#which i guess is the tag now! could not think of a good enough pun without stretching so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[espurr-roba]

it's late but I can't get any sleep, SO

let's get exploring >:)

[riveriafalll]

Mega OC Questionaire!!!!!!!

Time to get to know Artemys Raine, I guess!

(psst this is her story)

Five things that make you happy

“Hmmm... there are several things that make me happy, but Magnus usually tells me that 'eight year olds shouldn't have that big of a knife collection'. I like tricking people, and I like the song that Alec always hums to himself when he makes coffee in the morning. I like feeding the pigeons on the windowsill in the morning, when New York is... well, slightly quieter than normal, and when it's foggy in Central Park and I can dance with the Fae."

If you could save just one person, who would it be?

“Myself. Always."

Tell us one of your funniest jokes

“I don't joke much really... Magnus says my humour is more suited to an eighty year old than an eight, but then again he's the one with all the t-shirt puns."

Where would you like to visit?

“I really want to go to Peru..."

When do you usually go to sleep?

“According to Alec, eight pm every night. Magnus is a pushover and lets me stay up to midnight."

Are you a jealous person?

“Jealous of what? Power? I have more than enough myself, although I'm always happy to collect more."

Have you committed a crime?

“Are you a cop?"

Do you have a chore you usually hate?

“Having to baby-sit grown-ass adult Shadowhunters who keep almost dying."

Tell me an embarrassing childhood story

“I was born. That was pretty embarrassing."

Are you a good person?

“Ehhhh...."

What’s the worst thing you’ve done? Do you regret it?

“I briefly locked Jace in a room with a duck, I have no regrets. (Magnus is reading this over my shoulder and says I should add all the murder I've done, but I think the duck was worse, honestly)

What’s the quickest way to make you laugh?

“Probably tickling me, but that's also the quickest way to get a knife in the gut."

What is your favorite song right now?

“Magnus keeps playing ABBA, and I like Fernando the best, although he always dances with me during 'Does Your Mother Know' which is fun."

Do you sometimes wish to be someone else?

“Sometimes."

Do you push forward or take time to rest?

“Time to rest is time to get stabbed in the back, if you need to heal, do it while planning."

What is your favorite drink?

“Coffee. As strong as I can get away with before Alec notices."

If you had to pick a single item of clothing or an accessory to wear for the rest of your life, what would it be?

“My backpack. It has everything I need in it, and most of what I own."

If you were forced to forget a single memory, what would it be?

“I assume this is meant to be some sort of deep, sentimental question, but I'd simply forget the memory of whatever I'd dreamt about last night."

What is a positive thing your worst enemy would say about you?

“One of them told me that I was quite tenacious just after he stabbed me. I would be more proud if it hadn't come from Valentine."

she's so sassy, i love her (yes, magnus is working on the therapy thing. no shes not convinced yet.)

adding my tag list (+/- lemme know) and an open tag!!!

@hyperfixation-tangentopia @pippinoftheshire @cherrybombfangirlwrites

@once-and-future-fandoms @glasshouses-and-stones @deanscherrypie420

@agirlandherquill @lillybaaaka @late-to-the-fandom @toodumbforusernames

@damageinkorporated @aquadestinyswriting @druidx

@iIlovevewritingfanfic @supercimi @creative-author

@27paperlilies @avocado-frog @abigailmartinwriting

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

okay literally nobody asked for this but i saw a post about the crews possible zodiac signs (that post can be found here) and went "man, i wonder if these guys have birthdays, even if its just a headcanon"

well guess what, i found nothing. no birthdays as far as im aware. so guess what i just spent the last 45 minutes doing?

thats right, using my finite knowledge of zodiac signs and that zodiac post i saw, i came up with birthdays for the riptide pirates (its like midnight girl help-)

so without further ado, i present to you...

the (very much not canon) birthdays of the riptide pirates!

lets start with chip, who was the easiest: april 20th

the post linked above puts him as a taurus, and having no reason to dispute this claim, i decide to just roll with it (pun intended.) i have a younger sister whos a taurus. i know this sign well.

(i feel its at this point that i should mention im not a professional and its very late.)

so now i have a date range, april 20th to may 20th. im looking around for anything that could help me close that gap, and then i discover decans. as far as im aware, decans are ten day periods within zodiacs that have slightly different traits to the overall zodiac. (these decans were very helpful with picking these dates!) well, upon closer inspection, i decide that chip is best described by the 1st decan of taurus, or however you word that, and as such, his birthday would fall between april 20th and april 29th. from there you know what i had to do (it was funny i promise)

lets move on to gillion tidestrider, who was slightly more difficult: december 10th

so at this point since im using chips assigned zodiac, i might as well stick with that theme and go with sagittarius for gill. that gives me a date range of november 22nd to december 21st. originally i was thinking to myself, "oh this man is such a winter solstice child," but upon further review (including decan research,) i settle on the 2nd decan. this shortens my date range to somewhere between december 3rd and december 11th, so winter solstice was out the window. so, completely on a whim, i decide to look up holidays in december. this is when i discover the festival for the souls of dead whales. its on december 10th. the rest is self explanatory.

finally, jay ferin, who i struggled quite a bit more with: june 21st

since im sticking with the zodiac post, jay is a gemini. this gives me a date range of may 21st to june 21st. i turn to the decans and realize that i dont actually know jay well enough to assign her decan. (i love her, dont get me wrong, but for some reason i struggled with this.) after a few minutes of reading over the traits and differences between the decans, i settle on the 3rd decan of gemini. this gives me a range of june 11th to june 21st. from here, i try to copy my strategy for gill and look up fun holidays that might give me a solid date, but i dont really find anything that catches my eye. then, i find out that the 21st of june is - you guessed it - a solstice! this unironically fits jay very well, which is very good for me.

and there you have it folks. i just spent an additional 45 minutes writing this post, and now im going to go to bed. tag me if i missed anything important, please-

[gigglebug]

OC Name meanings

tagged by @randomstupidchaos

okay, so I think we all know that I primarily write a bunch of fanfic. so a lot of my characters come pre-built with names. there are several that I came up with myself, but if I only listed those names, it wouldn't even look like my book anymore, so I'm gonna define all of them anyway. (except for Malroth. I have little idea what his name means or where it comes from. it's not even his name from his starting language. who knows!)

that said I do have ONE original story (I have not worked on it in so long agh) and I will do that one at the end.

Builderverse

Crea- short for Create. stole it from the tutorial lmao.

Aris- short for Arisplotle. who is a slime. dragon quest has a thing about slimes having pun names, you know? (granted in maskverse I named him Aristaeus, which he hates, and it means some variation of "best" because he's the best boy.)

of note, in Maskverse specifically, "Malroth" is a nickname he made up for himself that he could use while in hiding as the prince so no one could sus him out. his first name is Troy. this is because his mom is Hellen and I thought it would be funny. Hellen of Troy from illiad fame is now Troy of Hellen in my story. (it's really not that funny, is it?) (yes this is basically the sole reason I made Hellen from the game his mom for the sake of the story. good times!)

of the main builders cast I'm mostly interested in Rosie (self-explanatory since she's a gardener), Babs (comes from Barbara which means stranger), and Anessa. From the (weirdly few) posts I can find about this name, Anessa is short for Agnessa, which is another form of Anges. in Greek, Agnes is pure/holy/chaste/satisfaction (everyone gives a different one lol), which I find interesting given her role in the story.

of other interesting note, Warwick can mean from the settlement by the weir (which I guess is a dam), but it also can mean "strong leader who defends". personally I think they went with his name because "war" is in it and hi that's what his island is known for.

Ludovic itself means Famous war/battle, but I chose it because the Spanish version of builders named Warwick "Ludovico" and I needed another antagonist.

Damara is Greek for "gentle" which makes sense cos she was created to be a mentor character. ended up later adopting Malroth but she lended well to it XD

Griswold- english was grey forest or grey land, french it was a ruler with grey hair (which is kinda weird because in game he is VERY bright blue). that said, I think they picked it because it kinda sounds like gristle, which is related to bone, which he is a skeleton.

Floria- flower. just thought it's fun to have a hypercompetent soldier be named Flower because her parents wanted her to be a nice proper lady. (she said fuck that.)

that's all that's coming to mind on that.

Sirens

Patrick- nobleman (english)

Jonathan- God has given (hebrew)

Scotia- person from Scotland (english) (she's not Scottish tho I just liked how it sounded)

Troy- footsoldier (greek) (don't ask me how I got two of these)

Easton- from the east (he arrives to the story from far away)

Brinda- from the basil plant (india) (again I liked the sound)

Kurt- courteous (american) (it's funny because he's overtly sarcastic with everyone but Brinda and then he turns into a teddy bear. only Patrick ever sees it tbh)

Felice- fortunate/happy (latin)

Tahlia- morning dew (hebrew). also because my dad always joked about naming me Talitha so I played with the letters.

Sera- shortened from Saraphim, which is an angel (something latin related)

I have other characters that only appear in book 2, but given I haven't touched that story since 2014-2016, I don't think it's going anywhere enough to bother listing here.

[radiantlyrey]

I never do stuff like this, but @bowiesinspace did this neat little questionnaire, so I thought I'd give it a shot, too.

Are you named after anyone? Yes! I was named after a beloved great-aunt of my mother's. It is a unique spelling of a semi-common name, so I'm not tellin' it here. As for my internet name (Skye, short for Skye_Writer or SkyeWriter30 or whatever), I chose that myself because I like puns.

When was the last time you cried? I almost cried yesterday thinking about something that I can't remember now. It was either a movie or tv episode, or maybe a book? Maybe? I cry at the slightest provocation, at least when it comes to media, so yeah.

Do you have any kids? Nope! And very happy that way. My siblings both have kids, though, and I very much love those kiddos, but I do not ever want any of my own.

What sports do you play/have you played? I played girls' softball when I was ten or eleven and it was against my will.

Do you use sarcasm? Yes. Constantly. It is my conversational bread and butter.

What's the first thing you notice about people? Usually? Their hair or clothes. Things that make them identifiable, stuff like that.

What's your eye color? Dark brown. (Though in more direct light they look kind of amber-golden, which I love.)

Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings all the way! I am not a huge fan of downer endings, or endings that are bleak for bleakness' sake. I don't mind an ambiguous ending (like say, Inception), but I much prefer happy endings, or at least happy-for-now endings.

Any talents? Not really? I guess? I don't know. I'm good at picking up new crafts and such, I guess. I don't know. I'm so bad at actually looking at myself objectively. Sigh.

Where were you born? Long Beach, California. I'm only telling you this because I live nowhere near Long Beach, California anymore.

What are your hobbies? Writing and reading, mostly. I also enjoy cozy-type video games (also Pokemon) (basically just any kind of game where you don't have to fight things, or if you do, the fights don't require good reflexes). I crochet a lot, too; I'm currently making an amigurumi dragon and having fun with it. I also enjoy doing puzzles, and I keep meaning to pick up my ukulele or ocarina and get better with those.

Do you have any pets? Yes! We have a 2-year-old dog who's extremely rambunctious, and then four cats. I love them all, tho one of the cats is sometimes a jerk.

How tall are you? About 5'7" or 5'8" (so around 1m70cm or so??). Middling tall is I guess how you'd describe it.

Favorite subject in school? English, a thousand times over. Runners-up include Chemistry (which I took two courses on in uni), and Math (I took Calculus for fun in uni). Also I really enjoyed the Film classes I took for my Film Studies minor in university.

Dream job? In an ideal world where I was not actively hindered by my own brain, I would be a published author or something. But honestly, I'd settle for something simple enough that I wouldn't stress about it (anxiety is a lame-ass BITCH), that I could also sit down while doing (back pain? ALSO a lame-ass bitch).

Not tagging anybody bc that ain't my style. Enjoy this unprecedented look behind the curtain!! *swishes cape and dives offstage*

[edutainer2022]

@riallasheng I'm so loving all the thoughts this all makes me think!

OK, let's talk the Kyranos for a minute. I also think the Ninja Kyrano Sr. thing is, at least in part, informed by the fact the Tracies/IR all of a sudden DO HAVE a Chief of Security position in their ranks. So it's safe to assume while Kayo was still a kid - someone else was that (because bar Alan doing space rescues - child labor laws are thing, especially if it's a paid job). And since they're a very secluded social circle - it could have been her now retired Dad (who happens to be a brother of Jeff's erstwhile business partner and Criminal Mastermind). I have two ideas: a) maybe Kyrano Sr. kinda third wheeled it with Jeff and the Hood originally to keep an eye on his shady brother. And became good friends with Jeff, eventually; b) maybe Kyrano was never a Chief of Security, but Kayo's reappearance closer to the TAG s1 timeline prompted for those in the know (Casey, Sally) that the Hood was ready to resurface. So imagine Sally "suggesting" over breakfast one day they offer Kayo a Security Op - she's kinda family anyway, she's gonna be helping with IR (while Alan is still too obviously a kid), and she's scarily deadly. Scott trusts his Grandma, he didn't think anything of it and did.

If we run with the idea Bereznik happens AFTER Zero-X- Kayo could have reentered the picture as a shadow (pun intended), when attempts to rouse Kyrano out of retirement/depression failed. They needed a covert task force. So maybe that was Kayo's debut as a cover operative in the Tracy scene. In and out - like a shadow.

If we're running EVEN FURTHER with the idea (which my evil mind absolutely loves!) the Hood was at least partially either in the know or behind the arrangement of Scott's imprisonment- Kayo could have been the one to bring that information to the table. Maybe that's why/how she left in the first place. Yeah, Janus had been around A LONG WHILE, and who knows how long he had been in the Hood's employ. And how many of the GDF high command as well. In that case their goals aligned - GDF gets the Tracies and IR I suspended animation, till Scott is not dead, but not free either. The Hood gets yet another ONE UP on Jeff. If there were business powers that wouldn't mind the eventual demise of Tracy Industries- they wouldn't object much too, I guess.

The Mechanic could still BE a Kyrano. Hey, these people are all about secret identities. Hood and Kyrano are half brothers, I guess. Who's to say Kyrano didn't have a son before he married Kayo's mother and they had Kayo. The Mechanic is both old enough and young enough for that - schooled overseas, never really in the picture of Kyrano's new stage in life, then in the Hood's thrall (quite possibly the Hood played up the angle that Mechanic had been ditched to the curb; I also got the idea the Mechanic got into Hood's mind-thrall due to depression after T-drive malfunction - so he didn't know it was Hood's sabotage, which Hood would have more ways to hide if he played the "concerned uncle"). The Mechanic doesn't volunteer much information about himself. Brains seemed to know him - but he designed T-drive, so probably from that. Sally is sure generous with him (but she's in the habit of assembling a surrogate family of strays in case her actual kids don't make it).

John and GDF actually makes sense. He would have probably at least interned at NASA or International Space Agency (though, they have everyone and their brother going to space liberally in the bright future of TAG). Well, a guy who's off-handed code could evolve into an AI would have at least been on GDF radar for a while. I think you're right, the GDF might have thought they had the elder boys in the bag anyway with the IR gig. John would absolutely do what he sees as necessary by the means avaliable and then say f*ck you, no thanks. Virgil... yeah, Virgil, bless his heart, thinks good guys are mostly good and GDF is mostly Aunt Casey or Uncle Lee. Janus obviously baffled him. Maybe it was a thoroughly curated experience for the gentle soul.

*I'll follow up soon about Filthy Rich Tracies*

@edutainer2022 , the original post was so long it was causing issues on my phone for some reason, so I'm copying your last post and starting a new 'thread' (so long as that is alright with you. If you so wish I'll copy my reply and put it on your thread ^^;; )

Of IR is obviously a cash sinkhole. They also tend to wreck quite a lot of property through the rescues. Zero-XL trial and error construction alone seems to have cost a budget of a sizable country. Also... the way IR policy is about not saving equipment and John merrily suggesting Global One worth billions of hard fought for tooth and nail funding be abandoned - they boys probably never had to file a grant proposal in their life. In their life equipment the caliber and expense of a space station is replaceable on demand. Unless it has sentimental value.

I LOVE the idea Mom's heirloom money was a major contribution. Although, the old residence of the Gran Roca doesn't appear opulent - we don't know the extent of the estate (and horses? Where did the horses go?). Maybe smart investments, patents, not just aeronatic business. Mom is canonically old southern money (but still no name).

Oh, the Bereznik thing WITHOUT Jeff in the picture would have been a glorious mess. Scott is a) respectfully, a fairy nobody at that point (well, Daddy's boy, but no political and little economic leverage); b) all but a liability for GDF if they want to go ahead with IR - Scott is one foot out and vocal about his brothers being no foot in, the IR branching AWAY into Thunderbirds is afoot, and while it's not a problem to train GDF officers into operatives, the hitch is probably in the rights and specs for the tech (and Brains) - the Tracies are out, IR is out of GDF clutch. So yeah... Scotty MIA is more convenient... than not. So quite likely the Old Guard pooled up for an extraction that "never happened" under conditions that Scott's imprisonment "never happened" to anyone who should ask. Yeah, Scott doesn't like or wants anything to do with GDF law inforcement angle. Maybe IR is later greenlit under STRICT conditions they will only identify as civilians. Scott is so worried Kayo was breaking that rule as if their license depended on it. Maybe it did. He's worried as late as Chain Reaction (all the while aiding and abating an escape of a terrorist out of pure unironic goodness of his heart).

I agree, much as the idea of Military bros is appealing - Gordon indicates no exposure to that structure. Scott does, but, like you said, not in the manner that would suggest he thrived or wanted to do it for life. Semi-canonical "interview" with "Scott" has him flounder on a question what he would do, if not IR. The military service doesn't even come up. Something something about charity and philanthropy.

I wonder how much of Zero-X was built with Jeff and Lee in mind. Calypso was a two pilot mission. There wasn't much OUT THERE at the time to warrant T-drive powered rescues. No Marcian colony, nothing. Maybe Jeff and Lee felt stir crazy, "moored" on Earth and kinda expected to space-the-final-frontier it in their autumn days.

Yeah, TaG tends to be as hard on their equipment (and locations) as TOS was, but you have to factor that by the number of rescues... and with TaG being known, that means that people can 'contact' them for reimbursement for damages and harm and the like. Hck, protection from THAT might be part of the reason Jeff could ahve gone with a branch of the GDF initially. (actually, question... where does the Kyrano was a bad-ass ninja warrior come from? It's never said or even implied in the show that I recall. Is it just because Kayo is a kick-ass warrior? I ask because imagine if Kyrano was originally more of the lawyer type, or engineer who was helping Brains or the like). The Tracys, Brains, and Kayo are REALLY lackadaisical about objects and finances. Sometimes I get it, like when the choice is save a person OR save a thing... but they seem to be richer than even the TOS Tracys, and there are times where their lack of care of items is grating. Teh high-rise fire episode in example, where they took delight and went out of their way to damage the building / cut the top off of it - it legit would have been easier and safer to break the glass and lower the seats down, and the smugness to the building owner after bordered on them being asses. And in another example... yeah, Global One. O'Bannon was RIGHT in her call to try and save the station, that is a MASSIVE investment (and would have been a LOT OF DEADLY DEBRIS RAINING DOWN) and I frankly side with her on it. Like TOS tends to place people above the items too, but they do try to limit damage they cause, in the comics actually do their best to salvage /save items when possible (The ocean liner The President in example) and John and Scott even directly discuss how the Ocean Pioneer was a significant investment for the people involved and they should have tried saving it. Scott AGREES with John on that, but points out that they likely couldn't have done so before it blew up / they might not have been able to. In the comics (and novels to a degree) they HAVE made the call to save the objects as well on occasion.

On the Ranch not looking opulent... sometimes people with a lot of money don't spend it on mansions or the like, but instead on other things... and it's possible that the Mom's family prefered simply, homely, comforts and disliked ostentatious shows of wealth. (In an example... Tracy Island in TOS and TaG is like this. The interior is comfortable and not very showy... yes they're on a private island, but the home itself looks like a upper middle class home of the era. There's Virgil's piano, but it's a baby grand rather than a grand, and white pianos actually cost markidly less than black pianos. The game room has a pool table, but (esp in the 60s) Pool tables weren't that expensive unless you went all in, and even people on the lower end of middle class could possibly have one. The same is true for what we see in the TaG house. Upper end of middle class overall. One or two showy things, but not opulent. Not Southern money, Western money / South-Western money. Southern refers to the states in the south east and tends to come from foresty or farms, where-as western and south western are from ranches or oil/natural gas. (The USA is not so much one country as it is 50 countries in a trenchcoat XD The Mom's home is in the western states, which are about as different culturally from the 'southern' states as... hmm... Ukraine is from France. There are many simularities, but there are also many differences). Bad area for horses though, very rocky with little to no grass or open areas. Not good for cattle ranching either. Most likely it was oil or natural gas (despite teh show lambasting it, oil is vital for a HECK of a lot more than just fuel, and would still be required in the 'modern day' of the show)

Yeah, Jeff being gone when Scott was a POW would make for an interesting situation. a) Scott likely was at minimum a Captain, and the Tracy name would have been well known from how big the company was to Jeff's heroic 'death', so Scott would be in the very bad position of being a 'nobody'... related to several 'somebodies' who could be levereged for ransom and Scott himself would likely be tortured for information on Tracy Industries, the (at that point) shut down iR 'branch', the GDF in general... It wouldn't be a good time for him in the slightest b) Scott being a POW would, terrifyingly, be a 'good' situation for the GDF. He wouldn't have any information they would need to worry about, it keeps him out of the way and out of trouble, he doesn't have teh threat of leaving the GDF which means as long as he's a POW they have access to Brains and the funding from Tracy Industries, they might be able to get Virgil or John to join up (Gordon would still be too young to enlist, as he'd only be 16 or 17)... Horrifyingly, they'd have every reason to both make sure that Scott stayed alive... and stayed a POW. And Scott would KNOW THAT. Which would go a VERY LONG way to explaining his apparent SEVERE lack of trust (and at times apparent near hatred) for the GDF. He likes and trusts Casey and Lee, but the GDF as a whole? Odds are Casey was very much bending or even breaking orders to get even slightly involved in the rescue. Heck, just her HIDING the fact that others were planning a rescue might have been all she was able to do, it might have been almost entirely Penny's dad via his connections and possibly sending Parker in, and quite likely Lee finding a way off the Moon (oddly, despite my earlier statement... I do't think Kyrano would be involved in this rescue. There's no indication that he ever left whatever bolthole he fled to, and if he didn't show up to help when the Hood returned or when they started finding evidence that Jeff was alive... he isn't going to show up to save Scott. Which means the rescue party was likely Parker, Lee, and possibly Penny's dad... who I totally imagine to basically be a 1:to:1 for Sir Jeremy Hodge from TOS. Odds are all the POWs were rescued, not just Scott.

Scott leaving the GDF likely the SECOND he was recovered enough to be coherent / lucid likely was a blow to the GDF, as that means Brains and the Tracy income would now be gone. I could totally see them putting a 'if you become a military organization, we will be 'forced' to have iR become part of the GDF again... it explains the total lack of weapons on the Thunderbirds or Tracys (I'm sorry, weapons for self defense or defense of others is a good thing overall) and why Scott is SO INTENSE about Kayo getting into combat situations... but also why he doesn't really get snarly until Kayo WORKS WITH THE GDF. He sacrificed a HELL of a lot to make sure that never happened, and he likely sees it as the GDF getting one MASSIVE foot in the door to them taking over iR 'again'.

TOS Scott and Gordon show a lot of evidence of not only havng been in the military, but having thrived in it. And some people DO do well in the military, quite often very good people. But Gordon is only 18-20 by the tme of the Pilot, so there honestly is no way for him to have served while still having his lines indicating that he's been a full-time member of iR for a few years prior to the pilot apply on top of the fact that he shows NO behaviors or actions that fit with a former member of the military. tagScott DOES show behaviors and actions that match up with a former member of the military... but they match up with the behaviors of those who just did NOT thrive / work / mesh with the military life. He very much seems to be a 'I served and by God do I regret it' type (which hey, fair, some people just aren't right for it)

you know, oddly, I don't think Jeff or Lee (or iR) were in mind at all with the Zero X. The GDF wouldn't really want either to go out exploring the far edges of the solar system, and with iR up and running (and plans to go independent with it) I actually doubt that Jeff or Lee would have wanted to go do so. Lee AFTER Jeff's 'death' might have been interested in that sort of thing as we see with him staying on the Mars Colony... but not before, I don't think. Look at how happy he was to stay on the Moon Base. He had nodesire or drive to go out exploring, he was happy to stay at Alphie and only left when he had no choice.

[hornime]

voyeurant | kenma kozume x f!reader

he tentatively wrapped a palm around the shaft, shuddering at the contact, his eyelids fluttering shut. god, i’m such a pervert, thinking about her like this. she’d hate me if she knew i saw her like that, knew that i was touching myself thinking about her tits...

warnings: 18+, timeskip!kenma, kinda dubcon, kenma’s unintentionally pervy, male masturbation, poorly written video game content (i tried my best), mutual pining but u both are oblivious

w/c: 1.5k

a/n: yes, the title is a shitty pun of valorant. no, i will not be changing it. also this tiktok about timeskip kenma made me giggle so pls enjoy.

voyeurant: part one ↓ | part two | part three:

“fuck, i hate this map,” kenma grumbled into his headset.

your voiced chimed in his ears. “is it ascent?” you turned to see his face on your screen, pinched in annoyance. “ha, it is ascent. sucks for you.”

“which one are you on? haven?”

“you know it,” you chuckled. “your favorite.”

“i hate you.” he weighed his options, did he really want to play this game? the layout of the world made it irritatingly hard to strategize, and today’s losing streak was making him more agitated than usual. with a sign, he closed the application. “fuck this. i’m gonna go piss.”

