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ichorai · 2 months ago

Text

xerox ; robert reynolds ; part three.

part one. | part two. | part four.

pairing ; robert (bob) reynolds x reader, thunderbolts & reader

synopsis ; you had one last job before you were free. no more splitting, no more deaths. unfortunately, that job seemed to rope in four other assassins and a... a man in hospital-wear?

words ; 4.3k

themes ; action, angst, slowburn, fluffy near the end, the beginnings of romance

warnings / includes ; violence, reader has the ability to split into multiple bodies (think dupli-kate from invincible), the void is hot unfortunately, foul language, everyone's mental health sucks but they're actually getting better now!

a/n ; this chapter is a bit shorter than the other two just because it only covers the very end of the movie PLUS a little bonus scene to get you guys excited for future avengers tower moments :) thank you again for all the support! also did you guys catch the mutant mention wink wonk

main masterlist. read on ao3!

listen to a xerox playlist on spotify / youtube music! xerox's face claim :)

Bob’s first room had an angry, middle-aged man standing in the very center, veins protruding out of his neck as he yelled gibberish. Flecks of spittle fell from his slurring lips. Bob, whose warm hand was intertwined with yours, flinched at the sudden volume.

Walker didn’t hesitate to strike him down with his taco-shaped shield.

“He seems nice,” Ava said.

The room gave a massive rumble, as if upset that things weren’t going its way, and the walls began to close in.

“This way!” Alexei bellowed, ushering everyone forward into a wooden wardrobe full of clothes.

“Narnia?” you asked as you shouldered through moth-eaten coats, giving Bob a quick glance over your shoulder.

Bob gave you a nervous smile. “It was one of my favorites as a kid.”

The floors gave out beneath you, and you found yourself free-falling for a few seconds before landing on the rough ground with a resounding thud. The new room smelled of gasoline and burnt rubber tires.

You helped Yelena up to her feet, only to be whacked over the back of the head with a sharp plastic sign that read ALFREDO’S BAIL BONDS! in a hideous shade of red, by a chicken mascot that had equally hard-on-the-eyes yellow feathers. With a low moan, you started crawling away from the crazed chicken, who had turned to attack Ava and Alexei.

“Oh, God!” Bob exclaimed, scrambling over to give you a hand. “Are you okay?”

“IF YOU DON’T STOP HITTING ME WITH THAT SIGN—!” Alexei gruffed from across the room, now bleeding from the nose.

“I was on meth!” Bob shrieked apologetically right before grabbing your head and shoving you down just in time to duck away from another sign-swing from the high chicken.

Whilst lowered, you spotted a stack of wooden vegetable crates across the street. There seemed to be no other exits from the room. Ava kept the chicken occupied and distracted by repeatedly phasing through him, so you took the opportunity to break open the bottom of the crates, which smelled faintly of rotting tomatoes.

“Through here!” you called. “Crawl through the crates!”

Past-Bob made a bee-line for current Bob, the sharp end of the sign aimed straight at him like a crude stake. With a stinging cheek and a clenched jaw, Bucky stepped in between them and punched the chicken square in the face (beak?) with his metal arm.

As you made your way through to the new room, you distantly heard Walker gagging behind you. “I hate tomatoes.”

Through the crates was a cleaner, more sterile space. The new room looked… clinical. You immediately tensed, eyes darting back and forth. There were beakers, needles, and measuring devices everywhere—all the marks of a science lab. You had to suck in a deep, painful breath to remind yourself that this wasn’t your room—it was Bob’s. A few meters away from you, there was an operating table. Big surgical lights looming over it like curved, robotic flowers. And on the bed sat past-Bob, shoulders hunched into himself. He looked the very same as the Bob right beside you, holding your hand. But his eyes were sunken and empty. Tired.

“I’ve been here before,” Yelena whispered. “Malaysia.”

Bob bit down on the inside of his cheek. “It’s where it all started. I was roaming Southeast Asia. Thought I’d figure something out. A way to find more drugs. And there’s this guy… he started talking to me about a medical study. A trial drug that can make me stronger and not feel like… me anymore. It was like a miracle.”

You felt your face fall with sympathy. You squeezed his hand, and Bob met your gaze with pursed lips. Slowly, the group began to advance towards Past-Bob. At least he wasn’t swinging a sign at all of your heads in a chicken suit this time.

“I thought I would get to show everyone that I was more… that I was something,” Bob told everyone, shame tinting each of his words a melancholic blue.

Past-Bob, now shrouded in shadow, finally straightened.

“And look what you unleashed,” the voice purred, echoing in your head as if he had managed to worm inside and tapping at the very base of your ear drums.

That wasn’t Bob, you realized with a heavy pit in your stomach. It was the Void. He hopped off the surgical table, turning to face the team, face dark, but eyes glowing.

“How could you possibly think you could be worth anything?” he said, calm as untouched waters. You could feel your skin prickle.

Yelena stepped forward. “We’re leaving.”

The Void stayed silent for a moment, scrutinizing the ragged team of misfits and criminals with an empty expression. Then, he shook his head in miniscule movements. “No,” he simply said.

Behind him the surgical table rose into the air and flew across the room at a startlingly rapid speed, crashing against Yelena and Alexei, pinning them against the wall behind. The long strips of buzzing, artificial lights above were torn from the ceiling and wound around Bucky, keeping him to one of the lab’s counters. Several metal frames from a window came whizzing across the room to bury into the edges of Walker’s suit, keeping him stuck on the ground. Ava was sent flying into the other side of the lab when a crumbled garbage can wound about her midriff. She would have phased right through it, but there was a force weighing her down.

You managed to dodge the door that was coming at you, having to relinquish Bob’s hand to do so, but missed the heavy metal shelf used to store plastic pill pots heading toward you from the opposite direction. It slammed into your stomach, knocking the wind from your lungs, and you were left struggling fruitlessly against the wall it lodged you up against.

“Stop,” Bob pleaded to the Void with wide, watery eyes. “Let them go.”

“You think they care about you?” The Void stepped closer until he was right in front of you, close enough that you could feel it—the cold darkness. The dread. Tears pricked the corners of your eyes. The weight of all you’ve done wrong, all the people you’ve murdered and maimed, all your deaths, all your lies—resting right on top of your sternum. You gasped for breath. You felt something cold touch your face, so cold it felt blistering hot. You simultaneously wanted to pull away and lean in closer. The Void’s fingers were caressing your cheek ever so gently, and Bob did nothing but watch. He felt frozen to the floor, paralyzed with fear and uncertainty.

“Xerox… lovely, sad Xerox…” crooned the Void, almost sing-songy. “Bob’s got a fixation with you, you know. It’s pathetic. He’s like a sad mutt begging for scraps from the table.” There was an amused hum from him before he continued, this time speaking to Bob. “Xerox doesn’t want to help you. None of them do. They’re all using you. Deep down, you know they despise you. You’re a burden.”

“That’s not true!” Yelena screamed from the opposite side of the room. IV drip wires wrapped around her throat so tight her eyelids fluttered and her words were caught on her tongue.

“Isn’t that right, Xerox?” said the Void, his cool thumb slipped beneath your chin to tilt your head up as he regarded you with those cold, blank eyes. “You chose the darkness. You chose me.”

“I came…” The weight was growing stronger. The words felt like thorns in your mouth, painful to speak. What was he doing to you? “I came to help him.”

The Void tilted his head. Then, you felt the coldness close around your throat. The edges of your vision darkened. If your hands weren’t pinned back, you would’ve been clawing at your neck for breath.

“I told you… he doesn’t want your help. He’s pathetic. Why would he deserve it? Deserve you? Now tell him. Tell him the truth. It’s what he needs to hear… some tough love.”

When you opened your mouth this time, words spilled out that weren’t yours. “I don’t want to help you,” you found yourself saying. Not to the Void, but to Bob. Your Pal. You gasped, a cold tear slipping down your cheek. The words came out grated, as if someone had forced you to swallow razors. “I never liked you, Robert. You’re nothing. In fact, worse than that. You’re an active hindrance. A thorn in everyone’s side. I wish… schkk—I wish you had stayed dead when they shot you down.”

“That’s right,” murmured the Void. “Good.”

“Please stop,” Bob ground out. You weren’t sure if he was saying that to you or to the Void.

His dark counterpart laughed a deep, rumbling noise. “Robert the Hero. Doesn’t sound right, does it? Fake. Like a comic book story. What a joke.”

Walker was close to prying himself out of his confines.

The Void flicked his wrist. All the glass from the beakers and volumetric cylinders in the lab exploded. Crystal shards scratched at the team’s face, leaving everyone with stinging, bloodied cuts. The Void’s hand slipped away from your throat to pull out the piece of glass that had embedded into your skin.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said, almost a whisper. It would’ve sounded sincere if it hadn’t sounded like an automated message. “You do enough of that to yourself. Did you enjoy what I showed you? The darkness has been kind to you, hasn’t it? The only one you can trust is yourself.”

“Yes,” you choked out, and your head bowed into a nod even though you hadn’t wanted to. “I deserve to relive it all. All the worst parts of me. I’m just as bad as I thought I was.”

Bob was breathing heavily, expression twisted into one of pain. The Void was hurting you. He was hurting you.

“I’m stronger than you,” Bob told his alter-ego, trying to sound more confident than he was. “I can beat you.”

The Void grinned. It was a terrifying sight. Wolfish. Predatory. “Let’s see.”

The shadowed figure finally stepped away from you, and you seemed to lean forward, as if chasing his touch. Once the Void was far enough, Bob watched you recoil with a trace of disgust to your expression. At yourself or at him?

“It wasn’t me,” you croaked, misty eyes now glued to Bob. Not the Void. Just Bob. “Palindrome. It wasn’t me.”

And Bob believed you. He trusted you. With a determined nod, he ran forward and swung a punch to the Void. The dark mass hit back with equal ferocity, sending Bob sprawling to the ground. Glass dug into his skin.

“Get up, Bobby,” Walker gruffed. “Get up!”

“You thought you would be some great man? Some savior?” taunted the Void as he kicked at Bob. “You can’t even save yourself.”

You watched in horror as the Void picked Bob up by the scruff of his sweatshirt, and struck him three more times.

“We will always be alone.”

The room began to shift, elongating. The entire group was pulled further and further away from Bob and the Void. Bob watched the team go—his friends grow smaller with the distance—and blew out a choked breath. Alexei was bleeding profusely from his head. Yelena’s face was turning blue from the cords cutting her airway. Ava, Bucky, and John were still working against their bonds. Bob glanced at you hanging limply behind the shelf, staring at nothing in particular with glazed eyes. No doubt that was the Void’s doing.

Bob turned. His lips curled angrily. Then he launched himself at the Void with a mangled cry. He began punching the figure with all his might. To his fury, the Void only smiled, unhurt.

“There we go,” the Void whispered in a mocking manner. “Show them how strong you are.”

The room began to crack and crumble. Darkness began to eat away at Bob the more he struck his darker self. His shoes were swallowed first, now beginning to crawl up his shins.

“This isn’t right,” Bucky gruffed.

“Bob, stop!” Yelena coughed out. Having had enough, Alexei strained as much as he could to push the weight off of them. Just enough to let Yelena wriggle loose. She slipped out with a pained groan, tore the IV off her, and began running towards Bob. The room shifted to try to stop her—throwing cabinets and beakers and tables at her, but she lithely dodged each one.

By the time she got to Bob, the darkness had seeped up to his neck.

“I’m here,” she said, wrapping her arms around Bob from behind, trying to hold him back. Bob kept hitting the darkness, relentless.

“It will always be just us,” the Void told him, almost comforting. “I’m the only one you can rely on.”

Yelena held onto him tighter. “I’m here, Bob,” repeated Yelena. “You’re not alone.”

Finally, Bucky managed to tear himself free. He helped Walker get free, and Walker then stalked over to push the shelf off of you with a grunt. You collapsed with a dizzy intake of breath. Ava and Alexei were quick to free themselves afterwards, bonds slightly loosened—it seemed that Yelena’s words of comfort were actually helping.

The rest of the team ran towards Bob, Yelena, and the Void.

“We’re all here,” Yelena told her friend. “We’re here for you, Bob.”

You kneeled down beside him, hand wrapping around the wrist that led to a now-bloodied fist. The team piled together, all holding Bob—and each other. In the tangled mess of limbs and arms, Bob began to weep. His head knocked against yours as he sobbed, and you held him all the tighter.

“Let it out, Pal,” you said. “We’ve got you.”

Then the entire group fell backwards. Your spine hit the rough surface of a broken road. After blinking several times and adjusting to the sudden onslaught of light, the city of New York came back into view. The shadows were slowly but surely melting away.

The team slowly struggled to their feet. People were gradually but surely returning from the Void’s realm.

You sniffled, wiping an errant tear with your sleeve. The Void’s hold on your mind was still fresh, and you certainly felt a little worse for wear. You felt Bob’s concerned hand on your shoulder, and you turned and enveloped him into a sudden, tight hug, yanking him close. He emitted a noise of surprise, but his arms wound around you out of instinct.

“I’m so sorry,” you said, breathing shallow and rapid. “I don’t wish you died. I don’t think you’re a burden. I think you’re really sweet and cool and—” Your words were spoken so quickly and pretty muffled into the fabric of his sweatshirt that Bob didn’t really catch them.

Bob held you until your breaths mellowed out a bit. Even patted your back a few times for good measure. There were no complaints on his end for the hug, but he wasn’t very sure why you were giving him one.

“This is nice,” he started, uncertain.

“Sorry, I didn’t ask if I could hug you,” you whispered once you pulled away, cheeks flushed.

“You don’t need to ask,” he said, almost too quickly. There was a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks. “You don’t ever need to ask to hug me. It’s nice. I like it.”

Walker came to stand beside you, having done a quick survey of the premise. “You were great in there, Bob.”

