#this was kinda all i could think about last night i had to make it Real

[00kittenz]

── homie hoppin’ ( lhs, pjs, sjy, psh ) ּ 𓂅⋆ 📙

๑ Heeseung never wanted to believe the rumors about you around campus, to him you could never do wrong and he sees you as nothing less than an angel. But when his friends begin telling him about their nightly escapades with some “mystery girl” that sounds awfully familiar, he grows more suspicious of your true intentions you’ve been hiding all along.

pair: hyung line ��� f!reader, college au | warnings: pwp, smut, angst (kinda ??), hook-up culture, yn is the biggest fuckgirl omg (but she’s sooo cuntyy), humour, slut-shaming (not from the boys), daddy kink, oral (m + f. rec), mentions of running a train but it doesn’t happen lol, lots of s.x flashbacks, yn is so unbothered by everything 😴, unprotected s.x (yikes !!!) | teaser wc: 857

thanks to @leeechin & @pshbites for enabling this idea LOL, couldn’t have done it without them frfr. also here’s a silly little preview of what’s to come (it gets real MESSY in this sfdsfsd)

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

heeseung was never really the type to ever engage in gossip or drama going around campus. he’d rather simply mind his business and keep it moving, it was useless to entertain it anyway— most of the rumors held zero truth or any proof to back them up. what does seem to grab his attention however, is your name being constantly brought up in almost everyone’s mouths. you were the talk of the whole school and it wasn’t anything good that was being said about the girl he’s been sleeping around with on and off for the past few months or so.

“oh you know about y/n? isn’t she the one who’s always bouncing from one friend group to the next ? i wouldn’t trust her around my man even for a second..”

“didn’t she let leehan hit it at that party last night ? that girl needs to be stopped, she’s always messing around with different guys..”

“wasn’t she just with eunseok last week ? he was telling me all about how him and sungchan took turns on her.”

he couldn’t believe half the stuff that was being said about you. not only was it just plain disrespectful, but it was also disgusting how some people could spew such fabricated nonsense as if you weren’t a real human being with feelings. heeseung knew you two weren’t exclusive but you’ve been seeing each other more frequently, which made him think he might have a chance to make things official. at least he thought so, until he saw you talking with one of his close friends, jaeyun in the library. you both were way too close for comfort and the way you were giving him those same bedroom eyes that you’d always flash at heeseung, made his whole body fill up with an unimaginable amount of rage.

you were quite popular and well known around campus, your charming persona and pretty face was the perfect combo to get anyone to fall head over heels for you. everywhere you went you’d turn heads, all the boys would be breaking their necks just to get a glimpse of you. the tiny skirts you’d always wear had their eyes practically bulging out of their sockets, which only made the other girls seethe in utter jealousy. the way you could command an entire room without even trying was a superpower in itself, you didn’t need to put in the extra work to get all the attention on you because everyone gave it to you automatically.

it wasn’t until heeseung began hearing more about his friend’s sex lives that he’d grow more suspicious of what’s really going on. he usually zones out and doesn’t really listen much whenever they talked about it, but since the movie they were watching wasn’t all that interesting, he began shifting his attention to his friends. jaeyun and jongseong were always bragging about how much pussy they’d get but they seemed to hyperfocus on one particular girl that seems to get brought up a lot in their conversations. jaeyun would say how she gave him the ‘most life changing head’ he’s ever received, meanwhile jongseong was describing how some girl he fucked a few days ago rode his dick like a grade A pornstar.

heeseung wasn’t adding much of his input into the conversation, and neither was sunghoon as he tends to keep that part of his life more private. but, what made him suddenly wanna jump up in his seat was when jaeyun was telling them how hot the girl looked when he fucked her from behind, she had a back tattoo and he thought that was the sexiest shit ever. he never specified exactly what the tattoo was, but he remembers that you also had one too. maybe he’s just reading too much into it ? could it really be you they were talking about ? nah.. there’s no way. he’s sure there’s plenty other women with back tattoos walking around campus, it simply could be an eerie coincidence. he knows he isn’t the only one that you’re sleeping with, but to mess around with his friends would be a new low for him. he wouldn’t know what he’d do if he were to find out that happened..

his worries would only worsen when he catches sunghoon smiling and faintly giggling at his phone about something, to which jongseong asks him what’s so funny. sunghoon simply shrugs it off and says it’s nothing, quickly locking his phone before he lifts up from the couch to announce that he’s going back to his dorm. they all exchange their goodbyes and wish him a safe walk back to his place. but when he left, he was walking in the direction completely opposite of his dorm, he was heading the exact same way it took to get to your building instead. now he’s really starting to overthink at this point. there’s absolutely no way you’re actually fucking all of his friends and he doesn’t have a single clue about it. heeseung may be quite oblivious at times but he isn’t that stupid. he’s probably overreacting. again, could just be a very weird coincidence… right ?

just leave a comment if you wanna be added to the taglist ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

[redtrack]

fogo e noite | charles leclerc

pairing: charles leclerc x fem!portuguese!reader

summary: two similar but still different cultures clash. how would charles leclerc, a monégasque f1 driver, react to having a portuguese girlfriend?

author’s note: a bit of a self insert here but nothing serious! i thought that it would be adequate to make my first ever work close to home. vamos, portugal! this is quite short since i’m only experimenting, but let me know what you think!

warnings: usage of y/n, mentions of fem! reader, reader has a previously defined nationality, some cursing, english is not my native language :( i used some photos from pinterest so the rights go to their rightful owners, user alexandra as a faceclaim on the last post

twitter

charles e carlos reagem a comentários parte 2 — by shell v-power

(charles and carlos react to comments part 2)

comments on twitter

instagram

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, arthur_leclerc, yourbestfriend and 167,000 more

yourusername tinha que o levar ao dragão (sorry for the yelling baby ❤️)

(had to take him to dragão's football stadium)

tagged charles_leclerc

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charles_leclerc it's okay, mon ange 🤍 (why were you wearing another man's name on your back, though?)

yourusername last time i checked you didn't play for porto

user5 CLOCK HIM !!!

charles_leclerc watch me sign with them next season

user81 a queen é portista obrigada deus 🙏🙏 (the queen supports porto thank you god) liked by author

yourusername 💙

user31 y/n taking charles to a football game in her city is so them coded for some reason

user16 exposing him to the good stuff

yourbestfriend you always go a bit crazy on game day

yourusername leave me alone omg i’m worse on race days liked by charles_leclerc

user14 she’s so us omg 😭

user98 FORÇA PORTO ALEEE !!! (GO PORTO!!!) liked by author

charles’s interview for gq magazine

Q: You have recently made your relationship with the Portuguese model Y/N Y/LN public. How do you two manage a multi-cultural love?

Charles: I must admit that I was quite scared at the beginning. (laughs) We come from different cultures and grew up a thousand miles apart.

Thankfully, we both speak english quite fluently and my Y/N has picked up some french from her education in Portugal. I love it when we speak in french. (laughs)

The hardest part was probably meeting her family. They’re quite diverse when it comes to age, so at first I was only able to communicate with the ones close to our without Y/N translating everything, since the oldest and the youngest generations don’t speak english at all.

When I first met her dad, he was super friendly, but I understood that he would change languages every time he spoke to Y/N about me. She later reassured me that it wasn’t anything bad. (laughs)

Despite everything, they have always been extremely welcoming and friendly to me and I truly feel like a part of the family whenever we come to visit.

Q: We take it as you have her family’s blessing, then?

Charles: I hope so! (laughs)

Both of her parents are long time fans of the sport, just like my Y/N, so I think that really helped. And my charm. (laughs)

Q: How about your family? What was their reaction when meeting Y/N?

Charles: My Maman was very excited. (laughs)

I had already talked a lot about Y/N to my mother and brothers, so it kinda felt like they knew her for ages.

It was a really special night for us. Y/N had been away from home for a while. She was extremely home-sick, but still insisted in meeting my family. I was really touched.

I told my Maman about it, so that we could avoid certain topics during dinner not to make Y/N uncomfortable. But when we got there, we found out that my mother had attempted to cook some of my Y/N’s favorite home dishes to make her feel better. She spent the rest of the night hugging Maman while crying and thanking her a million times. (laughs)

I fell in love with her a bit more after that day.

Q: You two seem like a very romantic couple.

Charles: We are. I absolutely love her with my whole heart and I know it goes both ways.

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charles_leclerc

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charles_leclerc this picture was taken in the very first few hours of 2025 somewhere in Portugal with my baby.

happy new year everyone 😘

tagged yourusername

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yourusername happy new year charlie 💓

charles_leclerc feliz ano novo, mon ange 🤍

pierregasly already spending new year's with her family i see

charles_leclerc you did the same with kika though

user54 ate him up omg

user81 watching their relationship grow in front of my eyes make me cry

user43 they're my favorite couple

user67 oh he travelled to spend new year's with her and her family i'm sick

user21 i love them sm

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, francisca.cgomes, yourbestfriend and 198 720 others

yourusername eu, o meu monegasco e o meu porto para sempre ❤️

(me, my monégasque and my porto forever)

tagged charles_leclerc

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charles_leclerc ❤️

[sacrednova]

Drive me home | Simon "Ghost" Riley | 4

fem!reader | In this story, a young woman mistakenly texts Simon "Ghost" Riley, thinking he's her Uber driver after a wild night out. Despite his gruff, reserved nature, Simon shows up. Contains fake screenshots with texts messages and calls!!!! Start reading from the beginning: Part 1 | Part 2 | part 3

Simon was on his way. The same mysterious, masked man who’d ghosted her texts and made her heart race for weeks was now on his way to pick her up. She clutched her phone, trying to keep calm as her friends, despite barely standing, noticed her sudden panic.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lottie asked, steadying herself by holding onto her arm. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Her eyes darted away as she tried to brush it off. “Uh, it’s nothing. Just… kind of a weird story,” she muttered.

“Oh, hell no,” Alexa cut in, her eyes bright with alcohol and intrigue. “Out with it.”

With a sigh and a helpless shrug, she finally spilled the story, trying to keep her voice steady. “Remember last month? When I said I got a weird Uber ride?”

“Yeah, yeah, with the mask guy,” Lottie chimed in, barely containing a giggle. “Wait—that’s him?!”

“Uh… yeah,” she admitted, cheeks burning. “And when I tried to text him ‘hello’ like a week later, he just… never answered.”

“Girl, and you still have him in your contacts? Under ‘Simon personal uber’?” Alexa teased, snickering.

Her cheeks flushed. “Look, it was just an inside joke with myself! I didn’t think I’d ever need to actually call him again!”

Just then, a truck pulled up to the curb, headlights cutting through the dark street. She glanced over, her stomach doing a flip as she recognized it instantly. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Lottie and Alexa, their grins wide and very tipsy, leaned close. “That’s him?” Lottie whispered, her voice barely containing her glee.

She nodded, feeling like her heart was about to launch out of her chest. “Yep… that’s him.”

Her friends dissolved into giggles, making absolutely no effort to hide it. Alexa poked her side and whispered, “You know, if you’re this flustered already, maybe you should just go for it. I mean, the masked Uber thing is kinda… hot?”

She shot her a glare, her cheeks heating even more. “Oh, my God, shut up!”

As Simon stepped out of his truck, she swallowed hard, wondering if the ground could just swallow her whole instead.

The universe was out to humiliate her, no doubt. Because instead of swallowing her whole, it had spat her out and stomped on her. There he was, standing tall and unreadable under the streetlight—a face mask covering his mouth, a black cap shadowing his eyes, and… a military uniform.

So that’s why he was awake at 5 a.m., she thought, her mind racing. Of course, he’s military. Everything about his stone-cold demeanor made perfect sense now.

“Oh, so you like soldiers now?” Lottie teased, not bothering to whisper.

Her heart dropped as she looked up and met his gaze. His stare was intense, focused directly on her like she was the only person there. And he’d definitely heard Lottie.

“Oh my god, shut up,” she hissed, trying to look anywhere but at him.

Millie, still a giggling mess, squinted up at him and muttered, “Uwber?”

Without missing a beat, Simon looked back down at her and answered, “Apparently.” His tone was deadpan, and she swore she caught a flicker of amusement in his eyes behind the mask.

And that was all he said. A quiet, towering presence, letting the silence stretch uncomfortably, all while his gaze stayed locked on her.

God, why was that so hot?

The next thing she knew, her friends were piling into Simon's truck like they owned it. Before she could even process it, they had her shoved into the passenger seat, wedged close to Simon with her heart thumping embarrassingly hard. Her friends, meanwhile, were giggling and whispering like they were at a sleepover, eyes sparkling with tipsy mischief.

And, of course, they had to try making him talk.

Lottie leaned over the seat, resting her chin on her hands with a sly grin. “So… Simon, was it? You’re, like, a real Uber driver, right?”

A long, deadpan silence. His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, unamused. “…Sure.”

Alexa chimed in, barely holding back her laughter. “Do you always drive around with the hat and mask? Gotta say, it’s got… a certain vibe.”

He said nothing, just kept his hands on the wheel, looking painfully unfazed.

But then, of course, Millie had to deliver the ultimate question. In her slightly slurred, fearless way, she looked over at him and asked, “Aaaand wha’? Wha’s your type, Ssssimon?”

She wanted to die. She glared daggers at Millie, mouthing a very obvious FUCK YOU in all caps, while Millie only giggled harder.

A few seconds of silence stretched like a lifetime. But then, to her shock, he finally spoke.

“Reckless,” he said, eyes flicking just briefly in her direction.

The word hung in the air, heavy and almost taunting. Her cheeks flamed up, her mind spiraling. He went right back to focusing on the road, unreadable and quiet as ever.

Oh, God.

She was not the shy type. Never had been. But right then, with Simon’s gaze cutting through her, she felt her face heat up as if she’d never flirted a day in her life.

“Oh, you did the impossible, Simon! You made her blush!” Millie slurred from the back, grinning like she’d just won the lottery.

Millie, I swear, you’re dead to me.

Simon, to her surprise, looked even less amused, but he kept driving, eyes focused straight ahead, not saying another word. They went on like that, him in his silent concentration and her doing everything to avoid his stare, as he dropped Millie off first. Millie stumbled out with a wave and a sloppy “G’bye, Uber,” giving Simon a wink that he definitely ignored.

Next was Alexa, who leaned in for an exaggerated, tipsy goodbye, pressing a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “You’re the best,” she whispered, giggling as she stumbled out into the night.

Finally, it was just her, Simon, and Lottie, who hadn’t said a word in a while. The quiet was odd, especially for Lottie, who was never one to stay silent long.

Then Simon’s voice broke through the silence, calm but resolute. “She’s asleep.”

“What—oh. Right.” She twisted around and saw Lottie, slumped against the window, practically drooling.

“…You need to wake her up,” he said, his voice that same low, unamused rumble.

She blinked at him, feigning ignorance. “What?”

He exhaled, sounding downright annoyed. “Wake her up. Your friend. She’s asleep. Drooling on my window.”

Oh, for the love of— “Right, okay,” she mumbled, reaching back to shake Lottie awake.

Lottie stumbled out, muttering a half-asleep goodbye and thanks, barely making it through her front door. As she disappeared into her house, the truck lurched back into motion, and that dreaded silence settled in like an unwelcome guest.

Her heart pounded as she tried to string together any words that might cut through the heavy air. What do I say now? Do I thank him? Apologize? Do I tell him I’m sorry a thousand times?

She swallowed hard and started. “I… I didn’t know she called you. I thought she was calling an actual Uber.”

“It’s fine,” he said, his voice flat, eyes locked on the road.

“Like, honestly, it’s my fault anyway because… well, I still had you saved as ‘Simon Personal Uber.’ I know it’s stupid, I just… forgot to change it.” She bit her lip, wanting to say more, to explain away the joke. “I didn’t think we’d even talk again, so…”

He didn’t respond. She fidgeted, regretting every word coming out of her mouth.

“Because, you know… you ghosted me,” she finished, the words slipping out before she could stop herself.

She winced, instantly regretting it as the weight of his stare fell upon her, cutting through the dim light of the street. It was that same steady, unreadable stare she’d seen before, and now, with the truck idling at a red light, he turned to face her fully, eyes piercing and unyielding.

“I ghosted what?”

She froze, feeling her pulse quicken under his stare. Oh, God. Did I really just say that?

A rush of heat flooded her cheeks. “You… ghosted me?” Her voice barely a whisper, more question than statement now.

He held her gaze, the faintest glint of something amused flickering in his eyes. The light turned green, but he didn’t move.

Finally, he spoke, his voice calm but edged with something unreadable. “Guess that’s a new one for my book.”

A smile tugged at her lips, barely there, but real. And somehow, in the quiet that followed, she found herself feeling strangely comfortable.

The moment he started to drive again, she was laser-focused on her phone, her fingers tapping furiously as she composed a text to Millie:

She didn’t expect a reply since Millie was likely face-planted in her pillow, but that didn’t stop her. She spammed away.

She chuckled, shaking her head at her ridiculousness, but God, it felt good to let it out. A giddy, nervous energy buzzed through her.

And then, the truck rolled to a stop in front of her house. She glanced over at him, feeling his eyes on her, heavy and unwavering. That silence settled over them again, but this time, she knew she had to break it.

“I’m paying you,” she declared, trying to sound firm.

“No.”

She huffed, searching for a reason. “…Please?”

“No.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“The second time sounded like a question, love.”

Her heart skipped at that one word. Love? Had he actually just called her that? She could feel her cheeks heat up. What was happening to her? Since when did she get so flustered over a single word?

She fumbled, desperate to say something that wouldn’t sound completely ridiculous. “Just… let me… just the gas?”

He only shook his head, and she felt like she was grasping at straws, anything to keep this moment alive. She wanted to laugh it off, maybe tease him back, but nothing came. She was too focused on those eyes, the way they seemed to look straight through her, keeping her pinned in place.

Finally, she managed to blurt out, “I texted you.”

“Hm?” He looked at her, just slightly tilting his head.

“I texted you. You didn’t answer.” Her voice was softer now, almost apologetic. She wasn’t sure why she was even bringing this up; it wasn’t like she had any right to feel hurt over it. They’d barely even spoken, but still, it had stung.

“Wanted to talk about something?” he asked, his voice steady and unbothered.

She laughed nervously. “Maybe.”

“I don’t like texts.”

Her face fell. “…Should I have called you?”

“No.”

Damn. That one stung even more than she expected. She felt ridiculous, embarrassed for pushing the conversation this far. Idiot, idiot, she thought, mentally kicking herself as she opened the door to step out. “Right… shit, sorry.”

She turned, flashing him a weak smile as she stepped onto the curb. “Thanks. Sorry. Bye!” Her voice was high-pitched, her nerves showing through as she scrambled away. She felt a sting in her chest, like the silence he left her in had weight, pressing down on her.

But then, as she was halfway to her door, she heard him mutter, just loud enough to reach her: “…I like bourbon.”

She froze, turning around to look at him in disbelief. She could barely see his face in the dark truck, but that one line hung in the air, giving her just enough of a lifeline to feel like maybe—just maybe—she hadn’t embarrassed herself completely.

She could hardly contain herself as she watched his truck disappear down the road, and just like that, her phone was out. She juggled it in her hands, struggling to keep hold of it without dropping her keys and everything else she’d somehow managed to carry inside. Her fingers fumbled over the screen, but she didn’t care—she had one thing to say, and she typed it out without overthinking.

As soon as she hit send, she felt that familiar mix of nerves and excitement bubble up. She locked the door, kicked off her shoes, and stumbled through her evening routine, her heartbeat racing more from the message she’d just sent than the drinks she’d had. She’d just settled into bed, sighing as her body finally relaxed, when her phone buzzed.