“yeah, yeah, you’re such a big baby. and...” you released your mouse, throwing your hands up in triumph, “we just won. at this point, i’m gonna outrank you.” you were joking, of course. kenma wasn’t just a gamer, he was kodzuken, one of japan’s best pro-gamers, and you were just someone that played as a hobby. but it was always fun to tease.

“hmm,” he hummed. “i’m sure you will.” he turned his head to look directly at his webcam, smirking, “in your dreams.”

“ooh, catboy’s getting feisty!” he flinched at the nickname. “go pee so i can beat you at your best.”

he obliged, pulling his headphones off and looping them on the top of his chair. he casually raised his middle finger at you while smoothing out strands of his hair, prompting a series of profanities to escape your mouth, none of which he could hear. he chuckled playfully as you responded with two middle fingers of your own, before moving out of the camera to get to the bathroom.

you and kenma had met in an... interesting way, to say the least. after going moderately viral from lashing out at him for refusing to heal you in a game of overwatch—while he was streaming—the two of you reconciled over a twitter thread and exchanged gamer tags. since then, you’d struck up an easygoing friendship, characterized by almost nightly discord calls and occasional flirting. but we’re just friends, you often reminded yourself. and you were fine, well, mostly fine, with that.

tonight was like any other night: both you and him spending hours in a video chat with nothing better to do than mindlessly play games and bash each other. it was more than enough to strengthen your relationship but fell short of giving you the romantic tension you craved.

with kenma off in the bathroom, you, already bored, spun wildly in your chair. forgetting that your earbuds were still plugged in, the white wire caught on an opened can of coke sitting on your desk, spilling the sugary drink all over your keyboard and the front of your shirt. 

“shit!” you quickly scrambled for paper towels, but the still-connected wire yanked you backwards. in your haste for something to wipe the soda with, the fact that your camera remained on in the video call completely slipped your mind. making the split-second decision that the trip for a towel wasn’t worth it at this point, you quickly whipped off your shirt, dabbing the keys with the part that was still dry. since you were home, you’d gone braless, and your current predicament had you flashing your webcam.

now, kenma had seen a lot of things from your side of the call: he’d seen you get chewed out by your residential advisor for being too loud, you with two sticks of pocky poking out of your mouth like walrus tusks, and you doing random cosplay moves you’d seen on tiktok. what he wasn’t expecting to see, not even in his wildest dreams, was a screenful of your tits, slightly damp from the cola that had seeped through the fabric of your long-gone shirt.

he stopped in his tracks, still out of the frame of his camera, eyes wide and heart racing, desperately trying to calm down and prevent the gradual hardening of his cock in his pants. unable to deny his desires, he continued staring at your plump breasts on his computer, you completely unaware that he could see you.

you quickly threw your soaked top in the laundry basket before throwing on a random sweatshirt and trying to calm your frazzled nerves. you tentatively touched your keyboard, groaning internally when you fingers lightly stuck to the buttons. it’s gonna take forever to clean this, you mourned.

“hey,” kenma mumbled, reappearing on screen and shaking you out of your thoughts.

“hey.” you noticed his flushed expression. “are you okay? you look really red.”

“uh, yeah. i actually uh, i feel kinda sick. so i’m gonna, gonna go.”

“oh, okay.” why’s he acting so weird? “feel better!” you disconnected from the call with a huff, disappointment morphing your face into a pout. well, you thought, better get to cleaning.

kenma, on the other hand, was still, swallowing as the bulge in his boxers became agonizingly hard. though the only thing left on his screen was his reflection staring back at him, the luscious view of your bust was etched in his mind. his hands moved to free his cock, the tip an angry red and smearing pre-cum over the waistband of his underwear. 

he tentatively wrapped a palm around the shaft, shuddering at the contact, his eyelids fluttering shut. god, i’m such a pervert, thinking about her like this. she’d hate me if she knew i saw her like that, knew that i was touching myself thinking about her tits...

“fuck,” he whined, slowly stroking up and down. his thighs trembled as he fell back into his chair, mind wandering. he couldn’t stop himself, his thoughts become more and more lewd, fantasizing about how your breasts would bounce as he thrusted into you, how your thighs would wrap warmly around your head as he ate you out, how you’d cry out his name so prettily when he made you squirt around his fingers.

it was all too much, and as the circle he made with his fingers tightened as he reached his tip, he lurched forward, alarmed at how good everything felt just by thinking about you. i can’t cum, i can’t, the small part of his brain that wasn’t completely overtaken with pleasure tried to reason with him. there’s no going back if i—shit—if i cum. she’ll know, somehow, if i—if i cum, i—

the ecstasy kept clouding his judgement and his body worked against his mind as his hand pumped faster and faster while his conscience screamed to stop. his wrist wetly slapped the base of his cock, the sounds of both his hands and his moans getting too loud for comfort, but all he could think about was you. your eyes, your mouth, your chest, your legs, your ass, your pussy. god, he wanted to be in you so badly.

he couldn’t hold back, his insatiable need to cum overriding his senses, and the translucent liquid twitched out of his throbbing cock in spurts, drenching his fist and his balls. “fuck, fuck, fuck. i’m—fuck.”

he collapsed against the back of his chair, chest heaving with the sheer intensity of his orgasm. he combed a hand through his hair, the consequences of his actions now weighing heavily on his shoulders. i’m never gonna be able to look at her in the eyes again, he lamented. how am i ever gonna—damn it. 

the sudden ping of a notification had his eyes raising from the mess on his pants towards his computer screen. 

meanwhile, you were messaging kenma, a little off-put by his sudden radio silence but chalking it all up to his mysterious sickness.

[11:05 PM] you: hey ken! hope u feel better

[11:05 PM] you: if u get the chance u should check out what i added to our minecraft house. its perfect for sick victorian orphans like u

[12:14 PM] you: guess

[12:05 PM] you: guess

[12:05 PM] you: guess

[12:05 PM] you: guess

[12:05 PM] you: why arent u responding

[12:05 PM] you: guess

[12:05 PM] you: ok u got me ill tell u

[12:05 PM] you: its a hot tub

[12:05 PM] you: but with soup

[12:05 PM] you: but the soup is lava

[12:05 PM] you: genius right

[12:06 PM] you: anyway get some sleep and feel better <3

[12:06 PM] you: lmk if u wanna play animal crossing

[12:06 PM] you: actually no u should sleep. rest ur eyes and shit

[12:06 PM] you: no animal crossing for u!

[12:06 PM] you: sleep well so i can destroy ur ass in val tmrw

[12:06 PM] you: >:)

he sighed as he read your one-sided ramblings. he really liked you.

and he really wanted to fuck you. lucky for you, you wanted the exact same thing. 

if only kenma knew what you did on the other side of the screen, hands in your undies and his name on your lips...

>> part two

© property of hornime 2021. do not plagiarize any of my writing and do not repost/copy my writing onto any other sites.

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

Don’t Go Baking My Heart || Seokjin

Pairing: Seokjin x reader

Summary: You fall in love with Kim Seokjin’s bakery after wandering into it to take advantage of the post-Valentine’s Day discount on the chocolates. Maybe it’s the owner’s bad jokes, maybe it’s the other regulars, maybe it’s the delicious pastries. Or maybe there’s something more that keeps you coming back to that shop.

Also available on Ao3.

Word count: 14.7k

Genre: Strangers (to Friends) to Lovers, Bakery AU, tooth-rotting Fluff, some smut

Warnings & Tags: mentions of insecurities and of former relationships, smut (vaginal sex, oral [male receiving], fingering), Jin makes Bad Jokes, Valentine’s Day themed

A/N: Soooo this was supposed to come out for Valentine’s Day, but it wasn’t ready then, so you guys get it now instead! I’m bad with puns so I definitely had to look online for those used in this oops. Finally, I’d like to give a big thank you to the amazing @elidebrey​ who actually worked in a bakery shop and told me all about (I’m sorry you guys ran out of milk all the time). She’s an amazing writer and you should check her out if you like the Batfam! Hope you’ll enjoy this one-shot!

February 15th

You first walk into Kim Seokjin’s bakery the day after Valentine’s Day. Your eye was caught by the chocolates and cakes you noticed on sale from the outside, and also the name of the place, The Rolling Scones, which is either genius or terrible, you can’t pick. The door bell chimes happily, first when you push the door open and then when it closes behind you.

The place is empty. There’s no one behind the counter, and you find yourself hesitating there for a second, both arms behind your back like a shy schoolgirl — which you once were, but that was a while ago now. Natural light, the cold sun of February, is falling through the bay windows, and the place is cute, clearly decorated with love and care. It makes you feel just a little warmer inside.

Since no one seems to be showing up, you take your time to look at the display. You’ve spent the past week crying over the end of your two year relationship, and you’re desperately craving something sweet and sugary to fill the hole in your heart and in your life. Post Valentine’s Day discount is definitely the best way to do that.

If you’re being completely honest with yourself, you knew this relationship was never going to be your forever. It was just a nice and comfortable situation to be in, and you expected you and him to part ways at some point.

You just didn’t particularly expect it to be now.

“Jungkook!” a strong voice shouts from the back of the shop, startling you. It’s quickly followed by a curse, and then a man walks in, glancing back with a worried expression, tying an apron around his waist and adjusting a small black hat on his head. You notice the ‘Jungkook’ tag on his apron, and it makes you soften in sympathy. The second his eyes fall on you, he recomposes himself, and shoots you a smile that’s professional, though the nervousness doesn’t quite disappear. “What can I do for you?”

“I was just looking,” you say, and he leans forward, probably straining to hear. Your voice has always had that weird tendency to become inaudible when you’re talking to strangers. “You don’t have anything with strawberries, do you?”

“I’m afraid everything we had went yesterday,” he says with a sympathetic frown.

“Oh, right,” you mumble. You’re disappointed to a stupid degree, and you know it’s because your emotions have been running wild recently, to the point where any small contrariety threatens to make you cry. Fortunately, you don’t, right now. That would be horribly embarrassing. “Um, I guess I’ll take that box and, uh, the éclair, please, then.”

“Of course!”

His movements are quick and precise as he takes it out, and you could be mistaken, but you think he’s deliberately not looking at you. You’re not particularly blaming him for it, though, because you’re doing the exact same thing.

“Anything else?” he asks once he’s done, and you shake your head, avoiding eye contact. “For here or to go? We’re also a café,” he elaborates when you give him a surprised — and slightly panicked — glance.

“Oh. To go, please,” you say, not so much because you actually want to, and much more because you’re bad at changing your plans when you had already made your decision.

Except… You eye the bakery. It’s not like you have anyone to come back to, and you don’t particularly want to be back at your apartment to wallow alone. You might even get some things done while you’re here.

“Um, actually, would you mind if I…?” The question dies on your lips. You’re already feeling too embarrassed to continue, but he looks up, eyes wide, and nods.

“No, no, please take a seat! Do you want something to drink as well?”

“That— That would be nice, actually.”

“Alright, just give me a second and I’ll bring you our, er, menu.”

It’s not a menu, it’s a list of drinks the owner printed and coated with plastic, and insists on calling a menu, but he isn’t going to tell you that.

You pick a table that faces the door, and after choosing and ordering your tea, pull out your computer. It’s not that the things you have to do can’t wait, but you don’t like sitting alone doing nothing. The shop is desperately empty, and part of you is terrified by the idea that Jungkook could come over to talk to you. That would probably end up not being completely unpleasant, but you’re not sure you can handle that much interaction with other human beings right now.

While scrolling through the text you are currently working on editing, you pick a chocolate out of the box to eat it and hold back a satisfied moan at the taste. The fact that it’s so good makes you feel a little more upset that you’ve never been in a relationship for Valentine’s Day and therefore have never been given anything like that.

It’s always been bad luck really, because you’ve been in a few relationships, but even with your last boyfriend, the two of you were on a break in February. The others never made it longer than a few months, and never fell at the right time. It’s not even like you want to celebrate Valentine’s Day, you do think it’s mostly a commercial holiday, and you definitely don’t want any expensive gift, but you’d be happy to have someone by your side to make fun of other couples with. Someone to love you, and someone to love.

God, you want to be in love so bad. For a few months, you thought you had it with your ex, and maybe you did, for a moment, but it had slipped from your fingers without you managing to do anything about it, leaving you sad and empty. You want to feel everything the movies and books promised, the butterflies in the stomach, the rush in the beat of your heart. You want to feel like someone holds your world in their hands. You want them to love you back — really love you, so much that you’ll catch them looking at you and see it in their eyes immediately, so much that they’ll remember how you like your tea in the morning.

You don’t think your ex ever loved you, and you don’t really blame him for that. He liked you, certainly, and for a long time that was enough for you. But now, with it being over and him telling you he’d ‘met someone’, you want more out of your next relationship.

Then again, you’d thought that last time as well.

You’re grateful when Jungkook brings you your tea, tearing you away from thoughts you really don’t want to be having right now. He gives you a smile, then is quick to retreat back behind the counter, and something tells you that he has the same difficulties talking to people as you do.

That can’t make his job fun.

You’re soon able to immerse yourself in your work, much to your surprise. Usually, you’re hyper aware of your surroundings, and it’s hard to get work done unless you’re in a place that’s both quiet and familiar, but the atmosphere in here is so warm and pleasant that you’re able to relax and focus, all while drinking your tea and eating your sweets. It’s quite close to perfect, actually.

Which is why you jump violently when someone’s voice booms into the shop.

“Jeon Jungkook!”

You look up, panicked, and Jungkook turns around with the exact same look on his face. You don’t remember the doorbell ringing, so it has to be someone from the shop, and indeed, a tall man with short black hair walks in from the same place Jungkook entered. And your brain short-circuits.

It doesn’t happen all that often, for you to simply find yourself frozen because of how good-looking someone is, but in that case, you just can’t help it. The man who just walked in is tall, with very nice, broad shoulders, and the apron he is wearing underlines the muscles of his chest in ways you didn’t think were possible, but more than that, he’s also, quite possibly, the most handsome man you’ve ever laid eyes on. When you glance at his plump, full lips, you find yourself having a hard time to tear yourself away. You’re relieved that you didn't have to order from him, because you’re sure it would have made you blush and stutter.

“Jungkook, there’s a mess in the back! What are you waiting fo—” Jungkook gives panicked glances in your direction, and the man catches your presence from the corner of his eyes, turning his sentence around as smoothly as is humanly possible, all while his lips curve up into a professional smile. “Ooh, hello, dear customer! I don’t think we’ve seen you here before, have we?”

A smile spills on your mouth, much to your surprise.

“No, it’s my first time here,” you answer. Your voice isn’t as strong as you’d like for it to be, but at least you didn’t choke. You suppose still being heartbroken serves as a shield against the man’s handsomeness. “I figured there’d be some discount after Valentine’s Day, and I was hungry, so…”

“You figured you’d kill two birds with one scone?” the man asks while Jungkook, behind him, silently smacks his forehead. You figure he’s heard it a million time before, but you haven’t, and you can’t help but laugh. That makes the man’s smile widen genuinely and his eyes crease.

“I guess you came up with the bakery name,” you chuckle.

“Absolutely. Isn’t it a great name?”

Jungkook shakes his head in disgust.

“It’s genius,” you say, and the man slams his hand on the table.

“See? I told you! Jungkook keeps saying that I have a terrible sense of humor—”

“I’ll be in the back if you need me,” Jungkook grumbles.

“Hey, what do we say to customers?”

“Ah— It was nice to meet you!” he says, turning around to look at you and he seems somewhat sincere. “I hope we’ll be seeing you again.”

Then he bows his head politely and disappears in the back of the shop. The other man — who you suppose is the owner of the place — watches, laughing fondly, but goes quiet after that, so you go back to your work.

You don’t stay around too long, not wanting to overstay your welcome, but you’re still the only one in the shop by the time you decide to walk out.

“Was the tea any good?” the man asks as you walk by him.

You nod and smile.

“And the chocolates were delicious,” you add. “I’ll make sure to come back.”

“That’s music to my ears,” he says, dramatically putting a hand on his chest. That’s when you notice the ‘Seokjin’ tag on his apron. You don’t know what to do with that information, though. You don’t call strangers by their first name and you also don’t stalk people on line.

Especially not when you don’t have their last name.

You say a quick ‘goodbye’, then walk out. Jin’s eyes follow you for a few seconds, before he sighs and turns around, already taking off his apron.

“Jungkook!”

The boy is quick to appear again, scanning the shop for your presence.

“She’s gone?” he asks, and Jin gives a slap at the back of his employee's head with a groan. There’s no strength in it, though, and Jungkook barely reacts to it.

“How could you run away like that, you little—”

Jungkook easily avoids him when Jin tries to him it again, laughing at his outrage.

“We’re not going to be getting a lot more clients today, are we?” he asks, looking outside at the passers-by that don’t even spare a glance at the little shop.

“No,” Jin groans, letting himself fall on a chair.

The depressing calm that follows what is possibly the busiest day of the year for him is just one of the reasons why he absolutely despises Valentine’s Day.

February 22nd

When you show up at the bakery again, about a week later, you’re feeling surprisingly good about it. Last time went well, you decided, and the people were nice, so you’re not afraid to throw a quiet but polite “Hello!” when you walk in. It’s kind of funny — or is it sad — how it always surprises you when people are nice to you, much more used to passive disinterest at best.

There’s another man in the shop this time, with a laptop and a coffee in front of him, but he doesn’t look up at you. A head lifts up from behind the counter though. You feel vaguely embarrassed that you remember this one is Seokjin, and you only feel more awkward when he gives you a dazzling smile.

A glance at the display tells you that they have restocked on their strawberry-based pastries, and you happily pick a slice of cake for yourself.

“For here or to go?”

“I’ll have it here,” you say with a smile. You feel strangely proud of yourself for being able to say it spontaneously. He has no way of knowing it, but it’s quite the victory for you. Usually, you try to run from the presence of others as fast as you can, and it’s even worse those days. “And I’ll also have Darjeeling tea with it, please.”

“Coming right up, just take a seat and I’ll bring it to you,” he says, and then he winks. He doesn’t stick around to see the surprised look on your face, so you just do as he told you, wondering if he was flirting with you or if he’s just Like That. You think that second explanation might be the answer.

“It’s nice to see you again,” he says when he arrives with the cake and the tea. You’re pretty sure he can’t place you exactly, just thinks your face is familiar, but it still makes you happy.

He tells you he hopes you’ll come back when you leave, and you decide you want to believe it.

June 1st

You’re not sure when you become an official ‘regular’ at the bakery. Maybe it’s when you ask Jin if they even do scones, and he leans over the counter to tell you conspiratorially that he actually wanted to call the shop ‘bake it ’til you make it’, but was told it was too long. That elicits a brief burst of laughter from you, and Jungkook tells you to stop encouraging him, but Seokjin looks so happy with himself when you laugh that you decide not to listen to him. Jin has that way of breaking past your shyness that fascinates you. It might be what keeps you coming back, more than the delicious sweets and how beautiful the two workers look.

Or maybe it’s when Jin tells you that it’s not fair you know their names but they don’t know yours, and that he’d ask you for your ID before selling you stuff if you don't tell him. When you tell him, he repeats it a couple of times, like he’s tasting it, before nodding with satisfaction. After that, him and Jungkook start greeting you with it, and insist you do the same with them. You’re reluctant at first, feeling somewhat confused about the whole thing, but it turns out to feel… nice, to have people to greet, and who also know your name.

Maybe it’s when Jin tells you that you’re late when you come in, or complains when you don’t show up on one of your usual days because you had a meeting with your boss. He doesn’t say anything on the day where you take your pastries to go because you’re visiting a friend at the hospital, though, and you wonder if he can just tell. Regardless, you appreciate it.

You find out about other people who come here frequently, too, and especially the ones who are friends with Jin and Jungkook. Namjoon, who sits with his laptop at the opposite end of the café from you. Yoongi, who usually sits in the same spot as you, and eyes you threateningly when he comes in and you’re there the first time, until Seokjin tells him to knock it off. Taehyung and Jimin, who always come in together, and who Jungkook usually joins to bicker and laugh with them. Hoseok, who likes to waltz in at random times, and whose smile actually rivals Jin’s.

You yourself come in twice a week, getting to your usual place to work — except on the couple of occasions where Yoongi gets there before you and gives you a triumphant smile when he sees you. You enjoy the way you’re always greeted by Jungkook or Seokjin, like they’re genuinely happy to see you. You discover that the old ladies who come here to gossip love to flirt with Jin and that, even though he flirts back outrageously, much to their delight, his ears tend to turn a bright red when he does.

You even bring your friends on a couple of occasion, and Seokjin jokes that you’re responsible for half of his turnover at this point. Your friends enjoy the food, and the drinks, but they enjoy the handsome employees and customers a lot more.

“So this is where all the hot men were,” Hana marvels when you walk out, and you burst out laughing. You like that you’ve shared this place with her, because it’s something that makes you really happy these days, motivates you to come out of your bed, and even to talk to people, something you’ve never been good at.

When you walk into the shop and make small talk with the people you’ve come to know, something you used to consider yourself terrible at, it might be silly, but it kind of feels like home.

June 21st

You are pretty sure you know when you go from regular to friend, though. It’s a day like any other and you hum on your way to the shop. Instead of the joyful “Welcome back, (Y/N)!” that you’ve gotten used to hearing these past few weeks, however, you’re greeted with Seokjin shouting “(Y/N), my savior!”.

You freeze on the spot and give him a worried look. From his table, Namjoon looks up, just as puzzled.

“Is everything okay, Jin?” he asks.

“Jungkook isn’t there today,” Jin tells you. His voice doesn’t sound different from usual, but there is a glint of panic in his eyes.  “I need your help.”

Namjoon stands up.

“Why didn’t you ask me? I could—”

“Stay where you are and don’t even think of approaching my kitchen,” Jin says threateningly. “(Y/N)? Please?”

Well. You suppose your work can get done later. You’re more productive when you come here, so you have some advance on your usual deadlines these days. But you don’t know what Jin wants from you and you’ve never worked in a bakery.

“What do you want me to do?” you ask cautiously.

He grabs your shoulders and your eyes widen at the contact. Not that it’s unpleasant, just unexpected.

“I knew when you first walked in here that you were a godsend,” he tells you seriously, looking right into your eyes, and you tell yourself that if he’s that good of an actor, you should probably watch out. “We’re out of milk.”

You blink.

“Okay. Is there a specific type of milk you want?”

“Just, milk. Get me milk and I’ll worship the ground you walk on until the end of days.”

You roll your eyes at his dramatics, and take your bag off your shoulder, handing it to him.

“Look after that, okay? I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll protect it with my life,” he says solemnly. “Also paper napkins please!” he shouts as you’re already walking out.

“Will do!”

“Bake a leg!”

You want to protest the joke that even you find to be quite bad, but the door has already closed behind you, so you just shake your head at him, only to see him laughing with satisfaction through the glass, and head to the nearest supermarket.

You come back with two big packs of milk and a lot of paper napkins, just as two men are exiting. You’ve seen them before, but they never stay to chat. Inside, Jin is juggling three women, and he looks more relieved than you’ve ever seen him when you walk in.

“I’ll help you with that,” Namjoon says immediately, bumping in the table as he gets up.

“If you break anything, I’ll kill you,” Jin warns him. He’s smiling like he’s joking, and his tone is light, like he doesn’t want to scare off his customers, but his eyes say he’s sincere.

You’re quick in the back, and Namjoon does drop the packs once, but nothing bad happens. He presses a finger against his lips to tell you to keep it a secret, and you grin without a word. Part of you is kind of wondering what you’re doing there, why Jin feels comfortable letting you in the back and why he asked you to do that, but you don’t have an issue with it, not by a long shot. This is… kind of fun, actually.

“Anything else you want me to do?” you ask Jin when you come out, and he looks at you in a pleading way.

“You don’t mind?”

Something tells you you shouldn’t accept too quickly, that you could end up in way over your head faster than you know. But his brown eyes are wide and desperate and you just can’t say no. So you smile and shake your head.

“Of course not. You look like you really need a hand here.”

“I do.”

That’s how you find yourself in an apron, with the cute, black hat Jin and Jungkook always wear on your head. Jin mostly sends you in the back to pick up things he needs, or makes you bring the beverages to the customers, which you’re thankful for, because that way you don’t have to greet anyone. Time flies quickly, and you can barely find a second to breathe for the first few hours.

“Sorry, it’s lunch time,” Jin grimaces as he passes you by, and you think to yourself that at least, it will get better, but it takes a while even after that, and when it’s done, Jin sends you to buy some more stuff from the supermarket, because as it turns out, things go fast.

Before you know it, it’s closing time, and you look outside in disbelief. The sky is starting to turn a nice pink, and other shops are putting up their shutters.

“You can go, if you want,” Jin tells you. He sounds terribly sorry, and that makes you feel bad. It’s such an unusual tone for him to have.

His offer is tempting, of course. Your feet hurt, your head aches a little from all the noise that never bothered you before but turns out to be a lot when you’re there all day, you’ve burned your hand against an oven, and you’ve found out that carrying things ends up really hurting your back. But you know that he’s experiencing the same thing you do, and you just don’t have the heart to abandon him here. Also, you’ve already lost your day, so you might as well help him out now.

“It’s fine,” you sigh. “Do you want me to help with anything?”

Cleaning up goes quietly in the main shop, and that soothes you a little. You don’t mind the silence, even enjoy it, and find yourself relaxing for the first time today. Surprisingly, you’re feeling… satisfied. It’s not something you would particularly look forward to doing again, but you’re happy you did it, happy you helped Jin, and you feel like you’ve accomplished something today, which is always a good thing.

“You have flour everywhere,” he tells you bluntly when you walk in the back of the shop, and you laugh.

“Well, it got everywhere,” you reply, trying to rub some off your face, and it’s Jin’s turn to laugh when you fail miserably.

You know you shouldn’t do it, but you gather a small handful of flour from the table, and throw it at him. A good chunk hangs in the air and makes you cough, but the rest does land on his apron. His mouth falls open into an ‘o’ shape and you know you’ve messed up.