Bob blinked at the bearded man and smiled. That was probably the nicest thing Walker has ever said to him. Too bad he had no clue what he was talking about. “Thanks, Walker,” he said, still smiling goofily. “In—wait, in where?” Finally, Bob took a glance around. There was wreckage everywhere. Had the Avengers totaled New York yet again? “Woah. What happened here?”

“You don’t… remember?” you asked, eyeing him with kinked brows.. “Did you hit your head a bit too hard?”

Bob patted down his skull. “Feels normal.” He laughed a bit—a nervous, knee-jerk reaction. “Sorry, I’m a bit confused.”

“Are you okay?” Yelena asked, looking at him with nothing but concern.

Bob’s brows twitched, still completely lost. “Yeah. I’m fine. Why’s everyone looking at me like that?”

“Are you serious?” Alexei deadpanned. “We were in crazy rooms of despair and misery and—”

“Thanks, Alexei,” you cut in, giving the giant of a man a pointed look. “You did good, Bob. I can explain the details later. For now—”

Your reassurance was cut off by Valentina shrilly speaking into a phone, only a few yards away. You could feel anger twist your insides just from seeing her.

“I’m going to kill that woman,” Alexei gruffed.

“We can’t kill her. We have to take her in,” Bucky said with an exasperated sigh. It was clear that he had plenty of experience being the voice of reason.

“What happens when he regains his memory?” Walker asked. “Will we have to go through that all over again?”

Yelena shook her head. She took Bob by the elbow and began leading him towards Valentina. “Okay. Come on, Bob.”

“I’m going with you guys?”

“Of course you are,” you said as you walked alongside them towards Valentina, nudging Bob with a soft smile. “We’re a team now.”

Bob returned your smile easily. “That sounds nice.”

Yelena nodded. “We stick together from now on.”

When Valentina spotted the Thunderbolts coming towards her, she began to hurry backwards. “Hello, team! I know we’re all dealing with very big feelings right now, just give me—give me half a second—!”

She disappeared behind some wreckage.

As you rounded the broken pieces of construction, you were met with the blinding flashes of about fifty cameras. There were news trucks, reporters, microphones, the entire shebang. Even a podium for Valentina to stand behind as she hushed the audience. A small part of you thought about all the dried blood on your face and body—it was a relief your suit was dark, or it would’ve looked like you were mauled by a bear. Or, more likely that you were the one that mauled the bear.

“What’s going on?” Bob leaned closer to whisper to you.

“No idea,” you whispered back.

“Cool.” The smile that appeared on his face was boyish and lopsided. “It’s nice not being the only one who’s confused.”

“Are we live?” Valentina asked one of the cameramen. Once he nodded, she began speaking with a shiny, rehearsed smile. “For years, I have been working secretly to develop a new age of protection. Today, the citizens of the United States need that protection. Thanks to my hard work, they got it. Ladies and gentlemen… meet the new Avengers.”

Avenger? You? That didn’t sound quite right. The Avengers were heroes. They were a beacon of light and hope and occasional destruction of city-folk. You were…

Just a person trying to do better.

The Thunderbolts stared at each other in a mixture of disbelief and disdain. Bob began to clap loudly, but you put a hand on his, forcing him to lower them down.

“What?” he asked, still completely miffed, and you shook your head with an I’ll tell you later look. Bob nodded solemnly and put his hands behind his back, which made you hold back an amused grin. The snaps coming from the cameras seemed to flare with every tiny movement you made, so you weren’t too keen on giving them anything to pick apart.

Yelena strode up to Valentina. She covered the microphone, leaned down, and said, just loud enough so she and the rest of the team could hear. “We own you now.”

This time, you didn’t bother trying to smother your smile. The cameras went crazy.

“Have you seen the news?” Bob asked you, settling down next to you on the couch. He handed you the steaming mug of tea, made just the way you liked. His knees knocked against yours.

You glanced away from your crossword puzzle and took the mug with a warm smile. “Thanks. Seen what? I haven’t checked ever since news of mutants broke out.” You were still waiting for your own test results to come back. The memory of the clinic drawing your blood made you shudder. It did, however, make you feel slightly better knowing that the entire team was squashed in the tiny waiting room right outside the door for you. Even Bucky, who swore up and down that he was busy that afternoon still showed up. You made a mental note to get him a smoothie from that juice shop he liked so much.

Bob gave you an awkward grimace. “They’re writing about us again.”

This made you roll your eyes. “They’re always writing about us.”

Just yesterday, Ava had shown you an article that said: THE HEROES NOBODY ASKED FOR! IS NEW ALWAYS BETTER?

Which, to be fair, was a completely valid article. However, counterpoint, none of you asked to be on the Avengers. Except Alexei and Walker at some point, you suspected.

“No,” Bob said, clearing his throat. “Not us like the group, but us us.”

“Oh?” You quirked a brow. “What are they saying this time?” Last week, they were convinced Bob was a special secret agent of sorts.

Bob handed you the rolled up newspaper he was holding.

SPOTTED: BOB WHO? MYSTERY MAN SEEN WITH NEW AVENGER ‘XEROX’ — ROMANCE BLOSSOMING IN THE TOWER?

Though you were wearing a baseball cap, that clearly wasn’t enough to hide your identity. Beneath the article title was a grainy image of you and Bob in the park, feeding the ducks. The two of you were wearing identical, fond grins; but you were looking at the ducks, and his eyes were trained on you. There was another photo beneath where the two of you were sharing a milkshake in one of your favorite diners. You let out a sigh—you supposed you couldn’t be going to that diner as often anymore.

“Oh,” you muttered, reading through the first few lines, which turned out to be a whole bunch of speculative nonsense. “They’re always doing this, aren’t they? Making something out of nothing.”

“Right,” said Bob, nodding. “It’s nothing. You’re right.”

When you caught his eye, noting the slightly crestfallen look on his face, you shook your head, assuming he was just upset about the whole ordeal. You could understand—losing your privacy overnight wasn’t something you were very keen about, either. “Try not to pay too much mind to the news people. I guess we just have to lay low for a while. It’ll die down. They’ll move on to the next big trendy thing in a minute or two.”

“Yeah, of course,” Bob said. He fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “Does this mean we have to stop going to the park together?”

“No,” you reassured. “We just have to put on some better disguises. I’m sure Valentina could scrounge up the money. After all, she kinda has to do whatever we want now.”

Bob smiled, all awkward and endearing. “Good. Yeah. I… I like the time we spend together.”

“I like it, too,” you said, lips upturned. Bob had to force his eyes away. It was nothing. Right.

You patted his leg and returned to your crossword puzzle. You were about halfway through the crossword book that Bob had bought for you from the musty cornerstore two blocks away. It was the first gift you’d ever gotten from someone.

Yelena walked into one of the Tower’s many common areas an hour later to find you and Bob leaning against each other, dozing away. Your puzzle book was discarded to the side, pencil sticking out one of the pages to mark your place. Bob’s mouth was slightly agape and he looked about two seconds away from slipping and face-planting painfully into the boniest part of your shoulder. Your legs were intertwined with his in a position that certainly couldn’t have been comfortable. Yelena regarded the two of you with a downturned smile.

“Okay, you sleepy lovebirds,” she muttered, grabbing a neatly folded blanket from the corner of the long couch and draping it over the both of you. You stirred ever so slightly, mumbling something under your breath, then settled back closer to Bob. “Sweet dreams.”

The two of you were startled awake just as Yelena was leaving and Alexei stormed in, loudly complaining about how this lady in the grocery store wouldn’t buy the Avengers Wheaties cereal box even though he’d explicitly recommended it to her.

You rubbed your eyes tiredly, standing up to stretch upwards like a feline after a long nap. Bob watched you with a sleepy grin. “Ooh, that just reminded me. I need to go pick up some ingredients for soup night tomorrow. Walker hates tomatoes, so tomato soup is off the menu.”

With no hesitation whatsoever, Bob asked, “Can I come with you?”

You thought distantly to the news reports. Let them think what they want. Whatever you had with Bob, you liked it just as it was.

“Yeah,” you said. “I’d love that. We can stop by the library afterwards, too. I’ve heard they’ve got a new copy of…”

Alexei and Yelena watched the two of you head out, animatedly discussing some sort of new mystery book, shoulders practically pressed up to each other.

“Are they—” Alexei sent his daughter a pointed look. “You know?”

“I’m not speaking about this with you,” Yelena curtly said, turning on her heel. “But no, not yet. Ava and I have a bet going on.”

This made a devilish grin spread over Alexei’s face. “He makes it obvious, the way he looks at Xerox. I give them a week.”

Yelena scoffed. He was such an optimist. She gave them three months at the very least. “You’re on.”

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gf2bellamy · 2 months ago

Note

I had this idea while watching CM i just know you’re THE person to ask!! So i’m picturing established relationship with later seasons Reid and reader sees a pic of early seasons maybe his FBI badge or smth ? And she’s like gosh i wish i met you sooner and Spencer thinks she wouldn’t have liked him back then and she’s like bitch ???? i have this feeling that people started to find him more attractive after the prison trauma and i just want to give some love to early seasons reid like baby i would have smashed u in season 1

badge — spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader ( no use of y/n ) content warnings: established relationship, post!prison spencer a/n: hii !! loved this idea sooo much <3 because yes ! i would've literally thrown myself at s1 spencer

Spring cleaning.

It was something you had insisted on, and Spencer was reluctantly going along with it. You loved his apartment, with its cozy clutter and towering bookshelves, but there was a fine line between charmingly lived-in and needing intervention. Currently, you were seated cross-legged on the floor beside one of his many bookshelves, sorting through stacks of old files, loose papers, and, of course, more books than any person could reasonably own.

Spencer was across from you, carefully removing each book from the lower shelf so he could dust beneath them.

You pulled out a well-worn novel, only to find four more identical copies tucked behind it. You held one up, raising an eyebrow. “Why do you have five different versions of the same book?”

Spencer barely glanced up from his task as he answered, “They’re all different special editions. That one—” He gestured vaguely toward the book in your hand. “—has annotations from the original editor. The one next to it has a foreword by a critic I like, and the third has alternate chapter endings that were cut from the final draft.”

You shook your head, amused. Only Spencer would need multiple copies of the same book. Flipping through the pages, you noticed scribbled notes in the margins.

“I haven’t read that one in ages,” Spencer admitted, suddenly abandoning his dusting to scoot closer to you. His knee bumped against yours as he leaned in, his fingers gently taking the book from your hands. He opened it to a random page, and his expression softened as he traced his old annotations with his fingertip.

A small, nostalgic smile tugged at his lips.

You watched him. His hair had fallen into his face again, obscuring his eyes as he focused on the text. You reached out, brushing the unruly strands behind his ear. He barely seemed to notice, too absorbed in the book, but his free hand caught yours, lifting it to his lips to press a quick, absentminded kiss to your knuckles before returning to his reading.

You bit back a laugh.

Of course.

You had come here to clean, and now Spencer was going to reread an entire novel instead. By the time you finished unloading the second shelf, he’d probably be done with it. You reached for a file that had been tucked between stacks of books on the second shelf. Curious, you opened it slowly, peeling back the cover to reveal its contents and then you froze.

"Oh my god."

Spencer, still absorbed in his book, didn’t even glance up as you carefully pulled out what you’d just discovered.

His old FBI badge.

You stared at it, lips parting in amusement. The photo showed a younger Spencer, his hair meticulously gelled to the side, so much more tamed than the unruly curls he had now. It was shorter, too, neatly styled in a way that looked almost foreign compared to the man currently sitting on the floor beside you, lost in his reading.

You didn’t even realize Spencer had finished his book until you felt the faint tickle of his hair against your cheek as he leaned over your shoulder, peering at what you were holding.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, voice warm.

You grinned, twisting to face him as you held up the badge. “Your old FBI badge.”

Spencer blinked at it for a second, processing, before his eyes widened slightly. “Give me that,” he said immediately, reaching for it but you’d predicted that reaction, and you yanked it out of his reach with a laugh.He didn’t even try to fight you for it, just slumped back with a sigh, though the faint pink tinge creeping up his neck betrayed his embarrassment.

“You looked so cute,” you teased, scooting backward just enough to keep the badge safely away. But Spencer wasn’t having it. In one swift motion, he hooked his hands around your ankles and dragged you forward until you were knee-to-knee with him again.

"No, I didn’t," Spencer insisted as he stared at the badge held between you.

"You totally did," you grinned, tracing the edge of the picture with your fingertip. Spencer had stopped looking at the badge entirely, his gaze instead fixed on you, the way your lips curled in amusement, the softness in your expression as you studied him.

"Your lips are still all pouty and pink," you murmured, tapping the photo where his mouth was set in a firm, professional line. Then you glanced up, only to find real Spencer mirroring the expression, his own lips slightly pursed.

"See?" you teased, meeting his eyes.

Spencer shook his head, but there was no real annoyance in it, just fond exasperation. "I wish I’d met you sooner," you said softly, your thumb brushing over the badge before your gaze flickered down for a second.

He stared at you like you’d just spoken in riddles. "You wouldn’t have liked me back then," he muttered.

Now it was your turn to look at him in disbelief. "Spencer, you look adorable," you insisted, holding the badge up again for emphasis.

"Adorable," he repeated flatly, as if that only proved his point, like adorable was code for not worth liking.

So you doubled down. "Attractive. Handsome. Pretty. Hot," you added, each word punctuated with a pointed look.That finally cracked him. A smile tugged at his lips, and he shook his head, but his ears had gone pink.

"Spencer," you pressed, bumping your knee against his, "there’s no way I would’ve missed out on that." You jabbed your finger at the photo for good measure.

He chuckled, finally tearing his gaze away from the badge to focus on you instead. His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his touch lingering just a second too long to be casual.

"Don’t deflect," you accused, pointing a finger at him.

"I’m not deflecting, I’m reprioritizing," he countered, but the way his thumb traced your jawline betrayed him.

You pouted, hard, and Spencer’s eyes flickered down to your lips like he was physically restraining himself from kissing the expression right off your face. (Which, given the way his fingers twitched against your skin, he absolutely was.)

