#when did I ever find the energy to make these

[andypantsx3]

FILLING IN | BAKUGOU x READER ˖˚˳⊹

summary: A production assistant for an erotic arts studio, you think you've seen every ridiculous plot line under the sun. But not even porn tropes can compare to the absurd reality you find yourself in when the on-screen talent drops out, and you're asked to fill in opposite the studio's number one star Bakugou Katsuki.  contents: The classic oh-no-the-porn-talent-has-gone-missing-let's-sub-a-rando-in trope, no quirks au, pornstar Bakugou, soft dom Bakugou, gn + afab reader, unrequited-requited crush, slight bondage, descriptions of afab genitalia, nipple sucking, cunnilingus, piv sex, pet names used: angel and sweetheart, porn with surprise feelings, 18+, 8.2k words notes: This is my Bakugou x Reader commitment for @ficsforgaza, and I am sorry it is late enough to also count for Valentine's Day (but also Happy Valentine's Day!!) Additionally, a special thank you to my angel princess @ofmermaidstories for handing me the nerd + pornstar combo when I was worried about Bakugou's characterization. I think this is the only way I could have ever written a pornstar Bakugou that felt right to me. Love you, Mermie.

The studio was churning in chaos by the time you arrived.

The first sign that things weren’t right was Komori, one of your fellow production assistants, propped against the wall outside. Her cellphone was pressed against her ear, and she looked nervous, her foot tapping a thousand miles a minute. She had a thumbnail pressed to her mouth and was chewing steadily through the nail like a rabbit through a lettuce leaf.

You didn’t want to disturb her, so you buzzed inside the studio, only to find the hallways filled with an equally nervous energy. Yaoyorozu, one of the production managers, hovered in the doorway of a dressing room. She looked to be arguing with someone, her normally sweet expression pinched in profile. A small circle of people took up the hallway behind her, shifting apprehensively.

A shrill voice filtered out of the dressing room as you tried to wedge yourself by. “I said I’m not doing it. We’re getting married and we agreed I wouldn’t do this anymore.”

“Bibimi—” Yaoyorozu started.

“Effective immediately. Find someone else,” Bibimi’s voice replied.

You stopped in your tracks, blinking as you turned back to the doorway, peering over Sato’s shoulder.

Bibimi Kenranzaki was one of the studio’s top actresses, the very performer scheduled to shoot the production you were working on this afternoon. The shoot was a Valentine’s Day special, and had already been delayed at Bibimi’s request several times. If you’d understood Yaoyorozu’s previous concerns correctly, today was the last possible day to shoot it with enough time for it to make it through editing to post on Valentine’s.

This was not good.

“Bibimi, of course we would never force you to do something you did not consent to,” Yaoyorozu said patiently. “But you can see how having delayed this shoot many times already puts us in danger of not delivering on our commitments.”

You heard a dismissive snort issue from the room, and peered over one of Yaoyorozu’s slender shoulders. Bibimi lounged across one of the waiting room couches, arms crossed over her chest. An enormous diamond ring you’d never seen before glinted from one of her fingers, clearly the source of today’s change of heart.

Oh, production was not going to be happy.

You winced as you ducked out from behind Yaoyorozu, heading back down the hall to stuff your things into one of the vacant lockers. It was a struggle to fit everything in as today you’d come directly from a lecture—two textbooks the size and weight of cinderblocks choking up all the space in your bag. You would have thought that, considering that a wide swath of the production staff were college students—including several of the performers themselves—the studio would have had a better set up. But it was often a fight to the death to even find an open locker amongst the many other bookbags, and an equally Sisyphean struggle to get the door shut on the tiny cubbies.

Once you finally managed to finagle the door shut on your backpack, you made a beeline for the supply room. Typically, your first task of any shoot was acquisition of about a million pounds of baby wipes and lube, though you wondered if they would be needed today, given the scene with Bibimi you’d just witnessed.

You checked the film schedule posted in the staff entry to find the allotted set room. Then you made your way down the twisting maze halls carpeted with ancient olefin to the set for You Cumplete Me, the obnoxious working title Kaminari had come up with for this particular Valentine’s Day project.

The room was set up like some generic apartment, a large bed with a wire-framed headboard dominating the majority of the space. A cherry wood nightstand cluttered with fake knick knacks stood diligently at the bedside, and two fake windows with their curtains drawn shut overlooked the whole affair, red dressings fluttering slightly in the breeze from a fan.

Most of the production staff was already inside the room, the cameramen and director huddled together in the corner, whispering nervously. You spotted Mina, the wardrobe coordinator and makeup artist, fussing with her phone in the other corner, her various products and brushes spread out across a plastic folding table, looking put out.

“You know if we’re going to be able to sub anyone in for Bibimi?” you asked as you approached her, flopping down in one of the chairs set up at her makeshift dressing table. You arrayed your armful of lube and plastic packs of wipes at the corner so as not to disturb her arrangement.

Mina’s eyes flicked up to yours and she grinned, the upturn of her mouth accented with perfectly-applied hot pink lipstick.

“Komori’s called like ten other actresses so far and can’t get anyone,” Mina answered. “And Shiozaki and Kendo are in-studio but both just got off another shoot so we contractually can’t use them. I think Yaomomo is ready to start shaking people down.”

You winced. Yaoyorozu never lost her cool, but the pressure must be mounting. You knew marketing materials had already been put out on the studio’s website, specifically promising the return of the studio’s highest-grossing star—Bakugou Katsuki—opposite Bibimi.

While Bibimi might be the highest paid actress, Bakugou was the real draw of UA Productions. UA churned out projects that were largely targeted towards less traditional markets—largely women—porn that was often of higher production value, higher quality scripting, and careful coordination showcasing enthusiasm and consent. It also subsequently employed more than its fair share of beautiful men.

And Bakugou Katsuki crowned that pile of performers. Though foul-mouthed and often irascible, he was undeniably breathtaking to behold, both on screen and in person. He was the typical blend of tall, strong, and well-muscled that most UA actors were. But he moved with a singular precision and intention that drove fans wild, and came equipped with bed-rumpled blond hair, mile-long lashes, a surly, pouty mouth, and a facial symmetry that Euclid himself would have wept over.

He was also nearing the end of his doctoral and would not be filming for much longer, you were given to understand. So the studio stood to lose a significant amount of audience trust and money, should this production fall through.

As if on cue, Bakugou Katsuki himself stomped through the doorway. The expression on his face told you he was already well-aware of what was happening with Bibimi, and he was getting annoyed with the hold up. He set a direct line for you and Mina, mouth twisted in dissatisfaction.

Your ears promptly went hot, the way they always did when Bakugou was in your line of vision.

You’d unfortunately had something of a crush on him from the minute you’d become a production assistant at UA, your third year of college. Funds were tight and your masters program loomed large in front of you, its meager stipend like a slap in the face. You’d needed something else flexible, and you’d found UA through the friend of a friend—its proximity to the university, and ever changing schedule of ongoing productions offering the perfect amount of flexibility for your situation.

Bakugou had been there that first day as Yaoyorozu gave you the tour, too. He’d been tucked up on the couch of the waiting room as you passed through, blonde hair rumpled, someone’s lip gloss still smeared at the corner of his jaw. He looked like a soft, relaxed mess—clothes askew like he’d pulled them back on after a shoot and immediately migrated to the couch—though his scarlet eyes tracked intently across the page of an enormous engineering text spread across his thighs. His long fingers twirled a pen absently, tapping against a notebook peeking out from just under the textbook, headphones jammed over his ears.

He did not look up as you made your way inside, but your stomach had flared to life with a sudden flutter of butterflies. You were startled by the pretty set of his mouth, the long lashes that swept over his cheeks as he read, the flex of those long, beautiful fingers on his pen. You had never seen a person so perfect in real life, and the effect was dumbing.

“That’s Bakugou, one of our performers,” Yaoyorozu had told you, leading you through the room. She did not stop to introduce you. “He’s working on a PhD in chemical engineering, and performs once every couple of months for us. He’s—erm—not quite friendly, so we’ll skip the introduction today.”

You’d followed her, nodding obediently, leaving Bakugou behind. You’d dutifully concluded your tour and signed all the paperwork, and met several other members of the staff. It was only when you’d been released from your onboarding obligations that you saw Bakugou again, as you ran out into the parking lot to start your car.

It was raining out, a torrential downpour much worse than when you’d arrived that came down in thick, pelting sheets. Visibility was bad enough that you almost missed the tuft of blonde hair across the parking lot, ducking under the awning of the nearby bus stop.

You knew the route headed back towards your university, and subsequently your apartment, and it dawned on you that Bakugou’s would most likely be attaining his cited PhD at your same college. You felt your mouth twist, impressed. PhD tracks were notoriously difficult to attain at Musutafu University—no wonder Bakugou needed a job that was, for lack of better phrasing, quick and dirty. He probably was drowning in post-grad labs and dissertation materials.

The memory of those long fingers tapping at the edge of his text suddenly flickered again in your brain, and something possessed you as you started up your engine. Before you knew what you were doing, you had pulled your car around into the bus stop bay, leaning out to call out to him.

“Hey—Bakugou, right?” you said, watching as scarlet eyes found yours, narrowing suspiciously. His pretty mouth lifted in an immediate, reflexive snarl, and those broad shoulders squared off, like he was getting ready for trouble.

You cut in, quickly explaining yourself when you realized he had no context for the rando hanging out of their car window at him. “I’m Yaoyorozu’s new production staff. Just joined today. Are you headed towards Musutafu U and do you want a ride?”

A blonde eyebrow lifted. “You’re with UA?” he asked. His voice was a kind of low growl, not unlike the thunder suddenly echoing overhead, and the sound shot through you like a bolt of lightning.

“I—yeah. Just signed the paperwork this afternoon.”

Several spatters of rain dampened your cheeks where you had your head poked out of the window, and Bakugou’s eyes tracked them closely as he leaned in. “Then let’s get one thing straight right off the bat—I don’t fuck coworkers off the clock.”

You recoiled, horrified at the conclusion he’d immediately brought himself to. “No! That’s not what I—I didn’t mean like—! I just thought because it’s raining out, you might want—”

“I want you to fuck right off, is what I want,” Bakugou said, crossing his arms over his chest. He made a show of leaning back against the glass wall of the bus stop, its interior papered over with moldering ads. It was a clear dismissal.

You blinked at him stupidly for a moment, mind reeling that your gesture had been received so poorly. But then you realized he hadn’t seen you, in your trek through the staff room during your afternoon tour. You’d only just seen him, and you hadn’t spoken to him besides. Despite your immediate interest in and respect for him, he knew nothing about you.

And he was a pornstar, come to think of it. He probably had had a fair number of creeps proposition him out of the blue. Enough that he was suspicious now, as you might have been, were you in his position.

Your cheeks heated, suddenly ashamed. You nodded, gritting your teeth as you ducked back inside your car.

“Right, fucking off, as requested,” you said, turning your blinker on to move back out into the road. “Sorry to scare you. See you, um—see you at work sometime.”

“Oi—I ain’t fuckin’ scared,” you heard him growl, but then you were turning back out into the street. You rolled your window back up as you sped up, resisting the urge to look back at Bakugou in the rearview.

What a humiliating first impression that had been.

You'd fretted about it for another week before your first official day at UA, and for several weeks more when you didn’t immediately run into Bakugou. When you’d finally met him properly, however, Bakugou acted like he’d never even seen you before in his life, and you somewhat gratefully followed his lead. He treated you like anyone else, with the same kind of universal severity he turned on the other production staff. You discovered very quickly that he was impatient, brusque, no-nonsense. He stalked onto every set with all the latent energy of a nuclear missile strike, and never softened until after the shoot was over.

His general attitude, and your humiliating first encounter should have been enough to turn you off of him. But the occasional glimpse of him after a shoot—rumpled, relaxed, open in a way he normally wasn’t, in the way that you'd first seen him—was unfortunately enough to keep those initial butterflies aflutter.

The fact that he was smart—and annoyingly adept in the bedroom, considering the number of reshoots his costars often needed after they accidently came too early—did not help matters.

“Where the fuck is Yaoyorozu?” he demanded of you and Mina, as he approached you in the set room now.

You met his scarlet gaze, holding very still under his regard.

“She was negotiating with Bibimi just now when I came in,” you told him, cheeks heating as his eyes flicked over you. He had a very direct way of evaluating people, and rarely missed a detail. You hoped your makeup wasn’t smudged from where you’d had your head propped up in your hand, valiantly resisting falling asleep in your earlier lecture.

“Bibimi’s a waste of fuckin’ time,” Bakugou growled.

You rolled your eyes. He couldn’t very well act opposite his own hand, so someone was going to have to fill in.

“Well Mina says we’re not having luck finding anyone else either so Bibimi is your best bet,” you told him.

Bakugou looked down his perfect nose at you. “Anyone in this damn studio could do better than she does.”

You felt your eyebrows raise. Bibimi was popular with a variety of audiences for her exaggeratedly dollish features—you doubted just anyone could fill in for her and look as good. You said as much to Bakugou, and he scoffed.

“‘S not about looking good, it’s about showing that you’re feeling good,” he said plainly, igniting a wave of fire across your cheeks. The flames worsened when he crossed his arms over his chest and you had occasion to notice he was in nothing but a workout tank, his bare biceps flexing enticingly in the studio lighting.

You were thankfully spared from having to form a coherent response by Yaoyorozu stepping into the room. She was tailed by Komori, and wore a troubled expression. She waved an elegant hand that encompassed both your camp in the corner and the directors on the other side of the room.

“Bibimi is unfortunately out. And we cannot use Shiozaki or Kendo. I am afraid we may have to call off the shoot this afternoon,” she said.

“So get someone else in,” Bakugou said, with his usual brisk directness. He turned to face her. You caught the whiff of something light and clean on him as he did so, laundry detergent and recently-applied shampoo.

Yaoyorozu fixed him with an expectant look. “We’ve unfortunately worked our way through the roster of available performers. Unless you know someone else?”

Bakugou stared back at her evenly, arching a blonde brow. “There’re a bunch of extras already here, aren’t there?”

A little shock went through you. Extras. As in the…people in the room right now? Did he really mean the production staff?

Yaoyorozu blinked, apparently taken aback. Then her gaze slid thoughtfully between Komori, Mina, and you. Another little thrill raced through you, like you’d suddenly missed a step. Surely they both could not actually be considering that.

“I’m a hoe but I’m a loyal hoe,” Mina said from next to you, immediately putting up a rosy palm. “Eiji is my one and only, sorry babes.”

Yaoyorozu nodded. “Of course, I would not expect you to violate any commitments you already had to a significant other.”

“I am also seeing someone,” Komori volunteered, a shy little blush sweeping across her cheeks. You smiled a bit at her obvious regard for whoever it was—until you sensed a dozen pairs of eyes suddenly turning to you.

Your stomach dropped—less of a missed step then and more of a sudden push off a cliff.

Worst of all was the pair of scarlet eyes suddenly burning with undue regard in your direction. You stared straight at Yaoyorozu, unable to meet Bakugou’s gaze. You still felt like you might burn up under his scrutiny, like an ant under a magnifying glass.

“I—uh—” you said dumbly, floundering for the right set of words to explain yourself. “Uhh.”

“You seeing anybody?” Bakugou prodded, prompting a fresh wave of heat to your cheeks.

“Well—no—”

“You clean?” he asked.

Your face burned hotter. “Yes, if you must know—-but uh—”

“Then what?” he prompted.

“Is it that easy for you? To just switch partners like that?” you asked. You weren’t exactly a blushing virgin but you still had only slept with partners you had cared for. Bakugou had worked with you for years and never signaled anything beyond dismissal and semi-professionalism—so it wasn’t like he had that same level of interest in you, despite your enormous crush on him. How could he just switch, just like that?

Bakugou uncrossed his arms to settle his hands on slim hips instead, and he gave you another evaluating once over. “Something the matter with you?” he asked. You noticed he did not ask if you thought something was the matter with him. You wondered if your crush on him was that apparent.

“No,” you said defensively. “Just—I don’t know that I’d be any good on camera.”

“You’ve been in videos before,” Mina pointed out, tugging playfully on your belt loop. “You were in Bibimi’s Christmas special a couple years ago.”

“That was different,” you said, staring at her. “I was her evil coworker who sent her running into Tetsutetsu’s muscular arms. I didn’t have to get naked.”

“We can give you time to get prepared,” Yaoyorozu promised kindly. “If you wanted to um, clean up or trim—”

“It’s not that!” you said quickly, waving your arms. Your ears burned. “I just mean I would be shy.”

Bakugou watched you silently for another long moment, his full mouth pursed in thought. His gaze dragged down your body and then back up to your face, and you felt it like a physical touch.

“Then if you forgot you were on camera?” he asked, a rasp in his tone.

You blinked at him dumbly. “If I—forgot?”

“If I made you forget,” he said, flashing a sharp smirk. The arrogance looked so good on him, zinging through your veins like an electric current. Your cheeks and ears flared even hotter, until you thought you might actually be emitting smoke from them.

You tried to form words but seemed to have trouble shaping the proper ones with your tongue, making a series of choking noises before you managed. “There is no way you could—you’re not that good.”

Something hot flared to life behind Bakugou’s eyes, and his smirk curled even sharper. “We’ll see about that.”

“What if Bakugou helps you get over your nerves, and we just try it and see how you do.” Yaoyorozu prompted gently. “Is that something you would be willing to do? Of course we won’t pressure you.”

Your gaze jerked back to her as you startled. For just a second you’d sort of forgotten there was anyone in the room but Bakugou.

“I sort of doubt—but if you really need—I mean I could—try…” you fumbled out.

Yaoyorozu nodded gratefully, looking pleased again. “Alright, then let’s at least try it. Mina please find proper costuming and help get Y/N ready. I will draw up a short contract with the same terms we promise all our on camera talent for you to look over when you’re done.”

You nodded, a little dazed. Had you really just agreed to—?

But then Mina was laughing, grabbing you by the elbow and drawing you out of the room. She marched you towards the back of the studio building where she’d amassed a respectable wardrobe, racks upon racks of clothes. “Alright, this is going to be so fun! I love dressing new talent! It’s always fun to work out what’s going to work with your coloring and style on screen.”

The mention of you doing anything on screen had all the blood draining from your veins, but Mina didn’t seem to mind. She kept up a stream of happy, easy chatter as she pecked around in the racks like a chicken hunting a grasshopper. Eventually she emerged with a robe in a deep pink, slippery and silky and glistening faintly under the overheads.

“Okay so you’re supposed to be a loving couple celebrating your anniversary and looking for ways to spice things up,” she said. “So you’ll be waiting for him to come home, looking delicious in this little slip of a thing. He can unwrap you like a V-Day present!”

Her callback to the plot of the shoot suddenly made you realize there were way more things involved in the project than just being pawed at on screen—and you did not know any of Bibimi’s lines. How the hell were you supposed to deliver any kind of performance?

“Don’t worry about it, I assure you the gears are already churning in Momo’s big brain,” Mina said when you asked as much. She peeled you out of your sweater and jeans, and ushered you into the robe. Cheeks burning, you let her look you over to make sure you were properly groomed for the camera.

Then before you could get cold feet, she bundled you up and shepherded you back into the set room and set to work on you with her various pots of paint and ointments. She worked a couple things into your hair, applied something glossy and sticky to your mouth, and adjusted the fit of your robe to her liking until she pronounced you ready.

Yaoyorozu was already leaning over you by the time Mina released you, laying out a packet of sheets in front of you. She detailed the terms to you in the professional, clipped tone you’d heard her conduct business in before, and soon enough you were penning in your own name in a shaky hand. The strokes looked almost foreign on the page, and you felt a little more than lightheaded thinking about what you’d just signed yourself into.

“So—what am I supposed to do about Bibimi’s lines?” you asked, your voice coming out kind of dry and crackly.

“We’re going to improvise,” Yaoyorozu said. “Bakugou will guide you. Try to respond as best you can to what he says, along the framework of being a couple celebrating their anniversary. It’s most important to capture your intimacy, however, so we can always come back and reshoot any dialog as needed after. You can call him Katsuki, there are no aliases for this shoot.”

You nodded, feeling even more nervous now that all the prerequisites had been completed.

That left Komori waiting for you. She was apparently assuming the duties you’d abandoned by becoming the star of this absurd alternate dimension. She led you over to what had been meant to be Bibimi’s starting mark on the bed and helped you spread your pink robe out enticingly. You almost laughed as you helped her, feeling foolish and distinctly unsexy for the deliberateness of it all.

There was nothing less romantic than half a dozen other people in the room with you, cameras and hot lights trained on you like you were an escaped convict under a helicopter floodlight. You got the impression that it was going to be a monumental task to work up the nerve to even loosen the tie on your robe, nevermind remove it.

Except then Bakugou walked in.

He’d changed, sometime in the half hour or so Mina had had you in her clutches. He prowled into the room in a dark charcoal suit, the consummate businessman home from his generic businessman job.

He looked unfairly good in it too—the close cut of it highlighted how his broad shoulders slashed inwards into a trim waist, and his pants showcased the flex of a strong, hard thigh. He’d acquired a chunky wristwatch in a dark metal, and it glinted dully under the overhead lights.

He looked sleek and dangerous, even though you’d just seen him stomping around in sweatpants not thirty minutes prior. You felt your breath escape you in a whoosh, your heartbeat kicking up as he prowled closer.

“I’m home, angel,” he said, a smoky rasp curling on the end of his voice. Despite the pet name, he sounded enough like his usual self that you almost answered him in turn.

You vaguely remembered you were obliged to playact with him, and you summoned up your nerve. “Hi, Katsuki,” you said. You hoped your voice did not sound too shaky. “Happy Anniversary.”

Bakugou’s scarlet eyes dipped down to your robe, fastening to the spot where it gaped open suggestively over one thigh. Your skin buzzed like a hive of bees was trapped beneath it.

“This my present?” he asked, stalking closer. He snagged the tie of your robe in his long fingers, toying with it speculatively.

“It should be easy to open,” you joked, then almost cringed.

Sexy. You were supposed to be sexy, not goofy as hell. And what happened when he really did try to open it?

A small amount of panic crept up your spine again, seeping into your veins. You did not feel ready to be naked before all of the eyes in this room, nevermind the roving gaze of the internet. What had you been thinking, signing up for this?

Your hand came up defensively to tug the robe tie back out of Bakugou’s hand, only for it to be captured too. Bakugou tugged you up and to him, and your face broke out in another sweeping wave of flame as you felt the hard planes of him against you. He was so warm, and smelled so good up close and you could not even begin to know what to do or where to put your hands—

Before you could ask him what the heck he was doing, however, he brought your captured hand to his mouth. You almost leapt out of your skin when you felt the gentle press of his lips on the inside of your wrist, the careful flicker of a tongue. Those scarlet eyes slid over you knowingly, near enough that you could see tiny flecks of deep purple in them.

His other hand came up to take your chin, his thumb stroking over the side of your jaw. The feeling made you shiver slightly, and it must have been clearly visible because the corner of Bakugou's mouth lifted into a smirk against your wrist. Your heart hammered against your ribcage, every inch of your skin thrilling with the feeling of your longtime crush doing something this to you.

“Think I’m gonna enjoying opening you alright,” Bakugou intoned.

You struggled to remember what he was talking about, giving up almost immediately as his mouth trailed along the inside of your arm. It traced up and up and up, until he was hovering dangerously close to your face. His fingers tightened on your chin, tilting your face up to his.

And then he bent his head, and crushed his mouth to yours.

Immediately, everything else disappeared.

Kissing Bakugou was three thousand zillion times hotter than you could have ever even imagined. You’d sort of imagined that with an attitude like his, he would be all power and impatience. And the power was there, but leashed, somehow. His mouth was hot and shockingly sweet on yours, and his fingers cupped your face to his, holding you there like he planned to kiss you for hours yet.

Your head was spinning by the time he let your mouth free, and the dip of his blonde lashes as he looked you over was extraordinarily self-satisfied.

His hand on your chin went to your robe instead, pulling the collar wide so that he could lower his mouth inside instead, kissing over your throat. You seized fistfuls of his suit, clinging to him, as he mapped a hot path across your shoulder and collarbone, one of his hands coming up to up your chest.

You heard yourself let out a soft hiss as his thumb pressed over your nipple through the silky fabric. Bakugou sucked a careful bruise into the side of your neck as he did it again, letting out a barely audible snort when you jerked in his hold, unconsciously arching into his hand.

“So sensitive for me, angel,” he drawled as his other hand came up to carefully pinch your other nipple.

You heard yourself make a small, choked off noise like a whine, and you could feel Bakugou’s lips pull into an answering smirk against your throat. You didn’t think you had been quite this responsive to a partner before—but something about the careful, purposeful way he was touching you had your blood running quicker in your veins.

Bakugou’s thumbs traced slow, deliberate circles over your nipples with just the right amount of pressure to make you groan. He teased you again and again as his mouth traced higher on your neck.

Within minutes you were panting, a slow, syrupy pleasure dripping down into your core.

Bakugou tugged your robe wider, then bent his head. You felt the tickle of his hair against your collarbone, softer than you would have thought, as his mouth closed over the point of one nipple. The draw of his mouth had you arching up into him immediately, pleasure zinging through your veins.

“Oh my god,” you said, seizing a fistful of that blonde hair.

Bakugou’s tongue teased at the nipple, and you writhed in his hold. Then he did the same to your other one, and you thought you might die. He hadn’t even touched you yet and you already wanted to crawl out of your skin with impatience.

“Katsuki—please,” you heard yourself say, almost distantly. “Katsuki—oh!”

“Please what, angel?” he said into the skin of your chest, before laying his mouth back over your nipple and giving a sweet suck.

“Oh my god—please!” you said, stupidly. Not an answer to his question but you’d forgotten how to string words together, your brain-to-mouth connection running on autopilot.

“Gonna have to be more specific, sweetheart,” Bakugou said, and you heard the relish in it. Your face burned, and you yanked his hair a little more firmly. He just groaned, and then sucked you a little harder.

“Touch me! Please—Katsuki,” you panted out, hips flexing unconsciously with the pull of your nipple.

“Thought this was my gift, angel. I can’t enjoy it how I want?” he asked.

You considered his words muzzily, having no idea what he was talking about. Gift? What gift was he talking about?

Bakugou’s scarlet eyes flicked up to yours, and something in your expression must have told him you had no idea what he was on about. His mouth pulled up into a self-satisfied grin, and he leaned up to kiss you again.

You flattened yourself out against his chest, all but velcroing yourself to him. You wanted to feel every inch of that hard body against you, wanted to climb as far into him as you could. Something gratifyingly hard pressed against your stomach as you kissed him, and he grunted, locking you to him with a muscled arm across your back.

“Want me to touch you, angel?” he asked.

You nodded. A smile played across his lips.

“Get on the bed for me then, sweetheart.”

It took a minute for you to process but then you were scrambling to obey, scrabbling your way onto the bed, turning and watching as Bakugou stepped nearer.

He shed his jacket as he approached, yanking off his tie too and flinging it somewhere behind him. Then he crawled over you, his fingers seizing the ties of your robe as he did. He pulled it open gently, then yanked a little harder until the silk tie slid free.

His eyes picked over it speculatively, then flashed back up to you. A look of intent interest settled over his features.

“You ever been tied up before, angel?” he asked.

You shook your head, even as it swam with the implication. Your skin prickled, somehow growing even hotter. He didn’t mean to…?

“You gonna let me?” he asked.

You rather thought you would let him do anything he wanted with you. The question was barely out of his mouth before you were nodding hurriedly. A shocked laugh punched out of him, and he gathered up your wrists, scooting you backwards until they pressed against the headboard.

He looped the silk around your wrists, gathering it into a series of complicated knots. He moved with a purpose and precision, his movements sure and practiced. You tested the give of the ties when he sat back on his haunches, finding that they held firm, even when you put a little more muscle into it.

Bakugou’s gaze blazed over you, hot like coals. His eyes traced over your body, spread out under him now, your silk robe pooling at either side of you in a pink puddle.

He bent his head and kissed you again, until you were fuzzy with the feeling once more. Then he worked his way downwards, softly biting your shoulder, licking over one nipple, pressing deep kisses into your belly and then indent of your left hip.

A shock of pleasure raced through you when you realized where he was going with this, and you let out an involuntarily little gasp as he hooked your thighs over his broad shoulders.

“Katsuki,” you began, though you had no idea what you meant to follow it up with. Bakugou didn’t wait for you to finish, ducking his head and licking a hot stripe up the cleft of you.

Immediately you arched, thighs flexing under his hands. Your face heated when he laughed again, but any embarrassment was instantly forgotten when he licked over you again, slower and more deliberate this time.

“Oh my god,” you said again, biting off into a groan when his tongue dipped deeper between your folds, flicking up over your clit.

“Yeah, angel?” Bakugou asked, his voice a heady rasp. “You like that?” He layered another open mouthed kiss over you, slow and thorough, until you were arching up into his mouth again.

It would have been evident to anyone on earth how much you liked it from the noises you made, the way you kicked and squirmed with the movement of his mouth. He sucked your clit gently into his mouth, then laved over it firmly as he pressed his fingers to you, the pads of his index and middle slowly sinking into you.

Your eyes almost rolled to the back of your head when he gave another slow suck, the feeling almost too much. His fingers pressed deeper into you, easily slipping in with how comically wet you were for him. The gentle suction of his mouth made everything a million times better, everything a million times worse, as he carefully curled his fingers within you. He seemed to immediately find a spot within you that felt like he was touching your clit from the other side too, and the feeling was immediately far too much.

“Holy shit,” you heard yourself say, cutting off into an honest to god whine when his tongue swirled around your clit, just as he teased a finger along you from the inside too. “Katsuki—oh! Katsuki please! Please oh my god oh my god.”

Bakugou’s ministrations grew a fraction firmer, and you heard him groan too as he kissed you messily.

“So fucking hot for me, sweetheart. So sweet,” he said, then sucked again, a tiny bit harder this time. His fingers stroked you from the inside, a firm, deliberate rhythm that had you turning your face and muffling a keen into the meat of your arm.

Your hips flexed against his face, wild and uncontrolled, wanting less, more, not enough, too much, oh my god—

“Katsuki!” you cried, as you suddenly hit the crest of your pleasure. Your wrists pulled against their bonds, and the feeling of helpless restraint suddenly made everything feel a thousand times more intense. Every single nerve ending in your body felt like it was on fire, so that even the air of the room seemed too harsh on your skin. You screamed as you rode out your pleasure against Bakugou’s face.

He worked you through it diligently, licking and sucking until you collapsed back to the mattress, panting like you’d just run a marathon.

“Good, angel?” Bakugou asked.

You nodded breathlessly, turning your face to his when he crawled up your body to kiss you again. The taste of yourself on him was both embarrassing and thrilling, but Bakugou didn’t give you much leeway to consider it, kissing you into a stupid, pliant little puddle against the mattress.

You could feel him hard and hot against your hip as he did so, but he didn’t make any move to get inside you yet. Instead, his hands moved over you, slowly teasing you from satiation back into want. His fingers played with your nipples again, pinching them softly and rolling them. It felt like he'd rigged up some kind of wire, leading from your nipples right to your core, that lit the pilot flame of your interest again.

A couple minutes of diligent teasing, and easy, unhurried kisses had you wiggling under him again soon enough. It was only then, when you realized you were unconsciously rocking your hips against Bakugou’s, that he finally sat back to shuck off his shirt and pants.

He was so unfairly beautiful, bared in the bright light of the room. You’d known he was gorgeous, of course, but up close he was something else entirely. He was chiseled with thick muscle, his chest and arms hard and glowing faintly with perspiration. The light and the shadows of the room played over the divots of his muscles with a deliberate care, like he was a painting instead of a man, highlighting him in loving shades. A set of perfect abs trailed down into the hard jut of hip bones over his pelvis, and his cock was just as upsettingly gorgeous as the rest of him. It was thick and full and flush with his arousal, and he wasted no time crawling back between your thighs.

“You ready for me, sweetheart?” he asked. His voice had gone even more gravelly than usual, and it plucked at your core like a string.

“Please, Katsuki,” you said, your voice embarrassingly breathy. You couldn’t help yourself though, couldn’t be ashamed with the easy way your thighs fell apart for him. Your ankles hooked across his back, trying to pull him closer still.

He groaned and surged up over you to grab a condom off the nightstand. He quickly rolled it onto himself in one practiced movement, before immediately pressing himself into you.

He sank in mortifyingly easily, you already half out of your mind with want. He didn’t seem to mind, though—you heard the soft, sibilant hiss of his own pleasure as he filled you, and your robe tugged the skin of your shoulder as he fisted a hand in it, just beside your head.

“Been dying to fuck you, angel,” he said. “Thinking about how hot and tight and sweet you would be for me. Been thinking about it nonstop.”

You made a vague noise of agreement, moving your hips with his as he drew back and pressed inside of you again. The slide of him inside you was mind-numbingly good, the pressure against your stomach as he pressed back in almost sparking stars in your vision. The flex of his abs between your thighs as he found his pace was almost immediately too much for you, and you had to turn your face away. You tilted your face up to his, watching him as he watched you.

Bakugou seemed to read your expression easily, finding the angle and pace you liked incredibly quickly. He slid an arm under the small of your back to angle your hips up into him, yanking you up like you were nothing, and the show of easy strength had your toes flexing and curling against his back.

He kissed you again, catching the sounds of your pleasure in his mouth as he rocked into you. You moved against him, hips bucking, delirious with the feeling of him. Eventually he freed his arm from under you, pressing his thumb to your slit again with deadly precision.

“Oh fuck,” you moaned into his mouth, legs tightening on him as he played with your clit. The almost-too-gentle sensation of his thumb on your clit, coupled with the relentless drive of him inside you had your vision sparking and greying at the edges. His face swam in front of yours, and all of your limbs began to feel shivery, almost too weak to lift yourself into him the way you needed, to rock against him and find relief from the friction.

Bakugou continued to tease at you, carefully pinching and petting. His hips drove into you tirelessly, slapping the bottoms of your thighs, as you strained in your silk bonds, wanting to grab him, pull him even harder into you.

“Katsuki, please please please,” you heard yourself begging. You felt him smile against your mouth, tasted his reply more than heard it.

“You want me to let you cum, angel?” he asked, doing something with his fingers that made your breath catch in your lungs.

“Unhh, yes—please!” you cried, desperation coming over you in a white haze.

You had never—never—been so desperate for anything in your entire life. You didn’t know how Bakugou was doing it, why his touch felt like so much more than anything else you’d ever felt in your life. If he didn’t let you cum you were certain you were going to die, right here and right now.

“You gonna scream for me, sweetheart?” Bakugou asked, his voice raspier than you’d ever heard it. He grit the words out, like he too was on the edge of his own climax, barely staving it off.

“Anything, I will do anything,” you babbled senselessly. “Yes—going to scream for you—Katsuki!”

Bakugou’s gaze was hotter than you’d ever seen it, scarlet eyes clouded with pleasure, glowing like banked coals. “Then you can come for me, angel. Come on, sweetheart.”

“Oh!” you cried in answer, your feet planting themselves on the bed to jut your hips up hard. Bakugou’s thumb pressed hard against your clit, then, firm and merciless, and he fucked into you harder, his pace growing faster, furious.

Your second orgasm hit you like a truck, snapping your spine into alignment, locking all your limbs up as if in rigor mortis.

“Katsuki!” you wailed as you writhed against him, clenching and fluttering around him as you sobbed.

“Oh fuck,” you heard him say, and his hips stuttered. You realized he was coming too, fucking into you sloppily and disjointedly as he rode out his own pleasure. You arched and spasmed with him, clawing uselessly at the silk that bound you, twisting in blissful agony.

When you finally came back to yourself you found yourself slumped on the bed, Bakugou’s weight pinning you down into the mattress. His chest was slicked to yours with sweat, and you could feel the rapid rise and fall of it against you as he caught his breath.

“That good, angel?” he asked, his voice heady with satisfaction.

You nodded, absently turning your face back up to his for a kiss. He granted it, kissing you almost possessively. He looked soft and rumpled, just the way you'd always liked him, and something in you purred with satisfaction at finally getting to have him like this for you.

Gradually, you became aware of other sounds in the room as you came down from your high. Quiet murmuring and the sounds of shuffling met your ears, the shutter click of a camera lens slicing through the atmosphere like a knife.