Her eyes widened, barely believing he’d actually answered, and so quickly. She hadn’t even thought that far ahead, but the words sank in, full of promise.

A surge of thrill rushed through her, making her grin like an idiot. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, heart pounding.

She held her breath, not sure what he’d say, or if he’d say anything at all. But then, her screen lit up.

She sank back into her pillow, clutching her phone to her chest. That blunt, matter-of-fact reply shouldn’t have made her this giddy, but damn—straightforward men were just so hot.

NOT ME FINISHING MY SHIFT AND POSTING THIS PART EVEN AFTER I SAID I’D POST IT ON MONDAY. I just don’t know the word rest... anyways, love you all, really ♥

[henry7931]

Playing in the Attic

Kenton:

Chris and I are cousins (the youngest in the family), our whole family is gettin together this weekend at my Uncle Al’s house for his big birthday celebration. I was so excited to see Chris that I talked my dad into letting me come stay with them a night early. Al (my dad’s older brother) is Chris’s dad and when I got there I was surprised to see that my other uncle Tim (my dad’s younger brother) came to stay early as well.

Chris and I were having a good time catchin up but then Chris brought up how his dad never lets him go into the attic.

So curious me, talked Chris into going upstairs. We waited until we knew Uncle Tim and Al were too busy to notice that we snuck upstairs.

Both of us sneaked our way up and opened the door. We quietly shut it behind us and giggled out of excitement to see what’s upstairs.

Once the door was shut, we found a light to turn on. And both of us were surprised to only find one small box.

“What the heck? What do you thinks in it?” I said to Chris.

“I don’t know, should we open it?”

I gave him a mischievous grin and said, “we made it this far!”

I walked over and carefully took the lid off. Inside was an old lookin statue.

“Booo!!! That’s not exciting at all!”

I grab it and show it Chris and immediately felt strange. Chris touches it as well.

And that’s when things got crazy!!!!

One second we’re upstairs. And the next the second I’m in his living room looking at Uncle Tim.

I look down and notice my tummy is huge! So arms and my feet!!!

I wiggle my toes just to make it’s not a dream.

I look over at Uncle Tim and he looks just as confused as me!

“Uncle Tim?”

Uhhh no…. Dad?”

“Nope!,” I say back to him.

That’s when I start to put some of the pieces together.

I get up and go to the closet mirror I could find. That’s where i see my Uncle Al staring back at me!

“Holy crap!!!,” I say out loud giggling.

I turn over to Uncle Tim, “it’s me Kenton!”

“Kenton!!! I’m Chris or I guess—“ Chris looks at his new reflection seeing Tim’s face looking back.

“IM UNCLE TIM!!!”

We both grin excited about our new discovery.

“Wait a minute what about our bodies?!?”

We both dash up to the attic and see both of our bodies lying on the ground.

“Wow! That’s freaky!”

“So where is my dad and Tim if they aren’t us?”

“I don’t know maybe they’re still in here with us but we’re in control?”

“Freaky!!”

“Here grab your body and I’ll grab mine. Just don’t touch that status.”

“Haha okay!”

We both carefully pick ourselves up and it’s so funny carrying myself. I’m so light with Uncle Al’s big arms.

We place our bodies in bed and head back downstairs.

That night was the most phone I think I’ve had in a long time!!

Chris and I went out on the town. We went shopping, I bought Uncle Al a couple of things I thought he’d look cool in. I also got Chris all of the video games he’s wanted the last of couple months since I’m now his dad.

After we got dinner and I tries sushi for the first time. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it but Chris and Al eat here all of the time. Even the waiter knew Uncle Al’s order.

I didn’t want to make it weird so when he asked me if I’m going to have ‘my usual’ I said sure!

It was actually pretty good!

That night Chris and I got into some bathing suits and went into the hot tub together. We even both had a couple of beers which I kinda liked as well.

By 3 am both of were so tired, Chris and I went upstairs to bed. We both tugged off our clothes and was surprised that Chris got completely naked in Tim’s body.

I looked at him from head to toe, covered in hair— I pull off Uncle Al’s bathing suit and his junk came flying out.

“Kenton!! I don’t wanna see all of my dad!!”

“Well you started it!”

Chris and I laid in bed together. I couldn’t help but stare at both of our naked bodies. I kinda liked the way we looked.

I looked at Al’s big feet and rubbed them against Tim’s big feet.

Chris gave me a look and I said, “what??? These big feet are cold! I was hopin I could warm them up with yours.”

“Ugh fine!”

We wrapped our new big feet together. And I felt a rush go through me. I looked at his hairy belly, I wanna run my fingers through it but I stopped myself.

“You ready to go to bed?”

“Yeah I’m sleepy!”

The next morning I wake up and looked down at myself. I’m still uncle Al, I look over and Chris in Uncle Tim’s body still sleeping.

I pull back the covers and look at Al’s junk. I get a little handsy and start playing with it.

I try to slow myself down but it feels sooo good.

I watch my uncles big hands go back and forth. I rub his big feet together and rub my other hand up and down his hairy chest.

I tug faster and faster about 15 minutes until I make a mess everywhere!

Chris wakes up and doesn’t seem to notice the mess I just made.

He grins at me with half open eyes and says good morning. He gets up and heads to the bathroom. I guess he had to go real bad.

I get up as well and I pass the other room. I can hear Chris, he’s making a lot of noise in there.

I carefully crack the door open and see he’s standing in the shower tugging away at Tim’s junk!

I back away from the door and let him finish up.

Today’s the day everyone is coming over so I knew our fun had to end.

Chris walks out and I tell him we should probably get dressed and try to figure out the statue.

After we get ready both of us head back upstairs. I look at the statue and without much of a plan I say to him, “I guess let’s just grab it?”

We grab it and the same time. I feel kinda funny again but nothing happens!

“Well… that’s not good,” he says to me.

We both go back downstairs…

That’s when we hear voices coming from Chris’s room… it’s our voices!

2 months later…

So… turns out that when we touched that statue that just put Uncle Al and Tim right into our bodies.

We were in sooo much trouble! Especially when we found out that we couldn’t switch back to our bodies for an entire year!

Soo now im uncle Al for a very long time and Chris is gonna be Tim for a while as well.

But it’s all good, neither Al or Tim are mad at us anymore. No one in our family knows about it outside of us. So Tim lives full time with me in Chris’s body.

And the best part is Chris comes over every weekend! And we still get have a lot of fun even if Uncle Tim gets annoyed with us. Who cares! We’re the ones in charge now!

[wandixx]

Ok it closes out on me when I tried typing it the first time-

Anyway, I'm a sucker for shock value ones, just so funny to me, so how about M'gann being nervous about introducing bf danny and it happens at an inconvenient time! Could go ghost royalty, ancient of space or anything, hell ghost as dragons would be pretty funny, up to you though!

I'm not sure if I did a good job at this, but I didn't want you to wait too long and real life is keepimg me busier than expected, so for now, it's here. I may continue it one day (I also have different version of fill for this prompt, because neither idea felt right, so if you'd like to see I too, just let me know whatever way is most convenient to you)

This wasn't supposed to happen like that. M'gann didn't have a super detailed plan on how it was supposed to happen, but even her vague (thought and rethought every night) ideas were anything but this. It was supposed to be a calm, low-stakes situation. Maybe even make it look like an accidental meeting, Team in civies hanging out around Happy Harbour, bumping into Danny and then she'd just introduced him, perhaps adding ‘btw, he is my boyfriend’ almost like an afterthought. This seemed like the best possible scenario.

This was also, as expected with the way hero life is, the exact opposite of what actually happened.

Of course, it didn’t start with anything heralding the absolute disaster this day had to become. Kinda accidentally the Team stumbled upon something between a cave and a basement, and in it a group of people, who decided to perform a summoning of a genie so they could… wish for stuff. They didn’t even look like cultists or villains of any sort, just a group of random adults from seemingly very different backgrounds. M’gann had a really hard time understanding what actually brought them together other than their wishes.

Which was actually pretty useful when it came to fighting them, because nobody really cared about their fellow summoner, just trying to save their own butt. She kinda wished more of their opponents were so incompetent.

Though, she spoke too soon because in the excitement of the fight, somehow all of them didn’t realize that one or two of the summoners… actually managed to finish a summoning. It was honestly a little bit embarrassing.

But, it was too late to dwell on all that, as right above the summoning circle appeared a circle in a worryingly familiar shade of green.

Of course, this one time she didn’t have any equipment from Danny, had to be when the Team encountered a ghost.

Ghost in question was a beautiful woman, with long hair covering one of her eyes, in a blue outfit that was related to one of Earth cultures, but M’gann didn’t know which, and a bunch of bracelets on her wrists. Martian could make a hazard guess on who it was, based on the stories Danny told her.

“We don’t have time for explanations, I think I know who this is, if I’m right for the love of everything that’s dear to you, don’t say the word ‘wish’ out loud” she demanded over the Mindlink.

Before she finished, Artemis took silver tape from somewhere and slapped a piece of it over Wally’s mouth. M’gann understood the sentiment but still… it was a little bit too nuclear option.

Desiree (if it was her) didn’t attack anyone, looking a bit confused, giving Team a moment of reprieve to plan and for Kid Flash to make sure none of the summoners could make whatever wish they wanted either. Also with the use of silver tape. Djinn’s were always tricky.

M'gann used this moment of everyone getting their bearings to curse herself for not bringing any ghost weapons this time. Any other mission, Team or not, she had something on her but today? Today she had nothing.

Excluding the summoning engraved into clips holding her cape but it was kinda last resort. It wouldn't annihilate everything in one mile radius or something but she didn't want to drag Danny there if he was during a test, other ghost fight or something. She knew better than anyone that he didn’t need more distractions.

Conner crashed into a wall right next to her. Artemis seemed to lose her cool when none of her arrows seemed to reach the ghost while Robin was trying to make some counter plans with Kaldur. They couldn't do a thing to Desiree and it was a matter of seconds before she stopped entertaining them and went to the city. It… would end badly, most likely. Danny would prefer to get involved before it got that far. Yeah…

She really wished she didn’t have to call.

“I have an idea, cover for me for a minute or two”

“Bold of you to assume we can stop her from anything”

“I believe in you Wally. Just distract her”

“My water attacks seem to be effective weapon against her”

“That’s aster! What do you plan to do, M'gann?”

“Summon another ghost”

She expertly ignored yelling that followed, taking the golden clip off of her cape. She held fabric in place with absentminded use of telekinesis, while she focused on an engraved pattern. Danny's summoning circle wasn't actually too complicated or intricate but she needed to do it just right. And frankly, she just liked looking at it. Physical proof that her boyfriend would be there if she needed it. Drawn representation of who he is, the deepest and truest parts of his soul written in the language that only Universe itself could fully understand.

And it was beautiful. Absolutely incredible. Much better than Desiree's circle, thank you very much.

M’gann dropped to her knees and grabbed leftover chalk from previous summoning and crouched to quickly draw Danny's seal. She had a lot of practice from all the times she doodled it on a whim just to get something of him with her when she missed him the most. She rarely actually summoned him, again, it was difficult to align their schedules, but she was very familiar with the first step.

And it was really easy from there.

She placed the clip in the middle of the circle, shapeshifted one of her nails to get a bit of blood on the chalk and leaned back.

After a careful, deep breath, she started an incantation, putting as much power in her voice as she could.

“I call upon you guard of Amity Park, I call upon you dearest child of the Ice, I call upon you one favored by the Time, I call upon you vanquisher of the Fear, I call upon you subduer of the King, I call upon you defender and the guide, I call upon Phantom, both worlds beloved child”

Circle erupted in green light, putting a momentary pause to the fight. M’gann was still blinking spots away when a figure flung itself out of the summoning circle, right at the Desiree.

“What the fuck?!”

Only after the first punch was thrown did Danny turn back to her, with his usual, somehow both gallant and bashful smile, that without fault made her knees get a little weaker. She smiled back.

“Hello Starlight” he greeted, sounding almost casual.

“Starlight?”

“Hi Angel. Nice of you to drop by” she answered in the same manner. Wally tried to yell from behind the duck tape.

“Angel?! M'gann, who is he? Who is she?!”

“I will always come if you call” he said without any doubt, suddenly as serious as if he was sharing information that could break or make the world.

It certainly worked like that to her world. She actually melted a little on the inside.

“I know”

“Actually, that's kinda cute. I still have no idea who this is, but you go girl”

“I feel like it's not the right time Artemis”

“Not to interrupt… whatever this is, but the other ghost is escaping” Robin cut in “Also, if you want to make out afterwards, please find the room, Batman and Catwoman are traumatizing enough“

Few people snorted, while Danny blushed green. He darted back at Desiree, clearly to escape the embarrassment. M’gann stood up, totally at ease now, that he was there to take care of it.

“Will you need a hand? I don't have any tech but we have a trick or two up our sleeves!” she asked, projecting her voice so it carried through the cavernous basement without yelling.

“I'm good for now but thanks for asking!”

“M’gann, can you give us anything substantial? Who is this? How do you know him?”

“One question at the time and let's wait until he finishes, okay?“

She cut off Mindlink before anyone agreed or protested.

“Miss Martian!”

“Soup time!”

With a blast of light, Desiree got sucked in and Danny landed in front of them with a proud grin.

“My job here is done”

“It truly is. You're getting faster too”

“And thanks to who is that?”

“You”

Danny sent her both an incredulous and playful glare.

“Of course. I miraculously found a ways to not be a mess and don't crash through every wall on my way and–”

“Well, no but–”

“Let me remind you, you're not alone… also who are you dude? And where did the other lady go?” Wally asked, right after ripping the duct tape off his mouth.

“Oh, well, I'm Phantom, I usually work in Amity Park?” he said a bit unsure, as if calling him a protector was under any question. That just wouldn't do.

“He's a hero from Amity Park”

“Thanks love. It's nice to finally meet you all. M talked a lot about you!”

“Can't say same about you, sorry”

“That's fine. I know M was agonizing over how to introduce me in the best way possible. I'm really happy it's finally over,” he paused for a moment, with his brows furrowed “Did I do good? This first impression thing?”

“You're… far less imposing that I personally expected after hearing Miss Martian summoning you, but–”

“M’gann how could you hide this from us?” Conner blurted out quietly, and oh, he sounded so utterly crushed. Everyone fell silent, the playful atmosphere gone as if it had evaporated.

“I never intentionally hid it. It wasn't significant enough to mention at the start and when it became important I felt like I couldn't just drop it at you during lunch or something. I always planned to tell you, there was just never the right time nor right words. I never wanted to hide it.”

“Even just me?”

“Especially you”

“You still should've…”

“Yeah, I should. I'm sorry”

“How long ago have you met?”

“Half a year ago,” Danny said before she managed to answer “It's all kinda my fault actually. I was really set on not getting mixed up with more hero business than I had to back then. I didn't want you or Justice League finding out about me. And when I agreed, it was already really late. I'm sure she'd told you all from the get go if I let her, I'm sorry”

“Why wouldn't you want us to know about you?”

“It's… Probably not the conversation we should have right here, over gagged wannabe cultists.”

“Valid. Let's call the cops and get going. You two have much to explain”

“And you're sitting eight feet apart until you do!”

Danny leaned in to kiss her, quick and playful, before he jumped back at the demanded distance.

“Well, this still went better than at your side”

“Absolutely”

*******

Also, here is some lil arts for a longish wait, sorry again, I hope this story is yours to your expectations

[honey-on-your-tongue]

FWB

Part two Logan Howlett x fem!reader Series masterlist

You and Logan avoid each other for as long as you can. If you know he's in the kitchen or in the simulation room, you will go around the entire mansion just so you don't run into him. If he hears or smells you're in a room he's about to go into, he won't. He'll leave and wait until you go somewhere else.

A few weeks come and go like this. You and Logan don't even look at each other and it's all fine.

Until you go on a mission. There's no avoiding each other now.

It's not even necessary for the two of you to go. Most likely, Storm could handle it on her own. But she needs backup and Scott is too out of it, so you both have to go with her.

You understand Scott. Really, you do. But you kinda wish he'd be in condition to go with Storm and Logan so you wouldn't have to.

That's the only thought that adds bitterness to your day as you get in the jet. And then you see Logan, sitting in his seat, and your mind goes blank.

You remember him, lying in his bed, hard cock in his hand, precum on the tip. You blush at the memory and glance away.

Flustered, you rush to your seat, sit and buckle up and make a point out of staring out the window. You can feel Logan's eyes on you, but you refuse to react at all. Last thing you need is him getting the wrong idea.

But what is the wrong idea? You can't deny that you felt strangely flattered, and also extremely turned on. You'd had to touch yourself that night before you even considered getting any sleep.

You try not to think about it as Storm takes the jet into the air.

The thing is, you and Logan work together and if things go too far, it'll either end real good or real bad.

Most likely, real bad.

You push the idea away and instead try to focus on the mission at hand. You're supposed to find a group of mutants gone astray, wreaking havoc around a small town. Supposedly, their headquarters is in a warehouse, the remnants of an abandoned factor in a long-since forgotten part of the woods. It's in the middle of nowhere.

Storm lands the jet far from where the warehouse is located and glances back at the two of you. “We'll camp here for tonight. We'll move in on them tomorrow morning, the earlier the better,” she says.

You each get to work, setting up your tents, readying your suits, preparing yourself mentally for the coming day.

Night falls. You're in your tent, reading by the light of a flashlight, when you hear something outside. At first, you worry that maybe the trouble-making mutants have found you, but then Logan's head pops in through the flap of your tent.

-

He'd spent hours debating on whether or not to approach you. He knew it would be easier to let the whole thing blow over, but you two wouldn't be able to work if this doesn't get resolved.

So. What better way to resolve things than by sneaking into your tent long after he knows Storm is asleep?

He didn't think it through. He realizes that when he sees the look on your face at his sudden appearance.

“You scared me,” you tell him, huffing softly.

“Sorry,” he mumbles sheepishly as he crawls into the tent, zipping the flaps closed. He sits across from you, awkward both because he's a rather large man in a tent and also because of the situation. “Didn't mean to scare ya. I just...wanted t'talk.”

“Oh,” you say quietly, a soft blush rising on your cheeks. “Yeah. I guess we...we do have to talk.”

He nods. “Okay. I'm...Look. I'm sorry. Really. About...the other night. I didn't mean—It was disrespectful of me. And I definitely didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I really am sorry. And, for what it's worth, I think you're gorgeous, in case that wasn't, y'know, evident.”

You hold his gaze for a moment before laughing softly. “It's okay. It's...Yeah, it's alright. I guess I should've knocked too, I just didn't imagine you'd be...doing...that.” You nod softly, another blush covering your cheeks.

“So we're...good?” he asks softly.

You nod. “We're good.”

He hums, a weight lifted off his shoulders. He glances at his lap before looking up to meet your gaze. He studies your face, your soft lips, your beautiful eyes, the perfect curve of your nose...

He's gawking without realizing it. He only comes to his senses when you laugh and bashfully ask, “What?”

He shakes his head, somewhat embarrassed, and says, “Nothin'. Just...you really are gorgeous.”

You giggle, a soft smile on your lips, and before he can stop himself, he reaches for you, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear.

You slowly fall silent, your eyes on his.

Logan takes a soft breath. “Let me kiss you, bub. Please, you have no idea how much I need it,” he whispers, his gaze falling to your plump lips.

You open your mouth to refuse, to remind him that you two work together and to tell him that you don’t want things to get weird. Instead, you hear yourself plafully say, “Only if you promise to never tell.”

Logan smirks and before you can proces your own fucking answer, he’s tugging you a little closer. “I promise,” he whispers before his lips crash onto yours.

He kisses you hungrily and demanding, his mind whirling from the taste of you.

