put up too much of a fight and now his stomach was starting to sting from the scratches so Jungkook just yanked his shirt up and let the cat drop –after a moment of simply hanging there, claws dug into his body.

“Oh my god!”

Just as Grace reached forward, her cat vaulted off Jungkook with a final slash of his back claws and tore through the house, leaving a trail of spattered water in his wake.

“Shit,” Jungkook hissed, curling forward and looking down at his bare torso. His body shuddered at the sharp pain as it rolled up his torso and then down again. Thin bloody red lines cross-crossed all down his abs, heavier blood seeping out in a few places.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Grace gasped, hands reaching forward but stopping just shy of his body before she pulled back, only to almost reach again, like she couldn’t figure out what to do. “Um… uh…”

“Maybe a towel or something,” Jungkook mumbled as a hint.

“A towel!” she repeated and leapt into action only to slip and crash into the counter. The rain had pooled around their feet, turning the tiled kitchen into a death trap. Jungkook hissed at the red welts and shivered again as the air condition made pebbles of his skin and nipples. He lowered his shirt just a smidge, self conscious about his nipples. In the background a drawer slid open and slammed shut.

Grace abruptly pressed the towel against his torso and he yelped.

“Oh…?” she said, eyes going wide. As if it hadn’t occurred to her a rough kitchen towel shoved against a torso full of raw scratches wouldn’t be comfortable.

Gingerly he pulled it away and used it instead to wipe his face and hair off so it would stop running down his face, then squeezed his shirt out with it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for… do you need to go to the hospital?”

“It’s not that bad,” he assured her. He almost laughed but his smile seemed misplaced next to her worry. Sure, it hurt, and he was soaked, and he’d had a long day and just wanted to be home in bed and instead he was dripping water and blood on her rich person tile but it wasn’t like getting a little roughed up was new to him. Maybe it wasn’t usually cat nails scratching him but– well not that kind of cat–

“I have… hm… Oh! I can get you dry clothes and maybe… medicine? I’ll see what I have,” she said and spun away again. This time when she slipped on the tile, Jungkook reached out to steady her, hands clamping to her hips.

“Careful, you’ll bust your head open.”

Briefly her hands pressed over his and then simultaneously they both released.

“Uh.” She glanced over her shoulder at him for a moment. “I’ll get dry clothes for you.”

“Right,” he said as she shuffled away. “Wait, nothing that belonged to your ex husband.”

“I didn’t keep anything,” she called back, her voice quickly an echo across the house. He heard her heavy footsteps on the stairs and it made him pause. Damn, she really stomped on those. He wondered if she always pounded the stairs like that or if she was just really panicked right now.

Shit, the scratches really hurt. He hissed again and looked down. That damn cat, he’d been trying to help! He wanted to splash some soap and water on it but also didn’t want to extend the pool of water further through the kitchen. She was bringing him new clothes –whose, then?-- anyway and wouldn’t be back for a moment, so he tugged the shirt off and then his pants, letting them fall in a pile by the backdoor, then strode quickly to the bathroom. There he grimaced further at the full reflection of the scratches… yeah, he was going to tell his friends a chick scratched him up, no way did he want to let smuggling a wet angry cat under his shirt take the credit for this. He’d definitely need to wear a rashguard if he hit the waves or his board was going to tear those lines up bad.

He leaned over the sink as best he could to do a quick scrub down with the blue hand soap in a glass bottle by the faucet –after knocking it with slippery hands down into the bowl of the sink and freezing until he was sure it hadn’t shattered. It sure sounded like it had. The smell of “fresh” wafted up at him as he rinsed the suds off. Probably the soap was “clean linen” or “ocean breeze,” even though an ocean breeze smelled nothing like that.

“Oh. Uh… I mean… you’re just– here are some dry clothes you can borrow,” Grace said from the doorway and gently tossed a stack of fabric onto the closed lid of the toilet. “I’ll get my first aid kit while you…”

She shut the door without finishing her sentence. Jungkook looked back at the shut door, then smiled at his reflection in the mirror. Was she… flustered? He looked at more of his body than the cuts this time. His black boxer-briefs hugged his ass pretty good, and his abs were looking good today because he hadn’t had dinner yet because he was locked out of his fucking house. He lifted his eyebrow in the mirror, trying out a smolder just to cheer himself up, then lifted the clothes to see what she’d brought him.

The gray sweatpants were the softest material he had possibly ever touched and looked shockingly well sized. He couldn’t bring himself to put them on over wet boxers and so traded the bottoms, then shook out the t-shirt. Red with a graphic of Christmas lights zigzagging back and forth across the front, it read Santa Run 10k December 2024 Ho Ho HO.

“Hey, who decided to capitalize the third ‘ho’ like this?” he asked, leaving the bathroom once dressed. The shirt fit him comfortably and frankly he was going to have a really big morale decision about whether he remembered to bring these sweatpants back.

Ok he’d remember.

Probably.

Grace paused digging through a red zippered first aid kit, contents strewn across the counter. She had on dry clothes, her hair pulled back into a real mess at the back of her head, like she’d been in a hurry. It was the most disheveled he’d ever seen her.

She cracked a smile though and admitted, “I don’t know but I thought it was funny too so I kept the shirt.”

“You trying to tell me something?”

“What?! No! It was just the first thing I grabbed that I thought might fit you–”

“I’m joking. I think it’s funny too. The sweatpants are fucking awesome.”

“Yeah, Brendi, it’s a unisex brand so I thought they might fit– my friend does marketing for them so I– here, I found antibiotics. Let’s see?”

“I washed off already, it’s fine.”

“With hand soap?”

“Yeah. I smell nice now, huh?”

Again she smiled, looking slightly more herself with each grin, and assured him, “Yes, but you really need this and bandaids.”

“I’m not putting on bandaids,” he snorted.

“Hm… why not?”

“Because…” He trailed off, judging by her narrowed eyes that she was not going to agree with bandaids on your tummy look stupid. “None of them are that deep or anything.”

“Ok, let me see. Obviously if you wind up needing to buy any medicine or bandages bring me the receipts and I’ll reimburse you–”

“Eh,” he shrugged. Actually that was a really nice offer but obviously he wasn’t going to show up with a Walgreens receipt.

“Come on, at least let’s check that the bleeding has stopped.”

“If you wanted me to take my shirt off, all you had to do was–”

“That’s not–!” she gasped but he thought her surprise was way too funny. Even though he had no interest in letting her inspect the cuts, now he felt compelled to follow through, and so dragged the hem of the ho ho HO t-shirt up. Only then did he realize that now, in this moment, after all his attempts, she would be directly checking out his body, no distractions or interruptions.

She promptly dropped to her knees in front of him and Jungkook’s hands flew up to hover in the air, stunned by this development.

To his immense disappointment on all accounts, Grace merely methodically and without any apparent blush, surveyed the cuts across his stomach without seeming to even see his stomach. Try as he might, he could not really paint it as sexy for her to keep squeezing splurts of antibiotic onto her finger and then dabbing them against various sore points. That’s not to say he didn’t start to chub up because a beautiful woman was kneeling before him and touching all over his stomach! But thankfully her clinical, almost jabbing approach to medicine application kept it from reaching a noticeable state, even without the security of boxers. It was like she wanted as minimal contact with his body as possible. Grace was definitely no bedside nurse.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she said as she stood and screwed the lid back on the medicine tube. “And thank you for helping me find him.”

“Yeah no problem.” For a moment they just stood there before Jungkook realized she was holding the tube out to him. “I don’t want to take your medicine, I’m all good now.”

“Cat scratches can be painful and I don’t want you to risk getting an infection or anything.” She waved the medicine tube.

He wrapped his hand around hers and pressed it back in her direction, insisting, “You need it more than I do.”

“I’ll just buy more.”

“You live alone,” he insisted, not sure what that had to do with anything but looking for any argument not to take medicine away from her that he was never going to use anyway. “I’ve got some at home.”

“Why do I not believe you?” she asked, but did pull the tube back and tuck it away in the medicine bag. Jungkook had never seen someone with an actual full-blown first aid kit in their house, like the kind they had at the pool where he lifeguarded sometimes.

“I wouldn’t lie,” he lied.

“Ok, if you say so…”

But now he was offended and insisted, “Really, I would never lie to you.” Which made him feel a little bad because he was technically lying right now but actually probably Jimin had some, so see? Not a lie.

She stared at a moment which made it seem so serious, what he was saying. He meant it! Then her mouth twitched and she admitted,

“We really got soaked, huh?”

“You need to teach your cat not to do something dumb like that.”

“Oh? How will I teach my cat something, exactly?”

“You can train cats,” he insisted. “Train him not to run out the door.”

“He’s never run out the door before.”

“He seemed pretty good at it,” Jungkook pointed out.

“Maybe he was trying to protect me from a guy randomly showing up at my back door at night?” she countered, and now crossed her arms and turned to face him. “You can’t do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Show up at the backdoor unexpectedly at night when a woman lives home alone! Or ever, really, for that matter.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you,” he defended. “I told you, I just wanted to know if I left my keys here.”

“Knocking at the backdoor of a house with a gate is sneaking,” she argued. “I have a front door. And a buzzer.”

Jungkook paused now and thought about this, just a little bit. He hadn’t considered before that the gate applied to him because she just let him come and go for work and had told him the code.

“Ok, well… I didn’t think I had to buzz because you said I didn’t,” he admitted.

“It’s dark outside! You could have been a murderer.”

“Yeah and you were going to fight me off with this, huh?” he snorted, stooping to pick up the spatula that had lay in the middle of the floor for some time now.

“It’s the first thing I grabbed.”

“At least keep a bat or a knife by the door or something,” he suggested and set the spatula in the sink.

“That’s why I have a gate!”

Another fair point, but he still pointed out, “Didn’t stop me.”

“Because I gave you the code.”

“Didn’t we talk about this? You need a dog instead of a cat,” he suggested. “A dog would come when you called and not scratch the shit out of my stomach.”

“You did put a frightened angry cat in your shirt,” she pointed out.

He couldn’t help but laugh, “Oh so now it’s my fault? He’s squirmy when he’s wet! It’s like trying to hold a snake. You sure he’s a cat?”

“Definitely a cat,” she assured him. “Speaking of which, I should go find him and dry him off…”

“Well don’t put him under your shirt.”

“Oddly, the thought never occurred to me.”

A moment passed before he realized she was waiting for him to recall, “Oh right. Uh… have you seen my key?”

“I haven’t. Did you see it in the bathroom?”

He’d forgotten to look. They walked together there, passing close together through the door so that he could feel the warmth from her body for the briefest moment.

“No,” he sighed.

“There,” she corrected, and pointed to one single key in the middle of the mat in front of the sink.

“My key!”

“You really didn’t see it? Or step on it?” she clarified as he scooped it up and pressed it with relief to his forehead.

“No, how did you see that? You have vision like a hawk.”

“You don’t need to flatter me.”

“I’m trying to apologize for scaring you,” he said, which hadn’t occurred to him until just that moment because she was being casual about it, but now he did start to feel more bad about it, like maybe he shouldn’t just tease her about being scared by him.

“There’s another way to do that.”

He choked.

“Use your words,” she said quickly, looking stunned. Good, he was glad she’d noticed the double meaning of what she’d said. Look if she wanted a sexual apology he would be more than happy to– She cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry I scared you?” he tried and she nodded. “I do know how to apologize,” he quickly added. “I just didn’t think about it scaring you.”

“Don’t sneak in the backdoor of women’s houses, JK,” she said, her smile growing as she teased. “You deserve to go through the front door.”

“I… don’t really know what that means but thanks? And now I will take my key and go home so you can deal with your wet… cat.”

She gave a decisive nod, clearly not noting his verbal stumble, and added, “Do you want a bag for your wet clothes? Or I can just dry them.”

“Ok, thanks.” She probably had an expensive dryer and they would come out all soft and maybe he’d get another wooden hanger out of it. He line-dried his clothes as much as he could and sometimes they felt sort of crunchy, which wasn’t a big deal but he thought it would be nicer to get dry clothes back than slop a bundle of wet clothes home.

“Sorry again about your body,” she said. “I mean the scratches.”

“It’s fine, we’ll call it even,” he said, and held his fist out without thinking about it, because that was something he might say to his surfing buddies and they’d fist-bump and he’d done it out of habit.

Just before he dropped his hand, she tapped it with her own, her lips twitching with a suppressed smile.

“Goodnight, JK. Drive careful. Looks like the rain has stopped.”

“Oh yeah, look at that.” He hesitated. Not for a reason, or at least not a good one. It was nice being around her, that was all.

His stomach itched so he scratched it, then flinched when his nails rubbed the shirt against his raw skin.

“Tell your cat I expect a better introduction next time,” he told her, then slid out the door without even a wave, because he got the feeling that had possibly been an odd thing to say.

He felt keyed up heading to his car, wearing Grace’s clothes. Rain still dripped from the trees, loud on the top of his car as he started it up and paused for the gate to let him out. The streets were quiet and as clean looking as they ever were –definitely cleaner here than near his place. He had a long drive home still.

Ah, she kept her house too cold. She hadn’t put a bra on when she put on dry clothes. It wasn’t his fault he’d noticed, yeah? He’d had to look somewhere when she insisted on dabbing medicine all over his stomach while kneeling in front of him and then obviously looked away and done his damnedest not to notice again.

It all started to catch up to him now: Grace sprawled on top of him, the dash around the yard, how confused she’d looked at first about the cat scratches, the view of her from above, the–

On second thought, air conditioning was a great idea. He cranked it up and nudged the radio louder and thought about how Grace’s sweatpants were the softest fucking thing to have ever touched his dick. Very, very different than her knee. But hey… tonight was the most action his dick had seen in…

He cranked the radio louder. The air conditioner too, just to be safe.