A sudden shock raced through you when you realized you and Bakugou were not alone—and you were on the set of a porn film, half a dozen eyes glued to you just over one of Bakugou’s thick shoulders.

A porn film. You had been shooting a porn film!

“And cut!” you heard the director’s voice ring out, like a bucket of water dumped over your head.

You tensed up beneath Bakugou, mind racing. Holy shit, he had actually managed to make you forget, exactly the way he'd promised.

You could tell Bakugou was thinking the same thing as he went to untie you, looking extremely satisfied with himself.

“Told you, angel,” he said, flashing something of a feral grin. You hated how good the self-conceit looked on him.

You went to draw your wrists back to yourself as he let them free. But Bakugou caught them instead, carefully massaging the skin there as if to make sure things were circulating properly. It was a startling note of unexpected care, as was the way he drew your robe closed around you again against the sudden chill of the room.

You found yourself saying wonderingly, “Wow. It was just that easy for you to switch partners like that.”

The thought somehow stung, even though you’d known going into this what you were getting yourself into. Somehow, the latent care and intention with which Bakugou had fucked you had addled your brain, made you think your connection had been something more. He had felt like he had feelings, beyond those mimed for the camera.

But here was evidence to the contrary, plain and simple. There literally was a camera.

Except then Bakugou looked down at you, a frown marring his pouty mouth. “Well yeah. ‘Course it was gonna be that easy when it’s you we’re talking about.”

You blinked at him, not understanding what he was saying. “Uh. When it’s—me?”

A crease came in between Bakugou’s blonde brows. “I said it, didn’t I? While we were fucking? Wanted to fuck you for a long time. Of course it was easy.”

Your stomach dropped, like a rug had just been yanked out from beneath you. “You—have? What? Since when?” you demanded.

Bakugou leveled you with an unimpressed stare. “Since the second time we met,” he said, and your mind flashed back to the way he’d seemed not to recognize you, that second time you'd spoken to him. “Once I realized you did work for UA and weren’t actually a little fucking creep trying to lure me into your car.”

You felt your eyebrows shoot towards your hairline. “Then—? For years? You cannot be serious. You never acted like we were anything other than coworkers!”

Bakugou scoffed. “We fucking were coworkers. And I told you, I don’t fuck coworkers off the clock.”

You blinked again, startled by the level of professionalism couched in the crassess of his statement. It made sense, you supposed, for a pornstar of Bakugou’s caliber to have put boundaries like that in place. Probably everyone in the world would just be dying for a shot at him.

“Wow,” you said, almost to yourself. You didn’t know what to do with this new information, wondered how it was going to be possible to behave professionally with Bakugou at all going forward. It was probably obvious to him how big your crush on him was, given that he’d known all along he could make you forget you were on camera. Given the way you reacted to him embarrassingly easily.

Except then Bakugou leaned forward, putting his face startlingly close to yours. “Emphasis on were, since this is my last shoot,” he said.

You stared at him, wondering if you were interpreting the implication correctly. There was no way he meant—?

“Uhhhh, meaning what, exactly?” you prompted, heart beating just a little bit quicker despite yourself.

Bakugou’s mouth turned up into a gorgeous smirk, and he ducked his head even closer, voice going softer.

“Meaning you’re going to get dressed and I’m going to take us to get something to eat,” he said, fingers playing at the edge of your robe. “And then you’re going to give me that ride home in your car after all. And we are going to do this all over again.”

Flames erupted across your face, sweeping across your cheeks. And you were up out of the bed before you even realized what you were doing, catching yourself on the bedside table as you stumbled.

Bakugou’s laugh chased out of the set room as you raced towards the wardrobe again. But you couldn’t find it in yourself to care, this time.

Not when your heart felt like it was going to beat right out of your chest. You smothered a smile as you ran down the hallway.

Much like Bakugou had just done to you—it looked like your hopes and dreams were finally lining themselves up and filling themselves in.

[eddiegettingshot]

your prompt for today: pink🩷

When their night out winds down, and they land on Eddie’s doorstep, Buck’s gut begins to prickle with sudden nerves, or maybe anticipation. He really can’t tell the difference. Strange, because he thought he’d been handling being on a first date with his best friend pretty well. After all, it’s a song and dance that’s usually about making a good first impression, and not only did that ship sail years ago, but Buck didn’t even get it right. So dinner just felt like dinner, except for the fact that Eddie kept their feet tucked together beneath the table the whole time.

Granted, there were a few days where Buck kept forgetting anything had changed between them if they weren’t physically together, if Eddie didn’t have a hand on him, like he’d lost all sense of object permanence where Eddie was concerned. What’s startling is that in most ways, nothing has. 

Like this: Eddie turns to him now as he unlocks his front door, brow arched. 

“What, you got somewhere else to be?” he asks.

Buck doesn’t bother asking what Eddie had seen in him, that he’d decided he needed to stake an explicit claim on the rest of Buck’s night (and, with luck, the morning?). It’s not like he’s in the habit of playing things close to the vest, but half the time he doesn’t even need to say a word—not to Eddie. He’d been peeled open long before he knew he had anything to confess.

Easy to imagine: himself, held in the tender cradle of Eddie’s hands, Eddie’s thumbs feeling down his center to find the tenderest spot, pushing deep all at once, prying him apart—through the rind of him, his ribcage, so all his insides, overripe with adoration, come spilling out into Eddie’s palms. That’s how it feels. It’s everything he’s ever wanted.

“No,” he says, shuffling closer. He’d been hanging back, playing with his car keys in his pocket.  “No, I—I’m coming in.”

“Good.” 

Eddie sounds so openly pleased. Warmth spills through Buck’s spine. He hadn’t considered that he wasn’t alone in this—bracing against some new humming energy, staring too closely at the back of Eddie’s neck—but he watches Eddie’s shoulders soften, right before he lets Buck inside.

Then, once Buck’s on the couch, thinking really intently about how they’re going to occupy it together (it’s been a busy week; they haven’t even seen enough of each other for Buck to have adapted to their new rules of engagement. Can he crawl into Eddie’s lap?), Eddie pauses, says, “Uh, hold on,” and bustles off to the kitchen. 

He returns with a lighter for the candle sitting on the coffee table, which is—new. Buck hadn’t noticed until now. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eddie light a candle in all the years he’s spent in this house, and now his lip is trapped between his teeth as he does it, avoiding Buck’s eyes all the while.

It hits Buck hard and fast: Eddie is really, really nervous. And trying to be romantic, for Buck. And if he crawled into Eddie’s lap, probably Eddie would laugh, and let him; he’s allowed. And maybe nothing feels different but it’s all changed. That’s what Buck wants, for once. That’s what Eddie wants, judging by his wide dark eyes, flushed cheeks, the flickering candlelight. Sometimes Buck’s slow on the uptake. This time, he might have just been scared. 

“You look nice,” Buck says. 

Kind of bad timing—Eddie’s just in his socks; he’d shed his jacket and the fancy watch Buck’s only seen him break out a couple times; he’d undone the first couple of buttons on his shirt; he must have run his hands through his hair when he was out of sight, since it’s falling halfway down his forehead. Buck should have said something when he picked Eddie up—he’d thought it, then, but he had been so comfortable with Eddie in his passenger seat, he didn’t want to risk making things weird.

Eddie’s laugh is just a soft puff of air. He relaxes. “Thanks,” he says, coming around to sink down beside Buck, turning a knee out so they’re touching, as if by reflex. 

“I like that color on you,” Buck continues. “Always have.”

“Hm,” Eddie says, smiling. He’s in rose pink. He’s also leaning closer, lifting a hand and brushing his fingertips down Buck’s brow, his cheek. His eyes flicker, and suddenly they’re trained on Buck’s mouth. Buck’s stomach swoops boyishly. “It’s a good color.”

Holy shit, Buck thinks, head full of jasmine and honey and smoke and the cologne Eddie’s wearing, something unfamiliar with an exotic spiced note. They kissed before—they’ve been kissing all week—except this time Buck starts whimpering before their lips meet, and Eddie swallows whatever strangled noise he makes with a grin. Buck lurches in, fisting urgent hands into the front of Eddie’s shirt. 

“Eddie,” he pants after a while. It’s hard-won, because Eddie is demanding, and he bites. “Eddie, are you sure?” 

Now that they’ve done it, like, really crossed the line, gotten a taste—he’s gotta know if this is what Eddie was looking for, when he told Buck he loved him. Not just the sex, which they’re definitely about to have—all of it. Buck shoves his knuckles against Eddie’s chest to feel his heart gallop, hard but steady like it grew Thoroughbred legs. 

Eddie’s cupping his face in both hands while they kiss. He pulls away, not far, and surveys Buck the way he would a patient: like he’s trying to puzzle out what’s going on beneath Buck’s skin, in all the places he can’t quite reach.

“Buck,” he says, gently. “Of course.” 

He pushes his thumb between Buck’s teeth. Satisfied, Buck drags him back in.

[billiesbabygirleilish]

Island Heat

an: is this what you wanted anon??? i did red roots billie bc i’m mentally still in that era. also ik billie is bi but i couldn’t find a way to make the words flow sooo she’s lesbian today :)

.*.*•┈••✦★✿ »•» ~~💙~~ «•« ✿★✦••┈•.*.*

.*.*•┈••✦★✿ »•» ~~💙~~ «•« ✿★✦••┈•.*.* The glaring Malibu sun beat down on the Love Island villa, the kind of heat that made your skin slick under the barely-there fabrics the producers insisted on. You, Y/N, were sprawled on a daybed, pretending to listen to Liam drone on about his gym routine, when she walked in.

Billie Eilish.

You nearly choked. Knowing she was rumored to be a surprise contestant was one thing, seeing her saunter through the villa doors, all oversized tee and crimson red roots, was another. Her gaze swept across the gathered contestants, lingering a beat too long on you. Your stomach flipped.

The cameras went wild, the other contestants were buzzing, but all you could focus on was Billie. The energy radiating off her was tangible, a magnetic pull that had you instantly hooked. You caught her eye again, and she gave you a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk.

Liam’s voice faded into the background. This summer just got a whole lot more interesting.

As the days turned into nights, the Love Island formula began to unfold. Awkward dates, forced conversations, manufactured drama. But amidst the chaos, there was Billie. You found yourselves gravitating toward each other, drawn by an unspoken connection. You’d steal moments on the periphery, whispering jokes, dissecting the other contestants with a shared, cynical humor.

You learned she hated forced interactions as much as you did, that she preferred dogs to cats, and that her favorite color was blue. You learned her laugh was a low rumble that vibrated straight to your core.

One night, after a particularly grueling challenge involving whipped cream and questionable kissing, Billie pulled you aside as everyone else went inside. “Wanna go to the hideaway suite?” she murmured, her voice husky.

Your heart hammered against your ribs. The hideaway. The infamous “Love Room,” where couples were sent for "private time.” You swallowed hard. "Are you serious?"

She nodded, her eyes dark and challenging. "Thought we could use a break from the cameras, and the… drama."

The producers, predictably, were thrilled. They ushered you both to the hideaway with a chorus of knowing winks and suggestive comments. You tried to ignore them, your focus solely on the nervous flutter in your stomach and the anticipation that hummed in the air between you and Billie. The hideaway was predictably cheesy – rose petals scattered everywhere, a heart-shaped jacuzzi. But as soon as the door clicked shut behind you, all the artifice melted away.

Billie turned to you, her gaze intense. "So," she said, a playful edge to her voice. "What do we do now?"

You closed the distance between you, your hands reaching up to cup her face. "I have a few ideas," you whispered, before pressing your lips to hers.

The kiss was electric. It started slow, tentative at first, then quickly escalated into something deeper, hungrier. You tangled your fingers in her hair, pulling her closer, feeling the heat of her body against yours.

You broke apart, breathless. Billie's eyes were dilated, her lips slightly swollen. "Damn," she breathed.

You pulled the duvet up, creating a curtain of privacy, a small shield from the ever-present cameras. You could hear the muffled sounds of the villa – laughter, chatter, the clinking of glasses. But in this small, draped space, it was just you and Billie.

She kissed you again, deeper this time, her tongue tracing the seam of your lips. You moaned softly, your hands sliding down to cup her ass, feeling the firm curve beneath the fabric of her shorts.

Billie moved her hand beneath the duvet, her fingers finding your thigh. She squeezed gently before slowly sliding them upwards, inching towards your center. You gasped, arching into her touch.

Her fingers danced against your clit, teasing and circling, sending shivers of pleasure through your body. You whimpered, your grip tightening on her hair. "Billie," you breathed, your voice thick with desire. "Oh god..."

She continued to pleasure you with her fingers, each stroke sending you closer to the edge. You gripped the duvet, your body trembling as you rode the wave of sensation. You cried out, clutching at her hand, as you reached the peak, your body convulsing with release.

As you slowly came down, Billie leaned in, her breath warm against your ear. "You feel so good," she murmured.

Later, wrapped in each other’s arms, you both fell asleep, exhausted but content.

The next morning, the villa was in an uproar. The cameras had caught enough to suggest something had happened in the hideaway, and the other contestants were buzzing with speculation. But nothing could have prepared you for the reaction back home.

Soon enough, the internet exploded and the world was being told by television channels that Billie Eilish was a lesbian. Your mom FaceTimed you from her couch, her eyes wide with excitement. "Y/N! Honey! You and Billie Eilish? On national television?"

Your dad, usually stoic, was grinning from ear to ear. "Your Aunt Carol is losing her mind! She's been a Billie fan for years!"

Your little sister sent you a string of frantic texts, filled with heart-eye emojis and demands for insider information.

Even Maggie and Patrick, Billie's parents, caught wind of the commotion and sent you both supportive texts. They didn't say much aside from "We hope you both have fun!" and "Don't let the cameras get to you!".

The online reaction was a mixed bag, of course. There were the expected cries of outrage, the homophobic slurs, the accusations of "doing it for the cameras." But overwhelmingly, the response was positive. People were thrilled to see Billie, an icon of individuality, find a connection with someone as real as you seemed to be.

Back in the villa, the manufactured drama of Love Island felt even more absurd. You and Billie had found something genuine, something real, amidst the fake tans and forced conversations. And you knew, regardless of how the show ended, that this connection was something worth holding onto, long after the cameras stopped rolling.

[ihavetoomanyocsdealwithit]

You break down into tears and tell them: "It’s been so long since I’ve felt this happy, I think I just got overwhelmed. You make me happy.” 

Heartslabyul dorm; Savanaclaw dorm; Octavinelle dorm; Scarabia dorm; Pomefiore Dorm; Ignihyde Dorm; Diasomnia Dorm (here)

Malleus Draconia – You two had walked this path a dozen times before, and he admits it’s a bit of an impulse to carry the both of you to the tops of the trees in order to see the starts better. The stories of the constellations of your world never fail to impress him, and it’s even better when the both of you simply start making up your own stories.  

This isn’t the first time you’ve leaned against him as he speaks, but when he looks down, he’s initially scared. Did he’s tail squeeze too tight? Did he nick you with his claws?  

He can’t say he has ever felt so overwhelmed with joy like this, but he understands overwhelmed at least. He looks around quickly, an instinct from his childhood, before draping his coat over your head and allowing you to have your moment, pulling you into his lap for a hug. He can give you this, in a way that he rarely over received.  

“I’m happy.” he simply says, “I’m happy that I can do this for you. Not as a king, but as a friend. As your friend.” 

Lilia Van Rouge – Lilia much prefers to be on the move, seeing all the new sights and sounds the world creates. Humanity changes so quickly, he’s got to stay on top of things! But for you, he’s more than happy to visit the vintage markets and thrift stores, talking about the different pieces you found, their functions, how it’s changed over the decades.  

You had disappeared for only a moment, though it isn’t difficult to find you again. Even your explanation as you try and stop the tears makes perfect sense to him. He felt the same watching Malleus hatch, Silver grow up, even friends long past.  

“Silly, hiding away when you feel happy!” He chuckles, using his sleeves to squish your face. “You must know that it only gets better from here?”  

Sebek Zigvolt – When you had approached Sebek about books to learn more about culture, especially Briar Valley since so many were biased, you had found a different side to him. He was still loud and opinionated of course, but knowing that you were learning seemed to soften him a bit. He was quite a good conversationalist when speaking about his books, and his insights into tradition was something that couldn’t be offered in a text.  

He was sketching out the field of a battle when one of your tears drops on the page. Initially he panics, almost scolding you for such an emotional outburst. But as you explain, he seems to stop himself. He remembers feeling the same the first time Malleus congratulated him on his improvement, or when he finally was able to wield his grandfather’s magearm.  

“While I can...understand, you must collect yourself.” he says, using a tissue nearby. “Afterall, there is plenty more to be found if you simply forge it for yourself. Don’t give up, human!”  

Silver Van Rouge – Silver is a quiet sort, though you know that he can be delightfully witty and sarcastic when he has the energy. That’s the side of him that you get to see deep in the forest, with him leading Samson through on a trail he knows well. Afterall, he’s the one who cut it out.  

He remarks on Diasomnia as a whole, his father, and he speaks about Malleus more as a brother out here than he ever would in person. There are expectations that he can’t escape under watchful eyes and he needs to practice that now before he becomes a guard for him.  

Both of you go quiet as you see a buck pull down a branch for his young fawn to eat, although they startle when your voice hitches.  

Silver bends forward to see you, and you try and hide away the tears. Your explanation makes sense to him, in an odd way. He can remember the first time Lilia complimented his swordsmanship, or the pride in Malleus when he stood up for him in front of the Council. He was ‘scolded’ for it, but he knows better.  

“I know that time feels fleeting and that moments like these seem rare.” He squeezes your middle, Samson breathing steadily underneath the both of you. “But I hope they aren’t for you. I hope they come in abundance, as consistent as the dawn.”  

[threepandas]

Bad End: Snake Bride

There were pudgy little yellow creatures everywhere, here. As common as squirrels, it seemed. They looked like squishy, somber, ditto-faced Pikachus...sorta? I made a note of it. Stopping to make a few sketches. Not that anyone here would ever get the reference, mind you. And they didn't have the iconic tail. More of a nubby little hamster tail?

I'd have to figure out a better description. For the bestiary. Not to mention a suitably cute name, assuming they weren't deadly, after all...

You never knew, with hidden realms like these.

Throughout my training, the other disciples and I had been beaten over the head with countless tales of "it looked cute/pretty/beautiful/holy/or otherwise harmless AND THEN TRIED TO KILL US. Do NOT make our mistakes! I will pull you from the jaws of death! Just to kill you myself!!" by our Shizun. The man could rant for hours.

He still couldn't let go that a glowing, flower patterned, butterfly tried to rip his throat out. And? Since he technically for them "first"? (As far as anyone can find.) He got to name then poor creatures.

Which is why, there exists a very beautiful species of highly deadly butterfly... called the "flying demon rat bastard spawn".

(God, I love Shizun so much. He is so, SO petty. Hilarious, vengeful, the man's the living manifestation of "target sighted". Man has beef with specific TREES for god sake. I wish I had HALF that kind of energy. Even if it DID get us banned from like... so many places.)

I tried to get a good look at the little guys mouth, seeing one yawn. Hmmm... the teeth suggest venom. Better not startle any of them... but NOT I'm gonna need to catch one to milk it. Great. They seem fast...

A knock out array? No. Need them to want to bite me, so I can get a venom sample...

Crouching, I mulled over the problem. Admiring the little creatures as the clambered up and down the strange flora of this realm. It was fascinating. Humbling, in a way. When, I considered that? No one else had DONE this before. I knew it for a fact. Every single reference to this hidden realm? Was from either the immortal who created it... or four hundred years later, the immortal who sacked the placed.

It was hard to get into, hard to find, didn't boast any supposed ten thousand year treasures or legendary beasts. Just? A humble pocket of life. Started and left to cultivate. Shift and change. Grow!

Who CARES what uses the creatures or plants have?! This place should be STUDIED! All these realms should be studied! They're amazing!!

I spot a moss I haven't collected yet and carefully take a sample. Noting it's location on the map I've started (which is a mess, I fear I definitely have no future there). Of course, as is so often the case? Finding one sample leads to another. Moss leads to "oh hey, a mushroom" to "is that bird or a leaf?" And so on and so on. I nearly forget to make camp.

(It was a bird. It just looked like leaves! Fascinating camouflage!)

Only noticing the light shifting qualities, drags me from my hyperfocus. A nasty (or, I guess, productive? For an immortal.) habit. I had lost days to it, before. Disappearing into the library or some work room, back on the peak, for time blurringly long periods of time. Inedia keeping me from hunger. Younger disciples bringing me tea.

There was a reason, after all, I never made Head Disciple. Even though I got along great with Shizun. I was about as responsible as a goldfish. Entirely too focused on my own studies, to be honest. But to be fair? Let's see YOU focus! When there is so much... I don't know, Xianxia bullshit?

(IS it Xianxia bullshit? Or is it Xuanhuan bullshit? Fuck. It's been a life time. I literally can not not remember. Let's see YOU remember the differences! After literal decades!!)

(God, I miss my books. And the internet. And TV. Honestly? I miss everything.)

Fuck! Side tracked! Again!!

Careful not to step on any of the marshmallow-y not-pikachus, I scramble to collect the last of my samples. Reach out with my Qi, to feel how the ebbs and flows around me shift. I should? Be able to sense any nearby predators. As well as posdibly find a nice qi rich spot to set up camp. Maybe meditate.

Just because I'm exploring hidden realms, doesn't mean I should grow lazy, after all! Whole point of cultivation it to ascend. God hood and all that. And, yeah, I'm still sceptical as fuck. But... count me curious. Why not try?

Oooh! That's a nice ca-! Hmmm?

Something... not-brushes against my senses. As though it should be there. I should sense something. An almost taste and nearly smell of... something? Someone? Kinda like the faintest hint of someone's cologne, lingering in the air, as you move through a crowd that isn't touching you. But... warmer. Like it's still on the skin. Not a lingering remnant from someone who passed through?

It's... weird. I can't sense anybody.

Maybe if I try harder? I pump more qi into my technique. More then is technically polite, honestly. But maybe they are farther out then I think they are? I hadn't exactly expected to be sharing space. This Realm isn't exactly BIG. Just a ring of mountains and the valleys between them. One big, lush valley. Many smaller ones.

Again, it's not a popular realm. Not to mention already looted. And not even particularly Qi rich. So meditating here would be a strange choice. But... maybe they want the relative isolation?

I still can't find them. Dispite knowing they are there. (That technique does not give false positives.) So I risk rudeness. Figure I can always apologize. Maybe they are deep in meditation or something? Pumping more qi, frankly appalling amounts, into the technique, I am damn near half blind as I walk. (For all that I can see better then anyone in this valley at the moment.)

The sensory input is cacophonous. Beautiful. Terrible. Like balancing atop a single hair thin thread. Suspended carefully, above a raging sea, made of wonderous light and churning pains. I use my foot steps to anchor me. Balanced and even. Yet... find nothing. Pull back.

Are they... hiding?

Why?

Up ahead it the qi rich cave (more an over hang, cave is generous) that I sensed. A good, defensible place to set up.

It's only as I'm setting up? That I notice the little Marsh-a-chus? (Is that a good name? I really do need to start thinking of a good name for them.) Have followed along. Crowd the trees and settle thick in various bushes. And... part of me? Wants to go "away, I made friends!" But...

The rest of me? Was drilled in horror story and horror story by my Shizun. And that's so mighty fine "unusual interest" behavior going on there. Might even go so far as to classify it as hunting behavior!

Mmmmhm! Don't like THAT! No sir! Time for some nice and cozy warding talismans! Shall we? The STRONG ones.

Under far too many beady little eyes, I slap down security talismans. Full three sixty. Against the ground, the stone, the mountain behind me. I am taking no chances. Just as I was taught.

Which... as I am settling in for the night? Dinner done and dishes drying. Sleeping mat, out and reading to go. Light and warmth talismans, positioned just where I need them? Turns out to be for the best.

Because there is something in the dark. Big. Predatory. And coming towards me.

It's not so large as to show above the trees. But that is small comfort. They are fairly large trees. And honestly? I know only too well, massive size does NOT indicate lethality. Sun turtles are mountainous after all, and THEY photosynthesize! The problem is? There wasn't supposed to be a predator that big in this realm.

Did someone fucking shove a spirit beast or monster in here!?

What? Out of sight out of mind?! No longer their problem, right!? Why kill it, when you can put it in a hidden real to LET IT GROW BIGGER! Destroy an ecosystem! MOTHER FUCK-!!!

The night is silent.

It should NOT be.

Gripping a sword I am only kinda decent at wielding, I pray to the gods, I don't have to use it. I am a spiritual cultivator! Not a martial one! This is BULLSHIT. I don't have anything on me for "unknow predatory mega-fauna" because there WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ANY! Oh, this is the LAST time I-!

Foot steps. Crushing through the underbrush.

Into the circle of light my talismans cast, fades a pale young master. Graceful and pale in the moonlight. Very... very pale in the moonlight, actually. No better in the light of my talismans. Near ghostly, in his white silks. Touches of pale gold and stark black. Curls of ink wash grey. Like a painting brought to life.

Just a touch too perfect. A touch too beautiful.

With a grace to his movements that... that is too smooth.

It's not until he all but stands in the light that I am certain. His hair. Too lovely and well kept, for it to be an accident or some sort of shaming. Those are NOT bangs. That is the entirety of it. Nothing held back, in a crown or subtle styling. No... no it is SHORT.

No Human Wears Their Hair SHORT Here.

Entering the light? His eyes reflect. Grey like blades. Like storms and death. No pretty silver things. No, it is far too deep a color. Far too dangerous. Slits, that contract with the light. Half hidden by a heavy expression, that I can not begin to interpret. I desperately try to identify the creature before. Feline? No. Lacks the savage edge. Too cool... serpentine. Snake!

"Like a panicked little mouse, honored cultivator. This one might begin to suspect you weren't happy to see me~" they...? He? Says; his voice a low, honeyed rasp. "But how can that be? When this humble servant has been hunting for so long?"

"Surely, my dear little mouse, has been anticipating this day~! Dreaming of the day when her lord would catch her?"

There is something... mean, in that tone. Vicious and victorious. The silent echo of a madman laugh, as he burns the world to ruin. Seizes and achieves all that he desires. Strangles all that he can not possess. Covetous and ugly. Dancing, dancing, dancing around the edges. Demonic, indeed.

Yet... I do not recognize this creature. This demon. He certainly recognizes me, as horrifying as that is. What past does he speak of? Hunting? What HUNTING?! I try to find something familiar, in this strange form. Unless, of course, he is simple insane? Not impossible... but...

"Ah~ my poor little mouse." The demon coos, mocking in his indulgence. His eyes still dance with laughter. Mad and unable to feast. "You don't recognize this poor servant, do you? How cruel! To be forgotten. A passing fancy, barely held, in my mouse's fickle heart."

He's laughing me. Knows I could not possibly recognize him, yet plans to punish me anyway. Somehow. Fuck! This seems genuine. But how? Why!? When would I have-!?

Then, he shifts.

Gone is the beautiful young man. In his place? Rising, rising, RISING? A behemoth of a bandy-wolf king snake. Black, white, with occasional bare traces of that pale gold on the under belly. Hundreds of thousands the times it ever should have been. But... but? There. A scar. Oh gods.

I recognize him now.

A snake got into the village I was born. Absurdly poisonous, unthinkably venomous, it should have been left alone. Gathered very, VERY carefully and taken far away from people. But... people panic. Get stupid. The adults didn't fucking listen. And over sixteen people died that didn't have too. I was sick at the sight of it. They captured the poor creature and were going to burn it alive.

For the crime of being afraid. Hungry. Getting attacked and then protecting itself.

I couldn't bear it. So... I stole it. Hid it in a cave, half way across the valley. Didn't my best to nurse the poor, injured, creature back to health. At least... I tried. The injuries were too severe. I was able to close the wounds. But sickness, blood loss...

Shit. That cave was incredibly qi rich. It's why I chose it! To make up for what I couldn't do! If he had already started cultivation and then... or just resented enough...

It was entirely possible to become a snake demon. Easily, even.

"Sss Sss Sss, ah, recognition~" the massive creature laughed "Why so fearful? Little mouse~ It's not you I want dead. Kindness for kindness, a debt for a debt. And aren't we be grown? Look how strong we've become!"

The booming, breathy cackle did not fit snake lungs. Silibant and painful. Hissing and near silent. It was more pressure in the air then anything. A madness long coming. As demons born of resentment energy tended to be. All burned villages and the screams of those who wronged them. Hatreds and obsessions made manifest.

I... I could barely breathe. Oh gods. Oh gods! What do I do? I.. I can't-!! Tears threatened to choke me. Fear, shaking my limbs and fogging my mind. W-what do I DO?! I'm scared. No. No, no, NO! Please! I'm SCARED!

"Ah~ so cute, so cute! My little mouse grew so lovely~"

Like the world sighing, as fluid and graceful as his steps, the snake became a man again. His grey tinted lips curled in a fang bearing smile. Hands up and braced against the barrier, his full weight leaning forward as he leered. He loomed. My talismans casting odd shadows across his face, giving the madness in his eyes a terrible glow.

"This husband truely did pick his trap well, didn't he? My sweet little mouse~" he purred, eyes unblinking, above a terrible smile. "My little wife has no where to run~! No where to hide! Her husband has trapped her quite cleverly, hasn't he~? Poor, poor, little mouse. Your husband is so mean!"

My heart felt like it was going to burst. Cold. T-trapped. Can't breathe! Oh gods. Is this a panic attack? I.. I think this is a panic attack! Can't think! Static. Legs, refusing to hold me. Sink. Crawling backwards. Away. G-got to get away! Trapped! TRAPPED!

I horror, I watch as he sinks his nails in to the barrier. Hands no longer resting, but digging into it. He-! He shouldn't be able to DO that! Oh gods! PLEASE gods! Tell me he's not strong enough to BREAK barrier talismans of this level! Please! PLEASE!!

"Ah~ acting this way, you make this husband want to bully you, little wife~♡ And ah, such big, fearful eyes~ Am I being mean? Is husband being cruel? Poor thing~"

CRACK.

In horror, I watch as his nail push through the barrier. Like driving stakes through stone. Cracks shooting from the holes, as he digs and digs. Hands closing around the shards he has created, ignoring the blood that spills from where it cuts into him. As the barrier itself whines and crackles in protect. Tryinging desperately to maintain its integrity. Slowly... cracking... failing...

"Let me kiss it better, hmm? No use in trying to run~"

"So be a good girl~♡ my little Mouse. Come to husband~♡"

[witherby]

First of all I LOVE your works i love how much effort you put into them!! You’re keeping this community aliveeee. Second, what would the batfam do if punchline cried? Like I’m talking out of no where just straight up cried. I know it must be hard to show emotions such as sadness because of her past and it would be hard to show such vulnerability to anyone. Thanking for listening to my Ted talk 😎

First of all thank you so much! I wish I could write full, one-shot-length replies to every single question I get asked, but sometimes I simply don't have the energy or skill to execute the idea that might manifest from that question!

Second of all, that's a great question! I think it would take an absurdly long time for anybody to catch her crying. I think it would take an absurdly long time for her to cry at all!

Punchline has Congenital Analgesia, so pain wouldn't make any tears well up. She also doesn't feel or notice any appropriate hunger cues, so exhaustion or starvation wouldn't do it either, especially because she's almost perpetually existing in that state anyway.

We also have to consider who her father is, and how she was raised. A lot of her childhood is left to speculation because she's not exactly opening up to people about the Joker's treatment of her. And why would she? In her eyes, he can do no wrong. Anything he has ever said or done to her was completely justified. What's the sense in crying over spilled blood? She just needs to do more. Try harder. Be greater. But not better. She can't be better than her Popsy. Nobody is better than Popsy!

It's difficult to find out what her triggers are when she isn't giving the bat family much to work with. That's not her job, it's theirs to find out and learn from, but the entire situation is layers upon layers of complicated.

When they first take in Punchline, she's roughly 8 years old and some change. I think they'll see her cry for the first time when she's 10.

Punchline doesn't know her birthday. The Joker didn't celebrate it. The bats don't know it, either, so they choose to celebrate her with the day they brought her to the Manor. They make a cake and set up a small surprise party, with things they know she likes such as more face paint, colorful clothes, books, and maybe some new accessories like bows and ribbons. She wouldn't know how to handle that. A party for her? What did she do? How did she earn this?

I think Punchline would cry over being celebrated just for being alive. She's never felt that way before.

[lizes-posts]

Title: A Rumble Night to Remember

Warnings: none , fluff

( side note I'm just starting this so it may be bad idk bro )

The energy in the arena was electric, the crowd roaring as the Royal Rumble match unfolded. You sat backstage in the quietest area you could find, your heart pounding with excitement. It had been years since you stepped into a WWE arena, but tonight wasn’t about you—it was about surprising your husband, Jey Uso.

Your five-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, sat beside you, each wearing matching Jey Uso merch, their little faces lit up with excitement. You had made sure to put noise-canceling headphones on them, knowing how loud it could get backstage.

“Mama, when can we see Dada?” your daughter pouted, adjusting the oversized hoodie she was drowning in.

“Yeah! I wanna see Dada too!” your son chimed in, bouncing in his seat.

You smiled, running a hand through his curls. “Soon, babies. Dada is still in the match.”

The twins had been asking for their father non-stop, and you knew there was no better time to bring them back than tonight. You had been watching from the monitors, heart swelling with pride as Jey fought his way through the Royal Rumble. This was his moment, and you wouldn’t miss it for the world.

As the match reached its climax, you held your breath. And then—it happened.

Jey Uso won the Royal Rumble.

The sound of the crowd’s eruption could be felt even backstage, and you instinctively hugged the twins. “Dada did it!” you cheered, lifting them up.

Their eyes widened with excitement. “DADA WON?!”

“He sure did,” you grinned, gathering them in your arms. “Come on, let’s go see him.”

You carried them both toward gorilla position, the place just behind the entrance curtain, where superstars returned after their matches. The excitement in the air was palpable as you stood there, waiting.

And then, through the curtain, Jey appeared.

Sweaty, exhausted, but victorious. The second the twins saw him, they squealed.

“DADA!!”

Jey barely had time to react before two tiny figures sprinted toward him at full speed. His tired expression melted into pure joy as he crouched down, arms wide open, catching them both in a tight hug.

“AYYEEE! My babies!!” Jey laughed, lifting them into his arms, spinning them around despite his exhaustion. “What y’all doin’ here?! This the best surprise ever!”

Standing a few feet away, you watched with a full heart, a soft smile on your lips. Seeing the love on Jey’s face, the way he held your children like they were his entire world, made every moment worth it.

Then his eyes lifted and met yours.

For a moment, it was just the two of you. Years of love, partnership, and unbreakable connection passed between you in a single look. He set the twins down and walked over to you, pulling you into his arms.

“You really here, baby?” he murmured, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead.

“I’m really here,” you whispered back, wrapping your arms around him. “And we’re so proud of you.”

Jey pulled back just enough to look at you, his hand still resting on your waist. “You got no idea how much I needed this tonight.”

You smiled, tilting your head. “Well, good. Because we’re not going anywhere.”

Jey let out a breath of pure happiness before leaning down to kiss you, slow and deep. The twins giggled behind you, making you both laugh as he pulled away.

“Alright, alright,” Jey chuckled, scooping them back into his arms. “Let’s go celebrate, my champs.”

With your husband holding the kids close and your hand intertwined with his, you knew this night would be one to remember forever.

[sunrisecaminus]

Ollo :>

Could you do a femme seeker reader x Megatron?

The reader is Megatron’s Conjunx and has wanted a sparkling for a long time.

Unfortunately thanks to the war, things make life unsafe to try start a family.

Now, thanks to the nemesis, it’s the perfect time to ask.

The reader is shy about it a first, beating around the bush until she blurts “I want a sparkling”

Cut to Megatron’s breeding kink(if that makes you uncomfortable then that’s ok), being pounded into oblivion into his throne.

Megatron is on his 4th load of transfluids but will not stop until he is sure the reader is satisfied and full.

Thank u :>

Message - When I said you could be freaky, I meant it. No judgement here man. I gotchu!

Megatron x Seeker Reader NSFW

Summary - Seeker conjunx is starting to get really impatient about Megatron not getting her sparked.

