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fr3sh-tragedies · 5 months

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Good Luck Charm

[Arcane] Jinx x Female Reader

Summary: Jinx has been told she's a mistake and a...well, a jinx her whole life, which is why it's such a surprise when you tell her she's your good luck charm.

Word Count: 3.09k Content Warnings: A small breakdown Category: Angst + Heavy fluff || Oneshot

[A/N]: Not proofread. Just wanted a quick break in between characters again. I couldn't stop myself from writing for this dork, especially after seeing the teaser for season two.

Enjoy!

“Alrighty, toots, I think I’m gonna head to bed. You wanna come with, or you gonna stay up a bit longer?” You turned your head over to glance at Jinx, watching as she repeatedly turned her chair partially back and forth with her eyes fixed on you. Smiling warmly, you shrugged. “Well, I’m not tired just yet, and I wanted to finish this book,” you started, watching from the corner of your eye as she seemed to slump down at your words already. “But I can just keep reading in bed.”

Jinx stood and let out a small cheer, trotting over to you and gently taking ahold of your wrist to tug you toward the bedroom you often crashed in. Ever since you had grown close to the “loose cannon” of the undercity, things in your life had rapidly changed. It started off simple – you would spend far more time hanging out with her than anyone else. Then, as things started to develop between the two of you, you began staying the night almost every night with Jinx cuddled up against you as you slept. Even when she couldn’t sleep, you could feel her arms wrapped around your shoulders while she traced random patterns against your skin.

When Jinx had told Silco of your relationship, you feared the worst, already preparing to write your will or find a way to escape his wrath. Surprisingly, though, he was rather accepting. When you asked Jinx about it in private, she told you she believed it was because he had seen how happy she had been ever since you showed up. A few days later, her theory was confirmed when Silco had called you into his office to set rules about dealing with Jinx and her issues with trust.

He warned you that Jinx could get extremely clingy and would get overprotective of you, which you had already noticed she had begun to do, so you simply nodded. He continued to speak of things such as her hallucinations and wish to keep her past a secret. You agreed to all of the terms he had set to be with his daughter, unaware of the figure stationed above you on her usual platform. Her eyes were trained solely on you, legs swinging back and forth as she let herself rest on her stomach. With her head cradled in her palms, a wide grin made its way to her lips as you calmly agreed to take care of her.

It seemed, however, that she had done the opposite, meaning she seemed to take care of you more than the other way around. More often than not, if you were outside of her hideout, it would come across more as possessive than anything. She’d blurt out insults and impulsively pick fights with people who threatened or flirted with you.

Once they realized who they were dealing with, they backed off instantly. The few poor souls who decided to test their luck suddenly went missing, as well as Jinx for a short time, and then were never seen or heard from again. You had learned to come to terms with her reckless and apathetic behavior towards outsiders rather quickly.

“Trinket? Hello? You in there, or… did ya leave this planet?” You blinked, glancing back over at the blue-haired girl as she waved her hand in your face.

“Hm? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about what’s going on in my book. I’m near the end, so everything is getting chaotic.” She snickered and hooked her arm around your shoulders as she led you into the bedroom. “Ah, then you’ll have to let me borrow that book sometime. You know I love a bit of chaos. Or a lot of it.” You smiled at her and rolled your eyes, playfully bumping against her and earning another chuckle.

As she plopped down to sit in her spot on the bed, she watched you silently while you flipped your book back open and sat on the other side of the mattress. Once you had leaned back against the pillows, it didn’t take long before you felt a head land gently on your shoulder. A quick look down let you know Jinx had already bundled up under the covers and shuffled over to cuddle against you for the night. With weary eyes, she peered down at the pages of your book, briefly skimming over the short excerpt of the story she could see.

Soon after, she let out a yawn and tucked her head further against your neck. “G’night, sweets. Love you.” You beamed down at her and pressed a small kiss to the top of her head. “Love you too, hun. Sleep well.”

By the time you had finally woken back up the next day, Jinx had already been up for a few hours. She hadn’t left the bed, but she was tracing patterns and words into your arms and back. When you shifted and yawned, she smiled and perked up rather quickly, sitting up in her spot and peeking down at you. Once you had rolled over to look her in the eye, her grin only grew. “Mornin’, toots. Did you sleep well?” You nodded and sat up, yawning again.

“Yeah, what about you?” She shrugged and toyed with the hem of your sleeve. “Eh, I slept okay. I got kinda restless after a while and woke up, and then I couldn’t go back to sleep.”

You nodded at her words. After a while of you trying to keep your eyes open, you felt Jinx lean against you and tug you close. “I don’t wanna leave to go work on those stupid experiments,” she confessed with a frown. “I just want to stay in here with you. I wish I could come down with you to your job instead.” With a small smirk, you raised a brow and glared over at her. “Oh? And why’s that?” She smirked back at you and slipped her hand down to lace your fingers with her own. “‘Cause I could keep you safe. I could beat up all the pervs that keep trying to get their nasty paws on you.”

A gentle chuckle escaped you as you pulled her further into your side. “Yeah, that’s what makes you my good luck charm. Nothing seems to go wrong for me when you’re near.” You had expected another teasing remark of some kind, though nothing came. Instead, you were greeted with silence. After a while of not receiving any kind of acknowledgment of what you had said, you looked down at Jinx. You blinked in surprise when you saw her gazing right back up at you, eyes filled with a concoction of emotions that couldn’t seem to even out.

Her brows furrowed together. One moment, she seemed confused, and the next, she seemed upset or in disbelief. Similarly to her eyes, her eyebrows couldn’t focus on which emotion to express.

“Uh, hun? You okay?”

“What’d you call me?”

“What?”

“What did you call me?”

You continued to stare at her, unsure of what you were supposed to say. “I called you ‘hun.’” She shook her head and lifted it from your shoulder to be eye level with you. “No, before that. What did you call me before that?” It took a moment for you to recall what you had said a mere moment ago. The confusion of the new situation had made it hard to wrack your memory. “‘My good luck charm?’”

She was silent for a few minutes, which felt like hours with how thick the tension had grown.

“You think I’m lucky? That I’m a lucky charm to you? Do you really think that?”

An uneasy smile and chuckle left your lips. “Well, yeah, of course I do. I mean, I always love being around you, and because of all you do for me, everything seems to go right when you’re around. You really are like a being of good luck to me.”

She seemed troubled at that, which certainly was not what you had expected. Tears welled up in her eyes and prompted them to grow glossy, though she fought them back. “But – no, I’m not lucky. I’m, I mean, my name is “Jinx” for goodness sake! I’m not good. I’m a horrible person. I mess everything up. How could you possibly believe that I’m a good luck charm? I don’t understand.” You felt your nerves spike, recognizing that she was at the beginning stages of another episode. “Woah, hey,” you whispered, placing a hand softly on her shoulder in an attempt to ground her back into reality before she could fly too far away from the present.

“No, I’m not lucky, I’m a Jinx. I’m the opposite of lucky – I’m unlucky. I didn’t – no, please, I’m not. No, shut up! She’s not trying to – stop it already!” Unintentionally, you leaned back, making sure to keep your hand in place. It seemed like Mylo had taken over again, throwing insult after insult at her and flooding her mind with false realities.

“Love, I’m sorry,” you murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She glared at you, eyes fixed on you in front of her, though she seemed to be staring so far away. Her eyes flickered as though she were reading some sort of script, incoherent mumbles rolling off her tongue. “No, you shouldn’t be… you didn’t – shut up! You shouldn’t be the one apologizing!”

You remained silent, waiting for the right time to chime in as Mylo continued to torment her. Although you had no idea what he was telling her, you could get a general idea based on the few words you could make out in her sputtering.

It took forever, but she ultimately calmed down, panting for breath and clutching handfuls of hair. When she came back to her senses, she found you holding both of her hands to prevent her from tearing her strands out again. Sometime in between her episode and her break into reality, she had begun copying your breathing the way you had helped her practice each time she had gone through it in the past. At length, she sighed and let her eyes bore down into her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

Softly, you cupped her face in your hands and lifted her head up to look her in the eye. She shifted her focus away from you, unable to meet your gaze. “It’s okay, I promise. I’m not mad.” The feeling of the pads of your thumbs grazing across her cheeks to wipe her tears away brought her a feeling of relief. Her tense shoulders drooped down after she sighed once again.

Moments passed. She finally forced herself to meet your eye. “Did you really mean it?” She whispered with a broken tone. “That you think I’m lucky?” You nodded with a weak grin. Again, tears pricked her eyes, though she leaned forward and buried her face in your shoulder before they could fall. Her arms lifted from her sides, hands grasping at the back of your shirt as she sucked in multiple shaky breaths.

“I’ve always thought you were lucky.”

Weeks had passed since you had started referring to Jinx as your good luck charm, then it shifted into months, and your list of nicknames began to grow. It became a common occurrence for her to hear you call her “lucky charm,” “charmer,” or even “bluebird.” It seemed as though you were shifting to just focus on positive nicknames instead of entirely pinpointing each play on the words “good luck charm,” though she wasn’t complaining.

She certainly wasn’t used to all of the compliments and the nice names. After all, she had been referred to as a jinx, a screwup, and essentially a burden her entire life up until she met Silco. It would take a while for her to accept what you said as truth, but she had started to come around to the loving nicknames. After a while, she even began to look forward to what you would call her for the day. She had started rubbing off on you in terms of nicknames as well. “Trinket” and “sweets” began to creep into your vocabulary, and she adored the way it sounded rolling off your tongue when it was directed at her.

Soon enough, the positivity had worn down part of her insecurity, so long as she was around you. You made her feel safe and secure, which wasn’t something she was used to either. Often, she could be seen practically bouncing down the halls with a cheesy grin plastered on her face, even if she had just left Silco’s office. Silco and Sevika had definitely taken notice of her sudden shift, and although Sevika didn’t understand why she was so much livelier than normal, Silco found himself smiling more often at the sight of Jinx when she’d suddenly remember the nickname you had chosen for her for the day.

When she’d sit up top on her makeshift platform in Silco’s office, she had to be given reminders in between meetings to settle down. Her legs would swing over the edge and kick at the air rhythmically, and her hands would pat randomly at the wooden planks.

She loved the nicknames, to put it bluntly. She absolutely adored them. Since that night, not once had you referred to her as Jinx. Somehow, even though everyone else called her by her known name, the mere mention of what you were calling her for the day gave her a boost of confidence. Whenever a mission would go wrong, she’d come straight to you to talk about it, then listen with a soft smile as you told her repeatedly how things would be okay and how she’s still your lucky charm.

With how suddenly all the flurry of names were thrown at her, she struggled to pick a favorite. Even so, her energy and overall glee grew daily, even beginning to show in her work. Weapons were crafted more cautiously, produced quicker, and had more expressive markings made by her oil crayons. Sevika didn’t enjoy the increase in enthusiasm, Silco certainly appreciated everything.

He still didn’t fully trust you, though it was growing increasingly obvious to him that you weren’t a threat, and in his eyes, you were there for a reason. You made Jinx happy, and that was all he really wanted in the end. As far as he was concerned, you had his blessing. He knew things could change, but after seeing how you treated her during every emotion she expressed, he figured that was a slim possibility.

As he sat in his office one day, he sighed and ran a hand down his face. The door had closed only a moment ago, and still he could hear the tapping and swaying above him. Leaning back in his chair, he gazed up at Jinx sitting on her small platform, biting back a small smile when he saw her grinning gleefully. “Jinx,” he called out just loud enough for her to hear. She finally turned her attention to him curiously. “Hm?”

“You know you need to be quiet when I have people in here. It’s very distracting with you shuffling around up there.” Jinx chuckled nervously. “Sorry.” He finally allowed himself to smile, catching Sevika off guard from her spot on the sofa. “Why don’t you spend the rest of the day with [Y/N]? You’ve earned a break, both of you.”

Instantly, Jinx dropped from her spot above and landed on Silco’s desk. She crouched down and looked him in the eye. “Really? You’re okay with that?” He nodded. “So long as you two don’t cause any major problems,” he added. She beamed brightly at his words and her eyes lit up. “Thanks!” Within an instant, she turned on her heel and hopped off the desk, already out the door and skipping down the hall to find you.

Silco grinned softly with a small shake of his head. He leaned forward again and motioned for Sevika to shut the door as he picked up a few papers to straighten them.

When Sevika returned to her spot on the sofa, she huffed out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. She bit her tongue with what she wanted to say, but a look of warning from Silco made her waver. “What are you breathing so heavily for?” She waited, trying to rephrase her words before speaking them, but ultimately gave up.

“It’s nothing against either of you. I’ve just never seen her this energetic before, and I’ve seen her get energetic in the past.” To her relief, Silco hummed and smiled. “Yes, she’s certainly been in a better mood as of lately. It’s refreshing, in a way.”

Sevika waited momentarily, unsure of what to say. “You think that girl is the reason she’s been so cheery?” “I know she is. Her name is [Y/N]. She’s known Jinx for a couple of years now, and the two of them have grown quite close in such a short amount of time. I don’t entirely approve of that girl, but Jinx has taken a liking to her, and I’d be a fool to take that away from her.”

Even with her disliking of the blue-haired girl, Sevika couldn’t help but grin at his words. “Yeah, it is nice to see she’s stable with someone. I was worried she’d drive someone away. [Y/N], was it? She’s patient, and that’s definitely good for someone like Jinx. To be honest, I’m glad they met.”

“Yes, I am as well. I suppose I should include a few of the names [Y/N] has been using to refer to Jinx as when speaking to her. It seems to put her in a better mood, as you’ve said, and I’ve noticed an improvement in her crafts and missions.” A chuckle slipped from Sevika before she could stop it. “Yeah, she hasn’t screwed up another task in a while.”

“Pardon?”

Sevika swallowed and cleared her throat. “Sorry, sir. It was nothing.”

All the while, as they chatted away about her improvement, Jinx trailed down the hallway and all the way to her hideout. When she saw you there, sitting comfortably by her desk in the extra chair she had pulled into the room to have you nearby while she worked, she couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her lips from ear to ear. As she grew closer, she wondered what you would refer to her as that day.

#fluff #x reader #female reader #slight angst #jinx imagine #jinx x reader #arcane jinx #jinx arcane #jinx x y/n #jinx x female reader #jinx x you #jinx league of legends

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thelastofhyde · 1 year

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i. the likeability paradox.

pairing. joel miller x fem!reader

synopsis. joel miller is not a man who strives to be liked, with a chip on his shoulder and a scowl on his face, until his world is flipped on its axis when the pretty young thing living under bill and frank's roof, with an irritatingly unwavering smile and the literal sun shinning out her ass, says those five damned words: i don't like you, joel.

warnings. no use of y/n, enemies to lovers, slow burn ( i have several oneshots planned for this couple ), unrequited love ( except you will never catch joel miller admitting he feels anything beyond grief, hunger and exhaustion ), pining, poor communication no communication, no seriously joel is down bad it's actually disgusting and highkey 🚩toxic🚩 but luckily red is your favourite colour, sunshine!reader, grumpy!joel aka canon joel, kinda perv!joel ( if you squint ), implied queer!tess, undefined age gap ( reader implied late-20s ), descriptions of canon-typical violence, smut ( oral- f receiving, fingering, degradation, panty stealing, hair pulling, dirty talk, dubcon due to intoxication, joel kinda gives her a wedgie at some point and honestly i don’t know what i was hoping to achieve with that, discussions of a lacklustre sex-life pre-apocalypse ). reader is a) hinted at being shorter than joel but it’s not central to the plot and b) described as lithe but the meaning intended is graceful, not thin!

word count. 12.9k

hyde’s input. half-way through, the regret of choosing to write this from joel's pov started to settle in but lmao i was too far in to not commit to the bit. don't come at me for the fact the timeline or events may not seem plausible with canon, i just wanna write this silly little depraved fic about joel in peace :( anyway, enjoy my first attempt at writing for tlou, forming a prayer circle rn in hopes that this doesn't flop because i will cry and you will hear about it

taglist. @kayleezra @newavenger + add yourself to the taglist here !

read on ao3 ! ( capitalization available )

distaste is not new in the life of joel miller.

in particular, one that is loaded, aimed and fired directly at him. he is not a likeable guy, often by choice and rarely by accident. the years of pain from a bleeding wound have now scarred over into nothing but an empty shell of the man that once was, from a world that no longer is, and he’s tried little to fill himself back up.

if anything, he’s made himself more empty.

rid himself of feelings, that which saves him the weakness of appearing sympathetic. discarded the need for luxuries, for which he’d scarcely cared for prior to his world ending. lay to rest what was left of the optimist inside him, leaving behind the danger of hope for it to rot with the rest of the infected.

an apocalyptic world brings out all sides of man that one would never dare to engage with in normal civilisation. joel learned swiftly that he was built to endure, quick to evolve and adapt to the new world order. the man who once worked his hardest to keep the peace among his neighbours, smiling that little bit wider on days he’d catch them scowling to themselves in hopes of brightening one part of their day for even a simple moment, would be at odds with the man who wears a heavy layer of enjoyment when met with the scowling glances and the hushed voices, all the watch out for that miller guys passed between cowardly members of fedra and the keep away from mr. miller's lawns spoken harshly from mother to child becoming music to his failing ears.

this plague of fear-driven dislike keeps him alone, how he likes to be, no one to lose and nothing to be taken. somewhere along the years the idea of safety in numbers has morphed into an illusion, something people say and never truly mean, to distract themselves from a reality more bitter than a snowstorm: in times of survival, people become dead-weight.

“so that’s all i am to ya, huh? dead-fucking-weight?” his brother’s voice still echoes in that damned space he calls a home, weeks or months or years since the day he’d departed for something else, somewhere else, leaving joel to do what joel does best: endure.

somehow, silence was easier than telling the man he’d taught to tie a shoelace, to shave his beard, to tune a guitar that he was the dead-weight, doomed to drag all those who remained too close down into his pit of despair.

she was an exception, his tess, buried 5-feet-under in her own swell of darkness, nothing but the tips of her fingers stretched out above her head to feel the sun upon her skin and keep her from going that last foot deeper. they’d made a home for themselves in one another, one where he keeps them fed, and she keeps them safe, and neither of them keeps the place clean.

she never asks for more, and he never offers it, both content to survive without the weight of affection smothering them. contrary to the belief of any misfortunate soul who’s encountered the pair within the quarantine zone, she is the one who holds the leash, tugging joel along close by her heel and keeping him from wandering off into the wild to surrender himself to a feral lifestyle.

which lands him here, sat at a table playing happy family, each time he dares to snark out a few words being met with the sharp kick of tess’ foot against his shin.

“... and then,” frank struggles over a cough, so excited in his story-telling that he fails to separate taking a breath from taking a sip of his wine. with a roll of eyes and a disapproving grunt, bill’s no more than two seconds away from clapping down on his back, urging the other man’s wind-pipes to unblock and welcome back airflow. “otis dragged his muddied self over the whole house. we were finding paw-prints for days!”

joel’s unamused, too keen to think of what a nuisance that would be. as if incapable of feeling the buzzing energy of disinterest, the german shepherd drops its head further up his lap, begging for a morsel of anything that sits atop the table.

“which means i was cleaning paw-prints for days.” bill, the only one at the table besides himself who wears the looks of a cynic, grumbles out before shovelling what remains on his plate into his mouth.

frank is quick to shush him.

“i’m sorry, again, bill,” he doesn’t mean to break eye-contact from the mutt at his thigh, but the voice calls to him like a siren calls to a ship in the night, like a flame dances and seduces a moth into its brightly burning touch of death, a spotlight in the dark which promises- or threatens- more light to come. “i’d no clue there was a storm coming till we were already a good few miles away, and there was nowhere to take cover to wait it out.”

there you sit, parallel to him.

the sun rests lower in the sky as time carries you all into the late noon, its rays a beacon of light bursting out just behind your head, painting you in the glow of the golden hour and staining a mockery of a halo above you. it hurts his eyes, this brightness that you so easily bask in, forcing him to squint and deepen the frown on his face.

you catch him with his sights on you, at some point, and the smile you meet his scowl with has him cursing at the sun, and the moon, and every star that sits between.

the threat of a great war looms in the air as you rush to rise up and help clear the table of the remnants left behind- none of which joel can account for, mouth to keen and body too starved to skip out on enjoying the mundane luxury of a fresh, home-cooked meal. the battle ends swiftly as you surrender to bill’s hardened stare, and frank’s disapproving head-shakes, and tess’ own plan of action to simply force you down back into the seat you’d been sat in- the one you always sit in.

“you, sit. no one should have to clean up the food they made.”

they get no fight out of him when they insist he’d done enough catching the so-called food.

silence casts its shadow over the table, dampening the light and painting you both in a mockery of greyed tones- truthfully, it is the disappearance of the sun hind a large cloud that causes such a thing.

being alone, with you, is something joel’s never mastered. the affliction of your presence is so much greater when there’s no one else to balance out your natural shine- the kind that has his head spinning and his cock aching-, no one but him.

were he not a sick bastard, he’d try harder to not make you sad.

something bumps his hands, ripping him out of his moral self-condemnation. the dog meets his gaze, eyes a widened mess of puppy-dog pleading that punctuates its existence with an impatient whine.

just like your owner, he finds himself thinking and not saying- never saying-, yet to find your bark.

the ball’s a sticky mess of slobber and dirt, and joel touches it all the same, throwing it up in the air once, then twice, before tossing it across the yard. he’s slumped back in his chair by the time he registers the dog’s departure, a ball of dark fluff bouncing its way across the garden, and all the man can think is fuck, he’ll be feeling the effect of that throw on his shoulder come the morning.

the pain is not enough to stop him from tossing the ball again, and once more, and then yet again, sending the dog in a never ending loop of chase, grab, retrieve- a parallel to his life of wake, survive, sleep.

“he likes you,” you never leave things the way he wishes them to be, bursting his bubble with the vocal reminder of your presence.

as if on queue, prompted by your addressing of it, the dog drops its interest in joel, and the ball, and the chasing, tail wagging uncontrollably by the time it reaches your side. standing on its hind legs, it collapses the front of itself into your waiting lap, and joel watches how you wrap your arms so easily around something that could cause you harm.

to envy a creature that licks it own shit off its ass is a new low for joel.