"I’m serious, Spencer," you insisted. "I would’ve literally asked you out the first second I saw you."

Spencer raised an eyebrow. "You stuttered for six seconds straight when I asked you out," he reminded you, grinning when your mouth fell open in embarassement.

"That—! That was different!" you spluttered, swatting at his shoulder. "You caught me off guard!"

"Mm-hmm." His grin widened.

"Point is—" You waved the badge between you like a white flag, refusing to let him derail you further. "—I would’ve adored you, Spencer. Any version of you."

Your voice softened at the end, and just like that, his teasing expression melted. He exhaled a laugh, shaking his head like he still didn’t quite believe you, but when he leaned in to press his lips to your forehead, the badge forgotten between you, it was answer enough.

(And if he stole the badge back when you were distracted by his smile? Well. You’d let him have that one.)

#spencer reid x reader #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds x you #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fic

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fairestwriting · 5 months ago

Note

sorry if you’ve done something like this-

What about Jade, Leona, Jamil and Vil with a S/O that somebody tried to love potion?

…warning for minor book/chapter 4 spoilers in the jamil one? in case anyone is a newcomer here. there was just No way i could write this without mentioning his lore. like. come on

𐙚 Leona Kingscholar

Honestly, it’d take anyone some serious guts to try to do this. Or serious ignorance. Or straight up hubris, or maybe all of the above at the same time— Since your first few friendlier hangouts with Leona, it was pretty much known to most people who knew you that you were completely off-limits. Even if you just stayed friends, no sane person was going to mess with anyone who’s close to him. It’s almost an unspoken, pretty much school wide rule.

It was an especially bad choice for that perpetrator to try to slip you the potion during lunchtime. Maybe they’re a classmate you barely know, maybe they pretend to be a friend, it’d definitely have to be someone who could get away with approaching you to pretend to want some casual conversation. This privilege was soon to end, however, since you had agreed with Leona to meet up with him at the greenhouse after you ate.

The second you step inside, he can smell that something is off. By then you can already feel it starting to take effect, your head feeling foggy and suddenly occupied with thoughts of that person, which just feels confusing for now. You walk up to him, he’s sitting up with a frown on his face, asking you to come closer. Hazy, you step forward, and through your clouded vision you see him leaning in to smell you. It feels weird at the moment, you’re not sure if you’re comfortable with this— Even though that’s your boyfriend, you think, maybe you’d rather be this close with someone else…

He can’t tell it’s a love potion exactly, at least not just by smelling you, but he knows something is off. “Have you been up to anything weird lately, Herbivore?” He asks, his voice full of suspicion. You just shake your head, mention your classes today were all unremarkable, then so was lunch, you just met up with your friend, while you were eating. Somehow you can’t stop yourself from letting the subject linger on them, even though it puzzles you on the inside. He quickly picks up on what must have happened.

Really, anyone who even considers trying this has some nerve. He even says that out loud to them, after dragging you out of the greenhouse into a hunt for this specific person. You won’t even get the chance to remember much about the incident. Next thing you know, you’re in one of the potions lab, with an emptied vial of antidote in your hands. Leona is standing next to you with crossed arms and a death glare, and your “friend” is shaking behind a cauldron, having prepared that in record time. Even if notice of the incident spreads, Leona definitely won’t want you to leave his side anytime soon…

𐙚 Jade Leech

Another case in which attempting anything with you is definitely a feat of courage. Even though there’s a higher chance they wouldn’t know you’re dating Jade in the first place, because of how private he is, he’s clearly fond of you. And that’s without even taking into consideration how often he’s around. Jade doesn’t have the sort of infamy Leona dows, but it’s not any less intimidating of a situation, anyone with eyes can tell he’s watching every person around him very closely…

They’d really have to get lucky to get you to consume even a single drop of anything. They might have even tried multiple times, in multiple different ways. Spiking your food or drink is not an option at all with him, because he’s sitting with you while you eat, and who would want to take that chance? If they got you, it was probably by offering you an “extra drink they got from the vending machine”, which might as well have been attempted before, with Jade successfully distracting you from the drink every time.

”My, how kind of you. I’ve heard that soda is very popular, is that true?” Somehow, he shows up just in time to strike up conversation with the person, placing a hand on the can they tampered with. ”I don’t recall seeing this brand back home. Would you mind if I had a small sip first?” He looks at them, then at you, with a strange menacing smile. Once again, that person is taking the can back and stammering excuses that make less and less sense as time passes…

If they’re brave/stupid enough, and you’re oblivious enough, Jade will just sneakily make himself your bodyguard, ready to catch any new attempts and stop them right before you could get the spiked drink anywhere near your lips. He’ll do it as many times as he has to— And if it goes on for long enough, and one day they decide to not take their little trap back, he will literally just open it and drink the whole thing. He’ll do it while making eye contact with them, even. “Oh, I’m sorry, my hand slipped. It’s really unfortunate when that happens, isn’t it? It’s very easy to forget, since most of the time it doesn’t cause any harm… But the wrong ‘slip’ could really cost you your hand, you know… It’s important to be careful.” He doesn’t look away from them for even one second.

You’re confused as hell, Jade is weird a lot of the time, but just what’s going on right now? He hands them back the can, and just waves his hand at your question, telling you he’ll explain on the way as he walks off to get some antidote. From the nurse, specifically. And it’s not because he can’t make his own, because he could probably do it before the dizziness even hit— It’s to get your little “friend” in trouble with the staff, he’ll even play up the symptoms to make sure they get a nasty suspension… Even if they’re not expelled, you somehow never see them again.

𐙚 Jamil Viper

Not happening. At all. You have no “off limits” fame, no one knows you’re dating (Upon Jamil’s own request) and even if they did, they wouldn’t be that intimidated to try to make a move on you normally. He’s too busy to be lingering around you too much, plus he just wants you to have your own independence in general… everything is seemingly stacked in the favor of that person who wants to slip you the potion, but it’s nowhere near enough to get past Jamil. It just could never be.

…So you’d think it’d be easy for someone to catch you off guard, try to slip something in your food or drink. But there’s just no way that potion isn’t even making it into the vial. Really, with the upbringing Jamil had, could any fellow teenager manage to fly under his radar when trying to tamper with your things? Not a chance. He’s learned to spot real, professional assassins going after Kalim. Catching on to some other student’s creepy behavior is nothing to him.

He knew it before he even heard that person’s name, or saw them talk to you with his own eyes. It just takes a few conversations about this weird classmate of yours who you started suspecting might like you for him to be able to tell they don’t have good intentions. ”...I know I might sound paranoid, but I think you should be careful around them.” Is all he says, when you two talk about it the first time. You know him well enough to be aware of how serious that warning is.

Nothing is said after that, but he’s watching them closely too. You don’t eat lunch together that often, but Jamil always watches your table from afar when he’s not there. At first it’s just out of habit, but now that he’s got an eye on this person, their every move has your full attention. And it’s all just too familiar, the way they seem to also watch your table, or more specifically, watch you while you eat. He can even sense their frustration at how guarded you’ve gotten since his warning.

You’ll never even hear about a possible poisoning attempt because he catches them in the middle of their potion brewing— With a good chance he wasn’t even trying to do that. He just happened to spot them acting weird in the hallways, and decided to investigate. Following them to the laboratory, standing outside of the door to see what’s happening, maybe take a video or two. He then walks inside, no notable expression on his face, and speaks to them. ”I wouldn’t do this if I were you. Even making this potion outside of class could get you in serious trouble.” Nothing else is said, he shows them the video on his phone screen, and walks off. Next thing you hear, they got suspended, an when they come back, they won’t even dare to meet your eyes.

𐙚 Vil Schoenheit

The day you two agreed you’d make your relationship official, you also had a very long talk about the things that it might entail—The worries had been stewing in his mind for a while now, at first regarding his own reputation, but eventually they turned their focus to you. He’s had people interacting strangely with people who were just his dormmates, so one could only wonder how they’d treat someone they suspect is his partner…You’re warned at the very start that it’s a good idea to be cautious of others. But because it’s Vil, and he has all those vocal, sometimes fanatic admirers that are seemingly just everywhere, it can be kind of sadly easy to forget that this type of person could fixate on you too.

It becomes a bit of a dilemma for him, when he hears about this classmate of yours you’ve been talking to occasionally. On one hand, of course he wants you to have friends, he’s not crazy. On the other, he already has a weird feeling from the interactions you describe. Then under all his common sense, he just feels sort of jealous in general. You might notice he suddenly looks alarmed, and he might even remind you it’s important to be careful with others. But even if you take it to heart, would you really outright assume they were planning anything so creepy?

It’s a thankful coincidence that dating Vil also means learning a lot about potions. You often sit around in the Pomefiore dorm laboratory while he’s doing something, and he’s happy to explain the process to you however many times you need. Ironically, the specific subject of attempted love potion slips might come up. It happens to celebrities often, after all, it’s not crazy to think someone would try to get to him— ”They teach you to not eat or drink anything a fan gives you. You accept it if they’re handing it out, but you don’t touch it. And it’s not just for the sake of keeping up with your diet.” He retells you what he was taught. ”You don’t even donate it, since it could be tampered with. Usually, there are tells, but not always…”

Then question becomes, how skilled could another student get, specifically when compared to how observant you can be? It could go either way here. It’s easy to be alarmed by anyone offering you snacks or drinks after Vil tells you these stories, but you’re not a celebrity, so would that really happen to you? What if you’re just forgetful, or they really manage to get you at a moment when you’re vulnerable? Luckily, no matter how sneaky someone is, they can’t hide the effects of the potion forever. On the color of your drink, the smell, the taste… or, in a worst case scenario, in the way it feels when it starts to kick in.

You’ll know something is wrong, and he’s lectured you enough you know to get an antidote from the nurse if needed, and you know to report it to school staff. It’s dealt with quickly enough, but no matter when he finds out, he’s outraged all the same. ”How does a student get away with even trying to brew something like this? Staff shouldn’t allow just anybody to use laboratories unsupervised…” Vil fusses over you, smoothing your clothes just so his hands have something to do. Even if you didn’t swallow any of the potion, he tells you to take the day off to rest and stays nearby. Of course he wouldn’t just let the situation be solved without reacting, but first, he has to be sure you’re safe.

if you like my work you can support me by commissioning me or tipping me on ko-fi ── ᵎᵎ ✦

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #leona kingscholar #jade leech #jamil viper #vil schoenheit #leona kingscholar x reader #jade leech x reader #jamil viper x reader #vil schoenheit x reader #twst headcanons #twst imagines #lis writing

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jazziejax · 2 months ago

Text

𝐉𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐧’ 𝐕𝐈

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 - Modern AU | Elias ‘Stack’ Moore x Black!OC & Elijah ‘Smoke’ Moore | Modern AU

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 - Lines blur on a hot summer day when Juicy finds herself caught between what feels good, what feels right, and the one man she hasn’t figured out how to let go of—yet.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 - 18+!!! Suggestive content, intense romantic tension, strong language, heavy makeout, handjob, spit, slightly emotionally vulnerable conversations

𝐉𝐚𝐳𝐳𝐢𝐞’𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 - 😛, also, this was originally going to be one chapter but I had to split it up into two, so the next chapter shouldn’t take this long. Okay, I’ve been going to multiple graduations, sorry! I hope you guys enjoy this, I love hearing from all of you and appreciate your feedback greatly. Thank you for reading and leave a comment PLEASE!

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 - 11,854+

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 - ˖°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟖𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟑 | 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧, 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐢

Juicy sat still as stone beneath the blazing sun, her gold-rimmed shades shielding her eyes—but not her thoughts. They were loud. Loud enough to drown out Mary’s chattering, the splashes from the pool, and whatever song was thumping low through somebody’s boombox across the yard. Her arms were folded across her chest, pushing her breasts up in a way she didn’t even realize, her glossed lips set in a tight pout, eyes glued—though she pretended not to be—to the mess unfolding across the pool. Smoke was still entertaining Anika like he had no home training and no memory of the things he said just last night. The nerve of him.

And though Juicy would never let him—or anyone else—see her bothered, she was. That same little ache was blooming in her chest again, heavy and sour, until she heard a voice smooth as satin, dipped in just enough trouble to make her heart skip.

“Well, well, well.’ Stack drawled, his skin catching the sun as he walked up, a slow smile tugging at his lips as he locked eyes with her. “And what could possibly be wrong with the princess on this fine-ass day?”

His voice was teasing, but warm and low enough to cut through all the noise clouding her mind. Juicy turned her head slightly but didn’t lift her shades. Not yet. Her lips curved into a slow, reluctant smile, the first real one she’d cracked since that little display Smoke put on. She had an idea.

“Nothing.” She said, voice soft, nearly sweet.

Stack grinned, pleased by the answer even though he knew better. He lowered himself onto the end of her lounge chair and she didn’t stop him. In fact, she sat up slowly and scooted down just enough to close the space between them. One of her legs curled behind him on the chair, the other planted on the ground beside his, practically cocooning him in her presence. Her warm cheek rested on his shoulder like a pillow, the glitter on her skin catching in the sunlight and dusting across his skin like fairy dust.

Stack blinked.

Damn. He wasn’t sure what spell she was casting, but he was more than willing to fall under it. His hand drifted to her knee, his thumb absentmindedly stroking over her skin as he tried to play it cool. “And what’s got you all touchy-feely today?” He asked, dipping his head slightly to try and catch a better view of her face. But with her shades on, she was still unreadable.

“Nothing.” She said again, but there was a softness to it this time. A little breath behind the word. Then came the quiet sigh.

She lifted her head from his shoulder, turning it just enough to rest her chin there instead, her lips mere inches from his ear. She tilted her face toward him slowly, until their eyes met through her tinted lenses. When she slid the shades up from the bridge of her nose, those big brown eyes blinked up at him, glossy and deep and full of something he hadn’t seen from her in a long time.

Longing. Need.

“It’s just that…” She whispered, trailing off before she gathered the nerve to ask, “Are we not gonna talk about last night?”