Warnings - NSFW, Breeding Kink,

It has been so long sense you and Megatron talked to each other outside of work related things. You have had enough from all the battling at this point and just wanted to be free from all the Autobots for once. You needed air from General Starscream and his arrogance so when you got a scouting mission you knew this was a perfect opportunity to leave.

You have been flying for about 4 hours now, but you didn't want to land. The clouds and the sky were beautiful on this planet and you wanted to take it all in before you went back in that dark ship. Going over rivers, mountains, and even flew over to another state just to see new environment. You ground bridged to the ocean and had fun splashing your wings in the water while going 1,600 mph. You being one of the fastest seekers out there made Starscream jealous, but you didn't care. After landing yourself on a mountain cliff, dangling your legs over to watch the sea waves, you started to think about things you have been wanting. One of the first things that have come to mind was finally having a little sparkling of your own. Every time you try to bring it up to your conjunx, he would just think you are talking about something else. That man, even if he hates you saying it, was the most oblivious man ever. You have even tried FLIRTING, twitching your wings at him, doing some lovely romantic dances with him in the berth room, and even kissing him a few times while telling him about what they should do when the Decepticons wins once and for all. He will never get it! Seekers are very much known for not being down to earth and not saying exactly what is on their minds, so you aren't use to telling him exactly what you want. It would be embarrassing for you if you had to tell him "Hey lets have a sparkling!" You feel butterflies even thinking about telling him so bluntly.

Before the meeting you wanted to give him one last chance. You walk up from behind Megatron and gently grab his hips. "Boo~" You smile with a loving look as he turned over to you with his angry expression. Once he sees that it is you, his eyes soften and grab your servo, kissing your digits. "How are you dear." You blush a bit, but lovingly give him a boop on his chest. "I was wondering if you would like to go to the next level after the meeting, hmm?" This has to be the perfect hint you could give him. What else would this mean? This was giving "Fuck me alright" energy and your tone said so. Megatron smirks and you wait for something flirty like he always did…but than-. "Well of course. I will put you in charge of the fleet next battle. I knew you have been getting bored about staying in the back. We can talk about your role in the next phase soon. I just need to talk to the others about their newest reports." He lets go of your servo and walks off. Holy Scrap that blew the fuse in your mind. No…No…NO! He has to be doing this on purpose! Megatron is the leader of the Decepticons and yet is so blind that he can't even find a TANK IN A STORAGE CLOSET!!!

Someone is wanting to speak with you on your com link so you answer for them. "Hello?" Normally it would be Megatron or Starscream trying to reach you, but today it was surprisingly just another seeker. "Good Morning mam, please make your way back as a meeting is about to start in 2 hours." You were getting a bit annoyed about this, another meeting…really?! You thank them and end the call, transforming and going back to the ship. You land on the top to meet Starscream reading on a data pad, probably another report. Even if you don't want to admit it, you and Starscream are very close friends. He may be a bit of a baby, but you help him from getting hit by Megatron quite often and it got you two to get closure and talked more about things. "Hey Star, can I talk to you for a second?" You put a hand on your hip sassily. "Not now y/n I-" He interrupts himself when he looked up and saw you were pissed. He puts the data pad down on a table and turned his whole body to face you. "You ok?"

"No, so many things have been on my mind. I have told you before that I have always dreamed of having a sparkling to take care of for the next generation, but Megs won't even look at me in a loving way anymore and I haven't had a kiss from him in 12 years!" You were so frustrated, wanting to get everything off your chest finally and Starscream took a second to load all the information you just told him. "Well have you tried wing communication?" Ah, Starscream also thought Megatron would know such an important Seeker language. He has been known to control the entire Seeker army and for some reason doesn't even know a flying fuck about Seeker culture. "I have literally danced with him and we even were going to kiss…until he said he needed to talk to Soundwave and he would "Dance with me later". Like HELLO!" Your wings were down and twitched a bit in anger. Starscream rolled his eyes to give you a motion that he completely understands where you are coming from. "Oh please, he can't be that stupid. At this point just yell at him. Don't show anymore kindness to him about it anymore. He needs to realize that if he is dating someone from another background, he is going to have to learn a thing or two about who we are." Starscream just pats you on the shoulder and tells you that he will see you at the meeting and leaves. He was right about something…that mech needed to learn a lesson or two.

You didn't go to the meeting, you needed to show him that you didn't care about his order about being there. You didn't want to hear him speak right now and took your lovely time in the Berth Room you share with Megatron. He noticed immediately that you were not there. Genuinely he were very confused from seeing you just a few minutes before it started. After the meeting he noticed the Berth Room was occupied and he came in to see you cleaning your wings, looking out the window to see the lovely sunset. You looked to beautiful to him, your elegance and lovely plating shined from the light and your eyes were always nice to look at. "You weren't in the meeting." He was the exact opposite with you, down to earth and blunt with what he wanted to talk about. You turn to him with narrow eyes and an angry look, which made him understand that he fucked up in some way and shut the door. "You never got it, for years I have been trying to show you that I was ready…but you never seem to look at me like you use to." Oh did it piss you off when he raised his eyebrow at you in confusion. You just wanted to smack him. You kept talking. "You notice everything else. My needs, the things I love, my support for the cause. Whenever I want to give you a life we both can share, You never seem to turn my way!" Megatron stayed silent, waiting for you to finish, he knew you were upset about something so he let you continue to hopefully hear what you desired from him. He obeyed your wishes a lot, he never knew he was ignoring one that you deemed important. "I want a Sparkling. Your Sparkling!"

Oh boy, did he just get whiplash from that statement. Before the war he has been telling his conjunx about his dreams of him getting you sparked and being able to take care of their sparkling's together. Now Megatron feels like a dumbass…scrap this whole time you have been giving him everything to show him you were ready. His spike was already pressing against his panel, but he needed to know if you were still ready. "I apologize for the torture you must have been going through, sweetspark. Would y-" Before he could say anymore, you sit yourself on the berth and lower your wings in a cute position. "Get over here right now you fragger." Megatron didn't ask anymore questions and grabs you by the neck, forcing you down onto the bed and biting your arm. "Whatever you wish~" His panel pops and you see his spike is fully ready for you to use. He bites your neck and keeps your hips in a good hold as you pull your head back and moan from the pleasure that you are being given now. You wanted him so badly, but you needed him to work for it after what he put you through. Your wings twitch from how good you felt Megatron touching you after years of not interfacing. After a while, your pede presses against his spike, making Megatron stop what he was doing to groan from the pressure you just gave him. "ngnn y/n…" Smiling from what you just did, you push his chest to get him to be the one to lay down as you climb on top of him. You shove your aft in his face as you start to lick the base of his spike with your glossa. You hear Megatron moan a bit louder, but than your panel is opened and your valve starts to get licked. "Ah! Megs! You Aft!" You hiss from how slow he was going and stopped giving friction to his spike, which made him realize that you were going to be a bit of a brat if he didn't do what you wanted. He starts to eat you properly as you feel his glossa going into your walls. Finally feeling satisfied from your valve being used and takes in his whole spike after a few more licks. Both of you were in a daze, trying your best to pleasure each other without becoming a moaning mess.

You feel as Megatron was about to release and you stop, shutting his tip so he didn't drip anywhere and he hissed from being stopped. "You brat!" He growls at you as you turn around, putting your valve above his spike. That made him shut up before he could say anything else and holds your hips again, ready when you wanted to move. You smile, in love at looking at your conjunx's face and lowered yourself on his spike. He exhales from how warm and tight you were; your wings spread to their full wingspan as your walls stretch to make room for him. After a while of both of you trying not to move, you start to go up and down, staring into his optics with nothing but love. He smirks at how you look right now, you were such a mess. "Look at you, craving for my sparklings. They will all be yours." He tells you in a deeper tone, knowing you crave for his sexy voice again. You look up to the ceiling and start feeling like you were going to finally cum. "Megs-ah!" You grab his hands that were clenched around your waist as he claws at your plating, both of you releasing at the same time. You stay sat deep onto his spike, making sure none of his fluids leave your valve. You stay where you were as you finally were at peace with everything. Megatron lays you on his chest and hugs around your body, helping you feel safe after such a vulnerable event took place. "Another Round?" You smirk from him asking such a stupid question. "You don't even need to ask".

[sound-of-scoups]

How Did We End Up Here? | LC | Oneshot

Pairing: Lee Chan x Female!Reader  Genre|tags: Oneshot, non idol!au, comedy, fluff, pinning, down bad Chan, acquaintances to lovers, smut.  Word count: 18.9k+ Rating: Explicit adult content (MINORS DNI). Warnings: Explicit language, alcohol consumption, allusion to use of weed, mentions of cheating, Chan is down bad to the point he is doubting himself, there's a Gilmore Girls reference and several 5sos song lyrics referenced as well (if you know, you know), reader has an unspoken noona kink, switch!chan, switch!reader, dry humping, oral (f. receiving), fingering, face sitting, pussy eating, cum eating, teasing, unprotected sex (you know it’s bad), creampie. If there’s more please let me know. A/N: Happy birthday to my baby (even though he's older than me lol)! I wrote this story in a complete state of mania—the idea hit me, and in less than four days, it was finished. I thought posting it today, for his birthday, would be a good idea. I accidentally posted it earlier while scheduling, but I'm ignoring that little mishap hehe. Please read my final notes!! Enjoy reading, and let me know what you think! <3 🎧 Now listening to: end up here – 5 seconds of summer; i would – one direction; obviously – mcfly; loverboy – a-wall; best friend – rex orange county; espresso – sabrina carpenter; out of my limit – 5 seconds of summer; shup and dance – walk the moon; heart out – the 1975; intoxicated – the cab; wait – dino. Read on AO3

Summary: Lee Chan has had a massive crush on you since the day he first saw you. He never thought he'd have a chance with you, since you were so obviously out of his league, but it turns out life has a way of writing the right things with crooked lines.

He knew the exact moment you walked into the house. At this point, it was as if he had a sixth sense for your presence—like a Y/N sense, if he had to name it.

Not that it was hard to tell when you did, since every face in the room turned the moment you walked in. Most people already knew who you were, and those who didn’t? Their expressions made it clear: they were dying to find out.

There was this energy about you that demanded attention, even when you weren’t trying. It wasn’t just the way you carried yourself, though that certainly played a part. It was the way people gravitated toward you, their eyes lingering, their conversations subtly shifting as if they were waiting for you to say something, to do something. 

And he—well, he had always been attuned to it. To you. Even before he truly understood why.

Tonight, when you walked through the doors of the frat house he was part of, wearing a tight black corset-style top, a short skirt that did little to cover your legs, and black thigh-high boots that made your legs appear even longer than they already were, looking absolutely breathtaking, Chan felt his head spin.

It could have been the ten shots of tequila he’d been forced to drink after losing some random game against Yeonjun a couple of minutes ago, but he knew it wasn’t. That was simply the effect you’d had on him since the day he first laid eyes on you—orientation day, two years ago. You had been in charge of welcoming the freshmen to their dorm building, and when you smiled at him like he was the most important guy there, he was a goner.

Of course he knew you were probably just doing your job as a sophomore, but still, your smile had been stuck in his mind ever since.

“Pathetic,” he heard Seungkwan's voice, followed by a slap on the back of his head.

Chan barely flinched, too busy pressed against the wall watching you every move as you wave through the crowded room like you owned the place. For him, in a way, you did. You weren’t loud about it, didn’t strut around making a scene, but there was an undeniable pull to you, one that made people shift to make space, one that had them leaning in, hoping for even a sliver of your attention.

And him? He was no better than the rest of them.

He tore his gaze away just long enough to shoot Seungkwan, who was looking at him like he was the saddest excuse for a man to ever exist, a glare. Vernon was right beside him, looking high enough to be in another dimension, and yet, was still wearing the same expression as the eldest of the three. 

“What?”

Seungkwan sighed dramatically, crossing his arms. “You look like a lovesick puppy. Again.”

It was no secret to anyone that Lee Chan had a huge, enormous and gigantic crush on you. If he was being honest, by this point, it was a surprise you didn’t know—which he had some doubts—, since he wasn’t exactly very skilled at hiding it. 

Not that he was openly hitting on you when he had the chance, because that was far from his reality. Very far, really. He had never done so and whenever he had a chance to be near you or participate in the same conversation as you, he would turn just as red as the lipstick you were wearing tonight, not to mention the stuttering he didn't even know he had. 

It was a mess. He was a mess. 

Not that he would admit that to Seungkwan, anyway. 

Chan scoffed, forcing himself to straighten up. “I do not look like a lovesick puppy.”

Seungkwan snorted. “Yeah, and I’m a background vocalist for Beyoncé.”

“You do,” Vernon said, deadpanned. “Minho just asked me if you were okay because, and I quote, ‘Chan looks like he just got hit by a truck.’”

Seungkwan tilted his head to the side, nudging him with his elbow. “Chan-ah, are you seriously gonna spend the rest of your college years pining after this girl?” 

His face flushed, a mixture of embarrassment and frustration tugging at him. Chan opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Because what was he supposed to say? That he wasn’t pining? That he wasn’t completely, utterly, hopelessly gone for you? Even he wasn’t delusional enough to deny it.

Seungkwan, apparently sensing his internal struggle, let out a long-suffering sigh. “That’s what I thought.”

Chan scowled, lifting his drink to his lips if only to hide his face and Vernon chuckled, clearly enjoying the way his younger friend was unraveling under the pressure of their teasing.

“Just go talk to her,” he said, voice slow and lazy. “She doesn’t bite, dude.”

“Easy for you to say,” Chan muttered, his eyes flickering back to you, who were now chatting with your friends in the corner. “She’s your friend.”

Oh yeah, there was also this little detail: you were Vernon’s classmate. 

Not only were you both seniors, you were also majoring in the same program—linguistics—meaning you shared the vast majority of your classes. Chan knew you were in the same study group and that you were paired up for most of the projects, which had led to a friendship that he very much envied.

You might think that having a mutual friend would make things easier for him, but you’d be completely wrong. Soon he discovered that Vernon wasn’t willing to help. Not because he didn’t believe Chan had a chance with you, but because he insisted that Chan should grow a pair and talk to you himself.

Which of course, he had already shown incapability of doing so thousands of times. 

Seungkwan clicked his tongue. “You really are pathetic.”

“Hyung—” Chan groaned. 

“I mean, come on,” Seungkwan interrupted, trying to finish his point. “You can deadlift three plates but you can’t say one sentence to a girl you like?”

Chan glared at him. “That is not the same thing.”

“Yeah, one requires actual effort,” Vernon added, smirking.

By now, he was used to all the teasing from his friends. It didn’t keep him from wanting to strangle them any less though. 

Either way, there wasn’t much he could do. It wasn’t just about the amount of courage he had or how much effort he put into it; crushing on you for the last two years had felt like playing a game he was destined to lose. Even though in the deepest desires of his mind he was your boyfriend, that role was already filled by someone much older than him. 

A Marine dude, apparently. His name? Chan didn’t care. 

Not only was he the most lucky dude on the planet by having you as his girl, he was also tall, strong and a walking definition of everything Chan wasn’t: confident, assertive, the complete opposite of the shy mess he’d been around you since day one. He would probably kill Chan without warning if he could peek into his mind and see all the dreams he had about you. 

And the guy irritated the fuck out of him. Something about his attitude, his hundred tattoos, the fact that he was probably three times his height, and the way he marked his territory by walking you to every class, every day. Like, damn, dude, we get it, she’s yours. At least let the rest of us appreciate the divine gift the universe sent us by looking at her.

Every time Chan saw him, he felt like he was suffocating under the weight of the competition. The worst part? You didn’t seem happy with him and everyone knew it. And even though it was clear from every word and every look that you were completely unaware of Chan’s feelings, the thought of you with someone else—someone like him—made his insides twist in ways he didn’t know he could feel.

“She has a boyfriend,” Chan said out loud, feeling a bitter taste on the tip of his tongue as he did. 

“So?” Seungkwan arched an eyebrow. “I don’t see him here. Do you?”

He directed his last question to Vernon, who just shrugged and shook his head. “Nope.”

Chan swallowed hard, eyes darting toward you again. Sure enough, there was no sign of your boyfriend. Not that he was about to get his hopes up. He had enough self-awareness to know he was probably just grasping at straws, because even if he never existed at all, Chan still wasn’t sure he’d have the guts to walk up to you.

“Look, man,” Seungkwan said, breaking through his dark thoughts. “You’ve gotta stop comparing yourself to him. You’re Lee Chan. You have a million things going for you, and besides…” He paused for effect. “You’re way better looking.”

“Thanks for the support,” Chan replied dryly, rolling his eyes.

Vernon chimed in, “Seriously, dude. You’re smart, funny, and way more likable than that guy. You just need to show her that.”

Chan sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “It's not that simple, guys.”

“It is that simple,” Seungkwan shot back. “You’re making it complicated.”

Before Chan could argue, the music shifted, the bass thrumming through the floorboards, and a new wave of partygoers stumbled in, laughing and chattering loudly. His attention snapped back to you, just in time to see you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, your lips curling into a soft smile at something one of your friends said. The sight alone made his pulse quicken.

Then, as if you could feel his eyes on you, your gaze flickered up and locked onto his.

Chan froze.

It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t just a glance that skimmed over the room, landing on him by chance. No, this was intentional. You looked at him like you had known he was there all along, like you’d expected to find him in that exact spot, leaning against the wall with a drink in hand and his friends at his side.

And then, as if to send him straight into cardiac arrest, your lips, marked by the most beautiful shade of red he had ever seen, curved into a smile. 

For a split second, it felt like the entire world blurred around the edges, muffled voices fading into static. Your eyes lingered, holding his in a way that sent a rush of heat down his spine. Then, just as quickly as it happened, you turned back to your friend, your fingers wrapping around the red cup in your hand as if nothing had transpired.

He was sure he had just checked off a box on the list of clichés where the lovestruck fool forgets how to breathe. His fingers tightened around the red cup in his hand, his heartbeat hammering so loudly he was certain Seungkwan and Vernon could hear it.

Chan looked away just a second before he heard, “She’s coming over,” Vernon said, and for once, his voice didn’t sound amused. It sounded almost surprised.

He blinked, breaking free from whatever trance he had fallen into. “What?”

Seungkwan’s hand landed on his shoulder, shaking him once. “She. Is. Coming. Over.”

He barely had a second to react before you started making your way through the crowd, weaving between bodies with practiced ease, heading straight toward them. The air in the room seemed to thicken with every step you took in his direction, and though he told himself to stay cool, to not let it show, he knew the battle was already lost. His grip on his cup tightened, his pulse a frantic rhythm beneath his skin.

Seungkwan shifted beside him. “Oh, this is gonna be good,” he muttered, half under his breath.

“Act normal,” Chan whispered to himself. Or at least he thought so. 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Vernon mumbled. 

Chan shot him a sharp look, but before he could tell him to shut up, you were there—standing right in front of him, close enough that he caught the faint scent of your perfume, something so sweet and heady that made his head spin.

“Hello, boys,” you greeted them, your voice light but with a touch of something that made his breath catch. 

Trying to play it cool, Chan swallowed hard, his grip tightening on the red cup in his hand as he forced himself to meet your gaze. Up close, you were even more mesmerizing, your eyes alight with something he couldn’t quite place, the corners of your lips curving into the kind of smile that made his stomach flip.

“Hey,” he managed to say collectively with the other two, his voice steadier than he felt.

Beside him, Seungkwan looked like he was barely restraining himself from narrating the entire interaction like he was watching some kind of reality TV show on Netflix—Lee Chan’s Inferno, the live show. 

Your eyes flickered between the three of them briefly before settling back on Chan. 

“Nice party,” you said, flashing them a smile as you nodded towards the crowd of people scattered around their house. “Full house, I’ve been told.”

It was the first party the three of them had organized since the older members graduated, making them the hosts tonight. They hadn’t expected it to be a great success, but judging by the number of people in the house, it seemed they had been wrong.

“Thanks,” The three of them said in unison again and you let out a small laugh, raising your eyebrows in curiosity. 

“Are you guys okay? What are you drinking? I know for a fact Hansol is just as high as the Namsan Tower.” 

He knew you weren't just talking to him, but Chan was pretty sure his soul was leaving his body.

It wasn’t just that you were standing in front of him, looking every bit like you walked straight out of his dream, it was the way you were looking at him. Like you were actually interested in what he had to say, like he wasn’t just another person in this house; and like you weren’t effortlessly stealing the air from his lungs.  

Meanwhile, his brain? Completely fried.

Your laugh—soft, amused, and way too pretty—sent something dangerously warm through his chest. You tilted your head to the side, as if you were analyzing his face. “What’s your name?”

His world seemed to stop for a second. 

Even though the two of you weren’t close—or even friends—he was sure you knew his name. I mean, Vernon was his best friend. You were Vernon’s friend. You knew his name… right?

This was the worst possible scenario. The girl he had a crush on bigger than the entire Asian continent didn't know his name?

Yeah. The ground could open up and swallow him whole right now, and he wouldn’t even fight it.

This couldn’t be happening.

“You don’t know my name?” He didn’t even know he could finish a whole sentence around you, let alone a question, his voice somehow steady despite the absolute horror pooling in his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Seungkwan and Vernon exchanging looks—surprised, amused, and definitely holding back laughter.

“Oh, I know your name, Channie,” Your lips twitched, like you were trying not to laugh. “Just making sure you're still sober enough to remember it.”

Chan felt his face heat up instantly, a mix of relief and embarrassment washing over him all at once, brain barely registering the sweet way you said his name. Seungkwan outright cackled, slapping his knee, while Vernon just shook his head with a knowing smirk.

“Oh,” was all Chan managed to say at first, his brain short-circuiting at the way you looked at him, teasing, confident, completely in control of the situation. “Chan. Lee Chan.”

You tilted your head, clearly enjoying his reaction. “Good.” 

Suddenly, Chan was painfully aware of how close you were. Close enough that he could count the faint shimmer of highlight on your cheekbone, see the way your lashes fluttered when your gaze briefly flickered down to his mouth? No. He had to be imagining that. Maybe he had had a little too much tequila. Maybe it was time to put his cup down, go upstairs and sleep.

He blinked. Then, realized he had been silent for far too long. 

“I—uh—” he started, then immediately hated himself for it. He could already feel the tips of his ears getting hot from how red they possibly were.

“He's fine,” Seungkwan said for him. “We're all fine.”

You just smiled again, that knowing, unreadable smile that sent Chan’s pulse into overdrive. “If you say so.”

Vernon cleared his throat. “So, uh,” he started, clearly trying to fill the silence. “Are you having fun?”

“I just got here, actually,” you said, taking a slow sip from your cup. They already knew that, yet they nodded anyway, as if just finding out. “But everyone else seems to be having a lot of fun.”

The four of you glanced around the packed house, noting also the constant flow of guests coming and going through the front door. Some faces were familiar to Chan, ones he had seen somewhere on campus, while others were completely new. The living room was almost unrecognizable—dismantled, with couches pushed aside to make room for a dance floor. A mini bar had been set up in the corner, where a barman served specialty drinks, and even more booze filled the kitchen for those who wanted specific things. 

Everywhere he looked, people were jumping, grinding, kissing, chatting animatedly, smoking and drinking, while plastic cups littered the floor alongside crushed cigarette butts, joints, and scattered snacks trampled underfoot. Chan was so absorbed in your presence that he didn’t even think about the mess he’d eventually have to clean up after the party was over. 

The air was thick with the scent of alcohol, sweat, and perfume, and honestly, Chan was surprised none of the neighbors had called the police yet. Sure, Sigma Vita Tau’s annual homecoming parties were always packed, but this one was on another level, and he felt very proud of it.

The music thumped steadily, neon lights casting shifting colors over the crowd. Then Seungkwan threw out another question for you, so casually that Chan almost missed his intention. “Did you came alone?”

“Well, I came with Nayoung and Dahyun,” you replied, shrugging. “But I lost them somewhere by coming here to talk to you guys.”

Seungkwan shot Chan a look—one that screamed Don’t mess this up—before turning back to you with a knowing smile. “Ah, so you chose to be here with us instead of running off to find them?”

You let out a soft laugh, shaking your head. “I guess I did.”

Chan, who had been determinedly sipping his drink to avoid making a fool of himself, nearly choked. His mind latched onto your words like they meant something far deeper than casual conversation.

Seungkwan smirked. “Makes sense. We're great company.”

You grinned. “Exactly.”

“So your boyfriend’s…” Vernon trailed off.

“Not here.”

The words slipped out of your mouth like a subtle declaration, and just like that, Chan felt the weight of it. Your boyfriend wasn’t here. For some reason, the confirmation made him feel a little lighter, though he knew that was dangerous territory. 

He had no right to feel relieved. You weren’t his, after all.

Seungkwan raised his eyebrows, clearly intrigued. “Really?” He smirked. “No boyfriend? That’s new.”

You shrugged nonchalantly, unfazed by their teasing. “He’s busy with something, I guess.” 

You glanced down briefly, scratching behind your ear before your eyes flicked over to Chan, catching his gaze for a fraction of a second before he quickly looked away, embarrassed by the sudden spike in his heartbeat. 

“Ohhh,” Seungkwan dragged out, exchanging another look with Vernon. “So you’re free to enjoy the night however you want.”

You let out a soft hum, tilting your head slightly as if considering his words. “I suppose so.”

Chan took another sip of his drink, trying to play it cool once again, but his grip was a little too tight around the cup. His mind was running a mile a minute, filled with thoughts he probably shouldn’t be having.

“You seem awfully interested in that drink,” you suddenly pointed to his cup, raising a curious eyebrow and shifting your weight to one leg, one hand resting on your hip. “What are you drinking?”

Chan glanced down at the red cup in his hand like he’d never seen it before. In truth, he had no idea what was in it—he’d grabbed it off the counter earlier when someone shoved it at him, too distracted by your presence to care.

“Uh…” He swirled the liquid inside, as if that would magically tell him what it was. “Something… alcoholic?”

Seungkwan groaned beside him. “Wow. Smooth.”

You chuckled, the corner of your lips quirking up. “That’s very specific, Channie.”

Chan nearly choked. The way you said his name—so casually, so effortlessly—made his brain short-circuit again. 

Everything he wished for—right after you, of course—was that he had scientific explanations for the way his body and brain reacted to your actions and words. And even then, maybe it wouldn’t be enough for him. 

I mean, Chan was a popular guy. A lot of people knew him around the campus, hell, he was a member of one of the most exclusive fraternities at university, was the current best dancer on the program since Minghao had graduated, packing the school theater every time he performed, and he also wasn’t exactly unknown among girls; he wasn’t particularly proud of it, but he had a reputation.

So why was it that, whenever he was around you, he acted like a complete loser?

It was a case to be studied closely and for days, perhaps years.

Seungkwan, probably sensing that Chan was never going to get a full sentence out at this rate, answered for him. “Tequila. Too much tequila. Yeonjun was bullying him a little.”

At the mention of Yeonjun, you hummed in amusement, your lips pressing together like you were holding back a laugh. Then, without warning, you reached forward and plucked the cup from his hands, bringing it to your lips for a sip. You pulled a slight face at the taste, but to Chan’s absolute horror (and delight), you took another small sip before handing the cup back to him.

“Sounds about right,” you mused, wiping the corner of your mouth with your thumb. “And how’s that going for you?”

Chan blinked. 

“Oh, you know,” he forced out, voice slightly rougher than intended, “just trying to stay upright.”

It was a miracle. He had managed to form a coherent sentence.

You laughed softly, and Chan felt like he had just been hit with a wave of relief. The sound was like music to his ears. “Well, that’s an important skill to have.”

Seungkwan muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like pathetic, but Chan was too busy trying to figure out if you were just being nice or if there was something more behind your words. 

“So…” you said, drawing out the word as if weighing it in your mind. “You having fun?”

Fun. Right. That was why he was here. “Uh. Yeah. It’s a party, so… yeah.”

You raised an eyebrow. “That convincing, huh?”

Chan cleared his throat, trying to wrest away the heat creeping up his neck. “I mean, yeah. It’s fun.” He nodded a little too enthusiastically, as if trying to convince both of you.

You hummed, unconvinced, tilting your head just slightly. The way your eyes scanned his face sent his brain into overdrive. Was he being obvious? Did you know?

But before he could embarrass himself further, the speakers erupted with the unmistakable intro of Livin’ On A Prayer by Bon Jovi, and the entire room burst into excited screams—just like you, who threw your head back and let out a moan of happiness.

Chan was certain he felt his entire body shiver at the sound, his mind drifting to places it shouldn’t. He was pretty sure he was already halfway to living on a prayer. 

“I love this song,” you said, eyes lighting up as you turned your head to them with a grin so radiant it nearly knocked him off his feet. 

Two seconds later, Dahyun called your name from across the room. “Come dance with us.”

You turned your head slightly, offering her a small nod of acknowledgment before looking back at them.

 “I have to go,” you said, pointing with your thumb over your shoulder at your friend. “See you guys around.”

Chan's heart sank a little at the sudden shift, the moment slipping away faster than he could grasp it. He opened his mouth, almost as if to protest, but the words never made it past his lips. He was still fumbling, unsure of what to say or do in this kind of situation.

But then you gave him one last smile—quick, but enough to leave him breathless—and started to turn away. You took a few steps forward, then stopped, turning around and staring directly at him; not at him, Vernon and Seungkwan—just him. 

“I love your shirt, by the way.”

And just like that, you were gone, moving through the crowd again, leaving him standing there with his heart pounding and his mind reeling, staring in astonishment at the Kurt Cobain shirt he was wearing.

Seungkwan snorted beside him, pulling him out of his daze. “You’re hopeless.”

Chan, still staring after you, muttered, “I know.”

You had disappeared from the party half an hour ago, using the excuse of heading to the bathroom, only to end up on the balcony of one of the few rooms upstairs with an unlocked door.

To be honest, you weren’t really in the mood for a party, but after Nayoung and Dahyun insisted so much on getting you out of your room, despite your repeated insistence that you weren’t affected by the recent events in your life, you eventually agreed to join them at Sigma Vita Tau’s annual homecoming party.

So far, it had been a lot of fun; you’d danced with your friends, played beer pong and pool with people you didn’t even know and a couple of people you did know. But when everyone decided it was time to start a game of seven minutes in heaven, you knew it was time to get away, especially since the only person you wanted to kiss wasn’t in the circle and was clearly avoiding you, as he always did.

That person was currently downstairs, probably laughing at something his friends said, or even kissing someone under the staircase, completely unaware of how much space he took up in your thoughts.

With a sigh, you sat down at the railing, the cool night air a relief against your flushed skin. The music from the party thumped through the walls, muffled but still loud enough to remind you of the chaos inside. You were fine with missing the game, better than sitting there, pretending you wouldn’t feel a pang of jealousy if someone else pulled his name. 

That last one, of course, was a scenario you created in your own head where he decided to show up and play just because the universe hated you that much. 

You weren’t even sure when it had started, this thing. The way your eyes always searched for him in a crowd, the way your heart did that stupid little skip whenever he smiled at you, especially at times when he didn't seem to realize he was smiling. Maybe it had always been there, waiting for the right moment to make itself known and now was the perfect opportunity for it, considering all circumstances. 

Lost in your thoughts, you barely noticed the door creak open behind you until the warmth of another presence filled the space.

“I was wondering where you disappeared to.”

It was almost two in the morning when Chan decided he’d had enough of the party. You had already disappeared minutes ago to God knows where, and even though your friends were still downstairs playing seven minutes in heaven, he was pretty sure you’d gone home. Your boyfriend had probably come by to pick you up at some point, like he always did, and Chan miraculously hadn't noticed.

All night long, he had watched you from afar, dancing and playing games with his friends. You were laughing with Vernon, teasing Seungkwan, and even giving Yeonjun a hard time. You looked completely at ease, like you belonged there somehow. But every time his gaze lingered on you, he felt that familiar twist in his stomach. It wasn’t jealousy, exactly, but the kind of longing that made his chest tighten. You were surrounded by his friends, sure, but in his mind, you were still just very much... out of reach.

Now, he was exhausted, tired of feeling like a failure for not having the courage to approach you, even just to start a conversation. He hadn’t taken Vernon’s advice, hadn’t shown you how much better he could be than your boyfriend. So, instead of dwelling on it any longer, he simply said goodbye to everyone and headed up to his room.

After cursing himself for forgetting to lock the door, Chan headed inside, silently thanking the universe that no one was there. Everything was in place, neat and undisturbed, clearly showing it hadn’t been used as a place for a couple to make out, or worse. After finally locking the door behind him, he sat on the edge of the bed, calmly taking off his shoes as he recapped the night in his head. 

He sighed, lying back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Seungkwan was right; this was getting pathetic, really. He had talked to people all night, joked around, even had a decent time despite the chaos. But when it came to you, his heart always raced in a way that made him second-guess every move. 

He was such a big fool. 

A fool for you, apparently. 

For a brief moment, Chan watched as the long curtains that divided the room from the balcony swayed in the wind, revealing a figure sitting on the railing.

His heart skipped a beat as his eyes landed on the figure. The silhouette was unmistakable, even in the dim light—your figure, perched on the balcony railing, legs dangling, one hand resting on your knee. He wasn’t sure how long you’d been there, but the sight of you, calm and seemingly lost in thought, made him hesitate. Again. 

The cool night air swept in, ruffling the curtains and causing them to dance with the wind again, almost as if they were beckoning him. For a brief moment, Chan considered staying put, convincing himself that you probably just needed some space, some quiet time away from the party. But then the thought of you sitting out there alone made his chest tighten, as if the universe was giving him a second chance to do things right, and before he could talk himself out of it, he was standing up and crossing the room.

He reached the balcony door quietly, not wanting to startle you. The cool breeze hit his face as he stepped outside, the sound of music and laughter from the party downstairs still faintly echoing in the distance. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves, but it was hard when you were so close.

You looked like an angel sitting there, and his brain nearly short-circuited when he noticed you were wearing the hoodie he had left on the chair earlier that day.

Chan never liked people invading his space, especially his room, and even less so when they were uninvited. If it had been anyone else, he probably would have kicked them out on the spot. But it was you. Not only did it not bother him, but he found himself loving the sight of you in his clothes, as if the hoodie had been made for you to wear too.

“I was wondering where you disappeared to.”

You turned your head at the sound of his voice, blinking in surprise at his appearance.

“Chan?” You said his name like you couldn’t quite believe it, like maybe you were the one dreaming and not him. He smiled.

“Hey,” he managed to say, his voice gentle, words just loud enough to be heard over the distant music. “You okay there?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, offering a small smile, grateful for the concern in his eyes. “Just needed a break. Parties aren’t really my thing.”

Chan hesitated for a moment before leaning against the railing next to you, his posture a little stiff but his presence somehow calming. “I get it,” he said quietly, his gaze shifting down to the street below. “I kind of feel the same way sometimes. All the noise, all the people, it’s a lot.”

You chuckled softly, turning slightly toward him. “You? A dancer major?”

He really wanted to use this opportunity with you to make a good impression and follow his friends' advice. But when he looked at you again, his brain went into a tailspin trying to process the way his hoodie looked on you, like it belonged to you just as much as it did to him. 

Still, he forced himself to get the words out.

“Yeah, well… dancing is different,” he admitted, glancing at you with a small, almost sheepish smile. “It’s loud, sure, but it makes sense. It’s the kind of noise I can control.”

You hummed in understanding, swinging your legs slightly. “And parties?”

“Not so much.”

A comfortable silence settled between you, the distant music from the party below blending with the rustling of the trees. The longer Chan stood beside you, the more his nerves settled, though that didn’t stop his heart from hammering in his chest. He had spent so long watching you from a distance, convinced that any moment spent too close would give him away. And yet, here you were, in his hoodie, in his bedroom’s balcony. 

Chan opened his mouth, but nothing came out, as usual. He was already surprised that he had managed to form other sentences before, since his brain was still trying to catch up with everything that's happening. 

You were standing in his bedroom—his bedroom—at two in the morning.

He couldn’t help but wonder if you had any idea what you did to him with just a small action.

You shifted a bit, looking at him out of the corner of your eye, the cool breeze tugging at your hair while you analyzed his well-defined profile.

You’d known the SVT boys for a while now, and they always carried this… chaotic energy, like one was constantly balancing and matching out the other’s freaks without the slightest trace of embarrassment or shame. That, in fact, was the reason why you liked being around them so much; they were different from the guys in the other fraternities at this university. Not to mention their parties were the best on campus and probably the most female-friendly and safe.