“thinkin’ he might like ya more, sol.” the nickname rolls off his tongue with ease, the safer option than uttering your name, a vice and virtue he’s only permitted himself in idealistic fantasies that play out in his own troubled thoughts.

“most people do,” whether you mean to make it seem like you’re degrading his very existence or not, he’s unsure, but it rouses a chuckle out of him.

he takes note of how you don’t protest the name he’s branded you with, not like how you’d fought tooth and nail against it every other visit he and tess have made.

“you’ve got a whole load in common, you know? i think that’s got something to do with his fascination-”

“how the hell’s a man like me got somethin’ in common with a four-legged mutt?” there he goes again, making that smile slip down your cheeks with a simple use of his voice. it helps as much as it hurts, frown loosening up and eyes no longer strained beneath the bright shine of your visceral optimism.

“well, you’re both... hairy,” he restrains himself from reacting, washing down a laugh with the help of the dregs of wine that lay collecting at the bottom of his glass. he’s let his appearance grow more rugged over the past few months and your noticing of this brings an unwanted warmth to his aching bones. “and have the most kickass women in your lives to stop you from dying.”

he’s interested to know what life would be like under your protection.

discovering the answer brings the threat of pain, and loss, and an openness to vulnerability he can not afford himself, so he takes the safer option: “‘s easy stayin’ safe when you live in this fantasy land. doubt your mutt’d last any longer than a day out in reality.”

with you as its protector.

he doesn’t say it and, still, it somehow hovers in the space between you both, a heavy, syrupy implication that slips down your throats and threatens to suffocate you. he watches you choke on it, coughing on his cruelty and feigning it to be a simple clearing of your throat. your eyes glue themselves on the dog, delicate fingers smoothing over the well-groomed hairs down its back.

survival has turned him into a man who knows when to seize an opportunity, and this is one he takes with both hands, basking in the simplicity of staring, watching, observing you without the crime of being caught.

but i could keep you safe.

he toys with the danger of uttering such a thing aloud. it’s not the first time he’s thought it. truthfully, he’s unsure when it first nestled its way into his mind.

his memory, which ails him more than it aids him these past years, would have him believe it was way before the dog had even appeared, back when it was just bill, frank and you. a few whiskeys in and a campfire lit for you all to gather for warmth around- why you’d all chosen to sit out in the gardens on a winter’s night joel remains unsure of to this day-, it was frank who’d prompted the question. “where were you all when... this started?” tess went first, braver than most people he knows, sharing stories of a version of herself he’ll never meet.

he never imagined her working in a bank.

bill, with reluctance, took the next step, keeping his account factual and to the point. “was shit-faced drunk and getting my stomach pumped.” he’d been quick to skim over the story of the young nurse who’d guided him to safety out the hospital, losing her own life in exchange for his survival. she was barely out of school. “i knew her dad, bit of an asshole, but boy, was he proud of his baby for graduating.” frank couldn’t let him swim too deep in his thoughts, afraid a current of guilt would trap him and drown him in the depths of it, and so he raised his own voice and began his tale.

joel had always been a good listener. being a single parent to a teenage girl required him to be, or so... she would have had him believe, nights at the table set for two spent listening to the playground he-said-she-said gossip. years later and he at last prefers things this way, a rare gem of safety found in the act of saying nothing and hearing everything- that his hearing will allow. all this to say, he’d tried his best to pay attention to frank’s impassioned retelling of his heroic misadventures that had lead him to the unintentional arms of bill.

but you weren’t smiling.

he watched you, you watched the dancing flames, face stoic and drained of that natural shine his eyes had only just started to be able to gaze upon without the threat of being blinded by such light.

the desire crept up on him like a tiger to it’s prey, hiding in the far off bushes until the opportunity to strike presented itself and the feeling lunged for joel’s back, gripping him in its claws and piercing his ribcage with its gnashing teeth. with each bite, it plagued him with the delusions of a wandering mind, imagination left free to run laps around his head with visions of you from another life, another time, another set of people gathered round a dining table. he’d wanted to hear about the ones you’d lost, and comfort you with all the things he hated hearing (“you’ll keep ‘em alive, in spirit and memory!” “those we remember never truly die!”). he’d needed to bend a knee and swear a vow to be the one to stand between you and death, to fight for your survival on your behalf. ‘could keep you safe. there, then, the thought did cross his mind.

he’d washed it down with a swig of lukewarm, flat beer.

“-could fix it, you know. i’m good with my hands.”

he almost chokes on his own breath.

i'm good with my hands, it swims in circles round his mind, replaying and echoing off the walls of his skull. and he knows- oh, how he knows- that he’ll be replaying it in those moments of solitude for the next few nights, weeks, months- however long it may take till he forgets the way such thought-provoking words sound on your lips.

“what?” the question leaves him harsher than he intends, drawing an enemy line between you both with the foul sound of it. in the corner of his eye, he swears he sees you flinch backwards, physically recoiling from the disdain-filled bullet he fires in your direction.

the mutt in your lap retreats, hackles rising as it turns to face joel once more.

he sees it, in the dog’s brutal protectiveness over you, this similarity you claim exists.

“your watch, it’s broken.”

“hadn’t noticed,” he’s retreating into his own space now, mentally and physically, scraping the legs of his chair against the ground as his mind works to strengthen those walls that threaten to crumble so often in your presence. “don’t need ya to fix it.”

you pull a face, brows furrowing and lips pouting. confusion.

“don’t you want to know the time?” you ask, as if time could ever be relevant in a rotten world where down is up, and up is down, and joel miller is not the overprotective father to the most delicate creature the god he’d stopped believing in had gifted him, just to force him to watch as life snatched her away.

“i don’t keep it for the time.”

you smile, and this one’s a killer, piercing straight through the cages of his ribs to carve itself into his withered heart.

the german shepherd relaxes with the rebrightening of your aura, shaking out the tension from its body before sauntering its way back over to joel, ball in mouth and tail wagging excitedly, as if it hadn’t just contemplated having its first taste of human flesh.

he’s throwing the toy in a matter of minutes, enjoying the repeated run and retrieve game, and the renewed silence that comes along with it. nature sings its tune with rustling leaves, cawing crows, and pounding paws. it’s almost so easy to leave your offer, your words, his broken watch in the rearview mirror of this otherwise pleasant afterno-

“ooh, so there’s a story to tell!” you’re blinding him with your excitement, lithe limbs leaning forward in your own chair in an attempt to reach closer, table between you be damned. “i’ve never heard any of the joel miller backstory, this should be-”

“i get that likin’ everyone is your thing, but would’ya give it a rest?”

nature falls silent.

skies grow dull.

you juggle sadness.

there’s a crash that comes from within the house, followed by the unmistakable sound of tess’ sailor mouth, cursing whichever delicate dish she’s broken into smithereens with the help of her accident prone hands. the dog’s lain itself down upon the grass, ball between it’s paws as it begins to bite, and chew, and break it under the pressure of its canines.

joel wonders what the mutt’s practicing for.

“sure,” then, with the return of your voice, all sounds resume, harmony upon planet earth once more. only, the gates have been shut in his face and joel finds himself forced to watch as everything unfolds from the outside, an unwelcome visitor forced out into exile with the fungal freaks and the inhumane. “but you’re wrong. i don’t like everyone.”

“‘s that so.” his eyes roll. the hole he’s dug for himself sinks deeper, casting you higher up on the pedestal joel will always be wiling to place you on.

“yeah,” you’ve risen out your chair, gifting him the view of how the fabric of your dress dances above your knee, a final twist of the knife in his heart that he lets you pierce his flesh with each time he surrenders himself to your existence. “i don’t like you, joel.”

the hours come and go, but your words linger like a bad tattoo, shamefully engraved into his skin and banning him to a life of noticing the horrendous thing each time he passes by his own reflection.

we’re staying, for tonight. tess had called the shots, and he’s been learning not to argue when she gives him one of her stern looks, biting down on the comments he’d wanted to make of the dangers of being out of the qz for too long, which would likely earn him nothing but a shrug and the reminder that they both were off duty the following day

the nights are beginning to grow darker as winter grows nearer, leading bill and frank- mostly frank- to excuse themselves to bed, bidding the two visitors with a final reminder to make themselves comfortable in whichever room they can find. if only joel could remember which door leads to yours.

the two women in his life remain awakened, passing a bottle of wine between each other as you both converse back and forth, catching each other up on one another’s life, satiating that craving for mundane gossip.

tess recounts the scandal of the poor boy who’d been caught sleeping with a fedra agent’s wife, you whisper that frank and bill had been fighting again recently. the memory of being ambushed by raiders- now dead raiders- comes to life once more with the help of tess’ voice, while the promise to uncover what exactly bill and frank were hiding from you as of late is sealed in your words.

at some point, he lays himself to rest atop the couch, legs stretched out and arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the squeeze of the fabric over his forearms as the too-small flannel struggles to contain the muscles forged by the need to survive. at another point, he’s lulled to sleep by the lullaby of your mingling voices, a safety blanket draping itself over his tired body and enveloping him in the comforts of having that which he struggles to care so little for, so near him once more.

-n’t tell me you’re a virgin.

the words are muffled as the man slips back into consciousness, a frown coming to rest on his forehead as he battles against the demons urging him awake, the nightmarish memories of car crashes, and soldiers, and so much red chasing him away from the sleep he longs for so badly.

a protest rings true in his head and his ears.

was gonna say. knew you were young, but not that young.

it’s the sound of your laughter that awakens him fully, saving him from the tortures of his own mind.

“god, no! me and my ex, we... a few times. it was alright, i guess. i just, yeah, there’s not much to miss.”

he’s unwilling, unable to reopen his eyes, curling in on himself as he rolls over onto his side. a groan slips past his lips, one he’s hoping tess and you will dismiss as nothing more than the sleep-filled rambles of a dreaming man.

neither of you make any acknowledgement of him.

“not much to miss?! sweet christ, you’re breaking my fuckin’ heart.” he’s learnt over time the common traits of a drunken tess. each word becoming an exclamation, curses becoming more frequent, and that irritating habit she’s picked up of imitating his own accent. there’s no need to bother opening his eyes, joel’s already sure he’ll find his companion with flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. “i’d give up a hand for some head!”

you must do something, pull a face or shake your head, for the sound of tess’ renewed shock fills the room. he wonders, as the sound bounces off the walls, how late into the night it’s grown.

late enough that the cicadas singing outside the window are now accompanied by the hoots of an owl.

“you’ve got to be shittin’ me.”

“it bores me!”

“it bores you!?”

the couch beneath joel creaks as he shifts once more, turning his back on you both as the ability to contain his laughter grows harder with each word you exchange and each gasp tess gives. the last thing he needs is to be caught eavesdropping on your sex life like some dirty old pervert.

the crueler part of his mind replays your voice, i don’t like you, and the knife twists in his guts this time.

you like tess. love her, even. it’s been that way since the first time you’d met the duo, eyes giving one look over the woman before the smile on your face grew even wider, voice as sweet as honey sighing out finally someone with a pair of boobs, i’m bored of the sight of my own. joel’d gotten caught up in the thought of how he’d never tire of such a sight that he’d failed to acknowledge your greeting towards him, catching just the moment you drew your outstretched hand back to your side and offered him an understanding smile.

maybe that was the moment you decided you didn’t like him.

“must not have been doin’ ya right,” the bottle of southern comfort is working its wonders on the older woman, accent growing further and further from its true nature with each glass she nurses. joel hears the faint sound of ice smacking against glass and knows it must be yours. you’ve always struggled with liquors, slipping as many ice cubes as you can manage into a glass in hopes that they’ll eventually melt and water the alcohol down. it’s oddly endearing, you think no one has noticed. “this fella of yours.”

joel has no right to despise the idea of you and some fella.

he does so, regardless.

“well,” he imagines the shape of your meek smile and the way you shrug your shoulders. “we were each others firsts.”

“that’s no excuse! trust i left mine cryin’ into her pillow the first time i went down.” tess and he have a silent agreement to never speak of the nights joel would take refuge on their beaten-up couch while tess indulges herself between someone’s thighs in the bedroom. no discussing the sounds she pulls from her concubines, no addressing the wet patches left behind to stain their shared sheets, and definitely no speaking on how his hand winds up stained in his own cum.

you scoff and follow it up with a saccharine laced giggle, so sweet its bound to rot your teeth if you even attempt to hold it in. “what, are you offering your services?”

this he likes less than the image of you with some fella, the thought of having to lay upon a mattress on which tess had raised you to heaven while he once again remained locked out in the dark leaving his skin crawling with unwarranted rage.

“‘as sure as i am that you’re sweet all over, ‘fraid to tell you i like my women a little older than you.”

he knows he should do the same, should lust after those women his own age who shoot him carnal looks in the streets of the qz. it should be skin his own age that he longs to taste, and eyes who’ve seen as much as his own he wants to stare into, and lips as cruel as the ones he owns that he fights off the urges to kiss. but he can’t, and he won’t.

and you’re the one to blame.

you, with the glow of a thousand suns. you, with the hands that tend to flowers instead of corpses. you, with the gentle nature he’d have to spend the rest of his days fighting off every other living thing just to protect.

his own self being the first he’d need fight.

joel wonders what he’d missed in his hours- if it had even been so long- of rest, how the playground gossiping dissipated into reminiscing the pleasures of supple flesh and the sins of unfulfilling lovers. sleep steals him away once more before he can find the answers.

the next time he awakens, he’s drowning in a plight of cruel memories, a cold and brutal ocean of faces, places, and traces of the ephemeral sentiment of happiness he’d possessed once upon a time, back when the price of letting one’s guard down was not so high.

he’s learnt, with time, that losing her comes in waves. some small, meaningless little things, that ripple joel’s surface and coast gently over his dirt ridden skin. others, tsunamis. big, angry, all imposing. they’re born in ground-shaking explosions of grief, building speed, and height, and weight the closer they grow to crashing over him.

amidst the passing of time, he’s tried to keep himself busy in his awakened hours, to keep his mind occupied and avoid thinking about her too much. but the waves always come back, no matter how hard he tries to fight them or swim away from them. they catch him off guard, crashing over him when he least expects it. in the middle of a raid, lost in thought and standing ten inches deep in grime, blood, infected, and suddenly the weight of her absence will hit him like a ton of bricks.

the currents grow more violent whenever he closes his eyes.

this evening, it had been a minuscule wave, yet it’s damage still leaves him with sweat slicked skin. he reenters the land of the living choking on his own fear and shooting up-right, hardly registering his surroundings till his feet hit solid ground. the gentle, barely-there croon of a sinatra record punctuates the room alongside the dim glow of a lightbulb which flickers with the threat of expiring and leaving naught but the moonlight to wash over the dark of the night. across from him is tess, nursing a half-emptied cup against her chest and wearing tired eyes. snoring comes from below him, where joel finds he’s a mere foot away from having stepped upon the sleeping dog, curled in on itself and laying soundly by his side.

you take up no space of this room.

neither the dog nor the drunk pay him any mind as he pushes up onto his creaking knees, stretching out his limbs in a fight to undo the tension in his aching bod. languid steps carry him out into the hall, where he freezes under the self-questioning of where he’s going.

there are three answer to this: where he should, where he could, and where he would.

he should find himself a bedroom, perhaps be ostentatious enough to rid himself of those stale clothes and let the warmth of running water wash away the sins he’d committed throughout the day. a good night’s sleep, atop a mattress where springs do not dig into his back and the sheets are clean as could be, it would do him good.

he could head towards the kitchen, quench that thirst that he’s awoken with, cottonmouth and a headache to go with it too. perhaps he’ll find himself something to eat, indulge in the luxury of readily available food just this once, he’s sure frank wouldn’t mind. bill definitely would, but that’s not something he’ll need care about when he’s miles out and heading back to the qz.

he would try find you, open whichever door it is that leads into the haven that must be your bedroom. he imagines its clean, and organised, and smells of some syrupy lavender that is bound to nauseate him as he smothers his face into your bedsheets, eyes shut, and mind relaxed, the threat of those violent waves no concern to him as he anchors himself with an arm around your warm skin. skin he’s never felt, yet he stands firm in his belief it must be the most soothing thing to touch, as gentle and inviting as the heart it keeps safe within it.

i don’t like you, joel.

those words stop him from trying.

he tells himself it’s for the best.

with a mind of their own, his legs have made the choice for him and deliver him outside the opening to the kitchen. he swallows down a gulp of his own saliva at the prospect of a glass of water. the door’s already half-opened, and joel nearly thanks christ for it as the fear of waking anyone with the squeaking of the handle is eliminated. the darkness of the night encompasses the room, even with the moon’s shine reflecting off every surface it touches: the counters, the knife stand, the metal drawer handles, the refrigerator.

the refrigerator.

it’s open, a blue light shining out of it and illuminating anything it its proximity. a subtle beeping noise rings from it, and suddenly joel’s back in his thirties, dead-beat yet well-intentioned brother stealing the food off his own plate as he beckons his pre-teen daughter back into the kitchen.

keep leavin’ this open and it’s a job you’ll be gettin’ this summer, not a dog.

she never lived long enough to get either.

he catches something move beneath the artificial light. cautious at first, it’s all the more startling to find the object of his ire and the embodiment of his desire stood leaning back against the countertop, a glass full of orange liquid pressed to a mouth that parts and welcomes in the sugary sweet delight.

“why aren’t ya sleepin’?” the words rasp out his throat, catching and scratching on the parts of him that still yearn for something to wet his tongue with.

beneath the light, you shrug, “could ask you the same thing, texas.”

he curses tess for teaching you such a nickname.

he curses himself more for the way you saying it twists up his insides.

you’re teasing him, smile a little looser and eyes less focused than he’s used to seeing. whether you’re tipsy or simply delirious with exhaustion, joel remains unaware.

he grunts, daring to take a few steps further into the kitchen. the door behind him closes over and give the illusion of the space becoming smaller, tighter, more compact.

“i asked first.” you laugh, at him. full on chest-rumbling, hand over your belly, head thrown back- so abruptly it nearly crashes against the corner of the opened cabinet door. the corner of his mouth is curling upwards before he can catch himself. he hopes the refrigerator light shows less of him than it shows of you, bare legs, and messed hair, and pointed nipples all on display for his undeserving eyes. “‘s so funny, huh?”

“nothing, nothing,” he successfully fights off the urge to follow the drop of orange juice that spills down the side of your mouth, over your chin, down your neck, disappearing beneath the collar of your dress. perhaps he is not as successful as he believes. “just never heard the joel miller say something so childish. you’ve usually got your panties all in a bunch if someone so much as looks at you for too long.”

you make way as he inches closer, sliding yourself over to rest against the island counter. a fragrance of things he can’t quite pinpoint, but enjoys nonetheless, wafts in his face as he travels down the path to the sink. uncouth and unbothered, joel opens the tap and cups his hands beneath the stream of water.

“you know there’s a cupboard full of glasses right next to you, right?” you call out behind him as the man brings water to his dry lips, splashing and just about guiding his head beneath the stream. the thirst does not budge. he hums an acknowledgement of you, yet continues with his method.

by the time he switches the water off, you’ve made yourself busy, back facing him while you work at something atop the counter, a consistent chop-chop-chop filling the silence that settles between you both.

“i’m making soup,” you state, like there’s nothing quite more logical you could be doing at whatever-o’clock in the morning it is. “make sure you take some with you when you leave. tess said she’s been fighting off a cold the past few days, need you to keep her warm and fed for me.”

would you do the same for him, if you knew he’d been the one to catch that damned cold in the first place? four days of just about coughing up his lungs, and not a single soul- not even his tess- had offered soup, nor warmth, nor sympathy. he’d not needed it, until now, when he hears you gifting it to someone else.

i don’t like you, joel.

of course you would do the same. not because you care, nor because doing otherwise would way heavy on your conscious, but because you’re nice. nice in a way he’ll never be, has never been. patient, welcoming, comforting, warm. all words that spring to mind when one thinks of you. they violently oppose the closed-off, angry, dark cloud that had rolled in years ago and casted it’s shadow over joel’s entire persona.

he straightens his back, weight shifting from one foot to another as he contemplates you from behind. the sway of your dress as you move has him in a trance, beckoning him closer before he can even realise he’s taken a step. his hands drip water onto the floor in a rhythm, and the record player sings in the distance as a reminder of tess, and your sweet out-of-tune humming fills the empty kitchen with a brightness greater than the moon, but that’s not what joel hears.

i don’t like you, joel.

over and over, you taunt him without even trying, nailing the words into his head and heart, impaling him with your sweet condemnation. you’re not the first to say it, to his face or otherwise, yet you’re the first to evoke such a reaction out of him, to leave a lasting impression hours after you’d declared such a thing.

and, suddenly, joel’s angry. at you, at himself, at the sound of that damned knife in your hand slicing down onto the chopping board. the fog of his ire blurs his vision, rendering him to move blindly through the night.

only when he finds himself looming over you from behind does his vision clear.

a hand meets the curve of your hip and you gasp, leaving joel to wonder if it’s because the shock of his cold, damp touch or, simply, because it’s his touch. without a thought spared, he firms his grip, fingers squeezing tight enough he feels your flesh bulge between each one, a bruising promise joel gifts you.

you may leave your marks emotionally, but joel’s will always be physical.

“why,” he pulls in a breath, loading up the will to keep his voice a low rumble, a quiet disturbance in the night for no ears but your own to hear. “don’t ya like me?”

if not for the pause in your practiced movements, knife stilling midway through slicing a carrot, he’d believe you’re unaffected by his proximity. “why do you care?”

he scoffs, “i don’t.”

“hmm,” this hum is far less delightful than the way you’d been following along to whatever melody tess was playing in the living room. “sure sounds like you do.”