He knows it's a bad idea. You know it's a bad idea. But the way he kisses you, the way his hands grab onto your body and tug you closer…

How are you supposed to resist?

He shamelessly shows you he wants you in the way his hands trace your body, the way he's basically panting.

He licks your neck, kisses it softly before sucking to leave a hickey. And you let him. God, you let him. How could you not? He's everything a girl could ever want.

He maneuvers you with ease, laying you down on the thin mattress before crawling on top of you. His fingers trace the skin of your waist, your hip, while his other hand holds him above you.

“This okay?” he asks you as his hand slips inside your pants, rubbing at your cunt through your panties.

You nod, breathing hitching. “Yeah.”

“’f you wanna stop, just lemme know,” he says, his mouth focusing on your neck as his fingers work your pussy until you've soaked through your underwear.

He's grinding his hips against your thigh meanwhile, his cock aching for more.

He pulls away for a moment to pull your pants off, then your panties. His eyes fall on your cunt, all slick with arousal, and his cock twitches.

Your scent is so sweet, so strong. He runs two fingers up through your folds, gathering the wetness before bringing them to his lips. He tastes you on his digits and loses whatever was left of his rational mind.

His head is between your thighs in a second, his mouth devouring your cunt like he's never gonna eat again.

You gasp, back arching, pretty mouth open in ecstasy, and Logan just has to watch.

He groans, his large hands moving your thighs to rest on his shoulders as his tongue slips up to your clit, flicking it a couple of times before replacing it with his nose. His tongue traces your entrance, licking up all your slick arousal.

Your fingers tangle in his hair and you don't pull at first, afraid of hurting him. But the more the pressure builds in your womb, the more you lose awareness of being gentle and pull his head where you want it.

Logan groans as you tug on his hair, his fingers digging into your thighs. He traces your clit with his teeth, relishing in the tremor that washes over you.

Smirking slightly, he does it again and again and again until you're pushing him away, moaning as you come on his mouth.

He helps you down from your high before pulling away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You good, bub?” he questions, hand gently caressing your thigh.

You nod, breathing heavy, body boneless from your orgasm. “’m fine.”

Logan adjusts his hard cock in his pants, his breath hitching at the little bit of friction. He's never wanted it this bad…

He stares at you, all spread out, half-naked, blissed out, and he loses it.

“Lemme fuck ya, bub,” he begs, eyes wild, pupils dilated. “Need to put my cock in that pretty cunt ‘f yours.”

You hold his gaze, cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “Do you have a condom?”

He grins. “You bought some f’r me, remember?”

You giggle softly. “I—Yeah, I did, huh?”

He licks his lower lip. “Does that mean I can fuck ya?”

You nod. “Yes.”

He almost growls in relief, his hands quickly undoing his pants. He tosses them aside, then grabs a condom from the pocket of his jacket. He takes the jacket off as well, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

He rolls the condom onto himself, his cock hard, the tip an angry red as precum drips from it.

He kneels in front of you, grabbing your legs and tugging you closer to him, making you gasp. His eyes darken at the sound and he jerks himself once, twice, before aligning his cock with your sopping entrance.

“You tell me if you want me to stop,” he says firmly.

“Okay,” you reply, breathless.

He holds your gaze for a moment before he thrusts into you, filling your sweet pussy smoothly.

You cry out, gasping, eyes fluttering shut.

He grunts as you clench around him tightly, his eyes rolling back. “Fuuuuuck, bub. Such a good pussy.”

He glances down as he starts thrusting, watching your cunt stretch to fit him. He grabs one of your legs and moves it onto his shoulder, allowing him to go deeper.

You squeal, eyes wide. “Fuck! Fuck!”

He fucks you hard and deep, the sound of skin on skin loud. He's grunting and groaning like an animal, his dog tags clinking with each thrust.

“Look at ya, bub. So pretty. Such a good girl for me,” he says, voice low and rough. “Look at that cunt. She's so greedy, look how she clenches around me.”

You whine, tears of ecstasy in the corners of your eyes. “L-Logan! Logan!” you moan, thighs quaking.

He chuckles. “Such a pretty slut f’r me. You enjoying yourself, bub?”

You whine, eyes rolling into the back of your head. “Logan!” you squeal.

His hand slips between you, thumb finding your clit and rubbing it in messy circles. He laughs lowly when your pussy tightens around him in response.

“Yeah, you're enjoying yourself.” He smirks, proud of himself, and he fucks you harder.

You begin to mumble, blubbering incoherently, unable to form words. You're just a gasping, sobbing, moaning mess and he's loving it.

“Gonna come already?” he mocks. “I just started with ya. Has no one ever fucked you this good?”

You squeal, gasping. All he can make out is a chorus of please please please please please that you repeat over and over again.

Eventually, he caves. “Yeah, alright. Go on, bub, you can come.”

His words are the final straw. Your orgasm hits you with so much force that you're left seeing starts for a minute or two. Your ears are ringing and your body is weak.

Logan wasn't prepared for how gorgeous you looked as you came. The sight of you along with the way you tightened around him sent him over the edge beforehand, making him gasp and grunt as he spills into the condom.

“Fuck,” he gasps, body shaking as he recovers from the climax. He glances down at you, watching you regain your breath.

Slowly, he lowers your leg from his shoulder before pulling out of you gently.

“You alright there?” he asks you, his knuckles rubbing your cheek tenderly.

You manage a weak nod and he smiles. “Can you talk, bub?”

You open your mouth to try and decide you cannot. You shake your head and he chuckles.

“Fucked dumb. ‘m gonna have a lotta fun with ya, bub. A lotta fun.”

---

Taglist

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---

Blog masterlist

[ganggangscenarios]

Platinum Heart (Diamond heart pt.2)

Part 1

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Summary: You get the opportunity to meet Jungkook's friends.

Genre: Romance, comedy, smut, angst

Warnings: Body image. Negative language. Smut

You carefully slide into Jungkook's car, setting your handbag on the floor before fastening your seatbelt. It was Friday evening, and after a long week of work, you were about to embark on a weekend trip with your incredibly handsome boyfriend. All week, he'd been sending you links to cozy cafes and hiking trails near the cabin where you'd be staying. You couldn't help feeling a bit nervous; it was a group trip, and this would be the first time you'd meet his close friends and their partners.

Though your confidence had grown lately-thanks to both your hard work and Jungkook's unwavering support-you still had your insecurities. You couldn't shake the worry of being judged for wearing a T-shirt and shorts to the pool. You'd just reached a place of comfort being in your underwear around Jungkook; the thought of wearing a swimsuit in front of new faces was a little overwhelming.

"I missed you today," Jungkook says, leaning over to steal a quick kiss.

You laugh and roll your eyes. "You saw me this morning!"

He pouts, then kisses you again before putting the car in drive. Soon enough, you're both on the open road, heading toward the countryside for your weekend escape. You gaze out the window, taking in the surroundings as the sun dips below the horizon.

Every now and then, Jungkook glances over at you with a soft smile. He'd been so happy these past few months, feeling like this was the best start to a relationship he'd ever had.

You were a strong advocate for open communication, always encouraging him to share his feelings, and he loved learning more about you-what made you laugh, what moved you to tears, what brought you comfort. He also loved the way you had become more confident with him, especially in intimate moments. Since your first time together, you'd let down your guard and started to believe him when he said he loved your body. It was apparent in the way you'd sometimes take charge, a confidence that made his heart race. The memory of your last night together lingered in his mind, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, anticipation building for when you'd finally lock the door to your cabin room.

Suddenly, the soft music filling the car was interrupted by the ring of Jungkook's phone.

He quickly answered, and a deep voice echoed through the speakers.

"Where are you?" the voice asked.

You glanced at the screen and saw the name

'Taehyung'—a name you'd heard often but had yet to put a face to. At least now, you could put a voice to it.

"We're about 30 minutes away," Jungkook replied. "Going to stop at a rest area real quick. I kinda kidnapped her right after work, so l'm treating her to some top-tier rest stop food. I think a corndog sounds good." He smiled at you while he spoke.

Grinning, you placed your hand on his thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze. Jungkook raised an eyebrow, pretending to pull over, which made you laugh.

“I hope the only corndog you’re giving her is the kind that’s battered, dipped in potato, and deep-fried,” Taehyung joked through the speaker. “We don’t want her meeting everyone for the first time looking exhausted.”

“Don’t worry! He’s not getting near me with his corndog until I get the food I was promised!” you shot back, making Taehyung laugh.

“Well, Jimin and Cleo are already at the cabin, and we’re about the same distance away as you,” Taehyung replied. “Let’s meet at the rest stop and drive in together.”

Jungkook agreed, hanging up swiftly.

Before you knew it, you were pulling into the rest stop parking lot. You watched out the window as families exited their cars and headed inside. Noticing an empty spot, you pointed it out, and Jungkook backed in smoothly, turning off the engine. You had to admit, there was something irresistibly attractive about watching him drive.You grab his hand before he has the chance to get out of the car. He’s about to speak when you press your lips to his. You caress his cheek and let your other hand rest at the back of his neck, as your fingers place with his hair. He deepens the kiss, slowly slipping his tongue into your welcoming mouth. You glide your tongue along his for a short while before pulling away.

“I—I thought you didn’t want my ‘corndog’ until you’d eaten. But that kiss… makes it hard for me to let you leave this car.” Jungkook licks his lips, his hand casually drifting to your thigh, barely covered by the hem of your skirt. The fabric had ridden up when you leaned over to kiss him earlier, your sudden move catching him off guard.

You almost suggest that he park somewhere more secluded so you could playfully test just how hard it would be for him to let you out of the car. But before you can say anything, the sound of a loud bang on the windshield startles both of you.

You both look up and see a very handsome man standing there, a wide grin on his face.

“Taehyung!” Jungkook exclaims, his surprise evident as he unbuckles his seatbelt and throws open the door. You watch as the two men embrace, their muffled voices almost lost behind the thick glass of the windshield. A moment later, you hear Jungkook say your name, and both men’s eyes turn to you.

You quickly grab your purse, sliding your phone inside and throwing a glance at Jungkook before exiting the car. Taehyung’s warm, bear-like hug almost knocks the air from your lungs, but you welcome it with a smile.

“It’s so great to finally meet the woman who’s making my bro so happy!” He pulls away, beaming.

“I’m Taehyung,” he adds, flashing you a boyish grin.

You smile brightly in return and introduce yourself. As you do, you notice Jungkook out of the corner of your eye. His posture has changed, the easygoing demeanor that usually defined him now gone. His shoulders are tense, his jaw tight. It’s subtle, but it’s there—a furrowed brow that mirrors the one he gets whenever you greet Namjoon a little too warmly at the gym.

A wave of unease settles in your chest. He’s usually so relaxed, but the presence of his friend, who’s conventionally handsome and kind, has thrown him off. And you can’t help but feel a little guilty for not noticing sooner.

You step away from Taehyung’s hug and walk over to Jungkook, gently grabbing his hand as the three of you make your way towards the building.

“Where’s Sohyun?” Jungkook asks, his eyes scanning the area as if expecting her to pop out from behind a tree or car.

Taehyung’s expression falters, and you instantly recognize it. It’s the same look of hurt and betrayal you’ve worn too many times to count—something familiar, something you know all too well. The kind of expression you never want to wear again.

“Uh… she’s not coming,” Taehyung answers, his voice tight, his words curt.

Jungkook seems ready to probe further, but you gently squeeze his hand, giving him a subtle shake of your head. He hesitates, his brows furrowing, but after a moment, he nods, clearly not wanting to push.

“No worries. I guess it’s just gonna be us three guys and you two girls,” Jungkook says, attempting to lighten the mood.

But Taehyung doesn’t seem so sure. He hesitates again, like he’s unsure how to say what’s on his mind.

“N-no, still three girls,” he stammers, nervously scratching the back of his neck. “I invited someone else. I tried calling you about it, but I needed to pick you up and felt awkward texting about it…” He trails off, looking almost embarrassed.

Jungkook, clearly confused, lets go of your hand and places his hands firmly on his hips, his posture shifting into a fatherly stance. His eyes narrow in that way you’ve seen him do a thousand times, the same way he waits for you to explain why you left a pile of dirty laundry in the middle of the living room.

You look back and forth between them, wondering what this all means. Before anyone can say anything more, a voice calls out from across the parking lot.

“Taehyung! I told you to wait for me!”

You all turn to see a striking woman with shoulder-length brown hair striding toward you, wearing a fitted graphic t-shirt and shorts that show off toned, sun-kissed legs. Taehyung immediately shifts on his feet, turning slightly toward Jungkook, the unease visible in his posture.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, but Jungkook is too stunned to answer. His mouth falls open, and for a split second, you think he might say something, but the words don’t come. His eyes are locked on the woman, as she approaches.

“Taehyung! I told you to wait for me!” The woman exclaims, practically throwing herself into his arms as she wraps hers around his waist.

Jungkook’s face hardens as he takes in the sight. He stands frozen, unable to process what’s happening. That woman—his ex—Jisoo, was now in Taehyung’s arms. The woman who had shattered his heart before you came along, the one who’d made him swear off relationships for two years. And now, Taehyung—his closest friend—was with her.

You can see the shock, the betrayal, the pain flash across his face, but before you can react, Jisoo notices you.

“Jungkook,” she says, her voice laced with something both familiar and unsettling. You can’t help but notice the way her eyes skim over him—lazily, like she’s assessing what she’s missed. When her gaze finally lands on you, she smiles, though it’s more than just polite. It’s something else, something that feels… off.

You watch as Jisoo’s eyes flick over you—your dress, your posture, the hand Jungkook is holding tightly around your waist. Then, she smiles, almost smugly. “It’s been a while. You look good,” she says to Jungkook, her voice dripping with something you can’t quite put your finger on. Lust? Curiosity? Or maybe something darker?

Jungkook stands silently, pulling you closer to him, his arm instinctively tightening around your waist. You glance up at him. His jaw is clenched, his expression a mixture of frustration and quiet anger. But when he meets your eyes, his expression softens—just for a moment.

He doesn’t need to think about her anymore. Not when he has you. He hasn’t thought about her in so long, not since the day he realized that you were the one who helped him move on, who helped him heal.

He leans down, about to press a quick kiss to your lips, but before he can, Jisoo interrupts them, holding out her hand.

“I’m Jisoo. Nice to meet you,” she says, her tone feigning politeness, but there’s an edge to it. Her fingers hover just above yours, waiting for you to reciprocate.

You glance down at her hand before quickly shaking it, the discomfort in your chest growing. “Nice to meet you,” you reply, trying your best to keep your tone neutral.

You can feel Jungkook’s grip on your hand tightening as he pulls you closer. You glance up at him and, with a soft, reassuring smile, lean your head against his shoulder.

“Where’s that corndog I’ve heard so much about?” you ask, trying to redirect the conversation, your voice light as you move forward with him, away from the awkward tension.

Behind you, you hear the faint sound of raised voices. You don’t turn around, but the conversation between Taehyung and Jisoo seems to be escalating, and you can’t help but wonder what’s really going on between them.

Jungkook told you to pick a table, just the two of you, as he headed toward the brightly colored counter to order your deep-fried snacks. He was insistent on sitting alone, away from your weekend companions. You didn’t ask why, not yet, but you would. The unease in your chest had only grown since you first set foot in the food court, and you had a sinking feeling it was going to get worse before it got better.

Your eyes scanned the bustling food court as you waited for Jungkook to return. Your mind wandered for a moment, but when you looked back toward the table, you caught the unmistakable gaze of Jisoo across the way. She was looking directly at you, her hand casually gesturing for you to come over. You hesitated but felt a strange pull. You dropped your bag onto the seat and, against your better judgment, walked over to her.

“What’s up?” You asked, folding your arms, trying to keep a cool composure.

Jisoo’s smile was wide, but something about it made your stomach twist. The first time she smiled at you, it had felt almost… too perfect. Now, it just made you feel uneasy.

"Taehyung went to get his food," she began, her voice sweet but somehow too syrupy, as if it was trying to mask something. "I thought I’d pop by the convenience store for a quick salad. I figured you’d want to come with me." She paused, giving you a look that felt more pointed than friendly. "Jungkook’s your personal trainer, right? Tae mentioned it to me. He’s usually so strict with his diet. One year, he wouldn’t even eat his own birthday cake. I lost so much weight that year. He was—" She cuts herself off, her eyes scanning you briefly. "But I guess he’s changed."

Jungkook was the one who had encouraged you to be more comfortable with food, more relaxed, to enjoy life without the guilt you’d carried for years. But now, you felt the weight of Jisoo's words sink in, like they were slipping under your skin, poking at a vulnerability you thought was buried.

Her eyes raked up your body slowly, lingering on your midsection. It felt invasive, uncomfortable. You wanted to cover up, but you couldn't, and before you knew it, the pencil skirt you had worn proudly this morning—feeling good, feeling confident—now felt tight, unflattering, wrong. You looked down. The lumps and bumps that you usually tried to ignore now felt all too obvious. Confidence was a fragile thing. It took so long to build, and it only took one look, one comment to knock it down.

Jisoo didn’t stop there. "When we were together, we used to be known as that gym couple," she said, almost as if she were reminiscing. "Always in matching sets." Her eyes gleamed as she glanced at you. "But it’s nice to see that he has other clothes now."

You could feel your pulse quicken, your fingers tightening around your arms as you tried to hold on to what little composure you had left.

She smiled, clearly satisfied with the impact of her words.

"Oh!" She gasped, feigning surprise. "He didn’t tell you?"

No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t told you anything, not about her, not about their past, not about what they’d shared. He’d never mentioned that they had been together, that she was his ex-girlfriend. You knew there was history between them, but the look on his face when he saw her earlier… it suddenly made so much sense. He hadn’t told you. And now, Jisoo’s presence here was more than just awkward—it was a reminder that Jungkook could still be pulled back into her orbit. What if she was the one who got away?

"We’re so... different now," she continued, her eyes gliding over you one more time, as if you were some kind of puzzle. "So I’m sure he’s different with you." She then glanced over your shoulder, catching sight of Jungkook returning to the table.

"Kooky’s back at your table now," she said, her tone far too sweet. "Enjoy your fried goods!"

You didn’t trust her smile as you turned back toward your table. The sinking feeling in your stomach wouldn’t go away. You had to force yourself to sit down, grab your bag, and keep your hands from trembling.

Jungkook smiled at you, his hands holding up the corndog like some sort of peace offering, but the smile didn’t reach your eyes. You didn’t feel like smiling back.

“When were you gonna tell me that Jisoo is your ex-girlfriend?” you asked, your voice low, brow furrowed, lips turned down in quiet frustration.

Jungkook froze. The corndog slipped from his fingers, landing softly on the table. He had planned to tell you, maybe in the car or later that night when you were alone. He just hadn’t expected things to go like this. His mind raced, and for a brief moment, he wished he’d prepared for this conversation.

“Who told you?” he asked, his tone tentative, but there was something about it that didn’t sit right.

You couldn’t believe your ears. He was asking you who told you? After all of her comments, after that whole conversation you just had, he was asking that?

“She did,” you replied curtly, crossing your arms tightly over your chest, a defensive posture that you couldn’t shake.

Jungkook exhaled slowly, running a hand over his face, clearly frustrated with himself. He hadn’t expected Jisoo to spring this on you like she did. The fact that she was here, and the way she’d slipped back into his life so easily—it made him feel small, like he had allowed something to linger that shouldn’t have. But it was never supposed to be this way. She wasn’t supposed to make you feel small.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, though his voice still had that edge of frustration. “I honestly didn’t know she was coming, and I should’ve told you earlier. I just... I didn’t think it’d be like this. I’ll explain everything about her tonight, I promise. But please, just eat something. You’ve had a long day.”

He reached out, taking your hand across the table, rubbing his thumb over the soft skin of your palm, trying to soothe you.