Every now and then, you found yourself in the company of one of them. Whether it was Vernon, who was already your friend and classmate, or Joshua, who once served as the english literature tutor for your study group back in freshman year, or even Seungkwan, in the one ancient studies class you share this semester.

Sometimes, it seemed like they were everywhere on campus, as if, whenever you needed one, they would magically appear—like when Abby blew out a candle in that Disney Channel movie 16 Wishes, except in this case, there were only 13. 

Lee Chan, however, was the member you hardly ever heard the voice of. You just couldn’t tell if he was always like that or if the problem was you, specifically. 

“You don’t talk much, do you?” you asked, your tone light, trying to keep the mood casual, though there was an underlying curiosity in your voice.

Chan chuckled at your question, running a hand through his hair, a little embarrassed but still amused by it. He forced himself to say something, anything, before he made even more of a fool of himself. “I—uh. No, I mean, I do. Sometimes. I talk.”

Brilliant. Just brilliant. 

For someone who was usually a yapper, he had become an expert at being at a loss for words around you. Before this moment, he hoped you wouldn't notice, but your question showed him that was clearly not the case.

Your lips twitched, like you were trying not to laugh. But it wasn’t in a cruel way, not like you were laughing at him. “That’s good to know,” you replied, nodding like you were filing the information away for later.

He couldn’t help but smile, feeling a bit more at ease despite the awkwardness that lingered. You weren’t making him feel self-conscious about his words, just... making him feel seen by you in a way that made his chest tighten, because that never happened before. 

“I promise I can carry a conversation most of the time,” he added, his voice lighter this time, trying to steer the awkwardness away. “Just... not always the best at small talk.” 

He gave a shrug, hoping you would take it as more of a self-aware joke than anything else.

You raised an eyebrow at him, teasing. “Small talk is overrated anyway. It’s the big stuff that matters.”

Chan tilted his head slightly, studying your expression. 

“What kind of big stuff are we talking about here?” He was trying to sound nonchalant, but inside, he was celebrating wildly; not just because he was managing to talk to you, but because you were talking to him too.

Perched on the railing, you shifted slightly to face him fully, your hands gripping the edge as you met his gaze. 

“Like... real conversations. The kind where you actually get to know someone,” you said, your voice softer now, almost a little serious. 

Suddenly, Chan felt like the air between you two shifted, and he couldn’t decide whether it was the wind or something else making him feel more aware of every movement you made and every word you said. 

“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice steady despite the rush of thoughts flooding his mind. “I guess... I guess you're right.”

You smiled, pleased with his answer, and for a moment, neither of you said anything. From where you stood, the cheers of the crowd downstairs faded into the background with each new pair being chosen, distant enough to feel like you’re both in another world entirely. 

Up here, it was just you and him, standing at the edge of something that Chan didn’t even know what. 

He shifted slightly, his fingers grazing the concrete railing as he debated whether he should say more, whether he should push this moment just a little further or not, since you seemed to be enjoying your own company until a few minutes ago, even if it was in his room.

The only thing he didn’t want to do was let it slip away.

Instead, he asked the question that had been circling in his mind since the moment he spotted you through the curtains. “So, uh… how did you find my room?”

Chan watched as you froze, your eyes slowly widening while your brain processed his question. Your gaze followed his, and the moment you registered what you were wearing, a soft laugh escaped your lips—one that sent his pulse into overdrive. 

“Oh, shit,” you said, blinking, voice showing your very obvious surprise. 

You seemed to realize the absurdity of the situation at the exact same moment the words slipped past your lips, your gaze flickering between him and the hoodie. 

“Wait, no—” you started, clearly flustered. “I wasn’t snooping or anything, I swear.” Your hands gripped the hem of the hoodie as if it might disappear if you didn’t hold onto it. “I—I didn’t know this was your room. I promise I wasn’t—I mean, I just—”

“You just… what?” he managed to ask, still amazed that you were standing in front of him, in his hoodie—did he stress this enough?—after a night of him avoiding you because he was convinced he had lost every chance he had after your interaction earlier. 

You sighed, rubbing the back of your neck. There was no way this could be less embarrassing. “I was looking for a quiet place to hide from the whole seven minutes in heaven thing. Found an unlocked door, thought it was an empty guest room, and, uh… turns out, it wasn’t.”

Chan stared at you, his heartbeat loud in his ears. “And the hoodie?”

A sheepish smile tugged at your lips. “It was on the chair. It was cold. Thought it looked comfy.”

It was comfy. But that wasn’t the point.

He swallowed, trying not to let the warmth spreading through his chest take over. This—you—was the last thing he expected tonight. And yet, here you were, standing in his room at two in the morning, looking impossibly good in his clothes. Maybe the universe was on his side after all.

You were still seated there, looking at him like you weren’t sure if you should stay or go. And maybe it was the exhaustion, or maybe it was the way you were looking at him, but for the first time all night, Chan didn’t feel like running away.

Instead, he exhaled, leaning back as he met your gaze. “Well,” he said, forcing a small smirk. “Guess it looks better on you anyway.”

He had no idea where this sudden courage was coming from. Maybe it was the alcohol still lingering in his system, even though hours had passed since his last drink. Whatever it was, he was just glad he had found the nerve to flirt with you. Even if just a little bit.

Your lips twitched, and for a second, he thought you might say something. But then you just shook your head, voice quieter now. “I’m sorry for invading your space. Do you want me to leave?”

Chan swallowed hard. He knew what the right answer was. Knew what Vernon and Seungkwan would tell him to do. Knew that you still had a boyfriend. But with you standing there, wearing his hoodie, looking at him like that…

Yeah. He was completely screwed.

“No, stay,” he said, a little too eagerly. Then, realizing how desperate he must’ve sounded, he cleared his throat, trying to play it cool. “I mean… if you want to.”

You tilted your head, watching him in that way that made his stomach flip. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Chan let out a breathless laugh, running a hand through his hair. Still, he wanted to make sure. “Unless you want to go back?”

You glanced toward the door, as if weighing your options, before exhaling a small laugh. “Not really.”

Chan tried not to read too much into it. He tried not to let the fact that you were still standing there, apparently in no rush to leave, get to his head. “Then stay,” he said again, softer this time.

“Okay,” you said after a beat. Then, with a teasing smile, you added, “But only if I get to keep the hoodie.”

Chan huffed a laugh, shaking his head as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Fine. You can keep it.”

You grinned. “Thanks.”

“I mean… I might have to fight you for it later.”

“Oh, I’d win,” you shot back without hesitation, a smug little smirk playing at your lips.

And god, Chan believed you. Because you would only need to say the words and that hoodie would be yours forever.

There was a comfortable silence between you after that, the weight of the night settling in. The distant cheers from downstairs had died down a little, and the music had shifted to something slower, more subdued. It felt like the whole world had softened around the edges. 

You tilted your head slightly, as if studying him, and Chan felt his pulse quicken again. He didn’t know what it was about you that made him so nervous. Maybe it was the way you carried yourself or the way your eyes were holding an amused curiosity whenever you looked at him. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the way he wanted you to look at him the way you looked at your boyfriend.

At the thought of him, Chan’s expression faltered slightly, and he turned away, gripping the railing a little tighter than necessary. He had no right to feel the way he did, no right to want things he couldn’t have. But he was here now, alone with you in the quiet of the night, and for just a moment, he allowed himself to imagine that things were different.

Chan turned to you again, watching as you stared out at the horizon now. He didn’t know what he was expecting when he spoke next, but the words left his mouth before he could stop them.

“So where's your boyfriend?”

If you were surprised by the question, you didn’t let it show. He saw you lowering your head and letting out a not very happy laugh through your nose. 

The truth was, you were surprised by his question, but at the same time, you weren’t. Jongin wasn’t exactly known for being non-territorial; he was always where you were, and when he couldn’t be, he made sure to show up at some point. But the way Chan’s question slipped out so easily, so curious, paralyzed all your instincts—the ones that told you to take it slow, to breathe between the end of your relationship with Jongin and the leap you were considering to take when you agreed to come here tonight.

And then, the confession slipped out of your lips before your brain could stop it. “He's...not my boyfriend anymore.”

Chan’s eyes widened slightly at your words. His stomach churned with an uncomfortable mix of relief and confusion, and he blinked a few times, processing your words. 

Would he go to hell for feeling immensely happy with that confession you had just made? Probably. And he would slow dance with the devil, grinning from ear to ear nonetheless.

“Not your boyfriend anymore?” He repeated after you. “Why not?”

You shrugged, a casual motion that didn’t match the weight of your words, finally looking up to meet his gaze again. “Didn't want to be.”

That was only half true, and you knew it. It wasn’t like you wanted to be his girlfriend either. But still, you weren’t the one who ended things by cheating on him with your step sister. You’d probably still be with him if he hadn’t decided to put an end to it in the worst way possible, even if your heart was beating for someone completely different already. 

Was it weird that you felt relieved to be cheated on, because it finally gave you a reason to leave?

“He’s an idiot then.” Chan spoke, bringing you out of your thoughts. When you looked at him, his eyes were filled with genuine empathy. You smiled gratefully, appreciating his compassion.

Not wanting to weigh the moment, you let out a small laugh, shaking your head. “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

Chan frowned slightly. “I doubt it,” he said, before adding, “But why?”

You shrugged again. “It wasn’t like I was dying to stay in that relationship, you know.”

The way you said it, almost too calmly, threw him off. I mean, he knew you weren’t very happy in your relationship; it was evident in your body language around Jongin. But he didn’t expect it to go as far as you wishing you weren’t actually in it. 

He wanted to ask more, to understand what had happened, but a part of him feared that prying would make him sound even more pathetic. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from pressing on, his voice low and a little uncertain. “Wait, so you didn’t want to be with him either?”

You didn’t hesitate, your expression not betraying any emotion, but your voice was sharp when you replied. “Not really. I didn’t even like him in the end. I guess I just stayed longer than I should have because it was… comfortable.” 

“That doesn’t sound like a great reason to stay.”

Chan bit his lip, trying to digest your words. Part of him wanted to reach out, to comfort you somehow, but he didn’t know where to start. The realization that you were no longer with him, the guy who seemed to have always been in the picture, stirred something in him—a sense of hope he wasn’t prepared to feel. But he kept it buried, not wanting to come off too eager, too quick to assume.

“It wasn’t,” you admitted. “But it’s hard to walk away from something when you don’t have a reason big enough to leave.”

“And what finally made you leave? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“You’re funny.” You smiled, head tilted to the side as you locked gazes with him. “I’ve never really got to actually talk to you before. Yet, here we are,” you gestured to the space between you with your hands. “I like this side of you. Curious and talkative Channie”

“Yeah?”

Chan swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry, even if he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. He was happy that being alone with you had finally awakened that side of him: more talkative and more responsive. 

You nodded, a soft smile tugging at your lips. “Yeah, I do.” Then you sighed, before saying, “To answer your question: he cheated on me with my step sister.”

His eyes widened and suddenly he was back to not knowing what to say, so he stayed quiet for a moment. Chan’s brain raced, his heart pounding. Was it bad that the idea of you being available—of there being a chance for something, whatever it might be—be the only thing that appeared in flashing neon signs in his head? 

Either way, he was glad you had gotten out of a relationship that clearly wasn’t good for you. He was happy that you had gotten rid of the asshole who was known for only dating girls ten years younger than him—the asshole who never let you breathe.

“Why did you date him anyway? Guy’s a jerk,” The words escaped his mouth before he could even control them. 

“He gave me just the right amount of attention, at the right time,” you answered without hesitation, shrugging again. “Have you ever heard ‘We accept the love we think we deserve’?” 

Chan frowned, processing your words. Well, that was sad. 

“I’ve heard of it,” he said quietly, the weight of your response settling in the space between you. The way you spoke about it, almost like you were talking about a lesson learned the hard way, made him feel a pang of sympathy for you.

“Yeah,” you continued, voice soft but steady, eyes searching his face. “I didn't realize I deserved more until the moment I woke up from the trance I’d been stuck in for two years.”

Listening to you confess to him all of this without thinking twice and sounding so sincere, made his stomach twisted with something like a mixture of frustration and admiration. He could see how hard it must’ve been for you, but at the same time, something in him wanted to protect you, to offer the kind of attention and care that wasn’t half-hearted, something real and full of understanding.

Something you truly deserved.

“You do deserve more,” he finally said, voice quiet but firm. “Everyone does. And if you want it, you can have it. No one should make you feel like you don’t.”

He hoped you understood the undertone of his words. Though he was genuine in what he said, he wanted to be everything you deserved—the more you could and should have. God knew how much he wanted it, and how far he would go to show you that. But in that moment, he also wanted to offer words of comfort, to be the shoulder you might need.

You didn’t say anything for a while, just standing there, letting the noise of the party hum around you both. Finally, you exhaled. 

“It’s hard to let go of what you’ve known, even when it’s not good for you,” you admitted, almost like you were talking to yourself more than him. “But sometimes, I guess you need to make space for something better, even if it’s scary.”

Chan’s heart beats faster at your words. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he knew one thing: this conversation, this moment between you, felt different than anything he had experienced with you before. It felt real.

“Do you think…” he started, and then stopped, unsure of what to ask. He was afraid that anything he said might ruin the moment. But your expression softened in a way that made his heart skip another beat.

“Maybe,” you said, voice low but deliberate, eyes never leaving his. “Maybe I need to stop accepting what I think I deserve and start going after what I actually deserve.”

Chan swallowed hard, his heart pounding in his chest. The air between you felt charged now, heavier than it should have been. He felt like he was standing on the edge of something, something he was not afraid to jump into and also couldn’t stop himself from wanting, hoping you wished the same, even if he was too crazy or delusional to consider that possibility. 

Just as he was about to say something, he suddenly felt light raindrops hitting the spot where the two of you were standing and sitting on the balcony. The first few drops were light, barely noticeable against his skin, but within seconds, the drizzle grew heavier, the scent of rain taking over the air. 

Chan watched you look up, your eyes tracing the sky as it darkened, the city below shimmering through the mist. When you turned back to him, he was staring at you—not at the rain, not at the sky, but at you. You met his gaze, and for a split second, everything else faded; the sound of the rain, the distant hum of the city below, even the pounding of his own heart. 

He blinked, breaking the spell, his gaze flickering toward the rain before it returned to you. “Maybe we should go inside,” he suggested, his voice low, almost hesitant, like he was giving you an escape from the moment, if you needed it.

You nodded slowly, and without saying a word, you jumped off the balcony railing, following him inside. You looked around the dark room for a second, before saying, “Maybe I should go. I don't want to hold the party host down with me.”

Chan turned to face you, his expression softening as he took in your words. There was something about the way you spoke, the hesitation that lingered in your voice, that made him want to step closer, to reassure you that you weren’t an inconvenience, that he wanted you there more than anything. 

“You’re not holding anyone down,” he said, a small, almost shy smile tugging at his lips. “If anything, it’s me who should be worried about keeping you from having fun.” 

“Never,” you said, your voice light, but there was something else in it, something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. Especially when you said, “Besides, the person I wanted to kiss isn't even downstairs.”

Chan froze, his heart giving a sharp, involuntary lurch at your words. He blinked, not quite sure if he had heard you correctly, but the way your gaze held his, steady and unflinching, told him that he hadn’t misheard.

He cleared his throat, his voice coming out a little too thick for his liking. “Oh? And, uh… who exactly were you hoping to kiss, if not...?” He trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence, not sure if he even wanted to know the answer.

As the curtain moved in the wind, bringing the streetlight into the room, he saw a mischievous smile grow on your lips. 

What the hell was happening? Was his brain betraying him? Was he imagining this moment? Had he passed out on the bed when he went upstairs and was now in a dream, after spending ninety percent of his energy thinking about you at the party he should have been enjoying with his friends? 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” you said simply, and turned your back to him, eyes immediately darting to the shelf of his trophies from dance competitions and photographs. 

Yes, I do! I want to know! Chan wanted to shout.

Instead, he stood there for a moment, unsure whether to follow up with another question, or to let the silence stretch on. The way you spoke, so casually and yet with that playful glint in your eye, made everything feel… electric. 

So he simply watched you there, in his room, moving without hesitation, slowly walking over to his shelf, running your finger along the wood and observing each one of his trophies, medals and pictures with meticulous care. 

He couldn't help but think—and wish too—that he could get used to this scene.

The golden plaques gleamed under the dim light, each one marking a victory of his. Some were polished to perfection, while others bore the faintest scratches, proof of the years Chan had spent chasing dreams in the dance field. Your gaze drifted to the framed photographs beside them, each snapshot telling a different story of his life. 

There were several photos of him as a little kid, beaming as ever, dressed in performance clothes, on stage, with a medal around his neck. In another, he stood beside his previous performance unit with the frat’s past members, whom you recognized as Kwon Soonyoung, Wen Junhui, and Xu Minghao, their grins wide and carefree. There were also photos with his parents and grandmother, and some with what looked like his younger brother.

Chan was probably the cutest kid you had ever seen, and that realization made you smile genuinely. 

“Lee Jung Chan?” you asked, curious as you read the name on one of the trophies from a children's dance competition. Your fingers brushed over the small golden plaque, the engraving slightly worn from time. 

Behind you, he let out a soft chuckle. “It's my name on my family tree. The government name is just Lee Chan.”

“You went by your full name back then?”

He shrugged, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. “Only because my mom insisted. She said it sounded more professional, like I was already a star or something.”

“It's cute,” you said, looking at him over your shoulder. “You were so cute.”

“Yes, well, the kids used to call me Jimmy Neutron.”

You laughed, turning fully to face him. Neither of you had noticed how close you were until you did. If you reached out your arms, you'd only be able to touch each other slightly. But even though both of you thought about it, neither of you made any move to change your positions, continuing your conversation. 

“What? Jimmy Neutron?”

He groaned, running a hand through his hair as if reliving the embarrassment. “Yeah. They said my head was too big for my body. And, you know, the spiky hair didn't help.”

You bit your lip, trying to suppress another laugh. Chan holded his breath at your movement, forcing himself to look elsewhere, forcing himself not to think about your lips. 

“I can totally see it now,” you teased, releasing your lip from your teeth and looking between him and the photo on the shelf.

He narrowed his eyes at you playfully. “Wow, okay. I thought you were supposed to be on my side.”

“I am!” You held up your hands in defense. “I just think it's adorable. And look at you now. You certainly grew into it perfectly.”

Chan smirked, tilting his head and crossing his arms. “So you're saying I look perfect now?”

You rolled your eyes, turning back to the trophies. “Don't get ahead of yourself, Jimmy Neutron.”

He laughed, stepping up beside you as his eyes skimmed over the shelf briefly, before turning back to you. “Yeah, but I kinda see it. My head was huge.”

You tilted your head, studying one of the photos of him mid-dance, his tiny frame caught in motion. He’s wearing dark sunglasses and black fingerless gloves, hair is slightly messy and spiky, adding to the fun and carefree to his edgy look. His bright smile revealed a gap between his teeth, and you thought to yourself that you've probably never seen anything so lovely before.

“Well, I think you were adorable,” you murmured, your finger tracing the edge of the frame. “And talented, obviously. All these trophies…”

He shrugged, a little bashful. “My grandmother was really proud of them. She used to polish them every weekend.”

Your smile softened. “She sounds sweet.”

“She is,” he said, voice tinged with fondness. “She used to call me ‘our little star.’”

Something about the way he said it made warmth bloom in your chest. You turned toward him, and he was looking at you again, his expression unreadable but intense. The soft glow of the streetlights made his features sharper, casting shadows along his well-defined jawline.

If there was one thing you knew about Lee Chan, it was that he was a star. Every performance he was part of filled the university theater, without failure. Not to mention the countless admirers he had on campus, and with good reason.

Watching him do what he loved was a pleasure—he was that good. Confident and unwavering, he dominated the stage effortlessly, as if wrapped in a bubble no one could pierce. It was mesmerizing to witness.

“You still are, you know,” you said, voice quieter now. “A star.”

His lips parted slightly, but for a moment, he didn't say anything. Just studied you like he was trying to figure something out.

And then, with a small, almost shy smile, he said, “I like it better when you call me cute.”

You laughed, the sudden tension between you easing just a little. “Noted.”

He exhaled a soft chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck as he leaned against the desk beside the shelf. “You know, I don’t usually let people snoop around my room like this.”

You glanced at him over your shoulder again, your fingers still lightly tracing over the edge of a picture framed. “Oh? Am I special, Channie?”

You didn't have to say his name like that, or move your lips like that. His eyes traveled to your mouth for a moment, and for a second, something flickered in his expression, something unspoken, but not entirely hidden. 

His eyes met yours as he said, “Yeah,” he murmured. “You are.”

To mask the fact that your breath hitched slightly, you offered him a playful smirk. “Good to know.”

As Chan moved to sit on the edge of his bed, you continued your exploration of his shelf, eyes stopping at a picture frame in the middle where he standed between what seemed to be his parents, both of them kissing his cheek sweetly. 

“Is your father a dancer too?” you asked, running your fingers over his face on the picture. 

“Yeah. My dad and my mom,” he explained. “They kind of stopped after I was born.”

“Wow. It’s in your blood, then.”

Chan nodded, a smile playing on his lips. “Yeah. My dad always says I got his footwork, but my mom says I got her rhythm.”

You leaned against the table by the shelf, watching him as he spoke. “So they gave it up for you?” 

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. My dad started teaching instead, and my mom focused on raising me. They never made me feel like I took anything away from them, though.”

“That’s love.”

He looked at you then, his gaze steady. “Yeah, it is.”

Another comfortable silence settled between you as you turned back to the photos, your fingers absently tracing the edges of the other frames. One photo in particular caught your eye. It was from the exact same day you first noticed him, during the university’s annual arts week in your sophomore year.

He was dressed in a white button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone, black dress pants, and his hair dyed a faded dark blue. You knew he had worn a tie too because he had taken it off during the performance.

Out of the four members in the unit, he immediately stood out to you. You couldn’t quite put your finger on why, but it was as if no one else existed on that stage besides him. Your eyes were locked on him and no one else, watching in awe as he moved across the stage, completely captivated.

“I was there that day, you know?” you said, showing him over the shoulder the photo you were referring to. 

Chan’s eyes widened as he stared at it. It was one of the images from his first big performance at the university’s annual arts week back in his freshman year, a moment that had felt like a turning point for him, when everything had clicked. He hadn’t realized anyone had been paying attention back then, least of all you.

“You were?” His voice held a note of surprise. There was something so disarming about the way you were looking at the photo—and then at him.

You turned your head slightly, meeting his gaze before turning back. “Yeah. I was in the back, by the side stage,” you admitted, a small smile tugging at your lips. “You were… mesmerizing.” 

He felt a warmth spread through him at your words, the kind of warmth that made his chest tighten. Chan hadn’t expected to hear something like that, especially not from you. 

“Really?” He couldn’t hide the shock in his voice. His brows lifted slightly, as if he was trying to picture it. “How come I didn't see you?”

“I don’t think you noticed anyone that night,” you teased. “You were in your own world up there.”

He hummed, eyes flickering back to the photo. “Maybe,” he mused, then glanced at you again, a slow smile crept onto his lips. “So, you’ve been watching me all this time, noona?”

There was a teasing edge to his voice and you exhaled a quiet laugh, shaking your head. “I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“No?” He titled his head. “Then how would you put it?”

He saw you hesitate for a second, fingers still resting on the shelf. Then, meeting his eyes, you admitted, “I noticed you. That night, and every time after that.”

Chan felt his breath catch in his throat.

There was something about the way you said it—so simple, so honest—that made his heart stutter. You noticed him. Not just that night, but every time after. 

He had spent years analyzing every interaction you two had ever had—every glance, every small word, every time you did so much as acknowledged his existence. And now? Now you were standing here, saying things that made his heart race like it was the easiest thing to do. 

How did you end up here?

Chan felt lightheaded.

He wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t rare for him to be speechless around you, so there he was again, standing in front of you, feeling like the floor beneath him wasn’t quite solid anymore.

“You noticed me,” he echoed, more to himself than to you.

You nodded, your fingers lightly tracing the edge of the photo before you finally pulled your hand away. “Yeah,” you murmured, laughing softly. “I did, Channie.”

Chan swallowed. He wanted to ask why. What was it about him that had caught your attention? Was it his performance? His presence? Something else entirely different? 

But instead, he found himself saying, “I wish I’d noticed you in the crowd.”

Your lips parted slightly, but instead of speaking, you simply smiled, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear.

His fingers twitched at his sides. God, he wished he could go back in time to that night—to scan every face in the crowd, to find you standing by the side stage, watching him with that same look you had now. You weren’t even dating Jongin at the time, and if your words were any indication of what he was imagining, maybe he had missed an opportunity by acting as though you were unattainable. Maybe he had lost precious time. 

Chan watched as moved away from the shelf, turning to him entirely. His breath hitched slightly as you stepped closer, each movement deliberate, unhurried. You didn’t hesitate as you sank down beside him on the bed, the space between you shrinking just enough to make his pulse quicken. 

The room suddenly felt smaller, quieter, like the world outside had dulled, leaving only the two of you in this charged silence.

He forced himself to breathe, to act natural, even as every fiber of his being buzzed with awareness of your presence beside him. You were close enough that he could catch the faintest trace of the sweetness of your perfume again, something that made his head spin in the best way.

“Can I ask you something?” You sank your hands on the mattress and stared at the wall in front of you, like you were avoiding his gaze for some reason. 

“Mhmm.”

You wet your lips, hesitating for a moment before finally voicing the thought that had lingered in your mind all night. “Were you avoiding me tonight?”

Chan felt his heart slam against his ribs. “I wasn’t—” he started, then stopped himself because, well… yeah, he had been avoiding you. But only because every time he looked at you, he felt like his brain melted, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to not make a fool of himself.

You smirked, clearly amused by his silence. “That’s what I thought.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I wasn’t avoiding you, I just—” He hesitated, his eyes flickering over to you. Halfway through, Chan decided that it was no longer the time to second guess things, so he simply admitted, “You make me very nervous, noona.”

You wished you had an explanation for the way you shivered slightly when he called you noona. But instead, you chose to ignore the feeling, letting the sensation fade into something softer, something more curious. “I make you nervous?” you echoed, tilting your head slightly. “That’s a first.”

Chan huffed a quiet laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You say that like it’s impossible. I bet–I know I’m not the only one.”

You shrugged. “I don’t know… you’ve always seemed so confident. Especially on stage.”

“That is just an act,” he admitted. “On stage, I could pretend to be someone else for a little while. But you?” He turned to you then, meeting your gaze fully. “You’re real. You’re right here.”

And he still couldn’t believe it, the words leaving his lips as if he were pinching himself to prove that this was really happening and not just a fever dream.

Hearing him, you wondered what Chan would think if he knew the way your stomach flipped at the way he was looking at you, like you were something impossible and undeniable all at once. You hadn’t expected this—hadn’t expected him to say something so… vulnerable. Something that made your heart race so fast with all the implications of his words. 

“I didn’t mean to make you nervous, Channie” you said, your voice softer now, more careful.

“I don’t think you can help it,” Chan murmured, letting out a breathless chuckle. “You know, you probably didn’t know this, but I had a, um… a crush on you.”

Okay, he knew he was straying from the truth. But there was a limit to his courage, and even though he had sensed a bit of flirting between you, he wasn’t about to risk rejection after the nice conversation you’d had tonight, because maybe he was just imagining things. 

And he wanted you to walk away from here at least as friends rather than leave an awkward situation for the two of you. He’d rather have you like this than not have you at all. That was why he decided to test the waters with that small lie.

Your lips parted slightly at his confession, your mind racing to process what he had just admitted. “You… had a crush on me?” you repeated, almost like you were trying to make sure you'd heard him right.

Chan nodded, his expression somewhere between amused and nervous. “Yeah. A major one,” he said, his voice lighter, trying to sound nonchalant.

Something inside you fluttered at the thought. You hadn't expected this at all—not from him, not tonight. And definitely not in this way.

“You’re bullshiting me, aren’t you?” you accused, narrowing your eyes playfully.

He let out a breathless laugh, shaking his head. “Nope. Dead serious.”

“But you never said anything,” you pointed out.

“Didn’t think you’d be interested,” He shrugged. Then he nudged you with his elbow, playfully. “Plus you had a boyfriend.” 

You blinked at him, momentarily stunned into silence. 

Didn’t think you’d be interested?

It was absurd to hear those words coming from him, the same person who had commanded every room he walked into without even trying, the same person who had owned the stage so effortlessly that you couldn’t take your eyes off him. 

What would he say if you opened your mouth to confess that you’d realized you weren’t happy in your old relationship the moment you started noticing him everywhere? Noticing his smile, the way he blushed when you talked to him, the way he seemed so unreachable, like he wasn’t the least bit interested in getting to know you, always running away when you were around. 

Maybe that should’ve been your first clue that he had a crush on you too. But perhaps you were too caught up in your own melancholia to notice.

So, instead of spilling out, you decided to test something. It was now or never.

“Is it just in the past?” 

Chan’s brows lifted slightly, caught off guard by your question. “What?”

“Your crush.”

“Uhh..”

“Because it would be so sad if it was,” you said before you could stop yourself, eyes searching for his. 

His voice was softer when he spoke again. “Really?”

You let out a quiet breath, shaking your head with a small smile. “Mhmm.”

He swallowed hard, his brain short-circuiting again at your response. Of all the ways this conversation could have gone, this was not what he had expected. Maybe he was in a dream. A very lived one, but still, a dream.

“You—” He cleared his throat, suddenly feeling like he had forgotten how to speak. “You think it would be sad?”

You hummed, tilting your head slightly. “Yeah. I think it would be a shame if something like that just… faded away.”

Chan's heart was doing something ridiculous in his chest, and he wasn't sure if it was panic or hope or a chaotic mix of both. He should say something. He should joke about it, keep it light, make sure this moment didn’t carry more weight than it should. But he couldn’t—because the way you were looking at him right now felt dangerous in the best way.

“Would it?” he asked, his voice quieter now.

Your smile again, nodding. 

He let out a breathless laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You really know how to mess with a guy’s head, huh?”

“Maybe,” You grinned, leaning in just a little. “But only when it’s fun. Besides who says you’re not messing with mine too?”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

You didn't say anything else and Chan stared at you for a long moment, his mind racing with a million things he wanted to say, a million things he wanted to do. But instead, he smiled, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe you were real. That this moment was real. 

He was messing with your head? Well, that’s a first. 

“Noted,” he simply murmured.

“What about now?” You looked at him expectantly, not letting silence settle between you.

Chan inhaled sharply, his fingers twitching slightly at his sides. “Now?” he echoed, his voice barely above a whisper. You nodded once more. Chan’s smirk faltered for just a fraction of a second before he recovered. “Are you asking if I still have a crush on you, noona?”

You rolled your eyes, trying to mask the way your heart had started hammering. “Forget it,” you muttered, getting up from the bed. 

He reached out, closing his hand around your wrist, and gently pulled you back to sit on the bed again. For a second, it felt like the world had stopped moving. It all faded into nothing. It was just you and him, standing there in this charged, uncertain space that he used to call his bedroom.

Chan swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. His instinct was to deflect, to joke, to brush it off like it was nothing. To play nonchalant. But the way you were looking at him—with quiet anticipation, with something that felt dangerously like hope—made it impossible to lie.

And before you could escape the moment, Chan leaned in ever so slightly, just enough that you felt the warmth of him beside you. “For the record,” he started, voice lower now, just for you. “Some things don’t change that easily.”

You turned to look at him, and for the first time that night, you weren’t sure who was more nervous: you or him. You held his gaze for a long moment, your expression unreadable. Then, slowly, a small smile curled at the corners of your lips.

“Good.” 

Chan blinked. You were going to give him a whiplash. “Good?”

You nodded, shifting just a little closer, the space between you growing impossibly small. “Like I said: it would be really sad if it had faded away.”

A few seconds passed, he just stared at you, his heart pounding, his pulse roaring in his ears. He could barely think, could barely breathe.

“Are you messing with me?” he asked, a nervous chuckle slipping out.

You tilted your head, eyes glinting with something warm, something teasing. “What do you think?”

“I think,” he said slowly, “you’re trouble.”

You grinned. “Only when it's fun, remember?”

“Noted,” he replied again, huffing a quiet laugh and shaking his head. But this time, there was something different in his voice, something lighter, something hopeful. 

You bit your lip for a second, analyzing him carefully. For the first time, Chan didn’t feel intimidated by your gaze. He didn’t feel exposed. Quite the opposite, his skin felt like it was on fire, but for a very good reason.

Your eyes flickered down to his lips for a fraction of a second. If he hadn’t been watching you so closely, he would’ve missed it.

His heart slammed against his ribs.

You were too close. Or maybe not close enough.

“Chan.”

“Yes, noona?”

“Do you wanna kiss me?”

He felt every neuron in his brain misfire at once, completely abandoning him at the worst possible moment.

Did he hear you right?

Did you—did you really just ask him that?

But the way you were looking at him—head bent to the side, eyes locked onto his with quiet amusement—made it clear that he hadn’t.

His fingers twitched against his knee, his pulse hammering in his ears so hard he was sure you could hear it. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, because suddenly, every single response he could think of felt either too much or not enough.

He could feel the warmth radiating off of you, the way your gaze never left his, searching, waiting.

“Uh…” He cleared his throat, forcing himself to meet your gaze. “I—um—”

“Because you keep looking at me like you do,” you continued, your voice softer now. “And if you don’t want to, that’s fine. But I just thought I’d ask.”

Chan let out a shaky breath. He was absolutely, utterly doomed.

He groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. “Noona, you can’t just ask me that.”

“Why not?” You leaned in slightly, your voice dropping just enough to make his pulse go haywire. 

Chan let out another nervous laugh, shaking his head. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

You grinned. “Is that a yes or a no?”

You were still watching him, waiting, and damn it if he didn’t want to kiss you more than anything. He always had. But now? With you looking at him like that, teasing, testing, daring him? It was like he was malfunctioning. 

Yeah, he was probably overthinking this—scratch that, he was definitely overthinking this—but the truth was, this wasn’t just some random moment to him, with a random person. It was you. And you weren’t just anybody to him. 

He didn’t want to screw this up.

But at the same time…

God, he wanted to kiss you. More than he would like to see the sun rise again. 

So, he took a breath, gathering every ounce of courage he had left, and finally, finally, he answered.

“Yes,” he admitted, voice quiet but steady. “I really, really want to kiss you.”

Your smile turned softer, less teasing now. “Then what are you waiting for?”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

His heart pounded as he closed the space between you, his hesitation melting away the second his lips brushed against yours. The moment was slow, tentative at first, like he was memorizing the feel of you, engraving it to his memory in case he never got the chance to do it again. But when you responded to him, when your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him in just a little closer, something inside him snapped. 

Chan exhaled sharply against your lips before deepening the kiss, his hand moving to the back of your neck as he tilted his head, molding himself to you like he’d been waiting for this moment his whole life, and not just two years of it. 

If the party outside still carried on, now it felt distant, muted. The only thing that existed in this moment was your lips and the way they mold together, the way your fingers slid up into his hair, the soft sound you made when he nipped at your bottom lip.

Chan was dizzy. Overwhelmed. 

And completely, absolutely ruined for anyone else. 

Your fingers dung into his tight, searching for support, and you felt him groan against your lips. The sound sent a shiver down your spine, igniting a reaction deep within you. His hand slipped from the back of your neck into your hair, fingers threading through the strands as he tilted your head to the side—and that was it. You were lost too.

When a soft gasp left your lips at the feeling of him pulling your hair slightly, Chan saw the perfect opportunity to slip his tongue past your parted lips, teasingly, deliberately, claiming the space with an intoxicating slowness. They way kissed you left you breathless, lightheaded, as if he’d stolen the very air from your lungs. 

Your knees bumped against his as you tried to move closer, and instead of pulling away, Chan only tightened his grip on you, his arm slipping from your hair to your waist. In one smooth motion, he guided you into his lap, pulling you over his legs until you were straddling him. A surprised giggle bubbled from your lips at the sudden shift, but he didn’t falter—if anything, the sound only seemed to spur him on. His hands settled firmly on your hips, fingers pressing into your skin as if committing your shape to his memory.