“yeah, well, i don’t,” he insists, and he swears he almost feels the way it only digs deeper the hole he’s created for himself.

joel knows he cares. it’s been burning at his skin and itching on his mind since the moment you’d welcomed yourself to a little bit of unfiltered honesty, dropping the perfectly poised and eternally polite mask you’d worn since the moment he’d first met you, an attitude he loathes as much as he anticipates surrounding himself with it each time he’s tugged along for the trek to bill and frank’s.

what joel doesn’t know is why he cares. there’s nothing to be desired about him, no traits to respect and certainly no looks to admire. he’s near crafted his entire being in a way that makes sure of this, the more undesirable his presence is, the less likely he is to be approached, be it by other people or fate itself.

maybe there was a part of him that had wrongfully imagined you being the exception.

instead, you’re stood barefoot in the latest of hours, knife working away the vegetables in front of you, dress sticking to skin beneath his damp hand, and you don’t like him.

not one bit.

joel grabs at your hips harder, his free hand curling round the shape of your left forearm. his feet shuffle forwards, until there comes a point where one would struggle to make out where you end and he begins. his chest pressed to your back, his muscular legs trapping your soft thighs, his forehead digging into the side of your head so intensely it threatens to shatter both your craniums and leave nothing but dust made by bones blown into smithereens.

he inhales, and finds you don’t smell of lavender.

“for the record,” he watches your movements over your shoulder, entranced with the back and forth sawing of the knife through unidentified vegetables. ‘s like how i sliced that raider’s throat, he thinks, and instantly regrets it. no part of him should ever be compared to you. “i don’t like ya either.”

he’s lying through his teeth, hoping you don’t notice.

the knife never ceases its movement. back and forth, back and forth. chop, chop, chop. blurs of greens, and oranges, and more greens cover the counter before you. it’s oddly soothing, this repeated and unbroken pattern, reminding joel of times he’d found comfort in the mundaneness of cooking a meal after an emotionally exhausting day. perhaps, this has the same affect on you, a momentary lifejacket to keep yourself afloat amongst the waves that haunt you awake.

the hand on your forearm travels, mind of its own, drawing up the shape of your shoulder with featherlight touches that contradict the way his nails dig deeper into the the skin you hide beneath the waistline of your dress.

“that’s not news,” you must think he’s blind to the hitch in your breath when his fingers slip over your pulse-point.

it’s his turn to respond with a hum.

“you only like yourself,” words more untrue have never been spoken before the man who’s every moment is spent drowning in his loses. his wandering touch halts. “a little selfish, if you ask me. but, that’s just what i think.”

this strikes a nerve. fury commands his hand into a fist and fingers find themselves tangled in the tresses of your hair. the realisation of how surprisingly soft it feels barely finishes registering when he’s pulling on it, dragging your head along with, till it lays flat on his puffing chest and your eyes stare up at him. “d’ya know what i think?”

even upside down, your beauty is striking.

“no, unlike you i don’t care what you think about-” joel tugs on your hair once more.

“i think you’re a brat. a silly little girl who thinks she can smile and get away with murder.” you could. he’d forgive you as you soak your hands in the blood you draw from him. knife in the heart, bullet through the brain, bat to the face, he’d slip away easily from this life if only to have you smile as he goes.

“you’re hurting me,” you whine, joel growls.

animalistic, beastly, a rabid animal sinking its claws into its defenceless prey. his gaze dances over your features, catching himself before he can sink deep into your captivating eyes, tracing the shape of your mouth, slipping down the peaks of your collarbones.

your dress- red, a colour joel miller will no longer associate with bleeding wounds and stained weapons- sits tight on your chest, squeezing the swell of your chest beneath the fabric, and gives away all your secrets.

“you like it,” he speaks in awe, unable to pull his eyes off the two stiff buds that poke against the red fabric.

“no, i don’-” dampness follows wherever his hand goes, fleeting as he makes the journey around your waist and up your side, crawling higher and higher to where he can feel your heart beating from within your chest. “joel.”

he retightens his grip on your hair, aiding you with the way your curve your spine and force yourself deeper into his uncaring, ungentle, enamoured touch. whoever joel had been in a past life must have moved mountains or performed miracles to grant him the luck to be holding you this way, the fingers he’d gifted with nothing but the cocking of guns and the feel of his own pulsating lust now expertly tweaking at one of your stiff nipples, all thoughts of the fabric scratching at your sensitive skin dissipating into the abyss as he realises you’re enjoying the pain.

“heard ya, earlier, in the living room,” at the time, he’d been mortified to be overhearing such intimate words between you and tess. the blood that insists on rushing to his crotch now wants you to know, to hear the admission of guilt be spoken from his own mouth. “ talkin’ bout your past.”

he doesn’t specify.

he doesn’t need to.

you give away your shock with parted lips, widened eyes, frozen eyelashes, pupils staring up at him like a wounded fawn he’s about to take his first bite out of and, hopefully, it won’t be the last one.

“tess turned you down,” the hand on your chest switches sides, donning your other breast with some much needed attention. his hand must still carry residue of the water, for you gasp and shut your eyes in the shock of his touch, your own fingers shooting up to scratch at his wrist. near convinced you mean to push him away, the pressure against his hand that pushes deeper into his unholy affection has him realising otherwise. “i wouldn’t.”

you say nothing. joel pulls harder.

“too bad i’m-” you cut yourself off as he presses himself closer to you, your poor hips bound to awaken with bruises from the counter he’s got you pressed against. with a distance so small he can hear your teeth grind, joel watches you like a hawk. the twitch in your brow, the flutter of your eyelids, the bobbing of your throat as you silence what he imagines would be an otherworldly kind of moan, a whine he’d let kiss his ears and wind up poisoning himself with the torture of it replaying in his head each waking moment till he kicks the bucket, once and for all. the want to see you fall apart evolves into a need. “too bad i’m not offering you the chance.”

joel miller is a hot blooded man, at his core, weak to emotions and vulnerable to the warmths of flesh. with notches on his bedpost and a tally of lives beneath his belt, he sees little wrong with taking what he needs.

“who said anything about an offer?”

the descent to the floor is far from graceful, with bitten back groans of pain as clicking noises resound throughout the room while his joints bend and break in an effort to get him where he needs to be, where he’s needed to be for far longer than merely this exchange on kitchen grounds: on his knees for you.

a part of him would prefer it if you weren’t wielding a butchers knife.

the other part wishes you were facing him, eyes full of that repressed anger, hatred and discontent you likely harbour for him as you point the blade down at him and threaten to paint the floors with his blood. you’ve yet to do that, and so he takes it as his queue to progress.

smoothing his hands up your legs, he admires the landscapes of your body from this angle, with legs longer than any tree in the amazonian jungle and curves with peaks that resemble the mountains of the himalayas. arriving at the top of your knees, the hem of your dress both welcomes and conceals his touch, inviting him into the wonderful world it hides beneath it yet denying him the privilege of feasting his eyes on your paradise, an island of safety amongst the open ocean of his mind.

your breathing is measured, precise, too rhythmical to be natural, the subconscious action now turned into a practiced routine you mean to maintain nonchalance with. perhaps you’re yet to realise that, while he may remain indifferent to those that surround him, joel knows how to read people. and, right now, you’re a whole novel of lust, awaiting for someone to open up your pages and drink in every lyrical prose you promise to tell.

joel finds purchase mid-way up your thighs, hands sliding around to the front of them to grip the buttery smooth skin and ground himself in the reality he kneels before.

you breathe in, you breathe out.

one knee buckles, ever so slightly, the weight of you collapsing into his welcoming hold. he revels in the feeling of supporting you, in every meaning of the word, thumbs not even waiting on a command from his consciousness to begin soothing your tingling skin with a gentle back and forth movement to match the knife in your hand.

inhale, exhale.

your legs straighten once more, a hand of his winds its way back out from under your skirt and shoots up to grab your free one, dragging it down his pits of desire.

“hold,” he’s parched all over again, mouth drier than the texan wastelands on a hot summer’s day. all he can do to survive is peel up that infuriatingly soft, red fabric of your dress, skin unveiling itself to his hunger struck eyes. with the skirt bunched up, he shoves it into your awaiting palms, pinning your hand against your own waist. “don’t move.”

where he expects protest, he receives more breathing.

lace covers your skin, a delicate shade of a colour his eyes can’t quite distinguish in the dark of the night. one flicker of his sight to the very core of your body and he notices it, that tell-tale sign that you’re enjoying this little display of attention, despite what your measured breaths may have him believe. a wet patch, your wetness. the stickiest, sweetest of honeys that only a woman like you can possess, and a man like him should never bare himself witness to.

curiosity gets the better of him- one day, joel hopes, this will get him killed- and his touch is reaching for the lacy fabric, fingers curling themselves in the waistband of your panties and the fabric that covers your right asscheek before curling his hand into a fist, tugging upwards.

in and out, shaky breathing comes from above.

the lace pulls tight on your delicate skin, no choice but to nestle itself in the slit of your cunt as two pretty soaked lips peak out from each side. a heady smell he can only begin to describe as stiflingly sweet, tongue-tingling tanginess hits his nose. he makes sure to take a deep breath, letting the blood rush straight to his head- the one that sits packed uncomfortably in his tightened trousers.

delectable as sin, you keen back into his fist, back curving ever so slightly. there’s a tremor in the hold you have on the fabric of your dress. joel basks in the visual affect he’s beginning to have on you, no need to doubt if the fabric of your underwear rubs at your likely aching clit. he wonders if the sting of the lace digging into your skin hurts. he thinks it must hurt.

his fist curls tighter, pulls higher.

“ah,” at last, a ripple in your surface. though you still wield a knife, the carrot you’d been failing to chop rolls off the counter and onto the floor, lost somewhere in joel’s peripheral vision.

“shut up,” he grunts, like it doesn’t make his balls throb to hear you whine. “people are tryin’ to sleep.”

you scoff, and for a moment you seem to have rediscovered your composure. “tess is drunk as a sailor, and the old men could sleep through nuclear warfare.”

“‘s that an invitation to see how loud i can get ya,” he’s still caught in the way you mold against the lace, slickened skin carrying a reflection of the moonlight. this, he thinks, is what all them poets were writing about in their prose of love and beauty. “or a challenge?”

“it’s an invitation to stop lecturing me on volume control,-” you catch yourself, he realises, right before you can gift him some nickname a sweet girl like you would never use. asshole, dickhead, bastard, he’s heard them all and, still, he wants them on your tongue, in his mouth, condemning him for all the brutish, oafish ways he masks his obsession for you.

as coquettish as it may be, painting a picture worthy of a front-page on some playboy magazine, the sight of lace becomes a nuisance he no longer holds the patience for. so he strips you of it, hand moving to pull the garment down, down, down the length of you, till it hits your ankles. he awaits no movement of your own, taking it upon himself to lift each of your feet individually out the leg-holes.

it’s merely impulse that has him shoving the soiled lace into his back pocket, though he’s sure he’ll make use of them on lonely nights.

“you’re drippin’” his proclamation is ego-driven, pride swelling in his chest as he takes in the full sight of your bare heat. the view is a little obscured from behind you, but with the right amount of tilting of your hips at a certain angle and the widening of your legs, he’s bound to sit front row and centre for your private show. “‘s actually a little pathetic, sweetheart. is it cause ya like it when men get mean wit’ ya?”

he can imagine the way you’d roll your eyes at his words, and it has him thinking about how you’d look with your eyes rolling back for different reasons, reasons he’s about to gift you.

but first, he curls one hand around your ankle and tugs the limb along as far as he wants it. much better, he now faces no blockage in the path up to your slit, freely letting his wandering hands ascend to his newfound heaven. perhaps he’ll revisit the life of gospel, if you promise to be the altar he prays before.

cool fingers to warm skin, you swallow a gasp a little too late for joel to not notice as he drags the tips of his middle finger up the length of your slit. soft, puffy lips part for him, until he presses against that special button that’s bound to turn on your engines.

rolling his finger over your clit a few times, he refamiliarises himself with the female anatomy, with your anatomy, memorising each soft bump and meaty lump he finds along the way.

it happens so sudden, and unwillingly, the way his mind switches to thinking of tess. he wonders what exactly it is she does to those poor things she sends home on shaky legs, where she even begins to touch them. joel imagines she makes use of what she has and starts with her fingers.

so he does the same.

working over your slippery wetness, he coats the tip of his middle finger with it, till he finds what he’s been searching for: the gateways to your heaven, your entrance. he breaches your walls with that single digit and somehow that’s enough to have you squeezing around him so tightly he wonders if blood still manages to flow to his digit.

two, three, four pumps of his hand and he’s introducing his pointer finger too, pressing them both into you to witness the ways you mould around this wider stretch, the lips of your cunt a pair of cushions his knuckles collide against each time he fucks his fingers in.

“so now you shut up. ‘s the matter, huh?” he’s contradicting himself and he doesn’t even care, too busy focusing on curling his fingers inside you, delighting in the feel of that spongy tissue they press against. “am i too borin’ for ya?”

“you’re the most infuriating man i’ve ever- oh!”

a tongue meets skin.

the knife clatters onto the counter.

you lurch forward.

his hand pulls you back.

“tess was right, ya know?” he can still taste you on his tongue, nothing more than a simple lick over your slit and your salty pleasure already seeps deep into his veins, staining his very being with the memory of his new favourite flavour. he pulls his fingers out, slipping them up to your clit. three little taps to the pulsing bud- tap, tap, tap- and he’s slipping them into his mouth, tongue working overtime to clean up every last drop of you that coats him. “that boy of yours wasn’t doin’ ya right.”

the common sense that screams at him to not feel envy over some ex-lover, someone who was likely barely even an adult at the time and no longer appears to be around, is no match for the green eyed beast that commands him to tell you, without using words, that he can do better- touch you better, protect you better, fuck you better, if you’d just let him.

‘could keep ya satisfied.

that’s a new thought, one he’s never needed before yet never wanted more, a burning ache to be worthy of your trust, affection, lust. he’ll never forget the first time he thinks it, mouth salivating at the sight of you.

“is this the part you say some cheesy line straight out a porno? what ya need is a man, a man like me!” the softness of your giggle is still sharp enough to cut through the tension, god it’s never sounded sweet, and joel finds himself freely smiling into the darkness, yet still too stubborn to laugh at the deep voice you attempt to imitate him with.

“well, was you who said it,” his mouth finds it’s way back onto your soaked heat, taking his time to work his tongue up the length of it, his saliva mixing itself in a nasty cocktail with your wetness. he imagines the air is cold against your skin, and that you like it, memory of those hardened nipples hidden beneath the fabric of your dress. “but if ya insist.”

diving in head first had always been his style, from his first lover to his last, and to now, knees aching on the kitchen floor. the tip of his tongue dances round your clit, tantalising you to grind your hips to the rhythm of his sinful touches.

licking into you, he’s reminded how much he enjoys that swelling in the chest that only comes from bringing another pleasure.

he’d not been a perfect lover, far from it, but he’d liked to believe at one point he’d been trained by only experience that comes with age, years of touching wrong and kissing badly to learn the right ways to make those he shared a bed- or a counter, or a backseat, or a club bathroom- with see angelic white as they writhed and squirmed under his touch. you’re lucky to have him now, matured by past lovers and broadened by age, with all the knowledge he needs to open your eyes to how a man pleasures, kisses, loves.

he’s out of practice, sure, with recent years adding notches to his belt that were merely frantic, unexpected, barely undressed run-ins with strangers, in strange places, cock barely getting a moments affection before he’d be spilling his seed and tucking it, limp, back into the confines of his trousers and locking it away beneath a zip.

what a perfect excuse you are, for joel to remaster the arts of lust.

it’s messy, wet dripping down his chin and staining itself into the stubble of his growing facial hair. it’s noisy, his mouth openly groaning depraved joy into your warmth as you sing him a song of sweet euphoria, slowly building towards that crescendo on the horizon. it’s animalistic, barely human as he revokes all earthly needs such as rest, and food, and socialising, his mind, and soul, and heart, and cock all screaming in unison to spend whatever days he shall possess on his knees before you.

and all the while you writhe and wriggle, some times running away from him touch, other times rutting so far back into him that you threaten to suffocate him somewhere between your warm thighs, and sugar sweet cunt, and the two well-rounded globes of your ass.

his only saving grace is that he can’t see you.

hearing your pretty whines, and hand-muffled moans, and heavy intakes of breath is enough to curse him for the rest of his waking days, condemned to wander the wastelands of earth knowing the noises you make on the brinks of pleasure, with a touch-starved man satiating his hunger for flesh and blood with the sugary sins of your soaked cunt.

burrowing deeper into you, his consciousness rips through the fog of his lust to curse out his perversions as the tip of his hooked nose bumps against the puckered entrance of your ass. it does nothing to stop him tearing his tongue away from your clit, flattened as he drags it over the expanse of your cunt, and over your taint, and up the crack of your behind.

“n- ah,” you can’t deny him while sounding so eager for more, the tip of his tongue now circling your back entrance, mimicking the treatment previously given to your little pearl. “no, don’t, not there.”

next time, he thinks, we’ll try that next time.

sights returned to his previous desires, he works to rip every sigh, and every whine, and every dirty little song you’ll grace him with. the sound of whatever record tess has put on in the other room becomes a safety blanket, dousing you both in the warm protection of not being overheard.

and, then, he does it, he makes the ultimate mistake.

his eyes flicker to the left and he finds himself faced with the stove that sits within bill and frank’s- and, by an extension he does not enjoy to remember, your- kitchen. there’s little that’s remarkable about the appliance, just your standard, everyday oven that he’s sure you’ve spent countless hours cooking up those comforting meals he’s come to anticipate each time tess tells him they’re due a visit.

except, the oven door is made of glass.

glass which now paints the most pornographic masterpiece for no eyes but his own. you, with hands gripping the island’s counter like your life depends on it, and the skirt of that goddamn dress he’s envied all evening for the way it got to rest against the warmth of your thighs now bunched up in your tight grip, and your head thrown back, curving your spine in a way that has him wondering about the other ways he’d be able to bend and break you beneath his touch.

and then there’s him, down on his knees like a devotee laying himself down to worship his goddess, face burrowed in the space between your legs, mouth devouring you from behind with the help of his hands, the same ones that had strangled a man less than a day before and reigned fire down on countless others for years, that now grip the meat of your thighs to pull you back onto him, fucking his tongue into your sopping heat.

the image will haunt him more than the face of any man he’s killed.

“d’ya touch yourself, sol?” you don’t answer him, but that’s okay. in a sweet change of pace, joel miller’s perfectly fine with talking enough for the both of you. “yeah, bet ya do. late at night, right? once you’re all alone in bed. ya seem like the kind who can make herself scream.”

you back into him, smothering him under the weigh of your body. becoming his holy grail, he drinks from you like it’s the key to eternal life, and what a way of living this would be, time disregarded as nothing but meaningless while your bodies melt together in the heat of passion.

fucking his fingers back inside, he becomes frantic beneath the need to make you cry, fall completely apart with only his hands to hold you together. “let me do the honours this time though.”

you don’t scream, can’t scream, hand over mouth muffling whatever profanities and theatrical proclamations he rips from within you with the stroke of his agile tongue, the only muscle of his that’s yet to develop aches and pains. he imagines that will no longer ring true once he awakens past sunrise.

he’s unsure how much longer he works his tongue over you, slipping and sliding through the liquid pleasure, but it ends with fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him away and tilting his head up.

you’ve never looked more holy, moon casting it’s shine around you, eyes glossed with unshed tears, lips parted and swollen from the pressure your own teeth had bitten down on them with. your expression, he can’t quite read. not sad, not happy, not mad.

your eyes catch on something, abandoning his own for something closer to the floor, to which he follows and finds exactly what you’re staring at: the evidently dark patch that now stains the front of his jeans.

the discomfort of trekking back to the qz will now be tenfolds worse in the stains of his own pleasure.

“joel...” his name is nearly a beg, a prayer, an invitation. hand still in his hair, you tug, pulling him upwards off the ground. legs open wider and back arches deeper, a seductive sight that your body pleas for him with.

he swallows a groan, knees alleviated at last from the floor, and presses himself against you once more. strong arms crush you in an embrace, pulling you back into him as his head slips to rest against your shoulder. he’s capricious with the way he lets himself litter a few wet kisses over your neck, breathing in the smell of you.

“that,” you grind back into him, a torturer who takes his aged body as her victim and toys with his barely recovered cock, the cum in his trousers sticking uncomfortably to his skin. he pulls tighter on your body, grounding himself in the weight of it against his own to find the sanity to finish his sentence. “shouldn’t have happened.”

joel hopes no one awakens as he slams the door on the way out of the kitchen.

people once spoke of how the only certainties in life were death and taxes but, nowadays, the words don’t ring as true and the guarantee of life with taxes has morphed into something else entirely; a reality where death and time go hand in hand. as sure as tomorrow will arrive, death will come too, eventually. not today, however, and joel miller finds himself stood throwing a ball back and forth for a dog.

it chases and retrieves, trailing it’s happy self all the way back to him only to spit the ball down at his feet, siting and waiting to repeat the process once more. there’d been a time where this is all he’d wanted: white picket fence, dog in the yard, home-cooked meals filling a house with warmth.

that dream seems so far away now, even as he stands within it.

he cracks his back, huffing out a groan. “no, not again. my back’s fucked as it is, buddy,” with no one around to witness, joel lets himself crouch down onto his knees- both popping obnoxiously as he does so- and rakes his hand over the german shepherd’s head. it whines and makes an attempt to nudge the ball against him, protesting in the only way it can. a scratch to the ear does the trick to distract the animal, to which it tilts its head and forces itself deeper into his blunt nails. “not so bad, are ya? huh?” never in a million years did joel think he’d be talking to a dog when him and tess had set out for their routinely visit to the bill and frank’s. never would he have thought that would be the least shocking event to unfold on this trip.

he hears you before he sees you.

“you planning to make your knees familiar with every surface of this place, texas?”

he tries to rise, he truly does, but the four-legged foe he’d been petting mere seconds ago betrays him the instant it catches sight of you, charging past him and knocking him over in the process, ass to floor and head to sky.

the world above is a storm of greys, clouds swallowing one another with a looming threat of danger on the horizon and not a lick of the sun’s warmth seems to make its way through.

so instead, it sends you.

peering over him from above, hair a tangled mess, eyes a wreck of under-bags and sleepless tears, the collar of your jumper lowered just enough at this angle that he can see a tease of cleavage, you radiate a brightness like no other, more dangerous to his naked eyes than uv ray could ever be. he’s squinting again, frown etching itself on his forehead with the threat of becoming permanent soon. a few more years and his face will be nothing but frown lines and crows feet. at the very least, he considers, i’ve survived long enough to wrinkle.

the smile above him is worth a million laugh lines, a kindness laced within it that matches perfectly with the hand you hold out. when he does nothing but stare at it, you wriggle your fingers, enticing him to take a hold. he does most of the work, truthfully, but you play a part in pulling him back to his feet. upright once more, he can’t help but bask in the way he’s able to physically look down on you.