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six

#jungkook ff #jungkook fanfic #jungkook x oc #jeon jungkook x oc #over the falls #jeon jungkook ff #jungkook smut #jungkook series #jungkook au #poolboy jk #jungkook domestic fluff

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yanderepuck · 2 months

Text

Salai-Chapter 2

WELCOME TO SALAI'S ROUTE. This is a FAN MADE route of my oc, Salai. This means this route contains my headcanons for the characters and in no way is suppose to represent the canon story. This is just a fun little time because I know many of you enjoy Salai. Feel free to engage, talk theories, send asks (even to @ask-salai ).

DISCLAIMER: His route his not canon to his character. Also, all of his lore in not in the route for simplicity reasons plus please feel free to ask about him.

Banner by @spooscribbles

Theo just had to call you hondje in front of strangers, he couldn't use your name out in public like a normal person.

You basically had to rip Theo away from Salai before he started asking so many questions and wanting to see more paintings. You had been out long enough and once Theo starts talking about art he will never stop, especially with such a young artist.

Mitsuki: It was nice meeting you, Andrea!

You are pulling Theo’s arm to keep him walking. Salai waves to the two of them

Salai: Ciao. Hopefully I will see you again soon, bella~

You swear he winked at you before he turned back to his canvas to keep painting. You keep pulling Theo along for a few more feet.

Mitsuki: Why don’t you tell me what you had to go run off and get?

Theo: Just a little something for later

He finally started walking on his own. You both took a carriage back to the mansion, making small talk to make the ride go faster.

Back at the mansion you and Theo go right to the kitchen. You are putting your groceries away and Theo passes his mysterious bag over to Sebastian. You are still trying to figure out what it could be.

Not long after Theo leaves, Dazai enters.

Sebastian: Dazai-san is going to help with dinner tonight, so you can take the rest of the day off.

Mitsuki: Dazai is cooking? Will there be a kitchen left after tonight?

Dazai: no worries, Toshiko-chan. I don't want to face Sebastian-kun's punishment for ruining something

That forehead flick was one of the worst punishments you could get in the mansion. There was one day you had gotten a red mark in the middle of your forehead from how many flicks you had gotten.

Mitsuki: well…if you say you can handle it.

It was odd for Dazai to help with making dinner. He has made food for himself before, making tofu just the way he likes it. As you leave the kitchen and walk down the hall to your room you get lost in your thoughts.

Of course Sebastian was anticipating for you to leave, but did he not want you there? Did he not like having you as a co-worker?

Leonardo: watch out, Cara Mia.

You were two steps away from bumping into Leonardo. You were so lost in your head you hadn't noticed anything else.

Mitsuki: my bad

You quickly step to the side so that the two of you can keep walking

Leonardo: Why not tell me what is on your mind?

Leonardo starts following you down the hall. You can't tell him how you are really feeling. He will get even more worried.

Mitsuki: Oh it's nothing to worry about.

Leonardo: if you're worried about it then it only feels right for me to be worried too.

Leonardo has been so nice to you this past month. Always making sure you're smiling and not getting lost in your thoughts like you are now. Bumping into him is either the best thing to happen or the worst.

Leonardo: talk to me while I get some things done.

He takes you to his room. The room where you can't even see the floor. Piles of books and papers and tools and maps and well everything. You sit on his bed while he sits on the floor beside the crowded table in the middle of the room, working on what seems to be a watch.

Mitsuki: What is that?

Leonardo: Arthur's pocket watch. Considering the technology of this is two decades ahead of our time you would think he would take better care of it.

That's right. Arthur came back in time when he made his contract with Le Comte. Many of the things he and Dazai have are from the future.

Leonardo: Now what's on your mind, Cara Mia.

He tinkers with the watch, taking out pieces and putting them back in.

You are quiet for a moment. Should you be truthful?

Mitsuki: Don't get me wrong I love everyone here, and I'm thankful for everything everyone has done for me, but I was looking forward to going home and going back to my life.

You look around the room and look at all the things from different time periods.

Mitsuki: You didn't go through the door.. but do you ever want to be back in the Renaissance?

Leonardo chuckles. He's thought about this before, especially when not everyone knew he was a pureblood.

Leonardo: Not using that door is definitely a blessing. You get to adapt at the same flow everyone else is. Other than a handful of the residents, everyone was overwhelmed when they first got here. Since I lived through the changes I don't think I could go back and live without some things.

Mitsuki: I'm always hearing Arthur complain about how he needs to wait ten or more years for something to come out.

Just the other day Arthur was complaining about how awful current typewriters are and how he can't believe he ever used to use them.

Leonardo: But to really answer your question, I don't miss it. I miss the people, but there's nothing from the Renaissance that I can't do now.

You and Leonardo talk for some time and next thing you know it’s dark out. You almost completely forgot about dinner. What could Sebastian and Dazai possibly be making? As if Leonardo knew what you were thinking he stood up.

Leonardo: Let’s go make sure Sebastian hasn’t banished Dazai from the kitchen.

You laugh and get off of his bed. You’ve almost been banished from the kitchen before, poor Dazai probably has a red bump on his forehead by now.

You walk with Leonardo right past the kitchen and into the dining hall. You are so used to helping make dinner and serving it that it feels weird going straight into the dining hall.

When you walk in everything is all set up and everyone is in there waiting for you.

Leonardo: Surprise, cara mia

He pushes you to the group knowing that you would stand there frozen otherwise.

Mitsuki: Wha…what is going on here?

Mozart: What does it look like? We put together a party for you.

Napoleon: No need to be so blunt.

Isaac: We have noticed that you’ve been down these last few days, so we wanted something to cheer you up

You felt your heart start to swell up. Then Dazai came over and grabbed you to have you look at what was on the table. You hadn’t even paid attention to what was actually there.

Dazai: Sebastian-kun and I made what we are hoping are your favorites. Shogayaki, tonkatsu, okonomiyaki

Sebastian: Miso, udon, gyoza and a few other things. The octopus was not easy to find for the takoyaki.

Isaac: There’s what…

You know how hard it is to find the right ingredients for some of these foods. You have tried before when you first came. You were talking to some of the guys about the food and said you would try to make it for them, but you either couldn’t find the right ingredients or they were very expensive. Le Comte must have let Sebastian spend whatever he needed on food.

Mitsuki: Guys..this…

You were choking up and could feel your eyes start to water.

Theo: No crying allowed tonight, hondje

Everyone is sitting at the table. Comte and Leonardo brought out wine from the cellar and passed it around the table.

Dazai: Come here Ai-kun~ I want you to try this.

Isaac: I’m not eating that Dazai!

Dazai is holding out a takoyaki ball in front of Isaac, who is trying to push his hand away. Isaac is struggling enough with the fact Dazai is making him eat the udon with chopsticks.

Mozart: How am I supposed to use these to eat noodles?

Sebastian: Let me show you

Sebastian has a big smile on his face as he is trying to show Mozart and Jean how to hold the chopsticks. Jean just decided he is going to stab the tonkatsu. Vincent is with Theo and Napoleon trying to show them. Dazai taught him a while ago how to use them. You would have never guessed but Vincent loves Japanese culture and is constantly asking the three of you things about your home country.

Leonardo: Just because you are head of the house doesn’t mean you get a pass, Comte

Leonardo is using the chopsticks and grabbing the food like a pro. But you would expect nothing less from him.

Comte let out a sigh followed by a chuckle.

Comte: You’re right. I’ve never been too good at using these.

He picked them up and Leonardo helped him with his finger placement. As long as Comte didn’t set them down he could work them fine, he just couldn’t get them placed in his fingers correctly.

Arthur: Mitsuki I need help~

Mitsuki: I saw you using them fine just a moment ago!

You have your plate filled with food. You have been craving this everyday. You were already away from home when you got here, so it's been much longer than a month since you had real Japanese food. Well, this couldn’t really be called real Japanese food, but it was the closest you were getting.

Dazai: Uh oh. Looks like Ai-kun grabbed my glass of sake.

Napoleon: I think Mozart got them switched too.

Arthur: Let me try the sake!

After a while of eating and explaining and reexplaining what everything is to everyone Sebastian bought out a cake. Turns out that’s what Theo had stopped to grab earlier today. They trusted him the most with finding the best sweets,

Sebastian: Sorry, we didn’t have enough time to make dinner and desserts. I hope cake will do.