Your eyes lingered over the spread of food—saucy rice cakes, crispy golden corndogs, the fishcake soup—but you couldn’t bring yourself to pick up a bite. Jisoo’s words played over and over in your head, and the last thing you felt like doing was eating.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” you said, offering him a tight, forced smile. “You eat.”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed in confusion, his eyes softening with concern. Something was wrong. He could feel it. He’d seen that look on your face before, and it made his stomach twist. It was the same expression you had when that woman at work had made a comment about your body a few weeks ago—about how she would never eat again and how lucky you were to have a personal trainer boyfriend. That night, Jungkook had reminded you how beautiful you were, inside and out. And it had helped, for a moment. But now, this? It felt like everything was slipping again.

“What the hell did she say to you?” His voice hardened with anger, the protective instinct flaring up in him.

You shook your head, pulling away slightly. The conversation was too much, too soon. You had your walls up, and you weren’t ready to address what had just happened. You communicated, then shut down, and Jungkook had learned to give you the space you needed.

“Babe, please,” he whispered, squeezing your hand. “I want to fix this. Please, let me make it better.”

You looked down at your hands, your chest tight with a mix of hurt and confusion.

“Then take me home,” you muttered, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jungkook’s eyes widened. This wasn’t how the weekend was supposed to go. You were meant to meet his friends, enjoy the weekend, and for the first time in a while, he had planned to tell you that he loved you. This wasn’t how it was meant to happen.

“If that’s what you want...” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment.

You watched him scramble to find his car keys, his eyes darting across the table.

“They’re in your pocket,” you said, smirking lightly despite everything.

Jungkook paused, then laughed softly, shaking his head at himself. Jisoo, watching from across the food court, looked on with a bemused expression as the tension between you two melted for just a second. But as soon as you both started laughing, she scoffed, hiding it behind a fake cough.

“Something was in my throat,” she said, her smile more knowing than ever.

Jungkook slid into the seat beside you, lifting you effortlessly into his lap. He wrapped his arms around you, his lips close to your ear. You rested your head against his shoulder, the chaos of the world outside temporarily quieting as you found comfort in his presence.

You walk to the car, hand in hand, with a takeout box swinging from Jungkook’s free hand. He’d managed to talk you into staying, promising to make it up to you. Before you get in, you pull him into a tight hug, feeling the warmth of his lips brush the top of your forehead.

“I’m sorry for overreacting,” you murmur softly into his ear.

He shakes his head, his heart swelling with gratitude. He knew you were the kind of partner who understood, who could have reacted so much worse, and he still would’ve understood.

“No,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry for keeping it from you. I should’ve been more open. If it had been up to me, I would’ve driven you home right then—if it meant we’d be okay. I still would. I just want us to be more than okay. I…” He pauses, almost slipping into something more, but he stops himself. Not here, not now. He wanted to tell you perfectly, when the time was right.

“I love spending time with you,” he continues, his voice soft but steady. “And I want to share you with the people I care about.”

He hopes you don’t notice how fast his heart is racing.

You tilt your head up at him, lips puckered slightly. Without a word, he leans down, and you both melt into a deep kiss, the kind that feels like the world stops spinning just for the two of you.

======

Before long, you pull up to a stunning house, its warm lights glowing from within. The lake is dark, the water shimmering silver beneath the moon’s glow. Gravel crunches underfoot as you step out of the car, breathing in the cool, fresh air. You close your eyes for a moment to take it all in, feeling the weight of the weekend ahead. You’re going to make the most of this. You’re the baddest bitch. Nicki Minaj said it best:

"I'm a bad bitch, fuck the bitch. Bitch get slick, I'ma cut the b-"

Your thoughts are interrupted by a shriek, and your eyes snap open to see Jisoo bouncing excitedly.

“It’s bringing back so many memories!” she exclaims. “We used to come here all the time! Right, guys?” She looks to Taehyung and Jungkook for confirmation.

The air shifts. You freeze, a knot forming in your stomach. This is the place he used to bring her—his ex. The realization hits you like a cold wave. You’re about to sleep in the same bed where they once did.

“No, we didn’t,” Jungkook interjects quickly, his tone sharper than usual. “You spent one afternoon here. Once. And you weren’t even allowed inside.”

Jisoo’s face falls, and she quickly glances over at you, suddenly aware of the tension in the air.

“Let’s go inside, babe,” Taehyung says, gently guiding her toward the door, his hand resting on her lower back.

You stand there for a moment, trying to shake off the discomfort, but before you can move, Jungkook grabs your hand, pulling you gently to the side.

You look up at him, surprised by the intensity in his gaze.

“She’s never been inside,” he says, his voice low and sincere. “We never shared a bed here. You’re the first woman I’ve brought here… and you’ll be the last. This place means something different now.”

You feel your heart soften at his words. It’s clear he’s trying to reassure you, trying to make sure you know that this weekend is about you and not his past. You give him a small, affectionate smile and nod, your tension easing a little as you follow him inside.

The house is more breathtaking than you imagined. It’s cozy yet luxurious, warm and inviting with just the right amount of opulence.

“Hi! I’ve heard so much about you!” A man with blonde hair and an easy smile steps in front of you as you slip off your shoes.

“You must be Jimin!” you say, recognizing him instantly.

Jungkook chuckles, kicking off his shoes and pulling Jimin into a bear hug. You can’t help but laugh at the playful exchange between the two men.

“And I’m Cleo!” A gorgeous woman steps out from the kitchen, her smile as bright as the sun. She’s warm and welcoming, giving you a tight hug before you can even introduce yourself.

This is such a contrast to the awkward energy you felt with Jisoo and Taehyung. Cleo's kindness immediately puts you at ease.

She leads you to your room, where Jungkook has already set down your bags. The men are getting things ready outside by the fire pit.

“Jungkook never stops talking about you,” Cleo says as she arranges a few things in the room, clearly excited. “Whenever we call, he spends the first half of the conversation gushing about you. He’s a total softie, by the way. And, I’ve heard all about your French toast. We bought everything he said you’d need! Would you mind making it for breakfast tomorrow?”

You smile at her easy warmth and kindness. She shows you the bathroom and where to find extra toiletries before excusing herself to leave you to get settled.

Once you’re alone, you strip down and hop into the shower, the warm water helping to ease the tension still lingering in your muscles from the car ride and the awkward moments with Jisoo.

When you step out, wrapped in a towel, you find that Jungkook has already brought your bags inside. He’s sitting on the bed, scrolling through his phone, but he looks up immediately when he hears the bathroom door open. His eyes soften as they meet yours.

"Why didn’t you tell me you were going to shower?" he teases, his voice low and playful. "I would've joined you."

You roll your eyes, but you can’t help the small smile that tugs at your lips. You bend down to grab some clothes from your bag and quickly pull on a hoodie and a pair of shorts, tucking the latter under your towel.

Jungkook watches you, a suggestive grin spreading across his face, but his gaze is also filled with something else—concern, maybe, or uncertainty.

“What?” you laugh, walking over to the bed, trying to play it off.

He sits up and swings his legs over to sit on the edge, his hands finding your waist. He pulls you close, his head resting gently on your stomach as you run your fingers through his hair.

His voice is quieter now, almost like he’s unsure how to tread. "I don't think anyone would mind if we just stayed in tonight. We’ve got some… making up to do. You know, for the whole 'ex-girlfriend' situation."

His hands slip down to your thighs, his touch gentle but possessive, his eyes searching yours for reassurance. There’s an unspoken question hanging in the air—are you okay?

You give him a soft smile, your fingers continuing to play with his hair as you whisper, “I’m good. I’m here with you. That’s all that matters.”

He exhales, a weight seemingly lifting from his shoulders as he leans into you, his expression softening. It’s clear now: he's more concerned about you than about anything else. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

He moves his hands to your rump, slightly squeezing as he continues up your back. His fingertips graze your skin as they make the journey to the middle of your back. He feels no resistance, no extra material in the way.

“No bra, huh? It’s like you knew this would happen.” His brows wiggle enthusiastically.

You throw your head back in laughter.

“You just saw me get out of the shower, I didn’t have time to put on a bra!” 

His heart warms at seeing you laugh. He only wants to see you happy, he wants nothing more to be the cause of some of that happiness.

Suddenly, you feel his hand part your thighs, knuckles skimming along the seam of your shorts, the seam that covered your centre. He doesn’t break eye contact as his fingertips feel for your clit under the thin fabric. You bite your lip as you look down at him.

“No panties either? You naughty girl.”

He rubs with more pressure, earning a moan from you. You roll your eyes and push him back, his back lands on the bed. Before he could ask what you were doing, you crawled on the bed and straddled him. He shifted to sit up against the headboard, he brought his hands to rest on your ass.

You kiss him slowly, tongue teasing his. Arms wrapping around his neck. One thing about your boyfriend was that he was vocal. He would whimper, moan, breathe heavily. It was like music to your ears.

He moans into your mouth, deepening the kiss. He was going to make it up to you, show you that you’re the only one he cares about here. He slides one hand under your hoodie, caressing your breast, thumb toying with your now pebbled nipple. You were always to aware of yourself in all situations, especially physical ones. You were worried that you might crush him if you put all of weight on him. To which he told you how ridiculous that claim was. So when it came to making out like this, in this position, you hovered over him, making the space between your crotches so noticeable. Jungkook pushes you down with the hand that now moved to your waist. You feel his hardness under you. You shiver at the feeling. Pulling away, you take a look at him. Wow. This gorgeous man was really yours. He looks at you, his lids half open, lips shining with saliva. He leans into pepper kisses all over your neck. Hands pulling up the edge of your hoodie, he puts his head under it to kiss your breasts, taking a nipple into his mouth. The sounds in the room were borderline pornographic. You moan, pulling at his hair, causing him to nibble. Fuck, you were so soaked right now. You could feel your shorts become damp with arousal.

“Can I fuck you?” He asks, kissing your chest, voice muffled by your shirt.

You grind down on his hardened length. He pulls his head out from under your hoodie, hand going straight for your centre. He groans as he feels the soaked material.

“Please.” He begs. He felt like he wouldn’t be able to breathe if he didn’t get inside you immediately.

---

Just as you were about to speak, a sharp knock echoed against the door.

“Hey, guys, the campfire’s ready. We’re grilling some meat too!” A deep voice rang out from the other side. You recognized it instantly—it was Taehyung, the same voice that had cut through the tension at the rest stop earlier.

Jungkook doesn’t stop touching you, starting to kiss your neck once more.

“W-we’ll b-be out in a minute.” You basically moan out. 

Your boyfriend puts his lips to your ear..His shaky breathes, makes goosebumps appear on your sweaty skin.

“Now he knows what you sound like when you’re about to get fucked good. He might try and take you away from me.” He nips at your earlobe.

Taehyung knocks again.

“Jungkook, bro. I was hoping that we could talk before dinner. You know, clear the air.” 

Jungkook rolls his eyes. This was a slippery slope, was he really that hungry for you or was he trying to avoid the situation at hand. With Taehyung and… Jisoo.

“We should go down.” You whisper, kissing his cheek.

He whines, not wanting to let go of you.

“How can I with this?” He gestures to his eye-catching erection.

You get off him and off the bed.

“Think of Jisoo and Taehyung.” You quip, heading to the bathroom to change your ruined shorts.

Jungkook’s mouth drops open and the blood starts to return to his head. He runs his hands through his hair and gets off the bed and opens the door to Taehyung.

He yells that he was going down, to which you yelled out an ‘okay’ from behind the bathroom door.

---

Jungkook tried to act casual, his footsteps light as he walked down the hallway, avoiding Taehyung's gaze.  

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. 

"Dude." Taehyung stopped abruptly, his voice cutting through the silence. Jungkook froze, not wanting to face this conversation, but knowing he had no choice. 

Taehyung turned to him, a mix of frustration and apology in his eyes. “You mean, about how you're dating my ex-girlfriend? Or how you brought her to a trip where you knew my current girlfriend would be? Or maybe how I thought you were my friend?" Taehyung let out a heavy sigh, his face a picture of regret. 

Jungkook shifted uncomfortably. The words hit harder than he expected, and the guilt started to creep in. But Taehyung wasn’t done.  

"I’m such an asshole," Taehyung muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "I should’ve told you sooner. I shouldn’t have brought her. But Sohyun cheated on me... I was lonely, and Jisoo reached out, and... it just kinda happened. I’m really sorry, man.”

Jungkook paused, the weight of his friend’s vulnerability sinking in. He hadn’t realized just how hurt Taehyung had been until now. He could feel the tension loosening between them, a quiet understanding forming. 

“I get it,” Jungkook said quietly, his voice more sincere than before. Seeing Jisoo again had stirred up some unwanted feelings in him, but the one thing he was sure of was that he had you now—and that was enough to move past the past. He didn’t want to lose his friend over something like this. "Just... as long as you're happy, man. That’s all that matters.”

He pulled Taehyung into a brief hug, the tension dissipating like a long-awaited breath. 

You stepped out of the room just in time to catch the two friends in a rare moment of understanding. The tension between them had eased, and for the first time in a while, you saw them act like the friends they once were. 

The campfire crackled in the distance, the laughter and warmth drawing you in. You saw Jimin and Cleo sitting close by, Cleo perched comfortably in his lap as she flipped the sizzling pieces of meat on the grill. Jisoo was absorbed in taking pictures of the moon, her camera clicking away. You smiled softly, imagining you’d be doing the same thing soon. 

Suddenly, Taehyung appeared by her side, wrapping his arm around her waist and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. The sight of them felt unexpectedly sweet, and for a moment, you forgot about the tension with Jisoo. 

You made your way over to Jimin and Jungkook, who was already settling in beside you. Without missing a beat, Jungkook grabbed a bottle of Soju, spinning it expertly in his hands before pouring six shots of the clear liquid. 

Everyone gathered around the table, and with a shared look, you all raised your glasses. The burn of Soju slid down your throat, smoother than expected but still with that familiar heat. You winced slightly but grinned as you set the glass down.  

The table was littered with empty bottles, the air buzzing with the energy of the group. The men—Jungkook, Taehyung, and Jimin—decided to put on a hilarious impromptu performance of Beyoncé’s *Halo*, using empty bottles as microphones. You couldn't help but laugh at their antics, your stomach tight with the joy of the moment.  

Cleo clung to you, her voice low and soft as she hummed along, her presence soothing. She’d been so kind to you all evening, stepping in whenever Jisoo tried to poke at your insecurities. And Jisoo *did* try a lot—her words were sharp, but Cleo's attention was always just a little bit more piercing. You couldn’t help but feel grateful for her friendship. 

Jungkook, ever the protective boyfriend, kept you under his arm all night. He’d feed you whenever you seemed to pause, leaning in to whisper that you needed fuel for later. His voice was loud enough for everyone to hear, and you could feel the heat rise to your cheeks. The others noticed, too, and you instinctively buried your face into his shoulder, embarrassed and strangely comforted by his possessiveness. 

Jisoo, meanwhile, had tried her best to make Jungkook jealous, but it hadn’t worked. She’d kissed Taehyung passionately in front of everyone, all the while peeking at Jungkook to see if he was watching. But he wasn’t. 

The evening carried on in high spirits. But just as you thought things couldn’t get any better, a loud splash interrupted the laughter. You walked away from the table, drawn by the noise. As you rounded the corner, you saw a pile of discarded clothes near the lake. The group had jumped in, all of them splashing around in the cool water. 

Jungkook emerged from the lake, dripping wet and looking impossibly attractive. His hair clung to his forehead, and his broad shoulders glistened in the firelight. You couldn’t help but smile, but at the same time, a voice in your head hesitated. 

You’d been working hard on your fitness, especially since you’d met Jungkook, but compared to the others—Cleo, with her confidence, and Jisoo, who exuded a certain effortless beauty—you felt self-conscious. You weren’t ready to strip down and join them in the water. Not yet. 

Jungkook’s voice broke through your thoughts as he called your name, waving excitedly before Jimin jumped onto his back, both of them tumbling into the water. 

You laughed, shaking off your insecurities, and moved to sit on a nearby sunbed. The sight of the group—so carefree, so full of life—felt freeing, and for a moment, you let yourself enjoy the evening without overthinking. 

It didn’t take long before the group emerged from the lake, their laughter ringing out as they ran back to their clothes. Jisoo, spotting something, let out a loud gasp.

“Kooky! We’re matching!” she pointed out, her eyes wide in mock surprise as she realized both she and Jungkook were wearing matching Calvin Klein underwear.

Jungkook shot her a quick look, rolling his eyes at her antics. Without missing a beat, he sprinted toward you, dripping wet, and you instinctively tried to push him away, not wanting to get soaked. 

"Not for long," he said with a mischievous grin, pulling you closer. “These are coming off when we get upstairs.”

You giggled, your heart racing as you looked him over. The sight of him—wet, muscular, and teasing you—was almost too much. He really was a dream, too good to be true.

Jisoo glanced over her shoulder, ensuring that you were well out of view, before she lowered her voice and turned her attention fully to Jungkook. Her usually calm demeanor shifted, and there was a hint of seriousness in her eyes.

“Is this some sort of charity thing? Or do you feel bad for her? Dating a client, really Kook? Or wait… I think I know. It’s a tactic, you’re trying to keep a client by fucking her? Trying to do one of those ‘before and after’ pics right?  How do you even do it? Even with your eyes closed-“

Jungkook stops her venomous words.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jungkook’s voice was low, each word dripping with contempt. “Stop trying to worm your way back into my life. And leave my girlfriend the hell out of this. You’ve done enough damage already.”

He took a step forward, fists clenched at his sides, the anger in his chest almost too much to contain. “I should’ve walked away the second I saw you. But no, I brought you here because I wanted her to see who I used to be. To understand the people who were in my life. Then I realized... I shouldn’t even have to explain myself. You’re not part of that anymore.”

Jisoo opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off, his voice harder this time, like shards of glass. “You always cared about how you looked, didn’t you? About how you made me feel when I was with you. You didn’t give a damn about me. About what I needed. But I’m not the same guy I was back then. I’ve moved on... And somehow, I ended up with someone who sees me for who I am, not some image, some damn trophy. Someone who actually cares about me.”

Jungkook’s chest heaved with the weight of it all, the anger mixing with the pain he hadn’t allowed himself to feel before. He jabbed a finger in her direction, voice breaking through the air like a warning. “I’m with someone who is beautiful inside and out. Someone you’ll never be. Not in a million years.”

Jisoo wasn’t going to back down, though. That damn stubbornness in her wouldn’t let her. She took a step forward, her eyes gleaming with something dangerous, almost predatory.

“Don’t you miss us?” she asked softly, the words thick with nostalgia and something darker. She moved closer, her fingertips grazing the waistband of his boxers with a familiarity that sent a jolt through his body. “Don’t you ever think about how we used to be? About the way we felt when it was just us?”

Before Jungkook could shove her away, your voice sliced through the air, cutting off the moment entirely.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Jungkook watched you from across the room, his chest tightening as you distanced yourself from him—again. His eyes flickered between you and Jisoo, who stood too close, too perfect, like she always had. He hated the way it made you pull away, the way your shoulders seemed to fold in on themselves, as if you could disappear entirely.

Jisoo was everything you weren’t. Confident, poised, effortlessly beautiful. The kind of woman Jungkook used to be drawn to. And here you were, standing in the shadows, trying to shrink into yourself. He could see it in the way your eyes darted around the room, never meeting his, never fully present. You didn’t think you belonged here. Didn’t think you belonged in his life.

He couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand how you looked at yourself like that.

Jisoo’s voice broke through his thoughts, sharp and taunting, and the pain in your eyes deepened. He knew exactly what was happening—Jisoo’s presence was triggering the worst of your insecurities, dredging up every fear you ever had. That voice in your head telling you that you weren’t good enough, that he deserved someone better. That you didn’t fit.