“thanks for tiring him out,” you’re the first to talk. you’re always the first to talk, and he curses you for it. “won’t need to walk him as far tonight.”

a queasy feeling overtakes him at the thought of you walking the dog alone at night, nothing but the moon to light your way. he’ll need to remember to tire the dog out next time he visits. “no problem, thanks... for feeding tess and i.”

“no worries!” you’re so kind, so good, smiling at him with a cheerful chirp in your voice. he can’t wrap his head around how you can bring yourself to treat him this way. “oh, actually, that’s why i came out here, i was looking for tess-” of course you were, when would you ever be looking for him? “hold on!”

you shoot off back inside so quickly that otis just reaches the doorway by the time you return. with an idle pet to his head as you pass by, joel once again sees, in the way such little affection can have the dog so elated, that resemblance between them you’d spoke of. in your hands, you carry an array of containers full of food- soup- each filled to the brim.

“i wanted to give you these, before you guys leave,” you’re explaining yourself, and joel wonders if it’s nerves that bring you to need constant babbling to fill any gaps of silence. he can’t imagine how he could make you nervous and therefore that thought is quick to be discarded. “i know the journey up here and back can be long, consider them a token of my appreciation towards you both for-”

“why don’t ya like me?” he cuts you off.

pathetic, he knows, but he can not stop himself, a deer caught in the headlights of your brightly burning, too-good-to-be-true, too-pure-to-be-fake personality.

you show no signs of hearing him, smile unwavering as you continue to hold out the boxes to him, “there should be enough to last you a few days, if you watch your proportions.”

it’s too much for him to handle- the food, the smiles, the sweetly glistening eyes-, and joel just has to know, needs an answer before the heat of his confusion consumes him entirely in its flames and leaves nothing but his smoking remains.

so he tries again, louder.

“why don’t ya like me?”

“and i’d probably say you’re best to heat it up, especially for tess,” you ignore him, again, lips stretching what can only be described as uncomfortably wider. “winter is sure coming in faster than last year, isn’t it?”

he grabs at your arm, fingers curling round the swell of your bicep as he speaks through gritted teeth, "answer me." like a frightened dog backed into a corner, he bares his teeth and yells his bark.

"for someone who doesn't care,” you try his patience, knowingly or not, and his grip tightens. you don’t flinch, welcoming the sting of his blunt and bitten nails against your flesh. “you sure do talk about my opinion a lot."

"answer the damn question, girl.”

“or, what?” you’ve got him there, he’ll admit, holding no real plan as to how to punish your silence. “you gonna give me the same treatment as last night?”

had he known you’d be so unabashed to mention the events on the kitchen floor so flippantly, as casually as one would speak about the weather, he’d never have dared to get on his knees. truthfully, he’d not given things a second thought, disregarding the later for the now, living in the moment with caution thrown to the wind over what the morning would bring. perhaps he’d hoped you’d been intoxicated enough to dismiss the memory as a nightmare, maybe he’d wished you’d keep away from him to free him of the volatile grip you have on his soul.

instead, you stand tall, proud, eyes fiercely staring back at his own as you challenge him to retaliate, mock you with none of those saccharine smiles you hide harsh tones behind.

joel says nothing.

“how about this, let’s make a deal, like the ones you and bill make.” inching closer, crowding in on his space and forcing him to take note of the smell of freshly cleaned clothes mixed in with your own fragrance. clean, warm, inviting, scents he’d never given meaning to before now. “you get me something, i’ll tell you what you want to know.”

he grunts out a response, hands meeting his hips as he juts out one knee, the shifting of weight between feet a perfect distraction to the rising tension in his worn-out jeans. “what d’ya want? ‘cause if it’s somethin’ like a gun, think again. i ain’t messing with none of bill’s strange politics on you havin’-”

“a dress.”

“a dress?” the statement has him quirking his brow, burning questions swimming in the depths of his eyes as he stares back at you.

“yes, and don’t look at me like that!” it’s hypocritical, he believes, for you to berate him for the looks he sends you when all you do is cast stones his way with your gaze yet shake him to his very core each time you smile. “i need a new one, my favourite one got ruined whilst making soup.”

unaware he’d even began to lean closer, joel’s quick to recoil, as if your words are bullets and his skin the target you hit on the bullseye every time.

“joel!” his name resonates from somewhere in the house.

neither of you dare to break eye contact. again, his name is yelled. this time, he manages to identify tess as the owner of the voice. habits have him used to running to her whenever she calls, but habits have never been caught between the choice of tess or you.

his feet remain glued to the ground.

tess yells once more and, though you speak up, you don’t dare look away. “think you might be needed inside, macho man. your missus is calling.”

“she ain’t my-”

“you two just gonna stand and stare at each other all day, or will you help a woman out already?” tess enters the scene somewhere behind you, a blur of her familiar shape standing out the front door.

only when your head spins and he no longer finds himself lost in the black of your eyes does joel take her in completely, hair clearly damp and complexion a little paled by her hungover body. in her arms, she struggles with the weight of a folded table. you approach first, he follows, his two hands aiding in carrying it out into the front yard as you retighten your grip on the boxes of soup in your arms.

“i should probably,” laying the containers down on the now unfolded table, you fidget with the sleeves in your hands, eyes downcast with something he can only read as guilt. he decides he much prefers the fire they hold when you berate him. “go check on the food, before it burns.”

you’re in the door and out his sight before he can so much as ask you to stay.

tess and him hit the road by noon. earlier than predicted, later than he’d wished for. the bite of cold already marks the air, despite the sun heating the world with its rays. he walks a little ahead, feigning ignorance to the repeated coughing coming from tess and racking his brain for answers.

answers to why he’d never noticed how hoarse she’d been sounding till you pointed it out. answers to what awaited them both upon returning to the qz. answers to when will be their next chance to visit the safe haven bill’s created. answers to why you don’t like him.

i don’t like you, joel.

it motivates him to walk quicker, faster, racing to put as much distance between himself and that damn kitchen floor, miles upon miles not enough to rid him of the dull ache in his knees that goes hand in hand with the throb within his too-tight-jeans. if he were alone, he’d break out in a sprint. but tess is here, he’s not alone, and home will simply have to wait on the passing of time to drag him back to it.

till then, he needs to find a dress.

#joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller oneshot #joel miller fic #pedro pascal smut

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cipheress-to-k-pop · 6 months

Text

the little princess (g.l.)

Pairing: Garfield Logan x Tamaranean!Fem!Reader

Warnings: None i think

Word Count: 3.1k

Summary: If the Titans had a nickel for every time one of Kori's sister's, that she apparently had a very bad relationship with, landed on Earth, they'd have two nickels. Which isn't much but it's weird that it happened twice.

A/N: This is just a little ode to the Starfire that was in the OG Teen Titans show because I just love her so much. She's just a little cutie patootie and I loved all of her quirks and antics. I wanted to make the oneshot a little longer and end with both Gar and her getting together but I realized that it would've been far too long and I didn't want to write all that in the same one-shot.

It was in Dick's poor judgment to listen to the police radio while they were taking the cross-country road trip while getting back to San Francisco. Well, if we're debating Dick's poor judgment, he really should have taken the jet but not like the team could do anything about it now.

They were in Nevada, near Las Vegas when the chatter on the radio went wild. He spared a glance at Starfire, wondering if they should respond but she shook her head. So far, all alerts on the police radio had been insignificant things like disruption of business or public intoxication. Nothing that required their intervention.

So, Dick didn't bother to turn his indicator on for the exit from the highway. That was until they heard something cut through the static, clear as day, "Attention all units, need immediate backup! There's some sort of human flame thrower here! Like that superhero chick!"

They shared a glance and Dick swerved off the road and into the exit, nearly hitting another car in his hurry.

It took longer than it should have to get there, considering Starfire was driving while Dick changed into his Nightwing suit in the bathroom. To say that LVMPD were surprised when an RV rolled up with five superheroes inside was an understatement.

They directed them to the building, the perimeter heavily guarded by multiple officers, all armed.

Once they entered the building, everyone froze, noting how the girl on fire in the middle of the room looked much like the one standing beside them. Her hair was glowing and floating along with her body as she clenched her molten fists.

This never would have happened if they just took the jet.

Before any of them could even come up with a game plan, their target noticed just who was standing there and stopped. When the flames and the nearly blinding glow had subsided, they noticed all that was remaining was a young girl.

"Kori?" She asked curiously, wondering if that was really Starfire or just someone who looked exactly like her. After all, it was a new planet, she didn't know much about the inhabitants here.

"(Y/N)?" Kori breathed out, equal parts shocked and relieved.

The girl's face crumpled, and she broke out into sobs before flying right into her arms, "Kori!"

It was kind of amusing to see Kori attempt to hug you back, considering that you were floating off the ground but once you were consoled, she let you go, and you remained floating a couple feet off the floor at her side.

Kori gestured to the rest of them, and you bashfully hid behind her, scared of the newcomers. Ever since you landed on this planet, they had been nothing but cruel to you. All you had done was use your powers to reheat the tea you were served and suddenly there were men who had pointed weapons at you.

You looked at Nightwing's escrima sticks apprehensively before tucking yourself further behind her back. She spared you a glance before turning to her teammates with a tolerating smile.

"Guys, meet my sister."

"Another sister? Is she gonna try and kill us too?"

"You know Komander?" You asked curiously, floating a bit higher so that your head peeked over Kori's.

"Vaguely." Conner answered and you tilted your head, watching him with a deliberating pout. He seemed a little uncomfortable by your piercing stare, so you averted your gaze before whispering in your sister's ear.

"Are they holding you hostage?"

She chuckled and shook her head before introducing all of them to you by name. You listened attentively, noticing how neither of them bothered to give you smiles aside from the youngest girl and boy named Rachel and Gar.

They had pretty hair. You liked them already.

***

"Another sister you didn't tell us about?" Dick pressed, leaning over the centre console and Kori sighed, running a hand down her face. You were floating in the back of the RV, listening intently to Tim's conspiracies about aliens and attempting to explain your history and more to him.

"I didn't think I had to. I never thought we'd actually have to run into her." She explained and he gave her a hard gaze.

"Yes, but a little heads up would have been nice."

"Well, I didn't know she was going to be here, now did I?!" She snapped and the RV was immediately silenced. She sighed and turned to give the rest of you a reassuring smile and you reluctantly went back to your conversations.

When she was sure they weren't listening, she turned back to Dick, "She's the youngest. After Komander was born without powers, the public and nobles pressed for my parents to have another child. She was born with powers and also the first one in like 5 generations to be born with the power of flight. She's considered a gem in the public eye. She can do no wrong. And she's too young to assume the throne so she's never pressured like Komander, and I were. I'm surprised they even let her off the planet."

Dick cast an uncertain eye on the woman beside him. It was obvious that she had some unresolved issues with you, although he couldn't exactly put his finger on why. From what he gathered, you were pretty delightful and made a cute first impression, unlike the time he met Jason.

"What's this?" You asked loudly, pointing to a hole in their table.

"Um, it's a sink." Gar answered, flustered that you didn't know about its existence, "It's where we wash our hands and dishes and things."

Your face scrunched up, "Well that sounds unhygienic. Can't you just acquire new ones?"

Kori rolled her eyes.

"What are you doing here, (Y/N)?" She asked, finally acknowledging you now that she had wrapped her head around it.

Your brows furrowed at her tone as you flew closer to her, "Maybe I'm assuming but are you perhaps angry with me?"

She scoffed. Of course, you didn't even know when you upset someone. People back home usually jump through hoops for you, so it was no wonder that you had absolutely no idea of other people's feelings or thought that you could do any wrong.

"Yes! What the hell are you doing here?! You can't just come to a planet like Earth and then go around causing trouble!"

"Excuse me?" You asked cautiously, trying to reason with her. You had come here to find your older sister because you thought she would know what to do. The more you spoke with her, the less she seemed like the rightful ruler and more like Komander, "What was I meant to do, Kori'Ander? Our parents were murdered, the crown princess disappeared. People began looking toward me for an answer. What was I meant to tell them?"

She scoffed once again and you were starting to get very irritated by the sound, "Of course, couldn't even run a kingdom for a while."

This struck the wrong chord. You were never quite close with your older sisters; they both considered you the runt of the family and frequently made comments about how you were too young to join them on their excursions. Kori would seem like the doting older sister to the public, but you never really connected.

And Komander hated you since birth.

It was undeniable that your parents treasured you. I mean, how could they not when you constantly strived for their attention. You didn't have any friends growing up and your sisters scorned you when you did nothing wrong, so you depended on your parents for intimacy and connection.

It wasn't rare for you to be floating around the throne room, giggling when your father teased you by attempting to catch you, even though you were way out of his reach.

The people treasured you as well, you realized that very early, when you were first introduced to them as a young girl. You had been hiding behind your mother's gown, intimidated by the sheer amount of people and held her skirt in a tight fist.

You remember your parents cooing at you as they slowly revealed you to the rest of them and then the deafening sound of the crowd cheering. Your parents watched with pride as you began flying to try and see just how many people were there and they cheered louder.

You were adored.

And even though you did want to spend time with your sisters and play with them, you were eventually steered away from them by your parents after you had returned to their room in tears and inconsolable when your sisters had slammed their door in your face when you had just asked to play.

"I'm not the one meant to be running the kingdom, Kori. You are the crown princess. It was your duty to be take over the throne or officially abdicate it. Not mine." You explained, not quite understanding why she was being so negative. This had been her birth right and her path, way before you were even born.

You didn't realize it when you were younger but as you came of age, you understood that your role in the royal family wasn't one of politics or even running the kingdom. You were nothing more than a symbol to the people. Of purity, peace, and hope.

That had been made clear, so why was she suddenly expecting you to take over?

Everyone stared out the window, trying extremely hard to blend into the surroundings. While all of them respected Kori a lot, they all knew that she was impulsive and often said things without thinking them through. While Kori was excellent at giving advice, she herself was awful at controlling her emotions and lashed out often.

Tim began making prayers that they would make it through without something catching on fire.

"I realize that (Y/N)! But you're still the princess in our absence! You should have done something instead of running away and make someone solve your problems for you!"

You gasped, "My problems?! The kingdom that you're the ruler of is my problem? I'm the one who's running away? You're the one who ran so far that you went to a completely different planet! You—You zarbnarf!"

Kori froze, watching as your eyes glassed over with furious tears. Immediately, she regretted speaking to you that way, feeling panic build in her system. It was probably because growing up, she had learnt to grow terrified whenever you began crying around her.

Because you were the golden child. The fragile flower among molten rocks and you were treasured by your parents beyond anything. If either Kori or Komander had made you cry, they usually faced a punishment. That was something that you took advantage of, as an immature, mischievous child. When had you grown up so much?

She wanted to apologize, take it back but her pride was swelling so big in her chest that it clogged her throat. She was still angry and humiliated and all the things she felt as a child began coming back to her.

How could she be so immature? She had no idea what happened on Tamaran, and she had been foolish to think it was still the place she considered home. But it was inevitable for the people to ask about their ruler. She had been running away from the thought for too long.

She had completely forgotten that you were left behind in the chaos.

"You abandoned our family! Our people! And for what? A servant’s quarters on wheels?" You spat, turning away from her. She expected you to throw open the door and fly out but instead you stomped over to the seat beside Gar, not noticing the way he began scrambling to wiggly himself out of the booth and away from you.

He was too slow, and you ended up plopping down onto the seat beside him and he stared apprehensively at you from the corner of his eye.

Kori scoffed, "Why don't you just leave?!"

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms, "I'm done with this conversation but not with you. If your first response to confrontation is to run away, then I can see why you weren't gifted with the power of flight in the first place."

She swelled, puffing out her chest, "You know what—?!"

When Kori realized that you weren't in the mood to talk anymore, she returned to her seat even though she wanted to keep yelling at you. Why did you get to decide when the argument was over? You both weren't on Tamaran anymore and your parents weren't around anymore to scold her for picking a fight with someone so much younger but still, she fumed silently in her seat.

You turned to Gar with an apologetic pout, "I apologize for calling this a servant's quarters. You have a lovely home."

He chuckled at your guilty face, "Yeah, this isn't where we live, we're just using it to get back home."

You gave him a smile, "So you're not feeling hard with me?"

He blushed furiously, ignoring Conner as he laughed quietly into his hand, "Yeah, no hard feelings here."

***

Since you were an "unwelcome" guest in Kori's eyes, you were confined to the couch when you reached the tower. She was expecting you to throw a fit or whine about having to sleep like a servant, but you didn't mind, didn't complain, didn't say anything as you sat silently on the couch.

They didn't know what caused the sudden damp in your mood, you had been smiling the entire trip back, asking questions and making conversation but it was like everything vanished the second you entered their home.

Gar came out of his room in the middle of the night for a snack when he saw you sitting up on the couch, knees pulled to your chest. He thought he would just grab whatever he needed and leave quickly but he heard you sniffle.

"You okay?"

You looked up at him startled, and quickly wiped away your tears before plastering a fake smile on your face, "I am fine. Thank you for asking."

He should have just nodded, giving you an awkward smile before retreating back to his bedroom but he seemed unable to get the apathetic words out at the site of you hiding your faltering smile behind your pink hair.

Superman had kryptonite. He had pretty girls.

"Would you like some ice cream?"

Your brows furrowed in confusion, "Iced screams? What is that?"

He chuckled, finding the way your nose scrunched up absolutely adorable, "Not 'iced screams'. Ice cream."

"Like cold milk?"

"Cold, sweet, hard milk."

You looked mildly repulsed, "I shall decline. Thank you for the offer."

He just breathed out a laugh, sitting next to you with a bowl of cookie dough and two spoons, "Just try it."

You kept giving him cautious glances all while lifting the spoon of the sugary treat to your mouth, watching as he nodded encouragingly and tentatively took a tiny taste (wow alliteration).

Gar had the absolute pleasure of watching your face scrunch up immediately, not expecting it to be that cold but it slowly faded into a small smile at the flavour.

When you had taken another spoon, he glanced at you and noticed your swollen eyes and red nose, "Is everything okay?"

You gave him a small smile and nodded, "I am merely just sick of your home."

He froze in disbelief before reminding himself that you were a literal princess. You were probably very used to luxury and had a literal castle to yourself.

And you're Komander's sister. That part explains a lot.

He shook the thoughts from his head before smiling politely and taking a spoon of ice cream himself when he didn't know how to respond. Luckily, he didn't have to because you continued.

"I know I have been here only a short time, but I miss Tamaran deeply."

The tension in his spine melted away and he slouched with a sigh of relief, "Oh, you're homesick."

You gave him a refined smile, "Yes, I just mentioned about the home-sickness."

"It's not exactly--nevermind."

There was a moment of silence while you quietly ate a couple more spoonfuls of ice cream before Gar spoke again, "No offense but if you miss it so much, why don't you just go back?"

You bit your lip, "My planet is in political instability. I'm unfit to take the throne. So, I vowed to bring the true heir back home."

His brows furrowed, "Why are you unfit to take the throne? You seem smart and powerful."

His compliment had heat raising to your cheeks and you felt a small smile grow on your face before it was dampened by the heavy topic and you sighed, resting your head against the back of the couch.

"My people wish that I take the throne because they see me as a beacon of hope but that is the very reason I am unable. My gift of flight has made me different from the rest of the Tamaraneans, so in a political sense, I have become a figurehead for nobility, equality and neutrality."

He nodded even though he wasn't quite understanding where this was headed.

"Because of this I have been trusted to be a mediator between my planet and others. I am but a symbol of peace. The rulers of other planets trust me because I am not part of the political party on Tamaran. I have never even made my debut into noble society. If I take my place as the ruler, those alliances could fall apart. The common people couldn't possibly understand that."

"So, you're supposed to be this unbiased figurehead but if you acquire any actual power, you think your alliances with other planets will fall apart?" He summarized, wanting to make sure that he actually understood, and you nodded.

"Well, why don't you just tell Kori that? I'm sure she'd understand."

Your eyes drifted to your feet that were folded up onto the sofa, "I was going to, but I lost my temper when she accused me of not taking initiative. She never acknowledged the work I did for my people. I suppose I got defensive."

He placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, giving you a comforting squeeze, "It's alright. Second time's the charm."

Your face scrunched up in confusion and he laughed quietly, "I mean, you should try again tomorrow. Maybe it'll go better this time."

"Ah."

"Hey (Y/N)?"

"Yes, Garfield?"

He offered you a small smile, "If it makes any difference, I really do believe that you did the right thing."

You felt the corners of your mouth tug up, "Thank you, Garfield."

***

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leahrintarou · 8 days

Note

Hi there! How are you? I love your works and I wanted to request a Dabi or Hawks x Reader NSFW oneshot please? Also could you have the font not too small? It’s just I can’t read anything in small fonts.

✩₊˚.⋆ BESTFRIEND'S BROTHER - dabi/touya todoroki

CW: unprotected sex, oral (dabi receives), soft/hard! dom dabi, female reader with female anatomy, fingering, a lot of sexual tension, makeout sesh, stimulation & penetration, uhh...thats it lol

Word Count: 6.2k (no regrets tbh lmao)

Author's Note: hi! i hope you enjoy. this ended up being WAY longer than expected. if you have a request, send it in and i'll be happy to write it!

the weekend at y/n's best friend's house always felt like an escape from her regular life. it wasn’t just the familiar sound of the tv in the background or the scent of home-cooked meals—it was being part of a family that felt like a second home. she dropped her bag by the couch and took a deep breath, already feeling more relaxed.

"glad you're here," fuyumi grinned, flopping onto the couch with her usual laid-back energy. "this weekend’s going to be awesome. we’ve got a full fridge and no one’s gonna bother us."

y/n laughed, sinking into the chair across from her. "just like old times," she said, already feeling the comfort of the place sink in.