“Listen, I am so sorry—”

“No you’re not,” he says, taking a step towards you. His hand is on the table, which is covered with flour, and you swallow.

“Sure I am, Jin, please—”

But your pleas fall in deaf ears, and flour is soon flying your way. It’s your turn to stare at Jin in disbelief, and then you’re laughing, loud and clear.

Maybe that’s the exact moment when the two of you become friends — really friends.

Or maybe it’s seconds later, when the room you’re in turns into the scene for an all-out flour battle. Regardless, you’re laughing the whole way through, when you’re not choking on the flour hanging in the air. Jin’s laughter is quieter than yours, miles away from the booming and somewhat fake laugh you’re used to hearing from him.

The fight only escalates when Jin picks up an egg. You shake your head, mouth ‘no’, but he doesn’t listen, and after that, things get a lot messier. By the time the two of you, exhausted and bent in half because of how much you’ve been laughing, finally stop, you can feel yoke trickling down your back, and you know the sight can’t be pretty. Jin reaches out to you in a useless attempt to wipe some flour from your face, only to laugh more when it, of course, fails once more.

You try not to think about the jolt of electricity that ran through you when his fingers came in contact with your cheek.

“I’ll clean up in here,” he tells you, “but you should go take a shower upstairs.”

“Are you sure?” you ask, surprised. Suddenly, you’re very conscious of the fact that you don’t know him that well. In recent months, you’ve talked to him more than you do with your close friends, and you did just throw several eggs at him, but you don’t know him. You’re aware of the fact that he lives above the shop, but you’ve never been there. The two of you have never even exchanged numbers.

He makes dramatic hand gestures to signal you to get away, like you’re bothering him, and you leave with a last laugh. You don’t notice the way he looks up when you do, or the way it makes him smile. He can’t help it, he just loves that he makes you laugh.

You’re relieved to step into the shower, both because you’re happy to clean up and because there was something really awkward about being in Seokjin’s apartment for the first time, alone. The place was not quite as decorated as the bakery was, with paler colors. Walking through it, you had noticed big speakers, some books in a shelf, and a couple of cute plushes that you had had to resist not to fawn over. The place worked for him, you had decided. It was more understated than you would have expected when you had just started to know him, but it doesn’t surprise you anymore. Jin tends to be quiet when he doesn’t have to be ‘on’, and it’s something he doesn’t seem to feel he has to do around you anymore.

You sigh in pleasure when the hot water hits you, close your eyes. You’ve been craving it for hours now — long before the food battle with Jin. It helps relax your aching muscles, washes away all the sweat from the day, and you have to resist not to just let yourself fall down onto the floor. Your back hurts, but the worst part has to be your feet. You feel yourself gaining a lot more appreciation for Jin and Jungkook, who are always kind, smiling and polite despite all of this. The only thing that kept you from biting someone’s head off tonight was your crippling anxiety when it comes to interacting with strangers.

It’s almost funny now to think you used to feel that way around Jin.

You look around for some soap you could use, and in your search, you’re surprised to find shampoo that was definitely intended for a woman. You don’t know why you’re surprised. It’s no wonder that Jin would have a girlfriend, really, it’s the opposite that should shock you, but you still didn’t expect it. You force away the pinch in your chest. Jin is a new friend, you can’t have your heart fluttering like that.

You consider using it for half a second, before deciding that it would be very awkward if you came out smelling like his girlfriend. Instead, you do your best to get rid of any egg, and tell yourself you’ll wash your hair at home. You barely hear the sound of the door opening and closing over the water, and you’re startled by Jin’s voice outside the bathroom.

“You can take a towel from the chest of drawers,” he tells you, “and I’ll leave a shirt outside, if you want it.”

“Thank you!” you shout back.

Seokjin stands there a few seconds, before quickly shaking his head and walking away. He knows his ears are turning red, and he hates himself for it, but is it his fault, really? Is he supposed not to think about you, right now, in his shower, water running down your body? He never even thought to pretend he was that innocent.

He occupies himself by preparing a drink for the two of you, and then by cleaning around. He’s not particularly messy, though, and there isn’t much to do, so he ends up sitting on his couch, feeling awkward in his own house, and scrolling aimlessly through his phone. He freezes again when he hears the bathroom door open and close, guessing you’re picking up his shirt. Which means you’re— God what is wrong with him tonight? When did he regress to the state of a hormonal teenager?

He hopes he looks natural when you come out, because he’s doing his best for that. The nervous way he’s running his hands over his thighs would probably give him out, though, if you weren’t feeling just as stressed as him.

“I’m done,” you mumble, your shyness coming back, which you decide is to be expected in that situation.

It vanishes the second Jin looks you over and snorts.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, glancing down, and immediately you know that you’re probably ridiculous in his black shirt. It looks like it’s swallowing you whole. “It’s not my fault if your shoulders are that broad,” you pout.

“You look so small,” Jin chuckles. He sounds endeared, and if you noticed that sort of things, you would absolutely realize that his eyes linger on you in his clothes fondly — and a little longer than necessary.

“Want something to drink?” he asks, gesturing at the stuff he got out of the fridge when he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Sure,” you smile, letting yourself fall down on the couch next to him and pouring yourself a glass. The brief awkwardness that washed over you when you came in vanishes already, because of how comfortable you feel around Jin. He’s always been good at making you feel that way, and now he doesn’t even have to try.

“So, how did you find your day?” he asks you, and you look at him, surprised by his tone. He sounds quiet, cautious almost, like he’s worried about what your reaction might be, or that he could be bothering you.

“Fine,” you say with a shrug. “I can’t say I’d want to do it again— When is Jungkook coming back?”

Jin chuckles, and again, it takes you by surprise. It’s so… quiet. So discreet, compared to his usual attitude.

“He should be there tomorrow, don’t worry about it.” Then, he grimaces. “But seriously, thank you for helping out today. I owe you.”

“Yes you do,” you say with a grin, bumping your shoulder against his, trying to lift the mood a little, because he sounds genuinely worried. “Just offer me the tea next time, and I’ll consider us even.”

Finally, a smile forms on his lips, and he shakes his head dramatically, putting his hand over his heart.

“No, I don't think I could ever repay you,” he says, and you laugh at his antics, like you always do. He looks a little appeased by that, and that’s a relief. “Your back must hurt,” he says. “Turn around.”

You raise an eyebrow, but do as he says, startling when his hands fall on your shoulders. They’re large, engulfing you easily, but they also move gently as he slowly massages you.

“Oh,” you gasp, leaning back into him. This is— good. This is very very good. For a few minutes — or maybe much longer, you couldn’t tell — you just stay there, eyes closed, lips parted, focused on the delicious feelings of his hands gently rubbing all the pain and soreness of the day away. When he stops, it takes you a few seconds to come back down to reality, and maybe, just maybe you miss the feeling of his hands. “Oh,” you repeat, rolling your shoulders slowly. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Jin says. “It’s kind of my fault.”

You turn around, shaking your head.

“Seokjin,” you say. “It’s fine. I didn’t mind helping.”

“You’re too kind,” he frowns. “You shouldn’t let people take advantage of that.”

“I’m not!”

Then Jin smiles, in a way that only lifts one corner of his lips, and suddenly you feel— you’re not too sure. Something seems to melt inside you, something moves in your stomach like you’re free falling. You probably should recognize the feeling. It’s not like it’s anything new to you, and yet you miss it. You do something you almost never do in that situation, and you take a step back. You glance up from his lips, shoot him a smile, and get up from the couch.

“It’s getting late,” you comment. “I really need to go home.”

Jin is on his feet immediately.

“I’ll walk you back,” he says, concern flashing in his eyes.

“I’m good. It’s not that far and I need to clear my head after, you know, everything today.” You’re not sure you know, but Jin nods, though a little reluctantly.

“You’re sure?”

“Very.”

He sighs. He doesn’t seem too pleased about it, but you guess he doesn’t want to insist too much, either.

“Give me your phone,” he says, and when you hand it to him, he types his number in, pouting as he explains himself to you. “Text me when you get home, alright? Otherwise I’ll just worry all night, because everyone is so unreasonable, and just wants me to lose sleep, and—”

You take your phone back from him with a laugh.

“I’ll text you,” you promise, briefly putting your hand over his. That feels— normal, you decide. It’s not like your hands have never brushed in the months since you’ve started frequenting the bakery. It just feels fine, and whatever there was before could just be a false alert. But then Jin looks into your eyes, and the feeling comes back.

“You better.”

You practically flee the bakery. You’re trying to make sense of the whole thing in your head, and it doesn’t go over great. You let Jin know you got home safe, and then do your best to push the whole thing out of your mind when you go to bed. You refuse to think about it too much. Not because you don’t understand what’s going on, but because somewhere, deep down, you do. This isn’t— this isn’t something you do. You fall hard and fast, that’s— that’s your thing.

Sometimes it’s nice, others it’s disappointing, but most importantly, it means that when the relationship is over, your life just goes back to what it was before. It you ever had feelings for a friend, someone you’re so used to having around… You’re sure it would truly break your heart.

July 15th

Summer is horribly hot this year. Fortunately for you, your favorite bakery has started serving ice cream. There is air conditioning in the store, but with the door constantly opening and closing, gusts of hot air regularly reach even you. No one seems too happy with the situation, with Jungkook seeming to slowly come apart under the temperature. Even Namjoon has abandoned ship, leaving much earlier than usual today. He waved at you when he got out, and you waved back.

Who knew, maybe the two of you would actually talk next time.

Jin uses a lull in the otherwise busy afternoon to drop at your table, and you smile to him. You haven’t really gone through anything like that night ever since, and you decided it was just a one time thing. You were tired from the work, and you were touch-starved, and, surely, there was nothing there, other than you gaining a new friend.

Yup. Nothing to see at all. Even when he’s sitting next to you, trying to fan himself with one of the bakery’s menus, head thrown back in a way that makes his Adam’s apple even more prominent.

You never thought yourself as someone who particularly enjoyed necks, but it seems you were wrong.

Not that that has anything to do with feelings, of course. Jin’s just hot. You already knew that.

“Hey, (Y/N), what’s your favorite cake?” he asks you.

It takes you just a second too long to answer.

“Uh. Anything that has strawberries in it, I guess,” you say, and he nods, but he’s also frowning. “Are my tastes not up to par?” you grin, raising an eyebrow.

“Clearly, your tastes are great, since you keep coming back,” Jin answers immediately, with the confidence that you now know to be mostly facade, but that you’ve still come to love. “No, strawberries are good. I can work with strawberries.”

“I actually wanted strawberries the first time I came here,” you reminisce. “But there weren’t any left because that was after Valentine’s Day.”

Jin clicks his tongue in disgust.

“Worst day of the year,” he says, “though February is a bad month for strawberries in general.”

“You don’t like Valentine’s Day?” you ask, and if you were a dog, your ears would be perking up with interest. You’ve always loved to hear people’s opinion on the holiday, because it’s so divisive. “You guys must make quite a lot of money…”

“I’m wounded that you’d think money is all I care about,” Jin sighs dramatically, though the glint in his eyes lets you know that he’s only joking. “It’s just very busy,” he admits. “It’s a lot of work to prepare, people place a lot of orders, and we basically don’t get a minute to ourselves. Not to mention— do you know what it does to a person to know that the food he lovingly prepared is probably going to be eaten off someone’s body?”

You can’t help it. You burst out laughing. When you do, you’re completely unaware of the fond way Jin looks at you. He’s always liked that he made you laugh, from the very first day you came into the store.

“No,” you admit, “no, I haven’t thought about it.”

“Well I have to.”

“I’m so sorry for you.”

“I’m sorry for me too.”

Then Jimin practically waltzes in and energetically greets everyone in the room, including you, and Jin gets up to serve him and Taehyung because Jungkook looks like he’s about to collapse, and you don’t give much more thought to the conversation.

But Jin remembers that strawberry cake is your favorite.

September 18th

Somehow, you get roped into helping Jin with his grocery shopping. He sat at your table and complained about how Jungkook wouldn’t be able to help him that week, and you voiced your sympathy, and next thing you knew, you were in the supermarket with him.

Well, maybe you’d offered your help. Maybe you just didn’t want to admit it because of that time he’d told you you were too kind.

“You know, I thought I’d be helping you for the bakery,” you comment, “but this mostly looks like it’s for you.”

“I am the bakery,” Jin replies, and you grin.

You watch him as he carefully crosses item after item of his detailed list. You expected him to be messy, to grab whatever he wanted, but he is as meticulous with this as he is with the baking he does for his customers. Which is— strangely endearing to you.

“Most of what we get comes in bigger orders,” he explains to you once he’s done with that aisle. “Sometimes, we find ourselves missing some things…”

“Like milk.”

“It’s always the milk,” he sighs, shaking his head it brings back bad memories. “But that’s not an issue for a lot of thing, unless something very specific comes up. Like a customer wanting  a pineapple pie.”

You tilt your head as he cautiously picks pineapples. You’re not even sure how you can tell if a pineapple is ripe, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing.

“That sounds… interesting?”

“It’s going to sound very interesting when I’ll make you carry half the bags,” Jin says, and you roll your eyes. Does he think you’re going to bail on him? You would never do that.

Well. Until your eyes fall on Minho, standing there, like he hasn’t simply vanished from your life six months ago. There’s a woman with him, and she’s laughing at something he said. You suppose she was the one he met — or maybe another one, there’s no way of knowing, really. But they look like they’re getting along well, and it— it makes you happy. You think.

“Huh,” you mumble. “That’s my ex over there.”

Jin looks up so fast you worry he might hurt his neck.

“What? Where? Do you need me to insult him?”

You’re about to say no when Minho turns around, and his eyes meet yours. He gives you a hesitant nod, and you think that’s going to be it, but then, after a few seconds of obvious inner debate, he makes his way towards you.

Great.

“(Y/N),” he says, a bit awkwardly. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too,” you reply softly and, much to your surprise, you mean it. You did your best not to let yourself miss him, but you suppose you did. It’s been a long time since you last saw him.

“This is, erm, this is Lisa,” he says, gesturing at the woman, who gives you a polite smile. It looks like she knows exactly who you are, and you suppose it must be uncomfortable for her as well. “My girlfriend.”

Yeah. You’d pieced that together. But then, Minho’s eyes move to Jin, and he raises an eyebrow, and you realize what he’s thinking about.

“Oh, this is—”

“Seokjin,” Jin says, extending his hand. “I’m her boyfriend.”

You’re sure that anyone looking at you can tell from your expression, from the way your mouth falls open and from the incredulous way you shake your head that that’s not true, but both Minho and Lisa are looking at him, and miss it completely. When Jin looks at you, he gives an imperceptible nod and puts an arm around your shoulders.

The warmth is— kind of nice. Maybe it even sends a shiver down your back, but you’re sure it’s because you’re still quite touch-starved those days.

Nothing else here.

“That’s great,” Minho says, and he looks relieved. “It’s great that you’re with someone.”

“Isn’t it?” Jin says before you can think of anything to answer to that. “She walked into my bakery and I just knew she would become my favorite client. Basically love at first sight.”

“Love at first sale, maybe,” you can’t help but answer, even if you know, reasonably, that you shouldn’t entertain him. You’re pretty sure he’s trying to show off in front of the two, which is really unnecessary, but you appreciate the gesture. “Jin makes the best cakes you can find in the whole town,” you tell them. Not to show off, but because it’s true. There are a lot of good things you could tell them about Jin, come to think of it. A lot.

“Maybe we should try it then,” Lisa says, smiling. She looks more relaxed than earlier, though you suppose she could also just be trying to get out of this conversation.

“Oh, it’s a must,” you reply sincerely, and Jin laughs, pulling you against his chest a little.

“She’s too nice,” he says, and you immediately protest that no, definitely not, he does, and you’re sure you look like a very annoying couple, because it doesn’t take long for Minho to clear his throat.

“Well, we have to go but it was— it was nice catching up with you.”

“Same,” you nod, and when he leaves, you can’t help but watch him. You don’t really feel anything right now. You were sincerely happy to see him, but it felt like running into a childhood friend you haven’t seen in a long, long time, and now have nothing in common with outside of those memories. Except it hasn’t been a life time since you last met him. Just a little over six months. Soon, he’ll just be someone you used to know.

You wish you were more upset by this. You wish there was anything that told you that what you had with him actually mattered. Instead, this vague indifference lets you know that your paths had probably diverged before the two of you even broke up. And that makes you kind of sad.

“Are you okay?” Jin asks. He has that quiet voice you’ve heard a few times now.

“I’m fine,” you nod, “but you really didn’t have to do that. I wasn’t— Minho and I aren’t— there really was no need.”

“I was happy to do it,” Jin says, and you notice how petty he sounds. “It’s always a joy to let an ex see how much better than them you’re doing.”

You laugh. You probably agree with him on that, but you’re not going to help feed his ego even more. Jungkook would probably never forgive you for it.

“I don’t think your girlfriend would like you doing that,” you observe, and Jin answers that remark with a blank stare.

“When have I ever said anything about a girlfriend?”

“Well, there was a bottle of shampoo at your place that—”

“So a guy can’t like having his hair smell like fruit, huh?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Wow, way to reinforce stereotypes, (Y/N). I expected more of you.”

He ignores your attempts at protesting and strides away from you. It takes you a few moments to catch up, because of his stupid long legs of his.

“If I had a girlfriend, I would never stop talking about her,” he lets you know while you’re catching your breath. “So don’t worry. You’ll know about it.”

“Duly noted,” you say. You maybe feel a little too happy about that new information so, to distract yourself from it, you change the subject. “So I’m your favorite customer?”

He scoffs and glances away from you, refusing to meet your eyes. He thought you hadn’t picked up on that.

“You’re a strong contestant, I guess,” he says reluctantly, and you laugh, not pushing it further.

“Anyway— Minho broke up with me a week Valentine’s Day,” you say. You’re not sure why. Maybe to let Jin that you’ve been over it for a long time.

“That’s rude,” Jin comments with a disapproving click of his tongue.

“He probably wanted to spend it with her,” you shrug. “When we got together, he told me he didn’t cheat. He left. So— I guess that was it.” Then there’s a laugh, and you can’t tell if it sounds bitter. You hope not. “I’ve actually never had a boyfriend for Valentine’s Day,” you confess.

The silence that follows is unusual for Jin. When you glance up at him, he’s just looking at you, and for a second, you think it’s pity you find in his eyes. But, from the way he frowns, you realize it could just be genuine sympathy.

“Would it make you feel better if I tell you it’s a terrible holiday that’s just there to sell things?”

“I already know that,” you chuckle, even if it does make you feel a little better. “I just want someone to buy me roses once, you know?”

Jin doesn’t answer, just looks at you, and something about the intensity of his stare makes you feel— feel things you told yourself you weren’t feeling for him. But then, you just ran into Minho, didn’t you? It makes sense that you would be all over the place emotionally.

“Anything more on your list?” you ask, and Jin blinks.

“Yeah, that way,” he says, sounding a bit off, but then he adds “More things for you to carry,” and you decide to brush it off.

But he stores the information in his mind. Strawberry cake and roses. Duly noted.

October 31st

“So do you actually like Halloween, or is this just another shameless cash grab for you?” you ask Jin when he brings you your tea.

You have to admit, him and Jungkook truly went all out for this. They’ve decorated the shop with pumpkins, and there are fake bats hanging from the ceiling. There are also themed cakes and chocolates shaped like spiders. It’s spooky, and it delights the kids that come in and ask the parents about it. You definitely appreciate the atmosphere it creates — and you also appreciate the way Hoseok jumped when he walked in front of the witch that lets out an evil laugh when someone passes the movement detector.

“Halloween is not terrible, I guess,” Jin says, like him and Jungkook don’t take a full day out of their schedules and bring in some friends just to decorate the shop. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” you answer sincerely, and Jin’s expression softens.

“Hey, we’re having a small get-together after closing tonight,” he tells you spontaneously. “Wanna join us?”

You take a second to answer. It’s not like you don’t want to — far from that — but there’s that voice inside of you that tells you that you’ve been weird around Jin, and you don’t want to be weird around him. You want to keep things as they are, because he’s such a wonderful friend to have around. You’d hate yourself if you changed that.

But if the point is to have him around, then surely, telling him no right now would be counter-productive, right?

“Absolutely,” you say with a smile, and Jin beams, and you feel all warmed-up inside.

You already know that you’ll have fun, and you’ll laugh, and he’ll insist on walking you him and you’ll tell him no. And it sounds exactly like how you want to spend your evening.

January 10th

You first meet Sungho on New Year’s Eve, at Hana’s party. The two of you click immediately, and you enjoy the familiar rush of feelings, the waiting for a text after you’ve given him your number, the anticipation of knowing where this is all leading, if everything goes right. After a week, you run into him at the bakery, or, well, you’re sitting in your usual corner when he comes in. He doesn’t see you immediately, but when he looks in your direction after a little while, you happily wave him over.

“You don’t usually come here, do you?” you ask him. “I would have seen you by now if you were a regular.”

He chuckles, flashes you a bright smile, and you smile in return. Sungho has a nice smile. He doesn’t laugh easily, though, from what you saw when you met him, which is a shame, but definitely not a dealbreaker, even if you love to hear people laugh.

“No, I saw you were talking about this place a lot online, and I figured I would come and check it out. Of course, seeing you here is the best part,” he adds with a wink, and he leans towards you a little. The obvious flirtation sends a wave of heat through your chest, and you don’t hesitate to lean forward as well, resting your elbow on the table and putting your chin on your hand. You enjoy the closeness, the proximity, the chase.

You pull away when Jin arrives with Sungho’s order.

“This looks great,” Sungho comments. “I’m glad (Y/N) advertised you so much.”

“Well, there’s a reason she’s our favorite customer,” Jin replies, smiling, and when you meet his eyes, they’re fond and— and something else that makes it hard to breathe for a second.

But the smile fades when Sungho takes a portion of his cake with the spoon and offers it to you.

“Wanna try it?” he asks, and you do, because you know everything Jin makes will be amazing. You’re not sure you love the gesture itself — it’s kind of cute, but you’ve also just met him and it feels a bit strange — but you still giggle and take the bite.

And all Jin can do is stand there, looking at the two of you. He feels something he has felt before, and it’s that he let something he wanted pass him by. He waited too long to make a move, once again, and once again, it’s cost him something he doesn’t know how he’ll live without, and now he’ll have no choice but to figure it out.

You glance up, and he catches himself, plastering a smile on his lips.

“Enjoy yourselves!” he says, a little too loudly, and he knows, from the way you blink and the puzzled look you give him, that you’ve noticed and it’s— it’s horrible. It’s horrible that you know him that well and that you’ve seen so many facets of him and you’ve chosen someone else. You don’t ask anything, though, and he’s quick to leave.

He’s also quick to ask Jungkook to replace him in the shop, and he, very deliberately, doesn’t ask anything about how things went. Doesn’t want to know if you kissed, or worse, if you left together.

He’ll be fine. It’s not like it’s anything he hasn’t been through before.

February 5th

You feel impossibly excited when Sungho asks you out for Valentine’s Day. You gush about it to your friends, a lot, and Hana is delighted for you — and very pleased that her circles of friends are meeting like that. Jungkook sounds happy, too, though slightly more reserved, but you get the type of enthusiasm you wanted from Jimin and Taehyung.

Jin gets quiet when you let him know, though. It’s not something you haven’t seen before, but it does take you off guard, because you’ve never seen it happen while in the shop, where he’s usually on top of his game.

“Are you okay?” you ask, worried, leaning over the counter to put a hand on his arm. “You look a little under the weather these days.”

He smiles, but it lacks his usual flamboyance.

“Valentine’s Day is coming,” he tells you. “The worst day of the year.”

You laugh at that, relax, and take your hand off. You miss the way his eyes fall on the place you were just touching.

“Well, not this year, hopefully. Not this year.”

Yeah. He’s not so sure about that.

February 14th

It’s your first time, ever, having a date on Valentine’s Day, and you’re determined to do everything right. Sungho is taking you to a fancy restaurant, so you decide there is no issue in going all out. You take the day to prepare yourself, enlist Hana to do your make-up and hair, and you use the opportunity to wear a lovely bright red dress that you had been saving for a special occasion.

Hana whistles when you come out of your room after you’ve also put on half-transparent black tights.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” she says with an appreciative nod.

You glance down at your body self-consciously and try to smooth the fabric of the dress. You do think it looks pretty good, but you could be wrong. Does it show too much of your legs? Does it hug your curves too tightly?

“You think he’s going to like it?” you ask, somewhat shyly.

“He should if he knows what’s good for him,” she replies, expression turning murderous, before softening. “Just… Are you sure you want to be doing that?”

You give her a confused look.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, going out with Sungho,” she says with a vague hand gesture. “I just— I don’t know. Do you like him that much?”

It’s funny. You haven’t really asked yourself that question. You’ve just been going through all the usual motions — the flirting, the dates, and, inevitably, the start of the relationship, which is probably for tonight.

“We— we get along fine,” you answer. “I like him.”

You leave the words ‘well enough’ out of that sentence. You like Sungho well enough. But then, that’s always been good enough for you, so why should it change now?

Hana seems to think about it for a little while, then shrugs.

“Okay then. Do you need my help to walk to the cab? I would not trust these things.”

She’s pointing at your heels, and it makes you laugh. These aren’t even that high, and they’re pretty stable. You don’t think you’ll have any trouble walking in them. Hana wouldn’t abandon her flat shoes to save her life, though, so you suppose the question was to be expected.

“You can just tell me if you want to hold my arm,” you tease, and it seems to take her by surprise, before she chuckles.

“You’ve gotten a little too good at that. I don’t know if I like it.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid Jin has infected me.”

That gives her pause, and she shoots you a weird look, but you miss it. She opens her mouth to say something, then gives up. She could be wrong, after all.