Mitsuki: knowing Theo picked it out it’s got to be the best in the city

Mozart: please don’t tell me we have to eat the cake with chopsticks too

You think it’s almost midnight. Almost everyone has gone back to their room to go to sleep. You ended up drinking just a little more than you should and were stumbling back to your room. But it was a great night. You get to your room and close the door behind you and fall onto your bed, face down. After a moment you roll over and look up at the ceiling, thinking back to everyone tonight. It doesn’t get much better than having everyone accounted for at dinner time. They really did all of that for you to help you feel better. Sebastian and Dazai put in so much work, you’re going to have to figure out how to repay them somehow. But for now it's time for bed. You don’t even bother getting fully changed. You kick your skirt off and toss your bra to the floor and stay in just your shirt. Now you hope you don’t have a hangover in the morning.

~~~

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#ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp salai #ikevamp oc

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mercurygray · 6 months

Note

For the one word prompts, how about “security” + whichever one of your OCs the inspiration strikes! - @softspeirs

Katie, I hope you don't mind that I've decided to use this prompt for Crank and Laura!

For those of you who might be new here, Laura Arsenault is an OC of mine from The Darkening Sky; she's a nurse with the 128th Field Hospital and a good friend of Frankie Horgan, who is a good friend of Marj Gordon's. Part of Laura's story is that she has a brother, George, serving with a tank regiment, and an older sister, Vivian, who was one of the Army nurses imprisoned on Bataan.

She never thought she'd miss the war.

Well, not the war, exactly - Laura didn't miss the war itself. She didn't miss the smell of operating wards and dirt and wet canvas and boots that were never dry and washing out of a helmet and keeping the rats out of your bunk and scrubbing blood out of your nails. She didn't miss the dying, or the dead.

But maybe it was - was the being in it that she missed, the sense of shared self and shared goals and shared purpose. And she missed the people. They weren't ever alone, in that hospital - there was always someone to talk to, always work to help with, always someone to go see. And getting a date had been infinitely easier. Easy as pie, when you were one of only fifty or so girls and there were dozens - or hundreds - of guys at the dance.

Not any more. Now she was back home, where no one knew her, and everyone she did know was always a bus ride away instead of a two minute walk, and finding dates was awful - especially once everyone heard what she did for work. "Oh, a nurse." And then this odd little smile and an anecdote about whoever they knew in the hospital, or something like that, and she'd have to smile and nod and pretend to care.

And all the men were - well, she didn't know where they were, but none of them seemed to be in Boston, or at least, not the part of it that she was, and yet everyone seemed to have a brother, or a cousin, or a - a someone who needed to meet someone. But none of those guys ever seemed interested in more than one meeting. She wasn't desperate enough yet to start answering those ads in the paper, but it felt like a distinct possibility - reduced to twenty words or less.

So here she was again - another blind date, this time with Rose's cousin Charlie. "You'll like him," Rose had said, patting her arm and handing her the address of a restaurant. "He was a pilot."

A pilot - possibly her least favorite kind of soldier, probably because she'd seen so few of them, and heard so much, and your average infantryman didn't have a lot of nice things to say about the bomber boys, except that they were lazy, and they were late, and they were getting all the press. Now, come on, Laura, you haven't even met him yet.

Yes - hadn't met him yet because he was late, and now she was sitting, like a bad penny, all on her own at this table in the middle of the back wall trying not to look too lost in this big room with all these other perfectly paired off people.

"Miss Arsenault?"

Well, here he was - and lord, did he ever sound like a local boy - Laura heard it in every syllable. She held out a hand to shake, and he took it, his grip firm and uncompromising.

"Mr. Cruikshank."

He had a kind face - that was something, anyway. Not the sort of face she would have thought belonged to a pilot, if she was being honest, but that was Hollywood and a lot of movies talking. His hair, she could see, was very naturally curly, though he'd done his darnedest to comb it down into parting neatly. He was wearing civies, or mostly civies, anyway - charcoal grey trousers and a sweater that wasn't too far out of current fashion with his leather bomber jacket over it, his name, C. Cruikshank, stamped into the leather plate over his left breast.

"It's Charles, if that's too much of a mouthful."

Not Charlie, then. She'd have to remember that. "Laura," she offered, watching him pull out his chair and drape his jacket over the back. "The waiter should be back soon, I didn't - want to order without you."

"You ever been here before?" he asked, obviously just trying to make conversation, his eyes darting around the room.

"Once or twice, but not - not for dates." I'm trying not to sound like the kind of girl who goes on a lot of dates. "Rose said you were - were a pilot. What'd you fly?"

"Heavy bombers," he offered, shuffling a little in his chair. "B-17s, out of Norfolk. And you were a - were a nurse?"

She nodded. "Field hospital. We were everywhere."

"Imagine that was a -- a hard job." His eyes were still avoiding hers, his hands rubbing together nervously in his lap.

"I can't imagine what being in a plane was like. We didn't get too many airman."

He nodded, and Laura looked back down at the candle on the table, feeling foolish for not knowing what else to say. He was bouncing his leg, underneath the table, his chair not quite pulled in all the way, like he was going rather than coming, waiting for the check instead of waiting for the menu.

Well. I guess that's that on that, then. Failed before we even ordered. She'd get chicken - that was easy, and cheap, now, too. They could eat and mumble through something about the weather and she wouldn't have to do this again and she could tell Rose on Monday that Charles had been charming but not the guy for her.

Just how had Vivian managed it - finding the love of her life before the end of the war, and in a hospital, no less! Laura knew she shouldn't compare, but it was hard not to, when it seemed to have been so easy and where she was now seemed so hard. Not that Vivian had had it easy, at all - she'd only been in Hawaii because she'd been in the Philippines, and she'd only met Andy because she'd been on light duties, and him recovering from surgery. She'd made the mistake of saying it, once, a few months ago, and the look Vivian had given her would have scared anyone silent. "Don't say that, Laur," she'd begged. "I'm not lucky. You don't want to be where I've been."

"So, what did Rose say about me? When she set this up?" He looked nervous about hearing the answer.

"She said she thought we'd get along, I think." Laura offered, and then paused. Wait. That's ...not what she said. She said we wouldn't have to explain anything to each other. And she said that you'd had a hard war...but who didn't?

She didn't want to say that last part out loud - no one liked to be a charity case, and she knew that better than anyone. But as she thought about it, really thought about the way Rose had spoken about her cousin, she realized that Rose had only brought up meeting Charles when she'd told a story about Vivian. And she realized, finally, where she'd seen the look on his face before - in Vivian's eyes, always trying to find the exits, calculate the quickest way out. This man wasn't just a pilot - and maybe there were things from his war that he didn't want to explain, either, things that really were hard. "Do you want to switch places?" she asked, moving her chair out from the table a little.

He looked guilty, and…afraid, even, a man trapped who'd been trapped before. "My sister never wants to sit with her back to the door," she said, trying not to pry. "She always wants to - see that there's a way out." She paused. "Three years behind wire will do that to a person."

He looked up from his hands and stared. "Your sister?"

She nodded. "She was with MacArthur in the Philippines." She met his eye. "I don't mind, really."

"Thanks." They moved seats, leaving their coats where they were, and a kind of calm came over him as he took in more of the room. "Imagine she had it worse. I was…only eighteen months. In Germany. 43 to 45."

Laura could see her sister's face as he said that - could see Andy's face, too, talking with her brother George over their pipes after dinner about whether fighting in the heat or the cold was worse. "She'd tell you it wasn't a competition. If it helps."

He smiled at that, loosing up a little. "My doc says I should work on things like this - dinner, and conversation, and…crowded rooms." He shrugged. "I know no one likes a project, but I'm….trying." He smiled a little bashfully. "And I'm a little nervous anyway - Rose …didn't tell me you were pretty."

She felt herself blush, and looked down at her napkin. Well, all right, Charles Cruikshank, tell me I'm pretty. "She didn't tell me her cousin Charles was cute, either."

It was his turn to blush, and he did it almost sweetly, a touch of color coming into his already ruddy cheeks. "You know I haven't…actually been called Charles for about five years. He feels like…some other fellow that's not me. All my friends call me Crank."

"Crank?" What a name! Pilots.

He smiled again - really smiled, this time, his eyes even lighting up a little, and she was glad, finally, that he'd felt security enough in being called by his name to show her what his smile looked like. "Someone would tell you it's 'cause I complain a lot, but it's, it's short for Crankshaft. It's a long story."

The waiter appeared, pad and white apron at the ready. "Are we ready to order?"

Laura looked at Crank and smiled. She would still order the chicken, and there would be no need to talk about the weather. "Well, why don't you tell it to me? I think we've got some time."

#asked and answered #Anonymous #softspeirs #i have written a thing #mercurygraypresents #tds cinematic universe #laura arsenault #vivian arsenault #masters of the air x oc #postwar

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clumsy-jiminie · 7 months

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ɪɴᴇᴠɪᴛᴀʙʟʏ ʏᴏᴜʀꜱ | ᴘᴊᴍ | ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ

❝ ʙɪɢ ꜰᴀɴ ❞

↣ summary :: Kiara Smith had dreamed of true love for as long as she could remember. from being obsessed with the Disney princesses who found affection in the strangest situations to dressing up as a bride from kindergarten to fourth grade. it was the only thing she ever truly desired, so much so that a pleasant smile and kind eyes could have her smitten in seconds. right when she thought she found the one, a chance encounter with Park Jimin—the city’s famously perfect fuck boy with a smile so warm and a heart of ice—has her feeling quite the opposite. he knocks her off her axis and derails her life as she knows it, yet the universe seems to have another plan for the two.

↣ rating :: 18+

↣ genre :: fluff, angst, smut, e2l, slow burn

↣ pairing :: business owner!jimin x fem!artist!oc ft. taehyung

↣ word count :: 3.8k

↣ chapter warnings :: mature language, public displays of affection

↣ notes :: welcome to the first chapter! 💕 I hope you guys already for the rollercoaster between these two.

↣ next :: previous :: series m.list ↢

ᴄʀᴏꜱꜱ ᴘᴏꜱᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ

if you have any questions, comments, or concerns PLEASE don't hesitate to message me or send me an ask! my inbox is always open. 💖

"you see my thick thighs, lost when you look into my brown eyes, see my little waist can make you switch sides. you've never seen the devil in disguise."

- be honest, jorja smith-

ｗｉｎｔｅｒ

A low hum of people chatting over the Lo-Fi beats filled the area. Glasses clinking, some munching, all sounds that Kiara Smith grew familiar with. Though the crowd was more significant than the last exhibition she attended, it was starting to become all the same.

She could remember the very first exhibit she went to and all the nerves it brought. She was a bumbling mess—sweaty palms constantly being wiped on her dress that she may have also used as her prom dress while her stomach frequently threatened to release her breakfast all over the floor—as she watched the few people who also attended like hawks. So insecure about the words those people chose not to share. So insecure about their lips pressed into taught smiles. Were they being genuine or just keeping up appearances? Was her art worth anything, or was she going to flop and end up having to get a shitty job just to make ends meet? Those same nerves would never fade, holding onto her like some clingy child desperately needing attention. But they became less apparent whenever her boyfriend was around. The heaven-sent angel would always know the right thing to say and make the world melt away. Though he would never miss an event, it was very seldom that he was on time. She never stressed his whereabouts, knowing he'd arrive eventually.

The 24-year-old continued to walk around, partially eavesdropping as she passed couples and groups of people. Occasionally, she would take a sip of the bubbly gold in her glass to appease that child named Nerves tugging on her leg. She slowed to a stop once a particular piece caught her eye. It was two separate canvases placed at equal heights. One canvas had a bright figure colored in hues of pink and blue, while the other was dark. Shades of black and grey bled from one canvas to the other as if it was trying to overcome the figure itself. The darkness had enough space on their canvas, though, at least a third remaining untouched, but it wanted the colors. It wanted to possess them, spread its darkness to them.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" blurted a voice near her. Despite the voice being calm and inviting, it startled her. She quickly turned to the side, not realizing a man joined her. His side profile was magnificent — features that were immaculately sculpted from his eyebrows, down his straight nose bridge leading to a button tip, to where his rose-shaded lips took center stage, frozen in a pout. His light blonde hair with dark roots made his olive skin stand out. It looked natural on him. The man was attractive, and Kiara couldn't deny that. His aura alone was almost as intoxicating as the drink in her hand. It pulled her in and wrapped around her like a warm embrace. She nodded, humming in agreement with his question. She faced ahead again.

The man stole another glance at her, eyes slowly glazing over her features. "It's so rare nowadays to find someone who could capture so much without saying a word. It's almost godly."

The more he talked, the nicer his voice sounded. It had an excellent depth, low and appealing even in his hushed tone. Kiara was into what he was saying, continuing to nod until the last comment. She had to sip her drink to subdue the urge to giggle.

"But you know what you and this painting have in common?"

She turned to look at the man, their eyes meeting for the first time tonight. And boy, how he could get lost in those pools of amber. She raised an eyebrow curiously, her glass still resting on her lips as she silently urged him to continue.

"You both were crafted with the same care, holding a beauty one could only dream of containing."

Kiara almost spat out her drink, startling the man before her. She raised her hand to cover her mouth, holding back the remainder of the liquid behind her taut lips. The man's eyebrows drew together and his lips pursed slightly. His expression then dropped to a neutral state once he realized she was chuckling at what he said.

Once she swallowed the liquid, she turned to face him completely. She took a moment to graze over his appearance fully. He was well dressed, wearing a black blazer, white crew neck underneath, and dark-wash skinny jeans. Silver earrings dangled from his earlobes to match the silver chain around his neck and the wristwatch.

"Damn," she commented, a grin growing on her full glossed lips, "you're really laying it on thick for someone you don't know." Her voice was nothing he expected. She seemed like one of those Hamptons girls, playing in New York City with daddy's money. Her voice was light and smooth like silk fabric, but her accent was hard like a concrete wall. She was either from Queens or Brooklyn, syllables being dropped or stretched at a whim. Something about the way her words blended was incredibly sexy.

The man quirked a brow, intrigued as the corner of his lips pulled into a half smile. "You tryna say I'm out of practice?"

"Precisely." She answered quickly and confidently as she gazed up at him. "I expect that kind of line from someone twice your age."

"Well, ouch." He chuckled, tongue poking at the inside of his cheek as his eyes glanced downward at the girl. "My job requires me to be blunt, so I call it like I see it."