"yeah," fuyumi replied, glancing toward the stairs. "oh, heads up—my brother’s back from college. so, if you run into him, don’t let him get on your nerves, okay?"

y/n shrugged casually, though the mention of touya made her stomach flip just a bit. there was something about him—he had this quiet, brooding presence that always made her feel a little uneasy. not in a bad way, just… aware of him. "touya? he’s cool. no big deal."

fuyumi snorted. "alright, just don’t let him pull any of his usual stunts."

the day passed easily enough—video games, snacks, and laughter filling the hours. but as night fell and the house grew quieter, fuyumi went upstairs to sleep, leaving y/n alone in the living room. she was flipping through channels, trying to wind down, when she heard footsteps approaching. looking up, she saw touya standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable.

"still up?" he asked, his voice low and casual.

y/n sat up a bit, startled by his sudden appearance. "yeah, couldn’t sleep," she replied, trying to keep her voice steady.

touya stepped into the room, moving with that easy, quiet confidence he always had. he sat down on the couch next to her, but not too close—just enough that his presence was noticeable. the air between them felt heavier, but not uncomfortable.

"how’s college going?" he asked, glancing at her briefly before looking at the tv. his tone was neutral, like he was making small talk out of habit.

"good," y/n replied, shifting to a more comfortable position. "busy, but good."

touya nodded, leaning back slightly. "yeah, i figured. you seem different, though. not as jumpy as you used to be."

y/n blinked, caught off guard by his observation. "i was never jumpy," she said, though her voice lacked confidence. she couldn’t deny there had been times when just being around him had made her feel awkward, but that had been years ago, right?

touya smirked, giving her a sideways glance. "sure you weren’t."

y/n rolled her eyes, leaning back into the couch and crossing her arms. "okay, maybe a little, but you’ve always had this weird, intimidating vibe, dude."

he raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. "weird and intimidating? great combo," he said, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly in a teasing grin. "yeah, well, you’re not that scary once you get used to it," y/n shot back, feeling more comfortable as their banter eased the tension in the room.

"good to know i’ve lost my edge," he said, his tone light but laced with that usual dryness of his.

the room fell into a quiet lull after that, but it wasn’t the kind of silence that felt awkward. y/n found herself more at ease, the earlier tension slipping away the longer they sat there. she flicked through the channels aimlessly, her focus split between the tv and touya’s quiet presence beside her.

"you come here a lot," he said after a moment, not looking at her this time.

"well, fuyumi’s my best friend," y/n replied easily. "this place feels like a second home."

touya gave a soft hum of acknowledgment but didn’t say anything else. he seemed to be considering her words, his eyes fixed on some distant point on the tv screen. y/n let the silence hang, not sure what else to say, and for once, it seemed like touya didn’t either.

eventually, he stretched and stood up, breaking the quiet between them. "anyway, i should head to bed," he said, running a hand through his hair. "goodnight, y/n."

"night," she replied, watching as he moved toward the stairs.

he paused in the doorway, glancing back at her with a smirk that she couldn’t quite place. "oh, and y/n?" his voice was casual, but there was a glint of something mischievous in his eyes.

"yeah?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

he leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. "i’m just curious. you sure fuyumi’s the only reason you come around here so much?" his tone was light, almost teasing, but there was an edge to it that made her heart skip a beat.

y/n blinked, caught off guard. "what’s that supposed to mean?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. she tried to play it cool, but she could feel her face heating up just a little.

touya shrugged, his smirk deepening. "nothing, just wondering. you’ve been coming here for years—figured maybe there’s more to it."

"dude, seriously?" she huffed, rolling her eyes. "it’s for fuyumi. don’t flatter yourself."

he chuckled softly, clearly enjoying her reaction. "alright, alright. just asking," he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "goodnight, y/n."

"goodnight," she shot back, watching as he finally disappeared up the stairs, leaving her sitting there, heart racing a little faster than she’d like to admit.

even though she knew he was just messing with her, the question lingered in her mind longer than she expected. he was teasing, sure—but it felt like he wasn’t completely guessing either. the thought made her stomach flip, but she shook it off, trying to convince herself it was nothing.

turning off the tv, y/n headed to bed, telling herself she wouldn’t overthink it. but as she lay there in the quiet house, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something between them had shifted, even if just a little.

---

"we'll be back later tonight, y/n!" fuyumi said as she gave y/n a quick hug. she was currently going to some kind of convention with her younger brother shoto. y/n insisted that it be just the two of them go for some bonding time and fuyumi honestly appreciated her consideration.

"yeah, be safe." y/n smiled and fuyumi's closed the door after following behind shoto. y/n went to the kitchen to wash up the dishes. afterall, she'd just finished eating lunch with fuyumi. she was lost in her own thoughts until she felt a presence just behind her, making her jump slightly.

“you always zone out like that?” touya’s voice came from directly behind her, teasing and low, startling her out of her thoughts.

y/n spun around quickly, clutching the dish towel a little tighter than necessary. “geez, touya, you scared me!” she said, trying to calm her racing heart. he had this way of sneaking up on her when she least expected it.

touya leaned against the counter, his usual smirk tugging at his lips. “didn’t mean to. just seems like you’re always deep in thought when you’re alone.” his eyes flicked down to the dish towel in her hands, and he raised an eyebrow. “you didn’t have to do the dishes, you know. we’re not that formal.”

y/n shrugged, turning back to the sink to finish rinsing the last plate. “just trying to be helpful. figured fuyumi would appreciate it.”

he made a small noise of acknowledgment but didn’t move from his spot. she could feel his gaze on her as she dried her hands, the air between them once again filled with that same quiet tension from the night before. but there was something different about it this time—something that made her more aware of his presence, more aware of the way he stood just a little too close.

“so,” he started, his tone casual but carrying an undercurrent of curiosity, “what are you doing today? since you’ve got the place to yourself.”

y/n turned to face him, leaning against the counter opposite him. “not sure yet. maybe just relax, watch some movies. it’s kind of nice having some quiet time.”

touya tilted his head slightly, his eyes never leaving hers. “and you don’t mind being here alone? in my house?” the way he said it, so casual yet laced with something almost playful, sent a small shiver down her spine.

“it’s fuyumi’s house too,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “besides, i’m used to it by now.”

he chuckled softly, the sound low and a little rough. “fair enough. but still... feels different when it’s just us, doesn’t it?”

y/n blinked, not sure how to respond to that. the way he looked at her, so direct, so unapologetically confident, made her feel like he was pulling at something she wasn’t ready to confront.

“you’re... really good at making things awkward, you know that?” she finally said, crossing her arms and trying to play it off with a laugh.

touya’s smirk widened, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “oh, am i? didn’t realize i had that effect on you.” his voice dropped slightly on the last word, and y/n felt her cheeks heat up.

“that’s not—ugh, never mind,” she muttered, turning to put away the towel, hoping he didn’t notice her flustered reaction. but of course, he did.

he pushed off the counter and stepped closer, his movements slow and deliberate. “relax, i’m just messing with you,” he said softly, his voice a little too close to her ear. “but you’re kind of fun to tease, you know.”

y/n shot him a glare, though it lacked any real heat. “yeah, well, don’t get used to it,” she said, her heart beating faster than she would’ve liked. there was something about the way he was acting today—something that felt more intentional, more focused, like he was testing the waters.

“we’ll see,” touya murmured, stepping back finally, giving her some space. “anyway, enjoy your quiet day,” he added, turning toward the stairs. but before he left the kitchen, he paused, glancing over his shoulder with that same unreadable look from last night. “and y/n... if you get bored, you know where to find me.”

she rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop the small smile from tugging at her lips. “yeah, yeah. don’t hold your breath.”

touya chuckled and disappeared up the stairs, leaving her standing there, a mix of confusion and something else swirling in her chest. it was just touya being touya, right? always teasing, always pushing buttons. but for some reason, it felt like there was more to it now, like he was waiting for her to react in a way she wasn’t ready for.

shaking her head, y/n tried to brush it off and went back to cleaning up the kitchen. but even as she went through the motions, her mind kept drifting back to touya’s words, to the way he looked at her, and to the strange feeling that maybe—just maybe—he was right. something between them had shifted, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to face what that meant.

---

after an hour of flipping through channels and trying to distract herself, y/n finally gave in to the boredom that had been creeping up on her. she glanced at the empty living room, then up toward the stairs where touya had disappeared. she really didn’t want to admit it, but the house felt too quiet without fuyumi around, and—whether she liked it or not—touya was the only other person here.

with a resigned sigh, she pushed herself off the couch and made her way upstairs, her footsteps feeling louder than usual on the wooden steps. as she reached the top, she hesitated for a moment before knocking lightly on touya’s door.

“what?” his voice came through the door, sounding both mildly irritated and amused at the same time.

y/n rolled her eyes and pushed the door open slightly. “i’m bored. you wanna watch a movie or something?”

touya, who was lying on his bed with his phone in hand, glanced up at her, one eyebrow raised. “you’re that bored, huh?” he said, smirking as he sat up.

“yeah, well, you’re the only one here,” she shot back, leaning against the doorframe. “so, you in or not?”

he stretched lazily, then stood up, his smirk still firmly in place. “sure, but let’s watch it in here. i’ve got a better tv.” he motioned toward the flat screen mounted on his wall.

y/n hesitated. watching a movie in his room felt... different. more personal. but before she could think too much about it, touya had already grabbed the remote and flopped back onto his bed, patting the space beside him. “come on, i don’t bite. unless you ask nicely,” he added with a teasing grin.

she rolled her eyes again but walked in, sitting down on the edge of the bed, trying to keep some distance between them. “just pick something,” she said, crossing her arms in a show of nonchalance.

touya scrolled through the movie options, his gaze flicking toward her every now and then, clearly enjoying the way she was trying to act casual. “how about a horror movie?” he suggested, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “you know, something to get your heart racing.”

y/n shot him a look. “if you think i’m gonna get scared and cling to you, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“who said anything about clinging?” he smirked, selecting a movie without waiting for her answer. the opening scene flickered onto the screen, the eerie music setting the tone.

they watched in silence for a while, but y/n couldn’t ignore the tension building in the room. she was hyper-aware of touya’s presence next to her—the heat from his body, the way he stretched out comfortably while she sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, trying to act unaffected. every now and then, she’d glance at him out of the corner of her eye, catching the faint smirk that never seemed to leave his lips.

about halfway through the movie, during a particularly quiet scene, touya shifted closer, his arm brushing lightly against hers. y/n tensed up, her heart picking up speed despite her best efforts to keep her cool.

“you okay there?” touya asked, his voice low, teasing. “you seem a little... jumpy.”

y/n scoffed, trying to play it off. “i’m fine.”

but then, his hand moved—slowly, deliberately—and rested on her knee. the touch was casual, almost innocent, but it sent a spark through her that she couldn’t quite ignore. she swallowed hard, focusing on the screen, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her react.

“you sure about that?” touya asked, his voice soft and almost mocking. his fingers brushed lightly against her knee, a barely-there touch that felt far more intimate than it should have.

y/n bit her lip, her heart racing now. she couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or if he was just messing with her, but either way, it was working. she could feel her composure slipping, her breath coming just a little faster.

“you’re... annoying,” she muttered, trying to sound unaffected.

touya chuckled softly, his hand still resting on her knee. “am i? or are you just bad at hiding how flustered you get around me?”

her eyes snapped to his, and she saw the challenge in his gaze, the way he was watching her closely, waiting for her reaction. he was pushing her buttons, testing her limits, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep pretending it wasn’t getting to her.

“i’m not flustered,” she shot back, her voice a little too defensive.

“sure you’re not,” he murmured, his thumb brushing ever so lightly over her skin now, the sensation sending a shiver up her spine.

y/n clenched her fists, determined not to let him see how much he was affecting her. “you’re ridiculous,” she muttered, turning her attention back to the screen, though she couldn’t focus on the movie anymore.

touya leaned in closer, his breath warm against her ear. “maybe. but you’re not moving away, are you?”

her breath hitched slightly, and she cursed herself for not pulling away earlier. he was right—she hadn’t moved, hadn’t told him to stop. and now, with him this close, his touch lingering, it was harder to remember why she hadn’t.

“i—” she started, but the words caught in her throat as his hand slid up just a little higher, resting on her thigh now, his fingers curling slightly against her skin.

the tension between them was almost unbearable, the air thick with something unspoken, something that felt like it had been building for a while now. y/n’s mind raced, torn between the urge to push him away and the undeniable pull that kept her frozen in place, her pulse quickening with every second that passed.

“still think i’m annoying?” touya’s voice was barely above a whisper now, his lips dangerously close to her ear, the teasing edge in his tone softened by something else—something darker, more serious.

y/n swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her chest. “yes,” she whispered back, though the word came out shaky, betraying her.

touya chuckled, his hand squeezing her thigh gently before finally pulling away, leaving her skin tingling in the absence of his touch. he leaned back against the pillows, his smirk firmly in place, but there was a new intensity in his eyes, one that made her stomach twist in ways she wasn’t ready to admit.

“you’re fun, y/n,” he said, his voice casual again, though the tension in the room hadn’t fully dissipated. “but you’re not as good at hiding things as you think you are.”

y/n exhaled slowly, trying to steady herself. “shut up,” she muttered, but there was no real bite to her words.

he laughed softly, turning his attention back to the movie, but y/n could still feel the weight of his gaze, the unspoken challenge lingering in the air between them. whatever game they were playing, she wasn’t sure if she was winning—or if she even wanted to.

as the movie continued to play, the room felt heavier, thick with unspoken tension. y/n tried to focus on the screen, but her mind kept drifting back to the way touya's hand had felt on her thigh, the lingering warmth of his touch making it hard to think straight.

he didn't say anything for a while, content to watch the movie-or at least, that's what it seemed like. but y/n could feel him stealing glances at her, could sense the quiet anticipation in the air. it was as if they were both waiting for the other to make the next move, teetering on the edge of something neither of them could ignore any longer.

her heart raced as she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, catching the way his smirk had softened into something less teasing, more serious. his eyes weren't on the tv anymore- they were on her, and the intensity in his gaze sent a shiver down her spine.

"you're really not into this movie, are you?" touya's voice cut through the quiet, low and knowing.

y/n huffed, shifting in place. "i'm watching," she insisted, though the tremor in her voice betrayed her. she could feel the tension growing with each passing second, her pulse quickening as the weight of his stare made her hyper-aware of the space between them.

or rather, the lack of space.

"really?" touya's tone was teasing again, but there was something deeper in it now-something more focused, more deliberate. "cause it seems like you're a little... distracted."

y/n's breath hitched as he shifted closer, his knee brushing against hers now. she could feel the heat radiating off him, the pull between them growing stronger with every second.

"maybe it's you who's distracting," she shot back, her voice steadier than she expected, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him. not yet. not when her heart was pounding this fast.

touya chuckled, the sound low and rough, and she could feel the way it vibrated through her. "you think so?"

finally, she turned to face him, and the moment their eyes met, it was like the air was sucked out of the room. the teasing smirk on his face had faded, replaced by something darker, something she wasn't sure she could resist any longer. his gaze dropped briefly to her lips, then back to her eyes, the silent question clear.

she swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. "what are you doing, touya?"

"what do you think i'm doing?" he murmured, his voice softer now, but laced with a kind of confidence that made her stomach twist in ways she couldn't ignore. his hand reached up, fingers brushing lightly against her cheek, the touch so soft it sent a shiver down her spine.

y/n's breath caught in her throat, her mind racing. she knew where this was headed, knew that if she didn't stop it now, there'd be no going back. but the more she thought about it, the less she wanted to stop. the pull between them was too strong, the tension too thick, and it felt like they'd been building to this moment for longer than either of them wanted to admit.

"touya..." she whispered, but the protest in her voice was weak, barely there.

he didn't say anything, just leaned in a little closer, his thumb brushing against her lower lip, making her breath hitch again. his eyes were locked on hers, and in that moment, everything else faded away-the movie, the room, the fact that this was fuyumi's house. all that mattered was him, and the way he was looking at her, like he was daring her to close the distance.

and then, without thinking, she did.

it was like something snapped inside her, all the tension that had been building between them finally breaking free. her hand reached up, fingers curling into his shirt as she pulled him toward her, their lips crashing together in a kiss that was more desperate than she'd expected.

touya responded instantly, his arms wrapping around her as he deepened the kiss, pulling her closer. his lips were warm, firm, moving against hers with a kind of urgency that matched the wild thrum of her pulse. she could feel the heat of him.

y/n gasped as his teeth grazed her lower lip, sending a jolt of electricity through her, and touya took the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth, the kiss growing hotter, more intense. her mind was spinning, her heart racing, and she could barely think straight-only feel the way his body pressed against hers, the way his hands roamed up her back, pulling her impossibly closer.

she wasn't sure how long they kissed- time seemed to blur, the movie forgotten in the background. all that mattered was the heat between them, the way his lips felt against hers, the way his hands gripped her waist like he didn't want to let go.

eventually, they pulled apart, both of them breathing heavily, their foreheads resting together as they tried to catch their breath. y/n's mind was racing, her lips tingling, and she couldn't quite believe what had just happened.

"you-" she started, her voice shaky, but touya cut her off with a soft, breathless laugh.

"you started it," he teased, though his voice was husky, his breath warm against her cheek.

y/n rolled her eyes."shut up," she muttered, though there was no heat behind it.

touya's grin widened, his fingers brushing against her cheek again, softer this time. "you don't want me to," he said, his voice low and teasing, but there was something softer in his gaze now-something that made her heart skip a beat. "and you know that."

she didn't respond, just leaned in and kissed him again, slower this time, savoring the way his lips felt against hers. because as much as she wanted to pretend this was just a fluke, something told her that whatever had just started between them wasn't going to end anytime soon.

as their slow kiss deepened, the tension between y/n and touya became almost unbearable. every touch, every brush of their lips seemed to pull them closer, the heat building between them in a way that felt impossible to ignore. y/n’s hands instinctively gripped the fabric of his shirt, pulling him toward her with more urgency as the kiss grew hungrier, more desperate. touya responded in kind, his grip tightening on her waist, his hands sliding down to her hips as he pulled her flush against him.

the soft, teasing touches from before had given way to something far more intense, more primal, and y/n could feel the shift between them. the air was thick with unspoken desire, and with every kiss, every touch, it became harder to think clearly, harder to hold back.

touya broke the kiss just long enough to murmur against her lips, his voice rough with barely contained need. "you’re driving me insane, sweetheart. if you’re having second thoughts, say it now—or else I’m gonna assume that you actually hate me." there was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, like he was giving her one last chance to stop, but the way his hands gripped her hips told her that he wanted this just as much as she did.

y/n’s breath was shaky as she looked up at him, her pulse racing in her ears. the question hung in the air, and for a moment, she considered pulling back, considered the implications of where this was heading. but the moment she met his gaze, filled with desire and something deeper, she knew that there was no going back now—not with the way her body responded to him, not with the way her heart raced every time he touched her.

instead of answering with words, y/n kissed him again, harder this time, her hands slipping up to tangle in his hair as she pressed herself against him. it was all the confirmation he needed.

touya groaned softly into the kiss, his hands sliding from her hips to her waist, pulling her closer as he shifted, guiding her onto his lap. the feeling of being so close to him, straddling him as his hands roamed up her back, sent a thrill through her that made her shiver. she could feel the heat radiating from him, the growing intensity of his touch as he explored her body with a newfound sense of urgency.

his lips moved to her neck, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along her skin, and y/n couldn’t suppress the soft moan that escaped her. her body was reacting to him in ways she hadn’t expected, and the way his hands gripped her thighs, kneading the flesh through the fabric of her bottoms, only made her want more.

“touya…” she breathed, her voice shaky as his lips continued their assault on her neck, sending waves of pleasure coursing through her. she felt his teeth graze her skin, not quite biting but enough to make her moan again, her body arching against him instinctively. "please..." she practically whined when he only continued to tease her.

she felt the strain of the tented area just beneath her sex. she took advantage of this, forcefully grinding down against him and touya let out a strained moan. "watch it, y/n." he warned, his teeth closing to pinch an area of the skin on her neck. she ignored his words, doing it once more, making him draw back with a deep moan.

touya removed his hand from y/n's waist, his digits firmly grasping her throat. "what did fuck did i just tell you, angel?" he mutters through a heavy breath. she allowed a smile to appear onto her lips. he needed her just as much, but he was dead-set on getting y/n to corrupt before him. he pulled away from her, holding her gaze for a long second.

lust.

the two we're the epitome of that very word. "let's see if that quick mouth of yours is only good for talking shit." touya released y/n from his grip and she slid her straddling position further down to his thighs. he used his hand to gently grasp her nape as she made quick movements to pull down his sweatpants and breifs. she was met with his teased and desperately hard length.

she looked up at him, holding his gaze as her tongue lapped up the leaking pre-cum. touya let out a breathless moan at the warm pleasure to the sensetive area. his grip on her nape tightened when her lips clasped around him, lowering her head as she gradually took in more of his length. she let her jaw relax and shut her eyes tightly as she tried to focus on taking in as much as she could.

"f-fuck." touya moaned, his bottom lip catching between his teeth as he fought to hold his composure. "more." he moaned, breath hitching in his throat when y/n lifted her head before the tip of her nose met with his lower abdomen once again. y/n continued this motion, only stopping to take a deep breath. touya held y/n's nape, not allowing her back up. she reached for his hand, interlocking his fingers with his own. she tried her best to hold out for a few more seconds and finally gave his hand three squeezes. touya imeedietly released her and she came up with a gasp, glaring at him.

"good job, angel." he smiled, eyes focused on her reddened lips. when touya's eyes flickered back up to her own, he saw the small frown on her lips. "don't be like that. I'll let you fuck me, but i tell you what to do." he leaned closer to her, placing his lips against hers. "remember that." he watched as y/n rolled her eyes, making him let out a small laugh.

"say's who?" y/n questioned, allowing touya's fingers to trail just beneath the hem of her shirt. his fingers were warm against her even warmer skin, causing her to shudder slightly. "who do you think?"