She kind of hopes she’s wrong, or that if she’s right, you’ll realize it soon enough.

The dinner is perfect. You’re dressed perfectly for the occasion, fitting right in the restaurant’s decor, Sungho complimented you when you walked in and you told him he looked great, which is true, the food is delicious, the conversation flows easily, and there are roses on the table. They’re not for you, part of the decoration, and it doesn’t look like Sungho’s gotten you any, which gives you just a little pinch of disappointment in your chest, but it’s also not a big deal. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

And you’re not happy with it.

You can’t place it, and it slowly drives you insane, as you and Sungho make your way through the meal. You try your best not to let it show, but you think he notices your increasing restlessness. You feel bad about it, because really, he hasn’t done anything wrong. You just— something’s not right.

Dammit. It’s your first time having a date on Valentine’s Day, and you can’t make it work.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Sungho says while the two of you are waiting for your desert, and you do your best to snap out of whatever is going on in your head to focus on him.

“Tell me,” you smile, though the smile is polite, rather than genuine.

He takes a deep breath and reaches over the table to take your hand. It’s far from the first time the two of you make physical contact, you’ve even kissed a few times, and it was nice, but something makes you want to recoil, in that moment. You don’t, though. Why would you? It doesn’t make sense. Nothing about you makes sense right now.

“I like you,” he says, and you find the breath knocked out of you. It’s not unpleasant, though, it’s very nice in fact, and it almost completely dissipates your previous discomfort. “And I think— you know. We haven’t said anything about being exclusive yet, so I figured I’d— ask.”

He looks pretty confident, which you thought would put you off, but it doesn’t. The answer seems obvious to you. It’s been just a little over a year since you broke up with Minho, which is a reasonable time, so your lips part to let him know that you’d be happy to—

It’s then that you remember. You remember what you told yourself after that break-up, and what you thought after the break-up before that, and the time before as well. You remember you told yourself you wouldn’t settle for less than what you really wanted. You told yourself you wanted to love and be loved. You told yourself you wanted someone who’d remember how you liked your tea.

And, just like in a movie, Jin’s face appears in your mind. You almost dismiss it, tell yourself it’s just because of the tea, until you realize it’s not. It just isn’t. You should have noticed earlier, you know that, but you’ve never been friends with someone before developing feelings for them. You’ve always told yourself you were an ‘all or nothing’ kind of person, that you were the type to know immediately if things could happen. Maybe you didn’t quite believe in love at first sight, but you’d always thought that love didn’t wait.

Apparently you were wrong.

Jin’s the one who inadvertently makes you pulse rush, when his hand brushes against you. Jin’s the one who lifts your spirits, no matter what. Jin makes you happy, makes you want to get up in the morning, has done that for months now. Jin actually knows you. Jin looks at you like you’re precious to him. Maybe that doesn’t mean love, maybe to him, it’s all just friendship, but to you, it’s much more than that. And the feeling you get is so strong, so powerful, that you understand that you need to tell him. Need to tell him now.

“I’m sorry,” you say to Sungho, who’s been waiting for an answer all this time. “I’m really sorry, I don’t think that can work out.”

His face falls, but he looks far from heartbroken.

“Oh,” he says. “Um. That’s—”

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, already getting up from your chair. You’re buzzing with excitement, with feelings. “I have to go. I’ll pay for the meal, okay?”

“No, don’t—”

“Sorry!”

You stop at the counter briefly before rushing out into the night. You feel that you know exactly where you need to be.

You get to the bakery minutes before closing time, which is exceptionally at 9 p.m. for the day. A couple is just coming out, and that leaves only Jungkook inside. There’s nothing left on display, and you know it’s been impossibly busy, which means Jin is probably in a bad mood, but you can’t wait until tomorrow. When you walk in, Jungkook looks up from behind the counter, clearly surprised by the sound of someone coming in that late, and a puzzled look settles on his face when he notices that you’re out of breath, your previously perfect make-up now looking a little worse for wear.

“Is everything alright?” he asks. He sounds worried, and any other day you would take the time to reassure him, but in that moment you’re pushed by an energy that can’t be stopped, so you just nod quickly as an answer.

“Is Jin here?”

“In the back,” he says, tilting his head in that direction, and you’re pretty sure a glint of understanding lights up in his eyes.

“Can I….?”

He nods, a grin on his lips, and now you’re sure he knows why you’re here. You don’t wait for him to tease you about it, quick to make your way past him.

You freeze the second you walk into the backroom, though. It’s not just because of Jin’s back, though that definitely has more of an effect on you than you’d like to admit — the broad shoulders, the muscular back, and inexplicably, the nape of his neck. It’s also because of the large bouquet of red roses, standing in a vase on the table next to him. Your breath catches in your throat as you look at them. They look beautiful, vibrant, their fragrance floating through the room, all the way to you.

“Who are the roses for?” you ask, making Jin jump.

Any other time, you would have been pleased to take him by surprise for once, but right now you’re hanging on his words, waiting for an answer. The air feels heavy between you, and it doesn’t help that he doesn’t answer immediately, swallowing silently as his eyes travel over your body. You had almost forgotten about the dress you were wearing, and, instead of making you feel comfortable and confident, like it had earlier, you feel naked and vulnerable under his gaze.

Finally, his eyes meet yours, mouth slightly open, and by that point your heart is hammering in your chest. You wonder if he has any idea of how you’re feeling right now. Had he noticed your feelings when even you weren’t aware of them?

“What?” he croaks, voice dry, like he’s forgotten what you said.

“The roses,” you repeat. “Who are they for?”

You need an answer. Desperately.

Jin’s eyes move to the roses, and his face falls. He turns his back to you again as he goes back to whatever he’s cleaning.

“Didn’t you have a date tonight?”

You shrug, though he can’t see it.

“I broke things off with him,” you say lightly, and you don’t miss the way his movements pause, or the way his shoulders tighten, for half a second, before he keeps moving. “Are you— are you meeting someone?”

“No,” he protests immediately. “You know I don’t believe in Valentine’s day.”

You do. You remember that. So you wait for an explanation. It takes a while, and you just wait silently behind him, suspecting that he’s waiting for you to go away. After a few minutes, though, he slams his hand on the table, still not looking at you.

“They’re for you, okay? You said you’d always wanted roses for Valentine’s Day, and I figured, maybe your stupid boyfriend didn’t know that yet, and that I could maybe just drop them off at your place, and—”

“You didn’t ask me why I broke up with him,” you interrupt him, cutting his rambling short, and he falls silent. You catch his eyes from over his shoulder. Finally, you’re feeling yourself calm down, and at the same time you’re practically shaking with anticipation. “I realized I had feelings for someone else,” you say when he still doesn’t ask, just watching you, lips tight.

“…You do?” he simply says in reply. He’s tense, guarded, and you take a careful step towards him.

“Yeah,” you nod. Your eyes aren’t leaving his, not even for a second. “He’s smart, and kind, and handsome.” You take a step for each description you give, and you can’t help but smile on the last word. But your smile doesn’t reach Jin’s lips, and he’s just looking at you like he’s expecting you to tell him someone else’s name, or to make fun of him. “And he makes me laugh,” you add quietly, as you get to him, leaning against the table. “A lot. Some have even said it was a little too much.”

“So who is he?” he asks, and you smile. It’s wild to you that you haven’t understood earlier how absolutely head over heels in love with him you are, especially right now, when you’re standing so close to him. It’s also wild that he can’t see it, because you feel as though you’re radiating with that emotion, feel that anyone should be able to tell.

“It’s you,” you breathe out. “It’s obviously you.”

Then you’re pushing yourself up against his mouth, soft and slow. One of his hands closes around your waist as he leans forward, towering over you. His eyes are shut, and you close your own, reveling in the feeling of his warm body pressed against your own. You feel his tongue darting out to brush against your lips, and they part to grant him access, eager to taste all of him and—

“Couldn’t you tell me that earlier?” Jin protests loudly, tearing himself away from you, and your eyes snap open. “I would have planned the best Valentine’s Day you’ve ever—”

You groan and cut him off with another kiss, faster and harder this time, grabbing his wrists to guide his hands to your hips. You moan in contentment into his mouth when he kisses you back and he swallows it eagerly, pressing you into the table, bodies meeting like they’ve been waiting for it for forever and you—

“I wanted to make you an amazing strawberry cake! Now I don’t have any strawberries left!”

“Jin, please,” you sigh, unable to tolerate any other interruption, “would you just shut up and kiss me?”

And, finally, he does. Holds you like he never wants to let you go, kisses you like there’s no tomorrow, and when the two of you part, he rests his forehead against yours like he can’t bear the thought of being away from you even for a second. The silent stretches, comfortable, only filled with your respirations, until someone clears their throat, and the two of you jump away from each other.

“Sorry,”Jungkook says with a shit-eating grin that tells you he’s not sorry at all, “but I was about to leave. Will the two of you be okay?”

“I’m sure we can work things out without you,” Jin says. “Goodbye!”

But Jungkook doesn’t leave right away, turning his smile to you. You would hide into Jin’s shoulder, but you feel so good you can’t be bothered right now.

“Goodbye (Y/N)!”

“Bye, Jungkook!”

“That kid, I swear,” Jin says, shaking his head, as Jungkook leaves, his laugh hanging in the air behind him for a few seconds.

“I quite like him,” you comment, fingers dancing down Jin’s neck to come trace the border of his shirt.

“Oh, you do?” There is a dangerous edge to his tone and you glance up, surprised.

“Are you jealous?” you ask. “I didn’t know you were the jealous type.”

“I’m not.”

“Because it’s not Jungkook I abandoned my date for.”

“Good that you did. I never liked him.”

“So you are jealous.”

Seokjin mumbles something incomprehensible and you laugh and hug him tighter. And when he asks you if you want to come upstairs, even if he doesn’t have the perfect Valentine’s Day dinner planned, even if really, all he has to offer is himself, you tell him yes, of course.

Because he’s all you want right now.

It turns out, you wouldn’t have eaten the dinner anyway. The second the door closes behind you, you’re pulling him down against you for a kiss, and he doesn’t oppose any resistance, doesn’t protest like he did before, just lets out a moan into your mouth. He’s just as eager as you are to get rid of that tight dress.

“Careful with the tights,” you warn when his hands start roaming your thighs.

“Take them off then,” he groans.

You press a few kisses against his mouth, feeling delighted with the way he restrains himself, hands turning into fists against your hips as he stops himself from tearing off your closes. Finally, you pull away with a giggle. His eyes are wide and dark with desire, and they only get wider when you playfully slide off your dress’ strap.

“Don’t tease,” he says, practically growls, but you decide that you will. You guide him to his couch, push him down onto it, and evade him when he tries to pull you down with him, slipping out of his grasp. You stand just out of his reach, but more than close enough to be tantalizing, and you see in his eyes that it’s working just fine.

You take the time of making a show out of sliding down your dress down your body, letting it pool down at your feet before stepping out of it. The heels are the next thing to go, and then, finally, the offending tights. The second you’re out of those, Seokjin pounces, grabbing your hips and pulling you onto the couch.

“If you want us to move this to the bedroom, now would be a good time to say it,” he says as he kisses your neck, hands traveling up and down your body, large and calloused, but kind and gentle.

“I’m good here,” you say, arching your back to grant him better access — and to roll your hips against him. “Are you good here?”

You feel his breath catching in his throat when you move, as well as something hard pressing against you in his pants, and his voice is slightly choked when he answers.

“Yeah. This would happen at some point anyway.”

You laugh. You can’t wait to try this in all the places the two of you can think of in his apartment.

“Then let’s get to it, shall we?”

Jin doesn’t seem to have anything to answer to that, especially not when you hook your leg around his, using your heel to push him down on top of you. He’s still dressed, but you plan on rectifying that. You stop kissing him to work on the buttons of his shirt, and he lets you, breathing heavily. Your fingers explore the skin you reveal in the process, and you’re delighted when he shivers as you find out where his sensitive spots are — right under his collarbone, his nipples, his ribs.

Finally, the shirt joins your dress on the floor. You take a second to marvel at his body. His shoulders are even nicer to look at like that, you decide. You capture Jin’s mouth again, this time with your hands fisting his hair. You’re feeling yourself growing more impatient, wetter, and while your panties are the only thing still covering your body, he’s still wearing pants — which is far too much clothing.

“I want you so bad,” you whisper to him, and his breath catches in his throat.

“Fuck. You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

That makes you grin, and you arch your back into him again, pressing yourself against his now rock hard crotch.

“Oh, I think I do,” you reply devilishly, and all Jin does is to bury his head into your neck. His fast breathing tickles your skin, and you love it. You love discovering that you have that effect on him, love how you can make him come undone. Another night, you might really, really enjoy teasing him about it, but you have something else on your mind tonight.

Your hand travels down his body to palm him through his pants, and he groans, bucking his hips against it involuntarily.

“Let me take care of that?” you offer, and he pulls away to raise an eyebrow at you.

Wordlessly, you guide him so he’s sitting on the couch, and then, without breaking eye contact, you drop to your knees. You watch as his eyes go wide and he swallows loudly. You don’t give him time to regain his composure, gently nudging his legs apart so you can place yourself there comfortably.

“Fuck,” he repeats as your hands travel over his thighs before unbuckling his belt.

He lifts himself off the couch so you can slide down his pants and underwear, and that leaves him in his naked glory. And boy, is he glorious, dick standing erect and proud, precum already dripping from the tip. You suppose it’s been a while since the last time he had any sort of intercourse, and so you decide that you will do everything that’s in your power to make it worth his while.

You do your best to maintain eye contact with him while you lean forward to gently take in the head of his cock, wrapping your red lips around it as your hand grips the base.

“Ah,” he gasps, and you wonder if he gets loud during sex.

You hope he does.

You mostly tease him at first, running your tongue over the tip, and you feel his hand grabbing the back of your head gently. He doesn’t try to control your pace or to push you down. He seems to just be anchoring himself as he lets you do whatever you want. Glancing up, you see that he’s thrown his head back and his mouth is hanging open, letting out quiet moans that sometimes get high-pitched.

For some reason, the sight of his exposed throat turns you on impossibly. You slide a hand down your body to try to get some relief as well, and you moan loudly when your fingers finally find your clit. The vibrations have Jin push his hips up as his hands tighten on you. A second later, his eyes snap open.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s fine,” you reassure him, “I don’t mind but— Do you have a condom somewhere?”

He hesitates, then reaches for the coffee table. He opens the drawer, rummages through it quickly, and finds what he’s looking for.

“Taehyung said it was good to have them all over the house, just in case,” he feels obligated to explain to you, even while he struggles to open it and to put it on.

Well, you owe Taehyung one, you decide, but now really is not the time to discuss that, so you pull him down for quick kiss before he can lose himself in his ramble.

“Want you now,” you tell him, and it sounds like an order.

“Yes ma’am,” he mumbles, pulling you back up onto the couch.

Your panties are soon gone, and he spreads your legs open with utmost care. Even if you’re pretty sure he could just slide right in, with how wet you are, he pushes a long finger inside you, then another.

“You’re so wet for me,” he marvels. “So wet, and I haven’t even touched you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much yet,” you moan. “There’s still work to be done here.”

His eyes are full of love when he looks at you, taking in your body, now completely naked and offered. Just for him.

“Oh, I’ll do it. Don’t you worry about that.”

You’re about to call him out for his cockiness when he lines his cock with your entrance, tip rubbing against your folds, and you close your mouth instead, wisely choosing not to provoke him when he could so easily make you pay for it by making you wait. Except it seems he’s just as impatient as you, because he pushes himself inside you without pause.

You moan and shift to accommodate the stretch, and Seokjin goes still on top of you.

“Are you okay?” he asks. You’re satisfied with the strain in his voice, like knowing you’re not the only one to be so affected here.

“Hmm,” you hum. “Can you— move? A little?”

He pulls out a little, experimentally, and you moan louder than before. It takes you a few minutes to figure out the pace, as your hips keep moving, desperately searching for more friction, but they’re not unpleasant, filled with kisses, sweet nothings and the feeling of his warm skin against yours. In those moments, you feel like you’re discovering him all over again, and you find yourself enjoying that more than you can say.

Finally, you find yourselves, and the sound of skin against skin fills the room, along with your loud, high-pitches moans, and Seokjin’s — softer, quieter, but definitely there. You meet each of his thrusts, with one hand between the two of you to rub against your clit. When you first clench around him, he finally lets out a moan that’s as loud as yours.

“Fuck, fuck, fffuck,” he says, head falling against you, cheek pressed against your collarbone. “If you— If you do that again I’ll— Wait, please, wait, wanna— wanna cum with you—”

You arch your back, your nipples grazing against his chest, and force up the pace of your hips. Jin is moving incoherently, begging into your neck, and you want to give him exactly what he’s asking for. When you clench around him again, it’s with your orgasm. It’s all it takes to push him over the edge as well, but you barely feel his hips stutter into you, completely taken over by your own pleasure.

It takes you a little while to come back down from your high, and when you do, you meet his eyes. They’re soft and gentle, and, more than anything that’s happened until then, they make you melt.

“Hey,” he whispers, “you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, more than okay, in fact. You?”

“More than okay, too,” he says as a lazy smile spreads across his features.

“Good. That’s good.”

Pillow talk is not your forte.

“Hey,” Jin says, coming to rest his forehead against your shoulder.

“Hmm?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

You chuckle.

“I think I’m in love with you too.”

“That’s good,” Jin says, but his voice sounds choked up, raspy, and you know he’s probably blushing. So you don’t add anything, just run your fingers over his scalp, the nape of his neck, down his back. Let him know you’re here, that you’ve got him, that you’re not going anywhere.

“Are you— are you staying the night?” he asks.

“Sure, unless you’re kicking me out.”

His arms tighten around you possessively.

“I would never.”

It takes a little longer before Jin manages to get the two of you off the couch to go get cleaned up, and then into bed, but of that night, there is not a second that you would call unnecessary or superfluous. Not one.

Every single one of them, every moment you spend with Jin on that first night, are essential, and you could not pick one of them to take back.

March 14th

The bell chimes happily when you walk into the shop, and even though Jin is busy with another customer, his eyes immediately find you. It’s something simple, yet it’s something you love about him. The way he always seems to find you, and the pleasant warmth that fills you without fail when you see him. You’ve been told that it was just the high of the first months of a relationship, not to get too used to it but you hope that, even if it dims, it won’t go away completely.

“Hey, Jin, your ears are turning really red. Why are your ears turning red?”

You laugh while your boyfriend turns to shoot a furious look at Yoongi. He’s sitting in your spot, in the back of the shop, and he’s looking smug. That comment of his has become a pretty common thing to hear whenever you walk in, or just when Jin and you are speaking. To be completely honest, you’re not too mad about it. Jin is good at acting like you have no effect on him, but the blush betrays him, and it’s been both cute and useful to see what actually gets to him, or bothers him sometimes.

“I’ll kick you out of my shop if you keep that up!” Jin shouts at him. “Don’t think I won’t!”

But Yoongi just chuckles into his mug, clearly not taking him seriously — and he’s probably right for that.

“So, do you know what today is?” Jin asks nonchalantly after he’s turned back to face you, gesturing for Jungkook take over with the other customer.

Your eyes widen in horror.

“Please don’t tell me you want us to celebrate our one month anniversary. I haven’t planned anything for that.”

Jin rolls his eyes.

“I would argue that our one-month anniversary is tomorrow, if we’re being precise, because that’s when we, um, really talked about it.”

He’s not wrong. It had been a pleasant thing, to wake up in his arms the morning after, to the sensation of his lips gently kissing your neck, and an even nicer thing to take your breakfast with him. You couldn’t pinpoint why exactly. It had just been what had absolutely and irrevocably sealed the  deal for you. You knew it hadn’t been a mistake. You wanted to be with him.

“Hmm, but there is still some sort of anniversary to be celebrated tonight then,” you say, leaning over the counter. “I’m sure I could prepare something for that.”

His ears and neck flush, and Yoongi has the delicacy of not pointing it out this time.

“That’s not— That’s not what I’m talking about! Today is the white day.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“That’s when boys are supposed to give chocolates back to the girls they like,” Jin elaborates.

“But I didn’t give you chocolates,” you say.

“No, but you’re still the one who— Yoongi, I swear to God— You know. You’re the one who took the first step.”

Despite his recent outburst, it’s obvious that he feels embarrassed and vulnerable in that moment. You’d kind of gathered that he really regretted not asking you out before Sungho had, but you had never thought that it was actually an issue.

“I’m really happy I did,” you tell him quietly. He’s not fond of PDA, but you still allow your fingers to brush against his. That feels discreet enough.

“I know,” he says, and there’s so much love in his eyes when he looks at you that it’s a real miracle that you don’t melt into a puddle right then and there. “But I still—” He sighs. “You’re really ruining my plans. This was meant to go over smoothly.”

“Sorry,” you apologize with a wide grin while he picks something up from behind the counter.

“There,” he mumbles, handing you the box.

You open it, genuinely curious. You feel the eyes of everyone else in the shop — Yoongi, Namjoon, Jungkook and, of course, Jin — on you, and you want to tell most of them off, but you suppose that since this is where most of your relationship development happened, they’re kind of part of the story too.

The box is filled with chocolates shaped like roses.

“I know it’s not much,” Jin is quick to say, “but I just wanted to—”

“Jin?” you interrupt him.

“Y-yeah?”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

His eyes go wide, and then he sighs, but he can’t force away the smile that’s forcefully making its way on his lips.

“Well, if you absolutely have to—”

But he doesn’t protest when you pull him over the counter to kiss him, hands gently closing over your shoulders. He even brings you back for a second, even briefer kiss, and there’s something fierce in his eyes then. He superbly ignores the cheers that come from your friends in the room.

“I have to warn you, you’re never getting rid of me now,” he says, and it’s light-hearted, but you know there’s a lot of truth behind those words.

“Good,” you simply reply. “I wouldn’t want that for the world.”

He looks like he wants to add something to that, but he chokes on the words, and he falls quiet instead. It’s just as good, really.

There are some things you don’t need words for.

Some things that can be expressed just as easily with a box full of rose-shaped chocolates.

[angelarmitage98]

Harry Potter preferences...

How he asks you to be his girlfriend:

Harry:

His P.O.V:

She was sat quietly in the library reading a book about magical creatures to kill time as she had nothing better to be done for the rest of the day. When suddenly, BANG! A loud noise was heard throughout the entire library, I could see her wondering where that noise came from. I hope she doesn't notice it was me, not just yet anyway. She stood up searching for where that sound came from. So, I stood still behind the old, dusty shelf, waiting for her to come wandering around the corner to find the surprise, I have on my invisibility cloak so she doesn't see me yet. Finally, I see her trotting along to where I made the noise. She looked around as she noticed the little box I placed there for her, waiting and anticipating for her to open it.

Your P.O.V:

I heard a loud noise coming from behind the shelves in the library and before, I knew it my feet took me towards the sound. When I got here, I saw nothing but a tiny little box wrapped in a nice mint green wrapping paper and a golden ribbon. I picked it up wondering who's it could be when I saw a tag attached so I made the decision to check and see who it belonged to. Once I looked I noticed it had my name on it, hmm how peculiar I thought but yet it was so exciting, so I opened it to which a whole bunch of confetti and fireworks flew out, BANG! WOOOSH! WOOO! I looked up to discover the fireworks spelling out, 'WILL YOU (Y/N) (Y/L/N), DO ME THE HONOUR OF BEING MY GIRLFRIEND? - HARRY POTTER' wow, how beautiful I thought, I could not help but have the biggest grin on my face. Suddenly, I hear a noise from behind me, "so, will you?" it was Harry, I just looked at him with the biggest smile ever, this was the best day of my life. Obviously, I nodded my head frantically because of course who wouldn't, it's THE Harry Potter, every girl loved him, and of course, I was one of those girls, and I am still one of those girls.

Ron:

Your P.O.V:

I've just finished my last lesson of the day and have now decided to go find Ron, I haven't seen him the past couple of hours and I'm worried about him, what if he's sick. I saw Harry and Hermione walking my way and who better to ask about Ron than his two best friends, am I right? "Harry, Hermione, have either of you seen Ron anywhere?" I politely asked. Harry was looking at me in this weird way, and it began to make me feel as though I had something on my face. Hermione elbowed Harry in the ribs which to me was rather odd, but nevermind that I need to find Ron. "Oh, Ron is in the kitchen with the house elves, feel free to go find him," Hermione told me. I could tell she was trying to hold back a huge smile but I wonder why. Hmm, oh well I'll just talk to her about it later. "Ok, thank you," I replied and set off walking towards the kitchen. It took me ten minutes to get here but at least I finally arrived. I walked through the doors to see Ron covered in what seemed to be flour. 'Huh, I wonder what he's been up to.' "Ron, what are you doing? You look like a complete mess." I spoke. "Oh, (Y/N), you're here, erm I was just making cupcakes." The minute I heard the word cupcake, I rushed over, grabbed one and took a bite. "Bloody hell (Y/N), you were supposed to read them first." 'Oops,' I thought. "Ronald, seriously? How was I supposed to know that? And besides, its cupcakes how can I hold back from eating one." I said. "Look, I'll put it back and read them," I spoke again. Lucky enough I only took a small bite and the letter was still written on the cupcake. "Good." He replied. I placed the cupcake back where I got it and look at them to see it said '(Y/N) WILL YOU DO ME THE HONOUR OF BEING MY GIRLFRIEND?' as I read it I felt a small tear drop onto my hand. I then turned to look at Ron with a huge smile on my face. "Ronald Weasley, I would love to be your girlfriend," I spoke ecstatically, knowing that this is the start of a beautiful relationship.