"And you're saying I'm as beautiful as this painting?"

He grabbed a glass off the tray of a passing waiter. "Your beauty surpasses it." It was true. She was absolutely breathtaking. Her golden honey skin practically glowed under the cool white fluorescent lights. Her hair was dark brown and long, pulled back into a sleek high ponytail with two strands framing her face. Her black satin dress hugged every curve in her body with grace, and there were plenty of them. The material looked soft to the touch, gently reflecting the light. He'd be lying if he said her looks weren't the reason why he approached. And on top of all the looks, she smelled phenomenal—warm and sweet, like a freshly baked sugar cookie with a dash of cinnamon on top, making him want to relive through the holiday season that just passed.

Kiara let out a soft scoff. "Thank you, but that's not as much of a compliment as you may think." She suddenly spun on her stiletto heels, turning her back to the man as she walked away.

He quickly followed, catching up in a few steps to join her by her side. "Do explain."

"Beauty has, and always will be, skin deep." She circled the champagne in her glass while looking out into the crowd. "Looks fade over time. Trends come and go faster than the seasons. So if you really wanna wow a girl…." She stopped at another painting that grabbed her attention before looking at him. "Compliment the things you can't see." The two stopped to gaze at the artwork in front of them. The man thought over her words while admiring the piece. The canvas before them had various hues of green splashed about, but shades of purple peeked through upon closer inspection. It mimicked little flowers blooming through a field of wild grass. She managed to lead him to the only painting that mirrored their conversation.

He nodded, taking a sip of his drink. "You're completely right. And to think I almost missed out on how intelligent you are."

She smiled, soft and genuine. "Thank you."

The man stayed by her side as Kiara floated, offering his opinions on whichever piece they stopped in front of. She really appreciated being able to receive unbiased feedback on her work. He didn't know he was chatting with the artist. No one in the room knew. The name signed at the bottom of each canvas was Luna, a faceless painter. It's been that way since the beginning, and she intended it to stay that way. Only her close friends, family, and people she hired knew of her secret.

"I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to lunch tomorrow." The man asked at their fourth or so painting.

"I see you don't waste any time."

"Correct. Time is limited, after all."

She looked up at him, his perfect lips pulled into a soft smile. Maybe in another lifetime, she thought as she caught her lower lip between her teeth. "Flattered, but I can't."

His brows furrowed. He thought that the conversation they were having was great, so what was with the rejection? "May I ask why?"

"I have a boyfriend," she said with a wide smile.

He suddenly scoffed, causing her to tilt her head to the side slightly. "I haven't seen anyone on your arm the whole night." The first thing the man hated the most was being lied to.

Her brows then lowered while her eyes narrowed. "He's just late."

The second thing was excuses.

"Tsk," he shook his head before downing his drink. "Committed to a man with no time management? Red flag."

"And somehow that's better than a man who can't take rejection?" She shot back as she quickly matched his energy. They had a peaceful conversation only moments before, and now the energy between them had grown negative.

"Oh, I can take rejection," he stated with a chuckle as he put his glass down. "But only when I'm being told the truth."

"It is—"

"Hey, darling." And finally, the deep and butter-smooth voice appeared, melting away the anger that was bubbling inside Kiara. As he approached her side, he placed his large hand on the small of her back and pressed a kiss to her temple. "I'm sorry I'm late."

The blonde in front of them eyed the man from his tan skin and wavy ebony hair to his solid-colored turtle neck and long coat. Something about the dark-haired man seemed familiar to the blonde. Then it hit him like a freight train. "Well, isn't it Mr. Kim Taehyung?" He smiled widely, glancing up at the slightly taller man.

Taehyung's brows furrowed momentarily before grinning. "Holy shit, Park Jimin!" He stepped forward, leaving Kiara's side to wrap his arms around the blonde. "What are you doing here?" He asked as he pulled away from the man. "I never would've thought that you'd be into art."

He chuckled softly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "It's just a little appreciation I picked up from Spain." He shrugged casually.

Taehyung's jaw clenched briefly, his smile slipping for a moment. For as long as he's known Jimin, he always had to slip in a way to brag about his accomplishments. It was sad that he still hasn't grown out of that trait yet. "Ah yeah," he responded, playing cool, "I forgot you traveled there. How was it?"

Jimin shrugged again. "It was Spain," he said, glazing over the topic. "But me and—shit, I'm sorry." His attention shifted from Taehyung to the woman. "I never asked for your name."

"I'm Kiara," she said softly. Her arms folded over her chest as she watched the two men converse. She didn't mind a bit since Taehyung was the most extroverted of the two.

"Kiara," Jimin repeated to himself, his eyes trailing down her appearance briefly. He tried to pin the name to the face, especially if she was Taehyung's. His eyes finally returned to the other man. "Kiara and I were discussing some of the pieces earlier. I've been a huge fan of Luna for years now." He tried to be calm about the subject of Luna, but it made excitement course through his veins. He was among the first few to learn about the mysterious artist who abruptly appeared on the scene. Everyone wanted one of their pieces overnight, and Jimin was obviously at the very top of that list. Every brushstroke left was a paragraph, speaking a language only artists could understand.

"I don't even wanna talk about how hard it was to get in here," he chuckled, a faint flush spreading over his cheeks. A Luna Eclipse had a longer wait list than some Michelin-star restaurants. Luckily for him, he was able to pull a few strings. A few phone calls here, some embarrassing promises there, and he was in.

Kiara couldn't help the smile that tugged at her lips as she eyed the man. The smirk on Taehyung's lips was full of pride, almost conceited, as he tilted his head slightly to the side. "Oh, you don't say?" For once in the pair's life, it felt like Taehyung had a one-up on Jimin. "How does it feel to—"

"My love," Kiara interjected, voice just as sweet, yet bitter, like honey as she placed her hand on Taehyung's chest. She looked up at him, and Jimin could see her pupils dilated, swirling with love. He chewed on his lower lip gently. He barely knew this woman, but why did he want her to look at him like that? "I have to talk to you about something."

Taehyung stared at his partner with furrowed brows before looking at Jimin. "Um, alright. I'll catch up with you later then."

She looked at Jimin, and that love dissipated instantly. Such a look was only reserved for Taehyung, making a heaviness grow in his abdomen. "If you would excuse us."

The blonde couldn't seem to pull his eyes away from Kiara. "Of course," he finally said, grinning at the man. "Don't be a stranger!"

The two waved at each other before Kiara led him away. Her arm wrapped around his, holding him close to her. She glanced back at Jimin one last time before pulling Taehyung to a quiet section of the event. He leaned against the pillar while Kiara stood before him, gazing up at him.

"Why did you cut me off?" Taehyung asked, keeping his voice calm.

"Because you almost name-dropped me," she said, her arms folding over her chest.

The 26-year-old's lips turned into a small o shape before forming a sheepish smile. "You're right. I'm sorry. I completely forgot for a second. It's just so hard not to brag about you when you always look so good." He reached out and touched her waist, pulling her into him.

She couldn't stop her lips from forming a smile as he buried his face into her neck. She giggled quietly, her hands placed on his chest. "Stop it," she whined, not wanting him to do such a thing.

Taehyung inhaled deeply, the notes of her sweet perfume entering his nostrils. "Mm, and you're wearing my favorite perfume too?" He mumbled against her skin, placing gentle kisses randomly. "You just wanted me to be on you."

The girl laughed before gasping when she felt his large hand fully palm her ass. She pulled away from him just enough to slap him in the chest playfully. "We're in public!"

His eyes locked with hers, with a smirk playing on his lips. "So?" He questioned as he pulled her close again, resuming to litter her neck with kisses. "No one's looking anyway. They're too distracted by your beautiful art."

He continued until he reached her favorite spot, a moan parting from her smiling lips. His hands couldn't get enough of her, feeling her up as if it was the first time. Kiara's eyes fluttered shut, biting back moans that wanted to escape her mouth as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Taehyung," she whined again, partially out of want. It started to feel so good that the world began to melt away. "Someone will see."

Someone cleared their throat. "That's true."

Kiara's eyes shot open, quickly pushing the man in the midst of giving her a hickey off of her. He groaned as his back hit the pillar wall while she turned around. Her cheeks flushed with heat, embarrassment promptly replacing the arousal. She saw familiar ice-blue eyes playfully glaring at her. The petite woman pushed her long, ginger hair off her shoulders as she cocked an eyebrow at the two—disapproval flooding her features.

Taehyung rolled his eyes. "Hello, Aimee," he said, greeting the woman for both of them.

Aimee huffed, glancing at the man. "Taehyung."

He stood up from the wall, kissing Kiara's temple. "Lemme get us something to drink." He shot one last glare to Aimee before walking off.

Aimee shook her head. "I don't know how you put up with him and all the PDA." She grumbled, her heavy New Jersey accent ringing through Kiara's ears while she glared a hole into the back of Taehyung's head.

Kiara straightened out the smooth material of her dress. "You get used to it," she smiled softly to herself. "Plus, I kinda like it."

"Ugh," Aimee rolled her eyes as she folded her arms over her chest. "Seems like he'd fuck ya right there with an audience." The girl pointed her index finger to her open mouth, making a gagging sound while Kiara laughed.

"You're so dramatic," Kiara smiled while shaking her head. "But what's up? Is everything going OK?" Aimee was at every event Kiara held. She was her art dealer, providing guests with the information needed to purchase a piece. She would only come up to the artist if something were awry.

"Oh! Everything is fucking fantastic, honestly." Her eyes lit up with excitement as she bounced on the balls of her heels. "I think this might be your best collection yet."

Kiara sighed in relief, placing her hand on her chest as it fell. "Thank you. If we can get everything sold tonight, I'll be set." Aimee looked at the girl, her brows furrowing momentarily before releasing. "Taehyung and I have been looking for a bigger place."

Aimee's lips turned down into a slight frown. "A bigger house? Has he even talked about getting a ring yet?"

Kiara's shoulders dropped, her hand pinching and rubbing at her fingers. She sounded just like her best friends and every other friend in Kiara's life. "I know," she sighed. She glanced down at her left hand, where her ring finger was aching to be adorned with something. "It's so backward, but a one-bedroom isn't enough. He needs an office space for work. So, I'm hoping the ring will come soon after once we settle into a new place."

She looked at the girl, a sad smile replacing her frown. "Well, it's only been four years, right?"

Only. That word ran circles in Kiara's head.

It's only been for years.

You've only just moved in with each other.

You've only just started dating.

The word was growing tiresome, especially in the conversations about Taehyung. Everyone had an opinion about her and her relationship, but no one dared to say anything straightforward about it. She was sick of only.

Kiara nodded slowly, which only caused Aimee to sigh. "He'll come around, doll, don't stress it." She assured with a soft smile, gently patting the woman's shoulder. "Lemme get back to my job so you can get that house." After Kiara gave Aimee a small smile, she walked off. She almost bumped into Taehyung on the way out, the two quietly cursing at each other before continuing their path.

He returned to Kiara with a smile, handing her a glass of champagne. "All good news?"

She grinned at the man, feeling warm despite not sipping her drink yet. "Amazing news."

As the night continued, the two walked around together. They always had a hand on each other somehow, whether it was Taehyung's on the small of her back or Kiara's hand being swallowed by his. She adored this. It made her feel safe—feel wanted. He had to let everyone know she was off the market and was his. As if a shiny diamond ring resting upon her left finger wouldn't have done the same. Taehyung struck up conversations with random people, small-talking them like the extrovert he was. During each conversation, she would glance around, finding something to fill her attention while they spoke of things that didn't matter. Every time, her gaze would meet the blonde.

Their eyes lingered for longer than what was appropriate. Why was he looking at me? She thought while she fidgeted with her fingers. Or was he staring at Taehyung?

"Love," she said as she turned her gaze to Taehyung. He has just finished up a conversation with an elderly couple. "How long have you known Jimin?"

"We grew up together, and were best friends."

The girl's eyes went wide. Despite four years together, Taehyung rarely talked about anything before his college years. It was optional to dwell on past things, even though Kiara would've loved to know everything, from how he scraped his knees while learning to ride a bike to his first love.

"We even went to college together, out here," he continued. "But our crowds were completely different. He got along with the nepo babies since he basically is one, and I got along with the art kids. I remember us bumping heads quite a bit." He let out an amused chuckle.

"Oh," she frowned slightly.

"Like he didn't have to brag about going to Spain," he blurted out. "Not all of us can drop our responsibilities and take off on vacation for a year."

"A year?!" She repeated as her jaw dropped.

"Mhm, basically had his parents pay for the whole trip." There was a fire behind his words. He's been tight-lipped about his friendship with Jimin, and finally, it felt amazing to let it out. "I'm surprised he's not rotting from the inside out."

Kiara pouted a bit, never hearing Taehyung speak so harshly about another. "Well, maybe it was a birthday gift?" The blonde couldn't be that bad, even if she got a taste of that quick-witted mouth earlier. He could've just been having a bad day after all.

"He left in March, babe, and his birthday is in October."

Her mouth formed a small o before she chewed on her lower lip gently. "So you're not gonna catch up with him?"

He looked ahead before glancing down at the girl. "I am," he said with a shrug, "I would rather hang out with a nepo baby than my coworkers." Kiara let out a half-hearted snicker as he pressed a kiss to her temple. "It would be a good opportunity to get out of the house since someone says I need to make friends."

"You do!" She looked at him, brows furrowed and nose slightly scrunched. "I feel bad leaving you home every girls' night. I want to know you're having fun and not rewatching the same three movies."

"They're good movies!" He argued with a smile as the girl shot him a glare. "But I hear you," she stretched out the last syllable as he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. "So I will try for you, OK?"

The girl smiled, leaning up to touch their lips together briefly. "Thank you." She hoped they could work past their differences and become friends. She knew the man wanted to go out and experience things, but he longed for a set group to do that with. Sometimes, rekindling a relationship was more manageable than starting a new one.

↣ next :: previous :: series m.list ↢

#bts fanfic #bts fic #fic: inevitably yours #park jimin fanfic #park jimin fic #bts smut #jimin x oc #park jimin x oc #park jimin smut #taehyung smut #jimin smut

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thefandomwritersblog · 4 months

Text

Ghost of the Ten

Horizon: Forbidden West

Hekarro x Fem!OldOne OC

Action/Adventure/Romance/Hurt/Comfort

Chapter 21

Part 3: Ghost of the Ten

"Hope is this thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all." --Emily Dickinson

Day Whatever The Fuck This Is,

I still think this whole diary thing is the stupidest thing on the planet, but….