"what makes you so confident touya?" it was a genuine question on y/n's part. every action he made was never hesitated and neither were his words. "because you haven't stopped me," he says, fingers trailing just beneath the waistband of both layers of clothing. "not even when i do this." two pads of touya’s digits pressed against her bud, massaging the area as y/n leaned into his touch and pressed her forehead against his shoulder.

she let out a moan of his name and touya pressed his lips against the shell of her ear. "if you don't tell me exactly what you want, angel -- i cant give it to you." touya continue and y/n wrapped her fist around his wrist. she whined, head feeling foggy from the pure feeling of bliss and pleasure. she used a free hand to wrap around touya’s length but he held her hand, stopping her from doing anything.

"you can have me, sweetheart, but you gotta come first."

that only drove y/n to grind herself against his fingers. touya was amused by how desperate she was becoming. he was desperate himself, but he'd hold out for however long it took if it meant getting to see y/n fall apart just from his touch.

as she continued, her moans heightened and her breath quickened, making touya pull his fingers away. "touya, are you trying to kill me?" she groaned. "now why would i ever want that?" the smirk on his lips made y/n feel more vulnerable than before. she needed him and they both knew that. "let me make you feel good." y/n nodded to his words with pleading eyes and lifted herself up a bit to remove her restricting layers of clothing.

y/n let out a small cry at the new sensation of him being inside of her. she was hesitant to relax and let herself take in the rest of him. touya reached for her hands, interlocking his fingers in-between her own. "relax, you can take it. i know you can." while it seemed that he was trying to comfort her, his tone said otherwise.

it was taunting-- teasing even. like he was daring her to do so. like he wanted to prove that he would always be above her when it came to this unspoken competition thats been the blueprint of their relationship since the first time they met. she did just that.

touya let out a sigh of satisfaction at the engulfed warmth against him. his strokes were tedious and slow. with every one, the smile on his lips grew wider since y/n's was completely unraveling beneath his touch. he attempted to control his breaths, but if he was being honest with himself, he could topple over the edge given the right movement.

he swore to himself that he wouldn't let that happen. not until he got y/n to finish first. that task was incredibly easy since the minute he pulled her down to him to give her a long and lustful kiss, y/n bit down on his bottom lip due to the pleasure. the change in positioning allowed touya to reach that spot that never failed to make her entire being weak.

"touya.." she drew out a long whine. he hummed, adjusting for her to face him. she held his gaze as he spoke. "words, n/n." he said, waiting for her to reply. she only let out a small whimper at the lack of pleasure. "what? you goin' dumb on me?" he teased, making her gare. she shook her head, not even caring how weak she looked when it came to he and his words.

"tell me what you want. fuyumi might be coming back soon. i can't give you what you want if she's here and able to hear her bestfriend losing her mind over-"

"shut up, touya." y/n groaned. "make me come. that's what i want. is that good enough for you?" she finally spoke. he analyzed her features, her eyes welled with a coat of tears. "please." her voice barely louder than a whisper.

he didn't bother to reply and only gave her what she wanted. what he wanted as well. but she could never know that, could she? pleasure-filled noises filled the room, the heat of their bodies fueling them all the more. touya held y/n close to his chest as she took one of her hands from his own to ball his shirt into her fist. anything to ground herself to reality. he was pushing her over the edge physically and mentally. call it a sick game of his, it was being enjoyed by the both of them.

the sounds bouncing off of the walls being proof of that.

his toungue dragged over her neck as the warmth in her abdomen heated. the sensation riveting in her core caused the tightening coil to finally snap. y/n cried out and touya gripped her hips tightly as she clenched down on him. "y/n." he groaned at the action. he quickly lifted her from his length despite her reluctance and pleas. he replaced the void with his fingers, shutting her up and helping her riding out her high as she grinded her bud against his palm. she moaned, eyes shut tightly.

as she finally began to settle from her high, she was about to let herself relax, but touya spoke. "that's selfish of you, y/n. besides, don't you think you deserve what you worked so hard for?" his hand was wrapped around his length. y/n wanted to say no. damage his high ego even if it was just a small amount. yet, she couldn’t.

his expanded pupils met with her own as his eyelids were low, capturing every movement she made, including the one where she used up the last bit of her energy to lean down to his lap and once again taking in the current most sensetive part of his entire being. he mumbled small praises to y/n as she pleased him. she let out a hum around him when his hand firmly gripped her nape to pull her off of him.

"y/n, i'm gonna come." he warned. like mentioned before, the blueprint of their relationship was some sort of competition, so when touya couldn't physically stop his body from going over the edge, the warmth of his arousal spouting from the tip of his length and meeting y/n's tongue just before she swallowed, he knew that he no longer was above y/n. they were even once again and y/n knew that. infact, it was her goal.

she released him, chest heaving after holding her breath for such a long period of time. she used the back of her hand to wipe away the remains of his come that had made its way to the corner of her lips. "can't let me have anything can you?" touya rolled his eyes, pulling y/n towards him.

she couldn’t even have control over her weakened body as her head met with his warm chest.

"you can't tell fuyumi about this, touya." y/n said, now serious as they both began to settle down from the adrenaline endorsed moment.

"why would i spoil the fun, angel? I'd love to see how long you can keep your cool."

likes, reblogs, and comments are well appreciated! <3

got a request? send it in and i'll write it :D

Taglist: @nemoo888 @delicatexmoonchild @flowerpjimin @tedcruzumakii @sugacor3 @selysixn @mitsuyas-version @matchaismylove @cyberrthegreat @ivydoesit23 @riririntaro @ilovechickfilasauce @sincerelyzee @daydreamteardrop @greenmanshoe @scatteredskittless @seastarchive @tired-jaz

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nataliasquote · 5 months

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One shot idea : baby yn and worried mama Nat waking up at every single little noise she makes and her singing her baby back to sleep

I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You

Double the trouble AU

Summary: Natasha lulls her restless daughter to sleep with simply a song

Warnings: none

wc: 704

note: this request was so cute! it’s a lot shorter than my usual oneshots, but I still love it

-⧗-

Cries echoed from the nursery and both moms shot awake, their blissful 50 minutes of sleep now disrupted. Wanda winced, the sound of her daughter sending panic through her body. But Natasha shook her head and swung her legs out from the warmth of the comforter, urging Wanda to stay in bed. The new mother didn’t need telling twice and she settled back against the covers, watching as Nat pulled on some long pyjama pants to fight off the cold.

The nursery door was open slightly and Natasha pushed it open, wiping the sleep from her eyes as the relentless cries hit her full force. They were coming from Y/n’s crib so she quickly checked on Isla, who was surprisingly fast asleep, her little arms raised above her head.

With a contented hum, Natasha moved back over to the other side of the room and scooped her wailing daughter into her arms, holding her tightly to her chest as she made her way downstairs. For a small baby, she sure was loud.

“Shh malyshka, please,” Natasha pleaded, bouncing her daughter against her chest. “What’s wrong my darling?”

Obviously the six week old in her arms wasn’t about to respond, so Natasha quickly heated up a bottle of milk and brought it up to her wrist to check the temperature, just like the books had told her to.

But Y/n didn’t care when the bottle was brought to her lips, she just turned her head and kept crying, her face bright red and screwed up. Natasha tried a couple more times, rubbing it along her lips almost in desperation. The stone floor of the kitchen was freezing her bare feet but she didn’t notice. Too hung up on trying to be a good mom.

“Ok, if you’re not hungry, did something spook you?” She was thinking aloud as she padded over the soft carpet to the couch, sinking down into the corner and holding Y/n close. “It’s ok, you’re safe, malyshka. Mama’s got you.”

With this new position, Y/n’s head was resting against Natasha’s chest, her warm cheek burning against her mother’s cool skin. Her cries subsided momentarily before they started up again and Natasha bit her lip.

“Is that what you like? Mama’s skin?” Y/n sniffled again and Natasha took that as a yes, pulling the neck of her tank top down just that little bit further so Y/n could nuzzle into her collarbones whilst she still stayed modest.

Natasha thought she’d finally hit the jackpot when Y/n settled down and her cries faded to whimpers. But when was she ever that lucky? Not even ten seconds had gone by before the piercing sound piped up again and a small part of her wanted to cry too.

“Malyshka,” she cooed, stroking the frown lines that had etched themselves on her daughter’s head. “You’re okay sweet girl, you’re okay.” She kept muttering words to her daughter and rocking her gently, stroking her back as they laid on the couch together.

Y/n finally stopped crying as Natasha spoke, and finally it all clicked.

“You like Mama’s voice, don’t you?” It made sense. Natasha’s voice was deep and it resonated in her chest, creating a comforting vibration for a restless baby. Y/n fussed but her eyes fluttered closed, finally content.

Natasha followed suit, unable to keep her eyes open any longer. But even in her sleepy state, she didn’t let her arms relax or Y/n slip. She was too paranoid for that.

A small whine escaped Y/n’s lips moments later and Natasha shot awake, looking down at her daughter with a frown. But she seemed content and Natasha allowed herself to relax against the cushions once more.

She traced her finger down the slope of her daughter’s nose, humming softly. The beginning of a song she’d heard on the radio earlier reverberated in her chest, soothing both mother and baby. She was an incredibly worried mom, the slightest noise or sign of discomfort from either of the twins setting alarm bells ringing in her head. But her babies were fine, they always would be.

“But I can’t help,” she sang softly, “falling in love with you.”

#natasha romanoff #marvel #fanfic #natasha romanoff x reader #double the trouble au #natasha romanoff x daughter!reader #wandanat #black widow #wanda maximoff x daughter!reader

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piratefishmama · 1 year

Text

Angel | Steddie Oneshot

Eddie Munson never believed that he’d go to Heaven. Sure he’d been raised in a catholic household, his uncle was religious, he’d been raised to give thanks for the food they ate, to pray before bed that should he not wake, his soul the lord take an all that jazz.

Wouldn’t believe it to look at him, to hear the songs he sang, the music he played. Wouldn’t believe how he’d been raised if one were to go by covers instead of contents.

But despite his upbringing in the very catholic Munson Trailer of Forest Hills Trailer Park, he never believed he’d go to heaven. Something about queers and submitting to sin and blah blah blah it’d been a long-ass time since his last confession, but Uncle Wayne stopped reminding him a few years back, so he had an excuse to keep ‘forgetting’ to do it.

Turns out, one did not need to go to confession to make it to heaven!

Angels would just. Turn up, apparently.

Maybe he’d done something good that he wasn’t aware of, he did go to that Make A Wish thing a few weeks back, DM’d a whole one shot for the kids, he’d spent hours there, a whole dang day just… hanging out with sick kids.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was what brought this heavenly creature to his side.

To cut a long story short, he was on stage one minute, belting out the lyrics from the final verse of the last song in their set ‘Into the Underdark’, Jeff was slipping into the ending guitar solo, Eddie was gearing up for an end of gig crowd surf and the next.

The next he was looking into a bright, blinding light that kept moving between his eyes.

He’d always been told not to go to the light. If you see it? Don’t go to it, going to it would make whatever trip you were going on a one way ticket, there was no going back when you reached that light. Just hang back, wait for the resuscitation, it’d happen, someone would breathe life back into you, or whack you with enough voltage to get that heart kickin again, just don’t go into that light.

That light was way too close to his eyes, and he couldn’t swat it away. His arms felt tied down. Rude.

And then the light was gone, had he reached it? Was that it? One way ticket stub punched, sorry Earth, Munson out. “Mr Munson? Can you hear me?” Oh what heavenly chorus, the light had momentarily blinded him but shit… when his sight came back, at least enough to make out the vague shape of a very square jaw, of angular features, of warm hazel eyes, and a luscious head of hair surrounded by a halo of brilliant white light.

Angel. He had an audience with an Angel. It could only be an Angel. Neat.

He’d enjoy the ‘I Told You So’ he got from his uncle whenever the old goat made it up there he hoped it wouldn’t be soon though, he’d prefer a longer wait than a short one, thanks.

“Mnn… I hear you big boy, are you sure I’m in the right place though? I’ve been told Heaven wouldn’t want me” it sounded smooth in his head, but he was pretty sure he slurred half the words.

How could he have a slurred voice in Heaven? That didn’t seem fair.

Oh he’d forgive the slurred speech bit if the angel kept making that wonderful music with his vocal chords, that little giggle of a laugh, so bubbly and sweet, yep. Somehow he’d weaselled his way into Heaven. Suck it soccer moms. “Well, at least you can summon the strength to be charming.”

He was charming? An angel thought he was charming? Hell yeah, he’d rock this heaven shit, he already had an in with the big, winged boys!

“I can summon the strength for other stuff too, worship ain’t ever really been my thing but, baby I think I can learn for a literal Angel” he’d subject himself to an afterlife on his knees gladly if it meant he’d have his hands curled around this creature’s thighs, his mouth on—

“Oh wow…” Eddie couldn’t really see it properly thanks to the lovely blinding spots in his eyes that was no doubt his eyes adjusting to heavenly light, but he was sure his angel was blushing, he sounded a little breathless. Good. “You’re uh… wow”

Eddie hadn’t had much charm before becoming world famous but, he’d gained a little experience. Women and men alike throwing themselves at him, knowing he wasn’t all that fussed, babes were babes. All genders welcome to hop on and take a ride. He knew it was mostly the fame, he was still the same nerd he’d been back in high school, but… if fame got him laid then fame got him laid.

At the very least it gave him the experience to flirt with one of Gods pretty little birds. Maybe even score if the reaction he got was any indication.

So much for lust being a punishable sin, huzzah.

Steve was having a day. Okay no, Steve was having a whole week. The only upside to his overtime riddled ass, was that Robin had been on the majority of his shifts with him, so they could at least talk in the ambulance while they roamed the streets waiting for chaos to drop.

Monday, it’d been a seven car pileup on the highway, a few lost limbs, no fatalities but one hell of a close call on two accounts.

Tuesday, it’d been a tumble at a care home resulting in a popped hip and some heavy flirting from a few old ladies. Poor Robin suffering it from a few old men trying to shoot a shot they didn’t have.

Wednesday it’d been crisis after crisis resulting in him not finishing his shift until six hours after he was meant to finish his shift.

Thursday he had one blessed night off, thankfully his on-call status hadn’t dragged him in, and he got a decent six hour nap in.

Friday, another car wreck, he didn’t want to think about that one.

And now Saturday.

Dispatch sent them to the sold out arena, some idiot had leapt off the stage likely for a crowd surf, his foot tangled in an amp chord, it reduced his air time dramatically and he brained himself on one of the guard rails.

Excellent. At least he wasn’t dead.

Which given how easily one could wind up six feet under from such a whack to the head, he was lucky.

They parked by the side exit, shuffled in by security, and right through into the arena. The patient hadn’t been moved as per dispatchers instructions to the person who’d called. No moving the idiot until the professionals arrived and determined it safe.

Cameras, flashing lights, big beefy security guards standing in front of them blocking the majority of what was happening from view, there was… quite a bit of blood there. It didn’t look pretty in that lighting. “The crowd’s too much, let’s get him to the ambulance.” Robin’s patience didn’t exist when it came to large crowds.

Too many people. Plus she’d been on shift five hours longer than he had.

“Alright, you two, c’mere” Steve singled out two of the big security guys “we’re gonna need you to help us get him onto the gurney, we’ll look him over in the back of the ambulance.” There were no broken bones, nothing stopping them from moving him just enough to get him to the ambulance unscathed.

And then, somewhere between writing out paperwork, checking vitals, and Robin googling who this guy was, said guy… woke up.

Steve, being closer, was quick to check responsiveness, pupils reacted well to light although a concussion did look likely, they’d cleaned up the blood and found the cause to be a cut just above his left eyebrow that’d probably make a kickass scar and oh.

Without the blood. Oh. Oh he was pretty. Pretty plump lips, long lashes, deep brown eyes, faint freckles across his nose. All that hair. He was pretty.

“Mr Munson? Can you hear me?” He’d asked, while shining that little torch into those pretty brown eyes, left to right to check the responsiveness. And then he spoke and Steve— well. Robin was eyeballing him judgementally pretty damn hard given how fast his face flamed red.

Her head in her hands, her fingers plugged into her ears as Munson rattled off promises of worship and good lord— Steve didn’t know what to say, what to do, what does one do when a hot yet slightly delirious rockstar offers to worship your ‘angelic body’?

What does one do with that?

One awkwardly stutters through thanks while bright red and toasty until they can part with the guy at the ER wishing he’d met him under better circumstances cause it’d been a long ass time since anyone even touched him let alone worshipped him but accepting that he’d probably never see the guy again, so it didn’t really matter.

Until a few days later when the official Corroded Coffin account slid into his DM’s on Instagram, apologised profusely, and requested very sweetly to make it up to him with dinner the next time he was free.

Signed Eddie. With a little angel emoji. How on earth could he say no to that?

#steddie #piratewrites #Rockstar!eddie munson #Paramedic!steve harrington #SHITPOST FICLET #i have no excuse for this

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ox-imagines · 3 months

Text

Tokyo Debunker as Romance Tropes

Feel free to ask me to write a longer imagine/oneshot for any of these!

Pt. 2 | Vagastrom

Pt. 1 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 | Pt. 7

Alan - Bodyguard

Almost everywhere you go, you have a detail of bodyguards, protecting you from harm and prying eyes. As such, one of them is almost always with you to ensure your safety, and it’s often your personal favorite. Alan doesn’t even realize he’s your favorite, he just thinks it’s him because he’s the strongest and most vigilant. One night while he’s standing guard outside your door, you ask him to come in your room, insisting that it’s warmer there than in the hallway and at least he could sit while watching you. Reluctantly, he agrees. He starts to sit in a chair, but you grab his hand, tugging him gently over to sit on your bed while you slept. He still isn’t aware of your feelings for him, but now he’s got some of his own that he’s not quite sure what to do with.

“This is unprofessional… are you sure this is ok? Fine, you’re the boss…”

Sho - Enemies to Lovers

At first, Sho comes off as indifferent, directionless, and a bit cold. His attitude bothers you so much, but you’re given an assignment you’re partnered for. He’ll disagree with you about almost anything, but won’t even actually fight you on it, which is honestly worse. If he doesn’t like what you want to do, why doesn’t he suggest something he wants to do? His apathy brings out the worst in you and eventually he does snap, yelling back at you about how obnoxious it is to try and work with you and he wishes you’d just finish the assignment yourself if you didn’t actually want his input. The argument somehow ends in a very heated makeout session, after which he seems at least a little more invested and agreeable about how to do your assignment.

“Why should I give a fuck? Just do it yourself if you care so much instead of getting on my case for not caring! We can’t all be perfe- …oh. Shit, what, what are you doing…?”

Leo - Fake Relationship

Leo was kind of a friend of yours; you had a family wedding coming up and had recently led your family to believe you had a boyfriend, and unfortunately your other friends were busy that weekend. You asked Leo, and first he laughed at you, but then he decided it might be a good ‘marketing ploy’ to act like your boyfriend and promote himself to all the other wedding attendees. He acts caring around others but is still merciless towards you whenever you’re alone about how ‘funny’ it is you were so desperate you had to ask him of all people. He notices though that your family doesn’t seem to like you much, giving you underhanded compliments and sideways comments all night, and you take it like it’s nothing but he notices the way your eyes waver. It resonates with some part of him he thought he’d cut himself off from, and by the end of the night he’s not teasing you anymore and his arm around your waist feels a bit more sincere.

“I know your mom didn’t like the dress you picked, but for what it’s worth, I think you look good enough to even put on my SNS. I bet my followers would go crazy if I posted you looking like this.”

#tokyo debunker #tokyo debunker x reader #tdb #vagastrom #alan mido #shohei haizono #sho #leo kurosagi #i don't even like leo but his is my favorite #how did i manage to make him redeemable

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gg-pedro · 6 months

Text

spin worlds - joel miller x reader oneshot

masterlist

summary: strings attached are easy enough to ignore when you're only trying to survive. when joel gets hurt, the world stops spinning, and you realize that you matter more to each other than you ever let yourselves believe.

warnings: 18+ MDNI, post outbreak!joel, boston!era, joel x reader, AFAB!reader, protective!joel, implied age gap, non-established relationship, set a few years before tlou hbo, hurt/comfort, non-gratuitous descriptions of a wound, hurt!joel, unprotected piv, fingering, end of the world sex, rough!joel, heavy on the petnames, drug/alcohol use, lots of feelings, its boston QZ joel so, angst with a happy ending, angst with fluff

words: 3.6k

a/n: is this what i really think the people want? maybe! is this what I want? absolutely yes!!!!!!!!!

Hundreds of nights spent with Joel since you’d been in Boston. Thousands of hours, words spoken to each other, yearning to stay in his arms longer and say more.

The time you had with each other used to feel fleeting. Always after dark, sneaking around the QZ like you were teenagers together. It was a strictly private thing. It was almost like the two of you kept it a secret to feel a kind of thrill again, something from a past life, as if there was still right and wrong in the world and a little bit of something wrong was all you had left.

That thrill wore off eventually, and you were with Joel for more than just the adrenaline hit. He made things more bearable and cut you deeper all at the same time.

Flattened on his bed for yet another night, you got the feeling that something was bothering him.

The sensation of cotton sheets was rough against your skin, acting as a futile means to abate the cold that was swirling through the apartment and raising the hairs on your arms. Your view was of his back, and the long, jagged scar that ran close to his spine. You reached your hand out to touch him and he flinched away.

“‘M goin’ out tomorrow. Without you,” he said, before you even had to ask. “Too many close calls lately.”

His voice was quiet and rough, sore from the dry air. You tried your luck at smoothing a hand across his shoulder, and this time he let himself lean into it.

“Doesn’t seem like that means you should go alone.” You pressed a kiss against his shoulder blade.

He turned his head to the side, not far enough to look you in the eye but far enough to confirm that you were there and not some twisted hallucination that he had dreamed up. “I’ll come back fine. I always do.”

Joel had this talent of convincing others that his word was his bond. He hardly had to try. When he spoke, it was like everyone sensed that they were in the presence of a kind of profit, and that he was privy to some knowledge or confidence that could keep people alive.

It didn’t help that he seemed to hold all of the knowledge in the world– knowledge about the important things. He could fix the leaky faucet in your bathroom blindfolded. Always knew what direction he was going in. Knew how to tie a million useless knots. Could look up to the night sky and point to Polaris like he was pointing to a map of Austin, showing you his old favorite diner that he went to every Saturday. I’ll come back fine. I always do.