Jungkook’s heart pounded, his chest a heavy weight as he watched you take a step back, retreating even further into yourself. He hated seeing you like this. He couldn’t let you keep thinking you weren’t enough, not when he was standing right here, trying to make you understand how wrong you were.

“Hey.” He moved toward you quickly, his voice soft but urgent. His fingers found your arm, pulling you gently but firmly back toward him. You flinched, like you were afraid he might let go at any moment.

He didn’t. He wasn’t going to.

“You know she’s just trying to get to me, right?” he said, his voice low, filled with a quiet frustration that he could never fully express. He could feel your eyes on him now, but you weren’t really seeing him. You weren’t with him. “She doesn’t have any power over me anymore. I’m with you. Not her. And I’m not going anywhere. You’re everything to me.”

Your gaze flickered to his, but there was still so much doubt in your eyes, so much uncertainty. You were still hearing Jisoo’s voice in your head, still thinking that somehow you didn’t belong here.

“You’re too good for me,” you whispered, your voice small, fragile. The words cut through him in a way he wasn’t prepared for. “I’m not... I’m not like her. I’m not—”

Your words trailed off, and Jungkook could see the weight behind them. He could hear everything you couldn’t say—the fears, the worries, the thoughts that told you you didn’t deserve him. That you couldn’t ever measure up to Jisoo, or to the women he could have.

It wasn’t the first time he’d heard this, but each time it felt like a punch to the gut. He hated it. Hated that you couldn’t see yourself the way he saw you.

He stepped closer, cupping your face gently with both hands, tilting your head up so you had no choice but to meet his eyes. His heart was racing, but he pushed through it, fighting back the flood of emotions that threatened to choke him.

“You’re not just someone,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, every word deliberate, every word soaked with the weight of everything he felt for you. “You’re my someone. And I don’t give a damn about anyone else. I never did.”

You didn’t look away, but your expression was still clouded with doubt, like you didn’t believe him. The truth was right there, staring you in the face, but you couldn’t take it in, couldn’t let yourself believe it.

“I don’t deserve you,” you said quietly, the words breaking in your throat. “You’re... you’re Jungkook. You could have anyone. Anyone but me.”

Jungkook felt his chest tighten, the ache in his heart growing as he heard the words that had haunted you for so long. How could you still think this way? He wanted to scream, to shake you, to make you see just how wrong you were. But instead, he leaned in closer, his thumb gently brushing away the tear that had fallen from your eye.

“You’re not just anyone,” he said, the words steady, unwavering, even as his hands trembled slightly. “You’re the one I want. You’re everything I need.”

The way you looked at him, still unsure, still struggling to accept his words—it broke him. He wasn’t sure what else to say, but he knew one thing for sure: he wasn’t going to let you go on thinking you weren’t enough. You were more than enough. You were everything he needed.

Without thinking, he pulled you into his arms, wrapping you tightly in the warmth of his embrace. He buried his face in your hair, his chest rising and falling in time with your breaths.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured against your ear, his voice low and full of sincerity. “Always. You’re safe with me.”

You let out a shaky breath and clung to him like you were finally letting yourself believe it, like you were finally allowing yourself to be loved. The tension in your body eased, just slightly, and Jungkook held you even tighter, his heart beating in rhythm with yours.

He didn’t care about Jisoo. He didn’t care about anyone but you. And if he had to spend the rest of his life showing you just how much you mattered, he would.

You needed space. You mutter a quiet reply when jungkook asks you if you were okay. You head up to the bedroom, locking yourself in. Jungkook was feeling a mix of emotions.

Jungkook stood there for what felt like an eternity, his forehead still pressed to the cool surface of the bedroom door, the silence around him growing louder with each passing second. He wanted to say something—anything—to bridge the distance between you, to take away the hurt he could hear in your silence. But he couldn’t. Not yet.

The sound of footsteps broke his thoughts, and he instinctively straightened up, wiping his hands over his face in frustration. He knew who it was before he even turned around.

Jimin.

His best friend had a way of knowing exactly when things weren’t right. Maybe it was because he’d seen Jungkook go through the motions more times than he cared to count. They’d been through a lot together—highs, lows, heartbreaks—and Jimin had always been there to help Jungkook find his footing again. This time, however, felt different. Jimin had to know something was off, and he wasn’t the type to stay silent when he could see someone struggling.

"She’s still in there, huh?" Jimin’s voice was gentle, but Jungkook could hear the knowing tone. He didn’t have to answer—Jimin could read him like a book.

Jungkook let out a long, tired breath, his voice low. “Yeah. I just... I don’t know what to do, man. I feel like I fucked up. She’s just so... I don’t even know what she’s thinking right now.”

Jimin stepped closer, leaning against the kitchen counter as he folded his arms. He studied Jungkook for a moment, his eyes soft but thoughtful. “I think you’re both overthinking this,” he said finally, the words calm but with the weight of experience behind them.

Jungkook looked up at him, the frustration still clear in his eyes. “Overthinking it? She’s in there, and I’m out here, stuck trying to figure out how to make things right, and all you’ve got is ‘overthinking’?”

Jimin smirked, but it wasn’t the teasing smile he usually wore. It was something softer, more understanding. He was being serious.

"Jungkook, calm down." Jimin’s voice was steady, but there was a certain compassion in his tone that Jungkook could feel even through his own agitation. “Look, I know you want to fix things right now. I know you hate that she’s upset. But you need to remember something."

Jungkook shifted, his gaze drifting back to the bedroom door as if he could somehow see through it to you on the other side. He didn’t know what was more difficult—the waiting or the feeling that he wasn’t sure how to make it all better.

Jimin continued, his voice gentle but firm. “It’s not always about fixing everything in the moment. Sometimes, she needs time to process what happened. What you need to do is give her that space—because you pushing and pushing won’t change anything.”

Jungkook shook his head, his frustration boiling over. “I don’t want her to think I’m just leaving her to deal with this alone. She’s my responsibility, Jimin. I want to fix it now, before it gets worse.”

Jimin raised a hand, cutting him off, and stepped forward, placing a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “I get that. But here’s the thing. You’re both carrying something. She’s carrying her own set of fears and insecurities—things you might not even fully understand. And you—you’re carrying your own fear that you’ll lose her. The pressure to make everything right is weighing on both of you. But the only way you’re going to get through this is if you’re patient. With her, and with yourself."

Jungkook looked at him, feeling a mixture of gratitude and frustration. "It’s just... Jisoo. She keeps getting in the way. I can’t stand seeing her upset when she thinks I’m just some kind of rebound, that I’m only here because I don’t care enough to be with someone like her.”

Jimin’s expression softened. “I know that’s hard to watch. But let’s be real. Jisoo doesn’t define your relationship with her. You know that better than anyone. If she’s in your past, then she’s in your past. What you and she have—what you and your girl have—that’s different. Don’t let anyone, even someone as complicated as Jisoo, mess with what you have now.”

Jungkook let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I want her to believe me, man. I want her to see that she’s not some... replacement. That she’s everything to me.” He paused, his voice softening. “I’m just not sure how to make her feel like she’s enough.”

Jimin nodded thoughtfully, his gaze steady on his friend. “The fact that you’re worried about it—that shows you care. You’re already doing the hardest part, Jungkook. You’ve been loving her the best way you know how, and that’s more than what most people do. But she has to believe it in her own time, on her own terms. You can’t force that. What you can do is be there. Be the kind of man she can trust to stand by her side, no matter what. Show her with your actions.”

Jungkook took in the words, letting them sink in. He’d always been quick to act, to fix things, to find a solution. But Jimin was right. This wasn’t something that could be solved with one grand gesture. It was a matter of trust—and sometimes trust took time to build.

“Yeah...” Jungkook muttered, looking down at the floor. “I just wish I could make her feel like she’s worth it. I hate seeing her think she’s not.”

Jimin clapped him on the back, the gesture light but reassuring. “She will. You just have to be patient. And don’t get so caught up in trying to fix everything all at once. You’re not perfect, and neither is she. But that’s why you guys work. Because, at the end of the day, you’ve got each other. And that’s enough.”

Jungkook let out a slow breath, feeling some of the tension ease from his shoulders. Maybe Jimin was right. Maybe this wasn’t something that could be fixed tonight. Maybe it wasn’t even something that could be fixed with words. But he could give her space. He could give her time.

And when she was ready, he’d be there.

“I’m gonna go give her some time,” Jungkook said quietly, his voice softer now, more certain. “But I’m not giving up on her. On us.”

Jimin grinned, his usual playful smirk returning. “That’s what I like to hear. Now go. Let her know you’re there for her, but don’t push. She’ll come to you when she’s ready.”

With one last reassuring clap on the back, Jimin turned and walked back toward the living room, leaving Jungkook to face the reality of what was to come. But this time, Jungkook felt something he hadn’t felt in a while: hope.

The sounds of laughter and quiet conversation had gradually faded as the night wore on. One by one, the group had trickled off to their rooms, leaving Jungkook alone in the living room. The weight of the night pressed down on him like a heavy fog, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing, something undone.

Jisoo’s sudden appearance had wrecked the calm he’d tried to create between you and him. And now, with everyone else gone, he was left with nothing but the soft hum of the house and his own swirling thoughts. The feeling of helplessness—of wanting to fix things, but not knowing how—gnawed at him.

He sat down on the couch, his muscles sore from the tension that had been building all night. He tugged his t-shirt over his head, letting the fabric fall into his lap as he leaned back into the cushions. The cool air of the house brushed over his skin, but it did nothing to cool the heat rising in his chest. The way you had retreated into yourself earlier, the walls you’d put up—he hated it.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, he thought. Tonight was supposed to be about you. About letting you meet the people who meant the most to him, letting you know just how serious he was.

But somehow, it had all gone sideways. And now, he was left here, alone, with nothing but his own self-doubt to keep him company.

Jungkook stayed up for hours, his mind turning over the events of the evening—how Jisoo’s presence had made you pull away, how he hadn’t been able to say what he needed to say. The words were there, right on the tip of his tongue, but they felt useless now, like they wouldn’t be enough to make you see that you were everything to him.

Eventually, exhaustion caught up with him, and his body gave in to sleep despite the whirlwind of thoughts that kept him wide awake.

The sound of footsteps broke the stillness in the room, pulling Jungkook from a restless sleep. His eyelids fluttered open, his vision blurry for a moment. He blinked, disoriented, and then he saw you sitting on the edge of the couch, your legs tucked under you, watching him with a quiet intensity. The faint glow of the nightlight illuminated your face, and despite the heaviness in the air, there was something about you that felt... softer.

Jungkook's heart thudded in his chest as he rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the remnants of sleep. His throat felt dry, and the words he had been dying to say all night were still heavy on his tongue. But now that you were here—so close, and yet so far—it felt like he was back to square one. Vulnerable, unsure.

“Hey,” you said quietly, your voice carrying a gentleness he hadn’t expected. Your eyes were slightly red, but there was no anger in them—just that quiet sadness that had settled over you earlier.

Jungkook sat up slowly, clearing his throat, unsure of what to say. He wasn't sure what kind of reaction you were expecting, or if you'd even want to hear what he had to say. He was terrified that, in trying to fix things, he might only make it worse.

"Hey," he replied hoarsely, the words coming out shakier than he wanted. His voice still carried the weight of everything he'd been holding back, and for a second, he wished he could just take all of it and say it at once, get it out. But that was never easy for him.

He cleared his throat, trying to steady himself, but his thoughts were a mess. "I... I don’t know where to start," he muttered. "I’m sorry for earlier. I never meant to make you feel that way." His voice wavered, and he looked down at his hands for a moment, afraid to meet your eyes. "I should’ve... done better. I should've been there for you in a way that actually made you feel like you belong, not like you were just... some outsider."

You shifted on the couch, your hands curling into your lap. You looked away briefly, as if gathering your own thoughts, before turning back to him with a quiet, but steady gaze.

"I just... I don’t know how to be what you need sometimes," you admitted softly, your voice shaking a little as you spoke. "I feel like I’m too much, or just not enough. Like, when I see someone like Jisoo... I think, how could someone like you really want someone like me?" Your words cracked with vulnerability, and it made Jungkook’s chest tighten painfully.

The truth of your insecurities hit him like a physical blow. He wanted to say something—anything—to make it better. To erase the doubt in your voice. But the words stuck in his throat. He was scared. Scared of saying the wrong thing, scared that maybe he wasn’t enough for you either, and that you might never truly believe how much you meant to him.

He swallowed hard and reached out, his hand trembling slightly as he brushed his fingers along your arm, trying to comfort you, even as he struggled with his own fears.

“No,” Jungkook whispered, shaking his head as if to dismiss the thought completely. “That’s... that’s not it at all. You’re everything to me.” His voice faltered, and his heart raced in his chest. He hesitated for a moment, the words almost too heavy to say, but they were there—just waiting to be spoken. “I... I don’t care about anyone else. I don’t care about Jisoo. She’s my past. You’re... you’re my present. You’re who I want, who I’ve always wanted.”

He looked down at his lap, unsure of how you were processing what he was saying. The fear of rejection still lingered in the pit of his stomach. What if you didn’t feel the same? What if, in trying to be honest, he only pushed you further away?

You were quiet for a long moment, and Jungkook couldn’t bring himself to look at you. His heart pounded as the seconds stretched into what felt like forever.

But then, you spoke.

"I just don’t get it. I don’t know why you’d want someone like me, when you could have someone like—" You paused, your voice catching. "Someone like her."

Jungkook’s pulse quickened. He didn’t want you to keep questioning it, to keep doubting what they had. He needed you to see the truth.

He reached for you, his hands gently cupping your face, bringing your eyes back to his. This time, there was no hesitation. He had to say it, even if his voice was thick with fear. “You don’t get it because you don’t see how incredible you are. How beautiful, and kind, and strong you are. You’re not too much—you’re more than enough. You’re everything to me. I’m not with you out of convenience or because I don’t have better options. I’m with you because I love you.”

His heart raced as he let the words linger between you, almost as if the weight of them was too much to carry. He held his breath, terrified of what you might say next. He waited, his hands trembling, as the silence stretched out.

You blinked, staring at him as if processing his words, the emotions swirling in your eyes. He couldn’t read your face, and the uncertainty gnawed at him.

But then you whispered, your voice barely audible, “I love you too.”

Jungkook’s chest surged with relief, a weight lifting from him as he heard those words, but it was still soft, fragile. There was more to say, more to understand, but right now, in this moment, it was enough.

And for the first time in a long time, Jungkook felt like he wasn’t just waiting for the storm to pass—he was finally standing on solid ground. With you.

Finally! Hope you guys like it. If you don't, please keep it to yourself, no mean comments please :)

[ceasarslegion]

Please tell me about the guy in your college dorm who got scurvy, I love a good modern day scurvy story. Like bro, have a delightful lemon-parm chicken

So in uni I lived in a co-ed dorm building where we had single-person rooms and shared a common room, washrooms/showers, laundry, and a kitchen. We also had a dining hall that we could purchase meal plans from (which i also had all 4 years, because i juggled full time school and 2 jobs at the same time. I did NOT have the time to cook for myself and I would not have done so in that kitchen to be frank). The building was split up into a bunch of different houses which we took personality quizzes to get assigned to in order to limit the amount of conflicts that would happen in this living situation. I was put in the smallest house (there were only 20 of us) and it was full of real chill like-minded people who liked to watch movies with me. This guy was the next door away from me, but wasn't my immediate next door neighbour because the stairwell broke up our house down the middle.

He was the house shut-in. He didn't really join any of the hang outs in the common room, or go out clubbing with us, he just kinda shut himself in his dorm room and never came out. Eventually we stopped slipping invitations to things under his door like we did with everyone else because there was no point. But I saw him in the dining hall and I saw him swiping a meal card a few times so I knew he was on the meal plan, meaning i KNEW he had access to fruit and veggies and even just like, juice. The food wasn't good but you had all the opportunities in the world to make it good FOR you, if that makes sense.

One of my jobs at this point was as an overnight security guard for an apartment building. I would come back around 4am and then crash out until 11 or 12 and then go to my afternoon and night classes. This is relevant because I was coming back into the building after a shift once in full uniform while he was sitting on the front steps and looking like he was hungover to the point of near-unconsciousness. I ask if he's feeling okay, if he needs anything, he waves me off and says he just needs some air. I'm like okay well, you know which doors mine if you change your mind bud.

He was an enigma who never spoke to us so I waved the situation off as too much college partying or something.

Over the next few days this becomes a common sight among everyone, who says they would also come back from their part time jobs or outings to him nearly passed out on a courtyard bench or something, a few people said they heard someone throwing up in our floor's shared bathroom.

About a week later I come back from my shift as usual and crash in bed until noon, expecting to wake up and go to my classes as usual. I grab my school bag and throw my regular coat and boots on and walk to class. I liked to sit in the back of that lecture hall because that prof had a rule that you were allowed to eat in his class as long as you sat in the last 3 rows, so I'd bring my breakfast and coffee in one of the dining hall to go boxes. I did not end up eating my breakfast or drinking my coffee.

In fact I did not make any notes on my laptop.

In fact, the house discord server blew up while I was asleep.

This guy, this fucking guy, had gone to our don (RA, basically) and told her he needed to go to the ER and then passed out on her couch. She doesn't have a car because none of us did, so everyone who was there and awake ended up dragging him to the closest hospital that was a few blocks away from campus on foot. Why they did not call an ambulance or at least an Uber is beyond me, but panic does weird things to people.

Reading through this in the corner of my eye before class starts, I have forgotten about class entirely. I have forgotten about my breakfast and my coffee. A few people were asking if they should ask for the don's master key and wake me up, thinking that i might have training in these things from what my job was (i did), and then others shut them down saying "no, let him sleep. He gets home at 4:30 in the morning" (WHY DIDNT YOU WAKE ME UP I WOULDNT HAVE CARED IF YOU SAID SOMEONE WAS HAVING A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. I COULDVE AT LEAST KEPT YOU ALL CALM AND DELEGATED TASKS)

I send a message in just saying "guys I'm up now what is going on" with an @everyone attached.

Instantly get "several people are typing." That's never a good sign.

So this guy was in the ER for hours getting IV-fed. Because he had scurvy. And they had to vitamin C infuse him. Because he hadn't eaten a single fruit or vegetable or anything derived from a plant the entire school year. He got SCURVY. IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2019.

Bro eat a fruit. EVER?? But he just didn't. He just never did. He had fucking scurvy. He passed out and had bleeding gums and his teeth almost fell out. Because he had scurvy.

He did not come back the next school year because his parents pulled him out of the dorms on the basis that he couldn't be trusted to take care of himself after that incident. And I do not blame them at all. Ma'am your kid can't be trusted to eat one (1) orange all year.

[m3r1m4r5u333]

You know, with the way that both Eddie and Buck are canonically prone to making these impulsive, rushed, desperate attempts to move in with their partners -- way too soon into their relationship (Buck having now tried that twice, first with Taylor, then with Tommy! Ooh actually, thrice! He moved into Abby's apartment as well. Which wasn't super smart. Yikes!)

... and have then been burned by this idea because oops, that impulsive decision backfired...? Bye relationship...?

So. This tendency combined with the way these two are often so oblivious about their habit to nest with each other!!!

I'm just ✨imagining✨ that once they actually do get their shit together, and start dating each other...

They'll probably be, as usual, just so, so, sooo dumb about that step of moving in to share a home. They'll probably both want to do that like... stupidly soon, but hey.

They've been burned before and this thing is so important this time to get right... So what to do? Help, there is no manual for this!!