One kiss bled into the next, and then another, and another, until the only force pulling you apart was the desperate need for air. Your forehead rested against his for a fleeting moment, both of you panting, neither willing to let go.

Then, with a boldness that sent heat surging through you, you leaned in, taking his bottom lip between yours, sucking gently as your hips rolled forward in an instinctive motion. A groan tore from both of you at the same time at the feeling of you core meeting his half hardened cock for the first time. 

Chan’s head tipped back, his throat exposed to you, a silent invitation too tempting to ignore. You pressed an open-mouthed kiss just below his perfect jaw, feeling the way his pulse leapt beneath your lips. His hands traveled slowly and torturously from your hops to your thighs, hovering just above the hem of your skirt, while you traced your tongue over the skin of his neck, giving it a playful nip with your teeth.

His breath hitched at the feeling, gripping on your tights for dear life as his heart raced like crazy. The fire in his veins was undeniable, every inch of him consumed by the heat of the moment, consumed by you. Your touch, the way your lips moved, was driving him to the edge of something he wasn’t sure he could come back from. 

As Chan looked at you, his eyes begging to close in pleasure, he was sure his pupils were dilated at the scene before him: you looked like a goddess on top of him.  

“You’re so fucking pretty,” he said, voice was low, a rasp of desire that sent a thrill racing through you. 

Your response to his words was to rock your hips against his, feeling the full hardness now pressing your folds through his pants and listening to him whine, breathy and desperate. At the sound of it, you couldn’t help but sink your teeth into his neck, sucking to ensure you left a mark, to ensure everyone saw what you had done to him. 

Chan’s breath came in sharp, uneven, his body shuddering beneath you as your lips lingered over the mark you’d left on his skin. His hands tightened around your tights, fingers twitching like he was resisting the urge to take things further, to let his restraint unravel completely.

“Fuck,” he rasped, his head tilting forward until his forehead rested against yours, his eyes squeezed shut. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

His voice was raw, thick with desire, and it sent a pulse of heat through you.

You hummed against him, dragging your lips up toward his ear, reveling in the way he shivered beneath you. “What do you want, Channie?” you teased, nipping at his earlobe.

Your hands slid beneath his shirt, fingertips tracing along the defined ridges of his stomach. His muscles tensed under your touch, his hands now gripping your thighs like they were the only things keeping him grounded, like he was afraid you’d slip away. 

His eyes fluttered open, dark and desperate as they locked onto yours. 

“You,” he admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “I just want you.”

The raw honesty in his words sent another shiver down your spine. Your fingers splayed over his abdomen, feeling the way his stomach tensed beneath your touch, the way his breathing hitched with every slow, deliberate movement of your hands.

“Then take me, baby” you murmured, your lips brushing against his jaw, the ghost of a challenge in your voice.

Chan groaned, his hands sliding up from your thighs, gripping your waist with a reverence that made your pulse stutter. His thumbs traced slow, teasing circles against your skin, his restraint evident in the way his fingers flexed but didn’t pull you closer.

“You’re really trying to kill me, aren’t you?” he whispered, his breath warm against your lips.

You smirked, tilting your head just slightly, an exhalation away from his mouth. “What gave it away?”

He exhaled sharply, his patience snapping like a thread. One moment, you were teasing him, savoring the slow burn, and the next, he was kissing you like he’d been starving for you his entire life. His lips crashed against yours, desperate, all-consuming, his hands gripping your waist as he pulled you flush against him.

The heat between you flared, intoxicating and undeniable. Your fingers slid up his chest, tangling in his hair, tugging just enough to draw a low, breathy moan from his lips. The sound sent a thrill through you, your body pressing closer, chasing the feeling of him, the warmth of him, the way he made you feel like you were the only thing that existed.

His hands roamed your body, slipping beneath your shirt, his touch searing against the bare skin of your inner thighs. He wasn’t rushing—no, he was savoring, mapping out every inch of you like he had all the time in the world. Like he wanted to remember this, just in case he never got the chance to do it again.

Your hips rolled instinctively, pressing down against him, and Chan groaned into your mouth, his fingers digging into your skin. “Fuck,” he breathed, his head falling back as he sucked in a sharp breath.

You leaned in, pressing another set of kisses to the column of his throat. “Too much?” you teased, your voice sultry, full of mischief.

Chan’s jaw clenched as he let out a breathless chuckle. “Not even close.”

His hands roamed higher up your thighs, and the moment his index finger traced a slow line over the fabric of your already-soaked panties, a moan slipped from your lips into his. He grunted something unintelligible as he tugged your panties to the side, his fingers finally feeling how wet you were beneath them. Then, he dragged his touch torturously up to your stomach before slipping inside the lace, and you instinctively lifted your hips, giving him better access to where you needed him most.

“Are you this wet for me, noona?” he asked, pulling back to meet your gaze. Two of his fingers pushed inside you, while his thumb circled your most sensitive spot and you cried out. “Is this all because of me?”

You nodded desperately, almost missing the disbelief in his eyes that only fueled the intensity between you. It heighted every touch, made you move in sync with him, your teeth sinking into your lip as he worked you over with deliberate precision, taking his time to drive you absolutely crazy with his fingers moving into and out of you. 

“I want you to sit on my face,” he says with certainty, eyes darkened with something you’ve never seen before, but you love it. The sheer existence of it sends a whimper tumbling from your lips. 

Still, you can't help but think about his safety.

“Are you sure” you asked, your breath coming in short, uneven bursts.

Both of his hands returned to your thighs, slowly trailing up to your ass beneath your skirt. 

“Never been more sure in my entire life. Please” 

“Fuck. Okay.”

You get off him for a moment, quickly slipping off your boots as you step out of the bed. You pull off your skirt and panties, while Chan gets up to remove his shirt, tossing it somewhere in the room. Then he returns to the bed, sitting comfortably and leaning back on his elbows, his gaze never leaving you. His eyes burn with desire as he watches you slowly take off his hoodie before taking your sweet time freeing your breasts from the tight black corset—on purpose.

When your breasts finally spill free, his mouth parts slightly, eyes locked onto your hardened nipples as if it were one of the seven wonders of the world. 

“Come here, baby.”

You slowly crawl across the bed toward where he’s lying close to the headboard, and Chan helps you position yourself on top of him. Each of your thighs settles on either side of his head as you both adjust, ensuring the position is comfortable for both of you.

“You have the prettiest pussy,” he whispered against your pussy, followed by a groan, and you feel his breath hit your entrance, making you tremble slightly.

You knew that you’re so fucking wet that even in the dim light of the room, you’re sure he could see your folds glistening. But instead of feeling embarrassed, a thrill runned through your body when you glanced down and saw Chan licking his lips, his eyes locked onto your core just inches from his face. He stared at you like you’re the last and most delicious meal he's ever going to have in his life. 

“You smell delicious, noona,” The way he speaks makes you moan softly, your hands instinctively moving to squeeze your breasts. “Bet you taste even better.”

Chan gripped the back of your thighs, pulling you closer until your heat is right in front of his face, his eyes drinking in the sight. His lips find your inner thigh first, sucking a mark into your soft skin, slow and deliberate. 

When he finally placed his lips exactly where you needed him, your hands flew straight to grip his hair, holding tightly between your fingers as your legs trembled from the indescribable sensation of his mouth on you. Still, Chan sensed that you were trying to hold back, worried about hurting him, so as soon as you shifted just an inch away from his face, he pushed you back down, holding you tight against him. 

The gasp that left your lips is a sound you’ve never done before, completely immersed in the pleasure he is giving you. His nose nudges against your clit, his tongue gathering your arousal before his mouth moves over you with deliberate hunger, like a man who has been starving for far too long.

“So good, Channie,” you cried out, body almost falling forward. “Holy fuck!”

The way Chan’s mouth moves on you is pure, unrestrained hunger, and it feels so good that, only for a moment, you entertain your brain with the idea that his mouth was made to exactly what he was doing: eating your pussy. His lips cup your clit, his tongue circling the sensitive bud with slow strokes, alternating with long, deep sucks that make you shiver around him. 

His tongue circles your entrance, sliding in as more of you slick spills into his mouth, all for him to savor. The taste of you—god, he never wants this to end. All day, every day, Chan is sure he could do this for the rest of his fucking life. All he wants is to drown himself in this, inside the wet dream that is you with your pussy right in his face.

Your hands pulled his hair tightly after one particularly harsh suck on your clit, back arching deliciously. Your moans was the only sound filling the room and Chan was pretty fucking sure this is the soundtrack of paradise and he can’t wait to get there. 

When his hands moved to your ass, squeezing tightly, it was as if the last shred of self-control in his body had evaporated. You started to rock your hips instinctively, grinding against his face desperately to chase your release while his nose offered you the most earth-shattering sessions. 

“Oh my god, Chan,” you choke out, closing your eyes shut. 

“Hmm.” His hum sended vibrations through your core and suddenly you had to use his shoulders for balance or you would fall forward on the bed. 

Chan was certain he had died and gone to heaven the moment you started grinding against his face. He could feel your legs tense around his head, and when he opened his eyes to take in the scene above him—hands traveling up your body until they reached your breasts, squeezing them tightly—the way your face crumpled and the sounds escaping your parted lips, Chan knew he was in love.

He was done. Gone. 

There was no one else for him in this world. 

Only you.

You.

You.

You. 

You bucked your hips against his face with more urgency as his thumbs rolled over your nipples in the most delicious way. His other hand found your neck, wrapping around it and squeezing lightly, and your head fell back, granting him free access to do whatever he wanted with you. At that moment, the familiar, intoxicating tingling built in the pit of your stomach, moans and sighs spilling from your lips more desperately and loud as you tightened your legs around his head.

“Hmm, suffocate me, baby,” he murmured, his voice thick and low. 

That was all it took for your orgasm to crash over you in the most intense way, your mind bubbling with euphoria, completely lost in a haze of pleasure.

Chan licked and sucked up every last drop, swallowing your release in loud gulps as if it were the only thing capable of keeping him hydrated. As you let go of his shoulders and collapsed onto the bed beside him, your legs, weak as jelly, trembled uncontrollably, matching the shivers that ran through the rest of your body.

When you looked at him, you saw the dazed, blissed-out expression on his face mirroring your fucked out one, like he were the one who had just come. His red lips were parted, his chin glistening, and you couldn't resist the dopey smile on his face. Leaning in, you pressed your lips to his, tasting yourself on him. With a strength you didn’t even know you had, especially right now, you pulled him on top of you, parting your legs so he could fit there.

Chan barely had time to register the movement before letting out a small chuckle. He broke the kiss for a second, brushing your hair from your face to meet your eyes, your pupils blown wide with a desire that was reflecting his own.

He could only be dreaming.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured against your lips.

Normally, words like that spoken so close would make you shy. But right now, you could feel his hard length pressing against your inner thigh through the fabric of his pants—aching, neglected, and probably leaking.

Your hands traveled from his chest to his pants and you fumbled with his belt, struggling for a moment until your fingers remembered how to work. You unfastened his zipper, hands moving with growing urgency each passing seconds. As you pushed his pants down, your fingers traced the firm and defined lines of his abdomen, the sharp cut of his hips, and the soft hair on the back of his thighs.

The moment you managed to free him from his underwear, Chan’s cock rested on your hip, hard and thick. He groaned at the feeling of your skin against him and and you arched into him, desperate to feel more—to press him even more against you, to take him in.

“Wanna ride you, Channie,” you told him, leaning forward to kiss him again. You reached between you, wrapping your fingers around his cock, feeling him thick and burning hot against your palm. 

Chan let out a shaky breath at your words, his grip on your waist tightening instinctively. His forehead pressed against yours, eyes flickering between yours and your parted lips, as if trying to ground himself, trying to believe that this was actually his reality and not just another figment of his imagination.

“You don’t have to feel obligated, baby.”

“I want it,” You batted your pretty eyelashes at him, and he was lost. “Please.” 

“Okay, noona.”

Your fingers brushed over his jaw, tilting his face up to meet your lips in another deep, searing kiss. Every part of you was incredibly drawn to him, turned on by him, the heat between you almost unbearable now. Slowly, deliberately, you rocked your hips forward, savoring the way his breath stuttered against your lips. 

“You're driving me insane,” he groaned, his hands tightening their hold on you. 

You smiled, feeling the way his pulse raced beneath your lips. “Good. Now lay back for me, baby.”

Chan didn't argue. He shifted slightly, scooting back and patting his tights in invitation for you to hover over his cock. The dim light cast long shadows across the room, highlighting the curve of your back and the way your hair fell around your shoulders. He watched you, his breath catching in his throat as you met his gaze. He lay back and propped himself up on his elbows again, anticipation thrumming through his veins.

You moved with a slow, deliberate grace, straddling him once again, your bare pussy covering his length. The feeling of his cock against your lips sent a shiver down your spine, and you also felt him trembling a little beneath you. 

You paused, savoring his gaze locked on you. His eyes were filled with a mixture of desire and adoration. Smiling down at him, you slid your pussy against his cock, feeling his head rub on your clit. A simultaneous moan escaped from both of you. The next second, his lips were on your breasts, sucking and squeezing the flesh with both hands, clearly impressed by how responsive and sensitive you were to his touch.

After a particularly harsh suck, he released your nipple with an audible pop, the sound echoing in the still-charged air. A smile spread across his face as he watched the flush recede from your skin, leaving a rosy imprint in its wake. 

“Beautiful.” He licked your nipple one more time, gaze locked on yours, as he said,“There's a condom on the nightstand.”

He didn't move, didn't break eye contact, the intensity in his gaze holding you captive. 

“Don't you wanna take me raw, Channie?” you pouted, sliding forward again. “I'm on birth control, and I'm clean.”

He swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat working as he fought for control. Your words, so casually spoken, were a potent aphrodisiac, fueling the fire that already burned within him. The feel of you against him, the heat radiating from your core, was intoxicating, clouding his judgment, making it hard to think straight.

The thought of skin on skin, of being completely, utterly connected to you, was a temptation he wasn't sure he could resist. His gaze drifted up to your lips, then lower, tracing the curve of your neck, the swell of your breasts, the way your hips moved against his. He could feel himself hardening even more, his body betraying his attempts at restraint. 

“Fuck, noona,” He breathed. “Don’t say shit like that.”

“So?” you purred, meeting his gaze. 

“I’m clean too. Put it in. Please.” The words were a raw plea, a confession of his surrender. 

Then, with another soft moan, you took his cock in your hand, lining him up with your entrance, before lowering yourself onto him, the fit perfect, as if you were made for each other.

Chan groaned as you took his full length in, his hands instinctively reaching for your waist, holding you tight against him. He looked up at you, his eyes darkening with passion, while you pushed him just a little to lay down so you could use his chest for support. 

“Fuck,” he cursed out, griping your sides. “You feel so good.”

You began to move, slowly at first, teasing him with each gentle sway of your hips. The rhythm between you built, a slow, sensual dance that sent waves of pleasure crashing through your bodies. Chan's hands tightened on your waist, guiding you, encouraging you, as he moaned softly, his head falling back against the pillows.

“Yeah, baby,” he groaned, voice rough. “Fuck, yes. Just like that.” He arched his back, pushing himself further into you. His hands moved from your waist to your thighs, his fingers digging into your flesh as he urged you on. “Don't stop. Please, don't stop.”

Another slow smile spread across your face. The power you held over him was intoxicating to you, maybe even a little dangerous to your ego. You leaned down, brushing your lips against his. “I wasn't planning on it.”

You increased the tempo, your hips moving with a newfound urgency of driving him to the edge. The rhythm between you intensified, a primal dance of pleasure and need.  

You knew you were already close, that the precipice of orgasm was just within reach. The feeling was overwhelming, a tidal wave of sensation that threatened to consume you entirely. Chan's eyes fluttered closed, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He could feel the tension building within him, the pressure mounting with each thrust.  

You continued to move, faster now, your bodies locked together in a frenzy of desire. The world seemed to fade away, the only thing that mattered was the feeling of him inside you, the heat, the overwhelming pleasure. You were lost in the moment, consumed by the fire that burned between you.

A low moan escaped your lips as he pressed against you, his fingers tracing tight circles around your most sensitive spot. 

“Fuck, Chan,” you screamed, your head falling back, eyes closing as the pressure began to feel exquisite.

He peppered kisses across your chest and neck, his touch alternating between quick pinches and slow, tantalizing rolls of his thumb against your clit. Without warning, his hips surged upwards, driving him deeper inside you. You cried out his name again, your nails digging into his shoulders.

“That's it, baby,” he commanded, “scream my name.”

One arm snaked around your waist, bringing you against him, while the other braced him against the mattress. He began to thrust into you, a relentless rhythm that belied the fact that you were supposed to be the one in control. But neither of you cared. His cock felt so incredibly good inside you, your pussy clenching around him in a tight embrace.

“Chan!” you cried, your voice filled with a mixture of pleasure and desperation.  

The head of his cock found that sweet spot deep within you, and he immediately noticed your reaction, repeating the movement, again and again, until stars began to burst behind your closed eyelids.

The more Chan rhythmically rubbed your clit, the more you felt yourself tightening around him, your release imminent. His breath hitched as you reached your peak, your body shuddering with release. He cried out your name, his own release following close behind as spilled himself inside you. You collapsed against him, your bodies still trembling, your hearts pounding in unison. 

The world dissolved around you, the only thing that existed was the two of you, connected in the most intimate way possible, lost in a sea of pure, unadulterated pleasure. His arms wrapped around you comfortingly, as if he were afraid you'd run away, and you buried your face in his neck, trying to regulate your breathing and savoring the aftershocks, the incredible feeling of your skin melded together. 

Still inside you, Chan almost couldn't believe it at this moment. The reality of you, of this, was almost too much to comprehend. He felt the warmth of you surrounding him, the gentle pulse of your muscles contracting around him, a constant reminder of the incredible intimacy you shared. He looked down at you, your face flushed and relaxed, your eyes closed in contentment. 

He traced the curve of your cheek with his thumb, marveling at the softness of your skin. It was real. You were real. And you were here, with him, wrapped in the aftermath of a moment that had left both of you breathless.

Chan wanted to stay like this forever, locked in this perfect intimacy, lost in the wonder of you. And he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that he would do anything to keep it. 

He brushed a stray strand of hair from your forehead, before confessing, “I wanted this for so long.”

Your eyelids fluttered open, and you met his eyes, a soft smile gracing your lips. "Mmm," you hummed, snuggling closer to him. “Me too.” 

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, and Chan blinked. “Really?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

Certainly, he hadn't expected that. He thought he was the only one clinging to this moment, the only one so deeply affected by it, that he was certain he was thoroughly gone for anyone else. The fact that you felt the same way, that you’d wanted this just as much as he had, sent a fresh wave of warmth through him. 

You nodded, your smile widening. “Really, really,” you confirmed, fingers tracing the line of his beautiful jaw. “I've been wanting this...for longer than I care to admit.” 

He felt a blush creeping up his neck, a mixture of pleasure and disbelief swirling within him. 

“Wow,” he breathed, his voice barely a whisper.  “I...I didn't think…”

“Didn't think what?” you teased, your eyes sparkling with amusement.

He hesitated, suddenly feeling shy again. “Didn't think you felt the same way. I thought...I thought I thought you were just a little bit out of my limit, I guess.”

Looking away for a moment, Chan suddenly felt fascinated by a stray thread on the sheet. Saying that out loud sounded ridiculous, he knew. Seungkwan and Vernon would probably laugh at him if they could hear him now. He was a grown ass man; a successful dancer, yet he felt like a nervous teenager confessing his feelings for the first time to the girl he had a silly little crush on. 

Except it was no longer silly for him anymore, and he was sure the feeling burning in his chest was much bigger than a crush. Love? He preferred to think about it after the effects of the afterglow had worn off.

His mind was filled with something else. For instance, the fact that, once, he'd been so sure you were out of his reach, so convinced that he was lucky just to be in your orbit. To know that you felt the same way, that you saw him as an equal, was both exhilarating and terrifying.

You gently cupped his face in your hands, turning his gaze back to yours. “Out of your limit?” you echoed. “Channie, I’m so in your limit that is actually embarrassing. I’ve always been in your limit.”

He raised an eyebrow, another flicker of disbelief in his eyes. “Always?”

“From the moment I saw you on that stage, two years ago,” you confessed. “I saw something in you, something special. Something...that made me want to get to know you better.”

Chan chuckled, a self-deprecating sound. “And you weren't scared off by my…awkwardness around you?”

You laughed, a warm, genuine sound that filled the room. “Your awkwardness is part of your charm,” you teased. “Besides,” you added, leaning in to whisper against his lips, “I can be pretty awkward myself sometimes.”

He grinned, his earlier shyness melting away. “Is that so?”

You nodded, your eyes sparkling with mischief. “Absolutely. But you'll have to stick around to find out just how awkward I can be.”

He chuckled, his arms tightening around you. “I think,” he said, his voice laced with affection. “I'm willing to take that risk.” Then he paused, a shadow crossing his face briefly. “Can I ask you something, tough?”

“Mhmm.”

“Jongin. Why… why did you date him?”

You sighed a hint of weariness in your eyes. You should have seen it coming.

“Honestly, Channie?” you began, “Because at the time, I didn't think you were interested too.” You met his gaze, your eyes filled with honesty. “Like I said earlier, he showed me the kind of attention I thought I needed. He was…persistent. And you,” you paused, choosing your words carefully, “you seemed…distant. You ran away whenever I tried to talk to you. At least now I know why.”

He winced slightly, recognizing the truth in your words. He'd been so afraid of rejection that he'd inadvertently pushed you away. “I…I was an idiot.” 

You smiled sadly. “We both were,” you shrugged. “But,” you added, a brighter note entering your voice, “we're not idiots anymore.” You leaned in, kissing him softly. “And now,” you gave him another peck, “I have exactly what I want.”

Chan cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs gently stroking your cheeks. “Me too.” He pulled you closer, burying his face in your hair. “Thank you.”

“For what?” you asked, your voice muffled against his chest.

“For giving me a second chance.”

You pulled back slightly, searching for his eyes. “You don’t have to thank me, baby,” you said softly, with a teasing smile playing on your lips. “You just came inside me, I think you earned it.”

A slow grin spread across his face, a mixture of amusement and pure adoration. His eyebrows raised suggestively.

“Oh, is that how it works?” he teased, his eyes sparkling. “So, every time I…you know…” 

You laughed, playfully shoving him in the chest. 

“Don't get any ideas, Mr. Lee” you said, though the heat rising in your cheeks betrayed your words. “I'm a tough negotiator. You'll have to work a lot harder than that to earn my gratitude.”

“Oh, I'm not worried about that. I'm a very hard worker. And, I'm more than happy to put in the overtime.”

“We'll see about that,” you whispered against his lips, though the smile playing on your face suggested you were more than willing to let him try. “You're incredible, Lee Chan. Don't ever forget that.”

He smiled, his heart overflowing with love. “I won't,” he promised. “Not anymore.” 

©sound-of-scoups

If you liked this feel free to let me know with a like, reblog, comment, whatever you prefer! ❤️

A/N: The next morning + Vernon and Seungkwan's reactions to finding out about them were in my plans for the story, but in the end, I thought this ending was perfect and decided not to include. If you'd like to read about it, please let me know here.

[starlvcied]

₊˚⊹♡ rin itoshi x f!reader " FRAMED RIVALRY " CHAPTER 002

in which your academic rival, aka the captain of the soccer team, sneaks his way into the photography club with you. ꨄ︎ CHAPTER 002

cw: swearing (a lot) , rin definitely needs therapy wc : 1.8k

if someone had told you a week ago that rin itoshi would willingly join the photography club, you wouldve laughed in their face. yet here he is, showing up to every meeting like he belongs, sitting in on discussions, and most annoying– actually being good at it. 

it doesnt make sense. rin is the the type to dismiss anything that doesn't revolve around soccer, the kind of person that scoffs at having to do anything that doesnt serve his ambitions. but every time you try to pry into his real motives, he gives you the same flat responses.

“i told you, i just like photography.” or–

“can you piss off?” or–

“mind your fucking business, lukewarm.”

but noone else seems to question it. the club members welcome him in without hesitation (except for livvy and daria, who you specifically warned to stay the hell away from him), is probably more impressed by the fact that the soccer captain is even acknowledging their existence. it gets on your nerves, especially when people start treating him like he’s some kind of prodigy. well, he sorta is– but thats besides the point.

“he’s a fast learner,” daria comments as you all review recent shots on the clubs computer. “look at this framing– i cant believe he did that.”

you barely glance at the image before skipping them with a scoff. “anyone can take a decent picture with the right settings. he’s just copying the techniques i already explained to him.”

rin, whos leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. he doesnt even react to your dismissiveness. “jealous?” he asks, his voice as indifferent as ever. 

you slowly turn around, facing him with a scowl. “of you? not a chance.”

“well thats not a pretty face.”

it becomes a pattern. rin attends every meeting that doesnt get in the way of his practice or his games, participating just enough to remain involved, and occasionally throws in dry, insulting comments at you and your clubmates, mostly you, made to push your buttons. and unfortunately, it works. you’d expect him to lose interest within days, to get bored and drop the act. but he doesnt.

and thats what bothers you the most.

you dont usually mind morning classes. if anything, you enjoy them– mostly due to most of the students being too tired to be rowdy, so mornings at your school are pretty peaceful. but that was before rin itoshi started making them unbearable.

ever since the debate project forced you to work together, things have only escalated between you two. its like a silent war– every test, every assignment, every question posed by the teacher turns into an unspoken battle for dominance.

and neither of you are willing to lose.

so when your first period teacher walks in, announcing an impromptu quiz, you already know exactly where this is headed. you get a glance at rin through your peripheral and find that he was already looking at you. obsessed freak. 

“i’ll be grading these on the spot,” the teacher says, handing out the papers. “no multiple choice– explanations are required. show your reasoning.”

you glance to your left once more, where rin is already twirling that stupid ballpoint pen between his fingers, the epitome of nonchalance. but you know better. you can feel the competitive energy radiating off of him.

the moment the papers hit your desk, it begins. you dont even bother writing your name, nor the date, nor the period.

the only sound in the room is the scratching of pens against paper. you work quickly but precisely, mapping out each answer with clear, logical steps. you’re writing harder than usual, your lead breaking a few times, and your palm begins to burn. you refuse to give rin the satisfaction of finishing before you.

a flicker of movement catches your eye. rin shifts slightly in his seat, leaning forward as he writes, his stroke sharp and decisive. he’s fast. too fast. it reminds you of how he acts on the field.

you grit your teeth. hes rushing. that has to be it. theres no way hes double checking his work at that pace. (unless he doesnt have to. maybe he is as perfect as he presents himself to be.)

your pencil moves faster.

you finish just as rin sets his pen down.

both of you look up at the same time, locking eyes.

theres a moment of intense silence. then, without a word, you both flip your papers over and slide them toward the edge of your desks, waiting for the teacher to collect them.

the rest of the class finishes at a normal, more human pace– less like a factory machine. but you and rin remain frozen in place, the unspoken competition still lingering between you.

the teacher grades quickly, making occasional sounds of both approval and disapproval. you watch as she pauses at rin’s paper (you knew it was his because you had already memorized his stupid handwriting, and got a glance at the moment she picked it up). her eyebrows lifted slightly before marking something. then she gets to yours, tapping her pen against the desk thoughtfully before moving on.

finally, she returns her focus back to the class. “excellent work from most of you,” she says, “but per usual, our top scorers were neck and neck.” 

you sit up straighter. rin remains still.

the teacher glances between the two of you, lips quirking slightly, as if she finds this amusing. “one of you scored 100%. the other, a 99.”

your breath catches.

you whip your head toward rin at the same time he looks at you. his expression is unreadable, but you could see it in his eyes– hes waiting.

the teacher places the papers down on her desk. “the perfect score goes to…” she paused. you felt as if she was creating suspense on purpose. she finally flips one over, revealing the name scrawled at the top.

and to your surprise, its not yours.

for a second, you just stare at it. the weight of that single point settles uncomfortably in your chest, and embarrassment bubbles in your stomach.

slowly, you turn to look at him. he’s not smirking, not outright gloating, but theres a flicker of triumph in his expression. the way his lips press together, the way his fingers drum lightly on the desk as if to say, i win.

you inhale sharply. one point. you lost by one point.

it shouldnt bother you this much. its just a quiz. its not like this is the first time one of you has beaten the other.

but it does bother you– no, it enrages you.

so when the teacher move’s on, discussing the correct answers, you lean slightly toward rin and mutter, “enjoy your fuckin’ moment. this wont happen again.”

he doesnt look at you, but the corner of his mouth lifts slightly. “thats not very head of the student council of you.”

that stupid fucking smirk made you want to strangle him and leave him to the rats. you pursed your lips before responding, your tone the opposite of polite. “shut up, dickwad.”

he didnt seem to take it to heart. all he gave was a simple eye roll and a breathy laugh, if you could even call it that. “sounds like someones mad they lost.”

and just like that, the war continues.

rin itoshi is an annoyingly fast learner. 

that much becomes obvious after only a few days in the photography class.

youd hoped he would get bored, that the frustration of being a beginner would drive him a way. but rin treats photography the same way he treats soccer or school– like a challenge. and rin doesnt lose.

which means hes actually trying.

and, worse– he’s getting better.

you watch as he crouches low, camera in hand, adjusting his focus with practiced precision. as of right now, the photography club was taking pictures while the student government set up the school to become more valentine's day themed. currently, you had rin practice by taking a photo of a boy hanging up heart-shaped decor on the walls. he clicks the shutter, barely pausing before reviewing the shot.

you dont want to admit it, but the composition is good. the depth of field is balanced, and the framing naturally draws the eye to the subject.

he stands, his frame towering over you as he turned the camera toward you. “better?”

you tilt your head, pretending to scrutinize. “..its fine.”

rin frowns slightly. “thats what you said last time.”

“maybe you’re just ‘fine’ at this.”

his lips press into a thin line. “lukewarm critique.”

you roll your eyes. “you want real critique?” you snatch the camera from his hands and point at the screen. “your subject placement is predictable, your angles are too rigid, and you rely too much on symmetry. it looks… controlled.”

rin raised an eyebrow. “and thats a bad thing?”

“its a safe thing.” you lift your own camera. “photography isnt just about control. Its about instinct, feeling natural. feeling the shot instead of just calculating it.

rin doesnt look convinced. “feeling doesnt win anything.” 

“tell that to every award winning photographer literally ever.” you step past him, snapping a picture without even looking through the viewfinder. then you turn the screen toward him. “see?”

rin stares at it for a moment, then exhales through his nose. “so youre saying i should just take random pictures instead? thats stupid.”

you roll your eyes again. “i’m saying you should stop treating this like a competition.”

he gives you a look that is so blatantly unimpressed that it makes your blood boil. “you think im competing with you?”

you stare at him. is he fucking serious?

rin doesnt react. no denial, no confirmation. he just watches you with that same impassive expression, teal eyes unreadable. then he tilts his head slightly.

“or maybe i just like photography.”

the way he says it– so deliberately, so casually– makes you want to shove your camera down his throat and watch him choke to death.

instead, you step closer, voice low. “say that again with a straight face.”

rin blinks. then, like the shitty little menace he is, he repeats with a deadpanned expression. “maybe i just like photography.”

you swear he’s fucking with you.

the moment is cut short– the bell. the club members begin packing up, and rin, as usual, moves on as if nothing happened. you watch as he slings his camera strap over his shoulder, leaving without another word.

and you– you are left standing there frustrated beyond belief. 

because of the rivalry.

because he’s improving too fast.

and because you're starting to believe he’s damn near perfect, and you hate it.

what does this mean for you?

001<< >>003

i got lazy w this so its kinda bad sorry!! also i dont know jack shit abt photography lol just roll with it.

tags: @mixolya @x3nafix @rinniebinniebay @levihanmyotp @anqelkoz @megumismyhusband @aisqka

[ecoterrorist-katara]

What do you think about the fact that Sokka became chief of the SWT in canon? Did Katara want the position? If she did, what did she think about Sokka getting it instead of her? And if she didn’t want the position, why?

hello!!! Great question. Oh man I am Not happy about Sokka becoming chief of the SWT…I think he should’ve gone to Ba Sing Se University and gotten an engineering degree and spent his life making cool inventions…

I do think Sokka is a leader, but there are many flavours of leadership and he strikes me more as a very competent bureaucrat more than somebody who makes decisions on the world stage. I think he actually could’ve made a terrific technocratic advisor to someone like Katara, who is not quite as detail-oriented when it comes to solving problems. Like if the Water Tribes ever had, idk, a supply chain or procurement problem, Sokka would be all over that. If we’re talking about who displays more traditional qualities of leadership (willingness to take initiative, comfort with public speaking, tact and diplomacy, willingness to hear out different perspectives, ability to inspire others), Katara has a natural inclination. They could’ve been cool co-rulers too, actually.

As for whether Katara wanted to be Chief: so! Great question! I think if anyone had ever asked Katara “hey do you want to be the Chief of the Southern Water Tribes,” she would’ve been shocked, then said YES. Unequivocally.

But: we don’t see adult women in any positions of power in ATLA, and I think that’s something that Katara subconsciously internalized. As much as she’s a feminist icon who’d fight Pakku, I’m not sure she ever thought about women in positions of political power. Remember that the reason Katara was so set on learning combat waterbending was because the South did have female waterbending fighters, so she knew it was a possibility, but she’s never heard even a hint of the idea that a woman could be a ruler. Even Kiyoshi Island, the girlboss utopia, is run by a man. The only time we see a woman potentially becoming a ruler of anything is when Azula was briefly made Fire Lord, and even then it was pretty clear that she was supposed to be a puppet. In the North, Yue was never going to be Chief and everyone seemed to have accepted that, and Katara doesn’t find it unfair. This sounds so stupid, but I think this is why it’s important to have role models, you know? Katara would 1000% want to be Chief if anyone ever told her that it was an option.

What I do find super weird is how Katara also never seemed interested in a seat on the United Republic Council, even though working with people and pursuing justice and peace is very much Katara’s thing, and we do know that the URC had at least one Councilwoman. I don’t have a Watsonian explanation for Katara’s comparative political irrelevance that isn’t extremely sad (i.e. she decided she’d rather spend energy on restoring Air Temple Island and raising her children instead of pursuing a career in politics even though Toph also did a whole Thing while being a single mom).

I think if the writers of the comics and TLOK had gotten their heads out of the “girl power = girls fight good” mentality, they would have realized that Katara would be an amazing world leader. But they didn’t (and to be fair they seemed to have also forgotten that Katara fights at all), and we must live with the dumpster fire that is Katara’s canon arc.