Stack’s stomach dropped at that, but in the best way.

That mouth of hers. Those eyes. The way she said it so damn softly, like he was the only person in the world who knew her secrets. The same girl who used to clown on him in front of the crew was now cuddled up next to him with her lip gloss shining like diamonds and her perfume all sweet and floral. He’d be lying if he said his mind didn’t go right back to the night before. Her on top of him on her couch. Her hands on his chest. The way she looked at him when she said his name.

Stack cleared his throat, shifting slightly on the lounge chair, eyes darting to the side to make sure nobody caught on to the sudden rise in his shorts. The last thing he needed was someone’s auntie at the pool giving him the side-eye while sipping her wine cooler.

“Damn, girl.” He muttered under his breath, lips curving into a lopsided grin as he shook his head. “You tryna make a man lose all his composure in public?” He asked.

Juicy giggled, low and sweet, hiding her smile behind her fingers like she hadn’t just turned his whole damn world upside down with that soft pout on her lips. She smelled like vanilla and coconut.

“So?” She asked again, her voice lower now, just for him. “We not gonna talk about it?”

Stack tilted his head, brushing his fingers up and down her thigh in slow, lazy strokes, his touch deliberate, his eyes half-lidded. He watched the way her skin pebbled under his fingertips, goosebumps rising despite the summer heat.

“I mean…” He drawled, voice thick as honey. ‘What you wanna say? You wanna talk about how you kissed me? Or what was finna happen on the couch if Sinclair didn’t walk in?”

Juicy rolled her eyes, but her smile deepened, her cheek pressing to his shoulder again a magnet attracted to metal. She wasn’t tryna revisit Sinclair or what stopped them—she was focused on what happened before that. What almost was. “You kissed me first, Stack.” Her voice was soft but certain, like she wanted that part on record.

He chuckled, his thumb stroking circles against her skin. “Okay, but you kissed back.”

Her heart thudded loud and deep in her chest, an echo in her ears. But she didn’t shy away. “I did.” She admitted, turning her head just enough to meet his gaze, her fingers now tracing slow, absentminded patterns across the muscles of his back. Her nails grazed over his skin, light as air. “And…I’d do it again.” She mumbled softly.

And she meant it.

What had started as a petty distraction—a way to keep her eyes off Smoke across the pool with that raggedy little pick-me Anika—had quickly turned into something else. She wasn’t thinking about them now. Not when she was wrapped around Stack like this, not when his scent—the heavy musk of his cologne and cocoa butter—was messing with her head.

Stack looked down at her, eyes heavy with something deeper. Her words lingered in the air between them like the humidity. His flirting made him swallow hard, caught off guard by her honesty, but he was not about to let the moment slip through his fingers. “We can do that whenever and wherever you want, darling.” He charmed, his country drawl deepening, slow and rich like molasses.

Juicy grinned at that, humming low and sweet, rubbing her hand against his bare back again, taking her time now. She liked the way he said ‘darling’, like the way he talked to her. She liked that she brought it out of him. “Okay…but first.” She teased, shifting forward until her chest pressed lightly against his thigh. “You have to let me apply this sunscreen to you.” She said as she leaned across him, her arm stretching toward her oversized straw beach bag with the bamboo handles. Her body curved against him perfectly, warm and soft. Her plump chest brushed his leg, sending a jolt of awareness through his core.

Stack groaned lightly, trying to distract himself from the feeling of her. “Baby, I’m Black, I don’t need no sunscreen.”

“Everyone needs sunscreen, Stack.” She said, pulling the bottle from her bag with a triumphant grin. “Don’t believe everything that you hear.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Well, I can say the same for what you’re sayin’.” He stated, causing Juicy to let out a small laugh. She sat up straighter now, her glasses pushed high on her slick, honey-colored bun as she gave him a pointed look, brows arched. The glare had bite, but it only made him grin. “You just wanna rub all on me.” He accused playfully.

Juicy laughed, cracking the cap on the sunscreen bottle. “I don’t need an excuse to rub up on you.” She said, voice sliding into something velvet and slow, a little seductive. She squirted a dollop into her palm, rubbing her hands together as Stack watched, captivated. “Do I?” She asked, cocking her head as if he didn’t already know. She paused, her hands outstretched and coated in lotion, sunlight bouncing off her golden-brown skin. “You already said it.” He replied smoothly, smirking.

Stack licked his lips and leaned forward a bit, ready as she began rubbing the lotion into his back. Her touch was firm but tender, working the sunscreen in slow, deliberate circles. The heat of her hands, the closeness of her body—it was intimate in a way that felt almost too much for public, but neither of them cared. He let his eyes drift closed for a moment, savoring the feel of her fingers trailing over his skin, his muscles twitching beneath her touch.

Juicy took her time, fingers sliding over his shoulders and down his spine. She didn’t miss the way he sighed quietly, or the way his body leaned into her just a little more. She was pouring all the affection she wasn’t sure how to say into her hands.

And across the pool, Smoke saw it all.

Anika had left moments ago, said something about needing another drink, or fixing her lipstick, he didn’t know. He didn’t even care, but now she was gone, and he had a clear view of Juicy and Stack.

His brother. His girl.

He didn’t feel jealous. Not exactly. This wasn’t the kind of thing that stirred that in him. But still—he couldn’t look away.

There was something about the way Juicy was taking care of Stack that got to him. The soft looks, the lingering touches, the genuine laughter. It wasn’t just flirtation—it was something deeper that he could see lingering between them. And she looked good doing it all.

Her skin shimmered under the sun, glinting with flecks of glitter from that perfume Mary had gifted her for Christmas—the one he remembered because she always saved it for days she wanted to feel extra pretty. She had her legs wrapped around Stack’s side like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And Stack looked…happy. Soft, even.

Smoke stared for a moment longer, his drink halfway to his lips, then slowly turned his attention away.

Whatever that was between them, it was unfolding whether he liked it or not.

And Juicy didn’t even notice Smoke looking. Not anymore. She was too busy rubbing lotion into the warm skin of the man holding her.

The sun hung in the sky, golden and sticky like honey, casting a soft white sheen on everything it touched. The air was thick with the scent of chlorine, grilled ribs, and the unmistakable sweetness of Juicy’s perfume that still clung to her skin like dew. Her fingers were slick with sunscreen, the coolness of the lotion stark against the warm curve of Stack’s back as she rubbed it in slow, deliberate circles. “Damn,” Stack murmured, his voice lower now, raspier. “You gon’ take your time or you tryna get me worked up on purpose?”

Juicy smiled, her lip gloss catching the sun as she leaned in closer, her lips a breath away from his ear. “What if I am?” She whispered, rubbing her palms over the dip in his spine, down to the V of his waist before gliding back up again, her movements just slow enough to make his jaw clench. “Is it working?”

Stack exhaled, his hand flexing against his thigh. “You playin’ a dangerous game, baby.”

“I’m not playin’.” She said, moving to his arms now, turning slightly so she could kneel on the chair beside him. She lifted one of his arms by the wrist and began coating his bicep in smooth strokes, fingers gliding over muscle like she was memorizing the shape of him. “You the one who wanted me to do this, remember?”

“Correction.” Stack said, watching her through hooded eyes. “You insisted. Said it was medically necessary.”

“It is.” She grinned, biting her lip as she moved to the other arm. “Skin cancer don’t give a damn about how fine you are.”

He chuckled at that, low and amused. “So I’m fine now?”

“You been fine.” She replied with a shrug, smoothing the lotion over his forearm, teasingly running her thumb along his wrist. “But don’t let it go to your head.”

Too late.

Stack was already halfway gone, trying his best to sit still while her fingers trailed over his skin like a slow-burning fuse. And Juicy—Lord, Juicy was taking her time with it. When she shifted in the lounge chair in front of him, her knees brushing the outside of his thighs, he damn near forgot where he was. Her touch was slow, circular, and she moved with deliberate care because she didn’t want to rush. She wasn’t sure when she started enjoying this more than she should’ve. It was just sunscreen, she told herself. Just sunscreen. Nothing more.

But by the time she made it to his arms—one thick and relaxed against his thigh, the other resting behind him—Stack had turned his head slightly, catching her in profile. She was focused, biting her bottom lip as she rubbed the lotion into his bicep, her long nails grazing him lightly.

“Let me take you out.” He said, not even leaving room for disagreement within his demand.

Juicy’s fingers froze for a half-second, her eyes snapping up to his. “Huh?”

“Let me take you out on a date, Journee.” He said, his voice smooth and firm, calling her by her real name.

Her laugh came out soft, breathy, almost involuntary. It caught her by surprise, because everything hit her at once. The use of her real name, which felt like something sacred now, something intimate. The weight of his words. The idea of a date, like this—whatever this was between them—was turning into something real. Something intentional. All while her hands were gliding over his warm, tattooed arms, trailing over words and symbols inked into his skin. Her fingers didn’t stop moving, almost like she was trying to distract herself from what he just said. Or the way he was staring at her like she was all he could see.

She reached for more sunscreen, rubbing her palms together, readying to press them onto his chest when he caught her wrist gently.

“You not gon’ answer me?” Stack asked, low and soft, his thumb brushing slow against the inside of her wrist. Juicy stilled as the air between them thickened. She looked at him fully now, the shimmer of her body mist glinting in the sun as her lip gloss caught the light. Her voice came quieter this time, more careful. “Wait… what?” She asked. “Are you for real?”

“Yes.” He said without pause, his eyes locked on hers. They flickered between her brown eyes and her full lips, searching her, but not pushing. Juicy looked at him for a long second, trying to find a tell of some joke, some smirk, some sort of game, but there was none. His face was relaxed, his expression soft. His eyes were the kind of gentle she wasn’t used to. The kind that made you feel seen and touched without even laying a hand.

“Stack, are you serious?” She asked, her voice rising just slightly with disbelief.

“Yes.” He said again, slower this time.

“Stack.”

“What?”

“Stack?!”

“What?!”

“Oh my goodness.” Juicy giggled, her grin finally breaking wide. “Yes! Yes, I’ll go on a date with you!”

“Good.” Stack said with a quiet smirk, his grip on her wrist still light but possessive. Like he’d been waiting for this moment, and now that it was here, he didn’t want to let it pass.

Juicy’s first instinct was to hug him—throw her arms around his neck and squeal into his ear like a high school girl in love. But then she remembered the lotion. Her hands were still slick with it. “Oh.” She mumbled with a laugh, shifting back and placing her hands finally on his chest. She swallowed, biting her lip again, this time to keep from gasping, because her hands were now gliding over his pecs, smooth and warm and strong beneath her fingertips. She rubbed slowly, deeply, letting her fingers wander along the defined ridges of his abs. His tattoos stretched beneath her palms, and she traced them subconsciously as she worked the cream in, taking her sweet time now. More than necessary.

Stack leaned back on his hands, chest bare to her, letting her explore with her touch. Juicy was on her knees in the chair, leaning over him slightly, and neither of them noticed the rare glances being thrown their way across the patio—the tension between them was its own kind of gravity. It pulled every glance, every passing whisper, into silence.

But Stack only had eyes for her.

He watched her like he was studying sunlight through stained glass. Tracing her every movement, cataloging every little breath and blink. Her cheeks glowed under the heat, her curls pulled back with just a few tendrils stuck to her neck. And her lips—sticky, glossed, and irresistible—kept pulling his eyes back again and again.

She looked up once, catching him staring, and her breath caught. “What?” She whispered.

“Nothing.” He said, lips curling. “Just tryna remember this.”

“Remember what?” She asked, laughing nervously.

He tilted his head. “The moment you said yes.” He smirked. Juicy’s smile faltered into something softer, and she pressed her palm flat against his chest, her thumb brushing just under his collarbone. “You’re so smooth.” She quipped, rolling her eyes at him.

“I’m serious.” He said, not smiling this time.

“I know.” She whispered.

Stack didn’t say anything after that. He just kept looking at her, the muscle in his jaw flexing slightly as her palm lingered against his chest. Her fingers, still slightly slick with sunscreen, stayed pressed against his warm skin like she wasn’t ready to let go yet. Maybe she didn’t want to. Juicy’s lips parted, and she tilted her head, her eyes skimming over his face, then down his chest again, and then back up to those low-lidded eyes watching her like he had nowhere else in the world to be.

Her heart was thudding against her ribs so loud she was sure he could hear it. The sun had started to dip a little lower now, casting soft amber light across his skin, making the edges of his tattoos glow like they were lit from within. She’d never seen a man look like that—like a damn dream, golden and real all at once.

She looked down again, hand dragging slowly across his chest, brushing over his left pec with more care than she even realized. Her thumb traced the edge of one of his tattoos like she was memorizing it by feel alone. She didn’t know when it had turned into something so intimate, but here they were, breathing in each other’s space, heartbeats lined up and unspoken things passing between them like static.

Stack’s hand moved up and caught the curve of her waist. His fingers didn’t grip, they just rested there, his thumb brushing lazily over the bare skin just above the waistband of her low-rise shorts.

Juicy swallowed as her eyes met his again.

“Why are you lookin’ at me like that?” She asked, voice soft, flirtatious but a little breathless.

“’Cause you’re beautiful.” He said easily. “’Cause I been tryna look at you like this since I met you. And now I can.”

Juicy had no words for that. Not at first.

She just blinked, eyes lingering on his, her breath catching somewhere in her throat. A slow smile tugged at her lips, different from the giddy one earlier. This one was heavier, like she couldn’t believe how soft she felt in that moment. How seen she felt. “You gon’ kiss me or something’?” She asked with a playful tilt of her head, her voice low and thick.

Stack leaned in just a fraction, close enough that his lips were a whisper away from hers. “I told you I was takin’ you out first, didn’t I?”

Juicy laughed softly, shaking her head, eyes twinkling as she leaned back slightly. “Boy, you so corny.”

“You still like it though.” He smirked.