Which... results in this awkward situation of them just avoiding talking about this topic. At all! Both actually wanting to live together, but afraid to ask for it, or even really mention their desire to live together and share a home full time.

Which still... doesn't actually stop them from starting to live together! Like always, they just can't help the way they naturally gravitate towards each other. All the time, like the bonded pair they are.

So in the end the whole thing will probably end up being discussed like:

Buck: Hey Eddie. I was wondering. Could we... Maybe. Uhhh. Maybeeee. Move in together? 🫣

Eddie: What? Oh. MOVE IN TOGETHER?! Did you say, move in together?

... Yeah! I'd like that, Buck! You do know that I love having you around! I'm so glad that you asked. Yes. Lets do that 😁

Buck: Oh.. You want that Really?

Eddie: YES. REALLY. I'm SURE.

Buck: That's... Such a relief. Yeah. Lets do that, then *hesitantly smiles, then grins. THEN BEAMS!!*

Eddie: *coughs* To be honest. I was already maybe... Thinking. A bit! That you'd already... moved in. Kinda? Was just nervous to bring it up.

Buck: Huh?

Eddie: Well. I was nervous to ask you to, or confirm if you had... because I don't want to rush things, again... I want to do this right! I want... Us. Like, this is it for me, Buck. You are it for me.

So... I was just scared to rush this. And ruin us. But. Anyway. Now that the can is open 🤔...

Yeah. I was thinking about it the other day, and I'm pretty sure it's been months now since you spent the night at your loft?

'Cause remember the last time.. When you... Actually, we both slept at your loft, you know... After we broke the bed here 😎...?

Yeah 🤔 Aaaannd then, the next day we were already back to living here. Because of this plant kick you've gone for. Which, to be frank, is starting to feel less like a kick and more like I'm in a throuple. Me, you, the plants... 🤔

Anyway, as we know, of course you worry if you're not around to water all of these hundreds of delicate house plants that you fallen in love with. You know, which is why we are standing in a jungle right now, Buck?

Buck: *stares at Eddie*

Eddie: Really, Buck. I'm telling you, we already live together. IN A JUNGLE!

Buck: ...It's not a jungle! Stop saying that it's a jungle, I don't have problem. Look, this plant grows on savannahs in nature! So it CAN'T possible be a jungle! Are savannahs jungles, Eddie? Don't think so! So there you have it!

Eddie: You do have a problem, Buck. I don't mind the problem, Buck. I like the plants, Buck.

... My point was, you already live here.

Buck, we both live here. Together. In our home. You moved in... about seven months ago, I think? That was when you hauled in your favorite things and stopped sleeping at yours.

It was right after your birthday, yeah. I gave you those records as a gift, and then you brought your vinyl player here. Along with your entire vinyl record collection. Because apparently "I'm not a nerd, vinyl just sounds better, Eddie" and you wanted to listen to them here, while you chill and water our entire jungle of house plants.

... Again, I don't mind any of it, Buck. I love it, sharing a home with you. I love you.

Buck: Oh.

Eddie: Yeah.

Buck: ... Oooooh we ARE living together, Eddie! HEY, I could sell the loft! Or rent it. And then we'd have more money to spend on our ju--plants!!

Eddie: Yeah. Guess you could. *Smiles, goes for a kiss*

Buck: 🥰 Love you, Eddie. (...Love you, plants.)

(Plants: Stop killing us then, murderer!!! For real! How hard can it be?!)

[gretavanmoon]

an omnipresent force • ch 5

Chapter 5 - DARK ABDUCTION

Jake x female reader

Words: 12K

A/N: Semi-AU// Set six years in the future, the world has decided to cast humankind aside, starting with the poisonous entities that are destroying her the most.

*So sorry it took me a damned month to write this LOL I love you all

Warnings: Dystopian Horror, Cursing, Suspense, Feelings of Fear and Uncertainty, An Apocalyptic World, Violence (& mention of firearms), Mentions of Smoking, Kidnapping, Blood, Death & Dying, Lying, Attacks, Deceit, Panic, Mental Anguish. Smut: Kissing, Heavy Pining, Heavy Touching, Mentions of Sex

JAKE

“Wait, you two kissed?” Sam places his hand harshly on my shoulder as his tired eyes delve deeply into mine. I see the tiniest hint of a smirk poking at his mouth, and I immediately regret my decision to let the admission of what happened last night slip. I’m struck silent for a second as I bite my own tongue for telling my brother what happened on the wall by the koi pond, but he perseveres. “Answer me, asshole! Tell me what happened!” His hand shakes at my shoulder as I glance around to be sure we’re away from the rest of the group, but I feel Danny’s presence suddenly hovering at my back.

“Wait, what happened?” he says with a monotone grunt, sitting down beside Sam and I with a plate full of canned something. “Who kissed somebody?”

Jesus Christ.

We’d all awoken from the restlessness of sorry excuses for sleep nearly an hour ago, buried up under old, musty quilts and blankets from the home Odin had us hiding out in. I fell asleep with Y/N’s hand in mine as we laid head to head on the dusty cushions, trying our best to calm our minds enough to sleep. We knew we needed it, hell, even if we didn’t fall into unconsciousness, just resting our bodies enough to relax was helpful enough. My mind had raced all night long with half-asleep dreams of Josh… of my parents and my family, all my dark daily thoughts even darker then under the cover of nighttime and complete silence. 

But her warm hand in mine gave me some type of solace, though she is still yet unfamiliar and more or less a stranger to me, that kiss on the wall felt like more than just two humans begging for physical touch after so many months without it. Deep down I knew that my body was acting more powerfully than my mind, taking whatever it could get just to feel something again, but after sitting with the memory of the feeling of her lips on mine all night long, I started to think it felt like something different.

Luckily Y/N had taken off to the woods to do her business, giving me a second of reprieve to sort my thoughts out while Odin and the brothers made some type of breakfast over the fire in the backyard. Sparrow was still deep in sleep, resting peacefully in the bedroom across the hall from us. 

“Jake kissed Y/N!” Sam belts to Danny in a loud whisper, earning him a swift slap of the back of my hand across his stomach. “Ow, fuck! What, you didn’t want him to know or something?”

“No, I don’t care that he knows, it’s just… not a big deal–”

“Not a big deal? Jake, this is like the first episode of a soap opera, man!” Danny exclaims with a toothy smile. “Need some romantic drama in my life, tell us what happened,” Danny orders as the two of them sit beside me with expressions of extreme interest. For a split second, it feels like we’re 16 again, telling each other stories about girls and hookups and how we managed to sneak out after midnight without getting caught.

“No drama to it, Daniel,” I begin to reluctantly explain, running my hand over my mustache. “Just… kinda happened, I dunno.” I stare back at the both of them, all three of us haggard, dirty, unshaven and feral… looking outwardly worse for wear than we ever have in our lives. I make a mental note to re-think what Y/N even sees in me, right now.  

Their eyes are trained on me, their jaws hanging slack as they wait with bated breath for the dirty details. It feels private, but also…eh, they’re going to learn about it eventually, I guess. I’ll keep a little bit to myself, but feeding into them will make for some unexpected entertainment. 

“Just happened…” Sam repeats. “I mean was it, good?” he asks, swallowing down his excitement. You’d never guess that we’re thirty-something year old men having this discussion right now. 

I feel my chest bloom with the memory of it, remembering everything about how she felt pressed against me, how she tasted, how she sounded when I let my hands wander…

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was… really good,” I can feel my cheeks blushing. “We just…” I throw my hands into the air and try to down play it all, but they know me too well. The bite of my lips between my teeth is doing all it can to keep me from relinquishing every detail to them, simply so I can relive it, myself.

“Fuckin’ come on, Jake. I didn’t realize you guys were that close…” Danny tries to urge me.

“We’re not, I mean, we were locked up in the same pod, she was a damned fan, for fuck’s sake,” I breathe, checking our surroundings again as I whisper. “She saved me, back at the sink hole…” I recount to them. “Got me out of there. They’d just hit me over the head when I was trying to save her Paps, I was passing out. I wouldn’t have made it out if she didn’t–”

I watch them adjust themselves as they listen, huffing through deep breaths of imagining what my negative memory might be going through. 

“I mean of course I’m… ya know. It’s been some time since I’ve—,” I try and explain without saying, earning understanding nods from them. “But things got a little…handsy, I guess.”

“Oooo!” Sam squeals, rubbing his hands together.  “You lucky motherfucker! What else happened? Did you do it?”

“God, no, Sam, we didn’t do it, you fuckin’ idiot,” I bite back as Danny laughs loudly. 

“What?” he howls. “I’m trying to live vicariously here!”

“Nah man, she’s like… really nice. It was really uhm, not just physical, I guess. We talked and stuff. She feels like…” I raise my hands and squeeze the air as I realize I’m having a hard time explaining to them exactly what I feel. Of course my body is feigning for more human touch, any type of connection I can get my hands on. I’m ashamed of the thoughts that plagued me on the couch last night, but I remind myself that it’s normal. And, after hearing what she had to say about a little touchin’ and squeezin’...

“She feels good. I don’t know how else to explain it. Just, really good. All the way around.”

“So there’s mutual attraction?” Sam asks, nearly begging for more detail.

I fight back another smirk. “Oh yeah. M’sure of that.”

“I saw her looking at you last night,” Danny adds quietly as he pulls food into his mouth. “She got those googly eyes.”

“Of course she did, Daniel, do you not remember being on stage? It hasn’t been that fucking long ago…” Sam bickers.

“No,” Danny laughs, “not that kind of eyes. She was looking at you. Like, really looking. With concern and empathy…while we were listening to Sparrow talk.”

All I can do is nod, remembering that I’ve caught her looking at me like that, too. A few times now. And each time it sends a surge of some type of emotion that I don’t have time to think about right now straight through my body like an electric shock. It’s funny, I’ve had my fair share of what you’d call crushes in my lifetime, some evolving into serious, years-long relationships and some fizzling out before I even had a chance to think twice about them. 

But never have I felt like I didn’t want to eat the food in front of me when I’m nearly starving, simply for the fact that the emanating peace I’ve felt in my chest and stomach for the past few days takes up enough space that I don’t need sustenance. Because she fills me. She’s making my heart race for a reason that I don’t yet understand, and I’m teetering on the edge of feeling guilty about it, as my heart should be racing with worry and concern for my family, instead. 

“Well,” Sam breaks the silence, “I hope that things stay moving forward for you, brother. Nothing like a little romance during the fucking apocalypse.”

Just then I hear her giggle from the back side of the house, causing my head to dart that way as I long to hear it again. I toss the pebbles that I had mindlessly picked up back into the murky koi pond and stand with Sam and Daniel, and we begin to make our way back to the fire to see what the day will hold. 

I catch her eyes as soon as I round the corner of the house, bright and rested as I assume she got better sleep than I did. Her face immediately turns the prettiest shade of pink before she shyly breaks her gaze, tossing a few pieces of hair behind her ear. That familiar knot pulls at my stomach, making me forget how to breathe for a second as I watch the too-bright sun bounce off her features. The day is already beginning to feel strange as the wind begins to shift from the warmth of the night into the freezing cold of the day. 

“Where is Odin?” Danny asks the brothers as they work to prepare a makeshift meal. 

“Went to sit with Sparrow until she wakes up,” Robbie answers as he stirs whatever is in the pot that hangs above the fire. “Want some?” He holds the wooden spoon out to me as I realize it’s some kind of oatmeal, and I immediately feel my stomach churn with hunger. Maybe I do need real sustenance, after all. I nod, grabbing two bowls from the stack and letting Robbie fill them for Y/N and I. 

I pass the bowl off to her as we both take our seats on a rock by the fire. “Awfully kind of you to think of me, Jacob,” she says sweetly, taking the hot bowl from my hand. 

You’re the only thing that’s been on my mind since last night, if we’re being honest…

“Sharing is caring,” I blurt, making her giggle again. 

“Do we have a plan? Are we making moves soon?” Danny asks, turning the bleak cheeriness of the morning straight into business. We always leave it to him to keep things on track. And honestly, if it weren’t for him naturally doing that at every single turn, it’s hard to tell where we would be today.

“As soon as Sparrow wakes up, and we see that she’s ready to share again, we will define a more detailed plan,” Josiah explains. “For now, Odin wants you all fed and for us to gather necessary supplies from the house. I found some backpacks and camping gear in the upstairs closet, we can fill them with whatever we need.” 

I tilt the bowl up and let the soupy oatmeal fall into my mouth, and as it burns my lips and tongue I feel nothing but gratitude for it. My mouth waters and my stomach churns again as it thanks me, my mind suddenly feeling a bit of clarity as the food hits my stomach. 

“We also need to hydrate. All of us,” Robbie adds. “I think these people were preppers before we even knew the world was ending… I found a ton of canteens and potable water in the basement this morning. Firestarters, water filters, hot hands, oil lamps… take whatever you want but make sure it doesn’t weigh you down. There’s also still a ton of clothing in the closets. Grab whatever you can.”

“We also need to remember that we’re being hunted,” Josiah says grimly from behind him. His eyes seem dark in the sunlight, a stark contrast to his brother’s cheery disposition. “Hunted by the ones who Robbie and I ‘work’ for.”

“Worked,” Robbie corrects him, glaring behind him to meet eyes with his brother. My gut suddenly falls as a worrisome thought flows through my head, one that hopes to the heavens above that these men aren’t actually luring us somewhere. I know Y/N, Sam, and Danny have the same thought, but it’s quickly extinguished as Josiah explains his demeanor. 

“Right, worked. Sorry. I’m just…” Josiah works his hands over his face and licks his lips, letting out a large breath of air as he shakes his nerves away. It hadn’t dawned on me that these two men have put everything out on the line for this, for us. To help save us, keep us protected. They are just humans like we are, just a couple of guys who agreed to fight the good fight. Of course they’re feeling just as overwhelmed. 

“We haven’t forgotten that, Josiah. And I don’t think you know how much we appreciate you both for coming out here and helping defend our asses,” Sam says through full mouths of his oatmeal. The other three of us agree and nod.

“We’re not gonna let these motherfuckers win,” Robbie growls. “They mistreated us for far too long. Lied to us, and we played their games, but we caught them up. Now we know how they operate. We’ll be damned if we let them take anything more from us.”

“Your family, are we searching for them, too?” Y/N asks from beside me. 

Robbie and Josiah share a sullen glance before their eyes land back on her. “No, we lost them all to the rash. Dad was able to stay with us for a while, but. It got him in the end,” Robbie says, tossing a few pieces of broken sticks into the flames. 

“Neither one of us have even shown any symptoms. Then we got picked up by these scary fuckers, they agreed to give us shelter and a lavish life in safety from what has happened to the world. Not sure why we agreed, we felt desperate at the time, I guess,” Josiah adds. “They said they would make it worth our while to come and work for them, and before we knew it we were in too deep. But we did learn nearly everything there was to know about how their world intersects with ours, and then we learned about you guys being found. Made all the musical ties ourselves, realized all the lyrics, knew that you’d be in grave danger, and we were right.”

“I still can’t believe you two were fans, too,” Danny breathes. “Feels strange.”

“Yeah man, big time. Used to play you guys all the time while we were overseas, bugged the shit out of everyone until they all started singing along. Took some time, but we converted them,” Josiah went on. 

“Wait, overseas?” I implore. 

Robbie clears his throat. “Yeah, we were both in the military. I was Air Force, Joe was Marines. We were both stationed separately when Starcatcher came out, but I remember we got on some shitty Zoom call and talked about it for like an hour. We were hyped.”

“Oh yeah!” Josiah yelps. “That was killer, I remember that. Fuck I played that shit over and over, got the whole squad turned on to you guys. Playin’ fuckin Highway Tune on jukeboxes in random bars in Germany… ah, what wild times.”

I feel a genuine smile warm through me as I realize that our music really did tie bonds between people, and they found comfort in it even while they were living in what most likely was their own versions of hell. Even now, months after we realized that our dreams had come to a quick and forced ending, it feels good to hear the stories of days past, when it truly did mean something to someone. At least we all will always have that. “So that’s why they hired you guys… you had experience in this shit…”

They both nod. “Yeah, somewhat. We ended up coming back home around the same time, I got an MP job, and Joe stayed with Special Forces for a while. Got out and got some civilian jobs or whatever, then the world ended,” Robbie says with a twist of his neck. 

I gulp down the strange sadness that has washed over me, and I feel Y/N’s side press a little harder onto mine. 

“Bet that was tough…” I mutter. 

“Yeah, ya know. We didn’t hate our lives, but it wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. The thrill of the job is what we got addicted to, but it felt like a prison most days,” Josiah goes on. “Now we deserted our posts as work hounds for those motherfuckers, guess we’re a couple of renegades, now.”

Danny’s eyes shoot open as he glances to them, then to me, realizing yet another connection that hadn’t even dawned on any of us, yet. Son of a bitch, Josh…how in the fuck did you do this? 

I shake my head in disbelief, feeling Y/N exhale hard as she makes the connection, too. It’s quiet for a minute or so as a heaviness falls over us.  

“Till Valhalla?” I finally ask, unsure of how else to propose it. 

Josiah purses his lips, offering me a stern look. “Or is it Alas, Babylon?”

I huff through my nose, breathing a quiet “fuck” as I place my bowl down onto the rocky ground, running my hands over my face. They’ve realized it, too. As the minutes tick, things become more and more unreal. Or more real, depending on how you look at it. I’m awestruck at how our words are still coming to life at every turn, realizing now that these two brothers are our Barbarians. 

“Well, thank you, guys… for all of it. Really,” Sam says with a little conviction as we all add in our words of agreement.

“Ah, no need for that. But it’s appreciated,” Josiah says as he stands up and elbows his brother. “We’re just out here still doing what we do best, huh?”

Just as the conversation starts to lighten a little, we hear the back sliding glass door open as Odin gently bounds through, giving us looks of intrigue as his one orange eye glistens in the sun. Behind him in hand, is Sparrow. 

“Good morning, everyone. I trust you all got some rest,” his voice is low and graveled as he uses caution to lead a tired Sparrow outside into the cool wind. 

“Got enough, I suppose,” I say, standing to greet them. “How are you, Sparrow?”

Her aura seems to shift as she moves, the air around her almost glittering in a dusty haze. “Well, Jacob, thank you.” It’s like the breeze warms as she speaks, blowing across us with a new wave of positivity and calmness. She emotes some kind of invisible tranquility, almost immediately filling me with a new gumption to keep going, keep fighting. I can hardly fathom the emotion, but I feel a warm buzz of stamina begin pulsing through my veins. She makes me feel like I’m…alive. 

Odin leads her over to take a seat on a bench as she hobbles across the gravel with her hand clutched protectively over her sword. 

“Is she…limping?” I hear Y/N whisper quietly in my ear, again furthering that the visions of her in Josh’s dreams were spot on. 

I nod slowly as she begins to relax onto the seat, stretching her back and raising her arms high above her head. “My friends, my sincerest apologies for bestowing that news upon you with such haste last night, but I thought it prevalent to our situation, and urgency became paramount. And then, my slumber afterward is always overpowering, and again I am sorry. I simply can never fight through it…” 

I feel Y/N rise from her seat beside me as she wraps a blanket around herself, making her way over to sit beside Sparrow. “It’s alright, you don’t need to be sorry. I think we are all grateful that you’re here, and willing to help us, right guys?”

“Right, absolutely,” we all viciously agree. At this point, I’m chomping at the bit for her to continue, to feed us more information that I know she is holding inside her. But I’ve learned that patience is key. 

We all gather in around her like children being read a Christmas story, anxiously waiting to hear what new news she has to offer. I’m nervous, and I’m a little scared to know, but I also can’t bring myself to think about anything else at the moment. The newfound urge to keep going is amplified the closer I get to Sparrow, but I also could absolutely collapse with worry for my brother. 