Beta gets so proud every time she sees the charcoal stains on my hands. She says that she’s proud of me for trying, even if I do think this whole exercise is pointless. She’s a cute kid, her and her sister, though they couldn’t be anymore different than night and day. Beta’s a quiet kid, she likes to keep to herself, fiddle with little machines she tinkers with. She showed me a workshop that Petra set up for her in the Oseram Camp, she’s been helping them build the cranes the workers are gonna use to repair the crater walls.

Aloy’s the tough one, though. I can see it in her eyes; a hardness there that I know all too well. Like she had to build a wall between herself and the entire world. But when she’s with Beta I can see that wall soften, I can see the love and care they have for each other. It should make me angry; I don’t have that anymore. But all it does is just make me sad. Petra says that I’m incredible, but I just feel lost and lonely all the time despite how hard everyone is trying to keep me going. I wish they’d just stop.

It’d be so much easier to give up if they didn’t care.

The room was quiet aside from Victoria’s soft humming, who sat at her desk with a piece of charcoal in hand. Her fingers glided effortlessly over the parchment, leaving behind a trail of dark dust that she skillfully shaped into precise and purposeful strokes. As she worked, her gaze would occasionally drift to the delicate orchid sitting on the edge of her desk, its dewy petals glistening in the morning sun. She took a moment to appreciate its beauty before returning to her sketch. With each movement of the charcoal, she captured the intricate details of the flower's petals, carefully blending and shading to create depth and texture. She lost herself in the calming focus of her task until she finally leaned back to admire her work, the orchid nearly mirrored on the parchment.

It felt good to have some time for this again. She struggled to recall the last time she had sat and drawn; definitely before the Swarm. Victoria furrowed her brow as her gaze drifted to the wall above her desk. She remembered arguing with Maria then, though she couldn't quite recall what started the fight. She was home for the first time in months, sitting with a canvas and some paint in her apartment while her mama fussed around in the kitchen. Maria wanted her to take a break from her humanitarian work overseas - there had been a health scare and she just wanted their family together. But Victoria was always away, hardly ever returning for holidays or even calling (a guilt that still gnawed at her).

She had been determined not to budge. She finally found a career that brought fulfillment and purpose; something that made her feel like she was really making a difference.

It wasn't until after the Faro Plague reached its peak that Victoria spoke to Maria again, but even then it didn't feel like they had reconciled.

She should have spent more time with them. She should have been there.

Why are you alive and they’re not.

Closing her eyes, Victoria tried to block out the voices in her head.

“Victoria?” Hekarro called out from the other side of the curtained door, “May I come in?”

She frowned; he sounded sterner than usual. “Yeah.” she replied, “Sure.”

He ducked through, all dressed for business today in his armor and crown. He greeted her with a polite smile, but she could tell he was here for a purpose. Victoria then noticed the extra shuffle of feet and murmurs of voices outside the door, and then was surprised to see Dekka enter soon after Hekarro.

"I apologize for interrupting your peace, Victoria," Hekarro said with a slight bow and hand over his heart, “But I fear I must ask you to leave your room for a time.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "Why?"

"There is a storm approaching from the west," Hekarro explained, "and we need to prepare the Grove before it arrives. Your room needs to be secured as soon as possible."

Dekka stepped forward and offered her a smile, “I can imagine you don't want to share your space while others are working, so I thought I'd ask if you'd like to join me for breakfast until they're done."

Victoria hesitated for a moment before muttering, "Sure, why not?" She moved the journal aside and got up from her spot. Hekarro gave her another smile as she walked past him and out the door, with Dekka close behind. The Tenakth guards quickly averted their gazes when they saw Victoria, their conversation falling into an uneasy silence. Dekka motioned towards the left down the hallway leading to the crater. She looked up at the bright blue sky as they stepped onto the crater's edge, following it towards the Maw.

"Didn't Hekarro say there would be a storm?" she asked. Dekka nodded and shooed away some of the guards away from the gates.

"Don't be deceived by the clear sky. Even on the outskirts of the Lowlands, a storm can appear before you know it. But for those who are aware, there are signs that give away its approach. The winds have been picking up from the west, and it carries the scent of thunder and rain. Our luck also held with a messenger from Thornmarsh arriving to warn us beforehand."

They entered the dimly lit mess hall, which was mostly empty except for a small group of exhausted Tenakth gathered around a table in one corner. In the center of the room stood a large, well-stocked kitchen with a blazing fire and a boar roasting on a spit. The delicious aroma filled her senses as they approached the counter, where a small Tenakth woman was bustling around cleaning.

"Chaplain," the woman greeted, "I was wondering if you would come by this morning."

Dekka chuckled, "It's been quite a busy start to the day."

"I heard. Poor thing ran all the way here from Thornmarsh. I made sure to give him some food; he's sleeping now."

"Good. Two bowls for us this morning." Dekka paused, thinking for a moment. "And also the Strike board, if you don't mind."

The cook grinned, "Right away, Chaplain."

The woman set to work in an instant, bringing over an intriguing-looking board and a heavy leather bag for Dekka to take. Both were handed to Victoria and she was directed towards a table against the far wall. "Could you bring these over there?"

"Uhhhh, sure?" Victoria responded with a shrug, doing as she was told. Dekka followed closely behind, carrying two piping hot bowls of breakfast. Once they reached the table, Victoria settled into her seat while Dekka sat across from her, placing one of the bowls in front of her before turning her attention to the board. As she removed tile pieces from the bag and arranged them on the board, Victoria couldn't help but watch curiously as she ate her rice, meat, and eggs. “Am I allowed to ask what we’re doing?”

The older woman chuckled, "Of course, there are no secrets here." She pulled out what looked like game pieces from the bag. Victoria picked one up and immediately recognized it as a machine similar to the one Aloy had saved her from. "We're going to play Machine Strike, or Strike for short. It's a simple game played on this board with different landscape tiles that determine movement and defense. Since you're new to the game, we'll stick with grassland tiles which offer no penalties or advantages. Then we choose our pieces, each worth a certain number of setup points. If your opponent destroys your machine, they receive those points. Each set can only have pieces whose points add up to ten. The first player to reach seven points or eliminate all of their opponent's machines wins. Each piece also has its own attack and defense powers listed at the bottom. Any questions?"

Victoria shrugged, shifting in her seat for comfort and leaning forward. “No, but I learn better by doing anyway.”

Dekka smirked, “Then pick your pieces.”

They fell into a comfortable as Victoria carefully picked out her Strike pieces, eventually deciding on a few that caught her eye. Dekka instructed her on how to position the pieces on the board, humming softly as they set up the game. "Bristleback, Bellowback, and Scrapper. An interesting combination choice. Let's see how it plays out. You first.”

The game started slowly, with Victoria stumbling through her turns as Dekka patiently corrected and guided her. Predictably, Victoria lost the first game by a landslide. She was allowed to switch out some of her pieces for the second round, choosing a Leaplasher instead of the Bellowback and a Grazer instead of the burrower. This time, she put up more of a fight but still ended up losing. Dekka smiled at her as they both collected their pieces and returned them to their respective sides of the board, nearly forgetting about their bowls in the process.

"You catch on quickly," Dekka commented. "I'm impressed. But your tendency to rush blindly into battle won't do you any favors in a strategy game like this."

“Yeah, mi mama always used to tell me I was too hotheaded for my own good.” Victoria chuckled and began gathering up her pieces, adding the Burrower back on her side of the board.

“A trait that has its time and place,” Dekka replied, the game starting again. She hummed as Victoria moved across the board, hesitate, then looked up at her with a curious look in her eye, “How are you adjusting?”

“Fine,” Victoria shrugged, “I guess.”

“I'm glad to hear that. I'll admit I was worried about you for a while,” Dekka said, her focus back on the Strike board. “It's good to see that you've been going on more walks with Hekarro and Beta lately.”

“Well, it's not like they give me much of a choice,” Victoria grumped.

Dekka laughed heartily, “I suppose they don't. Beta can be quite stubborn in her own way. And I know the Chief well enough to know he wouldn't let you languish if he could help it.”

Victoria tried not to perk up at that and instead focused on her next move, frowning when Dekka's Plowhorn took out her Burrower. “You've known Hekarro for a long time then?”

"Since he was just a little boy. I still remember the day he was born, so small compared to his parents. Oh, how proud they would be of him now. He's become more of a legend than a mere man these days."

"Hekarro? Small?" Victoria couldn't help but smirk, and Dekka chuckled again.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it? There was a time when we were worried he wouldn't make it. Life was tough for the Clans back then. The Clan Wars claimed Hekarro's parents before he could even walk, so how could a young boy like that survive in our world? But even at such a young age, you could tell Hekarro was sharp. Much sharper than most people gave him credit for, much more adaptable. That served him well during those early years. And when he finally came into his own, after spending years at Fenrise, under the supervision of the Enduring, his cleverness only made him a force to be reckoned with.”

Victoria moved her Leaplasher closer to Dekka's Grazer, smirking as she destroyed Dekka's Scrounger. "So is that how Hekarro became chief?"

"In part," Dekka replied, retaliating by taking out the Leaplasher with her Plowhorn. "Hekarro was Commander of Thornmarsh before becoming chief. He led the Lowland Clan to numerous victories against the Desert and Sky Clans."

Victoria scowled at the game board. "You’d mentioned a Clan War."

"Exactly so," Dekka confirmed. "A war that lasted countless generations, since our tribe's founding. Differences in lifestyle and interpretations of the Visions found in the Grove led to conflicts, which only fueled more resentment and retaliation among the clans. It wasn't uncommon for Tenakth to die at a very young age back then."

"So, what? Hekarro was just a warlord then? How did he become chief if you all couldn't even get along? What changed?"

There was a long pause as Dekka strategized her next move with her Plowhorn, "Hekarro changed. Don't let his current demeanor fool you, Victoria. He is still a formidable warrior, and like all warriors, he had ambition. The Grove has always been sacred to us, even before the unification of the Tenakth. What better way for Hekarro to solidify his legacy and legend than by laying claim to something no one else ever could? And when he stood among the fallen in the aftermath of his victory, your Mother's Vision came to him alone. Anne Faraday's call for peace resonated with him, and it changed him. It changed all of us, and our lives have only been better because of it. Without her Vision, I doubt our tribe would still exist today."

Victoria moved her Grazer back and inched her Bellowback forward, “How so?”

“Not long after we united under Chief Hekarro, a tribe from the east began to lay waste to our Utaru allies across the mountains. This conflict became known as the Red Raids, and if we had been fighting amongst ourselves instead of joining the Utaru against a common enemy, it's likely we would have been wiped out. Then came the Derangement of the machines, the Blight, the Blood Choke… All of which we survived because we were stronger together as a Tribe, than apart as the Clans.”

Dekka emerged triumphant after the third round, taking the board and bowls to the counter while Victoria was lost in her own thoughts. The fact that she had slept for a thousand years hit her with full force once again. It was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the rich history of the tribe she coexisted with, and even harder to dismiss the impact her mother had on it all. She couldn't help but feel frustrated that even after a millennium and with Anne long gone, Victoria was still unable to escape her mother's shadow.

Movement caught her eye, and she looked over to see Hekarro entering the mess hall. The Tenakth in the corner immediately perked up, greeting their chief loudly as he walked past them. Hekarro stopped to chat with them, filling the room with laughter and his deep baritone voice. It was hard to reconcile this man with the image of a bloodthirsty warlord. While Hekarro could be stern when necessary, Victoria couldn't imagine him being terrifying or merciless when he had worried about her enough to force her to eat and accompany her on walks just so she wouldn't be alone. And hanging orchid vines above her bedroom tree because they made her happy? A warlord just… wouldn’t do something like that. Maybe, deep down, he had always had the capacity to care about others because people like what he was before hardly ever changed.

“Victoria?” Her heart skipped a beat as she looked up, surprised to see Hekarro's warm, honey-gold gaze. Lost in her thoughts, she hadn't even noticed him approaching her. He tilted his head and smiled softly, “Is everything alright?”

She shook her head, “Yeah, sorry. My mind was somewhere else.”

“It is of no consequence, Victoria. We’ve finished securing your room, and are free to return to it when you want. Did you enjoy your morning with Dekka?”

Victoria shrugged, “Yeah, I guess. She taught me how to play Strike? And she taught me a little of your tribe’s history.”

Hekarro chuckled, “I fear much of our history is quite tedious across the generations.” He watched her as she stood, a curious look in his eye as he fell into an easy stride next to her. Victoria nodded as they left the mess hall and veered right towards the gates to the main road.

“Yeah, Dekka said you tribe suffered from Clan Wars and… the Red Raids?”

“Yes, we did. I suppose it must be ironic for you, considering your own experiences with this place. A monument to death and loss, as you called it. Something that the Tenakth can't seem to escape.”

"You're working towards a new name for it though. A different history.” As they walked down the road, she furrowed her brow and looked out at the ruins. “Maybe… maybe losing your past isn't entirely a bad thing."

“Why do you say that?”

"Well, sometimes it's easier to let go of a curse if you don't know its origins." She hesitated before adding, "This place used to bring you comfort, but now it's tainted because I can't let go of everything it took from me. You have the opportunity to give it a new purpose."

They paused to look over the museum—The Grove— and Hekarro hummed softly at her side, offering another smile that sent her nerves fluttering in her stomach, “A purpose, I should think, that I hope you get to see, Victoria. A poetic justice to see this monument turned from death and loss to one of hope.”

“Yeah…maybe…”

Day Whatever The Fuck This Is,

Note to self, learn how to play Strike better.

I challenged Petra to a match and got my ass kicked, and if I have to hear her gloat one more time over it, I’m gonna fucking lose it.

#horizon forbidden west #hekarro #hfw #chief hekarro #ghost of the ten #hzd #horizon zero dawn #my writing #hfw fanfic #old one oc

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maelstrom007 · 1 year

Text

New Face, Who This?

Don't mind me, just playing in the sandbox that is @ghouldjams cod fae au. Mal switches things up, as they are wont to do, and trips up a certain fae in the process. Featuring ghouls oc Witch who I adore.

Mal looked at themselves in the mirror. They turned this way and that, but something just felt. . . off. Pursing their lips they sighed, changing into the fifth outfit that morning. Ugh, still not right.

“Maybe it’s time for a change,” they murmured. When was the last time they did this? Twenty years ago? Maybe more? Yeah, it was time to switch things up.

Stripping bare, they stared at the mirror once more. It was always easiest if they could see what they were doing. To start Mal focused on their face, studying the wide jaw and square face they had become accustomed to for the last however many years it’s been. Reaching forward toward their reflection, fingers splayed, they twisted their wrist. Mal’s reflection fractured, tesselating out in patterns and colors like a kaleidoscope, before suddenly snapping back into place.