Draco:

Regular P.O.V:

You were sat at the Gryffindor table when you felt someone tap you on the shoulder. You turned around to see Crabbe stood there with a beautiful white rose. 'Hmm, my favourite.' You thought. "Follow the roses." Was all he said and pointed towards the Great Hall doors. You arose (no pun intended) from your seat and began walking towards the doors. There stood Goyle with another rose in his hand. 'How peculiar' you thought. "Keep going." He said. So you walked through the doors and heard Fred and George shouting your name. "(Y/N), This way, come on (Y/N), move those legs." Which caused you to laugh at them. 'Oh Merlin, these two are strange' you soon arrived in front of them and the boy gave you a rose each. "Just a few more to go." then pointed in the direction in which you're supposed to walk. You looked at the end of the hall and saw Ron standing there and began to make your way there. "Almost there, just head that way," Ron said nodding his head in the direction in which you're supposed to go while handing you another rose. You were so confused as to what was going on but you felt so intrigued to find out what was going on and how it all ends. You continued your walk and came to find Harry with another rose. "Just one more of these and you're there." 'Huh,' you thought. You then began to quicken your pace to see what was lying ahead. You came to a stop when you found Hermoine with the last rose. "Just there." She spoke in her soft voice and pointed outside towards the Whomping Willow, you took the final rose and made your way there. You came to a halt when you say 'Be Mine? - Yours Truly, Draco' written in rose petals. You heard someone say "ahem" from behind you and turned to see Draco. "I would love to be yours." You told him. "Good, and don't say anything about me asking Potter and his friends to help. I did it for you and that's all you need to know." You giggled at what he had said and thought to yourself. 'Best. Day. Ever'

Neville:

His P.O.V:

So, today's the day I've finally decided to ask out my crush. Her name is (Y/N). She's so beautiful, she has (H/L) (H/C) hair that frames her face perfectly. Her smooth (S/C) skin is radiant when the sun hits it just right. And her li- "Hey Nev, you ok?" A voice pulled me from my thoughts, it's her, oh Godric I'd know that angelic voice anywhere. "Ugh, erm, yeah. I'm good. I'm just getting a couple of books to study. Are you ok? And what you up to?" I already know what she's doing, I know her schedule better than my own and I know she's here to do a bit of light reading but I wouldn't want to say that out loud I mean she will think I'm a complete freak just like everyone else already does. "Oh, ok. You look a little a pale and I thought you might be feeling a little sick, but anyway I've just come for a bit of reading, would you care to join me?" I could listen to her talk all day. "Oh, sure. I'd love too, that would be great, I mean only if I-" "Nev, you're rambling, now just come on, let's go find some seats." "Yeah, sure," I told her as we began walking, we walked all the way to the back of the library and sat down on the seats further back. 'Ok,' I thought 'time to put this plan into action' "Nice book that, how far have you got?" I asked, trying not to let the nerves get the better of me. "I'm just on chapter thirteen, and honestly it seems pretty good so far." "That's good. Can you do me a favour? Go to page five hundred and twenty-one, line seven." I asked her, god I hope this goes well.

Your P.O.V:

Huh, Nev seems to be acting a little strange but that can wait. I've decided to do what he's asked and went to the page and look at line seven. The words 'This was his moment, it was time to ask her, but will she say yes...' Wait. What. Is he... Oh my gosh... He's asking me out. "Oh Nev, yes, yes, yes thousand times yes." this is the cutest thing anyone has ever done for me, and I'm glad it was Nev, I mean I've adored him since we met each other in my compartment of the train.

Seamus:

Your P.O.V:

I was walking down the hall when I noticed if I didn't hurry up I would be late for my next class. I parted ways with my friends and scurried off down the hall towards potions. There's no way I can risk being late considering the fact that I have Professor Snape for a teacher, he's so heartless and doesn't even give you a chance with anything if you're not Slytherin and guess what I'm not Slytherin. I walked into the classroom and realised that he wasn't here yet, phew, I thought. I took my seat next to Seamus as I usually would but for some reason he looked extremely nervous, I wonder why? But before I could ask Professor Snape walked in. 'Great' I thought. The class proceeded as normal and halfway through making my potion, I heard the usual bang come from the side of me, which usually meant Seamus messed up his potion, so I turned to the side to help him fix things as I'd normally do. Only this time I noticed something different. I saw the words 'Will you (Y/N), please be my girlfriend' written within the smoke. I looked at Seamus who said "Will you?" with a nervous smile etched on his face. "Yes, definitely yes," I spoke with excitement laced in my voice. "Miss (Y/L/N), Mr Finnigan. Detention." I heard Professor Snape say The one thing I didn't want to happen today, happened. But in all honesty, it's definitely worth it.

Fred:

Regular P.O.V:

Today's the day for the Quidditch match. It's Gryffindor VS Slytherin to see which team shall win the final match of the year. Yet even though you should be cheering for Slytherin you're not. In fact, you're actually cheering and screaming for Gryffindor instead, all you keep doing is cheering for Fred Weasley, your crush and George. All you want is for them to win but at the moment they only have 70 points and Slytherin have 80, which of course you're happy with because it is your house team but you'd be so much happier if it was the other way around. You're pulled from your thoughts when you saw a bludger come your way but before it had the chance to get close enough you saw Fred fly down to save the day, he hit the bludger away then turned to you to give a sly wink. You couldn't help but let the blush form on your face. Then all of a sudden they called for a time out and everyone began chattering among themselves confused as to what was going on. Then suddenly Fred was in front of all the players with a microphone at hand "So," you heard him say, you looked right at him to see what he was about to do next. "We all know this gorgeous girl that I always have by my side, she's my partner in crime, well my other one, I also have George." You couldn't help but laugh at that. "Well, anyway, she's perfect and I've been crushing on her for a long time now and well I have this for her." And randomly the team started flying around to spell out. 'Will you please go out with me?' and then Fred began flying towards you. You stood shocked. He arrived right in front of you and said: "So, (Y/N) will you be mine?" You stood nodding your head vigorously not knowing what to say because you felt as though you couldn't trust your words. Fred smiled at you as though he'd won the lottery and screamed through the microphone 'she said yes' and the whole crowd began to go wild. You felt as though you had never been happier in your whole entire life than at this moment right now. This is the start to a beautiful life to a guy you've been in love with for quite a while now and you can't wait to see what the future has in store for you both.

George:

Your P.O.V:

I was sat with Fred in the Gryffindor common room waiting for George so that we could go get dinner, but I wonder what's taking him so long. Suddenly Fred stood up and told me to follow him. "But what about George?" I asked, "Don't worry, we're off to find him." He replied. So I stood up and began to follow him, we had a small conversation about his pranks and how good he feels his and George's prank will be. Next thing I knew we had arrived in the middle of the Quidditch field and saw a beautiful picnic laid out. "Fred, what's going on?" I asked but when I looked up he was nowhere to be seen. "Fred... Fred..." I kept shouting but he wasn't anywhere near here. I sat down on the blanket, wondering what was going on when all of a sudden I felt someone grab my shoulders while screaming boo. I jumped, feeling frightened. I turned myself around to see George stood there, I picked up a pillow and began hitting him with it while screaming at him, telling him how much of an idiot he is for scaring you like that. "Ouch, ouch, stop it, woman, I'm sorry." He said while laughing. "Yeah, you better be, now what the hell is all this you idiot?" I asked. "Well, this dear is a date." He replied. "Oh," I said. "So, erm, (Y/N) how about I teach you to fly." George suddenly said. "Ok," I replied. We got up and he began to teach me how to ride a broom. We had now been doing this for about an hour when all of a sudden I began to lose my grip. I began to fall off my broom and screamed for George and he swooped me into his arms. "Why thank you for saving my life. You're my hero, my very own Superman." I said while laughing "Well if I'm Superman can you be my Lois Lane?" George asked with seriousness laced within his voice which caused me to stop laughing. I stared straight into his eyes and replied with "Nothing would make me happier than being Lois Lane to your Superman." And with that, he flew you back toward the ground where you sat and finished your picnic while waiting for the sunset to come. (You told him about Superman because you're muggleborn and know all about him, so you thought it would be fun to tell him about superheroes and anything related to them).

[flourgirl]

When The Party’s Over

Part II to “Even If It’s a Lie”

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader, Peter Parker x Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn x Reader

Summary: The closer that Peter gets to Gwen, the more he realizes how irreplaceable you are to him.

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: A few curse words here and there.

A/N: There’s going to be a third and final part to this story, so if you’d like to be tagged in it, please shoot me an ask or a reply and I’ll gladly add you to the tag list. Hope you guys enjoy this new part and happy reading :-)

“Counted all my mistakes and there's only one Standing out from the list of the things I've done All the rest of my crimes don't come close To the look on your face when I let you go” -Where Do Broken Hearts Go, One Direction

It had been 17 days since you had last seen Peter and all you could do was sit in your favorite coffee shop and stare at all the muffins in the case. Peter loved muffins. His favorite flavor was banana nut, and usually the two of you would jam out to all of your favorite songs while you waited for them to come out of the oven.

“Y/N,” Betty said, snapping you out of your daze, “Are you alright? You’ve been staring at the pastries for, like, five minutes.”

MJ put down whatever book she had decided to read this week. “Yeah, if you want one, go for it. You deserve it. Here, I’ll pay.” 

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wadded up $10 bill, dropping it onto the table in front of you, and returned to her book.

“You could get a slice of cheesecake,” Betty suggested. “I know how much you like the raspberry one from here.”

But all you could think about was how you wished Peter loved you the way that he loved those stupid banana nut muffins.

“I’m not hungry,” you muttered, crossing your arms and closing your eyes to take in the soft jazz music that was playing alongside the chatter of the café. “But I’m keeping the ten bucks.”

“Maybe it would help take your mind off of things if you met someone new,” MJ suggested without even looking up at you. It was honestly amazing how she could carry on a conversation while still being so engrossed in her book.

“Yeah, Y/N,” Betty agreed, “You’re so smart, and pretty, and you made all of the baked goods currently taking up lots of precious space in our kitchen.”

“You’re a stress baker,” MJ added. She was right. Over the past two and a half weeks since that night, you had baked three cakes, four pies, and seven different kinds of bread. Maybe tonight wasn’t the night you tried out the new focaccia recipe you had been eyeing.

“I don’t know, guys,” you said, slinking further down into your chair. “I just don’t think I’m ready for that sort of thing.”

“That’s okay,” Betty reassured you. “Take all the time you need. But we’re here for you, Y/N.”

And that’s how the rest of that day went. Lots of suggestions on ways to stop thinking about Peter and you shooting them down. No matter how Betty and MJ tried to make you feel better, your mind was stuck on the nine voicemails and thirty-two texts he had sent you saying how he was sorry for whatever he did and how he just wanted things to be normal again.

Except you didn’t want normal. You wanted him. You wanted his bad puns and the way his sweaters smelled when he let you borrow one. And the worst part was, he didn’t even know what he did wrong. He didn’t know that he had broken your heart.

----------------

It wasn’t like Peter didn’t like Gwen. She was outgoing and confident, and he liked how it felt like she was always the center of attention. People wanted to talk to her, or sit next to her, or even have her know that they existed.

But she wasn’t anything like you, and the more time that Peter spent with her, the more apparent that became. She didn’t rant about reality TV or get so overwhelmed during public speaking assignments that the only way she could calm down was with a hug from him. In many ways, she was perfect. Except for the fact that she wasn’t you.

“We’re still on for Flash’s party on Saturday, right?” Gwen asked as she walked with Peter out of the lecture hall where they learned about vascular mechanics.

Honestly, Peter hadn’t even remembered that she had asked him to go to that until she brought it up just now. He was too stressed out wondering whether or not you’d ever speak to him again. 

But what did he do to make you upset? He had promised that if you wanted to leave the party, you could tell him and the two of you would go. Except you never said anything. You just got up and left, without even saying goodbye. You hated him and it killed him to not know why.

Despite this, he wanted to be the good guy and not disappoint any more people, and so he took Gwen’s hand in his and said, “Yeah, definitely. I’ll be there.”

----------------

If someone had told you that you’d run into Harry Osborn in the middle of Arthur Avenue, you’d say they were crazy. And if that same someone said that you’d ask him on a date, they’d be even crazier. But somehow, some way, that’s exactly what happened.

You were on the way to interview a third-generation restaurant owner for your Italian class. You had never been very good at foreign languages, but you would use any excuse to take a trip to Little Italy. The nervous knots in your stomach from the possibility that they would only speak in a dialect that you couldn’t understand was worth it, because this little nook of the city was home to the best arancini in all of America.

To be honest, it seemed unbelievable that he’d be there, at that exact time, in that exact place to where you’d run right into him. You had been too busy reviewing the notes you had taken during the interview to see that you were on a direct path towards face planting into his torso.

“Fuck,” you grumbled, staring down at your notes scattered on the sidewalk at your feet. The guy you had just ran into kneeled down to gather them into a neat stack, handing them back to you.

“Y/N?” he asked, which caught you off guard. Who the hell was this? It wasn’t until you stared at his face for a few seconds that you recognized him. That guy that Gwen was with at the party. He looked a lot different in his button down and khakis compared to the sweatshirt and baseball cap he had on when you had first met him.

“Uh, hi. You’re Gwen’s friend, right? Henry.” You knew his name. You just didn’t plan on letting that you knew it.

“Yeah, but it’s Harry. Sorry about that, by the way. So, anyway, what brings you all the way down to Little Italy? It’s pretty far from campus,” he told you, as if you didn’t know that. I mean, you had walked all the way here, hadn’t you?

You shrugged, looking away from him. “I guess I could ask you the same thing.”

It was the first time in a while that someone wasn’t fawning over him just because he was rich. Honestly, it was really refreshing. “I asked first,” he noted, mimicking your crossed arms with a smirk.

Who does this guy think he is? 

“Listen,” you sighed. “I really don’t have time for this. I need to get back to my apartment and finish up writing this essay that’s due at midnight.”

“So you’re taking Italian, I presume?” he asked, it suddenly becoming quite clear as to what you were doing on the other side of the city.

“Yeah. And let me guess, you were eating brunch at some fancy, expensive restaurant that your dad owns, drinking some $100 bottle of wine while some nerd you pay does your homework, huh?”

“No,” he laughed. “I was helping put together Thanksgiving dinner baskets for underprivileged families down at the soup kitchen.”

It was only then that you noticed how annoyingly handsome he was. Essentially, he was the male version of Gwen. Same blonde hair and preppy style that just screamed “I have a trust fund.”

“Of course. What, did you need a good photo op ever since the Daily Bugle ran that issue where they called you a spoiled playboy who loves to party?”

You had no intentions of entertaining him, especially since he was a friend of Gwen’s. The girl that had kissed Peter right in front of you, and pretended like she couldn’t remember your name. The girl that Peter was probably with right now.

“I’m not going to pretend like that wasn’t part of it, but believe it or not, I’m not actually as big of a selfish asshole as the papers make me out to be.”

You rolled your eyes. “Sure, I can tell by the cashmere sweater vest and leather loafers that you’re wearing that you’re so down to earth.”

There was an awkward silence, and Harry decided to change the subject before he pissed you off even more. But what he chose to mention next was the one thing on the planet that you didn’t want to talk about.

“So, uh, I guess your friend Peter is with Gwen now,” he started, which had somehow managed to make you dislike him even more than you already did. Sure, there was no way for him to know how you felt about the whole situation, but it still pained you to think about how you had become an afterthought to who you thought was the guy who would always have your back.

You blinked back at him, frowning. “Yeah, I guess so,” you muttered. And then there was another awkward silence.

“Well, I’ll let you go now. It’s obvious I’m taking up some very precious time in your day,” he said, offering a weak smile. “Maybe we’ll see each other around campus.” 

It suddenly dawned on you that you might have been just a little too hard on him. He seemed nice enough, even if you weren’t a big fan of the company he kept. Before you could even really think about it, you called out, “Wait!” and walked over to meet him when he had turned around.

“I’m sorry,” you admitted, nervously toying with the hem of your sweater. “I’m just in a really bad mood.”

“It’s fine,” he reassured you, although he wasn’t quite as confident as when the two of you had started your conversation. “We all have bad days. I hope yours gets better.”

“It could, if you’d let me buy you a coffee,” you said, genuinely smiling for the first time in a while. Sure, it was nice to think that Peter would probably be upset once he heard that you had asked someone out and he knew nothing about it, but a small part of you was asking just because Harry Osborn seemed like the kind of guy you’d like to have around.

“Sure,” he answered back, running a hand through his hair, which seemed to be in a perpetually perfect messy-but-not-too-messy state. “Have you ever been to Hungry Ghost in Brooklyn?”

Your eyes lit up. “That’s actually my favorite café! They have this really awesome grand piano in the middle of the room, and every Friday they have an open mic where anybody can sign up to play it.”

Your enthusiasm honestly surprised you. It was nice to have something to talk about that didn’t somehow involve Peter.

“Actually, I’m signed up to play tomorrow night,” Harry told you, “Do you like jazz?”

It almost seemed too good to be true. You loved jazz. “Definitely,” you confirmed, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Alright, cool. Let’s make a deal. I’ll let you buy me a coffee if you come watch me play tomorrow night.”

“Deal,” you agreed, before turning back towards your apartment, all giddy with excitement to tell MJ and Betty about what had just happened.

----------------

“You probably didn’t know this, but Y/N’s been hanging out with Harry Osborn,” Ned said, walking into the common room wearing his “special” Hawaiian shirt, which Peter knew meant he was going someplace fancy. “They’re kind of dating.”

Peter looked up immediately from his linear algebra homework. He had an uneasy feeling in his stomach about what Ned had just revealed, but he didn’t know why. He was with Gwen, and if you wanted to date Harry Osborn, then you could. But still, he found himself being just a little bit jealous that some other guy was filling in for him.

“Oh,” Peter said, looking back down at his homework. He couldn’t focus anymore, so he just shut the notebook and threw it from where he was sitting on the top bunk onto his desk. “How long has that been going on?”

“Two days now, but they’ve been spending every minute together since. Betty said that they bumped into each other on the street and she just asked him on a date out of nowhere,” he replied, tying his shoes to go meet his girlfriend for date night. “I just thought I’d let you know, in case you saw them when you were out and got mad at me for keeping it from you.”

“Thanks, dude,” Peter sighed, lying on his back, “You’re a good friend.”

“I know. Anytime, man. Now I gotta go. M’lady awaits,” he said. Peter didn’t even have to look to know that his roommate had just tipped his imaginary fedora.

Harry Osborn wasn’t even your type, Peter thought. You didn’t like guys as “pretty” as him, and you had always been more into brown eyes, not blue. So what was the appeal? His trust fund? Peter knew that you weren’t that shallow. It was just that, well, he couldn’t imagine you falling for someone like that.

You’re with Gwen, Peter kept reminding himself. So many guys would kill to be in your place. It wasn’t until he checked the time that he realized that he was actually about 20 minutes late to meeting her for the party. The stupid party at Flash Thompson’s tacky apartment that he didn’t even want to go to in the first place.

It was an understatement to say that Gwen was pissed when Peter knocked on her front door over half an hour late to the time they had agreed upon.

“What took you so long? I’ve been waiting,” she complained, smoothing out her sparkly silver dress that caught the light just right when she moved.

“I’m sorry,” Peter sighed, grabbing her hand as they walked down the street. “Uh, I guess I just lost track of time.”

“Whatever,” Gwen said, “Just don’t let it happen again.”

When they finally arrived at the party, the bowls of potato chips and mini pretzels were nearly empty. The floor was sticky, and Old Town Road boomed from the speakers in the living room. 

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” Peter told Gwen, leaving her to greet all of her friends that had been waiting for her to show up. 

As Peter wandered towards the keg, he couldn’t stop thinking about you and Harry, and all the things that he didn’t know about your newfound relationship with some guy you had just met. He still didn’t know why he was so upset about it. He should be happy you had found someone you liked. In high school, all you ever talked about was finding the perfect guy, and if that was Harry Osborn, who was Peter to make a fuss about it?

But that didn’t stop Peter from filling up his plastic cup more times than he should’ve that night. It wasn’t until he was being dragged back to his dorm room by Gwen after puking on Flash’s couch that he realized what was wrong. He wanted to be that guy. The one who got to hold your hand and cuddle with you during scary movies. The one that got to love you and be loved by you.

----------------

Taglist: @hommyy-tommy @itsgonnabeohtay @alltimekyn

P.S.: Sorry to all the people I forgot to tag on this one! I didn’t know that when you answer asks privately, they go away from your inbox. Please shoot me another ask or reply to this post so I don’t miss you again!

[cringelordlikesplaz]

Strange to be an Eel

Turning into silly putty wasn't the strangest thing that had happened to him, honestly. It’s everything that happened after that which was weird.

"Please! I'm begging you, Jake bailed last minute and we don't have any replacements! This musical is our last chance. If this flops, we'll never be able to keep this place open!" She cried. 'She' being a short woman with desperate tears in her eyes and too many freckles. 

Eel pulled his wrist out of her surprisingly strong grip. He shook his hand off and observed the woman in front of him. She looked stressed, tired, and a general mess. Her name tag read ‘Penny’.

"Well, Penny." He said curtly, "I got things to do. Better things to do than-"

"But you're the perfect fit! You're the right size, you already know all the lines-"

"Seeing a musical five times doesn't mean I've memorized-"

Penny snapped to attention and pointed her finger into the air dramatically. The imaginary audience located in the storeroom fell silent. 

"And if I'm not here to save the day- Then as God as my witness, I'll be here to save the night!"

"-It's 'then as the gods as my witnesses'." Eel pointed out. Penny smiled smugly and Eel shook himself off.

"That doesn't prove anything. And it doesn't change the fact I can't go onstage!" Eel said.

"You'll be wearing makeup and goggles! A hat too! No one will be able to recognize you in costume!" Penny said, suddenly desperate again.

"No! I won't do it!" Eel said in response to her puppy eyes.

"Please! Please, Bruce Wayne's out there and if this goes well the PR will be fantastic!" She said, tears beginning to fall.

Eel looked up at the cracked ceiling and let out a long, long groan.

"I want 100 bucks." Eel said.

"Deal!" Penny said, the tears instantly evaporating. 

Damn actors.

~~~

So, the musical rendition of the hit show 'The Grey Ghost' went pretty damn well, in Eel's opinion. He was skeptical at first, as anyone should be, but he had to admit it, Penny was right. He was an amazing Grey Ghost. 

It helped that Eel had been a fan of the Grey Ghost since he was a boy, and it also maybe helped that he had snuck into the theater to see the practice runs of the play five times. He had thought he was being sneaky, but apparently theater kids could like, smell intruders. Fresh blood, if you would.

He hadn't known what would happen when he was cornered by a very manic little blond lady, but it ended up surprisingly well. He even got paid. 

After he and the other actors had taken their bows or whatever, Eel snuck back to the storeroom. He pried off the grey suit- it was kinda itchy honestly- and began to dig around for his usual clothes. 

He put his suit on. The nice one, that didn't pinch his shoulders and had all his crap in the pockets. He buttoned up the coat and pulled out his glasses. They were black and pretty slick, if he was honest with himself. Which he was. Occasionally.

The temples were wide and helped hide his eyes from the side. They hid his scar even better. They were sunglasses, unfortunately, not the best eyewear to have in Gotham, but he liked them. And that was enough for now. 

They were also expensive as all hell. Some sort of designer brand. He would wear them till they broke for how much they cost him. 

There was a knock on the door.

"I'm decent," Eel said. 

Penny opened the door and held her clipboard to her chest excitedly. Her eyes sparkled. 

"So." She said.

"So?" He asked.

"So! Y'know how Bruce Wayne was in the crowd tonight?" She asked.

"Yup," He said. 

"He liked it! He liked it so much he wants to fund us!" She said, "And he wants to meet you."

Eel blinked. "He what?" 

"He said your performance was incredible! He wants to meet you!"

"No." 

"No?" She asked, her head cocked, "But you've got so much talent! He could get you a job, y'know." 

"No. Just- no." Eel shook his head. He could just hear the sirens now. "I can't, Penny."

She seemed like she wanted to press him- like she did with getting him into the costume. But something on his face made her reconsider, apparently.

"Alright." She said, sighing, "I'll tell him you're not available."

"Thanks, pal." Eel said.

They stood awkwardly.

"I need to go." He said, pointing behind her to the door.

"I- okay." She said. Penny stepped aside and Eel left the storage room, Penny following behind. She led him to the backdoor.

"Um, thank you...?" She said as he stepped out into the alley.

"It's best if you don't know my name." Eel said.

"Will you be back?" 

"Probably not." Eel said, "What with your success here tonight- I think there's going to be too much foot traffic around for a crook like me to be hidden."

She smiled softly, "You weren't very hidden in the first place."

"I'll have you know I've hidden from cops in more obvious spots."

"I think that says more about the GCPD than it does your skill," Penny said.

Eel huffed, mockingly offended.

"Later, miss." He said, turning to leave.

"Goodbye." She said.

Penny waved to his back and waited for him to slink into the shadows before she shut the door.

~~~

"Eel O'brian." A gruff voice called.

Eel grinned and craned his head around to look at a familiar face.

"Matches! Ol' pal, where've you been? It's been ages." Eel said.

Matches Malone slid into the seat next to him at the bar. The bartender wordlessly handed Matches a drink and Matches wordlessly slid a few bills over the counter.

Eel took a sip of his own drink- a cocktail.

"I've heard there's work around." Matches said, taking his match out of his mouth to take a sip of his drink. Whiskey probably.

"I mean, yeah-" Eel said, rolling the cherry around his glass for the hell of it, "But there's always work around."

"Hmm." 

"Yeah yeah, I know what ya mean." Eel said, nodding. "You want the work that won't have you dressed up as a daisy and punched by a furry. I gotcha."

"Hmm."

"I miss the good 'ol days, Matches. Before all these folks in spandex came along and started going nuts all over town-" Eel paused, taking a sip of his cocktail, "-But I do got to admit it; the spandex is pretty hot."

"I need cash." Matches said, ever eloquent. 