She rolled her eyes with a grin, her hand still resting against his chest, now feeling the steady thump of his heart underneath. “Yeah… I do.” She mumbled.

Stack’s thumb brushed slow over her waist again, his eyes on her lips for a beat too long. They stayed like that for a moment, suspended in that sweet, sticky tension of summer, wrapped in heat and hope and everything new. Juicy let her fingers drag down the center of his chest before finally pulling away, smirking as she reached for the sunscreen bottle again—partly to reset the moment, partly because she needed to do something with her hands before she gave in and climbed into his lap.

“I missed a spot.” She murmured.

Stack smiled, leaned back again, and let her hands find him once more. The air between them was humid and heavy, buzzing like the heat that shimmered off the concrete in waves. The lotion was nearly gone, but Juicy’s hands hadn’t stopped. They moved slow, deliberate, her fingers tracing across Stack’s skin like she was learning him by heart. Stack sat there stiff as stone, his posture and his pants, trying not to let the way she touched him show on his face, but it was no use. His jaw was tight, his breathing was low, and his eyes were glued to her like she was the last sweet thing earth had to offer.

Then, just when he thought she might keep going—maybe slide her hands even lower, maybe straddle his lap, maybe finish what she started—Juicy leaned forward, close enough for him to smell the peach gloss on her lips and the cocoa butter from her palms. She bit her bottom lip and dragged her eyes over his face like she was pulling something from him. Slowly and thoroughly, as if this was all a game and she was five moves ahead.

“I have to use the bathroom.” She said softly.

But it wasn’t the words. It was how she said it. Her gaze bounced between his lips and his eyes, heavy-lidded and warm, and Stack just… froze. Caught in the way her voice melted into the sticky summer air. Like he was under some kinda spell. She slid off the lounge chair, slow and smooth, her thighs brushing his as she stood. Then the sunglasses, those big, dark brown shades she slid on with practiced ease. She slipped her feet into her gold-and-white Baby Phat wedge flip flops and started walking, hips swaying in that hypnotic rhythm she was famous for.

Stack didn’t even register she was gone until she looked back at him, over her shoulder, over the rim of those shades. Her lips parted just enough to catch a glimmer of sun on the gloss, and her fingers flexed outward, an unspoken invitation dangling in the thick summer air.

That’s all it took.

He stood up fast, heart thudding somewhere near his throat. His long strides caught up to her quick, and when her hand reached back for his, he took it without hesitation, his fingers curling around hers like it was second nature. His eyes dropped as she led him toward the community center. He couldn’t help it. All legs and hips and that little sway she had that made his thoughts scatter.

He didn’t care where they were headed. Wherever Juicy was taking him, he was going. Happily.

But as they crossed the pavement, just a few feet from the double doors of the center, Juicy’s eyes caught someone.

Smoke.

He was leaning against the corner of the building, half in shadow, half in sunlight. A cloud of smoke curled up from his lips, the blunt burning low between his fingers. His eyes were heavy-lidded, but sharpened the second they landed on her.

And time seemed to slow.

Stack didn’t see it. Didn’t feel the way her fingers tightened ever so slightly around his hand. Didn’t notice the way her spine straightened or the quick rub of her lips together like she was steadying herself. But Smoke noticed. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t double take or anything. He just watched them, his expression unreadable beneath the haze of weed and heat.

His eyes slid from Juicy’s face to her hand in Stack’s…and then back up again.

And for a split second, there was a flicker of something. It wasn’t jealousy, it wasn’t anger. It was just acknowledgment that he saw her. That he saw them. And maybe he understood exactly what was happening without needing to hear a single word.

Juicy held his gaze briefly, long enough for the silence to say what neither of them would. But she continued, pulling Stack inside with her.

Whatever guilt she should’ve felt—it didn’t exist. Maybe it was because she didn’t care, at least that what she tried to tell herself. Or maybe it was because Smoke didn’t look hurt at what he saw. He didn’t have a look of shock or betrayal on his features.

He just looked… hungry.

Like maybe, if Stack hadn’t been the one she reached for, he would’ve been. And that thought sent a thrill through her chest, pooling hot and dangerous in her belly.

Stack, still unaware of the exchanged glance, followed close behind, admiring the curve of her backside, the sway of her hips, the way her skin glowed in the fluorescent hallway light. He didn’t care where she was taking him.

Juicy smiled to herself as they disappeared into the building. She didn’t stop pulling him until they reached the narrow hallway just before the bathrooms, the area cooler and quieter, nothing but the bass of the cookout music thumping faintly through the walls behind them. The air smelled like deodorant and faint traces of perfume.

Stack barely had time to blink before Juicy spun around and pushed him—hard—against the wall. His back hit the smooth brick plaster with a soft thud, knocking the wind out of him just enough for surprise to flash across his face.

“Damn, girl—”

He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

Juicy pounced like she’d been holding herself back for too long, and her mouth crashed into his with a hungry kind of urgency that made his whole system stutter. Her lips were soft but firm, glossed but not sticky, and she kissed like she meant to take something from him—like she was claiming it.

Stack’s brain stalled, but his body didn’t. Instinct took over.

His hands slid to her waist, strong palms gripping the soft and plush curve of her sides to steady her. Mostly because she was coming at him so wild and fierce, he needed to hold her close just to keep up. She moaned softly against his lips, and something about the sound shot straight through him.

He groaned low in response, right into her mouth.

That’s when he lifted her. His strong arms slid beneath her thighs, hoisting her like she weighed nothing. He never broke the kiss, not once, as he turned and walked her backwards, careful but eager, until her back hit a different stretch of wall, tucked away near the bathroom doors. Secluded enough.

Juicy clung to him, her hands buried in the back of his cornrows, fingertips rubbing at the base of his neck like she could soothe the fire she was feeding. Their kisses grew louder, messier, the wet sounds echoing softly down the hall. But they couldn’t hear it. They couldn’t even bring themselves to care.

They were completely wrapped up in the feel of each other.

She whimpered when he ground her into his crotch—his bulge pressing against the thinnest part of her bathing suit skort, right where she throbbed for him. He swallowed the sound, capturing it with his mouth, deepening the kiss as her legs tightened around his waist.

Stack’s hand slid to her ass, gave it a firm squeeze that made her center clench and her toes curl. If they weren’t careful, they were gonna cross a line. Hell, they already had. The heat between them was boiling, and the way she rocked her hips into his made it damn near impossible to stop.

But then—a pinch.

A building pressure.

Beneath the haze of lust and adrenaline, reality tapped on Juicy’s shoulder with increasing urgency. Her eyes fluttered open, lips still locked to his, but her body was waving a red flag.

She had to pee.

She broke the kiss, panting against his lips, her head falling back just enough to catch her breath. Stack, still caught in the moment, leaned forward to follow her, trailing kisses along her jaw, his breath hot against her skin.

“Stack…” She sighed, voice breathless, trying to gather herself.

He hummed low in response, mouth still busy at her neck, hips still grinding like he couldn’t help it. Like it was second nature that moment they got like this.

“Stack, wait.” She said, firmer this time. Her hands slid from his hair to his shoulders, applying just enough pressure to push him back a bit.

His lips paused. His brows furrowed slightly as he leaned back, eyes dazed and lips swollen from kissing. “Huh?”

“I have to pee.” Juicy said, squeezing her thighs together instinctively around his torso, her voice half serious and half laughing at the ridiculous timing of her own body.

Stack blinked, clearly trying to process through the fog of hormones. His eyes scanned her face, took in the smudged gloss, the flushed cheeks, the slightly wild look in her eyes. She looked wrecked—and it was all him.

A crooked smile curled at his lips.

“Oh, baby…” He murmured, tilting his head. “That’s not pee.”He smirked devilishly, leaning in close. “I’ll show you how to do that later, just let me—”

“No, Stack, for real!” Juicy laughed, smacking his chest, her voice breathless but serious this time. “Move! I gotta piss!”

Stack groaned like the universe was out to get him. “Damn.” He muttered, reluctantly easing her back down to the floor, hands lingering longer than they needed to.

As soon as her feet hit the tile, she was already stepping away, adjusting her skirt and heading for the girl’s room just a few feet down.

But just as she reached for the bathroom door—

Smack!

His hand connected with her ass in a sharp, playful hit that made her squeak and spin around, eyes wide.“Stack!” She hissed, glaring at him. But he just gave her that damn grin, the one that had to have the girls in Chicago ruin their lives for just a moment with him. “Damn, Juicy.” He said, eyes trailing from her backside up to her smirking mouth like he had every right to look. “You know I hate to watch you go, but I’ll gladly watch you leave.”

He backed away, slow and easy, like he had all day. And just before ducking into the men’s room, she caught a glimpse of his trunks, the clear outline of his problem straining hard and proud.

She rolled her eyes with a sift scoff but couldn’t fight the grin tugging at her lips.

Juicy rushed into the bathroom, her knees nearly buckling as she slammed the stall door shut. Her heart was still racing, but for a whole new reason now—and not just from the way Stack had her melting into that hallway wall mere seconds before. She could barely breathe from the intensity of his kisses, his body, the way his hands gripped her thighs like he couldn’t stand to let her go. But now… she really had to pee. And it was killing the vibe.

When she was done, she took a moment at the sink, looking at herself in the mirror. Her lip gloss was smudged, her curls slightly tousled from where Stack’s fingers had gripped the back of her neck. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes still blown from the heat of their moment. She exhaled, straightened her halter top, and smoothed down her mini skirt. With a soft laugh at herself, she pushed out the bathroom door, still warm from Stack’s touch.

But she didn’t make it far.

The hallway was quiet now, almost too quiet. As she rounded the door, the air seemed to shift into something heavy and tense.

There he was, the man himself.

Smoke.

He was leaning against the wall like he had been waiting.

Her steps slowed. She could feel it, the weight of his gaze on her when she exited the bathroom, the way it crawled up her skin like wildfire. He said nothing, but everything about him was loud and demanding. His posture, his presence, his silence. She didn’t look at him for long. After she let out a small breath at seeing him, she felt the heat rise in her throat, her arms folding defensively over her chest as she turned her face slightly, staring at the far wall like it held the answers as to why he was suddenly in her space.

He didn’t move at first, just kept looking at her. His tall frame blocked the hallway, his shadow swallowing the corner whole. Juicy could feel the way his eyes raked over her, from her lips to her legs, and the same skirt Stack had bunched around her hips not even five minutes ago.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she raised her head and met his eyes for a second, her voice dry but biting. “Can I help you?”

Smoke’s voice rolled out low and rough, like gravel over velvet. “What’s up with you, huh?”

She let out a breathy laugh, annoyed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her eyes narrowed at him as he stepped forward. She didn’t flinch, but her jaw tightened. The heat of his nearness pulled at her like gravity. “Your games won’t work, Juicy.” He said.

She scoffed. “Oh, now I definitely don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” She turned on her heel to brush past him, the tension crackling between them like static. Smoke didn’t stop her. Not physically. But his voice followed her like a shadow.

“You flirting with Stack.” He began, causing Juicy freeze mid-step, her back to him “All up on him, rubbing on him, whispering to him.“ He continued. “It’s not doing what you think it is.”

Her fist clenched, nails biting into her palm as she turned around slowly, her face sharp with fury. “And neither is you talking to Anika.”

That made him pause.

He stared at her for a long moment before a smirk curled across his lips. He laughed softly through his nose, like she was amusing. “Is that what this is about?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Smoke.”

He stepped forward, his eyes cutting into her. “You’re jealous that I spoke to Anika.”

“I’m not jealous of a damn thing.” She snapped.

But he ignored her as he kept stepping until the distance between them was nearly gone, the scent of his cologne mixing with the sweat on her skin and whatever was left of Stack on her lips.

“You know, I didn’t even know her name before you said it.” He murmured. “I don’t give a damn about that girl. And you’d know that if you stopped reacting for two seconds and just calmed the hell down.”He snapped. Juicy opened her mouth to argue, but Smoke cut her off, voice sharper now, eyes burning into hers. “You trying to make me feel some type of way with Stack was a waste of your time. ’Cause I know how you feel about me. I see how you feel about me. And you kissing on Stack doesn’t change that. Doesn’t change how I feel about you either.” He shrugged.

Juicy’s heart thundered in her chest. He stepped even closer, their bodies nearly touching as his voice dropped to a husk. “Seeing you up on my brother didn’t do nothing to me… ’cept give me a front row seat to how hot you get when you’re trying to prove a point.”

Juicy’s lips parted, her breath shaky.

“So go ahead.” He said, eyes dark and sure. “Just ‘cause you’re with him don’t mean you’re not mine. And just ‘cause you’re with me don’t mean you’re not his.”

She could only blinked, stunned.

“It’s been this way for a while, Juicy. And it’ll keep being this way. Until one of us figures out how to stop loving you.” His eyes softened, just a little. “And that ain’t happening. For a long time, not for me.”

Juicy didn’t know what to say. Her anger had drained, replaced by a strange ache in her chest. Smoke had always been intense, but this was something else. This was… raw. Emotions she’d never had to deal with, things she’d never thought he would ever say.

She was still trying to gather her thoughts when the sound of a sink shutting off echoed from behind the bathroom door. Then it creaked open, and Stack stepped out, wiping his hands on his trunks.

He stopped cold at the sight of them—Juicy cornered, Smoke towering, both of them staring at each other like the rest of the world had disappeared.

Stack’s voice cut through. “Hell goin’ on here?”

Juicy blinked fast and turned away, suddenly breathless. Her feet moved before her brain did, her wedges clicking quick down the hallway as both men watched her retreat.

Stack’s eyes followed her for a second, then turned back to his twin. “The hell did you say?”

Smoke leaned against the wall again, calm, like the storm hadn’t just passed through his chest. “Nothin’ she ain’t already know.” He said. “She just finally admitted it to herself.”

Juicy rushed out of the building, heart still pounding in her chest from whatever that moment had been. She didn’t stop to check if anyone noticed, didn’t pause to let the warm summer air cool her down. Her sandals slapped against the pavement as she beelined back to her lounge chair, a sigh slipping through her lips the moment she dropped into it, like a weight being let go.