“Alright, I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news…”

Y/N

I feel the overwhelming urge to reach out and grab Sparrow’s hand, but I resist, not knowing whether or not that will comfort her at all. I’m not sure where my want to comfort her has come from, but I can’t seem to step away from it. 

The guys and I sit and wait for her news, and I’m positive none of us have taken a breath since the last word left her lips. My nerves are swirling but I suppress them, knowing that Jake, Sam, and Danny are a thousand times more anxious than I am. Paps would want me to stay strong.

“The good news is that your brother is alive. And he is safe, in some sense of the word,” she sings, her accent flowing through a hundred millenia, but all of us are somehow able to understand it. “My friends, as I’m sure you all have probably assumed by now, Joshua has been found and captured by those who rule the Tower. His mind is still his own, but you must understand, once one crosses into the other world and begins inserting oneself with the beliefs of those who inhabit there, it takes a great deal of power to begin to reverse it. The words that flowed from me last night were indeed words spoken by your brother, himself, to the people there whom he will one day rule over.”

“Wait, rule over? What does that mean?” I interrupt, my body tensing. 

“Jacob, your brother is a Seer. Even in his adolescent dreams and nightmares, he was witnessing and experiencing a plethora of occurrences that were happening in real time, in the past and in the future, in our world. You know this, now. You wrote about it, about it all. Once our people learned that Joshua possessed this gift through learning of your music, they made it their mission to try and take him for their own. To rule over them as the true one that they could believe in, the one who stands, and watches over,” Sparrow says. My chest caves and my breath hitches as it all begins to come to life again. All of our lyrics, all of our stories…

She goes on, “Of course they wanted him, they just had no idea that a mere human would be the one to possess the power to see time. Time and events being prophesied by a human man in an enemy world is… unfathomable, for them. The end of your world just happened to be the perfect time for them to act upon their plans, as our worlds cannot live while the other is struggling to stay alive. Two sides of the same coin, spinning rapidly on its axis until it begins to slow and falter. But this time, oh, this time, things are different.”

“So they wanted Josh… to be their Seer, to be the one who can warn them of what’s to come, what will work in their favor, and what will not…” Sam drones, choking back tears. 

“Correct, Samuel. Odin, have you told them of what they are doing to their elderly? With their memories?” Sparrow asks. 

Odin shakes his head. “Yes, I have.”

“Your immune elders are being used for their experiments. They are trying to wipe their memories, wipe anything and everything they have ever known to soon bring them over into their own world, and convert them to follow the Seer. A whole new population that will know nothing but following him.”

“Blind faith…” Danny murmurs from beside me, his elbow pressing into my back. “It’s their fate.”

“That’s right Daniel,” Sparrow agrees, emanating another glow of positivity around us. “Blind in the sense that they will have no recollection of how they got there, or why they feel compelled to follow this omniscient. It’s the perfect storm.”

“You said that the hooded guards are all omniscient, why can’t they use one of them? Why does it have to be Josh?” I press, remembering what Odin had said. 

“I said they are all nearly omniscient. Your brother, in their eyes, is completely so,” Odin reiterates. 

I huff out an air of disappointment for news that I partially already knew, but hearing it all said out loud has crushed me. Why? Why?

“Josh didn’t know what we were writing about was real, though! They can’t take him and claim his mind like that, they can’t take away his free will!” I yell, feeling my heartrate taking off. 

“They can, Jacob, and they have already begun the process. You heard his words last night, and I know you know they were not his own. They’ve begun to manipulate his thoughts into believing that all he claims is truth, which partially, it is. They are deeming him as a new leader, a sovereign entity of whom will lead the people to their destiny.”

“Destiny? What destiny?” Danny asks.

“If their trials are successful, and they are able to completely wipe the memories of every immune human left on earth, they will take them all as their own and the Earth will have no choice but to relinquish all its power unto them,” Sparrow barks, and I can tell that the words sting a bit as they leave her mouth. 

“But I thought our worlds can’t exist without one another,” Y/N blurts, her hand now gripping hard onto mine. 

“They can’t, my love, without inhabitants who are strong and thriving.” Sparrow stands and approaches us, her warmth bellowing toward us as she raises her hand to brush across all of our faces. “That’s why they are hunting you. You are worth everything to them. If they can erase the memories of your elders, then they will be sure they can erase the memories of the stronger, younger immunes. Wipe your Mother Earth of her inhabitants, and watch as she completely crumbles. Once they convert you all, then their world will have more than enough power to exist on it’s own, without needing the support of Earth to survive.”

She comes in closer, her aura dripping with what feels like forced happiness. “You see, they want to fully extinguish the human race from the face of the Earth. They want you as their own. Their plan is to take you all, and Joshua is their sole key to the abductions.”

Abductions. 

Suddenly, I can’t breathe. 

I can’t blink, I can’t swallow… I can’t even feel the rocks that I know are poking through the thinning soles of my boots. 

Jake’s hand slips from my own as I feel him slowly turn to me, and to Sam and Danny, all of their faces void of any real emotion at all, other than complete terror. 

“This isn’t fair…” I whisper, and I’m not sure any sound came from me, at all. It feels like my chest is made of stone, the small breaths I’m pulling in unable to expand my lungs. Josh…

“What do we do?” Jake asks us, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as his pupils shrink to pinpoints. His face has dropped to a stark white, and I can feel the terrified energy radiating from him. His eyes dart from his brothers to me, looking to all of us for answers that we simply don’t have. “What do we do?” Tears begin welling in his eyes and the rims of them turn a bright red. I can see his hands visibly shaking.

“We search. Today. We leave, now,” Odin harks, standing from Sparrow’s side as he throws his bow and arrow over his shoulder. “Into the house, pack your bags, take only all that is necessary and nothing more. Pack water, warm clothing. Josiah, Robbie, the same for you. Make sure you lock all of the doors and windows, we will return to this place eventually.”

“Where are we going? What’s the plan?” Danny asks as everyone begins to shuffle. 

“First we find your families. Get them to safety. Then we find your brother and cross him back over. That will be the hard part,” he says, punching through all of us to go and begin packing his horse. Danny, Sam, and the others jump into action and begin rushing into the house to pack their things.

I notice that Jake is frozen where he stands, the news that Sparrow has just shared still coursing through him. I fear he is in shock, feeling the effects of learning the truth about his twin fully and completely. Truly, I’m not sure what to even say to him right now, but then I look to Sparrow and she gives me a tight grin, and I immediately feel another wave of comfort and courage wash over us. 

“Jake, I know you’re scared right now, and I know this is a lot to process, but. We’re going to find him, he’s going to be okay,” I reason, taking his cheeks into my hands to try to get him to look at me. 

“How do you know that, Y/N? What if we can’t get to him, and he’s already too far gone? What if he– what if he never comes back?” I never thought I would see him cry, I never thought I would have to be the one comforting him when he did… But here I find myself…

“You wanna know how I know that, Jake? Blind faith.”

“What–what do you mean? That’s…”

My hands release his cheeks and fall to catch his still trembling hands, cold and clammy in the blowing air. “How do we ever know anything is going to work for certain, Jake? We don’t, we just have to persevere. Josh wouldn’t stop looking for you, and he’d never give up on you. None of you would give up on each other. Right? All these years, all you’ve done is trusted each other, because it’s all that you had. You seized every opportunity, together. And look where it got you. You can’t stop now. You can’t think thoughts like that now, Jake. We don’t have time for them. Every single one of you is stronger than you know, and I’ll be damned if I sit here and watch you crumble because of a little fear. You’ve overcome so much, Jake, in your lives and in your careers, because of your blind faith.”

“Kill fear,” he whispers. 

I watch as his pupils grow a bit, and his muscles relax. I wipe the tears that are beginning to freeze onto his face, catching in his lengthening beard and mustache. “Yeah, fuck fear,” I smile.

He nods, turning his head to press a sweet kiss onto my palm. “Okay, yeah. You’re right. We’re gonna find him, he’s gonna be alright, the son of a bitch.” I smile as he picks himself up, gripping my hands that are still cupping his cheeks and placing more kisses onto my palms and fingers. “Thank you…”

I push myself onto him, wrapping my arms around his neck as he finally takes his first full breath in a few minutes. “Don’t thank me, Jake. You don’t know how many times you and your brothers have comforted me when I thought there was nothing else left for me in this world. You and your music were always there.” 

I hear him laugh, his chest shaking a little against mine as I realized the words I’d just said. “I didn’t mean to say that, it just came out,” I laugh along with him as he pulls away a little, holding my elbows in his hands. 

“Hell, maybe he dreamed about you and me too, then,” he mutters, sending my heart straight into glittering explosions. What did I do to deserve spending this time with him? The person that pulled me from the depths so many times… and now we’ve found ourselves here…

“Maybe he did…” I reply shyly, feeling his thumbs grazing across my arms. 

“Hey, love birds! Come on, we’ve got bags to pack!” We hear Sam yelling from the upstairs balcony of the house, and if it weren’t for the immediate action we jumped into, I would have had time to process the fact that Sam just used the word love.

JAKE

Only all that is necessary…

You always think about what you would grab and take with you if your house was burning down, but when it actually came down to it, you always knew you’d be able to gather resources again. Meals from a neighbor, supplies from the store, fuel from a gas station… 

But when it comes down, truly, to only what is necessary… I think I’ve drawn a blank. 

The empty backpack sits open in my hands as I kneel in the closet of the stranger’s house, my eyes scanning over the clothing that once kept this person warm. Sweaters that his wife had gifted him, socks with holes he had worn in, boots still covered in mud and debris from the hike he didn’t know was going to be his last... 

I swallow hard as my eyes scan even further into the bottom of the closet, shelves full of old memorabilia, high-school basketball trophies, photo albums, old vinyl records… these were part of someone’s life. And I am taking it, because I need to survive. 

“I can’t do this…” I mutter, shaking my head of the sudden overwhelming feeling of impeding into someone’s personal space, though their earthly body is long gone from this home. 

“You have to,” I hear from the doorway, looking up to see Robbie looking back at me. “Promise you, this guy wouldn’t care.”

I huff through my nose. “How would you know, did you know him?”

“No, but I feel like if he knew that it’s the actual end of the earth, the seasons are blending, your family was kidnapped by inhabitants of another world, and you’re running around with mythical creatures while you’re being hunted and used for your mind, I’m pretty positive he wouldn’t care if you stole a pair of socks or two,” Robbie says sarcastically as he gnaws on a long piece of red candy. “Twizzler?”

I laugh again, opening the drawer that houses the underwear and socks. “Yeah, actually, thanks. They aren’t stale?”

“Fuck yeah, they are. But it don’t bother me. Just keeps my hands and mouth busy, ya know?”

I stuff two pairs of woolen socks into a zippered part of the bag before removing my boots and slipping a fresh pair on. “You used to smoke, didn’t you?” I ask. 

“How’d you know?”

“Just a guess,” I reply, reaching far back into the closet to grab a pair of the man’s old hiking boots, happy with finding we were almost the exact same size. “I would have gotten you a pack or five if I’d have known… Right before you found us, we were in an old convenience store chock full of them. That’s where Y/N and I found Sam and Danny.”

Robbie grunts a laugh as he pulls another rogue Twizzler from his pocket, handing it off to me. “Sounds like we might have to make a pitstop.” 

It does sound intriguing… A cigarette would be fucking glorious, right about now. “Might could make that happen…”

“So Y/N… you didn’t know her before?” he asks, piquing my interest.

I shake my head. “No, just in the pods. She used to listen to us a lot, like you and Josiah did, so I guess she knew me, kinda… Why?”

I see him shrug from the corner of my eye. “Just wonderin’. Ya’ll seem pretty close.”

I shrug back, pulling a hoodie off a metal hanger. “Guess you could say that.” I pop the Twizzler into my mouth and bite off the end, zipping the overfull bag closed and tossing it over my shoulder. “Kinda feel like she’s mine to protect.”

He tosses me the last candy in his pocket as I stand and face him, watching his jaw work as he chews. “Raid the bathroom, too,” he suggests. “Soap would be nice.”

—-

“Got everything you need?” I ask Y/N as everyone gathers out back again. We’re all in a slow-motion hurry, now, as the morning is slowly drifting into noon. 

“Uh, yeah, think so,” she says, zipping the oversized pullover she’d found up around her chin, and pulling a toboggan down over her ears. “It’s so hard to think about it being so hot at night, and there’s ice blowing through the air, now…”

“I know, everything is so backwards,” I agree, leaning down to re-tie my boots. 

As I stand back up, she pulls me to the side, causing me to stumble a little bit into her. “Come here…” she whispers, her hand gripped hard in my jacket. 

“Yeah, whoa, yeah?” I laugh as she catches my fall and takes me in her embrace. 

“I found something else, while I was searching the house,” she whispers, her eyes trained on my face. 

“Oh?” I ask. “What’d you find?”

She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a brand new razor and a tiny bottle of travel shaving cream. My face falls and I feel my lips flatten into a sarcastic look. “What, you got a problem with this more rugged side of me, or somethin’?” I rake my fingernails through my beard, scratching hard at it. 

She glances around and sees that everyone else is taken up by their own tasks before she wraps her hands in my jacket, pulling me forward into her and around the corner of the house. We stumble back underneath the second-floor porch, hiding in the shadows and away from the wind a bit. She grips me again, pulling me into her as she speaks. 

“No. I love it. Really suits you,” she murmurs, her eyes traveling quickly from my eyes to my mouth. I watch as her breath turns to steam as she exhales, heavy and hot even in the blistering cold. It’s strange to say, but I almost feel like she beckons me without even saying a word. 

And fuck, she is so…

“Know what else I love about it? You feel more mature to me like this, I’ve always been one to prefer facial hair.”

“So I’m guessing you hated it when I used to shave my mustache off for shows, then?” I implore with a teasing tone, leaning in and letting my nose drift over hers playfully. “I couldn’t even grow a beard until I turned 31…”

“Yeah, used to get real fuckin’ mad about it,” she smiles, lurching her hips into mine. “We all used to place bets on if you’d show up with or without one. I lost most of the time, because you always shaved the damned thing off. But I guess it’s also cool that I’m the only one who’s ever seen you like this…”

I growl a laugh, gritting my teeth and feeling the need to be near her again. I feel flushed, even in the cold blowing air, but being near her makes me forget about every bad thing that’s surrounding us. I let my cold hands snake up under her coat, searching like hell to find her bare skin. Finally I find her stomach, attaching my cold palms to it and her hips. “Yeah, actually, I guess you’re right. Just you…”

“Fuck…” she breathes, her body shivering from my touch. “Just me?”

“Just you…” I repeat, taking her bottom lip between my teeth. God, she makes me want to lay her the fuck down, right here in this freezing cold grass. My mind begins spinning with want again as I feel her body weight pressing itself into me, my hands beginning to freely do what they please underneath her layers of shirts, just as they had last night. “What’s the razor for, then? If you like it so well?” 

Her hand comes up and grips the base of my neck, squeezing hard as I allow my hands to finally grip at her tits. She lets out a pitiful sound as her head falls back a little, spurring me on to keep exploring. I can feel her nipples hardening in my fingers, and I’m fighting with everything in me to stop myself from getting too excited, but the more her chest heaves, the harder it gets to concentrate. Her lips are ghosting across mine, and I feel her warm breath landing on my tongue. I need to taste her again.

“Just giving you the option to shave, if you wanted to,” she breathes, her eyes fluttering open and closed. “If not, you can pass it off to Danny.”

Her hand comes around and grips at my jaw, forcing me to thrust my hips into her again. I feel warm all over, almost as if the wind isn’t cutting us in two. There’s no way she can’t tell I’m impossibly hard now, and if the circumstances were different…

“If you like it, I love it,” I breathe into her as our bodies begin lurching and craning onto each other, my hands still massaging at her breasts. God, what I’d give to see her…

“Kiss me, Jake,” she mumbles into my mouth, our lips already almost touching, anyway. My mouth finally overtakes hers, my tongue unable to fight any longer as it begins exploring without any warning. She reacts the same way, pressing her chest more harshly into my hands, practically begging me to feel her even more. We stay this way for a minute or so, just like we did by the koi pond, our bodies pressing and moving as I forcefully back her up against the cold block wall of the house. 

She pushes me away a little, but catches her fingertips in the waistband of my pants, giving her a split second’s access to slip her hand inside. God fucking damnit. 

I take it as it comes as I feel her frozen hand work its way into my boxers, wasting no time in taking me fully in her hand. “Jesus Christ, baby…” I all but moan as I feel my head tilt back on its own. I reach for the wall behind her to steady myself as she squeezes me, her palm soft and gentle but using a little bit of force to show me what she wants. I come in close again, kissing her like my life fully depends on it. “Mmhmm…” I moan against her, my lips vibrating onto hers. 

“Call me baby again,” she whispers when we disconnect for a second to breathe. 

“Baby, baby, baby…” I say quietly, rolling my hips into her hand. “I’ll call you anything you fuckin’ want…”

She whimpers quietly into my mouth again as she pulls at my hair, knotted and ratty at the base of my neck. I’m reminded again of the thought of what she actually sees in me right now, dirty and gritted and unclean, but then again, she probably thinks of herself all the same. Her hair is tangled, her features are tired and a little sunburnt, yet I see her as the most beautiful thing I’ve encountered in ages. All of the things that society deemed as making a person desirable have flown out the window. Because truly, none of it fucking matters. 

Her hand grips around me again as my fingernails dig into the cinderblock, pulsing and throbbing as she takes her time with her show of intimacy. The essence of her is satiating all my senses… her taste, her scent, her touch… 

Then it hits me- this is the rawest I’ve ever felt in my life. 

Attraction comes in all shapes and sizes, and when you stumble upon it, it can either knock you down or confuse you even further. I’ve always been positive in what I want; I know exactly what attracts me and keeps my attention. And I’ve prided myself on that. Coming of age also determines and filters out what you do and do not want in life, and in a lover. And I know that my vision is blurred right now with this overwhelming need to fornicate, but shit, if she isn’t turning all of my past ideals about myself and what I want on their fucking tops. 

She’s different… she’s headstrong and brave, smarter than I could ever even think about being. She’s bold, and she’s unashamed. She acts as though she comes from a time that she didn’t have any business being in. She’s fucking beautiful, taking my breath away with every stolen glance. Yet she’s reserved in all the ways that I am… thinking before she speaks, studying people before she trusts them. I can tell all of this about her, and I’ve committed it all to memory, and I’ve only known her for less than a few weeks. 

Raw, unbridled and desperate, the wind biting at our cheeks as the wetness of our kiss coats our lips and faces, her hand gripping over me still, without any shyness about her aura, at all. Her preference of privacy stunning me as she shows me that she wants me just as badly as I want her. Not because of who she knew me as for the majority of our lives, but who she sees me as right now, untamed and ravenous for one another. And I am fucking enamored.

My hand leaves her breast and travels to grip her ass, covered in layers of pants and coveralls, but I don’t care. I hike her leg up across my hip, letting our bodies become closer as the cold wind whips through the bright green trees. I glance around every few seconds so that I’m positive we’re still alone, though at this point my mind is so fogged with desire that I truly couldn’t care less if we were caught. Her body is warm and inviting, and I let my fingers grip into the muscle between her ass and thigh, squeezing and kneading the skin there as her body rolls into mine again. 

“Would it be too forward of me to say that I fucking want you?” I blurt out with a forced whisper, my mouth overtaking my mind for just a second.

She laughs a little as we separate, her pupils blown as she shakes her head quickly from side to side. “No. It wouldn’t be too forward at all,” she says, squeezing me harder than she has, yet. “I’m the one with my hand on your cock, stupid.”