The face staring back at them was much softer, rounder around the cheeks with a charming mouth. Some things remained unchanged, like their fiery red hair and their bold eyebrows. For whatever reason they always stuck around.

Moving on to the rest of their body, they wanted to move on from the sleek and slim rectangular build. In the end, they went for something a little more filled out, hints of muscle and practical strength within a sturdy frame. They’d have to workout to maintain it, they were using magic afterall, not working miracles.

With the excitement of a new canvas, finding an outfit was easy, opting for a long sundress. The lack of sleeves accentuated the new muscles in their arms nicely, while also complementing their new more feminine face. A last little splurge of magic allowed their hair to grow just long enough to place in a messy bun.

As usual, the day was rather slow, mainly spent at their combination check out and consultation table project planning for recent clients. Creating patterns, planning dye lots, etc. etc. Their project ledger wasn’t completely full yet, so their curtains were pulled wide open, and a sign that said ‘Welcome, during business hours’ hung from the door.

This meant that a certain handsome fae could slip in with no resistance, immediately waltzing up to the counter with a confidence that should have been annoying, if they weren’t in such a good mood.

“Well hello, I - oh.” He started his greeting, but stumbled mid way through as Mal looked up from their ledger.

They raised an eyebrow, “Hello to you too.”

Confusion was visible on his face, “Sorry, I was just expecting someone else.”

“And who would that be?”

“The last time I came in, maybe a little over a week ago, there was someone else here. Kind of small, very cute, with shaggy red hair almost the same color as yours.”

“Hunting for information, are we?”

A boyish glint sparkled in the others eyes as he leaned over the counter, “Now that I think of it you two look quite a bit alike. You two wouldn’t happen to be. . .siblings, would you?”

Before Mal could even begin to think of a way to respond to that Witch glided in through the door, the wards tingling in delight and recognition of their clever creator. “Oh my gosh you will not believe the tea I have for you today, I heard that -”

It only took Witch a second to notice the changes, and only a few more to piece together what Mal had done, “Wow!!!! You look great! I love what you’ve done with your hair, and that dress looks gorgeous on you, did you make it yourself?”

Gossip forgotten, Witch ran up to dote on Mal, feeling the material and gushing over their new look. After a few minutes of this, the fae man coughed gently.

“Shit! Sorry, I’ll let you finish up with your customer,” Witch said.

“Oh, I’m not a customer,” he said.

“Then what are you?”

“A nuisance,” Mal said, “a nosy one at that.”

Witch snorted, but said nothing.

If he took offense to Mal’s comment, he didn’t show it, “All I want to know is who that fae is that I talked to a few weeks ago. About yea tall, pretty hands and shaggy red hair kind of like yours? Tell me, is red hair and attractiveness a job requirement? Or am I just incredibly lucky?” His lopsided grin would have been annoying if it didn’t look so good on his face.

Witch opened her mouth, “M-”

At the sound of their name starting in Witch’s mouth, Mal gave her a desperate look in warning. Even though ‘Mal’ wasn’t really their true name, it’s not something that they gave out left and right, let alone to loitering mystery fae.

With barely a stumble in her speech, she corrected herself, “My friend here runs this shop by themselves. And damn well at that.”

He chuckled, “Well then, aren’t you full of surprises.” This time, Mal didn’t miss the once over he gave them. When their eyes met, his golden eyes looked molten hot.

A blush rose to their cheeks unbidden, and Mal brought their hands together in a decisive clap, “Well! If you’re not a customer I must ask you to leave immediately as is shop policy,” a delicate line of fine print illuminated itself in recognition on the welcome sign, “Good day to you sir.”

The typically controlled and smooth wards were swift and erratic as they buffeted the mystery fae towards the door, however he resisted them as much as he could, “Tell me your name! What may I call you?” He called out frantically, attempting to brace himself against the wards unseen force.

Mal raised their hand to aid in one final push to send him out the door, but paused as their eyes met once again. There was a desperation and sincerity in his features. Before Mal knew what they were doing they opened their mouth.

“You may call me a fox, sir hunter, for that is all I am to you.”

“And a lovely Fox you shall be,” he said, before he was sucked out of the door and summarily deposited on the street, curtains closing with a solid thwunk.

The silence was thick in the shop before Witch broke it, voice strained with barely contained laughter “~You may call me a fox for that is all I am to you~”

“Shut upppp”

“Well, he’s a handsome hunter, I'll give him that.”

Mal put their head in their hands, “He’s a nuisance and nothing more.”

“Suuuure.”

They giggled desperately, “He is!! He comes waltzing in saying that he doesn’t want anything and then I kick him out cause he’s loitering!”

“God Mal you’re insufferable, he’s flirting with you you idiot.”

“He is not.”

“If you say so. But you best believe that I am going to bring this up over dinner because never in the time that I’ve known you have I seen your wards react like that.”

Mal raised their head, eyebrows furrowed, “Dinner?”

Witch gave them a confused look, before letting out an exasperated sigh, “I forgot to say it out loud huh.”

“Yup.”

“Well, your ass, my house, I’m making dinner cause I haven’t had you over in ages. Be there or be square.”

“I wonder if I could actually turn myself into a square.”

“Dammit Mal.”

#1fae1 #maelstrom fic #maelstrom writes #oc: mal #oc: witch #I need a name for this fae #theres only so many epitaphs I can give him #Lowkey want to name him Handsome #Cause 99% of his descriptors have started with handsome #ghoul you keep giving me so many great ideas for Mal #did anyone catch the movie reference?#wonder if Mal will see a certain someone wearing a certain beanie at dinner 👀👀👀👀👀👀#im so bad at slow burn i just want these two to fuck #but i also want them to have a reason to fuck yknow #feels weird just throwing them together without any sort of relationship growth #augh

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idiotwithanipad · 3 months

Text

Demons

Making Amy (My OC) suffer again…

(TW: Mention of alcoholism, Alcoholic parent, Trauma, Illusions, Drama)

The blaring siren of the ambulance haunted Amy's dreams all year, watching her own corpse being zipped into a maroon bodybag sat dorment behind her eyelids like she had stared for too long at a bright light. Every time she blinked, she saw it. The last thing her soul saw before rising from her shell of a body was the zip sealing her into that canvas lined tomb and everything going black.

The building being considered a crime scene was not what she had expected from their brief stay. Her mother had been given pity money after trying once again to quick alcohol, recommended to stay at Button House for a week to calm down from her outbursts during withdrawl.

It was also the last place she took a breath. She didn't mean to die like that. She didn't mean to die there. She didn't mean to die at all. But now she was trapped. Although, in time, she considered herself more at home and more comfortable than she'd felt in her own mother's flat most of the time.

She had more friends here, more predictability, more peace. She grieved for her mother every day, hoping that the alcohol hadn't once again stripped her of her last shred of humanity once again. Amy worried that her own mother may even be dead herself.

Amy never begrudge her mother any drop of alcohol that passed her lips; her mother had a tough life.

But Amy never again saw her mother.

The first year of death seemed to go on for eternity, yet she still had a potential eternity in this house. She occasionally grew nervous that she'd end up like her good friend, adorned in furs and leather.

But she had a habit of over thinking and driving herself into her shell of paranoia for days. It drove her into sleepless nights, and if she did sleep, she'd be plagued with dreadful nightmares. And the flashing blue and red lights would return, along with that haunting sound of the siren. The slow drag of the zip swallowing her whole.

She jolted up from her spot seated in the corner of the abandoned reception area, shaded beneath the windowsill. Without realising, she had screamed and pushed Humphrey's head from her lap in a panic.

The startled group stopped abruptly from food club and turned their heads to her. They stared and gawked as though she had uttered something worthy of death row. Her chest heaved in panic and her eyes burned as tears threatened to roll.

"Poppet? Poppet, what's wrong?" Humphrey's head gasped from ahead of her on the stone floor, his eyes wide with concern and shock at being propelled away from her so quickly out of nowhere.

She was awake, they could all see that she was awake; her eyes were wide open, open wider than the width of an apple at this point. The group looked amongst themselves, eyeing each other to see who would make the first move towards the girl.

Robin rose from his spot and padded over to her briskly.

"Stompy?"

Amy just continued to stare straight ahead straight through him, as though he was never there. Robin rose his hand up to her face and waved a few times to get her attention, he even clicked a few times. She just started and sat cemented to the chair eerily still.

Robin's brow lowered and he tilted his head.

"Stompy? You okay?" Robin said quietly, sitting beside her on the small sofa carefully and gathering her hand into his.

Amy's lip trembled open and a tear fell down her cheek, but she didn't register him there at all.

Robin slowly curled an arm around Amy's shoulder, concern in his eyes.

"No! No get them off me, make them stop! I can't go!" Amy shouted in horror, her legs trembling.

Robin leaned away slightly, though still kept his arm around her.

"Who? Nobody else here, 'sides us" Robin affirmed softly, looking over to the rest of the concerned group who now shifted to face the pair.

"Amy, m'love? You alright?" Pat asked, walking over slowly with his hands out.

"No- No! Get off! Don't let them take me away! No!" Amy screamed, ripping herself from Robin's arm and fleeing through the wall.

They stared in shock and mumbled amongst themselves. Robin sat in a horrified daze, his eyes flicking down towards Humphrey's head which still rested on it's cheek on the floor. The Tudor's eyes were fixed onto Robin, also full of horror and worry.

She could feel their hands on her again, they were squeezing tightly, tighter than needed. She WAS dead after all, she wouldn't feel it. She could see the badges on their shirts and the first responders lanyards around their necks.

It was like they were trying to drag her back to that bodybag over and over again. Amy was scared of the dark after the bodybag. Once upon a time, she found comfort in the darkness and the shadows, but now she couldn't stand either of them.

Their hands clamped against her shoulders, her elbows and her wrists, her knees and ankles, she ran against their strength but they kept pulling her back. The hallways seemed to stretch and prevent her from finding anywhere to hide. Something like what young Alice would see once Wonderland turned against her and the higher power wanted her head on a mount. But there was no white rabbit to show her the way here, not with their hands still pulling at her.

She hyperventilated and pushed forward towards the door at the end of the warped hallway, she'd be safe once she reached that door, she just needed to push a little further. So close now.

One of the accursed hands clutched the back of her hair, the jagged fingernails raking through her scalp as they gripped. She wailed in terror and grasped onto the doorframe like it was her lifeline, but her hands passed straight through it and she was wrenched back, onto the floor.

She stared up at the ceiling in trepidation, the hands felt more like feet now, pressing her into the wooden boards beneath her. They weren't letting her get away. She was going back in that bodybag whether she liked it or not; she loved the darkness and the shadows so much when she could've savoured the sun and the sky, she'd brought this all on herself.

She could almost see one of their faces inches from her own, staring at her with black eyes as dark as coal. Staring into the eyes, Amy knew now, hell wasn't fire or endless pits of tortured souls clawing for freedom, or devils with pitchforks, hell was darkness. A deep pitch blackness that you can't escape, anywhere you turned your head, no matter how hard you squinted to adjust your eyes, no matter how far you ran, there was only darkness. Forever.

With its cold breath against her jugular, Amy wailed out in absolute horror and prepared for the darkness again. Another pair of hands, only two hands, a real set of hands, scooped her up beneath the arms and dragged her backwards quickly.

She kicked and screamed, clawed and smacked. She was spun around by the hands onto her knees and saw no face. Just a white collar and red cloak. It's hands clasped her cheeks and shook her head gently until her screams came to an end.

Humphrey's headless body rested on its knees before her, it's shoulders slightly rising and falling as though it had chased after Amy this whole time and now finally got to rest. Amy stared at the body in shock for a moment before spinning her head to face the demons again. But they weren't there. Again, all just in her mind. They were never there. All they were, after all, were her own demons.

She wept silently and turned herself back towards the body, burying herself into it's chest. The emblems around it's stumpy neck snagged against her hair but she didn't care at all. She just wanted to hide, she never wanted to look behind her ever again, fearing that the demons would be breathing down her neck, waiting for her to fall again.

The body's arms tightened around her and rocked her slowly, it's hand petted the back of her head and didn't let her move an inch from itself. Amy looked up to speak to the body, but she came face to face with the body's owner.

Humphrey's head now sat perfectly against the stump, and a pair of dirty hands remained cupped against his cheeks before letting go. Robin stood closely behind the body and Amy, staring down at her in shocked sorrow.

"Amy?"... "Humphrey spoke, his voice cracking.

Amy hiccuped back a sob and her bloodshot eyes quivered in their sockets.

"I'm sorry, Humphrey. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" Amy whimpered before hugging him tightly and wailing into his collar.

The Tudor gripped her tightly and screwed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth beneath his mustache.

"No no no" He whispered.

"I'm 'ere"

Robin could only stare at the back of the Tudor's head; shock would be an understatement for how he felt in this moment. He reclined stiffly to the floor behind Humphrey, back to back.

He bent his knees up to his chest and rested his brow in the palm of his hand for a long time, till Amy stopped crying, before rising his face to the ceiling.

"Please Moonah, do something. Don't let her go back into darkness again..."

#bbc ghosts #original character #amy #amy bone #humphrey bone #robin the caveman #pat butcher #period angst #its good when we both suffer together

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theemptybloggercometh · 11 months

Text

Bad Thoughts

A fanfic I wrote for Ace week

Fandom: The Bright Sessions

Characters: Chloe (and my OC: Brandon Harman). Also features Sam

Context: Set in between Series 2 & 3

Summary: Chloe’s visit to a new art exhibition turns into a nightmare

Triggers Warnings: Misgendering, the effects of a car crash, drink driving/texting, classism, mention of Trump, reference to motion sickness (but no vomiting), explicit sexual and kink references, racism, homophobia, attempted corrective rape and its immediate traumatic effects, acephobia

Word Count: 6645

Chloe had won a competition she had seen in the college newspaper for tickets to the opening of an exhibition by one of her favourite local artists however the limo that was to take her there was late and this was only the start of an evening that just got worse and worse.

She was now getting a little uneasy and got up from the couch where she had been sitting and walked over to the window to peer out to the street but still couldn’t see any vehicle that looked remotely limo shaped.

“I’m wondering if I should give the organisers a call?” she asked her mom

“What time did they say it would be here?” her mom replied

“Between quarter past and half three” Chloe replied biting her lip

“Maybe it’s stuck in traffic?”

“Could be” Chloe agreed “I mean it’s got to pick Dakota up and they live on the other side of the city…I’m not sure where Brandon lives”.

Going back to the couch, Chloe got out her cell again and opened up the email from the competition organisers:

Congratulations Chloe (it read), you a winner!!!