Mary sat in the chair next to hers, legs crossed and a glossy magazine propped in her lap, the same one Juicy had been reading earlier. She looked up, immediately catching the faraway glaze in Juicy’s eyes.

“Aye, what’s up with you?” Mary asked, folding the magazine shut and turning in her chair with concern laced under her playful tone.

“Nothing.” Juicy responded flatly, sliding her gold rimmed sunglasses back down onto the bridge of her nose before lying back, her head tilted toward the bright sky. The air was thick with chlorine along with a faint scent of grilled meat floating over the pool area. But Juicy didn’t notice any of it. Not now.

Mary furrowed her brows, watching her for a second, but didn’t press. She knew Juicy well enough to know that if she didn’t wanna talk, she wouldn’t. So she turned her focus back to her magazine, flipping a page with an acrylic click.

A few minutes passed, a soft summer breeze blew through the trees, rustling the umbrellas and pool floaties. The sun had shifted slightly, casting a golden sheen over everything. From the corner of her eye, Juicy noticed two familiar shapes emerging from the building. Smoke and Stack.

They weren’t being subtle either—eyes trained directly across the pool, right at her.

Still, she kept her gaze upward, acting like she hadn’t noticed. Her whole body was tensed like a live wire though, her chest tight, lips pursed and hand fidgeting with the thin strap of her bikini top. Their area had gotten more crowded, people swarming around the life guard chair, someone trying to flirt with Megan, others leaning over the fence and their bags strewn around. It was noisy and chaotic—but not enough to drown out the presence of the twins as they made their way over.

Smoke dropped himself casually at the end of Juicy’s lounge chair, while Stack took his time, leaning coolly against the tall lifeguard chair like a king surveying his court. Juicy’s lips tightened but she didn’t say anything. She just stayed laid out, arms crossed over her chest, legs stretched long and golden in the sun, pretending the sky was more interesting than the weight of their gazes.

It wasn’t until Mary broke the silence that Juicy finally stirred. “Oh, girl, I almost forgot!” She said suddenly, closing her magazine and shifting closer. “I overheard Shante talking, and turns out, Donavan and Anika broke up because he supposedly got another girl pregnant, right?”

Juicy tilted her head slightly toward her friend, lips still tight. “Right…” She said, low and distracted.

Smoke shifted, placing her legs into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. Juicy glanced down at the feeling of his palms on her skin. Warm and familiar. She didn’t say anything, but her jaw flexed. Mary noticed it too but powered on, already locked into her gossip.

“Well come to find out, that was a lie. Anika cheated on him. But guess with who.”

“Who?” Juicy and Stack asked in unison, a beat of accidental harmony. The chubby girl looked up at him, be he seemed just as engrossed as her.

Mary leaned in, voice dropping like she had government secrets. “Antwon.”

Juicy’s shades shot up as she gasped, leaning up on her elbows. “Our Antwon?” She asked, disbelief written across her face.

Mary nodded eagerly. “Yup.”

Juicy gasped again, hand to chest like her pearls had just been clutched. The twins on either side exchanged looks before focusing in on her. “What do you mean, your Antwon?” Stack asked, narrowing his eyes. His gold chain glinted in the sun as he looked down at her.

Juicy rolled onto her back again, meeting his stare with a smirk. “Not like that. Y’all know Antwon. Everybody knows Antwon. He got me and Mary into clubs, concerts, we even went on a road trip to Florida with him once. Mary, you remember that?”

Mary grinned wide, eyes sparkling with memory. “Hell yeah. That was fun as hell too. Ooo, do you remember that white boy who ate—”

“No! I don’t!” Juicy hissed, cutting her off sharply. Her eyes widened slightly as she darted them between the two men. Mary caught on to the hint and fell quiet.“Oh, yeah… me neither.” She mumbled, flipping a page in her magazine like nothing happened. “Can’t believe she cheated with Antwon.” She mumbled, bring the conversation back.

“Wait—what were you about to say?” Smoke asked, tone lighter, but his curiosity clear.

“Yeah, me either.” Juicy said quickly, waving off the moment like it didn’t matter. “I mean, I thought he was too square for her. She sort of has a type.” Her eyes drifted toward Smoke deliberately. “No offense to you or anything.” She snarked with an upturned lip in disgust. Smoke didn’t respond with words, he just smirked and tapped her leg.

“What white boy?” Stack pressed, not letting it go and he was a bit annoyed that he was begging ignored.

Mary spoke again, trying to pivot back. “I heard she only did it ‘cause Donavan cheated first. I guess this was her way of getting even. That, and for always flirting with you.”

Juicy’s head snapped toward her. “Excuse me?”

Mary blinked innocently. “Flirting with you all the time.” She repeated. “He does it right in the girl’s face. Remember when you worked at Waffle House last year? He’d be in there every damn day.”

“That’s because the auto shop was right next door. You know that’s where his brother used to hang. And you were in there every day too.”Juicy countered.

“I was there for free food. He was there to see that ass in them True Religion jeans.” Mary grinned.

“Oh, so you weren’t there for me? And is my ass my defining quality now?”

“It’s one of your best.” Mary said with a wink.

Stack chimed in at the same time, “It’s the most prominent.”

Juicy turned and gave him a full glare, but he just grinned at her, his gold tooth glinting, completely unbothered. She flipped him off with a lazy hand and turned back to Mary. “Don’t say it like that. I worked there for two weeks.”

“And you apparently couldn’t survive without me.”

“Anyways!” Mary said loudly, cutting them off. “Those two weeks you did work there, he was up in there with Anika trying to get at you.”

“I don’t remember any of that.”Juicy muttered, sliding her shades back down.

“That’s ‘cause you’re oblivious unless somebody pours it on thick. That’s why you flirt so boldly.” Mary said, eyebrow raised with precision.

Juicy turned to look at the two men next to her. Smoke was already watching her from behind her glasses while Stack raised a brow thoughtfully, then nodded in agreement.

Juicy scoffed in disbelief, dragging a hand over her face.

“I just hope Antwon knows what he signed up for,” Mary added. “I would hate to defend my good friend by laying hands upon that New York City street rat.” She hissed the insult with venom, casting a sharp glance across the pool toward Anika, who was laid out on her stomach, ass perched like a billboard ad.

Juicy followed her gaze, lips curling in disdain. The memory of Anika talking to Smoke earlier flashed across her mind like lightning. Without a word, she pulled her legs from Smoke’s lap and gently pushed him away with her feet. He let it happen, grinning like he knew exactly what was on her mind.

Before he could say anything, Stack broke the tension.

“Juicy.” He said, voice low and slow, syrup-thick and sweet as a ‘issippi drawl.

She looked at him, her head turning lazily, curiosity flickering behind her glasses. Her lips stayed in that soft pout she always had when she was trying to decide if she was irritated or not.

“Can you go get my shirt outta my car?” He asked, almost too casually. Her gaze narrowed a bit, searching his face. “Back seat, behind the passenger.” He added, eyes holding hers with a bit of challenge. “You’ll know which one.”

The way he said it—it wasn’t just a request. It was a demand with a flirtatious flair. Like an invitation wrapped in something silky but toxic.

Juicy let out a slow sigh, already halfway annoyed, halfway entertained. She pushed herself up from the cool edge of the lounge chair, brushing imaginary dust from her thighs, the hem of her skirt rising with the motion.

“You got two working legs, Stack.” She muttered.

“Yeah.” He said with a grin, eyes never leaving hers, “But I got you, too.”

Smoke let out a low chuckle, deep and rich like the rumbling of a distant engine. Mary popped her gum, watching the exchange with raised brows, eyes bouncing between them like it was her favorite TV show. Juicy didn’t say anything for a beat, just stood there, hand on her hip like she was giving him one last out before she really got mad. When Stack simply smirked, smug and warm and cocky, she huffed, holding out her hand.

Stack reached into his pocket and tossed the keys to her in one smooth motion, letting them land in her palm.

She stared at him for a moment longer, lips twitching like she might smile if she weren’t so annoyed, then turned on her heel with that signature switch in her hips—the one she didn’t even know she had.

She walked across the gravel and out the gate toward the car parked a bit out of plain sight. Only the folks at the cars could see her now, not the ones chilling by the water.

The summer heat kissed her shoulders as she reached the familiar beeper keychain, unlocking the car with a soft chirp. She opened the door and leaned into the back seat, immediately spotting the black wife pleaser folded messily behind the passenger seat. Reaching for it, her fingers brushed the fabric—cool against her warm skin.

That’s when she felt it. A hand on her lower back.

She gasped, whipping around fast and swinging without thinking. Her palm connected with someone’s chest, and a familiar laugh followed.

“Damn!” Stack chuckled, wincing a bit but still grinning like the mischievous man he is.

“What the hell, Stack!” Juicy snapped, swatting him again, this time on the arm.

“I’m sorry!” He said, still laughing, holding up both hands like he was surrendering. “Relax, girl, damn. You got a bit of a much on you”

“You had me come all the way out here just to follow me?”She asked, her voice tight with disbelief.

“Yeah.” He grinned, leaning his back against the car with his arms folded and that same soft, unreadable look in his eyes.

“For what, Stack?” She asked, arms folded now, the heat and tension settling into her bones. “To get me alone or some?”

He tilted his head slightly, dark braided curls brushing the male of his neck. “Yeah.” He repeated, the word quieter this time.

Her breath was caught at that one word. “For what, Stack?” She asked again, softer now.

“I wanna know what Smoke said to you earlier.” He said plainly.

That threw her then, and she only blinked before her eyes fell to the shirt in her hand. She sighed, voice dipping low. “It’s… complicated.” She muttered:

Stack shifted, facing her fully now. “Try me.”

She looked up at him, really looked at him. The way his eyes softened when they were just the two of them. The brightness behind them, always shining a little extra when he looked at her. It did something to her—something she wasn’t sure she had words for yet.

She let out another sigh and moved to sit on the foot panel of the car door, body half-twisted toward him, the metal hot beneath her.

Stack slid into the back seat, legs dangling out, watching her with a kind of focus that made her fingers tremble as she picked at the gems on her nails. She hesitated, her mouth opening to speak but no words coming out as her bear beat increased. Then she decided to just finally come out and say it.

“I like you, Elias.” She said, eyes moving up from her fidgeting hands to search his. Her voice was small but steady.

Stack blinked at her before a slow grin spread across his face. “Okay.”

She bit her lip, starting at him before she pressed on. “Like, a lot.” She blinked at him, her heart banging behind her ribs. “Like… I wanna be with you.” She admitted.

Stack didn’t move for a beat. Then, his large hands reached out and covered hers, stilling her fidgeting. His skin was warm, grounding. “That sounds like music to my ears, mama.” He said, voice low and smooth, like velvet to her skin. “Keep talkin’ like that and I’ma have to show you a few things.” He grumbled as he leaned in. Juicy laughed softly, shy and breathless, even as his lips met hers. He kissed her slowly. Pocketed kisses that were quick but tender, like he was tasting each one before giving her the next. And in between each one, he pulled back just enough to look at her. Really look at her with her long lashes flush against her cheeks.

Juicy kissed him back, nerves fluttering in her stomach like summer fireflies. But the next part—the next part tangled her up. “I also feel the same way for Elijah.” She mumbled, barely audible.

Stack blinked. His face didn’t fall, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He just sat there, quiet.

“I’d understand if you don’t—”

“I don’t care.” He cut in.

She looked up, startled. “What?” She asked, brows furrowing.

“I said I don’t care.” He repeated. “I mean… I don’t mind that you feel the way you do about Smoke. As long as you feel how you do about me like you said. That’s what matters to me.”His voice was steady. But instead of relief, Juicy felt the ache in her chest grow.

“I thought that would help.” She whispered, “but it only makes things worse.” She whined, placing her hands over her face.

Stack leaned forward, amusement clear on his face as his hand slid along her back, fingers trailing over skin exposed by her halter top. “Aw, and why’s that, mama?” He murmured, lips brushing against the curve of her ear.

“Because now I gotta choose.” She said softly, eyes glossy. “And that’s something I never wanted to do.”She said as she leaned forward and placed her cheek against his thigh, the scent of his cologne wrapping around her like a hug.

Stack stroked her back in long, gentle circles, quiet for a moment.

“You don’t have to choose.” He said finally.

Juicy lifted her head slowly, eyes full of question.

“What?”

He smiled down at her, soft and unguarded. “I mean it. I ain’t askin’ you to pick. I’m askin’ you to be real. With me. With him. With yourself.” He stated.

She stared at him, heart thudding hard.

“I already know how I feel about you. And I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Juicy’s throat tightened, her fingers curling in his lap. The world around them faded into the hum of summer—the distant pool splashes, the low drone of 112’s “Cupid” playing from someone’s speaker. But in that moment, all she could hear was her heart and his voice, intertwining like a melody she never wanted to end.

She lifted her head from Stack’s lap slowly, brown eyes glimmering with uncertainty, the same way they always did when she tried to guard her heart but didn’t really want to. “What?”

Stack smiled down at her, easy and entirely unbothered. It wasn’t the cocky kind of smile he usually wore. It was soft and honest. Vulnerable, even.“I mean it.” He said, his voice low and steady, like it had been rehearsed in his chest for weeks. “I ain’t askin’ you to pick when I already know I got you.”

Juicy’s heart thudded so loud in her chest, she swore Stack could hear it. She just stared at him, her lips parted like she wanted to say something but forgot how to speak. His words hit somewhere deep—somewhere behind her ribcage, tucked under all that sassy-girl bravado she wore.

“I already know how I feel about you.” He continued, brushing a knuckle down her jawline. “And I ain’t goin’ nowhere, baby. So, if you don’t mind it… I sure as hell don’t.”

That last part melted something in her. Something tight and tangled in her chest. Her fingers curled in his lap, picking at the edge of her acrylics like she could fidget the feelings away. The moment thickened around them, time slowing to a crawl. The world outside—Smoke, Mary, the pool, the music, all of it—faded into a muffled hush.