Fuck fuck fuck. Shit, get it together. My body shudders as I let out a quiet grunt of aggravation, completely blown with desire as my fist pounds into the wall that’s holding us up.

I swear if we weren’t fucking leaving in two goddamned minutes…

“I swear to god, baby, I do…” I growl again, making her grip on me move at a quicker pace. 

Just then we’re surprised by loud conversation near the fire pit, a rustle of everyone gathering up again breaking us from our intertwinement. She removes her hand from my pants and I adjust myself, rolling my eyes at our interruption as my teeth grit with annoyance. We both look at one another with the tiniest bit of shame on our faces, pink and wet with the after-effects of the session. I nod to the side as I silently tell her we’d better go. 

“Wait, Jake,” she whispers, pulling me back by the hand a little. “That’s not what I really wanted to give you.” Her closed fist stuffs into my jacket pocket and drops something inside it, and I watch her coyly turn and walk away with the sweetest smirk on her lips. 

Puzzled, I reach into the pocket and feel the familiar feeling of a small plastic package in my hand. A condom. I can’t help the cheesy smile that crosses my face even if I wanted to. I pull it out to inspect it, looking first and foremost for an expiration date. 

I glance back at her, purely entertained by her bold action. “2034,” she answers the question I didn’t even have to ask. “Actually found a whole box. We’ve got all kinds of time.” She shoots me a wink as she tops back into the gravel pit, going to join the others without me so as not to raise too much suspicion. 

Truly, if she thinks we’re waiting that long, she can go ahead and keep lying to herself. She has no idea what she’s doing to me, and it’s only worsening as the hours tick. For a mere five minutes, my carnal needs completely overshadowed the fact that we’re about to go on a mission that could cost us our lives, and the fact that my brother is currently being fucking brainwashed by entities that belong to another realm completely. I punish myself, but only for a second, as I know for a fact he would go on some big tirade about how humans need sex to thrive and survive in life. He wouldn’t fault me for it at all. In fact, he’d probably celebrate it with me. 

—

“Everyone gather, here is what we’re going to do,” Odin presents himself with a commanding tone, looking each of us in the eye as he speaks. We all take our places near the extinguished fire pit, backpacks and supplies in hand as we all listen intently. I try my best to calm my nerves and take in every detail of his directions, knowing that things could change at the drop of a hat. 

“Josiah and Robbie have reason to believe that your families have been taken to another set of pods just south of here, where no sinkholes have been reported as of yet. These pods are a bit smaller, locked down just as the ones you were in, but if they are going to be anywhere nearby, we assume that it is there,” he explains. “We will travel as a unit, sleep in shifts, and take cover as much as possible under the hindrance of the treelines. The brothers will scout, but we’ve decided it best to arm you, as well.”

Shit. I’ve fired a gun maybe twice, three times in my life? But when it comes to life or death…

The brothers bring us firearms that they’d found inside the home, passing them off to Danny and I. I throw it across my back and hope to the heavens above that muscle memory would kick in, had I need to actually use it. 

“I don’t believe that you will actually need these, as I will be with you always and our most dangerous threat are the hooded guards, of whom I can put to sleep with an arrow,” Odin goes on. “And I’m sorry, we can’t risk the sound of gunshot giving away our location. The smoke from this fire was already too much.”

We all bid a silent goodbye to the house that gave us the shelter we needed, and took off on foot from the coverage of the yard and nearby woodline, watching and waiting for the next threat to come our way.

Y/N

Was I too forward? Did I say too much? Did I move too fast… was the condom overkill?

A million and a half questions are rolling through my mind as we all traverse the heavy trails, making our way south to the other set of pods. We know it will be about a day’s travel, but luckily, with the guidance of Odin and the newfound spirit Sparrow had instilled in each of us, we know the journey will be fruitful. Treacherous, and probably a bit dramatic, but fruitful. Now that we have a better idea of where our families are, and likely Paps, I have a bit more pep in my step to get to him. And to Josh. 

Of course it wasn’t overkill, he reacted exactly how I expected him to. He even said he wanted me. Hello? Me?? I don’t even know what is happening between Jake and I, it’s difficult to even fathom. Just months ago he was an image on my phone screen or a video on my stupid tikok feed, but now. Now… 

I find myself wanting to text my friends again. Say, ‘You are never going to fucking believe this. Like, you’re really not…’, and they really wouldn’t. It’d be too good to be true. It’d take convincing, it’d take proof, it’d take receipts. I can hear them all squealing through voice memos, sending long strings of mismatched letters that don’t form words, immediate facetimes so they could watch me explain myself to their faces. Listen to every detail that we had all envisioned at one point or another in our lives.

But it’d never happen. I don’t even know if they’re all alive. 

“Watcha thinkin’ about?” I hear Sam’s voice suddenly startle me from watching my feet walk across the ground. 

“Oh, ah, nothing. Just…my friends,” I say to him, giving him a sullen smile as I pull my jacket closer around me. “I was thinking about what they’d say if I could tell them that I ended up meeting up with you guys. If they’d believe me.”

“Hm,” he laughs. “You think they would?”

“It’d take some convincing, but, I think they’d know I wouldn’t make something like that up,” I grin, pulling a few pieces of tree limbs away from my path. 

“Crazy that we all ended up here,” he says. “Crazy how we all found each other.”

“I know,” I breathe, glancing to Jake ten or so steps ahead of me. “I never even thought I’d even get to have a conversation with any of you, let alone–”

“Sneak off with one under a porch?” he cuts me off. 

I– oh fuck.

“Sam, what– what are you talking about,” I stutter, my face falling into a deep dark shade of red. Oh my god, if he saw us…

He lets out his classic guttural ha-ha laugh as a particularly harsh wind rips through us. His loud laugh causes Jake and Danny to whip around and look at us, and I shoot them and Sam a deathly glare. But I know that Jake probably notices the worry on my face. 

“I’m not gonna rat you out, don’t worry,” he goes on. “I didn’t see anything… just… watched you sneak off. That’s all. The rest wasn’t my business.”

“The rest?” I squeak, trying to stay quiet. “Sam!”

He’s gritting his teeth together in a huge, shit-eating smile, hissing annoying little laughs as he pulls sticks free from our way. I feel like I could trip him and watch him eat dirt right now, the little twit. Jake keeps turning around and glancing at us; he knows his brother is digging himself a cute little hole to jump into if he isn’t careful. 

“What the fuck do you think happened?” I press, kind of wanting to hear what he has to say. 

“Hey, I said it’s none of my business,” he goes on, puffing his cheeks up with air as he avoids laughing again. “My brother’s love life isn’t any concern of mine.” 

Will you please quit using that word, Samuel…

“God, can you just, not? Please?” I bark in a quiet tone, completely enjoying this back and forth with him. “I already feel weird enough…”

“Why?” he asks way too quickly. 

“Because,” I bite. I toss my hands up, trying to get him to understand. “I was, ya know… A fan, and stuff, and now it’s like..” 

“Oh whatever,” he interrupts me. “Hey Y/N, the goddamn world is ending and all our loved ones got killed by a flesh-eating rash. Yours did, ours did. There’s no such thing as levels of hierarchy anymore, if that’s the way you’re looking at it. We’re just fucking humans, ya know? We’re all just out here trying to survive this shit. Please don’t think like that…” he says a little confrontationally. “We could run into freaking Taylor Swift right now, and she’d still be trudging along in this damned frozen jungle just as we are.” 

I giggle at his comparison, as corny as it is, feeling just a little more at ease. “You’re right, you’re right. Just. Strange, I guess.”

He shrugs. “It is strange, Y/N. Nothing about anything that has happened in the past year is anything close to normal. But… maybe you were meant to run into him in the pods. Maybe it was meant to be this way, who knows?”

I nod, glancing again up to Odin and Sparrow on the horse to make sure they haven’t noticed any threats. 

“You guys are cute together, too,” he adds. 

I roll my eyes. “Ugh, Sam, don’t make me gag. I will shove you down onto this thorn bush.”

“I’m serious,” he laughs. “I don’t mean to poke fun at you. I’m just saying, maybe this is a really, really good thing, Y/N. He seems… I dunno. Excited. Even while worrying about Josh. It’s like you come around and he’s instantly relaxed. I think you have more of an effect on him than you realize.”

“HOLD!” Odin suddenly says from the front of the group, holding his fist high in the air as everyone freezes where we stand. My heart begins pattering as he slowly hops down from his horse, leading Sparrow to do the same. I watch as he pulls his bow from his back and loads it, Sparrow doing the same as she pulls her sword from it’s sheath at her side. 

“Fuck, what’s happening, what’s going on?” I whisper to Sam as he instantly grabs onto my shoulder, quietly leading us nearer to the front with Danny and Jake. 

The brothers bring up the rear and have their weapons drawn and ready. I don’t hear anything, and I don’t see anything, but I do feel Jake’s hand land forcefully on my hip as we gather in a protective circle. 

“Do not fire your weapon unless we say so, got it?” Robbie says to Jake and Danny as he passes, and I feel my heart drop. They both nod in understanding. The brothers exchange a few hand signals as they quickly dash off the trail beside us, keeping eyes with Odin as they scout around. 

“What did they hear?” Jake asks us, and we all shrug as our eyes stay trained on our surroundings. The wind has settled a bit, but the sun is bright and hot as it shines through the leaves of the trees. There’s bits of ice on the tall grasses beside us, and I feel myself become disoriented with the way the weather is working, again. 

I feel my heart pounding in my ears as my eyes scatter around the thick woods, Jake’s hand clutching mine protectively, now. I hear cracks in the trees, I hear steps that don’t sound like steps. High up, and down low. Sparrow backs up toward us, her dusty light following her as the wind floats her long hair into the air. 

A fast glance from Odin tells her something I cannot read, and he quickly hops back onto his horse, kicking his leg into its side as it takes off just off the pathway. They’ve disappeared and we’re still left clueless, the brothers back from their scout and closed in, just as confused as we are. 

“What was that?” I ask Sparrow quietly, my hot breath floating like smoke across the air. 

“More guards, they aren’t very close, but we can sense when they’re near,” she replies. “Their tactics to find us are becoming more clever, as they are now being told that you’re missing from the pods. And that Josiah and Robbie have turned on them.”

“They can come and fuckin’ get us, if they want us,” Robbie snarls as he readjusts his weapon. “Pardon my language, Ma’am.” 

I watch Sparrow smirk, giving him a look that says she is the last one he should worry about offending. 

“Come, let’s continue on,” she says as she draws her sword and keeps it protectively at her side as we keep going. “Odin will alert me if anything is close.”

It feels like my feet don’t want to move without me actively telling them to, now. The fear that’s beginning to settle in my bones has grown tenfold after that scare, and without me being able to see Odin. He has become a wall of peace and protection for us in the past few days, and it feels strange not having him in my line of sight. 

But still yet, Jake’s hand clutches mine, and to me, that feels more safe than anything else in our crumbling world. 

We walk along for another silent twenty minutes or so, clumped together and anxious along what used to be an old worn-in path used by hikers and bikers, now very much overgrown and succumbing to the wild again. Thorns catch on my clothing, and rocks and dirt scatter as I step, but we keep along, our eyes watchful and patrolling as we head south. I wish to god Odin would reappear. 

As we walk in the quiet, my mind drifts to Paps and what he might be doing right now, what they might be doing to him. Watching him be ripped away from me might be one of the most aggravating and terrifying things I’ve ever had to witness, and even though I know he is the strongest man I know, deep down I know that he hides his fears. 

If they really have taken him as a pawn for their testing, will he still have his memory? Will he remember me at all?

I feel a shudder as the frigid air envelops me and bites at the tip of my nose, making me feel like I’m frozen to the core. This cold feels different, especially with the sun shining so brightly. It doesn’t feel like it used to, it almost seems as though the debilitating feeling of fear is sewn into it, nefariously making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My body doesn’t shake with the chill anymore, but it shakes with the unending fear of not knowing what the next second of my life will hold. What the earth will be doing. If we will be alive tomorrow or not. And the most terrifying thought of it all, is that there is nothing we can do to change it.

The wicked shiver chills me down to my soul…only time will tell.

I miss Paps so badly, and I want nothing more than to get to him. The possibility of their family being in the same pod as Paps is likely, which makes me feel a little bit better, but what are we going to do when we get there? Ambush the place? Sneak in a back door while we try not to get caught?

Surely Odin and Sparrow have thought it through, and I’m sure that the brothers have some sort of plan as to how to infiltrate the building. Or maybe, we’re just flying along with no plan at all. Because truly, none of us know the reality of what we're walking into.

Sam and Danny trail behind me, steadfast and courageous, truly grown into the men that I always envisioned they might have. I know they are just as worried as Jake is of what state of mind we will find Josh in, but I think they are holding it together for him. They don’t want to speak- yet- and bring such a horrific reality to life. If Josh is too far gone, and his mind is not his own anymore, will we have to leave him behind for the safety of ourselves?

I can’t even fathom that thought, right now. There is no way that will be our new reality. Starting a new life without Josh is just…

The sun has begun to slip behind the trees, and I know that the heat will return soon and we will all be sweating in the night air instead of freezing. I’m ready to feel a little relief from this new shiver that’s taken up shop in the deepest tissues of my body. In the back of my mind, I hope that Sparrow’s ability to make us all feel more at ease doesn’t take away from her energy source; she doesn’t know how badly we all need her.

Just as my mind feels as though it’s completely shoved full of too many unanswered thoughts, heavy cloud coverage moves in over the sun and begins casting strange shadows across the thick woods around us, and suddenly, my wicked shiver turns from a physical feeling into a subconscious gut suspicion of uneasiness. 

The wind hasn’t blown in minutes, now. 

I slow my steps, glancing around through the trees as darkness begins to shower us, faster and faster. Odin isn’t back yet, and the air feels as if it is standing still and creeping in around us. Something isn’t right. 

Suddenly I get the urge to pause and listen, stopping myself in my tracks as Sam bumps into me from behind. “Whoa, what’s–”

“Shh,” I hold my hand up to him, watching as Jake has noticed I’ve stopped, too. 

“You’re right, child, something feels wrong,” Sparrow says quietly from in front of Jake. Her hand grips her sword more tightly as she cranes her neck all over, looking up and around and through the woods. My chest tightens as I feel as though I’m preparing myself for something, something that has intention to hurt me. Hurt all of us. The feeling that I had when Paps and I had driven the truck into town and were stopped by those creatures has come back full force. Like a dark black cloud is hanging over me, and there is no way I am ever going to wash the feeling of dread from my psyche. 

Within seconds, the sunlight is almost completely gone. Jake’s hand takes mine again as we all press together in a terrified huddle, the brothers at the edges with their weapons drawn. “What is this? What’s happening?” Jake relents. I feel myself beginning to panic, my head darting side to side erratically as I begin to hear unfamiliar sounds coming from the forest. Not birds, not animals… there is no wind to rustle the trees, and there is no way of seeing what is now surely closing in on us. But I can feel it.

“Stay close, everyone, it seems as though we’re surrounded…” Sparrow says a little more loudly now. Her voice is panicked for the first time since we’ve met her. “Odin, Odin, where are you?” she says to herself, drawing her weapon higher. 

It’s dark, now. Pitch black. The world feels more hollow than it ever has. My skin feels like it could fall from my body as my depraved mindset becomes more and more dreadful. I know that whatever is surrounding us in the shadows is draining every ounce of happiness from my body, and try as I might, I can’t form one positive or uplifting thought. 

“Don’t let it consume you, my loves, don’t let it…” I hear Sparrow's voice as a loud hum begins to eat away at my ear drums, deafening me to almost totality. I grip onto Jake’s hand as we all crowd in together, writhing under the feeling of being so suddenly enclosed and debilitated. I can’t even see what’s around us. Not even Sparrow’s overwhelming power of comfort can match whatever it is they are putting onto us. 

“We should run!” I hear Danny suggest, the drone of the hum making him sound like he is a million miles away. “Let’s go!!” 

I feel him pull away from us as I begin to become disoriented, weakening as the seconds tick. “Jake.. I–” I can hardly form any words as I feel like all my energy is depleting. His hand is still latched tightly onto mine, and I begin to see spurts of light through the darkness of my vision, blurry and bright as my eyelids get heavy. 

“Y/N, no!” I hear his voice in my ear, the sweetest sound I have ever heard. “We’ve got to run, we’ve got to go!” Suddenly I feel as though every emotion has been ripped away from my body. 

Where is my gumption? Nothing matters, we’re all going to die, anyway. 

“Sweet Y/N, run!” Sparrow urges me, too, as I feel Jake begin to pull me along just as I had pulled him through the building as it crumbled into the sinkhole around us back at the pod. 

I can’t move, just leave me here. 

I feel my knees hit the dirt at the same time that I feel many sets of unwelcome hands all over me, burning through my thick coats and jackets as they touch me. The hum grows louder and louder, and my blood grows thicker and thicker. Just leave me…

I’m being pulled two ways- one way with the burning hands and one way toward the man whom I have come to adore so intensely, but I could somehow care less who ends up with me. I don’t even mind one way or the other. My endurance is gone. 

Jake squeezes my hands in the darkness, pulling me with everything in him as I feel Sam and Danny join him in his attempts. “Don’t let go of me, Y/N! Do you hear me!” he screams, his voice so worried and terrified. Why are you so scared, Jake? Why do you care about me? “Don’t let her go, Danny! Don’t let her slip!”

“She’s ours, now, you all belong to us…” I hear the crippling voice of the hooded guard say from behind me. I recognize the sing-song voice from their first attempts at taking us, like sirens luring us into the deepest depths of the night. “There’s nothing you can do, your world is a star defying time… you must come with us…”

Everything is blurry, nothing has shape. The burning hands are gripping at all points of my body, now, as I feel like I’m being ripped in two. I hear Sparrow’s shrieks in the distance, and I feel Jake’s grip on my hands begin to weaken. 

“Sam, Sam, get up! Let’s go! I– I can’t hold you both–”

His hands feel like my only anchors to the earth, sure and grounding, but I can’t find the strength to even try and hold on to them. He’s slipping from me, and it’s then that I realize he’s being pulled by them, too. 

We’re being taken. And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

“Y/N, baby, please!” I hear his honeyed voice again, still so perfect even when he’s terrified. Don’t be so scared, Jake… you shouldn’t even be worried about me. I mean nothing to you. 

“Let GO of me!!” he yells, but it’s no use. He’s ten paces away from me now as I realize that our hands have finally separated, and the burning hands are still holding me. His screaming voice is nothing but a howl in the distance. “Y/N!!!”

My body feels limp and lifeless as the burning hands hold me upright, pulling my body across bushes and grasses and limbs, my legs and feet falling behind me. But I don’t even care. Why don’t I care? Death is probably soon, anyway. Nothing matters.

The eyes of the creatures taking me are burning a bright red, the drone of the hum still prevalent in my ears. 

Again I hear his voice calling out for me across the hillside, bouncing off the treetrunks and cutting through the warming air as the sound of it warms my soul and kills it at the same time. I want him, I need him… he’s the only thing that’s kept my head above water… But our magnets have somehow lost their polarity. I dig down deep and plead with myself, and whoever in the heavens above will listen to forsake me this one time, and bring me out on the other side of this. I have to help them, I have to find Paps… 

Jake…Please… Don’t let them keep me…

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[liauditore]

[asmr boyfriend voice] woof woof bark bark

[minteetho-art-archive]

how do we feel about this possibility 8:11 fandom

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[sysig]

Red Eyes and Evil Time, practically the same thing right (Patreon)

[raiiny-bay]

it’s honestly kinda crazy to me that kel & co were literally the first OCs i ever made

[funkle420]

*takes my last adderall so i can finish all my work in one day*

*finishes one (1) assignment*

*gets distracted and spends the rest of the day hyperfocusing on delicious in dungeon again*