Your prize will be a limo transporting you and the two other winners to the Blank Canvas Art Gallery where you will be able to enjoy ‘Art Factory’, an exciting brand-new exhibition by the talented local artist Olivia Carter. Not only will you have VIP tickets to this event but your prize also includes a private meet and greet with Olivia herself. After all that, you will have an overnight stay in the luxury of The Metropolitan Hotel before a limo brings you back home.

(See below for timings for the limo’s and check out time for the hotel. Please be advised that you will be given the time for the meet and greet at the venue)

Chloe paused reading as she tried to make out the thought she was hearing; someone was annoyed, yes, certainly annoyed.

They never tell me anything…it’s not my fault if they give me the wrong time…and the wrong address

“I think I can hear the limo driver” ventured Chloe

No sooner than she had said that the front doorbell rang. Chloe went again to the window and looking further down the road, she saw a limo parked way, way down the street. Going to her front door, she opened it to a man, very close to retirement, who was wearing chauffeur livery.

“Miss Turner?” he enquired

“Yeah, that’s me” said Chloe

The chauffeur smiled “Good to meet you, Miss Turner. My sincere apologies for being late”

“It’s no problem at all and please, call me Chloe”

“As you wish, Chloe. I’m Robert and I’ll be your driver today.”

“Great. Just let me grab my stuff then we can go?”

“Sure thing”

Chloe went back into the sitting room and picked up her phone, her clutch and her travel bag. Her mom wished her a good time as they hugged goodbye and then Chloe went to the front door again.

“Can I help you with your bag” Robert enquired

“Sure thing” replied Chloe

As Robert took the bag from Chloe they began to walk down her street. Finally, they got to the limo and he opened the door for her. She climbed in and saw, sitting on the opposite side, Brandon, a tall, slim guy with short brown hair and a tanned complexion which contrasted nicely with his sky-blue suit. All Chloe really knew about him was that he was a year older than her and that he was also a student at the college. She had seen him a few times in the Art department however she had never spoken to him and considering how literally every other student thought he was jerk she hadn’t gone out of her way to introduce herself to him until they had met at the office of the college newspaper to collect the tickets.

“Hey” said Chloe as she sat down on the soft leather seat

Brandon was looking out of the window and replied to her greeting without turning his head towards her.

As the limo pulled away from the curb, Chloe enquired “Where’s Dakota? I thought I was the last to be picked up?”

Brandon slowly turned towards Chloe and said “Oh sh-they couldn’t make it”

Chloe’s eyes narrowed; did he nearly misgender Dakota by accident, she wondered, or was it on purpose? But what she said was “Oh dear, that’s too bad”

She had always enjoyed talking to Dakota while they had worked in the studio together so she had been looking forward to spending an extended amount of time with them. Spending time with Brandon, especially now being alone with him, not so much.

I hope she doesn’t expect us to spend all of the evening together

You me both, she said to herself in reply to his thought. Yet she also liked to think that she tried to see the best in people so she really should at least make a little bit of an effort to get along with him – who knows maybe he wasn’t as bad everybody had said he was.

“So…” she began, as the limo reached the freeway, trying to think of a suitable conversation starter “did you go and see Olivia’s last exhibition?”

“I did, yeah. In fact, I went to that opening night as well” he replied in a bored tone

“Oh wow; how did you swing that?”

“My parents brought me tickets – they have a lot of money. They had already said they were going to pay for me to go before I had even entered the competition”

Chloe wanted to ask why then he did he enter and not let another person have an opportunity to go but she didn’t want to get into a disagreement – at least not this early on – so instead asked Brandon what he had thought about the previous exhibition.

“I’m not really into all that abstract expressionism stuff to be honest” he replied

As he was saying that Chloe got a real sense that he was exasperated at her…no, it was more about…

How can art just be shapes put together in any random order in an afternoon…how could this type of art be celebrated as genius when my own painstakingly detailed paintings which have taken me all year sure as hell ain’t

This time Chloe couldn’t stop herself “Then why are you going?” she asked, trying at the last moment to sound inquisitive and not accusative – though she wasn’t sure she entirely succeeded

“It’s an amazing networking opportunity” he replied simply

It might be Olivia Carter’s event, but I’m the one all those buyers, sellers, agents and reporters are going to remember

Absorbing this thought, Chloe shook her head and turned to look out of the window as the freeway blurred past

The limo had made up some good time by the time it reached the other city and Chloe was optimistic that they were going to arrive just before the exhibition opened at half eight. As they got to the city centre however this hope was crushed when they hit a huge traffic jam. Chloe occasionally looked at the time on her cell but while the minutes ticked past the limo remained motionless. Eventually, at 20.47, she went onto Google Maps. Apparently the gallery was a thirty-minute walk from where they were; so close yet so far…unless…

“You know, I was thinking that it might be better to walk to the gallery rather than waiting for the traffic to improve” she suggested

“I mean you can if you want to” Brandon sneered “but what kind of impression am I going to make if I turn up like that and anyway, have you ever heard of fashionable late?”

Chloe was really taken aback by the incredulous tone of his voice and took a deep breath to stop herself from retorting. It was, she thought, becoming harder and harder to give him the benefit of the doubt

Ten minutes later the limo finally started to move again and it soon they passed an intersection where one car was bent around another. Two EMT’s were working on the occupant of one of the cars while crouched down on the side of the road between two cops was a man, probably no older than Chloe, with his head bent towards his handcuffed hands.

So stupid…messaging her could have waited… it was only one drink…but why, why didn’t I get a cab…

“Oh my god” muttered Chloe

As the limo entered the cultural quarter, Robert came through on the intercom to ask them if they were okay with taking them to the exhibition before he went to the hotel to drop off their luggage off or did they want to freshen up at the hotel first.

“I’m happy with going straight there please” replied Chloe

“And Mr Harman?” Robert’s voice enquired

“Take us to the exhibit” Brandon commanded

Yet Chloe could hear him think that this was against his better judgement and that his dad always says don’t trust ‘the help’ and that it was a good thing his case had a combination lock

The cultural quarter had been undergoing a renaissance as of late. Indeed, it had only been in the last fourteen years that it had acquired the description of being the cultural quarter as long before the brightly colored museums, galleries and theatres there once stood factories as far as the eye could see. Some of the older folks who had lived in the area all their lives like to boast that their great-grandfathers had worked in these factories when they had opened in the 1880’s. Production though had started to slow by the time of the Kennedy assassination and in the same month Carter won the presidency the sounds of industry finally fell silent. The quarter looked destined to be forever neglected, abandoned even, until a new city mayor pledged to regenerate it. This had been met with varying degrees of approval; some welcomed the influx of money and attention whereas others thought the administration was wasting money that would better be spend on restoring the former industries – many of these would be voting for Trump in the upcoming election. Back then the mayor had appeased these voters by ordering that as long as the buildings was still structurally sound, they couldn’t be torn down; architects, he said, could make all the changes that they wanted inside but they couldn’t change the outside. This is why Chloe thought of the TARDIS when she finally entered The Blank Canvas Art Gallery.

The event was in full swing and about a hundred other people were standing around the large room; some looking at the pieces and some standing around high bar tables chatting with each other. Chloe had already admired Olivia for picking a fledgling independent venue for the exhibition and was now positively delighted at all the great publicity the event would give the gallery.

Someone waved to Brandon and he went to join them leaving Chloe by the entrance Even though she was prepared for the sudden influx of thoughts it was still like a thunderclap going off in her head. She stood still for a few minutes while doing a mindfulness exercise that Dr Bright had taught her and when she was more centred she started to look at the pieces on display. When she finally got a to the main piece in the centre of the hall simply titled ‘Factory’, she was so deep in thought that the voices in her head had turned all the way down to a barely discernible hum.

A waiter approached Chloe with a tray full of drinks and hors d'oeuvres. She took a glass of champagne and then started to walk over to a vacant table. On her way there though she looked to her right and saw Olivia, her of the purple suit that was her trademark look for opening nights, on a table with a few other people. As soon as Chloe changed direction towards Olivia’s table she could feel the butterflies of excited nervousness start up in her stomach.

Chloe took a deep breath as she approached the table “um…Olivia?”

Olivia’s turned around to face Chloe and replied ‘Yeah, hi!”

“I’m Chloe, it’s great to meet you. I love your work. This is a great exhibition”

I love her enthusiasm but she’s speaking too fast, what was her name again?

“Oh, it’s Chloe, sorry, when I’m excited I start to ramble”

“Don’t apologise Chloe” Olivia said with a big smile on her face “I’m glad you like it”

Chloe hoped that Olivia didn’t realise that she, Chloe, had answered a question that Olivia hadn’t actually asked out loud. Thankfully her fangirling seemed to have distracted Olivia. To help the conversation along Chloe mentioned that she was an art student.

“Oh yes!” cried Olvia with a look of recollection “you’re at the college, right? One of the competition winners, right?”

“That’s right. There was three of us but one couldn’t make so there’s only me and Brandon”

And just then, as if on cue, Brandon came sauntering towards them. After the introductions had been made, he instantly moved onto asking when they would be having their meet and greet.

“Um…” Olivia replied hesitantly “I’m not sure that was what was agreed, hang on a sec, let me just get my secretary”

She looked around and then went over to another table – ironically the one Chloe was originally going to go to – after a few seconds of talking to a man brought him over to Chloe and Brandon. Chloe could hear him think something about them not liking what he was about to impart.

“This is Jack” Olivia told them “I think there might be a bit of a mix-up”

“Oh?” asked Chloe

“Yeah…” Jack said taking up the explanation “we had discussed that with the college newspaper as part of the prize but as far as I’m aware they never confirmed it”

“Okay, but we can just do an impromptu meet and greet now” demanded Brandon

“I’m afraid that it’s a ‘rule’ of mine only to do prearranged meet-ups” Olivia said biting her lip “Sorry about that”

Chloe heard Brandon think that this was bullshit as he tutted, turned on his heel and marched away.

“I hope your friends not too upset” Olivia said

“Oh, he’s not my friend” clarified Chloe “but let me apologise for him all the same”

“Tell you what” said Olivia as she reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out her phone “let me take down both of your emails and Jack and I will arrange something for next month, how does that sound?”

“That sounds great, thanks so much” replied a smiling Chloe

A few hours later the event was winding down and Chloe was standing on bottom most step to the entrance of the venue beside a group who were waiting for an Uber. She knew that not because she had heard their thoughts but because they were having a good-natured disagreement regarding how one of their number was trying to pay the whole fare instead of splitting it.

Chloe was thinking about getting an Uber herself and leaving Brandon there, however, with everything that had happened, she had a bad feeling about their room booking. She looked towards the group again and in particular a person with a shaved head and hazel beard who was wearing a magnificent ruby red ball gown.

I don’t’ care what Kate says I’m riding shotgun… car sickness + alcohol is a bad, bad combination

A car pulled up by the sidewalk and the group went to get in. Chloe smiled as the person who was worried about being car sick went straight to the passenger side door and hopped in before their friends had seemingly taken two steps forward.

As the car pulled away, a cool breeze picked up. Chloe wrapped her arms around her shoulders; an off-shoulder dress had seemed a good idea at the time but she hadn’t factored in that, even though it was warm during the evening, by 11pm the temperature would drop considerably. She shivered and then retrieved her phone from her clutch. Getting the Uber app up, she was just about to type in the name of the hotel when Brandon came out of the venue talking to a man who was eighty if he was a day. She carried on using the app as the man said that he would give Brandon a call one day next week.

“I’m just ordered an Uber” said Chloe when he had walked over to where she was standing

“Uh huh” Brandon muttered

“Oh and by the way Olivia wants to arrange something next month for us, I gave her your email” said Chloe and when he didn’t reply, she continued sarcastically “‘gee thanks Chloe for doing that, that was really nice of her to still include me after I was a jerk’ ‘oh not at all Brandon, don’t mention it’”

They stood in stony silence for the nine minutes it took for the Uber to arrive and then they continued to ignore each other throughout the journey to the hotel.

Situated on the corner of 6th and Maple, The Metropolis Hotel was an impressive five story art deco building that, as the large sign on the front portico said, had warmly welcomed wanderers since 1922. Stepping into the lobby with all its period pieces was like stepping back in time; Chloe actually quietly whistled in admiration at how beautiful it all was.

They went up to the front desk where the receptionist was currently seeing to a couple in their early thirties, the man in beige chinos and a white polo shirt and the woman in an open necked pink blouse and a pair of white tailored shorts. Chloe looked past them to the receptionist who, even though she was on night duty had no right to look that wide awake, then back to the couple.

Take his cock out of his underwear…put my tongue on its tip…watch him shiver

Tie her to the bed…get the flogger…spank her ass raw…’til she begs for mercy

Chloe blinked a few times but apart from that showed no reaction to what she had just heard. She reflected that would have been different a few years ago like when she was waiting to cross the sidewalk with a girl around the same age as her; hearing the girl think about her fantasy about having anal for the first time left her opened mouthed. Initially she was ashamed of herself for slut shaming this girl but then on closer inspection realised that her shock came from how different the girls’ thoughts about sex were compared to her own.

Chloe was brought back to the present by Brandon, now at the front desk, saying “We have a couple of bookings under the names of Harman and…”

“Turner” supplied Chloe as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the couple get into the elevator

The receptionist, who’s name tag said ‘Sofia’, typed a few things into the computer and then furrowed her brow as she tapped the up and down keys. Brandon added to the noise by drumming his fingers on the wooden surface of the countertop.

“Um–” Sofia began but was interrupted by Brandon

“What?” he snapped which made Chloe wince

“Um…so we do have bookings under that name but–”

“But what? What’s the problem now?”

“It seems that the booking is for tomorrow night and not tonight”

“So just move the booking forward” he ordered condescendingly

“I can do that; however, I was just going to let you know that we only have one more room available tonight” replied Sofia steadily

Chloe had to admire her professionalism.

“Fine” said Brandon shaking his head

That was not ‘fine’ thought Chloe. She knew she would scream if she had to spend any longer with him. On the other hand, was she seriously considering looking for another hotel at nearly midnight as a woman of color in a city she didn’t know?

Sighing, she conceded “yeah, all right. Thank you”

Sofia smiled at her and then started to check them in “Your bags are in our storage closet; the bellhop will bring them up when they take you to the room”