[imaginarytree]

αγάπη που ξεπερνά την αιωνιότητα

love that transcends eternity

The endless daylight was...new to you and the fellow Trailblazers and was something you were still getting used to

you expected a lot of things in a world untouched by what lied beyond it but you did not expect this

A man who looked like someone you once held dear to your heart following you with a vigor that reminded you of the carefree days that no longer existed

Snow white hair and striking blue eyes that would be forever engraved both in your heart and in your soul

someone you knew yet someone new

a strange paradox you wanted to dismiss as a cosmic joke of the past you left behind haunting you once more

everywhere you turned he would be there waiting for you with seemingly endless energy yet you couldn't find it in you to ever feel tired or upset as he would give you a gaze so familiar it took your breath away from you

Phainon he called himself

you suppose that helps not make it as painful for you as his presence was

that all changed one day

you had been wandering to help refugees around Okhema to get settled

at first it was just a sweep of wind and a glance of the shadows but it felt different to you

you knew that gaze

you knew who that was

your heart called out before your mind did

it recognized HIM

so when he took you away from the dangers that threatened Okhema you never once felt unsafe

a man on with a dark cloak and a mask

someone mysterious to everyone else but to you

he didn't speak and neither did you to break the fragile bubble you both were in

someone who you had just seen kill without as much as breaking a sweat holding you as if he was holding a flower in a harsh wind

slowly you reached your hand towards his mask but before you could he grabbed it firmly with his own

you weren't intimidated and soon enough he relented when he saw you weren't planning to back down

slowly and gently set his mask aside to be met with familiar ivory locks and duller blue eyes

a hauntingly familiar face and presence that stole the breath from your lungs

He looked exactly like the one your heart had yearned for

tears pricked your eyes but before they could fall they were wiped away by the hands of the one you could never forget no matter how long you were apart nor no matter what world you were in

You leaned your forehead against his and put a hand on his cheek as you watched him relish in your presence as much as you did knowing this moment wouldn't last long

To commemorate the moment you both leaned into each other in a fragile and a tender brush of the lips as a sign that you both truly would find each other anywhere and everywhere and come back to one another with the undying devotion that would forever transcend destiny

Unfortuntely the moment was short lived as you both had to part ways quickly however the brush of the fingers on his promised that this wouldn't be the end

You would return to him just as he will return to you

ομορφιά της σιωπής

beauty of silence

first time writing something more than a headcannon i want to shoot myself cause i feel cringe💀

[rise-my-angel]

Heart of the Great Wolf

70 - Conflicting Boundaries and Ties

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 21.3k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, flashback scene, past character death, blood and violence, disturbing imagery, references to infant death, self harm, smut, oral (f receiving), p in v, over stimulation, blindfolds, bondage

Notes: No I don't know why this chapter is so bloody long, don't ask why. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here

It felt normal, everyone sat where they always did and food piled onto their plates without thought. A few seemed to be missing, but most of which always made their way a bit later to give the rest of them a chance to both wake up and for the youngest to get their early morning energy out of their system. Multiple times Arya had to turn to Bran and fix how he was holding his cutlery, his small hand holding each utensil with a closed fist and letting it stab down at his plate, his young mind not grasping why food wouldn’t stick when he did it. Only a year older, Arya had a good handle on bringing her little brother up to speed. Sansa kept eyeing Arya with a suspicious look, but also one with a wondering in mischief that wasn’t often seen on her face.

Across the table from them, Jon sat beside Robb hoping that his nerves did not come off of his person whatsoever. He looked more tired then usual, but the previous nights known activities could explain that. Nudging his brother in the side, Robb was the first to bring the more unusual missing person up as he gestured with a nod to the seat normally you took beside Sansa. “I’ve never seen her this late. What did you leave her out in the woods?”

If he played everything off as normal, it seemed as if his brother bought it when he shrugged one shoulder. Half finding his words through bites as if to cover up whatever would’ve come out in his speech. “If I never found her maybe.”

He felt lucky, Robb taking it much more playful then Jon knew it really was. “Didn’t think she’d be one to take losing so harshly.” Jon only jesting that maybe you were afraid they’d tease you for it right away, a grin shared between both brothers as Robb only muttered, “Well, we would.”

Jon could thank the gods no one could hear his heart by the time you made your way into the dining hall, otherwise they’d worry he was about to die, even if he felt like it anyways.

Nothing looked out of place, you had dried from the rain of the night before and your dress was different as if it wouldn’t be the next day, but Jon thought he hated it. The image burned into his mind was of last night, how you looked with the rain soaking your hair that it stuck to where it touched your neck, how it all drenched your dress and even though you had been dressed in more leathers for so much time outdoors, what soft fabrics covered you still had clung to you.

Swallowing roughly whatever of his food he had been chewing, he tried not to think back to the way as you heaved to catch your breath looking up at him, the way he had almost noticed for the first time just how much mature your body had changed to be almost without him noticing. You always covered up so modestly, that until your clothes stuck to you in the rain did Jons eyes, without you even noticing, tear down to your chest as you breathed heavily, the thought of whether or not they’d fit perfectly for his hands, but he dared not make any move like that.

Here as you walked in, you were innocent. Hair mostly pulled back save for loose strands you always liked to lay at the sides of your face, the braids done behind your back in a fashion he’d only ever seen on you before. Something you once told him was a sort of style that was common amongst women from the Stormlands, a complete contrast to the night before where your hair had fallen loose around you. If he curled his hand into a fist perhaps Jon could still feel the way the strands were soft and soaked between his fingers. Your dress long and warm this time, hiding away much of what men would describe as the body of a woman.

It drove Jon mad sitting there as all traces of the night before were nowhere on you, and how normal and calm you appeared without even glancing at him. Not even in an avoiding manner, as if you continued your day now as if nothing happened. No one noticed how tightly Jon held the fork in his hand to the point his knuckles turned white looking at you.

Instead of taking your seat, you found your way behind both girls, crouching down with raised eyebrows as you muttered between them. Not enough for no one else to hear, but quiet enough to indicate you only meant to speak to them. “Now, either you can both come with me. Or, we can wait until your mother comes down and all four of us can have a long chat with Septa Mordane and get to the bottom of this.”

Just as Arya tried to protest that it was Sansa’s fault, did Sansa protest that she didn’t do anything and it made both Robb and Jon smile at how little your knowing expression changed. Both turned to look at you, and that time Sansa at only six, tried very hard to act as calm and mature as you despite the blatant look of fear in her eyes of disappointing you. “I only did it because Arya did it to me first.”

It was lost on her that she sounded exactly like the small girl she was and not anywhere near as mature as you were almost ten years her senior. Tilting your head you only looked at her until her own gaze dropped with guilt, turning then to Arya. Jon knew whatever it was his sisters had done, you’d give Arya a little more slack considering she was only four, which her answer matched that. “I did not-” Sansa only snapping back that she did, and Arya cutting back in with a louder, “Prove it.”

A smirk, you pushed up to your full height before taking the matter out of their hands. Picking up Arya with ease at her size, you plucked her down onto her feet before half turning to look back at Sansa. “Either we handle this now with just myself, or your mother and Septa will determine what punishment is suitable.”

Both hands nudging the girls out of the room, if it were any normal day Jon wouldn’t have considered anything that you said nothing to him. But still, his heart pounded as he sat there with narrowing eyes watching where you were no longer in sight. You seemed calm and normal about this though, nothing like you were upset or mad or different in any way. Maybe that was a better sign then anything else.

No one knew, and neither of you gave away that there was anything to know. It made his day easier to get through. One thing, then the next, only sometimes did you make an appearance throughout Jons day spent mostly him with Robb, but normally you’d only show up with Theon in toe. No one in Winterfell thought you were acting different, and it made Jon relax immensely. No one treated him as if he were acting different.

By the time evening fell over the sky, Jon walked back to his chambers considering if he were hungry enough to even think about joining everyone for supper. The thought was rather boyish, but that if you were going to be there, he might find worth in it after all. Maybe he’d change through first. Take off his heaviest layers, wash up as if you needed impressing.

He didn’t notice until he already closed the door. The nervous figure standing in the middle of his room, hands wringing together in front of them with wide eyes and a matching expression that told him there was nothing but gut wrenching anxiety behind it all. Gently calling your name in question, you nearly turned to him with a startled gasp. As if you stood there nothing but nerves, and nothing like the normal girl you were during the day.

Opening and closing your mouth, he could see that the manner of yourself in the day was nothing but a facade. One falling apart before him as he stood there, but the moment he took a step towards you did you take two away, turning from him somewhat. Your voice soft but a stammer. “I- I came to apologize.”

Face twisting in confusion right away, Jon took a hesitant step towards you even when you weren’t looking. “Apologize?” You didn’t look at him as you nodded, just wrapped the shall around your arms over you more as if to hide away. Turning to attempt to glance back at him but never fully committing as you looked to nothing. “Apologize for what?”

Your brows furrowed, turning to him in your own frustrated confusion. “What do you mean for what?”

For a moment, both of you stood there. Feet from each other feeling as if it were miles. Both too afraid to approach as if it would spook the other, but really the only one at risk with such emotions were you. Something wide and almost shining behind your eyes that looked as if one wrong misstep here and he’d pull tears from you. Which spoke to him that something more serious was going on in your head. You never cried. Or, you never wanted to cry in front of anyone.

Tilting his head to implore you to give him something to go off of, you bit down on your tongue as you looked away only to inhale before speaking. Still not looking back at him. “For last night. I-” As you cut yourself off, Jon felt something twist in his stomach.

This couldn’t happen. Not now, not so soon. He’d never been happier then he was last night and it was all about to be for nothing. Jon was sure, he wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t sure. He knew it, he felt it, but now his own heart pounded painfully unsure if he read it wrong, and what that meant for your friendship going forward. The fear flowing through his blood that he had ruined everything.

Looking back at him though, something soft and vulnerable was on your face but the expression was strange as it tinted in shame and guilt. But not a judgmental one, a personal one, an upsetting one. “I should never have done what I did last night. When we..it was wrong, it was inappropriate, and I know I never should’ve put you in that situation.”

Jon took another step closer, now that fear turned to pure confusion. “You didn’t do anything wrong-”

“I did, Jon.” A raise in your voice lowered, looking around the room as if terrified everyone in the castle could hear you yelling before turning to mostly a mutter only he could hear. “I know better then that. Not to...” Repeating you, as not to what, trying to prompt you into being honest. Jon felt confused about what you were really trying to say now, but hearing it out loud hit him in a way he didn’t expect. “I didn’t mean to- I tempted you into it.” You begun to pace along his floor. “Being alone with you so late at night with no one around, the rain, my clothes, everything. It was wrong of me to put you in that situation.”

Truly, for a moment, Jon had no words as you looked at him with the watering in your eyes wishing to turn to tears as you elaborated. “If you need distance from me...or if you wish for your father to send me back home again, I’ll understand.”

His chambers were dead silent but the fire crackling beside him. Sometimes, Jon could forget. That you were younger then him. In two months, you’d reach your sixteenth name day but Jon had been eighteen for nearly half the year now. He’d been a man practically since you arrived a year and a half ago, but you were younger, and so much more innocent.

It was easy for Jon to grasp on his end, he knew he had never kissed someone before and he didn’t hesitate to share it with you. But you weren’t where he was. You likely had never even considered having your first kiss until bloody marriage the way you were raised so strictly. Everything the women in your life had taught you, the Seven, your Septa that Jon hated even though he never met her.

Jon kissed you last night, and you stood in his chambers now afraid that you had tempted him into it, and it was your fault. That you had done something wrong.

Sighing deeply, Jon took a step forward before his hand reached out. As if taming a spooked horse, he silently asked if he could come close. You looked at him wearily before nodding, and looking away again, the shall wrapping tighter around you. Coming up to your side, the nerves clearly hit you strongly as you turned away from him. Not stepping away, but your back now facing him not able to handle looking at him with your guilt.

Without second thought though, Jon let a hand raise. Come up to your upper arm, while the other found gentle and light at your waist. The term slipped from his tongue with ease, rasping and strong as if it was as natural as saying your name. “Darling, I need you to listen to me.” He waited until you nodded, his hand running up and down your arm soothingly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything in the first place. You didn’t tempt me, or seduce me or whatever it is everyone down south is putting in your head. I kissed you. Not the other way around.”

Your voice was a meek mutter, “I kissed you back, I encouraged you. You- men are different, and I shouldn’t have encouraged it when you didn’t want-”

He could tell his chuckle confused you. “Who says I didn’t want to?” You had no reply, nor did you have any idea of an answer he knew. “I kissed you, because I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very long time. Is it the kiss itself you’re upset about, or because it was with me?”

You didn’t really think about it, the way you turned to look up at him right away with wide, distressed eyes. Not realizing how close you stood with his hands on you, and how the stance had you and Jon pressed right up against each other. “No, that wasn’t it I promise-”

Moving the hand on your arm, Jon brushed some of the loose strands of hair at your side behind your ear, letting his hand trace to your cheek as this thumb ran over the soft skin. “Let me make this easy. Did you like it? When I kissed you?” Your nod was so shy Jon’s eyes could’ve rolled into the back of his head. “One more question.” Leaning down, he tilted your head up to look at him. “Did you want to try again?”

“Now?” Jon nodded, a stammer coming back over you as he felt your muscles twitching under his touch as if wanting to run.

Narrowing his eyes at you, Jon moved you to sit at the edge of his bed. Facing him as he sat beside you, your arms loosened their hold on the shall a little, his hand still cupping your cheek as he leaned over to you. “There’s nothing wrong with what we did, and there’s nothing wrong with the fact that you liked it. It was a kiss, darling. I didn’t tear your clothes off and take you against the tree.” The bright grin Jon had as you flushed terribly, looking away with a complete stammer.

You were so innocent about things, but he had never found it more endearing then that moment.

Your hands finally fell to your lap, fingertips toying with each other, voice soft. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.” He knew what you meant, but he nudged you to look up at him with his hand under your chin, his eyes asking you to explain. “I’m supposed to wait until I marry-”

Jons grin grew. “To what? To kiss a man?” Your embarrassment tried making you turn away, but with something a bit more playful added to it. Muttering your name, he tilted you to look back at him as he leaned close. “We don’t have to do it again, we don’t have to do anything. But you need to understand you didn’t do anything wrong, and I kissed you, because I’ve always wanted to kiss you. And if you ever want to do it again, I’ll be right here.”

That time your brows narrowed. Something a bit girlish in the way you let it mutter out in an embarrassed sort of jealousy he could sense you wished to cover up. “Why though? Why do you want to kiss me? You have plenty of other girls-” Jon interrupted with a gentle laugh asking what girls when you begun to stammer again. “The other girls..you..the ones who you kissed before me..”

Jon tilted your head to meet his bright gaze, “You’re the only one I’ve ever kissed, darling. The only girl I’ve ever wanted to kiss.” There was both an innocence but a hopefulness in the way you looked up at him, as if possibly everything was going to be alright. “This is new for both of us, but, we can do it together. However fast or slow you want.”

Jon knew it would be slow, very slow. But as you looked up brightly at him with a hope in your eyes even more prominent, he knew that taking it slow would be perfectly fine as long as it was with you. “I think I’d like that.” Prompting you to elaborate, there was a soft but embarrassed smile as you said it, the words foreign on your innocent lips. “...to kiss you again..”

He was as new at this all as you were, but still did it feel natural for Jon to take the reigns. Leaning close, cupping your cheek as his lips hovered over yours. Your eyes slipped closed, his hot breath dancing across your skin as his grey eyes looked down to your lips with a deep rasp. “We can do this as much as you like, I promise.”

For a moment, Jon waited to see if you’d close the gap, but he knew better. He was still correct. You were younger, far more naive and innocent about physical feelings and as close to a woman as you were, Jon still was the man. He had to ease you into it, make you feel safe. And for now, being the one to kiss you, was what made you feel safe.

His eyes slipping shut, Jon closed the gap. His lips connecting gentle to your softer ones. Slow and chaste, but just as you had on instinct last night, responded right away. Moving with his kiss but letting Jon dictate everything about it. Your hands slowly reached forward, finding his upper chest, slipping to his shoulders as Jon cupped both your cheeks and turned you to his mercy.

More and more he deepened it, but never without slowly guiding you. One kiss, then another, barley able to even describe it as pulling away before Jon kissed you again. By the time he pulled away, your eyes still closed as Jons fluttered open to look down at you. Pressing a firm kiss to your forehead, Jon very gently let his nose nudge into yours to gain your attention. “Do you want me to ask everytime, or is it alright if I just kiss you again?”

Luckily, he read your nod. Pressing his lips back to yours. Both of you sat on the edge of his bed, nothing intense or even perverse about the gentle, intimate manner Jon kissed you with. His hands by your cheek and hair, yours clinging to his shoulders as if trusting him to lead you.

Jon knew what he felt, he knew it for a long time. He wouldn’t say it, but he felt exactly as he did last night too. Jon knew what love felt like, and he had found it nowhere but in your sweet and gentle kiss.

Yet, it didn’t feel like it was staying that way. Jon could feel you, taste, you, hear you but further and further did you seem to drift away from him. Out of reach of his arms and touch as the room around him grew cold. Too did everything change as Jon looked around. No longer sitting, he stood in the middle of his room until the his head whipped around, hearing screaming. Your screams echoing along his own walls as if they were made rock echoing at him. His hands raised up to his view, soaked in blood as you screamed more and more. Turning one way, he looked back towards his bed where it no longer was.

You laid against what looked like a cave wall, eyes open but unmoving. Soaked in blood like his hands, and the lifeless body of a small blood soaked infant in your arms. The screaming had faded as you and your son had from life, but the lingering horror tearing his eyes up did not last. Instead, Jon was forced away from you to a sound of crashing against the walls. Turning around and around you had disappeared, but now he stood in his room alone, but with walls made of wood.

Banging and clawing and smashing and suddenly did deathly arms break through. Faces torn and rotted and bone but with eyes shining blue as they clawed their way to the inside of Jons chambers. Dressed in blacks and leathers with Longclaw at his side, he heard fighting and shouting and death all around as they tried to get in. Each wall they tore down Jon could see around him. The snow blowing around everywhere and the white cold freezing beyond compare.

Just as they crashed inside, burst through as those outside the room in the cold died by the thousands did they circle him. But when Jon spun to face them, he was unarmed. He was lost, confused, and in the dark of the courtyard of Castle Black. In his hand, he clutched tightly a note with a paper tinged ever so slightly in pink before the wights which approached him.

One, then the next, each wight wore the face of his brothers. Most watched and did nothing. In his stomach he felt two at first. Right in his stomach and another not so far, the wight with blue eyes but the face of Ser Alliser. The next the same, but the face of Othell Yarwick, again in the stomach and one more by his hip. The next wight both in the chest, and the face of Bowen Marsh. The final was the most confusing, a knife plunged right in his heart as he could see Olly mouthing the words, “For the Watch.” But Jon could not hear them.

The cold fades around him, as water and green and lush surrounded as he fell backward against the ground, wounds bleeding out. As if armour had been covering him he felt heavy, and the wights fighting around him were nothing but living men in a battle. He could not make out the face which stood over him, but held in their hands was a great war hammer. And just as it was to come down, shattering his bones to pieces did Jon whisper a name.

His insides told him to whisper one womans name, but Jon laid there and whispered another. The name of the voice he could hear echoing in the distance, his own name right back. And just as the hammer found his chest, did Jon awake with a horrible startle.

Hands grasping at his arm, you leaned down right into his curls with a gentle shush. “Jon, breathe for me, it’s alright.” One gasp after the next, did Jon lay on his side struggling to seek his breathe. He had torn awake suddenly, tearing from your gasp as if the dream he had, had forced him into being awake with a jump. Turning to the side with his palms against the sheets hardly able to breathe like it had been taken away from him.

Pushing yourself more as Jon sat up more, his feet finding the floor but not committing to standing did you drape yourself gentle along his back. One hand by his waist, you reached the other to slid under his arm and seek out his heart. Scar and all you felt it pounding under your hand, but Jon reached his own up. Snatching yours and clutching it in the same spot tightly.

Your head leaned into his neck with your lips leaving gentle presses to his skin as his now more sweat dampened curls didn’t bother you in the slightest. Your voice hardly a murmur, but whispered light in his ear. “I’ve got you, I promise.”

His eyes remained closed for a moment as he tried to control his breathing. Not willing to let go of your hand, you continued to match the gesture with your lips not leaving his skin. Neck, his cheek, side of his head whatever you reached to try and lull him back to you. Feeling his head lean back into you, did you nuzzle right back. The hand on his waist curling around to press more to the scars along his stomach, not even realizing the degree to which your touch against the wounds was bringing Jon back down so quickly.

Letting his breathing even out, Jons eyes opened to the room. The fireplace the only light in front of him, but it was his chambers. The same ones his dream showed, where he kissed you the night after the first time. Only now, it was many years later, and he was the one in pieces as you kneeled behind him with gentle words and a sweet touch to bring him back to you.

His voice strained with a rasp, as if he had been yelling fiercely, despite silent in his sleep. “I’m sorry I woke you.” Shaking your head, you leaned back down into his neck muttering not to be. You felt his back lean more into your touch, his free hand rising up to run his hands through what he could of your hair, his fingers dancing through the soft strands with a sigh like he felt relieved. It took him a good minute to say anything, as if finding the courage too. “Normally they don’t wake me up like that.”

Your hand free along his chest run along the skin you could reach, feeling his muscles relax each passing motion. “You called my name out.” Your voice just a tender mumble in his ear. “Right before you woke up, you called to me quietly, like you were afraid.” His brows furrowed, you only nuzzling the side of his head more. “You don’t have to tell me, Jon. It’s alright.”

Shaking his head, he swallowed back down that fear now that he could feel and hear you in what he knew was the present. “It wasn’t just one thing.” You didn’t let go of your hold on him as he spoke. “It was about us, at first. When we were younger, then..everything kept changing. I was back at Hardhome, then Castle Black the night they murdered me. And you-” Jon dared not tread into the screams and sight of you he saw. Refusing to even bring it up to you, not just remind you of it, but not wishing for you to know he dreamt of it near every night. You leaned more into him with a tighter grasp, even as Jon relaxed more. “Then...I don’t know. I’ve dreamt of it before but I never figure out what it is. I was in a field..a battle..I was on the ground about to die when I tried calling out to you, then I heard your voice and I woke up.”

A gentle whisper in his ear, “We all have nightmares sometimes-”

“Like the ones you pretend you don’t get every night?” It wasn’t an accusatory tone, but it caught you off guard. Pulling back only enough to look over his shoulder more at him in a wide eyed question before he shook his head. “If you get to comfort me after mine, why don’t I get to after yours?”

Voice very quiet, but you knew Jon always heard you. “You’d never get any sleep if you did.”

Jon actually chuckled deep in his chest, a small bemused smirk coming over him as he turned somewhat to try and meet your eyes. Letting go of the hand over his heart to try and reach back to you, feeling the ends of your hair as his grey eyes grew a bit brighter looking at you. “I’m awake to know when you have a nightmare more then you think I am.” Asking why, almost in a purposefully playful tone to ease him back into things Jon only let his fingers trace over your cheek that he could reach. “Whose going to protect you if I’m asleep?”

Heart tight, you leaned more to grasp at him now as if for your sake. “We protect each other.” Pressing a kiss to his cheek, you gently pulled at him to follow as you moved behind. “Come on, we still have a little while before the baby wakes up.”

Instead of Jon resuming how he normally slept, on his side pulling you firm into his chest, you took the reigns with a gentle hand. Laying a bit more up against the bed, and pulling Jon down to rest more against your front. His hands able to grasp onto either side of you as he lay somewhat on his front and side against you. His legs reaching the end of the bed whereas yours higher up didn’t go nearly as far. One hand ran over his shoulder and back, the other not hesitating to find his curls and run your fingers through them, never allowing them to snag on a strand.

Mumbling into your front, you could tell how quickly Jon was fading back into sleep. “We’re not laying like this every night.”

A gentle laugh you weren’t even sure if it hit his ears as his breathing evened out against you. Always the one to comfort you, you suspected sometimes Jon forgot he had been through just as much pain and horror. That he still had things to haunt him. Your eyes tore between looking up to the stone ceiling, and back down watching Jon sleep as your hands never ceased running through his curls.

You knew come morning he likely wouldn’t be very willing to admit what had been in his dreams specifically, but you felt thankful he at least allowed you to give him this. That he allowed himself to be held by you for once, not to push down his struggles for your struggles.

By the time the sun peeked through the windows, you weren’t sure you slept much after that. Dozed off a few times, but you knew most of the time you had never let go of Jon or your gentle touch. By the looks of where the brightness was in the sky, Jon would’ve been awake before you by this point, but still his muscles felt dead to the world.

Glancing over, it was as if as long as Jon was asleep this deep, so was his son. You’d have to wake him soon to feed him, but both wolf and pup were as gone to the waking world as the other. A gentle knock at the door though, your eyes flew down to Jon, but still he did not stir. A smile crept on your lips, and this you had begun the painful process of sneaking out from his touch. Still asleep his brows furrowed as he reached out to grab at you, but you prompted him more to relax, laying on his front.

Leaning down, you pressed a kiss to the top of his head, your hands running down his back gently before getting up from the bed. Pulling something warm over you quickly just to cover up modestly, you creaked the door open only enough so that you could be seen and nothing else.

Both Sam and Olly seemed to have been bantering over something as they stood outside the door, but much to both their surprises, you were not who they expected. Part of you could only wonder, how often did Jon open the door in the early hours of the morning sending people off not to disturb you while still asleep, yourself. Your voice a quiet tone to try and ensure they didn’t speak too loudly. “What is it?”

Looking to Olly, it seemed you being there had taken them both off guard. Sam attempting to sound as normal as possible, as if otherwise he’d be coming off as awkward. “Well, I was just hoping to see Jon about something-”

“Is it urgent?” Sams head jolted back a bit by your more stern question, even moreso when you repeated yourself. “Is it urgent? Does he have to speak to you right now, or can it wait?” Sam only commenting that of course it could wait, and interrupted before he could say anything else. “Good. Now..now isn’t a good time.”

You could tell for a moment that Sam’s instinct was to make a joke about much more physical affairs, as if that was one he’d normally make to Jon. But meeting your eyes, there was something he could see in them that told you would not take that very well, for whatever it was it was serious he seemed to pick up. “I only thought, because Jons normally-” Shaking his head to cut himself off did he change routes. “If you could just tell him that I need to talk to him about something, sometime today.”

Nodding firmly, “Of course.” Sam looked at you and then Olly before making his way. Your glance at Olly though, was more hesitant. Part of Jons dream he said, that night at Castle Black. The Olly in front of you now was very different no doubt then the one holding a knife that night, but still you thought. Jon didn’t often have so blatantly bad dreams, and you wanted to take care of him as he would you. “Maybe, you should come back later too.”

Olly’s brows furrowed, “Is everything alright?”

He didn’t buy your smile, nor did it last long enough on your face for it to be meant too. “It is, it’s..” Trying to put it as diplomatically as possible, you didn’t want any hint of guilt put on the boy for something that had been long discussed over again. “It’ll just be a slower start to the morning is all. Jon needs time before everything else today.”

Hesitating at your expression, but he did not fight you. “I understand, your grace. Should I pass that onto the maids?” Asking if he would please, Olly too made his leave as you closed the door.

The timing couldn’t have worked better, as one stirred awake before the other. A small sound crying into the morning air of the bedchambers, little Eddard breaking a smile out onto you without delay. Walking over to his cradle, you leaned down to let your hand rest at his front. “And how were your dreams last night?” Just a small babble with a smile did his make yours grow wider. “Good. At least one of you had an easy night.” Picking the baby up into your arms, he wasn’t yet impatient to be fed, just leaning into you as you held him more high against your chest to rest against at first. One hand holding him firmly, the other resting comfortingly along his back, not unlike the exact manner you had done lulling Jon back to sleep.

Looking over, you turned so the baby too could see him. Little head turning as he still rested it against you, a hand reaching out with a tiny cry as you smiled. Looking at Jon then the baby with a whisper, “Let him sleep more, silly boy. You and I can get through one morning on our own without him.”

By the time Jon stirred awake, his voice was a grumbling husk so heavy with sleep his accent was thick to follow. Glancing over to his side of the bed, Jon had turned onto his side facing you, letting his elbow prop him up to watch you closely. “Wish I could make up to this more often.”

You laughed gently, leaning against the headboard, you held the baby to your breast to feed, a tired but relax look on your face as you had been gazing down at the baby and even brighter now looking at Jon. “You could if you let yourself sleep in more.”

Shaking his head, Jon pushed up right away. Coming up to your side, and slinking his arms behind you and tugging you into him without jostling the baby. Kissing the skin below your ear before Jon rasped into it, “I can’t take care of you if I’m asleep and you’re not.” Muttering with a playfulness that he didn’t always have to take care of you, Jons brows furrowed as if you said something ludicrous. “Of course I do.” His lips pressed firmer to the hair at the side of your head, leaning down against you as his hand wrapped around to your waist and his other traced along your front. Pushing the material of your shift up, not for any indecency but so he could freely run his hand along your stomach, smoothing over the scar that matched the fatality in his.

The morning quiet for a few minutes as you both watched your son feed from you, Jon unable to help himself most of the time from turning into your hair with his lips to follow. Sometimes trailing down to your neck, but never yet pushing it too far. One hand always against your stomach quite firmly, as if so you always could feel he was there.

Neither of you yet spoke about his nightmare, but at least for the time being, there was peace between the three of you as long as you stayed in the little bubble of Jons chambers together. If only it lasted.

Forearms leaned across the table, your fingernails dug mindlessly into the wood as your face felt permanently twisted in thought. It had felt like that for the past hour, the men around you all discussing more then you could comprehend all together and eventually you found yourself lost in the whirlwind of theory and information being shared.

Having started from the top, the original intention was to relay everything of what they knew now and what occurred to both Stannis and Ser Davos, only for the interrupting figure of Ser Royce entering the room before they begun, his tone rough and on the side of doubtful, but when on this topic, doubt was something Jon was very used to being sent his way. “If the Queen is right, and these things are responsible for what happened to my son, then I want to hear about it. All of it.”

More then once your eyes would turn from the table, head spinning just enough to look over your shoulder to where the door to the side room was still partially open. On the fur laid out by the fire, Gilly was sat with little Sam, an easy to read book in her hands, and Sam in her lap as she slowly and quietly read the words. Helping Sam point along to each she read, sometimes prompting him to say certain ones back. A bit beside her, you could see the small cradle on the ground as well where your son was laying.

Sometimes you’d look and he was unmoving, clearly asleep. Other times you’d hear the occasional faint sound coming from him as a limb would move. If it was loud enough, Gilly sometimes would turn from Sam to give the baby bright smiling attention with ease. This time however when she glanced upward, with a more nervous swallow and bite to her lip did she look wearily at you. An attempt to act as if she was still looking at you in a normal way, but the manner she diverted her gaze quickly back down to little Sam told that she knew she couldn’t keep it up for long.

Eyes glancing back to the discussion around you, your shoulders deflated, feeling like your brows furrowed more and you turned inward on yourself. Pretending you didn’t feel Jons gaze on you each time your mood grew more dour each time Gilly would no longer talk to you.

Around you though, a thorough discussion was being had as the question was brought up, asked by Ser Davos as he gestured to you. “Why her though? I only mean both times wights attacked any of you in a group, they always went for her first.” Many things tossed about at first, being a woman, looking the most venerable, or that maybe you were simply just convenient in both instances.

Sam shook his head at most. “Nothing I’ve been able to find says anything about that. During the Long Night, they make no mention that women or children were exempt or special in anyway when the dead came through.”

Tormund rumbled from where he sat, giving Jon a more knowing look drenched in a darkness shared between a horror none here but them had seen. “Boys right. When they hit us at Hardhome, it didn’t matter who was in their way. A whole group of those things were children when they attacked Karsi.” Jon only muttering roughly to add that then she too was woken up into one of them.

It was your father who brought it up, directed at Sam. “You killed one of them, with a piece of obsidian. What happened before then, that could possibly tell us anything?”

That time it was Sam whose eyes went over to Gilly, but instead of a fear he once may have still held, there was something more brave in him finally as he spoke of it. “It didn’t care about me at all. It just threw me out of the way trying to get to Gilly. Or, well, she said it was here for the baby.”

Jons face twisted downward as he looked away, eyes closing for the length it took to roughly exhale through his nose before answering the why being asked in result. “Because that’s what Craster was doing to his sons.” All eyes looked at him, and yours barley flickered over as well with a knowing that only made you feel heavy in your limbs. “Everytime one of his wives had a baby boy, he’d wait until nightfall, then take them out to the woods and leave them there. So the Others could take them.”

“How do you know that?” Jon met Benjens gaze who looked the most like he believed it but still something exasperated in his tone that most all held hearing it now. “His wives used to say strange things about it, that they were gifts to the gods but I never..”

Swallowing rough once more, Jons hands braced against the table curled more into fists as if to relieve the tension somewhere. “I saw it. I followed Craster in the woods one night, and saw him leave his son out there. And I saw what came and took it away.” The wide look in his grey eyes as he found Sam, head tilting with something of a silent apology trying to follow. “It was there for the baby. Probably came to collect, and when the mutineers took over the keep, it went looking for the child.”

The glance shared between Meera and Bran caught both your and Jons attention. “We heard a baby in the middle of the woods, early on before we were captured by those men.”

Bran nodded, his eyes finding Jons as if too putting things together at just how close to this winding mystery they all were at separate times. “I went out in Summers mind trying to see what was happening, but before I did, I saw Ghost.” Jon standing up a bit straighter with a narrowing in his eyes. “They had him locked up in a cage, but Summer fell into a trap before I could see anything else. The next morning when we went to go look, was when they found us.”

Jon looking to Sam with something a bit more agitated playing close to his chest, “You and Gilly were already at Castle Black when that happened. Which means it was another boy they-” Cutting himself off in thought, Jon forced the thought through without blame for the women, he knew it wasn’t their fault for it. “They must have convinced Karl and the rest that it needed to be done.”

But Bran had pointed out what the glaring issue was as he mentioned to you, “But neither time they attacked her had anything to do with the baby. He wouldn’t even have been born when she got attacked at the Nightfort, and north of the Wall they attacked her when she was alone. If they wanted the baby, wouldn’t they have gone right for him, just like the Others did with Sam and Gilly?”

That time, you and Jon knew everyone saw the uncertain look shared between you. Neither of you tried to hide it, nor did either of you hide what expressions followed. Jons with that of frustration, yours much more of something helpless and defeated as you turned to look back at your nails still failing to scratch into the wooden surface. “What? What is it?”

Jon chose the hard path, but too the direct one. “In both times, the Nightfort and that day in the Haunted Forest. She was there both times, but what about her is different then anyone else was who was there too?”

A woman was out, as Meera and Yara were present the second time. The second time could’ve been called an easy target when alone but you were in the room with Theon the first, and Tormund and Olly both were just outside the room when it happened. You were unarmed properly the second time but armed the first. All options thrown about seemed to go nowhere until it dawned on one of them.

It seemed fitting that it first came from Bran. “The Andals.” Most eyes looked to him, but Jons only looked to yours. You felt them, but didn’t look at up at them. “The four at the Nightfort, and when we were north of the Wall. We’re all descendants of the First Men, but she isn’t.”

Tormund looked to him in a doubt, “I’ve seen my people and southerners alike get carved up by those things. Didn’t matter who they were.”

Bran kept going, his eyes narrowed as if putting it together in his mind from pieces he knew, pieces he saw, and everything else he’s head. “That was before, when the Nights Watch and Free Folk were both constantly north of the Wall. They still had men to collect for an army at that point.” Jon looked over to Tormund with a nod, Hardhome. An attack meant to collect the Free Folk left and gain the most of their army from what was far North they could, and they succeeded in the tens of thousands. Sam asking what that had to do with you being a descendant of the Andals, but again Jon caught your eye.

Yours were wide but with hardly any brightness in them, a tilt of your head slightly to the side to indicate that he should just say it. That at least, was something you both knew, for better or worse, though most of it continued to point to worse. “In some way, we know parts of each others languages. The Others using old runes to leave messages. The old stories say the Long Night ended with one man finding a way to defeat the Others, but we know better. One man isn’t enough to lead a battle to victory, not against them.” Jons eyes trapped back not dissimilar to somewhat of the disturbed way they looked when he awoke so violently that morning. “I killed one of them with Longclaw, and then one raised up tens of thousands they just killed. That was a message too. That it doesn’t matter how many of them I or any one else kill, they’ll always have more power against us then we do them.”

Leaning more to where Jon stood, Sam asked “What are you saying?”

That time when Jon looked at you, you knew you failed at giving him anything comforting, as if it all had left that morning behind safe in his chambers and had no part out with everyone else anymore. But his eyes were soft, trying to assure you, but you felt too distant and strained in your chest to be able to understand what he said in any specific of the silence. “The Dawn Age started when the First Men made peace with the Children of the Forest. Some treaty not to fight each other anymore. We may have enough weapons and dragon glass to defend ourselves and the people we love, but not enough to take down an army of that size. And we know we didn’t kill them. If we did, they wouldn’t be here now. They just left.”

Stannis put it together in words as some were still connecting it. “You’re saying that the First Men made an arrangement of peace with the Others?” Jon nodded with his muscles rather tense. “What does that have to do with their attacks on my daughter?”

“If they made some kind of deal to end it, it was thousands of years before the Andals ever came over to Westeros. They may not know the difference between the Free Folk and the Northerners living on the other side of the Wall, but they know the difference between the people they made a deal with, and the ones that they never agreed to have peace with.”

A loud scratch had you nearly flinching, the right painful degree of pressure pushed downwards to scratch into the rough wooden table just as you matched in how hard you bit down on your tongue, keeping your face twisted but unmoving, and hopefully to any but Jon, unreadable.