"Cheers to that!" Eel laughed. He downed the rest of his drink, swallowing the cherry. 

"Where's the work?" Matches finally asked, and Eel's grin faltered. Always work and no play with this guy.

But Matches seemed to like him well enough, so Eel wouldn't hold it against him.

"So, new boss in the West part of town looking to hire some folks. I think they're hiding something pretty big, but we won't know that 'till we get there, won't we, Matches?" Eel said.

"Hmm."

"Yeah, me too buddy."

~~~

Things at the new job were getting crazy. Like, really really crazy. Like the type of crazy he spent a great amount of his time trying in vain to avoid. Super crazy.

Pun intended.

It started off fairly normal. By Gotham standards anyway. Looting places. Stealing. Scarin' the living daylights out of folks. Keeping out of the limelight. 

But the boss turned out to be working for an even bigger boss- who had a penchant for monologuing- and Eel couldn't help the sinking feeling he had in his gut.

And then the boss- the small boss and not the bigger, monologuing boss- somehow kidnapped Batgirl of all people and decided to drown her. And he did it in this big glass chamber with a valve on the side. 

He stood in front of it, glaring at each of his men accusingly.

He had each of them turn the valve, adding a few inches of water to the chamber, and taking few inches of air away from Batgirl. He was trying to root out a snitch. Or, as he put it, a bat.

Matches didn't even hesitate. Eel wished he had that guy's confidence.

But Eel? He wasn't a big fan of murder. It made him feel icky. It kept him awake at night. He already had enough insomnia, thank you very much.

And Batgirl- She was just a kid. A baby-faced teenager. Up close, she was no longer a force of nature fighting alongside a cryptid. She was a teenager up to her nose in water, her clothes torn and bloody.

Eel went last.

He put his hands on the valve and-

He couldn't do it.

He wouldn't.

A lot of things happened after that.

The boss (the small one) told the rest to shoot him down, and Eel had a half a second to view his terrible life before Matches tackled him to the floor.

The glass of the chamber broke and the room was suddenly flooded with a lot of water and one very mad vigilante. Then a window got busted in, even more glass flying, and then two Robins showed up- There was the young Robin who was grumpy and the other older Robin that wasn't Robin anymore but Eel couldn't really be bothered to remember his name at the moment.

There was fighting, gunfire, blood, and then there was glass in his hands-

And then Matches had somehow manifested them both outside and set Eel on his feet.

"You-" Eel spluttered, "You saved me!" 

Matches looked at Eel. Eel looked at Matches. The street was quiet. Inside the building, it was not.

"Thank you." Eel said softly.

"...You cost me my payment." Matches said at last.

Eel's face fell.

"I just- She's just a kid, Matches. I ain't a monster." Eel said.

Matches shook his head and walked away, leaving Eel on the sidewalk with glass in his hands.

Guess he was wrong about Matches.

~~~

That day wasn't too bad, though. In the middle of the night he was woken up to a knock at his window. His fourth story window in his crappy apartment.

He opened his window and suddenly a basket was shoved into his arms. He fumbled with it for a second, his hands still raw. There was a blur of movement and Eel was left standing half-naked holding a- a gift basket?

He sorted through it- it had cash and cookies and bandages. It also had a plain white card. He opened it and raised a brow in surprise.

"Thanks for not drowning me!" 

It was signed with a little bat drawn in the corner. 

The cookies were delicious.

~~~

The safe was built into the wall. The safe itself wasn't too big, and the wall was only made of plaster. It would be a pain to lug the safe back to base though. And it would cost precious seconds to hack away at the wall to get the safe out-

There was really only one option. The bomb he had was small and wouldn't do much in terms of excavation- but it would absolutely open up that pesky Wayne-Tech lock.

"Alright guys, we need to get back-" Eel didn't hear anyone. He turned- "Guys?"

"It's been a while, O'brian." Batman said, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of his crime buddies. Well, not really buddies- you get the point.

"Batman! Hello! I don't think we've met," Eel said, swinging on his heel and turning to face his doom.

"No, we haven't. But when I didn't hear word from the police of any of your activity for a few months- well." Batman took a silent step closer. "One tends to worry."

"Oh? Me? Lil 'ol me? You shouldn't have." Eel batted his eyelashes, though the effect was diminished as he was wearing his shades.

"You plan these heists well." Batman said slowly, "You waited until the Riddler attacked to go for this safe. You got past the cameras without setting off the alarm. You tipped off the police of where you'd be- on the other side of town."

Eel tried to reach for the detonator on the bomb. If he could just- "You flatter me, Batman really, but I-"

"We could use a man like that on our side, O'brian." Batman said. "A smart man like you could do some real good in the world."

Eel laughed. That was the most wrong thing he'd ever heard. He laughed but it wasn't funny.

He pressed the button and the bomb started counting down from 10.

"I don't think so, Bats. I'm not the hero type." Eel said, and then tried to make a run for it. Batman caught him by the collar.

"It's not about types. There's good in you."

"I really wish I could stay and chat, but I gotta split." Eel said, slipping his arms out of his coat and breaking into a mad sprint.

The bomb let out a single shrieking beep before it detonated. 

Eel didn't turn back to see what happened to Batman.

~~~

A deal went wrong. Unsurprising. They broke his leg. Unsurprising. He was alive. Surprising! Unfortunately, he was still very much crippled and bleeding out from somewhere. 

He limped along the sidewalk at night, always a dumb thing to do. His vision was either going or the lighting in this city was getting worse by the moment. Given that he lived in Gotham, it was likely both.

He limped into a grassy part of the city- a park of some sort. He'd get caught soon. Or maybe he'd bleed out and die. He couldn't manifest the energy to care either way.

He flopped down onto the grass, for lack of any other bright ideas. He couldn't see the stars through the cloud cover. Tragic. 

"Hey." A commanding voice called. He looked around until he spotted a scantily-clad woman. She was green and wearing leaves and had bright red hair and was looking at him like he was a pile of dead slugs.

Oh. Oh crap. Oh crap that's Poison Ivy.

Eel tried to shrink into the ground.

"Hiiiii Poison Ivy, how's the weather?" He asked. He tried to smile charmingly but it was most likely very strained and bloody.

"Why are you bleeding on my flowers?" She asked, a single brow raised.

"Haa, would you believe that blood makes a great fertilizer?" Eel said.

"It does." She said.

"Uh," Eel had lost too much blood for him to come up with a witty remark.

"Please don't kill me." He said.

"Greater men than you have begged for mercy. What makes you better?" She asked, head cocked.

"I can, uh," Eel panicked, "I can give you my grandma's recipe for caramel coffee." 

Poison Ivy's other eyebrow raised. 

They looked at each other for a moment.

Then, a shrill voice called from across the park.

"Ivy! Come on!! What are you even doing?!" 

Eel was fairly certain he was hallucinating now. Blood loss and all that. Because Harley Quinn, wearing a football jersey and sweatpants, came running up to stand besides Poison Ivy.

"We're going to miss the game," Harley pouted, then took notice of Eel, "Who's that mess?"

"Someone who can make caramel coffee, apparently." Poison Ivy said, bemused.

"I like caramel." Harley said.

Poison Ivy shrugged, "We can keep him if you want."

"I also like coffee..." Harley tapped her chin in consideration, "Yeah we'll take him. Come on, Ivy!"

~~~

That was how he ended up getting high with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. His leg was propped up on a table, a bong was being passed around, the apparent football game played on the TV in front of them. They were in a greenhouse and the city’s lights shone through the glass almost magically. This was probably not what someone suffering from blood loss should be doing. Eel almost considered making a break for it. 

But Poison Ivy was the Weed Queen of Gotham, and getting this stuff free? Too good to pass up.

Harely had seemingly forgotten about the promised coffee, but since they hadn’t killed him yet and gave him weed, Eel decided he'd write the recipe down for them before he left.

"I don't get why capes dress the way they do," Harely said, "I mean, rogues have the same problem but like, it's more noticeable with the heroes, y'know?"

"Like, the boob windows?" Ivy asked. Harley nodded enthusiastically. 

"Yeah, yeah! The boob windows." Harely said, "Why do all the guys wear kevlar and body armor and the girls got to show off their tits?"

"Maybe the dudes should show off their tits too." Eel said. 

Poison Ivy laughed and Harely nodded even more enthusiastically.

"Yeah! This guy gets it!" 

"See, if I were to go running around in spandex-" Eel gestured to his very much not spandex coated body, "I'd show off my cleavage all the time." 

"Men don't have cleavage," Ivy pointed out.

"Not with that attitude they don't." Harley said, "Say, Eel, if you ever get tits, come over so we can prove Ivy wrong."

Eel cackled, "Sure thing! And if I ever start wearing spandex as a hobby I'll make sure the V-neck plunges all the way down."

"You'd better!" 

Ivy laughed and Eel was handed the bong again.

~~~

Eel wasn't even doing anything. He was in his apartment, minding his own business. Well actually he was trying to sleep but that wasn't going so well.

Then there was a tapping on his window. Feeling a sudden wash of deja-vu, Eel turned around. There was an otherworldly, haunting green glow coming from his window. 

Pausing, and exercising a healthy amount of caution, walked over to the window.

A UFO hovered outside his window. A tiny one.

Eel rubbed his eyes.

The UFO bonked against the glass, seemingly wanting inside.

"uh," Eel said. Against every ounce of common sense, he opened the window. 

The UFO flew inside his room, casting its light oddly through his home. There was a mechanical whir, and suddenly a robotic arm sprung out from the bottom of the ship.

"Uh," Eel said, regretting everything immediately.

The UFO then grabbed Eel by his good ankle, his other leg still in a cast for a few more weeks. He lost balance and hit his head on the floor. The small ship lifted him off the floor by his ankle, and then dragged him out the window. He tried to claw at the windowsill but the ship was too fast.

"UH,"

He dangled dangerously over what was at least a thirty foot drop. The UFO paid no mind to his panicked flailing, and instead began to go higher.

"OH GOD."

~~~

The small UFO took him to a bigger UFO, of course.

A small hole opened in the underside of the ship, and Eel was brought inside. The inside of an alien spaceship looked nearly identical to its outside, apparently. Weird and green.

The smaller ship finally dropped him off in a large circular room. He was set down gently on his back, but he still hissed in surprise. The metal floor was freezing and he was only in his shorts.

"Uh oh uh oh uh oh..." He muttered.

"Hello, human!" A cheery, buzzing voice greeted. 

Eel looked around frantically and finally spotted a small, glowing blue light.

"Uh, hi?" He said to the light. The blue light bobbed up and down- excitedly?

"Human!" It said, "We are the-"

It said something that sounded eldritch to his human ears.

"-and we saw your performance!"

He blinked.

"...my what."

"On February 7th, approximately 11 months ago, you performed in the musical "The Grey Ghost Strikes Back!"." The light said. Several other colorful lights manifested around him.

"...uh huh."

"If you are wondering why you did not see us, the-" [REDACTED] "-in the crowd on the date of your performance, it is because we were not there."

"Ooohh kayyyy...."

"Batman recorded it and sent us a copy!"

Eel blinked. They were speaking alienese, he was certain of it.

"He also sent along with it 307 other forms of human entertainment as a welcome package to Earth!" It said, "And we must say, we really enjoyed your performance."

A red light, hovering just a little lower than the blue one, perked up.

"We especially enjoyed your performance in the third act, and would like to compliment your singing skills." The red light said.

"Thank you?" Eel said.

"If it is not too much trouble, human, we would like what is most commonly known to you as an 'autograph'." The blue light said.

"...alright." 

~~~

The night started off odd, he'd admit it. But it wasn't bad. He signed some stuff. He didn't know what the things he signed were or what exactly he wrote with, but it hardly mattered. They asked him to sing a song from the musical- he did- and they somehow applauded him.

They gave him alien food, and he'd be damned if he didn't accept free food. Even if it was probably radioactive. It tasted like cotton candy. Again, not bad.

They told him a bit about their situation. Their home- somewhere on a different plane of existence- exploded. They were the last of their kind. Batman approached them, because he could do that apparently, and offered them a place on Earth.

"Our culture is based on entertainment. Each piece of what you call 'media' is like a fine work of art to us." They said. 

"Oh, cool. So do you kidnap actors you like in other stuff?" Eel asked, trying to figure out the best way to consume the slime on a stick he'd been given. He decided there was no proper way to do that so he just decided to slurp it off.

"We would like to meet the actors and actresses in other media, but they usually just scream the whole time they are here. We gain the impression that they do not appreciate our hospitality." They said.

Eel shrugged, "I can't imagine why. You guys are great."

"You have taken this whole experience very well, comparatively."

"I mean- I'm a bit desensitized to weirdness." Eel said.

"Is this experience considered 'weird' to other humans?" They asked.

"Nah." Eel said, waving off their concern, and set his slime stick down, "Hey, I'd like to get home now. This has been fun and all, but it's kinda cold in here."

"Of course, human. We wish you fame and fortune for your future."

"Uh, you too?"

They dropped him off on the roof of his apartment building. The sun was beginning to rise. He made his way down the stairs, nearly naked and his leg still in a cast. He slept okay.

~~~

Eel was known for many things. He knew most, if not all, of those things were bad. Hell, all of the things he was known for would be bad to the common man. But to the common crook? Only most of those things would be considered bad.

Some of the things he was known for made him desirable. 

He was a safecracker, he never got caught, he could make a good plan and stick to it. He was good at his job.

But Eel was not... valuable, per-say. He was a tool in most people's eyes. Something to be discarded when the job was done.

Eel knew this. Made his peace with it. He knew when he took this job that the guys he was working with didn't give two shits about him. But he needed their muscle for the security guards, and they needed his skill to crack the safe. They all needed the cash.

They walked into this big facility during a storm. Mr. Freeze was causing havoc in city hall again. The outer parts of the city didn't get the blizzard- they got the freezing rain.

The security guard appeared- he had a gun and he was willing to use it. If the folks he was working with were smart, which they weren't, they would have ran. Don't shoot back, don't have murder put onto your sentence along with theft and arson and everything else. 

But they were stupid, and they shot blindly, and the guard shot Eel in the shoulder. And the bullet tore through his shoulder and into a container of something-

Another shot rang out, the guard fell.

There was a crack and suddenly Eel was soaked in something- it was bright and hot and it burned like the embers of Hell. He screamed, of course.

The people he was working with, his 'pals', stared at him for just a second.

"Eel-!"

"Eel doesn't have the cash, now run!"

Eel got up, and gave chase. His steps faltered and his vision swam.

He made it outside just in time to see them get into the car and book it.

"Adios, Eel!" 

"You putrid punks!" He yelled, his hand clutching his shoulder. Everything burned. Everything throbbed. His pulse beat in his ears, the rain came down like knives, and the bullet hole poured blood like a faucet. But it was oddly thick- was it? The world kept wanting to wobble and spin.

The- the police. They'd be here soon. Maybe. Eventually. He needed to go.

He walked. 

Down the street, down an alley, then another, then another, until the buildings began to spread out and trees and grass began to coat the land.

The rain was softer here. Warmer too. He climbed a shallow hill. Like climbing a mountain. His heart slammed the inside of his skull like a drum. There was a tree on the hill, its branches bare.

He collapsed beneath it.

He didn't have time to see if he could spot any stars before it all went black.

~~~

Eel's life had always, always been strange.

But it apparently that was just the beginning.

[lady-charinette]

Omg could you do prompt 100 with Marichat!?

"Wouldn’t it be better to tell her even if the timing is wrong, than to never tell her at all?"

Tags: Romance, Hurt/Comfort, mild swearing, one-sided identity reveal

Relationship: Marichat (Marinette Dupaincheng/Chat Noir)

Word count: 1.945

___________________________________________

Chat Noir lived with his heart on his sleeve, baring his emotions that he couldn't always show as Adrien Agreste. 

But this time, Chat Noir had concealed his heart, kept it in the protective clutches of his claws to hide from sight. 

Especially from a certain blue-eyed friend of his. 

Friend. 

He swallowed, claws digging into his palms as he tried to breathe. 

That's the word he'd tried burning into his brain ever since he started spending more time with Marinette, ever since they opened up to each-other about their broken hearts that one fateful night. How he saw sides of her he only caught glimpses of at school. 

She'd started spending less time with him as Adrien, but had somehow acted...more friendly towards him at the same time. Her stuttering was gone around him now, she greeted him every morning, asked questions easily. He didn't seem to annoy her anymore. 

Chat Noir had started becoming a steady presence in her life, from silly balcony karaoke and dances, to movie nights snuggled in respective blankets, popcorn flying when a scary scene appeared. 

Of course, Marinette sometimes picked horror movies where poor black cats drew the shorter end of the stick, it was rare, 'to not traumatize him', she said. He enjoyed their time together all the same. 

Friend. 

The word he'd burned into his brain, but not his heart. 

He'd tried getting advice from Ladybug, with whom he had a better friendship with, she was friendlier with him too, started indulging in his puns even more than before. But he got answers he already knew, deep in his heart. 

'Tell her,' Ladybug had said, 'Your friend...this girl, she sounds amazing, she also sounds like she might have feelings for you too, Chat Noir.' 

Chat Noir retrieved the good luck charm from his pocket, the one Marinette had given to Adrien a long time ago, running the tips of his claws carefully over the pearls and shapes. 

He also remembered what he had told Ladybug too. 

'I...I can't. She...she's in a relationship with this one boy...' 

Ladybug had considered his options with this newfound information and her eyes looked like they tried to tell him a story her mouth couldn't. 'Wouldn't it be better to tell her even if the timing is wrong, than to never tell her at all?' 

So, Chat Noir stood there, on a rooftop opposite of her balcony, the dim light from her room illuminating the small space outside. 

Clutching his good luck charm against his chest, he safely stored it in his pocket before leaping off the roof, staff propelling him forward as high as his heart jumped in his throat. 

Marinette had heard the telltale thud of Chat Noir's feet hitting her balcony, even if tried being as silent as possible. 

She greeted him with a smile and a small wave, like she mostly did. Sometimes it was with a playfully annoyed frown, other times she would take the spray bottle in her hand when she was gardening and he was a little too close to a plant precariously positioned on the metal fence. 

"Good evening, kitty," her smile seemed to be brighter than the light and it made the frantic hummingbird that was his heart beat even faster against his ribcage. 

"Good evening, Marinette." He called her often by her name now, but the serious tone in his voice made her climb out of the hatch and close it, walking towards him with a worried frown. 

"Is something wrong? Did something happen?" 

He quickly shook his head, eyes downcast, staring at the silver toes of his boots. 

He noticed how small her feet seemed compared to his, almost as small as Ladybug's when they stood side by side. 

He sighed deeply, hands flexing. "There's something I have to say." 

Marinette nodded slowly, unsure what exactly Chat Noir wanted to say. Did he come to seek her advice about the mystery girl he liked? Had her advice as Ladybug not been good enough? What else could she tell him? She felt it was right that he told the girl his feelings, even if...that girl wasn't her. 

Chat Noir deserved to be happy, even if it wasn't with her. 

And then, finally, the secret that made her heart squeeze fell from his lips, but her heart squeezed in a different way, "I like you, Marinette." 

Bright green eyes seemed so scared, so raw and vulnerable it made her want to hug him and never let go. 

Her brain finally caught up to the exact words he said and she froze. 

'You' 

He said 'you'. 

Not 'her'. Not "the girl I like". He said 'you', as in her, Marinette. 

"Was he talking about me all this time? Was I the one he asked Ladybug's advice for?"  Marinette's mind was running a mile a minute, not seeing the crestfallen look on her crushes face. 

Chat Noir spoke softly as his heart was slowly breaking, "I liked you for a while now Marinette, but I understand you don't feel the same. I just...I wanted to tell you, I guess, a good friend of mine said it was only right I told you even if...the timing is off." He stared down at his feet, cat ears flattened to his head. 

His voice cracked, "I..." he cleared his throat, green eyes bright with unshed tears, "I just...wanted to tell you, and- you don't have to," he sucked in a sharp breath, his chest hurt, it hurt worse than the time he used Cataclysm on himself, "You don't have to say anything. I know." Chat Noir looked off to the side, a hint of bitterness mixing into the sadness. "I know about the boy you're...together with, so, um, I don't want to stand in the way of that. Don't worry." 

His eyes darted this way and that, missing the way her elated face morphed into confusion. 

"Wait, Chat Noir, what boy-" Marinette's mind was still stuck on the 'I like you' part, too stunned and happy to react quick enough. 

Before she could continue, he scratched the back of his head and turned his back to her, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet. "I think I uh, his name's Luka? Or Luke? Something like that. Um, anyway, I-" his voice cracked again and Chat Noir felt the first hot tears hit his cheeks, "I wish you all the happiness in the world, Marinette." 

"Wait, Chat Noir, you have it all wrong. I don't like Luka, I like-!" before the last words could leave her lips, Chat Noir was already gone, jumping onto the next roof, ears ringing too much from the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. 

The tears sliding down his face made the city a big blur, lights as smudged as the shimmering stars. "You deserve to be happy, even if it's not with me." his heart sank even lower with those words and he picked up speed to mend his broken heart. 

------- 

"-you..." Marinette whispered into the night, her heart as broken as the boy's who left her there. 

Tikki emerged from the protection of her room, quickly flying up to her friend's face. "Marinette! Are you alright? I can't believe Chat Noir felt the same! But he left before he could hear your answer, didn't he?" 

The sullen bluebell eyes suddenly hardened in resolve, "No, he didn't." 

Tikki's mouth fell open in confusion, "What? But- but I heard-" 

"Tikki, spots on!" 

"M-Marinette, what are you doing?!" Her kwami got sucked into her earrings and in a flash, Ladybug stood in Marinette's place. 

Red rimmed eyes stared after Chat Noir in determination, hand clenching into a fist around her yoyo. 

Finally, the simmering ire in the pit of her stomach turned into fiery rage. "You stupid cat!" 

With one strong leap, Ladybug was in the air, the string of her yoyo already catching a lamp post. Her arms burned at the intensity she used to propel herself forward, to match Chat Noir's speed. "I won't let you just leave like that!" 

Building after building Ladybug jumped and ran over, eyes darting every which way to try and spot sight of her wayward partner. 

The sun had set, it was already dark, his suit would be difficult to spot, Ladybug could only hope she could spot his blonde hair if he was still in the area. 

'Damn it! Where could he have gone so quickly? This is why I always grab his tail, he would rush head first into danger like this too! I always managed to grab his tail, but why not now? Why didn't I move!?' All these thoughts swam through her head, eyes constantly darting around to spot Chat Noir. 

Where would he go? Would he go home? Would he go somewhere to be alone? But where? 

Ladybug picked up speed and finally reached the Eiffel Tower, but no sight of the cat. 

The Louvre was empty as well. 

Where else could he be? 

Ladybug wracked her brain for any more places they visited often, anything that could give a hint that wasn't his home. 

The park. 

Marinette kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner, the park near her school. They often went there for ice-cream. 

And sure enough, when she landed back on the ground in front of the park, Chat Noir was there. 

Sitting with his back bowed, shoulders slumped, she could hear him sniffling and sobbing. 

Her heart cried out even more at the sounds, "Chat Noir!" 

He jumped up with a jolt, hands almost immediately moving up to frantically rub away his tears. "L-Ladybug?!" His voice sounded hoarse, thick with emotion. 

Ladybug crossed the distance in several long strides, grabbing the hands that tried to hide his face from her. 

She peered in between the gaps his fingers left and felt her own eyes grow misty at his puffy red ones. "Kitty..." 

"H-How did you- why are you-" his eyes kept darting everywhere but at her. 

Ladybug pried his hands away with a bit of force and tenderly cradled his face, green eyes staring wide eyed back at her. "M'lady-" 

"Spots off!" The command made Chat Noir still, eyes trying to slide shut but still catching a glimpse of the PJ's Marinette was wearing only a few minutes ago. 

"W-Wait, Mari-" 

"You impatient cat!" the words left her lips in a hurry, at the speed she couldn't muster before, "Why couldn't you wait before I finished talking?! Why couldn't you wait for my answer Chat Noir?" 

He didn't understand why Marinette was crying, he didn't understand why Ladybug transformed back and Marinette stood in her place. Had she been Ladybug this whole time? Had he been asking advice from his former crush turned friend for his former friend turned crush? 

"Chat Noir!" 

"S-Sorry! I'm here!" he clamped his mouth back shut after squeaking out his reply, eyes fixated on Marinette, who was red faced and angry. 

"I said I like you back!" 

"Wh-" and suddenly, her face was too close to his, his ears were ringing, his broken heart was slowly pulling itself together. 

Marinette stopped, eyes reading his expression, before she softly kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly to her. "I like you." She repeated herself, "I like you, kitty." and again, and again. 

She repeated herself until she felt arms slowly wrap around her back, one hand cradling her head, his whole body shaking. 

"I like you." 

Chat Noir let the tears fall, soaking into her PJ's but his lips were stretched into a wide smile. 

"I like you too, Marinette."

Thanks for reading! :3

[yeojaa]

ANGELS & AIRWAVES (w. jjk)

He's never met you but you know how he sounds when he wakes up from a nap and his greatest fears.  You know the way he sings after a shower and that he could be mistaken for a dying seal when he's laughing too hard.  The best part?  You don't judge him for any of it - including the fact he's a filthy Widow main.  He might just love you.

alt summary.  Jeon Jungkook has a big fat crush on a girl he's never met.

pairing.  jeon jungkook

genre + rating.  fluffy crack. general, for now.

warning / tags.  long-distance relationship, crushes, canon compliant (ish),  eventual happy ending, gaming, gamer!jungkook, strangers to lovers, friends to lovers, overwatch.  tags are hard.  :( 

reading.   n/a.  a three part one-shot.

word count.  ~3400

part i.

JUNGKOOK’S ROOM Sunday, 10 November, 2019.  2:13 AM.