She finished typing and then passed a keycard to Brandon. As she did so Chloe distinctly heard her think that he was an asshole.

Chloe’s first thought as she entered through the black door to Room 56 was how spacious it was, but it would have surprised her if she had learnt that their room was in fact one of the smaller ones available. The bellhop was called Mario and he was pointing out various things in the room: there was a silk covered king-sized bed to the left on the far side of the which was the ensuite, on the other side of the bed was the walk-in wardrobe, then there was the minibar under the long counter to the right, then there was the armchair with a matching stool and then finally there was the floor to ceiling window with its impressive view of the flickering cityscape.

“And if there’s anything else you need be sure to give the front desk a ring” Mario said completing his spiel as he pointed to the phone that was on the polished marble surface of counter. Chloe glanced over and was a tiny bit disappointed that, unlike the lobby, the amenities were all modern and not period pieces.

“Thanks so much, Mario” she replied as she pulled out a twenty-dollar bill from her clutch and handed it to him.

Brandon came up beside her with a handful of notes and gave one to Mario. Just before Mario’s hand closed around the bill, Chloe could just make out Washington’s portrait. He then pocketed the notes before discreetly leaving the room

While Brandon went straight to the minibar and quickly selected a Coke, a Hersey bar and a packet of Red Vines, Chloe got her travel bag from where Mario had deposited it and went into the bathroom. After locking the door, she slipped off her yellow dress and stood in front of the golden framed mirror in her black panties and a white bra debating whether to take the latter off. Electing to keep it on, she then put on a gray vest top and a pair of purple pyjama shorts before going over to the sink with her washbag and doing her evening skin care routine.

Re-entering the main room, where Brandon was sat in the armchair tapping away on his phone, she went over to the left side of the bed and set the travel bag down onto the covers. Plucking out her copy of the Welcome to Night Vale novel from the bottom of her bag she then placed it onto the bedside table before placing the bag back down onto the carpet. After getting into the bed, she put several soft pillows behind her back and then started to read.

Later on, she had just started a new chapter when she heard Brandon think about getting ready for bed. He then picked up his own bag and went into the bathroom. As he was locking the door, Chloe turned a page and noticed the bag of Red Vines on the other side of the bed. She then glanced at the minibar but her eyes went straight back to the book. Hang on a moment, she thought, any charge would be billed to the college newspaper. Even so, she was still hesitant. Yet if she couldn’t treat herself on this night of all nights then when could she treat herself? And didn’t the college newspaper owe them for all the things that had gone wrong? Putting down her book on the bedside table, she got out of the bed and wondered over to the minibar. She crouched down and scanned the contents behind the glass door. Finally, after a few minutes, she decided on some Oreo’s.

Back in bed, she had just opened the packet when she heard the bathroom door open. Brandon, having changed into a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a faded t-shirt which had the name of the college emblazoned on it, walked back into the room and threw his bag onto the armchair. Throughout this, Chloe hadn’t moved her eyes away from the book; she stopped halfway through a sentence though when the weight distribution of the mattress shifted slightly as Brandon got into the other side of the bed. Chloe inhaled deeply and went back to reading but didn’t get very far as Brandon then decided to play YouTube clips of The Big Bang Theory at full volume.

Ten minutes later Chloe had given up trying to read and was now on her own cell. Brandon locked his mobile and turned his head towards her “You know” he said “it’s good that the other winners weren’t guys”

“Okay, I’ll bite” said Chloe through gritted teeth and, although she had a pretty good idea why already, she asked “why is it a good thing?”

“Well, think about it, two or three guys sharing the same bed would be well gay”

Chloe shook her head and went back to scrolling through Instagram; yet she could sense his eyes still looking at her.

“So….” he remarked after a few seconds “this evening hasn’t gone exactly as it was supposed to go, has it? But maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all, you know?”

Chloe liked a post by Caleb and then though about maybe getting her earbuds from her travel bag.

“I mean” he continued “here we are, two young adults in a new city, two young single adults sharing a bed. Anything could happen…”

At this Chloe pursing her lips together.

“Come on” he said while reaching over and touching her shoulder “you know you want to”

After taking a deep breath Chloe put her cell down onto her lap and turned to face him again.

“No. I really don’t” she said defiantly as she felt her temper rise

He laughed “Yeah, sure you don’t”

“I know I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last guy in this city”

“Your loss” Brandon said as he shrugged his shoulders “Things like this don’t come around every day, you know. I bet you’ll be kicking yourself this time next week when you realise that you gave up a great opportunity”

“Not a chance” spat Chloe “for your information, I’m queer”

Brandon again laughed and shook his head “You’re not gay, not really”

“Is that so?”

“Of course; girls like you think you are, but all you need is a guy to help you think straight…”

Even if she hadn’t had her ability, Chloe would have known what Brandon was thinking. She wanted to retort something, anything but her throat had gone suddenly extremely dry.

“Um…” was all she managed to get out after what felt like an eternity “um…give me a sec, yeah, okay?”

She then got out of the bed and furtively held her mobile close to her hip that was furthest from the bed. She quickly crossed the room to the bathroom and locked the door equally fast. Grabbing the heavy stone soap dish from the side of the sink, she then knelt behind the free-standing bath listening for any movement from beyond the door but all she could hear was her own breath, fast and shallow.

The first rays of the new day’s sunlight woke Chloe from a light doze. Unlocking her mobile, she saw that it was 5.42 and that she had ten percent battery life remaining. Better not use her phone unless it was urgent she thought as she got up from the floor and stretched; her back though screamed at her about having been pressed up against a hard wall for the past few hours.

As she was using the toilet, her mind recalled how Brandon had called out a few times after she had been in the bathroom for around three minutes and how he must have got bored soon after as the shard of light that came underneath the bathroom door disappeared. At the time, this didn’t give her as much comfort so for the next few hours she had maintained her vigil by the bath. At one point, around when her phone had said it was 01.55, she debated whether or not to call reception, but what would she say, really; that Brandon had said a few problematic things? The longer she thought about it, the more she began to doubt if he had really meant it or if he had only been ribbing her; if he had really meant it, surely he would have forced his way into the bathroom already? But then again could she really take that risk; did she fully trust that he wouldn’t attempt something? Shortly afterwards, she had leant against the back wall and had been drifting in and out of sleep since around half two.

Chloe now went to the door of the bathroom and gently unlocked it. Peering out to the main room, she could see Brandon’s sleeping form lying face down in a collection of pillows. She stealthily crept out of the bathroom and over to where her travel bag and book were and put one into each hand. Halfway back to the bathroom, the bag brushed past the counter which made Chloe stop dead in her tracks with her heart in her mouth as she waited to see if this was enough noise to wake Brandon up. He must have been in a really deep sleep though as all he did was roll onto his left-hand side. Letting go off the breath she didn’t know she was holding she lifted the bag to her chest and carried on walking to the bathroom where she ensured the door was definitely locked. Off went her pyjamas to be replaced with a blue and white striped top, a pair of skinny jeans and black Converse. She put her phone in her back pocket and the book and pyjamas into the bag before doing up the zip. She quietly left the bathroom with the bag and tip toed her way over to the main door where she softly turned the handle. Opening it only as far as she needed to get through, she then kept her hand on the wood as it closed to ensure it did so as gently as possible.

Half an hour later, having walked a few blocks away from the hotel, Chloe found a twenty-four-hour vegan coffee shop and had just sat down after purchasing bagels and a large soymilk latte. Her cell, which had its power chord plugged into the wall socket under the table, vibrated and the screen lit up.

Sam: How was the exhibition?

That was so like Sam, Chloe thought, even with everything going on in her own life she’s still so thoughtful about what’s happening in my own.

Yet if it was just gone half six where Chloe was…

Chloe: what time is it where ur at?

Sam: You’re up already! I didn’t expect you to reply so soon. I thought you would have been up half the night partying

Chloe: i have been up half the night but not partying

Sam: What do you mean?

Chloe typed out that she had been hiding in a bathroom after being nearly raped but then reconsidered and deleted the last word replacing it with ‘assaulted’. Her thumb hovered over the send button but instead of pressing it she instead put the cell down back down onto the table.

Was that what really happened, she thought; was it really the beginning of an attempted corrective rape or, as she had thought in the hotel bathroom, was Brandon just saying anything he could think of to rile her up? She hadn’t kept her queerness hidden on campus, after all – even if people did sometimes ask her what the badge on the lapel of her denim jacket meant. When she told them it was the ace flag and explained asexuality to them even the more progressive leaning people had a hard time believing that she didn’t feel any sexual attraction at all. How many had said something about waiting to find the right guy – before sometimes quickly adding “or girl”? But she didn’t have try out for the netball team back in high school to know she wasn’t interested in playing sports; how was sex and sexual attraction really any different? Now that she thought about it how many steps were between telling her that she needed a partner and that she needed a partner to fuck her straight? And why was it that cis guys always cast themselves in that role of the partner that she needed, that she was missing? Why did they think that their dick, and only their dick, would be capable of saving her from a fate worse than death? And why exactly was dying before having a dick in her so bad anyway?

Chloe suddenly realised that she had begun scrunch up the napkin that was by her coffee mug. She unclenched her hand while closing her eyes and took a deep breath. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes again and looked out through the window to the street beyond and noticed a few early commuters in the hazy dawn.

After taking a sip of coffee, she then went back onto her mobile and considered her draft reply again. As she did so she was struck by how clearly she could remember hearing Brandon think…what he had thought.

Chloe: i was nearly raped

Sam: OMG! Are you okay?

Chloe: physically yeah

Chloe: mentally im not sure yet

She wondered if this is why she had tried to minimise, to rationalise, to excuse even what had happened, what she knew had happened? Had it yet to truly sink in because she was in shock?

Her cell lit up again as another message came through.

Sam: Are you safe?

Chloe: yeah im in a coffee shop away from him

But what about the ride home later? Would he try anything then? Even if he didn’t, did she have the energy to deal with being around him?

Chloe: im meant to be getting the limo back with him later this afternoon though

Chloe: im seriously considering going home a different way

Sam: I totally agree

Sam: Is there anything I can do to help?

Chloe: i dont think so not at the moment

Sam: Let me know if that changes, okay?

Chloe: will do

Chloe: thanks

Chloe placed her phone, face down, onto the table and then took a bite of one of the bagel slices. A guy wearing headphones with a coffee in hand passed her table on his way out of the shop.

I love this song…what great lyrics…‘Take what you want from me… I bring it willingly’

Chloe briefly smiled; even with all the crappy things she had heard people think, she was glad she got to hear things like that.

Going back to her mobile, she started to look up how to get back home and after a bit of searching, she found a bus that was leaving at 10.15 and what’s more was relatively cheap. After booking a ticket online, she turned her attention to what to do for the next three hours. She had wanted to check out the Museum of Local History, but this no longer appealed to her. Likewise, she wasn’t in the mood to go down to Riverside Park. She continued to think while she eat her breakfast and by the time she had finished she had decided to just walk around the downtown area.

Later on, she would describe to Sam how she walked these streets in a daze and how after a few hours she found herself at the bus station without really knowing how she got there.

Once her bus had arrived, she got on and chose a seat half-way down. As she waited for it to drive off she got out her phone and sent an email to the competition organisers informing them that she wasn’t going to be taking the limo back home. She sat back and considered how she was going to go about reporting Brandon. But the more she thought about it the less comfortable she got. Not about reporting him, she was certainly going to do that, no doubt about it. But the college administration wasn’t always the best at dealing with this sort of things and even if it dealt with it properly it would take an inordinate amount of time to do so. In the meantime, he would probably think that he had intimidated her into silence, into complicity. Chloe knew that she couldn’t stand for this.

As the bus suddenly started to reverse out of its spot Chloe made an instinctive decision.

“Wait!” she shouted as she stood up and started to advance down the isle “I need to get off”

Chloe had just left another independent coffee shop – it wasn’t a vegan one this time, but at least it wasn’t a Starbucks – and was walking down 6th. When she got to just before The Metropolis Hotel she stopped and got out her cell to check the time. 12.58. Possibly just a few more minutes. She was glad for the amount of foot traffic on the sidewalk. He wouldn’t try anything here…would he?

As she stood there waiting, she reminded herself that she wasn’t doing this to deflect criticism that she hadn’t said no or hadn’t said anything immediately after the event. She knew that what she was just about to do didn’t make her any braver or more valid than the people who didn’t say anything.

At exactly 13.00 the limo pulled up by the hotel. Well, that’s just typical, Chloe thought. She then looked towards the entrance and after a fashion saw Brandon walk out onto the street. She started to advance towards him.

“Brandon!” she shouted when he was about a foot away from the limo

He quickly turned towards her with a sly grin on his face.

Look who’s back

“Hey” he lazily replied

“I had heard a lot of bad things about you before I met you” Chloe said making real effort to keep calm “But I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt; I hoped that maybe you weren’t as bad as everyone said you were. But within less than 24 hours you have proved that you are so much worse”

Brandon laughed “Like I care what you think about me”

“You’ve made that quite clear” Chloe replied “and the worst part is that you’re not going to change, no matter how many people tell you that you’re an absolute jerk”

“Then why are you even wasting your breath”

“Because I don’t want to leave you in any doubt that what you said and what you did was in any way acceptable”

“And what exactly did I do?”

“Cut the crap okay; you know exactly what you did”

Brandon was about to reply but a discreet cough came from his left-hand side as Robert approached them.

“Um…everything okay?” he enquired

“Yeah” replied Brandon tersely

“It’s just that I thought you were getting home a different way Chloe?”

“I am, Robert, yeah” she said “I just wanted to let Brandon know that I’m going to report him for attempted assault”

And with that she turned on her heel and walked back up 6th with a grim feeling of satisfaction.

#ace podcast week #asexual #ace week #the bright sessions #chloe turner #fan fiction #tw sa #queer

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