“Really?” She whispered.

“Yes.” He answered without hesitation, his hand coming up to cradle her cheek. His thumb brushed over the curve of her cheekbone, soft as breath. “I meant what I said. I don’t care about the rest. I care about you.”

“You don’t mind?” She asked again, still trying to wrap her head around it. Her voice was higher now, tinged with disbelief. As if love that easy—love that open—was too good to be true.

Stack chuckled, and it was low and warm, wrapping around her like a hug. “No, baby, I don’t.”

And something in her broke open.

“Oh, Stack.” She breathed, her whole body softening as she looked at him like he’d just handed her the moon. And before she could talk herself out of it, she moved. Pounced on him again like she had earlier in the hallway—only this time it wasn’t playful. This time, it was desperate.

Her lips crashed onto his with heat, hunger, and the kind of reckless passion that made her forget they were in the back of his car and not in some steamy and searing dream. She pushed him into the leather seat cushions, and the car creaked softly beneath their bodies.

Stack let out a surprised grunt, caught off guard for all of two seconds before instinct kicked in. His hands gripped her like he’d been waiting to, one large palm immediately claiming her bottom while the other slid up her spine, pulling her closer. Juicy kissed him like she was starving, like he was the only thing that could satisfy her craving, and Stack responded by letting his mouth part just enough for her tongue to taste him.

When she finally pulled back, both of them panting lightly, her hands cradled his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones. Her eyes were wild and soft all at once, pupils blown wide, lips swollen. She looked at him like she couldn’t believe he was real. “I could just eat you.” She groaned hungrily, breathless, before diving back in, lips finding his again like she was scared they’d disappear if she stopped.

Stack moaned into her mouth, a deep, possessive sound as his hands roamed, mapping every curve of her like he already knew them by heart. Her thighs straddled his lap fully now, riding the heat between them as his fingertips slid beneath her skirt, brushing against the small of her back. Skin on skin. Heat on heat. It was too much and not enough at the same time.

“I been wantin’ this.” He muttered between kisses, his voice husky. “You don’t even know, baby. Every time you walk past me with those damn hips swingin’, or when you laugh with that hand over your mouth like you shy—”

“I am shy.”She whispered against his lips, smiling, her hips slowly rocking against his lap.

“Not with me.” He grinned, dragging his mouth along her jaw to kiss at her neck. “Never with me, baby.”

She whimpered at that, fingers tangling in his hair as his mouth worked a slow, open kiss beneath her ear. Her body arched against him, her back curving like she was offering herself up, and Lord, if Stack didn’t look like he was about to pass out from how sweet she felt on top of him.

“You don’t know what you do to me.” She whispered, pulling back just enough to look at him, breath shaky. “I’m tryna be good but you make it so damn hard, Elias.” She whined.

Stack smirked, dragging her lip between his teeth before letting go. “Don’t be good then.”

That broke her.

She kissed him again—messier this time, much needier. Her arms looped around his shoulders as if holding him tighter could erase the confusion, the guilt, the ache in her chest about Elijah. But for now, there was only this. Only him.

Stack's mouth was a trail of fire on her skin, his lips and tongue leaving a path of goosebumps as they explored her collarbone, her neck, her shoulders. Juicy's breath hitched, her pulse racing like a wild animal as she arched into him, her body crying out for more. The heat between them was a living thing, an inferno that licked at their nerves and made their limbs tingle with anticipation.

She rolled her hips against him, feeling his hardness press against her center, and a soft moan escaped her lips, a sound that was part plea, part invitation.

"You feel too good to be real, baby…" Stack growled against her throat, his voice a gravelly rumble that sent shockwaves through her as his hands gripped the flesh of her ass.

Juicy's nails dragged lightly across the nape of his neck, eliciting another groan from him, a sound that was pure, unadulterated longing as his hips bucked into her, his hard never pressing against her clothed clit, inciting a sharp moan from her. He was her tormentor and her savior all in one, and she was utterly at his mercy.

As his hand dipped further beneath the waistband of her shorts, she froze, her breath catching in her throat like a bird trapped in a cage. She placed a soft but firm hand on his chest, stilling his movements, her heart pounding wildly.

"Wait.” She whispered. Her eyes locked with his, and she saw the surprise flicker in his gaze, but no annoyance, only a hint of curiosity and a world of unspoken questions. Stack blinked, pulling back slightly, his lips still grazing her collarbone, leaving a trail of shivers in their wake. "What is it, Juicy?" He asked, his voice a low, concerned murmur, laced with a hint of confusion. "You okay?"

She took a deep, shuddering breath, her cheeks flushing slightly as she gathered her thoughts. "I—I don’t wanna go all the way yet.” She admitted, her voice soft but certain. "Not till we’ve had our first date. I want it to mean something. Not just the heat of the moment and hormones. I want it to be real, Stack. I want you to want me for more than just this."

He sat up more, the tension in the car shifting as he processed her words, his eyes never leaving hers.

A slow, boyish grin spread across his face, a grin that held a thousand promises and a touch of mischief. "You mean to tell me this ain’t real?" He teased, his eyes sparkling with amusement and something more profound, something that made her stomach do a series of flips. Juicy narrowed her eyes playfully, a small smile playing on her lips. "Stack, you know what I mean.” She said, brushing a stray curl out of her face, her hand trembling slightly. "I just... I want to take our time. I want to build something real." She admitted.

He chuckled, a low, throaty sound that sent shivers down her spine. He lifted his hands in mock surrender, his eyes never leaving hers. "Alright, I get it. You're killing me, though, ma. First the couch yesterday, then the hallway, and now this. You're killing me, you know that?" He said, his grin never wavering, his eyes dark with desire and something softer, something that looked a lot like affection.

Juicy leaned in, her lips brushing the edge of his jaw, her breath hot against his skin. "Well, said I wanted to wait on sex.” She whispered. “Didn’t say I couldn’t help you in other ways.” She says, her voice a sultry promise, a tantalizing tease. Stack went still, his eyes darkening with surprise and interest, his breath hitching slightly. "Didn’t you just say wait?" He asked, his voice creeping on amusement.

"I did.” She confirmed, her smile innocent but her tone anything but. "But not for everything."

He blinked slowly, licking his lips as if he needed a moment to process the weight of her words. The look he gave her was intense, a look that promised a world of pleasure and one that made her heart race and her body ache with longing. "You sure about this, Juicy?" He asked, his voice hoarse with desire and need.

She nodded, her eyes smoldering with want. "If you’re okay with it.” She said, her voice a soft.

A tense pause lingered between them, thick with desire and anticipation. The air was electric, charged with a tension that was almost painful, almost unbearable. Stack exhaled deeply.

"Damn right I’m okay with it.”He muttered, his voice low and reverent.

Juicy just smiled. She took her time, savoring the moment and the look in his eyes. The feel of his body beneath hers and the sound of his ragged breaths. Her fingers danced along the waistband of his sweats, a teasing, tantalizing promise of things to come. The music outside shifted to something even slower and more sensual, another old-school groove made for moments like this.

She could feel the anticipation building, could feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter, like a spring ready to snap. She slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his sweats, feeling him spring free, hard and ready, a testament to his desire and his longing for her. Her mouth practically watered at the sight of him, hushed dick thick throbbing in need. She took in a sharp breath as a rush of liquid dotted the center of her bikini, she could feel it. Just the sight of him set things off in him.

Stack's breath hitched, a sharp sound. His eyes never left hers, even when hers moved. He never wavered, never broke contact, as if he was afraid she would disappear. That this was all a dream, a fantasy, a figment of his imagination. "Juicy.” He whispered, her name a prayer on his lips, a plea.

She leaned forward a bit as her eyes made their way back to his, looking up at him through her lashes with her head still angled down. And he watched as her mouth opened slightly and a trial of clear saliva dribbled out.

He took in another breath, closing his eyes briefly at the feeling of her spit hitting his dick. He opened them again, just in time to see Juicy lick her lips, her eyes still trained on his face. She took his member in to hand, her grip firm, and she began to move her hand slowly, a torturously slow pace that was designed to drive him wild as she worked her slick around him. A smirk played on her lips as she felt him respond to her touch, as she felt his body tense and watched his muscles coil under his bare chest.

She was in control, and she loved it. This dynamic and sense of power was new to her and she loved it. The look in his eyes, loved the feel of him in her hand, loved the way he reacted to her touch.

"Like that?" She whispered, her voice low and sultry as she tightened her grip on him a bit. Her eyes sparkled with a mix of innocence and mischief, a dangerous combination that was guaranteed to drive him wild.

Stack could only nod, his throat tight with anticipation and need as his adman apple bobbed. "Yeah, just like that.” He managed to rasp out, his voice a low in a desperate sound. His hips lifted slightly to meet her strokes, a silent plea for more, for something faster, something harder. He hummed as the feeling of release built up in his core, and Juicy leaned in, her lips brushing his ear. Her breath was hot against his skin and her voice a low, sultry murmur. "I want you to feel good.” She said, her words a declaration of her intentions, of her desires and needs. "I to make you feel good. Want you to know how much I want you, even if we're taking this slow. I want you to know that I care about you." She continued.

Stack's hand found her other one, his fingers lacing through hers on his lap, his grip tight, almost desperate. His other one found her wrist and he guided her, showed her exactly what he liked, exactly what he needed, exactly what he wanted. He clearly just wanted to hold onto her, to ground himself as he felt his pleasure build. Their combined touch in a symphony of pleasure that was almost too much to bear.

The increasing pace, the ragged breaths, the desperate moans, the world outside fading away, the car becoming a place of pleasure and ecstasy.

"Juicy," Stack groaned, his voice a low, desperate sound as he struggled for control of his desperate need for release. "You're driving me crazy. You feel so good, baby. Mmm, fuck, I can't get enough.” He groaned.

Juicy smiled against his neck, her lips soft and warm as she placed gentle, reverent kisses on his skin, her hand never stopping its delicious torture, never wavering, never slowing, never stopping. She could feel his pleasure building, could feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps and his heart pounding wildly against her hand, his body begging for release.

Stack's grip on her hand tightened, his fingers digging into her skin, his body tensing. "I'm close.” He warned, his voice hoarse with need. "I’m so close, baby. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Please don’t fucking stop." He pleaded desperately in between the wet kisses he placed upon her lips.

Juicy increased her pace, not taking her mouth away from his as she hummed in pleasure, her strokes sure and steady. "Let go, baby.” She whispered, pulling back to place her forehead against his. “Let go for me.” Her voice a soft, commanding but pleading, as she held his eyes, their face mere inches apart.

With a final, shuddering groan, Stack did just that. His back arched off the seat, his muscles tensing and his mouth open in a silent scream as waves of pleasure crashed over him. Juicy held him tightly, her hand never stopping, while her other hand gripped his thigh, her nails digging into his flesh.

She felt it, the hot, pulsing release, the evidence of his pleasure spilling into her hand, coating her fingers. It was a testament to his ecstasy, a symbol of their connection. She slowed her movements, gentling her touch and soothing him as he came down from his high, her eyes never leaving his. Her gaze was soft, her expression tender and her heart full.

Stack's chest heaved, his body slick with a thin sheen of sweat, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He looked at her, his eyes still blown and dark with pleasure. He then smiled, a slow, lazy, satisfied smile that made her heart flutter.

"Oh, Juicy.” He murmured, her name a prayer on his lips. "That was... incredible, baby.” He sighed. “You are... incredible."

She smiled back at him, her heart swelling with content, though there was an air of mischief still there in her smirk. She held his eyes as she brought her hand up to her lips, and slowly licked her fingers clean, tasting his essence. Savoring him and committing the moment to memory.

Stack's eyes darkened, his breath hitching as he watched her, his body responding to the erotic sight as he dick twitched against his stomach and a soft groan escaped his lips. "Fuck, Juicy.” He whispered, her name a reverent of his admiration.

She smiled, a slow and seductive before she leaned in, her lips brushing his in a soft, gentle, tender kiss. Stack kissed her back, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her close, his body still trembling with the aftermath of his release, his heart pounding, his soul soaring.

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this-acuteneurosis · 7 months ago

Note

tricks for treats prompt, for don't look back: it is revealed to shmi and/or anakin that one of leia's old titles used to be "huttslayer." i'll leave it up to you how much leia elaborates from that point <3. happy halloween!

Luke helps elaborate.

#Duty Bound #Tricks for Treats #Tricks for Treats 2024 #Don't Look Back #same chapter for multiple asks

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ivorivet · 2 months ago

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Fellowship Cloak Weaving Draft

Hi all! I've been kind of quiet on this blog, but I have something really exciting to share today: after six years, I FINALLY figured out the weaving draft for the Fellowship cloaks from Lord of the Rings.

This is a problem I've been trying to figure out since shortly after I made my Legolas cosplay in 2018. The cloaks that the nine members of the Fellowship receive in Lothlórien look like a nondescript gray fabric from far away, but zoom in and you'll see a very complex pattern of horizontal and vertical bars of dark gray and white.

(First image from Alleycatscratch, second is a photo of the scarf of the same fabric I bought from Stansborough where I was attempting to trace the pattern repeat with orange thread)

This is going to be a long post, so I'm just going to lead with the completed draft:

Imagine me Will Smith wife posing at this for the last 24 hours.