Tormund and Sam both brought up that they attacked the free folk, Northerners, and they didn’t care, but Jon too had an answer that you both knew, was far more confident then a man just figuring it out as he spoke them. “It could be two options.” First looking to Tormund, “They saw your people as necessary casualties to build their army.” The second he looked to the rest of them. “Or they see our mixing with Southerners as breaking whatever deal the First Men made thousands of years ago.”

Shaking his head, Sam looked as in disbelief as everyone else, only he had the courage to say something about it. “What kind of deal-” Jon only muttered that he had no idea, that it was over eight thousand years ago, which Sam relented. “Any information on the Long Night since has all but disappeared, I suppose that disappeared as well. But why now? The Andals came over four thousand years ago, the Rhoynar not long after that, why only wake up now?”

It was not lost on either of you, that you said it, so Jon didn’t have to trap himself in what could’ve come off as a lie. “That’s what we are still trying to figure out. We have ideas, but not the whole picture.” It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t quite the truth, and your nails continuing to carve into the wood meant you missed the grateful but needing look Jon had given you for it knowing he didn’t know how to say it or even what to say about it. Neither of you hardly understood it yet as much as you knew.

Ser Davos asked a very good question however, “How do you know that? The Andals and the First Men, how can you be sure that’s why they’d attack her instead of any of you?” Jon only saying that he and you went beyond the Wall in the first place to find answers like that. “So, what do we do? If whatever this treaty existed doesn’t apply anymore, what do we do?”

Jons answer was tinted in more vagueness then he was letting off, but it still was the right one. “Exactly what we’ve been doing. Prepare to fight, and hope the rest of the Kingdoms join us before it’s too late.”

Sitting down, his hand running over his face, Ser Royce looked up to Jon. “I never knew your father to be a man to lie in such outlandish ways, Jon Arryn himself raised him to value the truth. I may not know what the rest of the Lords in the Vale will think about any of this, but if Ned Stark were the one telling me all of this, I’d believe him. Which means I have every reason to believe what his son is telling me now.”

Jon nodded, a strain in his low tones. “I’m not asking you to believe me without question, but I’ve seen what the Others can do. Sam’s seen it, Tormund’s seen it. What the army of the dead will do to us if they breach the Wall, and even if the North somehow manages to protect itself, you, your people, no one in the south will be safe. And the Others won’t care how much you didn’t believe us.”

You could see why Ser Royce would be a man that greatly respected Ned Stark, the blunt manner he got to the point without being rude about it. “If I did choose to believe all this, what would you have us do?”

Right away Jon had an answer, and a powerful one. “Train. Your people all need to train. Spears, pikes, sword, bow and arrow. Every man who can hold a stick needs to be able to fight, and if they all fall, then your women and children need to know how to fight all the same.”

Leaning forward, he had the same expression that many of the men in the hall had the day Jon said it to the North. The same one that your father and Ser Davos now were wearing as Ser Royce said it. “My youngest granddaughter’s tenth nameday is this year. Do you expect me to put a sword in her hand when she’d barley be able to hold it up?”

Your nails only dug deeper, to the point you wondered if the stinging you were feeling was actually drawing blood, but you had not the will to drag your hand from it’s position to do so as Jon said it. “If winter doesn’t kill us all before I get a chance to have a daughter of my own, I won’t hesitate to train her exactly as I will my son.”

You knew no doubt to the southern men, all fathers in their own rights looked at Jon as if he had said something completely mad. But, your eyes only tore up to the side to look at your fathers, a narrowing glare to not stay in silence when you knew he understood Jon was right. Whether or not he felt pressure from you, or he found it willing in him to say it, did Stannis speak up in Jons defence. Saying your name as you hadn’t yet looked away from your father in a stare that could only be described as eerily matching of his own. “She came home to Dragonstone at twelve, someone had begun to teach her the basics of sword fighting while she was gone. I didn’t like it, I had never intended for her to learn. Fighting wasn’t for girls. But, she already started, and it would be a waste to let those lessons go nowhere. So I kept them going. I could only imagine how unprepared for this threat or the world she would be now, if no one bothered to start her on that path in the first place.”

Neither of you said anything how he had somehow figured out it was Jon, nor did you suspect Jon knew either. Only feeling his eyes in the back of your head as he spoke. “Ser Royce, I can only tell you what I told my people when they said the same thing as you. I hate every single time she’s anywhere near a fight or battle, but I’d never want to take away the fact that knowing how to defend herself has saved her own life more then I ever have.”

Were you not in a room with so many people, or your nails finally wanting you to scream in pain, you might have looked up to him with a brightness that Jon would know was a protest. You knew how to defend yourself because of him, even if he didn’t swing the sword in every instance, you still owed all of it to Jon for knocking you to the dirt in the courtyard with a training sword in the first place.

Ser Royce sat in thought, “I cannot promise anything, and I won’t until I know in my soul this all is true, but I could speak to the other Lords of the Vale. At least push the stubborn old bastards in the right direction.” Glancing at him, his face didn’t change any from how rough it was but his tone did take on what felt like a rare jest towards Jon. “No offence meant of course.”

You could hear Jon actually withholding a bit of a smirk. “No offence taken, my lord. There’s nothing you could say that I haven’t heard dozens of times already.”

A crack of a smile came over the man in return. “You’re your fathers son, no doubt.”

Only then did your eyes look over to Jon, and you knew only you had seen the flash over the greys that spoke much like something distant and disturbed again like that morning. Whatever this dream was in detail, it felt as if it wasn’t the first time he had it. Just the first time you had woken up with him when he awoke from it so suddenly.

The last to get up, it wasn’t until you felt a warm hand grab at your wrist, pulling your hand up from where it felt like it was melted to the table. Your fingertips shaking slightly as blood was clearly dripping from them, somewhat too coated as if it had been doing so a while. Nervous eyes glanced up to Jon, his own narrowing in a worried disbelief as he found the spot you had been carving into.

Prompting you to stand with his other hand finding your waist, Jon turned to Sam with as much of an even tone as he could despite you knew he felt otherwise not calm. “Sam, could you and Gilly watch the baby a little longer?”

It was discreet, the way Sams eyes looked from Jon down to where he clearly had a hold on your wrist and the sight more of blood, but with wider eyes trying to hide as neutral he nodded. “Of course, whenever you’re...finished.” Jon muttered a thank you, but you felt Sams eyes on you as Jon turned to walk you out.

Motioning for you to lean against the wall as he closed the door behind him, you sighed shakily before he came close to your front. Without saying much, Jon grabbed at your hips, lifting you with a gesture to sit back on the high table behind you, “There you go.” Looking over there only seemed to be two which had bled, eyes scouring for any sharp shards of wood he must have come to the conclusion whatever you scraped them so hard against was attached to the table not in your skin.

Hidden from his side, did he pull out wrappings, one hand holding yours up he lifted his other to use his teeth tearing at the fabric to make smaller strips before gently wounding them around each finger. “I’ll clean this later, but this will do for now.” Asking in a gentle voice if he just kept that on him, did he surprise you. Eyes peeking up with more of a playfulness and smirk to match, “I know who I’m married too.”

One finger then the next, before using the third to wrap around both and your hand in general, did his brows begin to furrow a little. “Jon?”

Shaking his head with a sigh he didn’t look away from his work. “Soon enough your hands will be covered in more scars then I am.” Your head tilted almost in a bemused disapproval, and too did he smirk before continuing. “I know you weren’t seeing anything.” A single shake of your head no. “Do you want to tell me what happened this time?”

With a sigh, you finally found it in you not willing to look away from him. “Everything we know, and it still doesn’t feel like enough.” Glancing up to you with a furrowed brow, Jon finished tying the wrappings off before pulling your hand up to press a kiss to the skin still exposed. Letting it sit in your lap with your other as he cupped the side of your head, leaning in with gentle eyes as you finished. “Sometimes it gets to me.”

Running his thumb over your cheek, he gave a small shift to a more stern expression. “You get hurt enough as it is. You can’t be doing it to yourself.” Leaning down more to meet your eyes properly, you gave him a nod. Which for now, he accepted without words to follow from you. His other hand coming up to your waist, sitting a bit low closer to your hip.

Keeping your eye, he slightly grasped at the skirt of your dress, pulling it enough that your lips parted, a fluster rising in your chest. Jons smirk grew as he only moved it enough to give him proper room to stand between your legs. Shifting his hand so the thumb on your cheek could now tilt you by the bottom of your chin to look up at him. Where the inclination came from, you weren’t entirely sure, but the tone you said it with while not at all seductive, there was a purposeful innocence about it that Jon knew was no accident. “My King?”

Eyes closing, Jon let out a rough exhale. His jaw clenched as he murmured your name in warning. “Don’t.” Asking what specifically, you felt his hand both at your waist and more by your jaw tighten as his eyes begun to bleed the grey into a darker colour. “Don’t tempt me here.”

You knew you were pushing it, a small grin fighting it’s way onto your face. “I didn’t say anything, my King.” A roughly muttered word of stop, and your hands reached up to rest at his shoulders. “I only ask if there’s anything you need. The King takes such good care of his people, he deserves to be rewarded-”

Both of you knew it was a trap you were setting, but Jon let himself walk right into it. Grabbing both of your cheeks, Jon pulled you up into him to press his lips to yours. Sliding a hand right away to the back of your neck, keeping you there in his hold. Your hands slipped to his waist to steady yourself, only able to follow Jons command.

His lips were so soft, guiding you deeper and deeper as you felt a whine in your chest travel up for him to capture. A growl rumbling deep in his chest, never parting from you for more then half a second and certainly never enough to let you gasp for air. Leaning more over you, Jon tilted your head back even more, nowhere for you to escape his kiss.

He didn’t even need too, the bite to your lip causing you to part the, so his tongue could slide into your mouth. You would’ve done so for him without being asked, but Jon had other ideas. Ones that had his hand on your cheek drift down. Grasping at your waist with a tightness, did he step forward. Too many layers between you, but enough bulk sat low attached to his person that you’d feel it at least brushing to your inner thighs. A tease of what you could have if you were anywhere else.

Running his hand down your thigh, he gripped tightly the edge of the skirt of your dress as low as it was, the temptation to yank it up growing more and more appealing to him. Brushing his tongue against yours as you let out a higher pitched moan, Jons hand fisted the hair at the back of your neck through his fingers tightly. Readjusting his hold more and more, as if telling you like a wolf that you were under his control. Which his strength certainly spoke of that. Letting go of your dress, Jon shamelessly let his hand drift up the skin of your leg, squeezing your thigh roughly until he got to his destination.

Pulling back, the saliva trailed between your lips as he watched with hooded eyes as yours barley fluttered open up to him. Rasping low and roughly, “It’s like you want me to take you where anyone can find us.”

Looking up at him, there was a lightness in your heart, but a breathlessness caused by him as you said it so genuinely. “Like you said, we’re married, and you’re King. You can take me anywhere you want, any time you want.” Eyes bleeding black, Jons gaze twisted looking over you as his hand roamed under your dress to the nothing in his way.

Suddenly his large hand covered you completely, a gasp letting out as he yanked you back to his lips. A biting roughness as he kissed you deep that had your hands tighten against him. The feeling of his fingers thick along your folds finding out all over again just how quickly his simple touch and kiss could make you wet. Toying with the idea of sinking two inside of you then and there until a rather loud clearing of a throat hit both of your ears.

There was no hiding it, Jons hand shoved up the skirt of your dress and the rough, possessive hold of your hair as he kissed you. You sitting on a high surface legs wide enough for Jon to even stand between them in the first place. But what was worse, was that the throat clearing was followed by the worst possible voice lecturing your name that could’ve been.

If your horrifically embarrassed jump and gasp spoke of one reaction, Jon somehow spoke of a whole other. Pulling from your lips, both his hands eased. One gentle as he ran it smooth down your leg once more before seeking the edge of your dress and pulling it back down modestly, before running it along your waist in a firm manner. The hand in your hair running down it smoothly as he nudged your nose with his gentle to say without words to let him speak for you.

Unable to stop the small grin bright on his handsome face as you nodded, heart racing too much to think. Gently grabbing both your hips to help you down, but Jon was subtle at least. One hand polite at your lower back, the other grabbing your injured, or more recently injured hand in his, running over the fresh wrappings. Moving your fingers in a way that it was clear that at least at some point in the encounter, did he dress a wound for you to distract.

Which your fathers gaze flickered down to it right away, noticing it with a small narrow before again sternly looking back to Jon. Ser Davos stood beside him, trying as hard as he could not to look thoroughly entertained by all of this thus far.

“I was hoping to speak to you alone on a matter.”

Addressing Jon specifically, he kept his calm as if nothing happened despite how flustered you stood beside him. “Of course.” Pulling you more into his side, Jon cupped the other side of your head to press a kiss to your hair, muttering just loud enough that they’d be able to hear it. “If you want to go get the baby, I’ll meet both of you when your father and I are done. Alright?” A nervous look was clear in your eyes as you nodded. The silence following as you made your way back into the room, praying to the Mother that neither of them would say anything to Jon and just let the embarrassment fade away.

Sam always busying with something, sat reading and scribbling away at something. Looking up with a genuine smile, his quill in hand pointing over to the other room. “The little Prince is still with Gilly, nothing to worry.”

Pausing in your step, you turned back with something of a troubled look that tried to act as if it were merely banter. “You know Sam, you don’t have to use titles with me or him. It’s alright to call us by our names the way you do with Jon.”

Nodding a bit, Sam was easy to talk too. Very little judgment came over him no matter how awkward you stood there, now wrapped hand fidgeting with the other. “Old habit, I suppose.”

Mustering what you hoped was even part of a smile. “I understand. I married Ned Stark’s eldest son and right up until he died, I never could shake the habit of calling him Lord Stark.”

For a moment it seemed as if words had passed, you hardly even moving to the other direction when Sam spoke. Something more serious in his voice, and eyes. “What was he like?” Turning back with wider eyes, he spoke with a respect but still trepidation. “Robb Stark, I only know what little Jon told me about him, but he was his brother. He was your husband, and King in the North. It’s odd hearing so much about someone who had that big of an impact on the people in your life but will never meet.” Lips opening and closing, your heart felt heavier in the thought which Sam picked up on right away. “You don’t have to, of course. I was only wondering.”

Shaking your head, you moved a bit more into the room without committing to sitting anywhere near where he was. A barrier you put up that Sam had detected, as if without Jon by your side, he had hardly ever seen you exist in a room with people and feel comfortable. “No, it’s fine. I- I suppose I’m just not much of a story teller, but, if there was anything you’d like to know specifically?”

The easy manner Sam laughed was relieving a bit, that it wasn’t directed at you. “I’m aware of that at least. Jon told me once that you never had a very good imagination.” That had you laugh lightly, Sam to join moreso as you muttered that he was correct. “What did it feel like? Learning you were to marry one Stark, but not the one you’d been with for years?”

Almost as if a nervous girl you glanced to the closed door, no doubt Jon having left with your father and Ser Davos already. Looking back to Sam, your brows furrowed a bit, hands still fidgeting. “It was confusing at first. My father told me there was no choice, that King Robert had ordered it. Only for me to speak to him myself, and he told me that my father had come to him, insisting on the match out of nowhere.” Asking why, you inhaled the nerves and attempted to exhale that feeling you had in the Black Cells realizing that very thing. “My father leaned the truth about Joffery, and he knew that made him Robert’s true heir. If he suspected war was coming, he knew marrying his eldest daughter to the heir of Winterfell would put the North in his pocket.”

The casualness which Sam would jest things, even with someone like you, made it easy to understand why Jon would’ve liked Sam so quickly. “So much for that plan.” You broke a small, silent smile in agreement. Letting him follow up in questions himself. “Now, I’m not asking to be rude, or question your time with Robb, again I’m only curious-”

Your tone gentle as it was a little amused. “Just ask it, Sam.”

“If Jon had come to you with that idea. If it were more then just a fantasy in his head, coming to you and bringing you far North to just be together instead, would you have done it?” Your eyes were wide, asking him where he heard about that. “Jon told me. Once he opened up about you, it was like I couldn’t get him to stop talking about you.”

Again your eyes drifted to the door where he wasn’t outside of it, drifting just slightly to the side where you knew your son with him was, but too did you feel the scar under your clothes and the question wasn’t as easy to answer as you thought. Perhaps it was more honest then it needed to be, perhaps it was the ease in which Jon had said in front of everyone, the future of a daughter you both didn’t even have yet as if it were without question to happen. The security of now, perhaps made the loss of before slip from your lips a bit more with honesty.

Not really looking at him, but just off to the side as if lost in memory. “Robb and I hardly had a chance to be husband and wife, and even less time to ever have a child together. Having that now with Jon, it means the world to me but...” You could still see him, brown curls always perfect in place and his bright blue eyes and warm soothing voice, not a single bit of him was gone from your memory. “Maybe there was someone out there better for him, a girl he’d love more or be happier with..but instead he had me. And no matter what, Robb deserved to be loved. And I don’t regret for one second being allowed to be the one to give that to him.”

The room was silent, nor did you have the strength to look at Sams reaction to such honesty from you of all people, but your head turned the very second a small sound was heard that you knew too well.

Muttering a mere, “Excuse me.” Not hearing what he said politely after as you gently opened the door. For only a moment did you have enough in you to not feel the lonely detachment as Gilly only referred to you as your grace, and no longer your name as bright green eyes sought yours, with arms holding themselves up.

Leaning down with a smile bright on you, the brightness too on little Eddard’s face grew as did the nonsensical sounds he gave you in return to your voice. “I missed you too, sweet boy.” Your fingers running along his front almost in a tickling motion, as he attempted to grasp at the loose strands of your hair in return. “Were you good for Gilly?” Just a babble, but your voice played right along with ease. “That better be the truth you’re telling me.”

“It is.” Your head turning somewhat to the side, Gilly with a more apprehensive look but life was more within them looking between you and the baby. “He’s very well behaved. You and Jon have done a good job.” You swallowed whatever that feeling was back down to interpret later, nodding with a thank you until your attention was forced back with that grasp of your hair.

“Alright, alright, come here, you.” Picking up the eager Eddard, as soon as he came close did the baby snuggle right into your front. Cupping the back of his head to press a kiss to the top of his you mumbled gently, “Let’s go get you fed, and if you’re lucky, grandfather will stop lecturing your father long enough that he might get back in time for your bath.” Turning more to her, you were more formal, and it was not lost on either of you how quickly it felt like whatever friendship had been brewing here was now lost. And neither of you were good enough at this to know how to mend it. “Thank you, Gilly.”

Luckily, the hall outside was empty save for two guards whom now never left your shadow. Thankfully for you, the two present didn’t feel the need to say much. But you knew with Ser Davos in the same walls as his son, it was only a matter of time before your embarrassment of getting caught by your own father would spread to Allard and Theon both, and gods protect you when they got hold of that kind of fodder to make fun of you with.

Jon tried not to think about it, the ease in which he relayed the details of that night with near as much anger as he felt in the moment, barley restrained beneath his words. The three of them stood in private, Jons anger across from the troubled look of Ser Davos and the withheld but perturbed expression of Stannis as the later considered his words carefully. “Littlefinger tried to have her killed before if the information you are telling me is correct. How can you be sure this wasn’t a leftover from a plan he previous had in place.”

His jaw was clenched roughly, the feeling of having to subtly let out the tense air from his lungs to even speak not lost on both men. “Their orders were to take her head, and bring it back to the person who ordered it. Littlefinger had been in Winterfell for weeks, and was dead for days by the time they showed up. If it was him, they’d have no one to bring it to, or even pay them.”

Ser Davos nodded in an agreement. “No use in trying to murder a Queen if they’re getting nothing out of it.”

Following up with what theories he had so far, Jon didn’t say anything for a moment. None of whom was involved had said anything about it, and Jon couldn’t be sure you’d want your father to know but here he was asking and he had to be honest. “It’s not a strong possibility, but there’s a chance Euron Greyjoy had something to do with it.”

“Greyjoy?”

He knew there was more personal of a history there. Stannis had been the one to defeat Euron and Victarion in battle at sea during the Greyjoy rebellion. His actions against their fleet were the reason Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon could get to Pyke to end it in the first place. So he nodded once, hands tense at his sides trying to explain it without reliving those hours all over again. “When we were north of the Wall, he sent men after us. Tried to kill me, and kidnap her to bring her to him.”

Much like you could be when holding back, Stannis had one word responses. “Why?”

There was a lot he left out, but there was no room in him to explain anything to do with your abilities, the facts were easier to work with in this scenario. “He wants the Iron Throne, and he wants her by his side when he gets it.”

Both older men gave the other a glance, Ser Davos himself knew about Euron from beyond the Greyjoy rebellion, and Jon could only wonder which would be more willing to give him that information. Ser Davos himself, or Allard, as the former spoke. “If he wants her by his side, why send assassins after her?”

Shrugging one shoulder, Jons voice was rough but even. “Maybe if he can’t have her, no one can, to a man like him. It might be a stretch, but I can’t rule it out.”

“I agree.” Nodding, Stannis had kept his calm more then Jon could’ve even pretended to do despite the information. “These assassins, they didn’t think to harm the boy?” Jon shook his head, affirming they never even tried to touch little Eddard, only making Stannis think more. “It would be someone then who doesn’t yet know you have a child together. Eventually most of the realm will hear it, some already have, but this was someone who didn’t have a clue. Otherwise they might have reconsidered their plan, or strategy at the least were they to know a child, an heir was in the picture.”

Voice more on an edge did Jon feel unable to hide it. “You’re saying they’d have gone after my son too if they knew about him?” Stannis only repeating what Jon had said previous, that he couldn’t rule it out.

Already the guard he had and the measures he had in place were as heavy as Jon could get without being overbearing towards everyone, but perhaps it helped that he knew he had most of it surrounding you, and normally the baby could be found with you or him, if not one close by. Back and forth they went, but Stannis changed the subject before Jon could even think to leave. “One more thing. You knew, about the one my daughter has been hiding here, the bastard boy.”

Jon tried very hard to ignore the smirk across Ser Davos’s face reacting to what came from his mouth next, with a bit of a jest in his eyes. “You might need to be more specific.” The two mens glances meeting just barley before Jon returned his attention to Stannis, whom was either not amused or didn’t pick up on the joke at all.

“One of Robert’s bastards, Gendry. She admitted to me that she brought him here and has been hiding his identity.” But the look in his eye too, was serious, as Jons was in the confidence he had in why you had made the choices regarding him in the first place.

“Aye.”

Hard to read, if the quick quirk raised in his brow was negative or positive with this man as his tone never changed once. “Am I correct to presume you knew about this?” Jon again nodded, with no shame nor anything to hide in him for it, if you had brought it up first it seemed. “If he is here, I would presume she told you of what happened. You don’t think it would be appropriate to inform me that you have someone here who was a prisoner of mine?”

“Gendry might have been your prisoner once, but he isn’t now.” Bringing up your name with more of a sternness, “She brought him here to protect him, because he is her blood and she doesn’t want to see any other members of her family dead more then she already has. Gendry may have been your prisoner once, but he’s also her family. And she’s my wife, my Queen. Which means he’s under my protection too. From anyone who might come looking for him.”

The stare between both men was difficult to read, neither knew the other well enough to determine the degree of possible hostility spoken amongst such words. But Stannis was at the least, a man who knew when to pick his battles, and when not too. “Very well. You’re roof, you’re decision.”

Jon could only watch as the man took his leave, Ser Davos not quite following as he turned halfway to watch until Stannis was out the door and back. “I think finally being a grandfather is making him soft.”

Were that not such a drastic image in his head compared to what soft meant to most men, Jon might have laughed instead of looking at Ser Davos incredulously. “That’s Stannis being soft?”

Tilting his head in an understanding amusement, he let the smirk come out more freely as well. “I’m the one who set Gendry free, you know. More then anyone else I knew how angry he was about it, and more then a few times did he bring it up as if I robbed him of a great opportunity.” Asking low of an opportunity for what, he appreciated how blunt Davos was. “The red woman put it in his head that she could perform her blood magic better with Kings Blood, and having him as a prisoner could mean she’d be able to use him for anything, including kill him in the name of her damned fire god.” Before Jon could say anything, he rounded himself back to the point. “I’d say his reaction to learning you let her hide Gendry here and not say anything, was basically nothing compared to how he’d feel just weeks ago.”

It wasn’t meant as a slight, Jon of all people understood that your family was as complicated as they came, but it was an awkward truth. “He’s been here for days, and he’s spent almost no time with the baby.”

The grimace was warranted from Ser Davos as he mentioned you by name. “During the war, the King went back and forth on the subject of if he wanted her as his heir or not. Now that they actually speak again, she’s all but told him she wants nothing to do with the Iron Throne, and now he watches her have a male heir of her own for a Kingdom that isn’t the one Stannis was fighting to rule. Not alone, at least.”

Jon made no comment on that, nor did Ser Davos say it for him to make any sort of point over it. But it was only honesty that came from Jon when he said it. “We didn’t have him because he would be my heir.” There was a narrowing in his grey eyes, but too something more raw. A confusion of why people kept looking at you three and assuming thats why he existed. “We had him because we wanted too, because I’ve always wanted a child with her. He’s not my heir he’s...just my son.”

A man of low birth and humble beginnings, as he put a comforting hand on his shoulder, Jon knew that Ser Davos of all people said it solely because he meant it in his heart too. “Most highborns in the south raise their oldest child like an heir. To some, Stannis included, they have a hard time looking at that child just as they are. He raised Shireen like a daughter.” Your name coming from his mouth with more of a grim truth. “But he didn’t raise her like one. Between you and me, I’d say he raised her with a bit of resentment. That she wasn’t born a boy. Having an heir would’ve been a lot easier for him if she had.”

A weight sat in Jons heart. You had said something similar, many months ago beyond the Wall. That you suspected your father always wished you were born a boy, but here a man so close to your fathers side echoed that very sentiment.

It didn’t help the feeling, but Jon suddenly could think of you and realize the problems always seemed to stem from much deeper inside you. How you think the people only ever look at you and see a Queen, how you still struggle to see past the fact that Jon looked at you as more then just a dutiful wife, and the simple fact that you were raised thinking that you were your fathers failed heir.

With everything in between, there was too much noise in your life. But you were more then that to Jon, more then all of that, you were everything to him. But you put nothing but title and duty and responsibility on your shoulders every time something happened, so maybe he thought, he needed to, just at least once, take all of that away from you.

And the wolf howling inside of Jon, had a dark and perverse way of knowing just how to do it.

You knew he heard you come inside, the door closing slowly behind you and the light footsteps approaching but Jon was content as he worked away it seemed, to just know you were there. Turned away, you could see his shoulders a bit tense, and were you to turn him to face you no doubt there would be a deep frown etched into his features which more then likely he had tried to run his hand exasperated over his face and failed to wipe the frustration off.

Laying happily against the fur before the fire, Ghost rose his head up as you approached. Hands and nails running freely over the fur by his ears. Leaning more and more into you, almost knocking you over with his sheer size with how he nudged his head more into your crouching front as if to cuddle. Were he standing no doubt he’d have done so. More of a huff left the direwolf, his eyes slipping closed as he lay back down against the fur much more content then he had been before.

Gently did you take off your heavier outer layers, fur cloak and warmer dress with just something lighter and soft underneath, watching Jon now, the whole time. For a moment did you stand by the cabinet wondering if he wished you to leave him in silence, when as if reading your mind did he speak with a tint of playfulness. “Will you come here already?”

A withheld smile came over you, coming up you let a hand come up to his hair, curls still up from the day and working to let them loose without really even considering it. Looking over his shoulder to him, your eyes naturally found their way to his work before quickly diverting back away. Only for Jon to chuckle, smirking as he didn’t even look up at you. “You’re allowed to read my letters.” Mumbling you didn’t want to invade his work, Jon only smirked more. “First you want to ease my workload by doing things like this for me, now you worry you’re not allowed to even know what I’m doing?”

The smile on you was soft, knowing the judgment in his tone was jesting far more then it was meaning. Still letting your fingers run through his curls, once again you wondered if in the next few days if he’d want the ends trimmed. Getting too long, was normally when Jon would tend to keep it up for much longer into the night not wishing to deal with it all. Your only response to his words as light in tone as he set it as. “I only want to do what’s best for you.”

Brows narrowing, Jon let the quill hover mid air before setting it down flat to look up at you. Not yet finding the words, he pushed back in his seat. Only as you went to give him room to stand, did Jon grab you by the arm, and yanked you down into his lap. A surprised yelp came along with a laughing scold of his name, Jon let his laugh out much more brightly and free as he turned you. Sitting across him with your arms around his shoulders and back of his neck, Jon grabbed your hips to make you face him more, your lower back now pressed against the wood of the desk.

One hand moving up to gently tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, Jon trailed down its length still, toying with it before slinking up to cup your cheek. Muttering with his eyes roaming gently over what he could see of you, despite how yours stayed on the wandering greys no matter where they went or why. “Eddard?”

Your fingertips toyed a little with his curls in return. “With Bran and your sisters, like you suggested.” Only muttering a simple good, Jon continued to just let his eyes wander you freely as his thumb gently ran back and forth over the soft skin it touched at your cheek. Other hand on your hip warm and steady to keep you there. “May I ask why?”

Jon was good at getting the point. “Because I wanted you all to myself, and having our son here means I’m always fighting him for your attention.” Instantly you laughed, Jon following in a way that always made him look so handsome, such bright eyes as he did so like a laugh on him was a rare beauty. “Do you think I’m exaggerating? How often does he get mad at me when I kiss you?”

Leaning more towards him, Jon followed, the sides of your head resting against the other, Jon now able to run his hand freely down the hair along your back. “He’s just protective. Which he gets from you, you know.”

You felt his chuckle more then you could see it that time, but it was there all the same. “Which is why he’s not here. Our son would be very upset if he knew what I was planning on doing to his mother tonight.” A shiver ran down your spine, swallowing something devious as it only filled your blood and travelled to every corner of your veins, asking what that plan was exactly. Jon remained calm, not giving away at all what was in his mind, hand still smoothing down your hair. “It’s something I’ve mentioned before, but it’s alright if you don’t remember it.”

Pulling back, you looked at him more confused. “What are you talking about?”

Nudging you closer, Jon let his nose gently nudge at yours with a whispering rasp. “We’ll get there, don’t worry.” His lips meeting with yours before you had a chance to ask anything further, melting into his kiss and touch in an instant.

Your hands wrapping more firmly around the back of his neck, you felt Jon sift his fingers through the locks of your hair at the back of your head. Guiding you to follow, he didn’t yet deepen the kiss but refused you any air to move. Hands tightening where you held at him, and Jons hand on your hip too tightened as he bit at your bottom lip.

Only as you gasped, such an instinct to allow his tongue to slide inside your mouth did Jon not continue, but coax you slow back to something more chaste. Small nibbles did he bite as if teasing what he had done before, the sounds between you barley managing to include your small needs to breath until he bit at you once more, but harder. Were it any harder, it may have even drawn blood but pushed right to that edge with his kiss without ever letting you fall off of it.

Suddenly yanking you from his lips, Jon leaned forward as he turned your head slightly to the side. That rough need found the sensitive skin of your neck. Deep bites of his teeth followed by a sucking feeling as it to bruise along with the sharp marks made. Gasping out into the open air, a charged tingling ran from your neck down to your chest. From there a desire flooded your bloodstream only to increase as Jon further moved along, further marked your neck with a viciousness.

Only a brief gentle brush of his tongue and lips before he’d move on as a tiny soothe to his roughness, but still did he work you over harsher then even your nails dug into the skin of the back of his neck you held him at. You felt yourself leaning enough to give him more room, but with Jons grip on your hair you could barley move.

Shifting you by your hip did Jon move with you. Hidden beneath the layers, still could you feel a growing pressure that had Jon bite down rather harshly the moment he too moved you he could grind you down onto his growing length. The gasp from you sharp, as Jon pulled away from your neck but not at all ceasing his other movements. Cupping your cheek, he turned you to him with gentle shushes on his lips. “I’m sorry, darling, I know.”

Not even granting you the protest he knew you’d give for his rough treatment, he captured you in a kiss once more. That time it was much slower, guiding your lips to mould with his as he deepened it without the urgency of before. His hands though, both now were at your hips, subtle as he moved you down onto his covered cock.

Pulling back enough to rasp low, “Come on.” His hold moving you to stand up with him, steadying you on your feet with you grabbing more to his shoulders. Wide eyes looking up at him, Jon cupped both your cheeks. Bright his face shined but with something that one could mistaken as sad, if not the tighter hold he took of you, standing close enough you could feel his breath hot dance across your skin. “I need to take all this off you.”

Gesturing down to your dress, Jon kissed you once more to steal away your breath. Sliding down your neck on one side, the other where his teeth had sunk into you did he trace along your hair instead before seeking your dress. Hands quick as he let go of your kiss to grab at the skirt and instantly move to pull it up and off of you. Wasting not a second, as if in a hurry did he follow with your shift leaving you bare in the cold of his chambers.

Swallowing, Jon held at your waist looking down with black bleeding into the grey of his wandering eyes. Smooth his palm was running from your waist up and down to your hip once more, before your voice soft and a bit unsure seemed to break the spell. “Jon?” Eyes peering up at you, you hoped he could see the nerves flowing through you at his silence. Your hands grasped lightly at the belt strapped across his person still.

As if once he had gotten in, he removed his weapons and had not the mind to do a single other thing to get comfortable. Instead of letting him wash you over with a fluster of a comment he could make, you made a point to look down and back to his eyes. He only nodded a yes.

Cold and bare you stood there, taking the time and care you always did undressing him, and not even sparing how much you were respectful of his clothes when Jon had simply tossed your own to the side when he had it off your skin. Kneeling down to his boots, you exhaled with hope it was silent as you felt his hand run along your hair.

Truthfully, you had thought nothing of it. Reaching for the laces of his breeches, only to have your hands snatched by his. “Don’t.” You couldn’t grasp how much you had made his cock throb, the wide innocence as you peered up at him while bare on your knees, an ask in your eyes as if wondering what you did wrong. Shaking his head, his rasp came strained. “We’re not doing that. I don’t know if I can even trust you with that again.”

Waving through your heart was something full of an immense guilt right away, Jon only pulled you to your feet. Tilting you by your chin to look at up at him right as you spoke. “I’m so sorry, Jon. I promise, I am.”

Leaning to brush his nose down yours, he sounded just as strained but with that tenderness which came you warm still in your heart. “I know you are, but..it’ll take time. It’s not easy trying to make sure you’re alright when you do that, and last time I completely missed that you weren’t.” Trying to protest that wasn’t his fault, Jon again cupped your cheeks. “You didn’t want me to notice, but that’s on me. I should’ve known better. That I struggle to go easy on you. You were hoping that would happen, but I never should’ve let it get that far.”

Your hands held at his shoulders, muscles tense from trying not to fidget so openly despite how you had to bite down on your lip just to stop it from a quiver. “Are..will you never want me to..”

Brushing his lips to yours, it was barley what you could call a kiss as he mumbled against them. “Until I can trust you with you’re own well being, I’m taking care of you from now on. Not the other way around, and that’s final.” You once more, couldn’t know how much Jons cock begged to be released from their restraints at how you had obediently nodded in agreement.

Everytime it was an order he gave you, you never questioned it and it drove Jon mad. Especially when it had to do with this.

Nudging you backwards as he told you to lay back on the bed, Jon only watched with darkening eyes as you slowly did so. The fur against your back was soft and comforting, the opposite of the darkness watching you. Until you were laid back, propped up with your palms behind you did Jon reach for the laces of his breeches.

He never blinked as he undid them, not as he slowly dragged them off his person. No words, and barley a blink before Jon suddenly moved up onto the bed hovering over you so close it pushed you down onto your back once more. Grasping at your jaw, Jon kissed you with an urgency. All but shoving his tongue into your mouth, your hands flew up grasping at his shoulders desperately.

His curls acting as a curtain, hiding your kiss from any of the no one watching. Kneeling more to the bed, Jon wrapped an arm around your back, pulling you more up to press your front to his. The urge in his own mind to forego his plan, and yank you up onto his lap right there and sink deep inside of you, but he had to contain himself. He had a plan.

Your legs shifted on either side of him, one thigh resting up by his hip as the other somewhat wrapped around his calm. Jons tongue deep as he brushed against yours, pulling back only to mock you with the temptation of giving you air then not ever allowing it. He controlled it all. Your nails dug into his skin as you felt his cock hard brush between your legs. Not paying any mind to it, Jon held a skill in ignoring his burning need as long as he was entangled with you in one way or another.