It’s 2:13 AM when Jeon Jungkook finally finds a match, the familiar in-game sound dragging his attention away from the illuminated screen of his iPhone to the monitor before him.  He studies the SR - 3779 and 3761, respectively - and skims burning eyes across the members on each team.  Four rocks, including himself, and two Masters.

One of them has a strange name - BIGMELON - that he stares at until he's zoning out, trying to make sense of it.  Was his teammate a pervert or just hilarious?

"Good luck and have fun, everyone!"  

Your cheer filters through his headphones crystal clear but he's somehow still surprised, head tilting curiously to the side.  He hadn't expected a girl to be playing Overwatch at quarter past two in the morning.

When there's no response - he notices no one else is in the voice chat, an oddity for such a high ranking game - he takes it upon himself to keep you company.  His username lights up as his finger glides across the ALT key, sleep-worn words breaking the silence.

"Thanks, you too."

Nothing follows until BIGMELON appears once again in the upper left-hand corner of his screen.  You have a nice voice, he thinks.  "Are you sticking with Widow?"

Jungkook takes in the team comp:  Sigma, Hog, Genji, and Lucio.  A little unconventional but not wholly un-doable.  They're on King's Row, too, which is one of his favourite maps.  Balanced enough that people aren't too salty when they get headshot but with enough coverage that he can get clear picks.  

"Should I?"

"If you want."  A pause and your hero slot is filled with Mercy's portrait.  "I can damage boost."

He thinks he can hear the teasing.  It's soft and sweet and a little rough - like you'd just woken up.  

"Who says I need it?"  Comes his immediate response, question chased out of his mouth by a laugh he can't help.  It echoes, filling the quiet of his bedroom.  He hopes you don't take it the wrong way.

"O—kay, Widow main.  We'll see if you get anything from me."

It's an empty threat because you're giggling along with him.  It's distracting in the strangest way.  The sound bounces around in his ears and he can't help but focus on it, realizing belatedly that he's still sitting in spawn as the timer runs down for setting up defence.  

"Are you going to join us?"  You quip, emoting right beside his stationary sniper.  "I didn't queue just to have someone go AFK."  

Mischief colours your words and he laughs again, snorting as he finally presses W.  Two sets of footsteps echo in game and he presses SHIFT once he's hit point - and with just a few seconds left to spare - launching Widowmaker's body onto the balcony overwatching it.  Mercy follows, Guardian Angel carrying her into the air to alight behind the blue-skinned hero.  

As the timer hits 0:01, Jungkook right-clicks, scoping in on the second-floor spawn door.

BOOM.

The kill feed reads DDEOKKOOKI x STRIKER007.

"I guess you didn't need the damage boost."  

He can't help the sound he makes - a marriage between a witch's shriek and a pig's snort.  It leaps out of his mouth, louder than he intends, and he feels equally bad for you and his hyungs.  He's definitely going to get an earful in the morning - or any minute now, when one of them bursts into his room to berate him for being so loud.  "I told you."

"Yeah, yeah."  The way you speak has him grinning from ear to ear, nose scrunching in amusement.  Mercy is flying across the map, healing stream trained on Genji as the cyborg ninja just narrowly misses an errant Hanzo arrow and dashes back to point.  "I'm gonna take care of the rest of our team.  Let me know if you need anything, O' Headshot God."

You're clowning him hard but he knows it's all in good fun.  Still, he likes the nickname and decides to keep it, effectively picking off the attacking team's stealthily half-hidden Junkrat and Ana right after. 

"Show-off!"   

Then he's dinked in the head - health dropping to 30 from the partially-charged shot.  He needs heals like yesterday.

Unfortunately, Lucio is up at choke with the tanks, skating circles around the base of the statue as they hold point.  Jungkook doesn't see you immediately - he’s scanning his screen for your witch skin (of course) - only realizing you've appeared at his side when his health bar begins to climb.  "Try to stay alive, yeah?"

"My bad,"  he drawls, scoping in the same instant the kill feed announces two more enemy deaths. 

There are only a critical Reinhardt and protected Zarya left.  The former falls the moment he drops shield and her bubble doesn't reset in time;  the Russian tank dies in the next instant, his charged shot firing the moment it hits 100%.  

"Thanks for the damage boost."

"Any time."

Then you're gone, off to support the rest of your team again while he grapples onto a different ledge and continues his oppressive gameplay.  He feels a little bad when the opposing team goes double shield tank and swaps their Junkrat for a Pharah.  He feels less so when he's slept out of nowhere. Four seconds feels like an eternity when he’s out in the open - vulnerable as a baby lamb in a den of lions.

"Looks like you're really making them mad."  You'd been relatively quiet when not tending to him - likely because it was only the two of you in voice chat - and he startles when your comment breaks the quiet lofi he has going in the background. 

"I don't know why.  I'm just having fun."  He's lying.  You're laughing.  

"Too much fun, I think."  

"Maybe they should be better."  Jungkook says this like he's commenting on the weather or the colour of the sky - offhand and nonchalant.  It makes your giggles come harder.  He can hear the scratch of your mic as if you've doubled over and it's now pressed into cotton clothing.  He can't help but pat himself on the back.

"Please don't tell me you're going to 'gg ez' them when we're done."

Now he's feigned offense, gasping at the mere thought.  "Of course not.  I'm not that rude!"

"Well, you never know."  You're right.  People could be the worst when it came to online gaming, spewing vitriol and hurling insults the moment their egos were bruised (or inflated). 

"I promise I'm not an asshole."  He's not really sure why he feels the need to make this abundantly clear.  After all, he'd probably never play with you again.  Korea's density of players was just too great - you were just one in hundreds, thousands, millions. 

Still, he smiles when you reassure him you don't think he is.  "I'm just teasing.  You seem nice."

"I am nice."  Spoken in the same instance he lands two consecutive headshots - one on the bouncing, wall-riding enemy Lucio and the other on the momentarily grounded Pharah.  You must see that, because you're mocking him in that dulcet tone of yours, caramel coating words and turning them soft like toffee. 

"Not according to them."  And not that you mind, it seems, because you're damage boosting him as he catches their out-of-position Rein in his sight.  He whoops in triumph, eliciting another bemused sound from you. 

"You know they're going to do everything to counter you when we go on attack."  Which was in sub-one minute, the timer counting down the last thirty seconds of your team's defense. 

"Who says I'm going Widow again?"  

You're scandalized.  "You mean you're not just a filthy Widow main?"

For a moment, Jungkook wonders if this is how his older members feel when he (and Jimin and Taehyung) mercilessly rib them.  He thinks it must be and oh, how the tables have turned.  He decides he doesn't really mind, though.  It's all innocent fun and it's keeping him awake, aided by the cold brew he'd chugged at midnight. 

"Woah - says the Mercy player?"

"Mercy is a respectable support, okay!"

"Sure, e-girl."  

"Take that back!"  How the words explode out of his headphones makes him momentarily worry he might've overstepped but by the way your laughter chases it forward, he knows he hasn't.  You can take it just as well as you can dish it.  

"Okay, okay.  You're a not bad healer."  Because he hasn't died yet and last he checked, neither had your tanks.  Genji had once or twice - to be expected, given his playstyle - and you had, but that was still pretty respectable.

He can practically hear you rolling your eyes.  "Oh, thanks."  

"Any time, BigMelon."  

"That's ‘daebak’ to you, pal."  Had he heard you wrong?

"What'd you say?"  

There's a long pause - he's not sure whether it's for comedic purpose or something else.  You sound muffled on the other end, as if you're repressing sound.  "Because watermelon?  Su-bak?  So big melon is dae-bak?"  Whatever you had stifled earlier disappears, torn away by the pride that shines bright yellow and boisterous in your peals of laughter.

It's such a bad joke that Jungkook feels like he's about to have an aneurysm.  Were you Jin moonlighting as a Master support player? 

"You're kidding me."  He wonders if you hear him above your own glee, giggles making it hard for him to hear himself think.  "What're you - a dad?"

You scoff now, parroting his words back to him.  "What're you - the pun police?"  

Another one?

He briefly considers ALT + F4-ing his way out of this match and away from your corniness.  Considers it but ultimately decides against it, instead remaining stoically silent and choosing McCree when the hero selection screen slides into place.  His silence will surely speak volumes.  

"You know that was funny!"  By the way he can practically hear your pout - it's endearing, much to his chagrin - he thinks you know where he stands.  

"Not the word I'd use."

"You just have bad taste, McCree."  You say it scathingly yet full of mirth, a sniff punctuating the end of your rebuttal. 

"Do not!"  He returns, just as quickly.  

"Prove it.  Laugh at my joke!"  You're shameless, confident, reassured - it makes him chuckle.  

You take it as his surrender though, your own laughter blending seamlessly with his.  It goes on for longer than is strictly speaking necessary, crowding like cotton balls in his ears as you leave sprays of your hero - Ana this time - across the spawn walls.  He wrecks every one of yours with his own, BAMF displayed in 1440p. 

"Hey - stop that!"  It doesn't matter that the round is about to start - you're spamming your melee button into him.  He immediately does it back, toggling between that and his voice line. 

The rest of your team is probably wondering what the hell you're both doing.  

"Stop distracting me!"  He barks into his mic, deep dimples on full display, nose scrunched adorably.  He doesn't really mind - it's clear by his hyena cackles that follow - and he likes when your chorus of shut up's pitch and leap with your giggling. 

As he navigates McCree out behind your tanks, he can't help but wish - maybe a little selfishly - that they'll lose this round and go into a best of three.  When the opposing team's healers both die - one to Ashe's dynamite and the other to Zarya's high-charged beam - he knows that's not going to happen.  Your team's going to cap point and then you're going to be gone - off to the next game and never to be matched with again.

"We did it, McCree."  You sound deeply pleased as the last of the defenders fall, leaving point uncontested.  The Lucio on your team lingers by the choke, ready to boop any last minute hoodlums;  Echo hovers just above the enemy’s spawn, dealing damage the moment any hero comes in view.  One of your tanks is already emoting.

VICTORY flashes across his screen.  

"We sure did, BigMelon."

The cards come next - they're all for your team, though he isn't surprised.  You'd gotten 37 defensive assists whereas he had 27% Infra-Sight uptime.  He's sure you both vote for each other, the remaining four going to your other support's Sound Barrier casts.  

"Thanks for the carry."  He doesn't mean it facetiously.  This is some of the most fun he's had in-game in ages.

"You're welcome,"  you chirp.  He thinks you'll leave right after.

Instead, you both sit in voice chat in silence, watching the timer in the upper right-hand corner. 

"Do you want to duo?"  You ask in the same instance he does, breaking the both of you into a fit of laughter.  It's more distracting than he realizes, the FINDING MATCH countdown replacing the end game statistics while you’re both still cackling.

Luckily, you invite him to a group right as he removes himself from queue.

JUNGKOOK’S ROOM Tuesday, 24 December, 2019.  11 PM.

It’s six weeks and a good three dozen games later - a feat for him, considering how much of his time is eaten up by literally every other obligation he has - when he asks for your name, not realizing the consequences of his action.  

“Most people call me Jinny.”  He thinks it fits you, bright and pretty and punchy.  “What’s your name?”

Jungkook's unprepared for the question, though he shouldn’t be.  Of course you’d want to know.  Anyone would, if they’d already given their own answer.

He's silent for the longest time, quiet stretching on and on over group voice chat.  He applauds you for your patience, how you don't press him on it when the hesitation has descended from appropriate to downright awkward.

"Uh."  The word drops like a weight, crashing through the tentative friendship you've built over the past weeks.  

"You don't have to tell me,"  you supply as softly as he's ever heard you.  It's the first time you've seemed uncertain - and it bothers him that he's the reason.  "I get that we haven't known each other that long."  

As if that's actually the issue.  He would've told you the night you spent four hours together, taking wins left and right, filling the time in between matches with silly banter that had his jaw aching from laughter.  He would’ve told you on that random Thursday, when you’d listened to him talk about his busy day, effortlessly keeping him occupied - and amused - while your SR nearly descended below 3500.  He would’ve even told you yesterday, when you’d said you were going to bed, only to be roped into another six games by Jungkook’s eagerness.

It has absolutely nothing to do with time - or the lack thereof.

But he can't say that - can't tell you who he really is - so he improvises as best he can.  "My friends call me Jay."

"Jay, huh?"  You turn the sound over on your tongue, like you're tasting it for the first time, trying to decide whether you love it or hate it.  He hopes you don’t hate it.  "Then I guess we're the best J-duo to ever exist."

"Woah, we?"  He's only doing it to rile you up, finding it cute when you huff and puff and threaten to let him die in-game.  You never make good on the threat anyway;  you just like to see him sweat, watching as his health bar drops to measly single digits.  "I don't think I agreed to that."  

It's your turn to mock him, that same edge turning your words into sour candy.  "Fine.  You can find yourself a new healer.  We'll see how your SR likes that, Bronzie boy!"  

Neither of you really take the game that seriously but he gasps like he's been shot.  

"No!  Don't leave me with them!"  The way he howls the plea is enough to return you both to your rightful place - one filled with boisterous laughter and things he never thought would see the light of day.

Because somehow, he's found somewhere he feels safe - a place he feels like himself, with no pretenses or expectations.  It’s where he can rant and rave, bouncing from topic to topic like an energizer bunny with no end in sight.  It’s, oddly enough, with you.  

Connected through voice chat and built by an endless stream of communication - sometimes productive, other times not - the space you’ve carved out together has come to feel like a third home.  It isn’t quite what he has with his family or his members but it’s just as nice.

Different, but nice.

"Fine.  You're forgiven."  You sniff in that peculiar way of yours and he snickers loudly.  "How was your day?"

And this is why it is - because it's ordinary.  It’s where Jungkook can rest his head and drift for a while without worry of what’s over the horizon, ready to swallow him whole the moment he takes his eyes off the calm blue sea.  He's not raised on a pedestal with you, all the weight of his choices resting on his shoulders.  He's just a normal guy playing games.  

It might not make up for all the years of normalcy he's missed out on - the movies after school, the street markets on weekends, the holiday parties with classmates - but it's enough.  

He eats it up like he's been starved of it.

"Busy.  Really busy.  I had dance practice all afternoon and forgot to eat so I'm dying now."  There'd been a time - about three weeks in - when he'd chosen his words more carefully.  He'd been worried he might let something slip but he's found what feels like the sweet spot now, where he can tell you about his day without thinking he’ll suddenly shatter the image you have of him.

It's not always easy - he has to remember to never mention names or intimate details - but it's better than nothing.  He can finally tell someone about his day like he wants - all of the good and the bad, too.

"You should make something to eat!"

He's used to your reprimands but he still laughs, crossing his long legs beneath him as he readjusts in his computer chair.  "But we're in queue."

"Jay!"  It comes out devoid of static, clear as the waning sunshine that filters through his blinds and reflects particles of dust that drift lazily through his bedroom.

"I'll make something after we win."  He knows what you're thinking - that he's gone and jinxed your whole night.  You’re weirdly superstitious, something he's learned only recently.

As if right on cue:  "Shut up!"  

Your words sweep his expression up with glee and giddiness, like a kid on Christmas morning;  lines dig themselves into the bridge of his nose and the delicate skin beneath his eyes.  Jungkook tells himself it’s the usual pre-game jitters but he knows it’s more than that.  

It’s you and that infectious giggle that careens through his headphones, making him see everything in a pretty haze of warmth.

He’s not sure when you’d started having this particular effect on him - maybe since the beginning? - but he feels it now, clearer than ever.  Every tinkling laugh makes his heart speed up, thump around his chest like a baseball missing its mark.  The sight of you logging in elicits the biggest, possibly dorkiest smile, all slightly too-big front teeth and deep dimples.  You have him rushing through his post-practice showers and devouring dinner in half the time he usually would just to get online a minute more quickly.  

There's just something about you. 

And sure - a part of him wonders whether it's all in his head (as if it could be anywhere else).  Wonders if he's seeing you through rose-tinted glasses, doing to you what so many do to him.  Was he in over his head, praying to a deity that didn't even know he existed?  

Sometimes it felt that way - a little out of reach, like childhood crushes and summer love and wishing upon a star.  Certainly far too much for a blossoming friendship of just a month and a half.  

But then you laugh and it's Pop Rocks fizzling in his stomach and he knows that no - it's there and it's real.

Jeon Jungkook has a big fat crush on a girl he's never met. 

notes.  i love overwatch and i love jeon jeongguk.  what more can i say?  :)

[cozy-the-overlord]

For the Lobster of Loki

Summary: Exposure to terrigen mist during a mission-gone-wrong results in you developing some newfound aquatic abilities. Unfortunately, this opens the door for your Avengers teammates to make use of the bane of your existence: fish puns. 

Word Count: 2,850

Pairing: Loki x Fem!Reader (first person)

A/N: I can’t believe I actually wrote this.

For those of you wondering what the hell this is: a few weeks ago, I had autocorrect change the word "love" to "lobster" while writing a fic. I found this hilarious and made a joke about it on Tumblr and it kind of turned into a meme on my blog. A couple of my friends told me I needed to turn this into a story and so now I present to you the stupidest thing I have ever spent precious time creating. Also, I usually don't like writing in first person at all, but my go-to third person limited just did not feel right with this nonsense, so I decided to experiment with a different style

Thanks for reading! :)

Tags: @lucywrites02 @gaitwae

If you want to be tagged, feel free to send an ask/message :)

Read it on Ao3!

I was going to murder Tony Stark. I was going to murder all of them, but I was going to murder him first because he was the one who started this nonsense and now it had been going on for two weeks and I was one fucking smirk away from scalping myself.

It all started when I woke up with gills. Waking up with gills is a strange experience. Don’t get me wrong—I realize all things considered, I had it pretty good. I’ve heard about some really horrific transformations since I experienced my own— people who came out of the midst having lost their eyes or their limbs or their minds. There have been people who came out of the mist looking, sounding, and feeling like completely different creatures than when they went in. And there have been people who don’t come out at all.

No, I know damn well I was lucky to come out of the experience with nothing more than a pair of gills stuck in my neck. Still, it was an odd feeling—there was a heightened awareness every time I breathed in, pinprick chills trickling across the newfound ridges as I exhaled. It didn’t feel right, but it didn’t feel wrong either—it was a stiff feeling, a bit like putting on a new pair of shoes for the first time, if that makes sense. I didn’t know what to make of it.

When I woke up, there was about a hundred doctors hovering around me, each with some new sterile terminology to throw my way about my condition, none of which made anything close to sense. I was losing my mind until Bruce showed up. He was able to put it simply: during the mission, I had been exposed to terrigen mist. Instead of killing me, it triggered a transformation in my DNA. I was inhuman.

My inhuman gift, it seemed was the magical blessing from the Black Lagoon. I had gills now—that was the most immediate realization—but there was also the fleshy webbing between my fingers and a weird film over my eyes that I didn’t notice until I tried to rub them with the heel of my palm. All of these wondrously fishy attributes added up to one glorious result: I could swim like a fish.

That was the first thing they tested. As soon as the doctors said I was good to go, SHIELD dumped me in a pool and told me to have fun. And I did. I had never been a fantastic swimmer or anything—the extent of my swimming knowledge came from the lessons my mother had forced me to take as a kindergartener because she was afraid I’d fall into the pond at the park down the street from our house and just die, which … fair. I still hated those classes. But now, now—oh, it was a completely different experience! I cut through that water like a knife, like Michael Phelps who? I was a bullet, shooting back and forth across the pool and just hanging water for as long as I liked.

Because I could breathe underwater now. That’s what gills are for, I guess, although it doesn’t really feel like breathing. Like, I’m not inhaling water while I swim. I’m just … I don’t know, my lungs are still filling with air, my chest is still going up and down, but it’s not through my nose. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s weird. But it’s really fucking awesome.

The team was very supportive of everything. I had only been living at the Tower for a little while, so I had still felt like something of an outsider—I didn’t have powers, and I certainly didn’t have the years long rapport that they had with each other. But they were really cool! Tony designed me a sleek new suit that was able to move well in water while still offering protection, and everyone had the time of their life trying to think up a pithy new code name for my newfound superhero status (we still haven’t quite decided, but I’m leaning towards Torpedo, because isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?). Everything was great.

Well, almost everything. There was one thing that was kind of bothering me. Loki hadn’t talked to me since I got hit with the mist. That might sound like a weird thing to get hung up on—oh no, the psychotic extraterrestrial terrorist is ignoring me!— but Loki’s not really like that. He doesn’t really talk about the whole New York thing much, but he’s said enough to make it clear that it’s not something he did of his own volition. If you saw it you’d understand what I meant, the way he tenses up whenever someone brings up the Chitauri and his eyes go all glassy like he’s not really there behind them. You can just tell that whatever had been waiting for him on the other side of that portal, it wasn’t good.

We never talked about New York, but we talked about other things. I’m not really sure how that happened. He does this thing where he acts all annoyed with everyone, like he’s just so over everything, and it irritates everyone so much that they all avoid him like the plague, which of course is what he wants. I guess I just didn’t avoid him when I arrived—I was too busy avoiding all the other superheroes who made me nervous to bother trying with him—and he grew to tolerate my presence.

We started talking about stuff one day, random shit like the purpose of nutritional facts on the side of poptart boxes and the boiling point of water on Earth vs on Asgard because apparently that’s different. And then we’d do things like make fun of the way Steve talks because he’s just so easy to make fun of, and Steve would overhear and tell us to knock it off and that would just make the whole thing funnier and Loki would mimic his voice and say something stupid like “I can feel the righteousness surging!” and Steve would just shake his head and walk away while we laughed like idiots. So yeah. We were friends. Or at least, I thought of him as a friend.

But I was starting to think that maybe he didn’t see me in the same way. We had been partners on the mission where I got hit with the terrigen mist, but he didn’t even come to visit me while I was still in the hospital. And literally everyone came to visit me. Friggin’ Director Fury came to visit me, although I’m pretty sure that was more because he wanted to see what my transformation had entailed and not because he had any particular interest in my wellbeing, but still. And then when I got out, he never said a word to me and everyone else wanted to talk to me so I didn’t say anything to him, but I was worried about him just the same. He was avoiding me too—he wouldn’t ever look at me when I was looking at him, and a lot of times he’d get up and leave the room if I came in. And I didn’t know what was going on.

I probably should’ve asked, but I don’t know … I was afraid, I guess. Like, what if he was really mad at me for something, and just me trying to talk with him would make him upset? So I just didn’t say anything—went through my day pretending everything was normal and ignoring the ache in my chest constantly reminding me that it had been weeks since I got my powers and Loki still hadn’t asked me if I was okay.

But I kind of forgot about all that when Tony started this bullshit. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t start it sooner, because it was the type of low hanging fruit that had his name written all over it, but once he started it there was no going back.

He started it one day when we were in the kitchen. I had been making a sandwich (tuna fish, because I’m a cannibal) and Tony was leaning over the counter watching me, and we were just talking about my general fishiness.

“I’m jealous, really,” he was saying. “It’s definitely something that would come in handy. You need to get something underwater, you just dive down—no tanks, no masks, no suits. Very sophisticated.” His eyes lit up, which is never a good thing. “Sofishticated!”

I groaned. “Stop it.”

But Tony was cackling. “Sofishticated! That’s rather gilliant, if I do say so myself.”

“Tony …”

“It doesn’t get any betta than this!”

I waved the bread knife in his face. “I will throw this at you.”

“Alright, alright.” Even as he held his hands up in surrender, he was giggling like a child. “I’ll stop.”

He did not stop.

The next morning, it was fish puns. Everywhere you turned, it was fish puns.

“Can you get that report back to me soon, or do you need more time to mullet over?”

“Just let minnow when you’re ready to try on the new suit.”

“Don’t trout your abilities, we all know you’re fintastic.”

It was only breakfast and I was inches away from crushing my face against the china cabinet.

Natasha raised her eyebrows. “What the hell have I walked into?”

Tony grinned. “It’s fish puns!” he said. “Because, you know—” he gestured vaguely in my general direction. “It’s her brand.”

I moaned, face in my hands. “Just kill me now.”

Clint perked up. “Don’t you mean krill me now?”

Laughing, Tony gave him a high five over my head as I writhed in pain. “That’s the spirit.”

I don’t know how he did it, but in the matter of hours Tony had the whole damn tower on the pun train. Natasha was joking about how she was having a whale of a time with this new game. Clint was telling me to clam down and enjoy the fun. Steve asked me if I could get kraken on my o-fish-al business. Even Bruce—Bruce, who always made a point of staying out of Tony’s nonsense—even he was coming up to me with shit like “Cod you come help me with somefin in the lab?”

I glared at him. “Why would you ask me that?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Well …” Bruce inhaled. “Salmon had to.”

I stormed off as Tony roared with laughter from behind the corner.

It was inescapable. Wherever I went there was someone armed with some new fishy atrocity. You’d be surprised at how many fucking fish-related words exist in the English language. JARVIS was so overloaded with the amount of Internet searches for “fish puns” that he started bookmarking lists for easy access. It was an absolute nightmare.

“Don’t play koi, sweetheart,” Tony teased one night while we were waiting for Clint to choose a movie. “We know you lobster it.”

“Lobster?” I scoffed. “That doesn’t even make sense!”

“You just don’t appreciate my ingenui-sea.”

“OH MY—”

“Ignore them, my lady.” Thor smiled gallantly “They are only jesting. You should just relaks.” He grinned, stepping back as he waited for a reaction. We all just blinked at him. He frowned. “You understand, yes? Re-laks? Laks? That’s a fish!”

“Lak is not native to Midgard,” Loki interjected without looking up from the book he was reading. I jumped. He had been so quiet I had forgotten he was in here too. “Their oceans are too warm.”

Thor was surprised. “Truly? But I thought we’ve tasted lak since we’ve been here!”