But Joel didn’t know anything. You’d been close enough to see that. He was just as frightened as you. But now more than ever, you wanted to trust him. Turn your back and fall, bet on the fact that he would stop the world from spinning to be there in time to catch you.

Perhaps you were too easy, too willing to take what he gave. It was still heaven. Heaven, in a crumbling apartment building, sometimes with your restless mind placated by downers, draped across his silhouette. Sometimes you wondered, between the two of you, who deserved this life less. When you thought about it for too long, the answer was always Joel.

“Who are you meeting?”

He rubbed his palm against his forehead in slow circles. “One of my guys. Said he wasn’t gonna smuggle into the QZ anymore, son of a bitch.”

You only hummed in response, working your thumb into the knot in his shoulder. “And you trust him?”

“No.” He turned fully this time, his big hands roaming to the small of your waist and his lips to your jawline. “Sure as fuckin’ hell not enough to bring you out there this time.”

You grinned and smoothed his hair back off his forehead when he looked at you again. “Don’t have any faith in me, Miller?”

“You know that ain’t it, baby doll,” he whispered. “Don’t wanna take any chances with you.”

“Oh, yeah?” You laughed as he pulled you up onto his lap, looking deep in thought as he deliberated over where to plant kisses across your face and neck. “As if you’re ever careful with me.”

“I could be,” he said. “If you wanted.”

“Mmh, I don’t think I do.”

You looped your arms around his neck and he took your face fully into his hands. You felt almost engulfed as he kissed you. There was a fire blazing between you, and it felt like your clothes had melted away rather than been taken off with how quickly they disappeared. Your skin buzzed with desire, blood flowing to your most sensitive points. You felt limp like putty, lying in wait to be sculpted with the rough smearing of his hands across your body.

He was unrestrained in the way that he removed your roaming hands and pinned both arms above your head against the bed. “Y’think this isn’t gentle, princess? Yeah, let me show you rough.”

He split your legs apart, hand traveling to your warmed and wet entrance like a magnet. Three of his fingers were pumping short rhythms into you before you could even breathe, and your vision nearly went white. You writhed, helpless to the desperate moaning that was slipping past your lips until Joel pressed his hand against your mouth.

It all hurt so good. The sparking pleasure came and went so quickly with his movements that it felt like a continuous wave of ecstasy, even if he was stretching you close to your limit.

He wouldn’t stop murmuring things in your ear throughout. “Think I’m gonna let you out there? Get you hurt? No, baby. I only hurt you ‘cause y’let me. Don’t you, hm? Can’t have you screaming, not with the neighbors.”

Despite his best efforts, he was only muffling the litany of sounds that you were producing as he finger fucked you raw.

After he could tell that he had brought you close to your tipping point, rough hands grabbed your waist and forced you to flip over. He pulled you up on your knees, and he turned your head to the side before forcing it down against the bed.

With one hand he fumbled with his belt, cursing in desperation as he struggled with it for a few moments. He went silent for a beat before white hot pleasure shot through your, and all you could hear was the rough slapping of your bare bodies connecting with each other.

He was not gentle. It was clear that his pace and frequent position changes were to fulfill only his desires, and your own intense satisfaction was just a byproduct. You couldn’t complain. In fact, it would be foolish to complain. If this is what he was offering, then you would take all that he would give.

He came quickly. He always did on nights like these, when you had given him some sort of permission to just use you for a while. You stared out to your left, looking for Orion in the cluster of stars outside his apartment’s window. You felt warm liquid spill into you and begin to drip onto your thighs as he continued thrusting. Tears blurred your vision as you followed suit, unraveling into a perfect little mess beneath him.

“Knew you could take it, honey. You feel okay?”

“Mhm,” you said in a high-pitched tone, biting back tears as he sat you up.

He gathered your naked form into his arms and held you there for a while. He kissed the top of your head, and you wished you could’ve watched the starlight reflecting in his eyes for a little while longer.

“C’mon, I’ll get you cleaned up. Shower,” he said, more of a command than anything.

You followed his directions without responding. It wasn’t him that hurt you, not really. It wasn’t the vulnerability that stung you too deep. It was just the reminder that your relationship with Joel was far from merciful, cut from desperation and an utter decimation of the people you used to be. In another life, you knew that this wasn’t the way you could’ve loved each other.

After a luke-warm shower and a poor attempt of washing yourself clean of sin, you sat at the kitchen table in nothing but one of Joel’s denim flannels. Your hair was heavy and wet with water, leaving dark blue trails down the back of the button-up.

He smoothed an errant strand back from your forehead as he sat in the chair across from you, pouring whiskey from his decanter into two glasses. You suspected he had been drinking before you came over, but you never said anything.

You took a long drink before speaking. “When’re you planning on leaving?”

“Early.” You watched him pop a few white pills in his mouth and down the entirety of his glass. “Back before dark.”

“Could’ve just used water,” you mused. “Do you want me here when you get back?”

He looked over at you fully, that lazy smile and those sweltering brown eyes. “Hard times, darlin’. Hard times.” He removed his gaze to shake a couple more pills out of the cloudy plastic bag, leaning over the table to drop them next to your half-empty cup. “And yeah, I do. Stay.”

You stared blankly at what was in front of you, shaking your head. “Let me come, Joel.”

“You can’t negotiate with me on this. It’s a hard no.”

“Just don’t be an idiot. Please,” you bargained. “This doesn’t feel right.”

You watched him stand and walk over to you, resting a large hand on your upper back. “I’ll be back before dark,” he said again.

You looked up at him. “And if not?”

“I’ll be back.” He leaned down to kiss your temple. “I will be.”

You nodded. “I’ll be here.”

“Good,” he all but whispered. “Good, that’s all I want.”

True to his word, Joel was out early.

Doubly true, with blood and sweat dripping from his hairline and into his eyes, Joel dragged himself forward as the sun set over the harbor.

November in Boston. Brutal, wintery wind whipped past his face and stung the open wounds that had been hashed into his skin. His vision swam, and he brought his sleeve up to his head again to try and stop some of the bleeding coming from the left side of his head.

You were right. Always right about nearly everything, you were. It was a trap. Maybe he could’ve taken the three guys that met him at the deal site if you had been there too, but he razed each one alone and hardly made it out alive.

You. He would’ve stopped a few miles ago if it weren’t for you. In the moment he could’ve cursed your name and damned you to hell for what you drove him to do. He could’ve sat on the curb, rested his aching back against that old lamppost with moss and flora to cushion his injured head. Shut his eyes and die already, a death that would’ve been so easy, one that he begged for a million times.

You. He stared up to the sky, praying to something that his directions were right as his eyes landed on the north star. A mile or two east, and he’d be at the QZ. His blurred vision made the light astigmatic, so he could only hope.

The pistol in his back pocket felt red hot as he stumbled eastward. The only force driving him forward was the thought of putting a bullet through the head of anyone that touched you.

This was his fault, afterall. He should’ve taken someone. Maybe it was your fault then, for mattering so much to him that nothing could bring him to put you in even the slightest bit of danger. No, none of it was your fault. Nothing was. You deserved a whole world that Joel couldn’t give you.

He’d get to you. He would.

Making good on his promise, you woke up cold in his empty bed.

You could’ve sworn you saw your own breath freeze in the air, through sunlight that shone through the infinite planes of the apartment. You reached a bare arm up towards the ceiling, trying to catch some of the warmth that it gave.

You had an entire day of work ahead of you, likely doing maintenance on the water system or making house calls to troubleshoot issues with the electricity. Life here had made you more useful and skilled than you had ever been before, and sometimes work felt like a welcome distraction.

You got yourself up and dressed, picking up around his place before you made it out the door. The discarded pills on the kitchen table swirled down the sink along with yesterday morning’s coffee.

You knew how to take care of yourself more than he did. You weren’t sure why Joel fought you so hard on some things.

On the return trip to his apartment far past dinner time, you were smeared with dried sweat and soot. Your eyes passed the stars, and you repeated a silent prayer to yourself that Joel had already beat you home.

Scaling the stairs to the third floor, you saw that fate had cruelly twisted your own wishes.

“... My fucking god, J– what happened? Hey, hey, look up at me, please–”

You were crouched before Joel’s slumped figure, barely aware enough to respond to your voice or your touch. His flannel shirt was torn, exposing a bloodied white undershirt rising and falling along with his rapid breathing.

He had a hand almost glued to this side of his head, stained with dried blood. He made a strained groaning noise as you pried it away to reveal a nasty gash to the area. You could’ve screamed yourself at the mere sight of the state he was in.

It was clear that he only had the strength to drag himself to his own front door because you had been idiotic to lock it before you’d left that morning. A stupid force of habit left over from a lifetime where locked doors and tidied apartments actually mattered.

“Don’t… don’t, m’hurt, just…” his voice trailed off as his glassy gaze passed over your face. He was still trying to catalog you, ensure that you were still in one piece even while he was in stitches.

“I know, I know… you have to get up with me, Joel. Give me something here, fucking hell– on three, okay?”

You managed to get him to his feet as you jammed the key into the door and shoved it open. You were shouldering most of his body weight as you helped him to the first available chair at the kitchen table. Aside from his head, there was no other major injury to his body– it was mostly fine grazes and blossoming bruises on his chest and arms. You filled a glass with water and poured it over the wound on the left hemisphere of his head, trying to clear away some of the dried blood that had matted down his curls.

He writhed in his seat and you tried to soothe him with gentle words and touch as often as you could. It was deep, as if he’d been hit with something dull, but not deep enough to be fatal itself. You exhaled at that conclusion and begged to the ceiling that you were correct about it.

You sterilized the area with whiskey poured onto a kitchen rag and bit your lip as Joel hissed and swore in response. You made him hold the cloth there as you scavenged the apartment for something, anything that could be considered proper to wrap the area with.

“Bad deal… it went bad, baby, I tried… thought they were gonna hurt you here…” he mumbled to you once you returned with a t-shirt you had begun to shred into ribbons.

“Hurt me? I’m fine, and god, you aren’t. I’m fine. Nobody’s gonna hurt me. Us,” you added quietly, slowly removing his hand from his head again.

“Mkay… ow, you’re killin’ me, darlin’, s’fine, you don’t gotta do all that,” he said weakly.

You said nothing as you tried wrapping the makeshift gauze tightly enough to still apply pressure around his head. Realistically, he needed stitches, or at the very least some sort of proper medical assessment. Curfew had already passed and doctors were few and far between to begin with, so you could only hope that this would be enough to stop the bleeding. Keep him awake and alive.

When you were finished, you slumped down in the chair next to him, your hand still gripping tightly onto his shoulder. “What’s your birthday?”

“Why’re you–”

“–Answer me, Joel, I swear to god–”

He squeezed your hand limply. “September 26th. It’s November now, ‘18, I think? What, you want me to say my ABC’s too, or…”

Your laugh cut him off, shaky and very nearly turning into a sob. “I hate you. I hate you so much, you know that? I told you not to be an idiot, and you…” your voice trailed off, and he took both of your hands into his.

“I know. Hate you too, baby… can’t believe you patched me up.”

You couldn’t believe it either, or the fact that he cared enough about you to drag himself from the city back to the QZ out of fear that whoever had hurt him was going to hurt you, too. If that wasn’t the closest thing to love you’d ever been shown, you didn’t know what was.

He slept very carefully in your arms for a few hours that night, after you had gently washed the rest of his body and cleaned some more of the noticeable wounds. You couldn’t sleep at all, kept awake by a compulsion to check the bleeding on his head and make sure that he was still breathing through all of it.

Despite it all, the two of you didn’t feel fragile. Something unspoken was heavy in the air, something that said you both cared for each other so deeply that no circumstance could stop you from taking care of each other. Joel would do it for you, too. In the meantime, you were glad he didn’t have to.

In the morning Joel explained how he’d been jumped by his supplier and a few of his friends, and how he’d lost both the ammunition he was trading and the opiates and cigarettes. You thought that was a small price to pay for escaping with his life, but his stubbornness fought you on that point.

You paid a sort of friend of yours– a former nurse– all of your ration cards from the last week to stitch up his head the following afternoon, much to Joel’s utter dismay and protest.

“It’s already done. I already paid,” you had told him, staring into his eyes with a hand cupped to his cheek. “Please just let him. Please.”

For you, your words said. For you, I would.

He said nothing, but he sat for the few minutes of what must’ve white-knuckling pain to let the wound be sewn shut. I would, too, he echoed back. For you. You held his hand through it, even if that comfort was more for you than it was for him.

You forced him to just rest with you for the rest of the afternoon, hoping that the expired antibiotics you had been saving would nip the traces of the fever he had started to run. If that didn’t work, you promised him you would look for something that did.

Staring up at you in bed, he tucked your hair behind your ears and looked as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t. “You didn’t have to do all this, y’know. It was my own fault.”

“I did, though,” you replied as you smoothed your thumb across his cheek. “I couldn’t do all of this without you.”

He cracked a smile. “Don’t flatter me just ‘cause I’m dyin’ over here. You’re better than me at ‘all of this’.”

You had hoped that your effort to keep him alive would’ve told him that you did in fact need him, almost more than anything, but in the moment it was fine. You would show him a million times over if that's what it took.

Instead, you rolled your eyes. “You aren’t dying. Don’t be an asshole. I do need you. How else would I spend my time if I didn’t have you to worry about?”

“Don’t know.” He grinned up at you. “You’d be a hell of a lot richer, I think. Not wasting all your rations on some old man.”

“Mmh, maybe, but I like to spoil you,” you said through a smile.

He pulled you down next to him with a soft c’mere, and you laughed as he tucked you in close to him and he buried his face in the space between your neck and shoulder. You could tell the wear on his body was making him achy when he tensed before having to let you go.

You smoothed his hair off his forehead, your fingers brushing against the clean bandages wrapped around his head. “I’ll run you a bath, if you want.”

He shut his eyes against the cool touch of your hand and nodded. “That’d be nice, honey. Real nice.”

That’s all he would ever have to say. Even less and you’d still do anything for him. He would never even have to ask.

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skrrts · 2 months

Text

just like that (oneshot)

✧ gn!reader x mingi & gn!reader & ex!yunho ✧ all three are university students close to graduation ✧ genre: non-idol, slice of life, exes to friends, friends to lovers, first kiss ✧ word count: 6,9k ✧ warnings: food/eating, woosan joke

You first met Yunho and his best friend at university, and when you and Yunho started dating, the three of you soon became inseparable. Even after the breakup, things didn't really change, but lately, Mingi seems a little more clumsy around you, and Yunho is quite eager to encourage some time alone between the two of you.

a/n: i just wanted to write something soft for this trope without any tension. just 3 silly university students trusting and supporting one another. also, i noticed that best!friend yunho is something i really like writing, he's just the best but don't worry, he might find love in the strangest of places himself.

Summer — the time for weeks of freedom without worrying about project deadlines and exams, or a chance to make some money to make your final year more memorable. It seemed strange how quickly time had flown by. Before you knew it, only two semesters remained until graduation. One year before you were expected to have it all figured out, with the rest of your life ahead and the comfortable years behind you.

You didn’t see it that way, no matter how much your parents urged you to plan for the next decade when you weren’t even ready to part with this very moment. University had been a wild time, not only because you switched majors, made many new friends, and had your first boyfriend. It was a time for you to just be, shaking off the awkwardness of high school and becoming your own person far from home.

It wasn’t an easy time, but looking back now, you were thankful for the experiences and the special people now in your life — one of them being Jeong Yunho.

It had been a cliché start: the cute boy sitting near you in the local library. You exchanged little glances that later turned into small, silly notes left in the books when one of you went to buy a bottle of water or pick up another book. Your first date was a walk through the park with milkshakes in hand, sharing stories about childhood, books, and nature.

You had never been in love before — not really. Sure, there were those high school relationships that didn’t last longer than a few weeks and were only meant to fit in. Everyone dated someone, so you had to as well.

Yunho made you feel what love was supposed to for the first time: he was always there without asking you to give up your free time. He helped you with projects and studying while ensuring you took breaks you’d have otherwise skipped. He even taught you how to properly take photos, with small weekend trips to nearby places.

More than once, the two of you were accompanied by Mingi, Yunho’s childhood and best friend. The two of them were always together if he wasn’t with you, and the deep level of trust between them was something you admired.

Yunho was always there, not only to support Mingi in the same ways he did with you but also as a mental aid during moments when someone who seemed as confident as Mingi struggled a little.

You loved spending time with both of them: Yunho, who was gentle and quick to understand, and Mingi, who was reckless and curious, always up for some nonsense but yearning for a bit of attention. It wasn’t rare for the two of you to tug him into the middle when watching Netflix horror movies because it was a little too intense, or he had a bad day. All of that felt natural, and within the year and a half you dated, people got used to the sight of the couple and the best friend showing up together at almost all events.

The day Yunho and you broke up, most people couldn’t believe it. In their eyes, there had never been any indicator of struggle or conflict because there was none. Nobody but the two of you understood it. When you were honest with yourselves, you quickly realized that after some time, you felt more like friends than lovers.

Sometimes, crushes were fleeting, and it seemed you made a better match as friends rather than lovers. Because it was a mutual agreement, nothing really changed, except for the absence of handholding and kisses. In fact, the friendship may have grown even stronger.

Unlike you, Mingi and Yunho didn’t live in a dorm but rented a small apartment about half an hour off campus. It was located in a building with a small convenience store and owned by a sweet lady who always complimented Yunho for his good manners. It was small; the two shared one bedroom, and there was only so much space, but you loved how comfortable and homely it felt with all the little details unique to the best friends, unlike a dorm with its limitations.

A small breeze from the window made the heat of the day a little more bearable. Mingi was quietly playing a playlist he made the other day while browsing on his phone, the gentle typing of Yunho’s keyboard added to the sound while you were simply hanging with your head forward off the couch, playing with your outdated Nintendo DS. It was difficult to tell whether you were too sentimentally connected to all those old games or refused to invest so much in a Switch. Maybe you were still waiting for your parents to change their minds about you being too old to play and gift you one for a special occasion.

“Did you read Hongjoong’s email about the graduation hoodies?” Yunho’s voice disturbed the silence and made you look up, a small sigh escaping as Link was overrun by evil little mushrooms.

It seemed like a good excuse to sit up, brushing back your hair as you opened the bottle to take the last few gulps of water, regretting you didn’t buy another one before coming upstairs.

“The design is really cool, a little flashy, but that makes sense considering how an art major designed them,” you hummed, remembering the unique design and choice of colors. Hongjoong graduated recently, but he had taken it upon himself to help the next round come up with a unique piece of clothing they’d always have to remember their time as students.

“Isn’t it a little too early?” Mingi muttered. “I mean, it’s still an entire year and quite a bit of money. I get it’s like a unique piece, never to be reproduced, but what if one of us doesn’t make it? Maybe we have to take another semester because we failed all important exams!”

Yunho frowned but there was a small smile on his lips: “Mingi, except for the one class you didn’t care for and which isn’t even required for your graduation, your grades have been really good and stable in the past two semesters. There’s no reason why you wouldn’t graduate with us.”

You pushed yourself up, walking over to his bed, tilting your head: “Exactly, there is no way we would let you fail any of them anyway, idiot. Did you forget? We all agreed once we were done, no matter what our families said, we’d go on this road trip together for one month!”

You grinned, arms crossed as you spoke of it fondly, the tickling sensation of excitement rushing through your body as you thought about it. Yunho came up with the idea when you planned one of your little weekend trips together, how it would be a sweet treat after all the work and stress this last year would bring. Maybe it was also a proper way to say goodbye to this part of your life.

You hadn’t decided yet, but there was a consideration of maybe moving abroad for a little, to see the world. Then, you couldn’t deny the idea of moving to the same city as your two friends and remaining close to your family was just as good.

“How could I forget? You forced me to practice setting up tents with you the other day,” he stuck out his tongue, leading you to grin.

“Well, that was part of the project and you said you’d help me in return for making that PowerPoint for you. Also, it’s a mandatory skill to know how to set up a tent. Think of all the times you will need it: road trips, music festivals, maybe you will be an uncle and your nephew wants to go camping in the garden.”

Yunho chuckled: “Y/N isn’t wrong. Now, how about the three of us worry a little less? Just make the order with the size and number you want. Hongjoong will leave for Tokyo soon and it makes sense he wants to get this done before, especially since production takes several months anyway.”

The tallest closed his notebook and stood up, stretching carefully. For a moment, he glanced over at the two of you like there was something else he wanted to say, but his eyes lingered on Mingi’s face, noticing how it was a little redder than usual and how his gaze was a little too long at you.

But you didn’t notice because you were busy rambling ahead, trying to encourage Mingi and reminding him how you believed in him. There was no way one of you would be left behind; you’d graduate together.

“Hey, Y/N. Mingi and I wanted to binge-watch this show together, you know the one we saw in the trailer? Want to join us?” Yunho asked casually, already busy collecting his laundry. As neat as he was with everything else, the home of the two boys was a bit of a mess at times, hinting they often spent little time there and left in a rush.

You blinked, turning around to him, index finger tapping against your cheek as you tried to recall what show he was talking about. Shared movie nights were quite common and there were too many releases to keep track of all of them. In the end, it wouldn’t matter. You had no other plans and the heat wasn’t too inviting to forcefully spend the evening outside either.

“Sure, sounds good. Do you want me to bring anything?” you stretched a little and started to shove your stuff back into your backpack. If you were going for a movie night, you’d likely stay over and it was nicer to wash up before and get some other things.

Yunho seemed to think about it: “Hm, I believe we have everything we need and besides, we live above a convenience store. But maybe you could pick up dinner on the way? I’d make an order at our usual place and you just have to pick it up.”

As always, Yunho had everything planned and you nodded: “Sure thing! Sounds like we are set up for the night. Then, I will head back to the dorm for a little while, take a shower, and pick up some clothes. I also have to call my mom; she wanted to tell me about this wedding.”

Mingi rolled over to sit up: “My mom likes to do that too and then she asks me what I think about it, and here I am, just struggling to decide over a hoodie.”

The three of you chuckled, and you pulled the bag over your shoulder, placing the sunglasses on your nose: “I will be going then.”

Yunho stopped, flashing you one of his kind smiles: “Walk safely then. Mingi will accompany you to the crossroad. Looking forward to tonight.”