Slowly, did he move. Grabbing a hand from his shoulder, Jon pressed it into the bed, intertwining your fingers before slowly doing the same to the other. Pushed down into the fur, his own lips more red and swollen from how roughly he treated you, and gasps from your own looking no doubt more abused. Without you even noticing, occupying your mind blind with his kiss rough and deep, gentle brushes of his tongue against yours before refusing you more, you hadn’t at all noticed.

Until suddenly did Jons hands and fingers intertwined with yours, did you feel he was moving until he suddenly pulled them high. Crossing one wrist against the other as one large hand kept a firm grip of it. Pulling back to look down at you, your chest heaving almost as if mocking him with how little he’d been able to touch them to his greed and pleasure. His voice was a rough rasp as he sought your eyes, black staring back at you enough to nearly stop your lungs.

“Tell me no at anytime, do you understand?” Taken back by how intense he suddenly felt over top of you, Jon much more sternly called your name. “Tell me you understand, that you say no at any moment, and I stop right away.” But you didn’t say that, with something nervous and meek on your mind did you only ask Jon what he was about to do, but his head tilted slightly with a narrowing disapproval, he needed you to just say it.

“I understand.”

Barley muttering a good, Jon pressed his lips to yours once more before pulling back, mumbling into them, “Don’t move.” You read the unspoken second command, don’t watch so blatantly what he was about to do. Eyes forcing themselves to the stone ceiling, your hands itched to reach down and grasp at something to ground the nerves and want between your legs. Only as Jon returned, you felt him put something onto the bed without looking up to see.

Coming back to you, now sitting more at your side did Jon run a hand down the side of your face, touch gentle as he looked down at you. With a hesitation, his brows furrowed in what you could see was a self doubt. “Jon?”

Flying up to meet your gaze, something innocent within them once more made Jons blood run hot. Rasping as he traced along your jaw, “I need you to trust me, alright?”

Your words did not help how hard he was, “I always trust you.”

You couldn’t grasp what he was doing at first, almost thinking he was going to kiss you again until you felt something drape along your skin, and then nothing. A soft material shielding your eyes, your heart begun to race more instantly. Muttering his name, almost a brief panic at how little you could feel he was there, but the moment he seemed to tie the knot behind your head, you felt his warmth. One palm braced on the other side of your body as he leaned down to leave a chaste kiss to your lips. “We don’t have to-”

“No, don’t stop.” Almost wondering if your phrasing may have confused him, your mind muddled with trying to put together the mystery of what he was doing, the blindfold only ever being done once before in a drastically different setting. So you stammered through a breathlessness trying to rephrase. “I mean, keep going. Please..”

Without you seeing, he nodded before remembering you couldn’t see. What part of Jon that still felt a man, reminding himself to take care of you. That you will need his touch and voice significantly more then usual, not being able to see him. “Two more things, alright?” You nodded, and suddenly you felt a softer material across your wrists.

Tying your raised arms to the headboard, you stuttered a breath as your heart pounded. He said two, what more could he possible do? What more could people do with one another that you-

Only you figured it out, as you felt something at your ankle, rougher material. Not scratching or even tight. In fact the tie on your wrists was tight enough they couldn’t move, but whatever he tied around your ankle was slack a bit. Until you felt him pull, moving your leg to something wide open, a fluster coming over you almost instantly. Because then Jon did the same but the other.

Experimenting, you tried moving your leg, able enough to somewhat bend it at the knee, but nowhere near enough to close them, or even slightly. Jon did do three more things, tie every part of you that could move after taking your sight away. One again he draped over your top half, a hand running down your collarbones, between the valley of your breasts and gently caressing over your scar as he rasped so close to your ear. “Tonight, you aren’t doing anything. I’ll do all the work, you just lay right there, okay?”

You could feel his other hand run down your hair more as you bit your lip with a nod. Only to be prompted to use your words. Mustering through your nerves and racing heart only, “Okay..” Before Jon pressed his lips to yours.

The hand on your stomach rising up to cup your cheek, his soft lips were slow. Almost methodical as he kissed you again and again, the hand on your cheek sliding down to your neck, tracing along your collarbones once more. But this time, just as his tongue brushed your lip, did his hand gently grasp at your breast, pulling a high pitched gasp.

Lips pressing to yours once, then your cheek as he leaned down to murmur in your ear, “I know they’re still sensitive. I won’t do anything else.” Hardly a grope, just a gentle squeeze of what he had in his hand, he knew to be careful. The shiver down your spine made your core awaken with a startle. wetness already between your legs, the need to hide it by pressing your thighs together now taken from you so completely that it made his gentle touch to your breasts even more overwhelming.

Pressing his lips down the marked side of your neck, you could hear him muffled with something of a growl in his voice. “You shouldn’t look so beautiful like this.” Never his teeth, but your lips fell parted open as he allowed his kiss down each bruised mark to be sloppy to soothe the leftover sting. “Makes me want to never let them heal.”

Along your skin he trailed them without failure, a hand running along your side as he moved. Your breath held as his lips reached your breasts, but only a lingering kiss to the skin there before moving along down your sternum as his voice softened. “Why you ever want to be on your knees for me, when it’s nowhere near as good for you as what you give me..”

Trying to sound confident, but it only came out with a heavy need being muttered out. “I want you to feel good too..”

You couldn’t be sure how he had moved, but you felt both hands now on your legs stretched wide, pushing up ever so slightly to the little amount you could bend them. Before Jons lips kissed a path along your scar and paused the moment he reached your mound. “You can live without that, but I could never give this up. I’d go mad without being able to taste you, darling.”

A sound wanted to come from you, but biting down on your lip trying to prevent it despite Jons breath so hot between your legs. Closer his lips had gotten, before he hovered right over your clit. Being forced to wait there, not a clue that Jons eyes were overtaken with a darkness, his hands braced on your thighs as he could stare at the wetness between your legs with greed.

Tighter and tighter his grip got until without a shred of mercy did he move. Tongue running flat against your clit, sparking something burning inside of you as you wished you could jump away from it, but his lips only followed. Sucking at the bundle of nerves in a way that felt as if he was making up for what sparing your breasts he had. He could be content without one, if he could have this.

A rough hand sliding to your hip by your ass, did the other follow before Jon kept you steady from even writhing against the burning need. Tongue running over your clit in whatever way had forced that cry from your chest out into the world with a startling beg. His name your only words, but it pleaded into the air as he dragged you to an orgasm with a stinging pleasure to your clit.

Barley letting his teeth scrape against it before his tongue soothed the feeling, your mind felt foggy at how quick it came. Hands tense against the headboard your toes curled in as your head fell back as much as it could. A wave washing over, being drawn in and out of the shore again and again as your orgasm flowed. Jons tongue soaking your clit, letting it burn as he treated you almost as if a kiss.

Again and again did Jon draw you to your end from that alone, only to feel him move you what felt like shoving you higher against the bed before his mouth found it’s true desire. The wetness between you in amounts Jon could drink for days, parched with a thirst and you were the one thing he needed to keep him going. A greed in how much he ran his tongue along you, how much he refused to let a drop escape him no matter how much he had to pull you into his mouth closer.

A growl left, as his hands gripped your plush skin with a force that would leave bruises of his fingerprints. Vibrating against your soaking walls, and twisting the core within you faster, but truly it never unwound properly. He kept you slipping from one orgasm to the next, his mouth there to taste every single bit it would give. The taste so addictive against his tongue, Jon could feel even with his eyes closed, them rolling into the back of his head.

Your back trying to arch as he guided you to another end, no idea who had caused you to have so much of a wetness, you from his mouth or just his mouth alone against you without ever drawing up for so much as air. Begging his name, your head felt light and far away, only Jons touch between you existing.

Neither of you held a clue how long he kept you there, hands trapping you against his mouth as the only sounds in the room beyond your breathless begs was his greeding, merciless tasting.

Small you spoke out, barley able to speak through each cry for him. “Jon, it’s so much..I- I-” Cutting yourself off both times, you feared the nonsensical beg that you couldn’t take it but you could not fathom a world beyond Jons touch. But your very words brought that into existence with your heart racing, hands clenching tight unable to move as he pulled from you.

The soaking between you was cold in the air, but his words breathed hot so close that Jon interrupted his own words between sentences to run his tongue along you more. “I know it’s a lot..but you need to be good for me.” You nodded, but Jon growled with what sounded akin to anger of your name. “That’s not a suggestion, darling. Just lay there, and be good.”

You nearly begged out, “I promise,” more the once before he finally sunk back to drenching your cunt with his mouth.

In Jons own mind, it was just like when you let him sit you on top of his mouth. He knew you had no idea that this was dangerous. How much Jon could stay there and refuse to let you go. Taste you until you were crying begs and pleading for him to stop, but even if you did, he still would slide inside of you before it was over. Jon had soaked you so much that he groaned into your cunt with the thought, that not even his size would hurt with how wet you were for him.

And even so, you never begged anything more. You cried, and moaned, and let out high pitched whines at the burning inside of you each time he dragged his tongue inside of you. Sweat built to a sheen over your skin and dampened your hair before he stopped.

Sucking roughly at your clit once more before moving from your cunt. Not sending where he was, Jon all but leaped up to grab at your jaw. His kiss rough and bruising as he bit once more at your lips, that time, he was the one certain he might have drawn blood. But he ignored it, beyond the whine you gave him that had his cock throb. His tongue deep inside your mouth, making you taste what you gifted him.

Never would you understand his desire, but he tried every single time to make you understand what you had caused him to be endlessly, helplessly addicted too.

But then he muttered into your lips, his hands on your thighs suddenly sunk two thick fingers deep inside of you at the same instance. “That’s my girl.” Your heart felt it was bursting out of your chest, how he spoke to you and yet how little you considered that he had tied you and blinded you to his complete control. Thrusting them deep, he pulled them close to leaving your warmth before a third joined as his rasp was as thick as his accent was rough. “You are perfect for me, it doesn’t matter what I do, you were meant to take me.”

Nodding, Jon rewarded your agreement with a deep, lingering kiss before your legs shook in place as another orgasm was dragged through you with each deep thrust of his fingers in and out of you. Only dragging them out as long as it took for them utterly soaked to cup you.

You could feel Jon moving, but not a clue how or what but you laid there not even the thought in your head to question him. Without any warning, the moment his soaking hand grasped at your hip, did he replace the feeling with his length. Sliding deep inside you, soaked not even with as tight as you were around him, did you give a single bit of resistance. His cock so thick that it always stung but he had done every bit of work to ensure it wouldn’t this time.

Jon knelt on his knees before you, lips parted as he could barley catch his breath, let his other hand run tight against your clit and with that and but a single thrust did you ruin him. Walls clenching around his cock did he nearly hold you down against the bed. “Fuck, darling.. you can’t do this to me right away..”

He could see your hands desperately trying to grasp something to no avail, and the question truly burned in his mind if he was willing to give that to you. From where he knelt, so slowly did he drag his cock along your sensitive walls, that high pitched cry from your lips so beautiful to him that he sunk back just as deep, just as slow.

When he planned this, Jon hadn’t thought he’d take this pace. He thought he’d fuck you, truly fuck you like a wolf does his mate but something about taking you this slow and gentle had his heart burst from his chest with a loving need. Truthfully, he didn’t imagine many men enjoyed this. That many men ever would tolerate going this slow, but smoothly sinking his cock in and out of your soaking cut Jon looked down to the sight.

His hands tight on your hips, but otherwise his eyes were wide. Mouth somewhat agape as he watched his length sink inside you again and again. Your mind had become such a fog of pleasure, Jon wondered if it even registered in your head how obscenely wet it sounded each time he sunk deep back inside of you.

Jon did this because he needed you to trust he could take care of you exactly as you needed, but it wasn’t until his cock was surrounded by your warm tight walls, did Jon realize that you needed him to be slow and gentle as much as he needed it too.

Carefully, without ever stopping did Jon move himself to hover over top of you. One palm braced into the furs, sinking almost deeper each time from this angle as your legs couldn’t even think to close on him. Capturing your lips in a kiss, it was as slow as his pace.

Tongue brushing against yours with a patience, not to overwhelm you the way he knew you felt being filled with him. Pulling back, the saliva between you both not even severed as he rasped, “I’ve got you, darling. I’ve always had you.” Begging his name with a weakness in your throat, Jon kissed you once more.

His hips thrusting again and again inside of you with an excruciating pace to the wolf within his chest, but Jon again pulled back to look down at you, not even seeing your eyes and past that darkness his heart a man almost tore at him. You trusted him with everything that he took all of your control away and never once did you assume he’d take advantage of that.

He couldn’t. Again and again his cock filled you, but never could Jon consider doing anything but making love to you with every way he could prove how deep that ran. How much you had always meant to him. Resting his forehead against yours, not any part of him cared at how needing it sounded as he fucked you. “You have no idea how much I love you.” Hips moving perhaps a bit faster, enough that a cry left you once more which he had to soothe with a kiss. “I need you, darling. I’ve always needed you..”

Not even allowing you to answer, he pressed his lips to yours. Your cunt clenching around him and Jon knew you were so close he could taste it. Keeping that pace, again and again his cock thrusted deep, pulling only halfway before he had to feel you completely once more. “It doesn’t matter whats coming our way, I’ll protect you. I promise.”

As your orgasm burned and blazed around you, Jon was so relieved did he too find his end right with you. As deep as he could did Jon spill inside of you. His seed thick and hot as he let his hips grind into you, his kiss not sparing you the treatment.

Shaking around as each wave after wave you came, Jon let his hand fly up. Grasping tightly at both of yours as much as you both could hold at the other. Even when Jon filled you as much as he could, he didn’t stop. Not the slow pace, not how much he refused to pull out of you in any amount before he needed his cock as deep as you could take him again.

Once more, neither of you knew how long he kept you there, feeling as if it was a never ending moment refusing to change a single thing about how he fucked you. Easing you into him stopping, Jon could tell your mind was a fog.

Suddenly did you feel as if he left you with no warning, despite how long Jon eased out of you, but your mind couldn’t grasp it. Lifting off of you, a weak beg of his name did Jon kiss you again, his hand running along your hair caressingly. “I’m right here, I just need to untie you.” Before he did so, did he allow the blindfold to free your sight once more.

Fuzzy the world felt, but his grey eyes all you needed to feel calm once more. Arms, then legs were you free as Jon turned you into his front. Laying you both on your sides, he carefully placed your legs apart enough that it wouldn’t overwhelm you with what he knew would be sensitive as soon as the rest of your mind returned.

Your hands draped along his chest, scars somehow comforting under your palms as he hid you in his chest, and his own face in your hair with presses of his lips and murmuring words to bring you down back to him.

It was possible you fell asleep, as when a knock came to the door, you felt as if you had been startled awake. Running his hand over your hair, Jon muttered into your ear. “It’s alright, they’re bringing the baby.” Nodding, Jon whispered once more when you looked up with something filling your nerves as he pulled away. “Hey, come on now.” Pulling the furs over top of you, Jon kissed your forehead before meeting your eyes. “I’ll be right back, and I’ll bring Eddard with me.”

His breeches tossed on but lose, and a soft shirt of a grey dark enough it matched his eyes did he return to you with. Senses more awake, the sound of a little noise of nonsense pulled a gentle smile on you. Keeping the fur pulled high did Jon slink down onto the bed beside you with a playful glint in his eye. “It appears our son doesn’t want my attention.”

A laugh left both of you, as he carefully let little Eddard into your arms. Much like how you awoke that morning, Jon let his arm wrap around your back under the fur, pulling you close as he rested his head somewhat atop yours. The quiet and the baby all you both needed before a weight made itself known on Jons side of the bed.

Before you could even look, did you hear him louder try and protest, “Ghost-” But coming to your feet was the presence of the large direwolf. So large that his head lay down on the furs atop one of your legs and Jons. His own eyes narrowed but playful, as both white wolves pretended they were frustrated with the other to no convincing. Jons free hand now preoccupied with Ghost, did someone else too try.

Eddards little arms tried reaching out to Ghost, whom when he lifted his head did you and Jon subtly shift forward so he could actually reach. The scene was all Jon needed. No matter what was outside those doors, the Long Night could come and rage beyond control but as he sat there, his direwolf, his son and his girl, the little pack he always wanted, he could pretend for now that this was perfect.

And maybe it was, as long as you and Jon both could ignore that ever since coming back from the far North, did it feel as if the nightmares came each and every night to haunt you for it. For going that far north in the first place, or for leaving it, that was what neither of you could figure out.

Each night Jon had been trying to let that nightmare go further and further, he knew what each dream showed him until the battle leaving him dead in a field of green. It wasn’t a vision of the future he knew, but maybe if he let the nightmares fester a little while longer he may figure that out.

That was until his eyes slipped closed that night, you tucked firmly back into his arms, did Jons dream finally show him purple eyes, hair of silver.

The nightmare, a memory that certainly did not belong to him.

[biblical-chronicles]

Derby day pt.2

___________________________________

where you actually show up with Gallagher written on your back

Pt.1 | Pt.2

___________________________________

The comment had been gnawing at you for days.

"If I play me cards right, it’s gonna say Gallagher on the back."

Noel had dropped it casually, like it was nothing more than a joke. But you hadn’t missed the way he’d said it—how his voice had softened at the end, just a little. You’d caught the subtle shift, the part of him that might’ve been more serious than he let on.

Did he mean it? Or was it just him being Noel, running his mouth and cracking jokes for the sake of it?

You weren’t going to ask.

He’d bring it up if he wanted to. Until then, you were fine leaving it as a passing moment—until, of course, your own mischievous side kicked in.

That was how you found yourself in the City store days later, grinning as you got handed the new kit with Gallagher neatly written on the back.

Noel didn’t know. You didn’t say a word, just hung it up in your closet.

And when match day came around, you slid it on beneath your jacket, hiding it for the right moment. You couldn’t help but smile to yourself as you zipped it up, glancing over at Noel. You half-expected him to notice, but if he did, he didn’t mention it.

The Etihad was buzzing as you both arrived, fans chanting and the energy palpable. But before you could make your way to the stands, there was the usual stop at hospitality—a chance to grab drinks and settle in.

And just like last time, the CBS Golazo crew was already there.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Noel muttered under his breath as his eyes locked onto them, making no attempt to hide his exasperation.

You laughed, but before you could say anything, Micah Richards spotted you both and waved you over, grinning like he’d been expecting this moment all along. “Oi, oi! There they are! Back again, eh?”

Noel just sighed, shaking his head, but still walked over with you.

Carragher was already chuckling, his eyes narrowing. “See that yer missus has already got herself the new kit you helped design."

Micah slapped his hands together. “Oh yeah, the kit is great, but I''m sure we are all waiting to see some particular detail.”

You tried to keep a straight face as Jamie leaned in, his grin as wide as ever. “So, you’ve gotta tell us—any name on the back this time?”

You didn’t miss a beat. With a quick shrug, you slid off your jacket, letting the kit fall into full view.

The entire room seemed to hold its breath for a moment, eyes going wide as the silence stretched. Then, just as the realization hit, the room exploded.

“No way!” Micah was the first to react, laughing so hard his voice cracked. He slapped Jamie’s arm, pointing at you like he’d just uncovered some great mystery. “Noel, mate, she’s serious!”

Jamie, equally shocked but thoroughly entertained, gave Noel a mock sympathetic look. “You’re fucked now, lad. She’s put the ring on herself.”

Noel stood frozen for a moment, blinking at the sight, his face a mixture of shock and disbelief. His mouth opened, but no words came out for a second—just the faintest blush creeping across his cheeks.

“Jesus Christ…” he muttered under his breath, running a hand over his face.

But then, just as quickly, the shock melted away, and a slow smile crept onto his lips. You could see it—the corner of his mouth twitching, the way he just couldn’t help himself from grinning.

Micah grabbed Noel’s hand, shaking it with exaggerated enthusiasm. “You know, I gotta say—I didn’t think she had it in her, but fair play. She’s clearly got more guts than you, mate!”

Jamie pulled you into a hug, laughing as he ruffled your hair. “Fair play love, congratulations. That’s one way to keep him on his toes!”

You pulled back, still grinning. “Had to keep him guessing.”

Noel shot you a look, raising an eyebrow as he finally managed to find his voice again. “Yeah, well… you’ve got a funny way of keepin’ me on me toes.” He gave you a soft shove, but the fondness in his eyes was unmistakable.

You could tell he was trying to keep up his usual sarcasm, but there was something else there too—a kind of warmth in the way he was looking at you, the way his hand had found its way to the small of your back without him even thinking about it.

“You’re all proper daft, you lot.” Noel grumbled, shaking his head. But the smile still hadn’t left his face, and you could see his shoulders finally relax.

Micah was still laughing, practically wiping tears from his eyes. “Nah, mate, you’re just mad lucky. Look at her. You’re a lucky man.”

He tugged you closer, wrapping an arm around your shoulders in that familiar, protective way. “I’m the lucky one, yeah?”

You smiled, leaning into him as the laughter and teasing from the group continued around you. Micah had his arm draped over Noel’s shoulders by now. “Don’t worry, Noel. We’re just here to make sure you know it, mate. But, seriously…” He paused, looking between you two. “You two look right together, don’t you think?”

Noel finally let out a short laugh, shaking his head again. “Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, clearly flustered, but you could see it—the pride in his eyes, the way his gaze lingered on you just a little longer than usual.

You just continued laughing with the group, but before you could properly respond, Noel's hand slid around your waist, pulling you closer. He turned his attention to the rest of the CBS table, who were still laughing and waving after you, and then, as if on some impulsive whim, he pulled you away from the table.

“Come on, you,” he muttered under his breath, a low, almost needy tone threading through his voice. His grip tightened around you, and you found yourself tugged away from the conversation, your arm instinctively looping around his.

“Oi, where are you going?” Micah called after you, though his words were more amused than anything else. “You're leaving already? Happy honeymoon to you lot then!”

Noel just shot him a grin over his shoulder, before guiding you toward a quieter corner of the venue, where the noise from the crowd seemed to fade.

He didn’t waste any time, gently tugging you toward a nearby couch and plopping down with a soft grunt. Before you could even settle beside him, he was pulling you into his lap, wrapping his arms around you and nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck.

“Oi, come here.” he mumbled, practically purring as he pulled you closer, his arms tightening around you as though you might slip away. “You’re not going anywhere, yeah?”

You chuckled softly, surprised by his sudden clinginess. It was like he couldn’t get enough of you, and you didn’t mind it one bit. His weight was comforting as he settled in, his breath warm against your skin.

“You’re a right softie when you want to be, you know that?” you teased, feeling his fingers lightly squeeze your waist as he held you even tighter.

“Shut up,” he muttered, but the smile on his face gave him away. “You’ve got me all... emotional.”

He kissed the side of your neck, just a light press of his lips, but it sent a shiver down your spine. You felt his body sink into the couch, and his grip on you never loosened, like he was reluctant to even give you space to breathe.

“Well, you know, I could get used to this clingier Noel” you murmured, relaxing into his embrace, your fingers idly running through his hair.

“Good,” he said, his voice low, like it was a promise. “Because I’m not letting go anytime soon.”

You laughed, shaking your head, but the truth was, there was something oddly comforting about the way he was holding you, so tight and so unyielding.

He pulled away just slightly, enough to look at you with that mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Oi,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “that kit you’re wearing... that’s not exactly... factual, is it?”

You blinked, confused at first. “What?”

“The name on the back. It’s a bit of... misinformation, innit?” he said with a smirk, his fingers still tracing slow circles on your side.

A little smile tugged at your lips. “Oh, I know what you mean. But, y’know...” You paused, looking up at him with a playful gleam in your eye. “I’ve got an idea how you can make it factual.”

Noel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and for a second, he looked like he was trying to figure out if you were joking or not. He leaned back slightly, his hands still gripping you possessively. “What d’you mean, eh? You can’t be serious.”

You grinned, pressing a kiss to his jaw, your fingers playing with the edge of his shirt.

He was quiet for a second, like he was still processing what you meant. Then, a slow grin spread across his face, and he pulled back slightly to look at you. “Wait... are you... genuinely suggesting what I think you are?”

You only raised an eyebrow in response, watching the shift in his expression. There was something hopeful in the way he was looking at you, something a little more vulnerable than usual.

“Well, yeah,” you started, voice low.

Without a word, Noel pulled you closer, his lips crashing into yours in a kiss that cut off anything you were meaning to say. The heat between you both was instant, but it was short-lived as his lips tugged into a smile even as he kissed you, forcing you to pull away, grinning back at him. You two just looked at each other, smiles spreading across your faces, only to start giggling like kids in the next few seconds.

___________________________________

desperately needed fluff after all that angst, hope you like it and per usual thanks to @shes-thunderstormssss for the beautiful request x

also, I actually love the kit Noel designed, have it meself and the colours are great + the soundwave circles + the collar giving it a more retro look (it's 30% off now btw so if anyone is interested it's a good deal now)

[pilot-boi]

So I know this is probably a really out of date question.

What are your headcanons for Jinder after they get out of the ever after?

If you already did this, sorry, and disregard

AFTER Jinder gets out of the Ever After?

Well first of all, we need to establish what happens to them IN the Ever After. And heads up, this REALLY really got away from me

Jaune and Cinder’s souls never mesh, even when trapped in one body for decades. They each hate themselves and each other too much to truly sync (which then rebounds back on itself and makes it all worse)

Jaune hates Cinder and himself for killing Penny, for killing Pyrrha. Cinder hates Jaune for trapping her here, for helping Winter steal the powers, for getting in her way. They hate each other, and they hate themselves. With that much bad energy trapped in “one” head, it’s really a wonder they dont destroy themselves long before RWBY lands

The worst part, for Cinder, is the sorrow she can feel from Jaune’s ocean of a soul. Not for himself, for her. Even though she can feel his hatred, she can also feel how his soul can’t help but try to heal her

The worst part, for Jaune, is the terror he can feel from Cinder’s tattered remains of a soul. Terror at being trapped, and worst of all terror at the lack of control she has in this situation (The Grimm arm is missing. Will it come back if they unfuse? Can her soul handle the strain of that?) Even though he can feel her rage, he can also feel that Cinder has been terrified every day of her life

So they never truly mesh. Jaune’s soul keeps her trapped to protect the Afterans (and to protect her) Cinder’s soul clings to his to harness his Aura (and to protect herself)

Phenomal power, more Aura than any person to walk Remnant and nitro boosted Maiden powers on top of that. But their minds are fractured. Two souls were never meant to be trapped together for this long. The Wildfire Knight is truly a volatile force

Mentally, Jaune and Cinder actually come to an accords of sorts (twenty years of absorbing the thoughts and fears of another person will do that). The stepping stone for them for not battling in their minds constantly was their realization that they both want the same thing: To leave the Ever After

And eventually they do. There’s shenanigans along the way (I can’t recap all of V9 in this post, it would take too long)

When Ruby runs, Jinder is the first to find her

Their anger compounded against itself and they screamed at their friend-nemesis. Jaune’s guilt makes them stand, Cinder’s determination makes them move. The Maiden powers speed them after Weiss Schnee (Why did she stay? Why does she care?) They reach her, pass her, and dive into a dilapidated mansion

(Why did they dive between the Cat’s claws and Ruby’s unprotected chest? Why did they curl around the girl’s battered, screaming form and shield them from the Mad Hatter’s onslaught? Why didn’t they move faster? Why did they care? Why did it take this long to do something right with their life?)

Jinder finds themself standing in front of the Blacksmith

A Young Explorer left her knife for them. A shining blade to cut through the rusted chains binding two souls together. And for the first time in decades, Jaune and Cinder are alone in their heads

It’s not ascension. Not really. It’s more like rebirth

Jaune got to be the hero he wanted to be, but realized that he ran from the person he wanted to be along the way. Cinder got to be strong as she wanted to be, but realized that she was blinded by fear along the way

Jaune chooses to love. Cinder chooses to hope

When they open their eyes, they’re both as they remember before falling into the Ever After plus a few changes

Jaune has white streaks in his hair, and his leg is now missing as Jinder’s was. A humming white and gold prosthetic attaches in its place, melding so seamlessly that he can’t tell where flesh ends and synthetics begin. He can feel the fabric of his jeans, the pressure of his boots, even the warmth of his socks. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. The Blacksmith forges people, a false leg must be easy as breathing to her

Cinder has hair streaks of her own, and she definitely doesn’t choke up when she sees that the Grimm arm is gone, she’s free. Wait, but something is different. She blinks, waves a hand in front of her face, blinks again, moves her head back and forth, and only then realizes that she has both eyes. A smooth glowing orb like a coal sits in her eye socket, surrounded by scar tissue like a starburst

They appear beside the Blacksmith’s forge together. Separate, but together. Yang, Blake, and Weiss are all immediately on guard when Cinder appears, but Ruby seems strangely at ease

Of course. She’s the only one among them who knows how liberating this feels

They’re apart now. They no longer feel another presence in their heads. They no longer feel a weight draining their soul, crushing their minds

Jaune and the others gather in front of the portal, and Weiss takes Jaune’s hand, interlocking their fingers and smiling up at him. Cinder rolls her eyes when he starts to cry and wraps the heiress in a hug. If there’s been one constant, it has been Jaune’s over emotionality

What she doesn’t expect is for Weiss to offer her other hand to Cinder, in a way that’s clear this is no accident, this is a deliberate decision. A snowflake trusting a fire not to burn it

Schnee’s blue eyes are ice cold, but somehow they’re warmer than Salem’s fire-red ones have ever been. She’s shorter than Cinder, slight, small, but somehow she’s a rock to the knight clutching her hand. Cinder remembers how easy it was to skewer her like a butterfly to a board. She also remembers how Jaune felt watching that happen.

Jaune is still holding the heiress’s other hand, and for once Cinder doesn’t scoff at the open expression on his face. He trusts her. He trusts her. Somehow, despite everything, despite the pain she’s brought him that she can still feel in the recesses of her mind, Jaune Arc trusts her

And Jaune Arc trusts Weiss Schnee. And Cinder lets the hope she chose guide her decision. She will not let fear take any more of her than it already has

Cinder takes Weiss’s hand, her real human hand touching another person for the first time in decades. Weiss’s face is impassive, but she seems proud, somehow. A first step. Why does she feel like she’s lighter than air?

The portal blazes in front of them.

Jaune and Cinder stand separated, apart, but held together. They’re really here. They never dared to believe it would happen, even as they fought day and night to get here

They’re finally going home. To love and hope, and fight and die. But that’s what being human is. And somehow, despite falling through worlds and fractured minds, they might actually get a chance to do the one thing they both agreed upon

Jaune and Cinder will live

[dreamwreaver]

because Alastor has already canonically called Charlie good girl, she must return the favor by calling him good boy

honestly wanna see a fanfic do this where Alastor does what he's asked after Charlie wore him down after his incessant complaints and excuses. then once he concedes, she does what he did to her last time to mock him: she pats him on his head and chirps "Good boy!" and walks away, leaving a stunned demon who has unknowingly gained a praise kink

Ask and ye shall receive. Well, less of a fic and more of a ficlet but, I have something cooking for Valentine's Day I really wanna finish in time so...

As much as he adored his dearest Charlie, Alastor had to admit she could be as tenacious as a junkyard dog with a bone when an idea got into her head, and unfortunately in this instance he was the bone.

"Please Al?" She laced her fingers together in front of her chest, tucking them under her chin as she made her eyes as big as possible and fluttered her lashes at him, black lips pursed in a tempting pout.

Overall the effect would have been ridiculous on anyone else. But since it was his Charlie... ugh, when had he become so weak?

"Darling we've been over this," his frustration was about as sturdy as a rock sunk into the sea, worn down and eroded by the battering of the waves, "I don't particularly care for men in general, fathers in particular, and your father most especially. And the feeling is certainly mutual."

He did enjoy getting the fallen angel's... he'd say goat if he didn't find the prospect gauche and insulting to his sweetheart. And it did so sting the tiny would be tyrant that his own flesh and blood had chosen to be with not just a sinner, but the one sinner he hated above everyone else. A fact that Alastor took almost as much pleasure in as he took from Charlie herself. Nevertheless...

"But it'll be fun!"

Alastor resisted the ungentlemanly urge to snort in derision, "For whom, exactly?"

Charlie opened her mouth to counter, but stopped short when she realized he was right. That didn't mean she was going to stop trying though.

"Alright, fine," she huffed, "I know it's not going to be fun, for you or for him but... Al this is my dad. And sure he hasn't always been the most..."

"Caring? Affectionate? Able to prevent you from developing daddy issues?" He paused and looked at her, "Please, stop me when you hear something you like; I can go all day!"

"Present," Charlie emphasized the word, "But he's trying to be better, to fix our relationship. And I want that too."

"By all means dearest," Alastor held out his hands as if to demonstrate there was nothing up his sleeve, "I'm certainly not stopping you from seeing the man. Go to the dinner, have fun, and then when you get home I'll make you a proper meal."

"Al," Charlie's sweet mouth was set in a pout as she looked at him, "You can't just beg off anything that has to do with my parents. Like it or not, they're the rulers of Hell and I'm the princess. I have duties, expectations, and I want you to be part of that part of my life."

"I am perfectly fine being the ever feared Radio Demon. While I appreciate you thinking I'm worthy of being prince consort it's not a title that I exactly covet."

Alastor knew he'd said the wrong thing as soon as it left his mouth. Charlie's whole expression dropped.

"No, I mean," since when had talking ever been so difficult for him, "I will stay with you for an eternity my dearest. In whichever way you'll deign to have me. But despite how much I enjoy power, that isn't why I'm with you."

"I know," she replied quietly, fiddling with her hair as she was wont to do when her emotions were too much and the energy needed to be expended somewhere, "But being with me means being with all of me. I accept every part of you."

If his heart was still beating it might very well have tightened in his chest. He knew all of this already. It was one of the reasons he loved her.

"And I accept all of you my darling demon belle," he replied, "But I cannot in good conscience find it in myself to attend what would only be a disaster of a dinner with your father."

She resorted to pleading again, this time keeping her hands clasped low and using her arms to draw attention to her already ample chest. And again, he was left wondering when he'd become so weak-minded that a woman's breasts were of any interest to him. No wait, that was wrong, it wasn't any woman who could catch his eye. It was specifically because it was Charlie that he was distracted in the first place.

"You're my partner, the one I chose," Charlie had moved closer, placing her hands at his lapels against his chest, "If my dad doesn't like it then he can fucking deal. I'm not going to make all the sacrifices in fixing our relationship. You and I are a package deal, if he wants to see me, he needs to get used to seeing you."

It was easy to forget sometimes that Charlie was in fact a demon, such was her sweet and optimistic -if a bit crass at times- nature. However, Alastor felt his grin turn giddy, such pointed cruelty as to make her own sire suffer Alastor's presence if he wanted time with his child? Having the fact that a man the devil himself couldn't stand at his table, with full knowledge of what sorts of things people in committed relationships got up to rubbed in his face? Oh that was far too good an opportunity to pass up.

"Alright," he relented. But in truth he probably would have given in anyways. Alastor found that since he'd given his heart to Charlie there wasn't anything he could really deny her, "I'll attend, but don't-"

"I don't expect you and my dad to be best friend," Charlie rolled her eyes but her smile softened the sass, "Just... civil," a pause, "ish."

"I'll endeavor to do my best,"

"Thank you," she pressed a kiss against his cheek, "And maybe if you stay on your best behavior there'll be some... quid pro quo,"

Alastor wasn't quite able to swallow the half moan half growl that rumbled from within at her words.

Later that evening they stood waiting to be received by the king of hell before being seated. It was so like him to keep them waiting. At least there were plenty of portraits of his beloved to keep him occupied.

"Remember," Charlie whispered as a servant hurried into the hall.

"Best behavior," Alastor whispered back, "Yes dearest I know."

Charlie stared at him a moment, then with a sly smile and a dangerous gleam in her eye she leaned up to speak directly in his ear,

"Good boy," she purred, making things worse by gently patting him on the head, "Very good boy."

As she began striding away from him with a deliberate swing of her supple hips Alastor smiled so tightly his molars began to grind. Oh sweet Charlotte, how naive. She'd only asked him to play nice with her father. She never said anything about herself.

Hope you like it Nonny!