Loki rolled his eyes, still without looking up. “That’s salmon. It tastes similar, but it’s much smaller.” He turned the page, muttering something that I didn’t quite catch. I was suddenly struck by the fact that it was the closest we had come to talking since before the mist, and that ache came back, gnawing at the edges of my heart. He didn’t look at me. I didn’t say anything.

About a week later, it was my birthday. I don’t really like birthdays in general, but I had really been bracing myself for this one all week because there was no way in hell these morons weren’t going to something infuriatingly stupid to mark the occasion. I guess I didn’t do enough bracing, because when I walked into my bathroom that morning to find a big fat lobster scuttling around in my sink I nearly had a fucking heart attack.

Across the mirror, someone had scrawled a message in red lipstick.

Sending you birthday fishes and lots of lobster!

And that was the moment I decided I was going to murder Tony Stark.

I stormed out into the hallway with no weapon, no plan of action, nothing except the pajamas on my back and the lobster in my hand. Additionally, this was the moment I decided that I hated lobsters more than any other creature on this earth. This thing looked like something from outer space, with its antenna and its bulging eyes and its spindly spider legs—that what it was, an overgrown spider in a slimy red shell. It was disgusting.

I was on my way to Tony’s floor, so engrossed with this half-baked notion of busting down his door and throwing this extraterrestrial arachnid on his face while he snored in bed, that I didn’t even see the Asgardian prince until I walked right into him.

Luckily, Loki grabbed me before I stumbled backwards, because I recoiled so quickly I probably would’ve gone flying. He raised his eyebrows as he took in the sight.

“I assume there’s a reason for the crustacean?” he asked.

There was something ever so slightly condescending about his tone, and I bristled. “They left this thing in my room! I swear, I’ve had it up to here with this fish bullshit—”

He hushed me, pulling the lobster from my grasp. With a wave of his hand, it was gone.

I inhaled. “You didn’t kill it, did you?”

“Oh no. I merely moved it to a more preferable location.” He frowned at the moisture left on his palm, conjuring a handkerchief to wipe it off with. “You know,” he said slowly. “The more visibly upset you allow yourself to become over this, the more encouraged they’ll feel to continue.”

“I know, I know. I just—” I sighed. “It’s so annoying. It’s been going nonstop, for two damn weeks! Puns are the absolute lowest form of humor, it’s just obnoxious.”

Loki only nodded as he turned to make his way down the hall. “I’ll take your word for it.”

And just like that, it was back to ignoring me. I watched his retreating form, the ache in my chest quickly bursting in to flames.

“Why are you avoiding me?” I snapped.

He froze, slowly turning around. “Pardon?”

“Why are you avoiding me?” I repeated. “You won’t talk to me anymore, you barely even look at me— did I do something wrong?” Maybe the fish jokes really had fried my brain, because I was dangerously close to tears. “I don’t get it Loki, I thought we were cool and now you just hate me!”

“I don’t hate you!” he said. “I just—”

“Just what? What is going on with you?”

“You could’ve died!” Loki yelled. I had never heard him speak that loudly before, and guess I was shocked into silence. “With the mist, on the mission. It was only pure chance that you didn’t.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“I was supposed to cover you. I should’ve realized sooner that they were using terrigen crystals. Instead I miscalculated and you nearly died.” He let out a shaky breath. “I thought you were dead. When I found you, enveloped in that shell …” His voice trailed off and I realized with a start that his eyes were glistening with tears.

“Loki …” My gills tingled on my neck as I reached out for him. Is that what this was all about? Guilt? “Loki, you can’t blame yourself for that. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. And besides, I’m fine now. It all worked out in the end.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. You didn’t see yourself. You were gone, I was certain you were gone—”

I griped his hand. “I’m here now though. I’m here and I’m fine. Stop beating yourself up about it. I want to be friends again. I—” For a moment, the words caught in my throat. “I missed you.”

He gulped. “Truly?”

“Of course! Besides, I need your help getting back at these idiots.”

He smirked. “Oh, I’ve already started on that.”

A high-pitched scream broke out across the floor. “How did the fucking lobster get in my shower?” Tony bellowed from his bedroom.

We exploded into laughter.

“Oh,” I wheezed. “That was fucking perfect!”

Loki grinned, squeezing my hand. “Only the best for you, my lobster.”

[purplerose244]

My thoughts on Seabound!!! 🌊🌊🌊 (4/4)

Here we are! What a journey, and while perhaps this season wasn't at MoM level it was REALLY good, with great new villains/allies, great little throwbacks and an awesome story! 🤩

How to get this was very good to great? Give me a very good ending Seabound!! 💕💕

Alright, here we go!

GENERAL THOUGHTS

I genuinely got too much into this remaining four episodes and forgot to put any general thoughts 😅 So you'll see me rambling at the end, see you there 😉

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

This title really summarize my feelings so far, like, I'm seriously wondering how it will move on from now, but I do expect the outcome to be CRAZY 🤯

Aaahhhh, yep, the one in Shintaro is a fake 😅 I wonder when did the change happen? How did Kalmaar pulled that off, wow

I'M SORRY WHY ARE WE PUTTING THE TITLE SCREEN WITHOUT THE INTRO?? THAT'S A FIRST EPISODE STUFF AND IT HONESTLY SCARES ME??? It reminds me of Winds of Change too and that episode was WOW 😭😭😭

Heeeeyyy, it's youuuu... huh... *watch scribble on hand* google snake guy, huh... Glucose... yep, good old Glutine and everything 😅

Are we having a "I may have made a mistake being evil" with this guy?

Jay: ah, Prime Empire! I was in that game you know! I fought for my life and the ones of all of Ninjago and I've seen my best friends and the love of my life die before my eyes... good times 🙂

Jay and Nya having fun at DDR has to be one of my favorite thing, they are so in sync and so lovable ❤💙❤💙

DID THEY ACTUALLY PUT THE JAYA SHIP NAME INTO THE SHOW??? OMG GUYS THE FANDOM IS TAKING OVER THE SHOW AT LAST!!! 🤯🤯🤯 The electric Jaya, heeeyy, niiicee 😎😎😎

HOW CUTE CAN YOU BE

MY SHIP 💙❤💙❤ They even gave each other high gives... this is neat, and it means something awful will happen right 🙂

Commissioner: he's saying something about a giant snake... and the end of the world... didn't we already have something like that?

Okay yep, he did the trick while fighting Nya, dang Kalmaar is sneaky! Not too shabby... but I gotta say, the summoning of the Great Devourer was a lot more dramatic 🤣🤣 Props to the serpentine, still my favorite snakes 💪💪

Wojira seems to be a little smaller than the Devourer maybe? His head way bigger than the bounty, while hers is not that massive even in comparison with Kalmaar

I might be wrong but at first glance, I stand by my opinion and by the superiority of the OG giant snake 🤷‍♀️

Yep Glutine guy did have a change of heart, better late than never 🤷‍♀️

You're telling me that Jay doesn't do engineering anymore, okay... HOW IS KAI A BETTER SOLUTION??? 🤣🤣🤣 Lol look at the messy brothers, love Lloyd and Kai so much I miss them interact 💚❤💚❤

Thank you Kelly for the alert 😗

It makes me wonder if they actually do have simulations of evacuations often, it would be pretty smart considering the city 🤷‍♀️

OKINO IS THERE HI DUDE!!! 😍 I hope he's doing great! 🥰🥰

Gail Gossip! Been a while!

WOW, this is going Deluge like, my first Spinjitzu Master! 😱 How... how do we go with three episodes from here? Like, I'm guessing Nya will have to do what Nyad did before her (which TERRIFIES me), so are they going to struggle trying to find another way? IDK BUT I'M IN LET'S GO!! 🤯

ASSAULT ON NINJAGO CITY

Alright, pretty straightforward title, let's see what we got here!

Tourists?... that actually makes sense, I mean, I would want to visit all the places where history was made on this island 😍 Aww nice to see they remember the battle against Garmy of Hunted, also that it is known that Jay was the one who faced Unagami 👍👍

DARETH!!! 🤎🤎🤎

Where have you been you knucklehead, I've missed you! 💕 I think I've last seen him in a commercial from the Fire Chapter?

This is a terrible guide 😵 Not knowing the brown ninja? Owner of the dojo the Green Ninja had trained in? Brief commander of the Stone Army? Master of makeup and puffy potstickers? Unforgivable, someone fire this woman ASAP 😡😡

LOOK AT DARETH TAKING CHARGE!!! 🤩 He's right, he should get involved every once in a while, come on guys!

Ah okay good, I'm not the only one struggling with that google snake name 😂

Yay Bentho is fully integrated with the team! He is a great addiction, like, I know he'll probably take the throne at the end or something but I do hope we'll need his help again in the future! 💙

Sometimes I forget how much I love Kai and Zane interacting 🤣 The brainiac and the airhead 🤍❤🤍❤

Oh right, Cole came back from Shintaro! So... now in this extremely secret city there is a fake amulet hanging into a highly secured place... how is it always Shintaro the keeper of flukes? 😂😂

A bath as a boat but it has a whole 😂😂 I love this show's randomness

What ears are they supposed to cover 😅

I LOVE THIS ATMOSPHERE!!! 😍😍😍 Between the gray sky of storm and the sea underneath, this is the perfect scenario for Wojira and it's not even forced! I love how they are handling backgrounds for Ninjago recently, I really hope it gets as good as in the finale of Prime Empire 💙💙💙

AAAAAAHHHHHhhhhh okay for a moment I was scared Wojira was going to eat Jay 😅 After The Island this is already the second time Bluebell risks it... STOP

WHY THE CLIFFHANGER!?!?

NUUUUU WHAT NOW??? 😱😱😱 We have two more episodes, how is this going to end? I DON'T KNOW AND I REALLY WANT TO PLEASE GIVE ME A GOOD FINALE SEABOUND!!! 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

NYAD

I AM SCARED FOR MY WATER LILY OKAY

Daaaang she can just float on that? She got super good at controlling water! Now I want her and Kai just randomly flying around with their powers 😂😂 Kai got missiles in his hands come on 🔥🔥🔥

JAY CAN YOU LET ME WORRY ABOUT YOU GUYS ONE AT THE TIME??? 😱

What would Kai do? WHAT WOULD KAI DO?? DID YOU DECIDE YOU WANT TO DIE JAY WHY WOULD YOU THINK OF HIM??? ... although technically Kai is the only one with Jay who didn't straight up die before coming back to life in a dramatic moment... huh... Kai might be the most reasonable choice after all 😅

We grew up from Ninja never quit to NINJA AREN'T IDIOTS AND KNOW WHEN TO GET THE HECK OUT 😎😎 Even our motto got a character development 💪

JAY NOOOOOOOO 😱😱😱😱

BENTHO YAAAAAAASSSS 🥳🥳🥳🥳 Did I ever say that I love shark boy? BECAUSE I FREAKING DO!! 💙

Master prankster Wu once again, take that empty ship Calamari head 😎 Although the poor bounty doesn't deserve to get destroyed as many times as it did until now, it's my favorite ship... pun intended 😜

Ah more ninjajan, wait a moment

"Auto Pilot". Fair enough, although I was hoping for a "psych" or something 😂😂

NO WAIT NO WHAT THE HECK!!! I THOUGHT JAY GOT SAVED HE INHALED WATER??!? BLUEBELL NOOOO!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

But Cole running to his best friend immediately? HECK yes 🖤💙🖤💙

NYA CARRYING HER BOYFRIEND BRIDAL STYLE THIS IS THE RIGHTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN!!! ❤💙❤💙❤💙❤💙 Gosh this season gave me amazing Jaya moments, I've been fed 👌👌

Okay Lloyd pacing back and forth? Kai already mad at their enemies? All the guys eager to help Jay? MY FAVORITE NINJA FAMILY BABY!!! 😎😎

I NEED A MOMENT 😭

Oh... oh gosh I knew Nya doing the Nyad thing was meant to happen, but this way? My heart is melting already 😭

I remember a post that said that Jay told Nya that he loves her many times, while she never did. Tommy reponded that she lets her actions speak... boy do I see it now, I see all of her love 😢😢

I never felt such conflicting emotions for a villain like I do for Kalmaar, like, he caused so much pain to Nya... but he is voiced by Giles... but he is the reason Jay is hurt... but that startle gag 😂😂😂

Okay this? Is adorable?

What the HECK? The police in this city is generally not very helpful, but the Commissioner is very wholesome 💜

Nyaaaaaaa 😭😭😭😭 I didn't think it was possible to love her even more, she was ignored for so long during the show, but now we finally see all of her. She is an amazing warrior, a selfless person, and a real hero 💪💪 And coming from such a mature girl that doesn't like to act irrationally, this means so much more

Jaya grew up so much, it went through some very questionable phases yes, but what they have here? It's the result of all they had lived together 💙❤💙❤

I have chills, this is amazing so far, I'm legit scared of going further 😱

SHE SAID IT!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭 Okay this moment, everything, EVERYTHING, is absolutely marvelous. Nya said I love you without a voice, alone, showing again that she values the actions more, but still her feelings are 100% truthful. Then the transformation (THERE IT IS HER BEAUTIFUL WATER FORM 😍😍😍), Jay getting saved, the realization of what she just did from everyone... DANG IT IT'S ALL BEAUTIFUL HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO THINK OF THIS SCENE???

*slow clap for Bragi, Tommy, and the Ninjago crew*

Jay and water Nya with their hands together gives me big The Form of Water vibes... LOVE THAT MOVIE WHO'S READY FOR AN AU??

Jay wants to help her, I had no doubt 💙 They always help each other in these BOUNDs seasons 😍😍😍

Kalmaar: where are the ninja??

Commissioner: I don't know, they are ninja!

FINAL BATTLE INCOMING AAAAHHH I HOPE THIS WILL HAVE A GOOD ENDING OMG BRING IT!!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

Oh, curious title? It feels a little vague, I don't really know what it could be

YES GIRL GO GET HIS CALAMARI BUTT HECK YES!!! Just how cool can you be for walking slowly while the attacks go straight through you? 😂

Hey Nya still recognizes Jay! 😃😃

HEY NYA GOT VAPORIZED WTH 😱😱 It's too early, I don't believe that's it!

WHOA JAY WENT BERSERK JUST NOW!! I don't think I've seen this before, this is the coolest thing! 💙💙💙 I just love when he shows how strong he is, you can be a comic relief AND kick butts 😎

FIGHTING ANIMATIONS MAN I LOVE THESE SCENES!! 😍😍😍

What the- was... was that a cameo of the lightning chicken? Ninjago what the HECK I love your randomness 😂😂

BENTHOMAAR TAGS IN!!! Showing off why he is best boy of the season 💙 These fightings are very cool but I can't help imagining Wojira just chilling while there are midgets getting very angry at each other onto her head 🤣🤣🤣

WHOA, CALAMARI BITE! Kalmaar got the Pythor treatment... might change color by next season if he returns 😅

(Please return I loved having Giles' voice in this season 💙💙💙)

NYA IS A DRAGON!!! I REPEAT NYA IS A DRAGON!!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍 I was wondering where the dragon moment was, this is Ninjago after all 🤷‍♀️

Head empty, just Jay smiling softy at Nya because he loves her 💙💙💙

IT'S RAINING NYA, HALLELUIA IT'S RAINING NYA, HEYE!! ☔☔☔ This fight is MASSIVE! We had finales with big creatures before but now one of the ninja is big enough to face them and that's 🤯

NYA DID IT!!! 🤩🤩🤩 ... now onto the angst that I KNOW it's coming

Kai being unbelieving is tragic, and Jay's "don't leave me" broke my heart. Please end this misery, where is the deus ex machina that solves everything?

Wait she left?

...

WAIT SHE ACTUALLY LEFT??? WHAT THE HECK THEY AREN'T ENDING IT LIKE THIS

...

OH MY GOSH

ARE THEY?!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

Omg the grief in this is beautiful, nice to see Jay and Maya so close to each other! Also Kai leaning onto his mom while Cole is comforting his best best friend? Amazing, they really do these scenes great 👌

EVERYONE SHOWED UP I LOVE THIS CITY SO MUCH 😭😭😭 Aww Ed and Edna, wasn't this such a sad situation I would be so much happier to see you guys 🥺

Master Wu even mentioned that she built Samurai X, you really want to make me cry now do you? 🥺🥺

MAYA AND RAY 😢😢😢😢😢😢

Omg look at Cole being there for his best friend, he is amazing 🖤💙🖤💙

I have such Rebooted vibes from this... is it hopeful? That Nya comes back like Zane? She's no nindroid but still... oh my gosh they got her symbol on the vase I just noticed, I need more tissues 😭😭

"In loving memory of Kirby Morrow". Always in our hearts 🖤🖤🖤

...

Wow

WOW

THEY ACTUALLY DID IT I NEED ANOTHER MOMENT 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 WHAT IN THE WORLD THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHANGE THEY DID IN A WHILE!!!

AND NOW WHAT??? 🤯🤯🤯

FINAL THOUGHTS

I'm speechless... like that's true, have A LOT to write over here 😅

This type of plot twist reminds me of our early seasons. Zane sacrificing himself, Garmadon giving up his life, those moments that made me so curious and excited about the following. I have no idea what will be the outcome for this, but I can't wait to find out

With that out of the way, AMAZING SEASON 😍😍😍 I think this finale beats MoM's, just because it was really unexpected and opens up a SEA of possibilities... yeah too soon 😭

I'm still shaken, my world, they did something HUGE and I do hope it will be a good shake to the entire Ninjago plotline. Nya is "gone", we still don't know about the person behind all that vengestone, we haven't heard from Garmy in forever, there are so many good ideas out there now that they've set the ground for more 🤩🤩

Voice acting was *chef's kiss*, not only for the villain which I already stressed enough about, I think Kelly reached a new level of emotional intimacy with Nya and I'm so happy she showed her skills 💜💜

Animation is TOP, there's little to no point into saying anything else since they showed it very clearly in the latest season ☺

This was the emotional, witty and engaging writing I was looking for! Good jokes, meaningful dialogues, emotional scenes, everything was really good and I'm gonna rewatch some scenes especially for that 😍

It turned out having Maya and Ray back was kind of a distraction to fool us all 😅😅 Well played actually, and it was very cool seeing them again in any case 🙋‍♀️

And now? Jay lost his love, I have no idea if the show will work on him getting over her or hold onto her memory (thinking of Jay probably the latter, although I do think that handling the first would be an interesting idea). KAI LOST HIS SISTER 😢😢😢 I have no doubt he's gonna beat himself up for it, like he did when Zane was gone too. Everyone lost their friend, she had become such a vital part of the team and now she is not here anymore it will be hard...

They are back with the four plus one green savior formation, I sincerely don't know how I feel about that 😅 I'm always happy when we get the OGs, but this is about going on without Nya... maybe Skylor will be called? Or Pixal will be more active? That could be interesting to see, who knows 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Gosh, how are they going to handle the next season? It will have to give A LOT of answers to the millions questions we all have right now. Man I can't wait, it could be anything!!! This is a Ninjago revolution!

But if I have to mention a little complain, and I'm a fangirl so I absolutely have to, Kai didn't show much of a reaction to Nya's "departure". Okay, she didn't straight up die like in Skybound (I'm gonna fear all BOUND seasons from now on 😱), but he's her brother and he loves deeply his family. Either we're gonna see him go all out next season, or the writers really did only focus on Jaya. A tiny bit salty... but you got me a fantastic finale so I'll move on 👍

Outstanding, I'm blown away. Whenever I think I'm used to this show they do stuff like this. I'm so glad and sad you guys 😅 But mostly happy that despite everything I still get very strong emotions while I watch this long time favorite show of mine 💜💜💜

What else can I say at this point? ONTO NEXT SEASON!!! 🤩🤩🤩

Thank you for reading me freaking out over LEGO spinning ninja as always! It helps me calm down but this time it might be harder thant the others... *sobs*

I need to lay down and process all of this, I'll be on my way 😂😂 BYE!!! 💜

[gryphonablaze]

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey who wants a one shot fic that I wrote for daughter of the lilies by the awesome meg syv, aka bludragongal who I’m not gonna actually tag here bc I’ve tagged her in half a billion posts already ,, 

the fic is titled ‘saving face’ because I love me some puns

‘Eugh, snow… I hate it, I hate it I hate it I hate being cold…’ Lyra was sitting as close to the fire Thistle had started as she could without being burned. 

‘Hey, are snowstorms a thing? Like magic storms, but snow?’ Thistle asked. Everyone was quiet for a while. 

‘Don’t know. Probably, but hope not. Anyway, cave is goot place to trap heat. Glad ve found. Also glad Thistle can make voodless fire. But vhy only now bring up?’

‘Beceause most places we camp chalk won’t stay on the ground, so it wouldn’t work anyway. It’s complicated, too. I don’t remember half the runes. And you can’t write ‘em down without setting the paper on fire.’

‘Then… how did you get it to work?’ Brent asked.

‘Muscle memory. I couldn’t teach someone how to do it, but I could draw it out with my eyes closed if I needed to. When I was a kid, every fireplace in the house used these. The kitchen, too.’ 

‘You vere raised by mage? Is that vhy you not go to magic school?’ 

… Oops.

‘Er… yeah.’

‘Hrm. Explains vhy you so goot.’ 

‘Ooooooh, backstory!!!!’ Lyra teased. ‘You’ve said your dad didn’t like animals, and apparently he’s a mage. What else do we know? I need to start taking notes.’

‘Hey, cut it out.’ Brent ‘gently’ punched her in the shoulder. Didn’t seem like he meant it, though. 

There was a noise like the clattering of a rock. 

The fire went out. 

Something whistled in the air. Thistle leaped to her feet at the same time that everyone else dropped like flies. 

‘What the--’

Behind her were five cave elves.

Her teammates were unconscious, and there was some sort of antimagic that put out the fire… and rendered her defenseless. 

Claws cut through the air. The cave elves expressed confusion when she dodged the blow. Thistle went for Brent’s discarded sword. 

They clearly hadn’t been expecting for her to be able to see in the dark. 

They seemed to get over that surprise quickly. 

One of them said something, and the others backed away. Did he want a one-on-one fight? 

Apparently.

Despite not knowing how to use it, Thistle was at an advantage with a weapon. Even so, she was still on the defensive. She dodged more than a few attempts at disarming her. 

Did cave elves have some sort of honor-duel system? Was that a thing? Would they be left alone if she won this fight? Was it to the death? Not like she could ask, between the language barrier and being preoccupied with combat. 

Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the other four standing over Lyra, a fist raised, ready to concuss her.

Oh, so this was a distraction. 

She flipped like a switch.

‘rrrrRRRRAAAAAAAGGHH!!!!!’ Thistle took a powerful, haphazard swing at the dueling elf. His surprise earned him a shallow slash on his leg. 

You don’t get killed by being careful, she heard Gwen scold her. You get killed by being reckless. 

Yeah, well, she had no magic and was outnumbered five to one. No amount of careful could save someone from that. Might as well do something. 

With another roar she rushed at the other one, who immediately jumped back so as to avoid being skewered. 

A phwt! through the air and something stung her in the neck. She picked it out. It was a dart. Paralytic poison, by the feel of it. Would put someone out of commission just long enough to knock them unconscious. Good thing it wouldn’t affect her. 

Thistle chased another elf away from Brent and turned toward two that had just now stopped arguing over how to handle Orrig. She stepped forward. Something swept her feet out from under her. 

‘GAH!’ 

In an effort not to land on the blade, she tossed it aside with both hands. Which meant she could not catch her fall. Thistle hit the ground face-first. She tasted blood.

It was hard to get any air without inhaling blood. But Thistle was saved from the effort of trying. She choked as one of the cave elves pulled her up from the ground by her hood. 

And then dropped her. She landed hard on her knees, and fell into a coughing fit trying to catch her breath. She barely heard the cave elves panicking amongst themselves and running away. 

~~POV switch~~

The fire went out.

He couldn’t move. 

‘What the--’ 

Foreign chatter, the swing of steel, the sounds of struggle. Something was here, and Thistle was fighting it, alone, not using magic. If he had to guess, the talking sounded almost like the two cave elves that took a bite out of his arm a few months ago. 

He heard Thistle let out a scream of pure fury. Damn. He’d seen her angry before, but he was very glad that this wasn’t directed at him. 

He was starting to regain movement when he heard a yelp, followed immediately by a sickening crunch. Brent managed to remove the poison dart from his shoulder. Gods, this was like the cave elf job. Thistle was hurt, and he couldn’t do shit to help her. He could barely reach out an arm in futile desperation. 

A gasp. Distressed conversation. Something had started wailing like a child. He heard footsteps running away. Just like the cave elf job… 

As the assailants grew more distant, the fire relit itself and began to grow from a flame barely the size of a candle. Thistle noticed the light and pulled her hood up. There was just enough for Brent to see the outline of long, pointed ears and short fluffy hair. Ears like Lyra’s. So she was an elf? Huh.

No, right now was not the time for wondering what she was hiding. He could see blood on the ground and all down the front of her vest.

‘Are you guys alright?’ 

‘You’re asking us if we’re alright?’ Lyra’s words were slightly slurred. ‘You look like… I can’t even think of something witty. You’re covered in blood, and you’re asking if we’re alright?’ 

‘Yeah, well, poison is usually more dangerous than a nosebleed. If it isn’t wearing off by now, then it’s a different type than I thought, and that could make for some serious problems. But you’re talking, so that’s a good sign. Brent? Orrig?’

‘Vill be fine.’ 

‘Yeah, I’m okay.’ 

‘Good.’ Stiffly, Thistle got up and went over to her bag and dug out some gauze to hold against her face. ‘Now that the antimagic is gone,’ Her voice was nasally, ‘I’m gonna set some wards. I should’ve done that first thing.’  she started grumbling. ‘It even crossed my mind, but I chose not to, I almost got us all kidnapped or killed…’ 

‘Did you know there vere things in cave?’ Orrig asked sternly.

‘Well… no, but I still--’

‘Then is not your fault.’