“I will? Why?” Mingi asked now, looking confused at his best friend who threw a dirty shirt at him, making the younger jump and let out a soft, embarrassed noise.

“Ewh! WHY?” His cheeks were flushed red and it was kind of cute how his grown-out hair looked a little messy with the glasses slipped down on his nose.

“Because we need new washing powder thanks to a certain somebody never bothering to get any after using the last of it for his laundry,” Yunho called out, a small grin on his lips as he threw the last piece of clothing in a basket.

Mingi didn’t seem too convinced, almost like he was trying to figure out just what his best friend was up to, but he gave in with a deep sigh, shoulders hanging down a little. “All right, I shall go and melt out there. If I do not come back, you know why.”

You couldn’t hide the soft laugh as you watched the two of them banter like that: “I will wait outside then, take your time. See you later, Yuyu.”

It was a nickname you had given him when the two of you dated but it had become such a habit, you just kept using it even after the breakup several months ago but he didn't mind it. Mingi seemed a little lost when he pulled on his sneakers and grabbed a jacket, only to remember it was hot outside and he wouldn’t need it.

When he joined you, he was trying to fix his hair but gave up on it the moment a small blow of wind faked some refreshment. “Can’t believe that guy kicked me out just for some washing powder,” he mumbled.

“You know him, he just likes to be prepared for everything,” you gave him a playful shove. After that, the two of you walked in silence for a little while.

With Mingi, that was never a bad thing as you learned quickly how he either was lost in his own thoughts, sometimes daydreaming, or there were days when he couldn’t stop talking, where his thoughts seemed to be as busy as those of an artist and his urge to share was sweet. You liked to listen to his thoughts, although you did not always manage to follow all of them. Regarding your career paths, you picked something more practical and straightforward like Yunho.

“Hey, Y/N,” he only quickly glanced at you before pretending that something on the way had caught his attention.

“Hm?” you looked over at him, head tilted in curiosity, paying attention to how his hand was gently rubbing the back of his neck, words suddenly not coming easily anymore.

“Did you ever regret breaking up with Yunho?” the question was rushed now like he was scared he wouldn’t ask it otherwise, but it certainly wasn’t one you’d have expected.

Back then, Yunho had a long conversation with Mingi, he told you that. The younger was surprised but also worried: the older was his best friend and naturally, he should be supportive of him, but there was also you now, somebody important to him. He was scared to lose that bond and the fun time you shared. Yunho had explained everything, promised you’d be fine, and you had done the same. Still, there were times when it seemed Mingi was worried, or at least, you picked it up as such.

You shook your head slowly: “No. I think it was for the best, you know? I really liked having Yunho as my boyfriend but now, looking at how things went after we broke up, I think we were both right because it barely feels any different. That shows me we have been perfect friends for one another more than lovers.”

Mingi seemed to consider your answer before speaking again: “So it would be fine with you if Yu starts to date again?”

The number of questions was a little unusual but you knew how much Mingi struggled now that the final year was approaching. The idea of things changing was always hard for him once he was comfortable with a situation. Something like that was what Yunho warned you about right at the beginning, that you should tell him if you’d get overwhelmed by Mingi seeking comfort at times. You never were.

“Well, of course not. We are friends and I want him to be happy. Sure, I worry a little about how the next partner feels. I know we are more the exception, it is rare for exes to be able to be such good friends and even for those who are, their partners can have that level of distrust.”

It had come to your mind but you decided not to worry about something you’d not have any control over. You stretched your arms comfortably up in the air: “It’s Yuyu, I am sure he will find somebody that’s like him and you don’t have to worry about it.”

Mingi nodded and it seemed, while there was a hint of uncertainty on his handsome features, he could live with the answer.

When the store Mingi was aiming for slowly appeared, it seemed as if something changed and he was walking a little behind you. By now, you were checking your phone for the earliest bus in the morning since you promised to visit another friend nearby.

“So… I am not that bad looking, am I?”

Mingi’s question took you by surprise once more, but this time, you found yourself blinking, a hint of red accompanying it as you turned around and he was looking at you.

Song Mingi was too often overlooked because in lectures, he liked to dress comfortably with oversized shirts and comfy jeans, his hair often a mess unlike all the times the three of you went out to bars or clubs. Then, gazes turned around for the tall and handsome student with his plump lips and the way the tight tank tops complimented his body, and his hair styled back let you see his face properly.

Mingi always said he didn’t have one-night stands or dates because he needed somebody who loved both. In fact, it had been a drunk confession on a weekend when Yunho visited his family it had just been the two of you, a joke of yours that he should get laid going wrong.

“Of course not,” you leaned forward, giving him a proper look up and down, thinking it surely was okay with the two of you being friends.

“You are hot, you have so many unique features: your lips, those little moles, and the way your eyes sparkle when you get excited.”

Mingi’s face openly brightened up and he was about to say something when a loud noise interrupted the two of you.

“Y/NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN,” Wooyoung screamed, an arm curled around San’s thin waist when the two stopped on their motorbike. The two of you often ended up working on projects together as for some reason, you shared almost half of your lectures with Wooyoung.

“What’s up, Jung?”

You joked and he pulled the helmet up, grinning.

“We are throwing a party tonight, wanna come? You can bring your two boyfriends.” Wooyoung teased, resulting in you rolling your eyes, he loved to pull the joke.

“Funny for you to say when everyone assumes you and your best friends are a little more on the benefit side.”

San gave his best friend a shove who struggled not to fall off and rolled his eyes dramatically: “You two really do not have any humor. Anyway, sincere invitation. Lots of people will come so if you change your mind, just text me.” He held onto San again and they disappeared down the road.

“Weirdo,” you laughed and looked back at Mingi. He was staring at you before awkwardly rubbing a hand over his neck: “Ah, I should get that stuff for the washing machine. I’ll see you later for the movies.”

You smiled, not thinking too much about it: “I will hurry to get ready, see you soon!”

Mingi nodded, more to himself than to you, and you could see him stumble, almost falling over one of the outdoor baskets as he cursed and disappeared inside. He always had been a little clumsy but recently it started to pile up a bit. It was kind of cute.

“I bought four packages. If that isn’t enough for at least three months…” Mingi blurted out as he unlocked the door and stepped inside, but stopped when he saw Yunho all dressed up and ready to leave. He dropped the bag with the boxes and blinked, pointing over his shoulder.

“Why do you look like that?”

His best friend looked up, smiling. “Ah! My brother just gave me a call, asking if I could come over and help him with some stuff. We haven’t really seen each other in weeks, and with summer just starting, I figured it would be okay.”

“But Y/N is coming over for the TV series soon, and I was excited for us to do it together.” Disappointment was written all over Mingi’s face now, but his best friend managed to hide how that expression always made feel him a little guilty.

“I promise, we will do it next time. We still have all summer and an entire year to meet up like that all the time. I already ordered the food and it’s paid for. You always still have an empty stomach by the time we are done, so just eat my portion too and make sure to brush your teeth properly afterward.”

The younger made a face. “Hey, I’m not an elementary kid anymore!” Yunho was always there, looking out for him, and there were times when Mingi was scared of what it would be like once he was supposed to be a proper adult, all on his own, living in an apartment without him. Not that he could admit it — he was in his early 20s and everyone suddenly wanted him to act on it, have it all figured out, and be proper.

Yunho stopped and stood in front of his best friend. They were almost equal in height, but the light-haired one eventually outgrew Mingi by an inch or two.

“I will always worry about you because you think too much and care too little about yourself,” Yunho smiled fondly at him, ruffling through his best friend’s hair, which elicited another displeased noise from Mingi, who was confused about what was going on.

“Do you still have the plushie? The one Hongjoong made for his school project when we were in our first year?” Yunho suddenly asked.

Mingi blinked before turning around and walking over to his small part of the wardrobe. He went down on his knees, pulling down one of the storage boxes until he found the yellow duck. Honestly, he had asked for a chicken when Hongjoong said he had to sew animals and would gift them each after receiving a grade. When Mingi had seen the duck for the first time, he pouted, and since then, Yunho wouldn’t stop teasing him about how they looked alike, so he ended up hiding it.

“This one?” he lifted it up, showing it to Yunho, and his best friend nodded.

“Mhm, you should gift it to Y/N. It would fit perfectly with the rest of the plushie collection.”

That was right — you collected plushies. It was cute because it wasn’t something Mingi expected when he first met you riding on a skateboard while reading a thriller novel the day Yunho introduced you to each other.

“Why would Y/N want a plushie that looks like me?” Mingi asked. Yunho pulled his bag over and was already at the door, smiling back over his shoulder at the younger.

“Because Y/N thinks you are cute, that’s why,” he winked. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Enjoy your evening together.”

Mingi blinked in confusion, still standing there before looking at the duck plushie in his hand, frowning.

“Y/N does?”

“Yuyu just left to visit his brother?” you frowned, a little surprised by the news when you arrived. It seemed unlike Yunho to just vanish like that; he never failed to inform everyone about it when he was to leave for some time, especially if you intended to meet up. Then, when it came to his brother and family, he was always super caring, something that everyone liked and respected about him.

You kicked off your sneakers and walked to the small kitchen corner. The shower had been welcoming, and you changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt, leaving your more comfortable clothes for sleeping in your bag. It wasn’t the first time you stayed over ‘just as a friend’; the couch was just as comfortable as any bed to you.

“Mhm, he was in a rush when I came back,” Mingi sighed. “He said we have all summer, so we will do it next time. I… should have called you. Sorry, then you could have rescheduled.”

You looked over to him, and your gazes met. His face started to heat up, and he tried to distract himself by fixing his glasses once more, leading you to smile.

“Nonsense, we can do this too. I do not mind, and I told you, there is not much else I have planned for the night. We can be evil and punish Yunho by spoiling the entire season for him, speaking about all the details once he’s back,” you joked to cheer him up a little and were pleased to see that he was grinning.

“I like the sound of that!”

You nodded and turned around, taking out plates to place the takeaway food inside, preferring to have it look a little prettier than eating out of the white containers. Meanwhile, Mingi started to add more pillows on his bed, along with blankets, and he turned off the bigger lights, replacing them with soft fairy lights. He had the bigger of the two beds, and with that, you were all used to sitting inside to watch on the TV hanging on the opposite wall.

When you turned around, you couldn’t deny he was obviously putting extra effort in today. Next to the extra blankets, he also added some flowers in a vase, and there was a chicken plushie that looked an awful lot like Mingi.

“I… since you ditched that cool party with Wooyoung and San… I thought it could be nice, pretending like we did something extra cool as well,” he muttered, biting down on his lower lip as if he was waiting for you to laugh at him.

Oh, Mingi, when would he finally start to see just how charming and amazing he was?

“Who would want to go to a boring party where everyone just gets drunk when you can have an amazing home cinema with good food and cute company?” you winked and walked over.

Without Yunho, it was your turn to try and cheer Mingi up, so you carefully sat down on the left side of the plushie.

“Now, you did not introduce me to your friend yet. Ah, if I’d have known, I’d have put a little more effort into my appearance.”

Mingi carefully took one of the plates and joined you, looking at it and then back at you.

“Uhm, a name? This is… Bbyongming. Hongjoong gifted him to me; he made him for some project back when we were juniors. He’s a…”

“Cute chicken. I love chickens!”

Now he pointed at the plushie again. “You did notice it was a chicken?! I always told everyone, but they say it looks like a duck.”

Mingi had to force himself to sit down; he almost spilled some of the food over the edge of his plate, but he looked at you, who was eagerly nodding.

“Tsk, I have no idea why anyone would think this is a duck. It is obviously a chicken and very cute. Looks a little bit like you.” You laughed softly and shoved some of the noodles inside your mouth just because you were embarrassed for having said just that.

For some reason, though, Mingi’s smile grew, and he was finally relaxing.

“I think so too!”

The both of you took care not to lean on the small chicken when you started with the series while eating the takeaway. You made a quiet note to thank Yunho for the meal later, even though he wasn’t here to share it with you.

To your surprise, the show was much better than expected, and while the first episode was quite a slow burn, you soon found yourself enjoying the plot and were invested in it, and so was Mingi. Everyone else likely would just glare at you for being so excited about it. There were hisses when something annoying happened and little gasps when the story took unexpected turns. A shiver over the scarier moments.

Yuyu sometimes joked how you reminded him of Mingi at times, during the very first dates you two went on, and there certainly were days when you couldn’t deny it.

As the hours went by, the two of you ended up moving closer together. Maybe it was Mingi being used to sitting between his two closest friends, who both wouldn’t mind it at all, or maybe you leaned in without thinking about it. The little chicken was sitting on your lap at this point; you played with its big head, squishing it to deal with your excitement about the plot.

It wasn’t until the screen darkened a little and asked if you were still watching that the two of you realized how many hours must have passed and how close you were sitting to each other now.

Mingi had taken off his glasses, his dark eyes looking curiously at you while there was still a soft blush on his cheeks now that he was so close. There were little details you never paid attention to before, and your heart was doing one or two awkward jumps in your chest as his arm tightened a little around your shoulder.

It was careful, scared you might withdraw any moment, but you just found yourself staring up at him, losing the hold around the plushie just a little. Slowly, Mingi was leaning closer to you so that his breath tickled your skin and his long lashes were about to close when suddenly, somebody was pushing the doorbell, and the two of you jumped up like the main characters in a horror movie.

“What the fuck?!” Mingi hissed and cleared his throat. You were rubbing your neck, unable to hide how your face was a little flushed, and there was an anticipation for something you didn’t see coming.

“I wonder who it is?” you mumbled, just to say anything, and Mingi was quick to put on his glasses and turned on some lights. The doorbell rang again.

“Should I get the baseball bat?” he asked, looking at you. At first, you weren’t sure if he was serious, but then, considering how you just watched a show where in one episode, they got robbed during something similar, you couldn’t entirely blame him.

“How about I get the bat, and you answer the door?” you suggested. At this point, you couldn’t entirely hide your smile; you knew how silly and dumb this was, but somehow, it was something you enjoyed. With Mingi, there was always room for something unexpected.

You walked over and carefully opened Yunho’s wardrobe. By the time the bell rang once more, you found his baseball bat. Your ex was quite a passionate baseball player, who gave up playing only after high school graduation due to a minor injury, but he didn’t want to risk it.

“Ready if you are!” You positioned yourself behind the door, exhaling as Mingi finally opened it to see who was ringing constantly that late. The building their apartment was in had seen its best years long ago, the lights dim and the environment not too inviting to be outside at a late hour, even during the summer months when most other streets were buzzing, but convenience stores had the downside of also attracting all kinds of figures to buy snacks or alcohol at a late hour.

Jongho rushed inside. “What took you so long? I was standing there for almost ten minutes.”

The man stopped, looking from Mingi, who was dealing with the realization he just let somebody get in so easily, to you, behind the door with a baseball bat up in the air. The youngest student was frowning, judging you quite obviously as he pointed an index finger from Mingi to you.

“I am not sure if this small apartment is cut out to play indoor baseball.”

You blushed, trying to look all cool and casual, relaxing on the bed. “Oh yeah, I mean. We thought you were Yunho who came back from his brother and wanted to just give him a small jumpscare,” you lied.

“You three are a weird trio, you know? But I guess that means Yunho isn’t here then? Dammit, I need the keys to the club room. It can’t be helped… I’ll be going then. Sorry for the interruption,” Jongho glanced over the bed and the fairy lights.

“Very sorry… didn’t know I’d run into a date. Anyway, see you around.”

There was no room to say anything; he already rushed out, and gone he was. Mingi and you were blinking at each other as he forced himself to finally move, locking the door and clearing his throat: “That was something…”

It was too late; now that somebody said the word, you couldn’t unsee it. How soft everything was, the way Mingi was acting around you recently, and Yunho’s odd behavior, just leaving the two of you like that.

As you stood there in silence, he was likely slowly starting to overthink because he carefully took the baseball bat from you and then started to wave with his hands.

“Ah… look, you don’t have to listen to… I mean, it is… we can just be friends.”

The last word was whispered, and you could hear the defeat in Mingi’s voice.

“I will start cleaning up…”

Finally, your legs moved, and you hugged him from behind. “No, leave it like that! I like it,” you whispered, and you felt him tense but very slowly turning his head around to look at you.

Idiot, how could he think that you’d not maybe consider liking him that way? How could you not? He wasn’t just handsome, a little strange, and entirely endearing, but somebody you trusted and always felt comfortable with.

Your heart was beating loudly, also with the question of why you thought this would be different from Yunho, how you could be certain you just had the bad habit of liking your friends a little too much?

Maybe it was because you really just were too alike, so it took you forever to notice the small differences.

“Do you maybe want to sit down again?” Mingi finally mumbled, and you nodded. He took your hand and turned off the lights as you went back to his bed. He was sitting down and, for a moment, hesitated.

“We could… do you maybe want to relax a little?”

Another nod followed, and the two of you stood there like awkward high schoolers who came along to prom when you finally crawled back on the bed and carefully relaxed against his shoulder. His long arms instantly curled around your body and kept you warm as he turned the show back on, but this time, you were far too distracted to really pay attention.

Mingi was feeling the same because he was looking down at you here and then until you noticed that at this point, you literally just were staring at him. You liked how he blushed, how it was so easy to read what he was thinking and feeling in a moment like that.

“You are pretty,” he whispered but forced himself for his eyes to remain on you, leading you to smile. “So are you, well, handsome.” There were just too many words in this year and age, but any would be fine with you, and there were even more you could think of that suited him.

“Would it be okay if I kiss you?” he finally asked, swallowing hard.

You nodded softly, and his big hands carefully rested against your cheeks. You turned around slowly so he could reach you better and pushed yourself up just a little.

This was by far not your first kiss, but every first kiss with a new person always felt like one. Mingi seemed shy as he breathed carefully against you and slowly tilted his head to lean in.

His plump lips were just as soft as you imagined, and one of your arms curled around his neck as you allowed your eyes to close.

The kiss was far from perfect: curiosity and tension mixed up, but it was just the way it should be. You were a little more eager than Mingi, encouraging him to deepen it more, and for a second, his hand clung a little to your hair.

Eventually, your lips broke apart, and he exhaled, grinning: “I think I finally understand why you all like kissing so much.”

Your face turned into a surprised expression: “Wait… this was your first kiss?”

Mingi smiled a little sheepishly: “I guess… always wanted it to be special, but I feel like I told you that before, Y/N.”

Now you were the one more nervous than confident, but Mingi laughed and hugged you gently. For a while, you sat there just like this.

It seemed a little strange that just maybe, you needed up until now to realize that you might have developed a crush on one of your closest friends and the very best of your ex, but like always, Yunho had known best.

Idiot. He really was a league of his own.

Mingi yawned a little: “Mh. I promise next time… I’ll ask you out properly. Like, you will know what it is… if you want that.”

You chuckled: “I admit, thinking of it now, surprise dates aren’t so bad, but yes, I’d like that. You look tired. We should get some sleep.”

You knew you should change and freshen up a little, but you were comfortable like that and didn’t want to leave.

“Do you want to cuddle, maybe?” Mingi asked again, and you winked: “You figured me out!”

He chuckled again and started to remove all objects from the bed so the two of you could get in together but stopped as he lifted up the plushie.

“Uhm… for you. Your personal Mingi… just make sure you do not like him better than me,” he pouted a little but then laughed, offering him shyly to you.

Your hands gently reached out before holding him up, close to Mingi’s face. “Twins, absolutely.”

You hugged him tightly: “I will treasure him, thank you.”

The taller nodded and slipped inside the bed first before you carefully followed, and his arms curled around you, pressing a small kiss on your hair. In return, you pulled his glasses off his nose and put them aside.

“Sweet dreams, Y/N,” he whispered. You exhaled and dared to snuggle a little closer against him. “Good night, Mingi.”

In theory, all was perfect, if not for the two of you being cowards watching scary shows without a mindful Yunho to remind you it wasn’t real.

“Should we maybe turn on the TV?” Mingi asked into the darkness, and you nodded.

“Anime?”

“Gotcha!” He leaned over, turning the TV on, and you curled up against him, snuggled up like that, watching a random show until the two of you fell asleep.

Looking back, university life and student years, they really had been wild, but there wasn’t even a moment you’d regret.

A few years later…

“How’s Y/N doing?” Yunho asked as he scanned through the wardrobe.

“Same as always, went skating with some other friends, but we will meet soon. We’re looking at an apartment today,” Mingi grinned as he finally settled on a white shirt. It was a little too big, but people kept saying he looked good in it, something about being "boyfriend-coded."

“Sounds like you two are finally making that last step. If anything, I’m a bit surprised it took you so long to move in together. I mean, no offense, but you’ve literally been living together since graduation, just staying at each other's place frequently.”

Mingi chuckled into the phone: “I’d ask how you know if you didn’t live across the hall from me. Though, it’s rare to see you these days with your insane workload. Don’t forget to take a break now and then.”

Yunho was nervous; it had been a while since he had felt that way. Somehow, everyone thought he was super confident with dating, but he wouldn’t say it came easy to him.

“Enough about us, though. You met your date at that midnight bus? It sounds dangerous to take a bus after 11:00 PM all alone.”

Yunho blushed, thinking about it: “Something like that. We waited for that bus together for quite some time, a few weeks, but I was too nervous. I was even googling how to approach a stranger on a bus the night we finally talked. Anyway, we meet in an hour, and I need to look my best…”

His best friend laughed: “Remember that plushie Hongjoong made of you first year of university?”

Yunho rolled his eyes, grinning: “Are you telling me now I should gift it to my date?”

Mingi hummed: “Well, it worked for me; it’s worth a try. Not that I am worried, if somebody manages to make you THAT nervous, I’m sure this person is pretty cool. Make sure to introduce us, yeah? OK, gotta go, see you later.”

Yunho ended the call. He changed into the outfit, moving left to right before exhaling deeply, placing his right hand cutely against his cheek, and looking in the mirror. Gringe.

Then he sighed, shaking his head: “Please, this is not how you do it…”

He grabbed his bag and headed to the door, but then he made a few steps back. The plushie was sitting on the small armchair in his bedroom. Yunho stared at it before he opened a shelf and pulled out some gift bag.

He carefully placed it inside before finally leaving to go to this very important date. He couldn’t wait to meet this special person again.

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