It's got the correct size of pattern repeat! It's got the five individual ripples! It's got that dumb little pattern break in the middle that breaks up the center of the leaf motif! I am OVER THE MOON about figuring this out, especially starting out with very little knowledge about weaving drafts in general. More ramblings about this type of draft and my thought process below:

This particular pattern is known as "shadow weave," a subset of color-and-weave where the pattern is created from the interplay of different warp and weft colors plus the weaving draft itself. To get an idea of how that works, let's start by looking at plain weave in one color:

The solid purple bar at the top indicates the color of the warp threads, and the solid purple bar at the right indicates the color of the weft threads. So far we've got our basic under-over-under-over pattern in a single, solid color (purple). But what if we add an additional color (green) to the warp, and alternate those colors? Then we'd get a speckled fabric like this:

The visual effect looks pretty much identical regardless of if you start with green or purple. However, if you also alternate purple and green in the weft, it produces a very different effect depending on if you start with purple or green (note the differences in the bar on the right):

So cool, now we can make either vertical or horizontal stripes! If you double up on the colored threads in some areas, you can even flip between the two and start dividing the fabric into "blocks," like so:

Note that with all these changes, the only thing we've been doing is changing the order of the colors in the warp and weft. The actual weave structure itself is still just regular ol' plain weave. The pattern that we've created in the pictures above is called "log cabin," which you can read about here. But similar effects can be created by skipping shafts/picks in the weaving draft as well. So how do we get from log cabin into the more complicated and general category of shadow weave?

It's weird to describe how to convert a given pattern into shadow weave. There are multiple very good books with chapters on shadow weave as well as books entirely dedicated to it. Despite my best efforts, all these explanations still got so technical so fast it feels like, to me at least, asking a 6 year old to recite an entire Shakespeare play verbatim immediately after confirming that they can, in fact, sing the alphabet song. So I'm going to give my best shot at explaining it, and if it doesn't make sense, just blame it on me and check out some of the linked books above if you're really curious.

Think of shadow weave as a beauty filter for a black and white drawing. If you create a pattern out of black and white blocks/pixels/whatever, the shadow weave "filter" can be applied to it to create a similar pattern that preserves the shapes in the original, but makes them out of vertical/horizontal lines instead of solid color blocks. So in some of these books you'll find mention of converting a twill or an overshot pattern into shadow weave - that's what this is referencing. The original pattern (usually designated with light yarn) gets a secondary shadow pattern (in dark yarn) inserted into in between every other thread (also called an "end" when referencing warp yarns).

I got stuck at this point for literal years. I could find examples of weaving drafts using shadow weave, but couldn't figure out how to generate ones of my own. I imported some of the drafts I found in books into weaving software and poked around to see if I could push the patterns in the direction I wanted by changing individual elements. My experiments in changing individual warp ends and weft picks always ended up looking like stretched or compressed versions of the original pattern (when I was being careful), or incomprehensible garbage (when I was being daring). I even bought a sample of the fabric from Stansborough in the form of a scarf, thinking I could brute force it by using a magnifying glass to figure out the interlacements. I was able to figure out how large the pattern repeat was (approximately 160 x 80 ends), but otherwise I got nothing but eye strain. I ended up tabling the project and coming back to it every couple years, banging my head against it until I gave up.

Until one day last week when I was flipping through the Strickler book and saw this page:

And I was like

HOLD UP

IT'S HER

...or at least a close cousin of her. BUT IT WAS A START.

So the first step was to identify what about this pattern needed to change in order to make this look like the Fellowship cloak. Overall, the main differences were:

Pattern repeat on Strickler 304 was too small - it was 42 x 42 ends and I needed it to be somewhere in the ballpark of 80 x 80 before altering the repeat.

The Fellowship pattern has a weird vertical dividing line that runs down the middle of the leaf motif, effectively doubling the width of the repeat by creating two similar looking but different leaves. This was the change I was least concerned about, as flipping between vertical and horizontal lines is pretty a straightforward process as shown above with the log cabin draft.

Strickler 304 also has a different number of waves (peaks and valleys, or whatever you want to call them) compared to the Fellowship pattern. There are 3 waves in Strickler and 5 in Fellowship. Figuring out how to add these extra waves was the biggest obstacle for me to address.

And finally, a couple of things I didn't need to care about for the weaving draft: 1) the Fellowship pattern is elongated in the warp direction, but this has more to do with a little extra spacing between weft picks as compared to the warp threads. When weaving this you'd just need to make sure you don't beat it very hard and you'll get that tall rectangle shape instead of a square repeat. 2) Both patterns have mirrored symmetry around a diagonal line drawn through the center, meaning that for treadling I could "tromp as writ" or basically just mirror the threading diagram to get the treadling instructions. For reasons I can't figure out, the Strickler pattern isn't exactly tromp as writ but looks close enough to it that the effect is still there. But I don't really care enough to figure out why - the important thing is that it gives us a threading diagram to start with!

So to start with, here's what Strickler 304 looks like in my weaving software:

(By the way, this is Fiberworks PCW Bronze. The trial version is free, and the only difference between that and the paid version is that the save/print options are disabled. I'm not sure they know about screenshots, bless their hearts.)

This is a design for 8 shafts and 8 treadles, thus the 8x8 square in the upper right corner. And you can see in the threading diagram (upper horizontal bar) and treadling diagram (right bar) that the curvature of the waves takes a similar shape to the curves of the final pattern. We just have to figure out why. And since I had already tried changing individual warp ends and treadling patterns without much success, I needed to approach in a different way.

What ended up helping me see the forest for the trees was de-shadowifying the pattern. It's relatively easy to get the black-and-white version of the pattern from the threading draft - you just need to delete the shadow, which means removing every other warp end. This is what deleting all the dark ends from the warp and light ends from the weft looks like:

We can also see with a little more detail how the threading diagram is similar to the curve in the pattern. The pattern is 21 pixels tall, but it's been chopped up to repeat over 8 shafts, like so:

OKAY COOL COOL COOL. EVERYTHING'S COMIN' UP MILHOUSE IVORIVET. From this green squiggly line we know two things:

The final number of warp ends in the shadow weave pattern is double whatever the height of the squiggle is. In the case of the Strickler pattern, we're going from 21 to 42. Since we know that we need our final height for the Fellowship pattern needs to be 80, the squiggle for that pattern needs to be around 40 pixels tall.

We needed to stitch three repeats of the Strickler threading diagram together in order to see the full squiggle. How many waves does the Strickler pattern have? Three. How many waves does the Fellowship pattern need? Five. How many shafts do we have to work on? Eight. What is 5 x 8? 40!!!

So how about we make a NEW squiggle, only 40 pixels high instead of 21? (We're gonna drop the pixels in blue, since threading diagrams won't work if you put a single end through two shafts.)

Next, we're going to chop up that squiggle and use it to create a new threading diagram in Fiberworks. I'm also using "tromp as writ" here to create the treadling pattern.

LOOK AT THAT. IT'S GOT MORE WAVES!! FIVE OF THEM!

And then we add back in the shadow by creating a space for a new end between each existing end:

And then add in the shadow. I'm using 4 as my number for the shadow offset since we're using 8 shafts. So shaft 1 shadows to shaft 5, shaft 2 shadows to shaft 6, etc.

And we're going to apply tromp as writ again to get:

AYYYYYY WE'RE GETTING CLOSE! I'm fairly certain that the reason why the Strickler treadling wasn't exactly tromp as writ had something to do with centering the pattern repeat a little more than this, but I don't really care about that so I'm going to leave this treadling the way that it is.

From here out, we need at add that weird vertical dividing line that chops up the center of the leaves. So we double the pattern repeat along the horizontal axis, and offset a 40 pixel section in the middle of the threading diagram by 1 pixel. I've also colored in the differences between the dark and light ends to help differentiate the original and shadowed curves a little bit more. (I also tried offsetting the colors of the warp ends by 1 as well like what we did in the log cabin example, but I ended up liking the way that this looked more.)

THERE SHE IS!!! MY PRECIOUS!!

From here on out, there is still a ton of work I need to do if I actually want to weave this cloak from scratch. I did buy roving in quantities that could be used to spin both the dark and light yarn (dark gray Gotland for the dark yarn, and dove gray merino + white alpaca for the light yarn), but there's still the matter of, like, handspinning a cloak's quantity of extremely fine yarn. I did start spinning the Gotland several years ago as fine as I could possibly manage, and got through maybe 20 ounces of it. However, I'm a much better spinner now and I'm not sure if the my skeins from several years ago would be suitable for weaving, or if it would be worth replicating what I did back then vs. just starting over with a new standard. There's also the possibility of just... buying weaving yarn if I want to skip that step, which would definitely save me a significant amount of time.

Anyway, thanks for reading this far and I hope it helped break down why this was so exciting for me!

#lord of the rings #lotr #weaving #lotr cosplay #shadow weave #handweaving #hand weaving #cosplay #fiber arts

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celestie0 · 1 month ago

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gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch10. what if?

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency department, just got broken up with your boyfriend of 7 years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation with him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw slight age gap bc gojo in this fic is 34 n reader is 29

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 10/x

ᰔ words. 7.2k

a/n. helloooooooooo my ihm loves!!! tysm for tuning into this new chapter. sorry i am always an hour late to posting them LOL but anywho...as always...hope you enjoy...see ya at the bottom...

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Your eyes flutter open at the early hours of the morning, chest feeling flush from the deep sleep that had just enveloped you, possibly the first time in months you’ve slept through multiple hours without waking up at the top of every hour in cold sweats of stress.

The satin sheets are soft against the skin of your thighs where your nightgown has ridden up, feeling silky and smooth, and when you twist your torso a little, you feel a heaviness in the divot of your waist. Your sleepy eyes glance down to see a strong arm laying over you.

You panic at first, tensing up immediately, before you recognize it as Gojo’s. His hand lays weakly on the sheets in front of you, thumb twitching slightly in his sleep, but even in its lax state, you can still see pulsing veins trailing up the back of it, lining into his bicep into his porcelain skin that’s illuminated by the light just outside the windows. Smooth and pretty, but masculine at the same time, and you just now see that his knuckles are slightly red and there’s a small cut over the third one.

You lay still, unsure of what to do, and as you blink at the wall across from you, your mind wanders back to last night. The feeling of rage in your blood, unsettling in the moonlight, only to be completely dissolved by the feeling of Gojo’s arms pulling you into him, and holding you tight to his chest. So warm and soft, his comforting scent, the nuzzle of his chin above your head… when you close your eyes, you remember the sight of him hovering over you, that conflicted look on his face that was almost delicate with vulnerability, before it disappeared as he fell to your side and suddenly he was holding you in bed and you fell asleep in his arms. The memories have your cheeks feeling hot, and the fabric of your nightgown becomes suffocating.

You turn your head a little to glance over your shoulder, and you see that somewhere along the night, Gojo took his hoodie off, and you realize he’s shirtless behind you. Your heart beats a little faster in your chest, the otherwise shallow cadence of your early morning breathing picking up in speed, rousing you from sleep, and now you were so wide awake you could feel every sensation of his body pressed up against you from behind.

When you squirm a little, he mumbles deeply behind you before his arm curls around your waist even tighter and he pulls you in closer to him. You gasp, feeling him nuzzle his nose into your hair and his thumb presses into your rib cage right beneath your breast.

“Satoru,” you murmur, shifting more in his strong hold, and when you do, your butt wiggles against the front of him and—

Oh.

He’s—

He’s hard.

And you’re almost entirely shocked still from the way it feels against your ass.

Even through the thick fabric of his sweatpants, he feels heavy and imposing and hot and big—

You wiggle your butt against him a little bit more, curiously, because you can’t help it, and he groans near your ear.

“Mm,” he mumbles, deep and guttural. “Don’t.”

“Why are you hard right now?” you hiss at him.

“Huh.” Is the only noise he makes as he tries to drift off back to sleep.

“I asked you a question.”

He shifts with a sigh. “Morning wood. Testosterone is higher in the AM. You’re a nurse, you should know that.”

“Well make it go away. It’s uncomfy.”

“How?” he asks with amusement in his voice, like he’s hoping you’ll continue to feign innocence because it was the cute thing to do.

“I don’t know. Go tug on it in the bathroom.”

You feel him exhale an amused scoff, then he presses his lips to the nape of your neck lazily, making you gasp, and you feel his mouth stretching into a smile against your warm skin. “You’re funny.”

The intimacy was searing, it spreads a heat across your entire body, and god, his voice… that deep, groggy sound that rumbles in his throat with the slight drawl in his tone…and when he presses a kiss behind your ear, it was over for you.

“Hey,” he says softly, to get your attention, his chin nuzzling the crown of your head, “thank you.”

“For what?” you exhale, somewhat airy, as if trying to prove that you’re not entirely affected by his touch.

He kisses the side of your neck. “For last night.”

Your heart is beating fast, and you blink a few times before you say, “I’m still mad at you.”

He sighs. “I figured as much,” he says and then he drops his head back down onto the pillow in retreat.

Would it be so wrong?

Is the question you ask yourself.

You’ve already pushed his buttons before,

And maybe it wasn’t wise to do so again,

Given the emotionally charged and rather tender moment you two shared last night,

One that has your head swimming with what-ifs that were still left unanswered,

But you find yourself wanting him now more than ever.

A feeling you don’t want to confront in your head,

But one you feel coarse throughout your body.

You let out a shaky breath and push yourself back against his front, feeling his rigid erection press up against the flesh of your ass, and he lets out a choked groan, one that sounds both aroused and mostly confused, before his arm slides down from under your breasts to hold you around your lower torso instead, almost anchoring you to whatever grinding movements you were making against him.

“You keep this up,” he says, “and I can’t make any promises about what happens next.”

You shuffle your thighs, both because you were aroused but also to coyly deflect any responsibility in riling him up, despite the fact that your ass still brushes against his front from the motion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you quip, innocently.

“You’re lucky that I play along,” he says, and it felt like a reference to all of the times he just chooses to deal with your sporadic attitudes like it was no big deal even though you’re sure it would frustrate the hell out of any other man.

His arm suddenly releases hold of your waist, then his palm smooths over the hill of your hip and down the velvet skin of your thigh, the texture of his hand rough compared to the duvet half-laying over you right now. You clench your thighs together, any and all movements of yours coming to a halt from the violent reaction you have to his touch, and there’s a small little voice in your head that’s screaming bad bad bad bad bad bad BAD idea to let him touch you like this but when he kisses down the curve of your neck, it’s entirely drowned out.

“Waiting for you to slap me,” he mumbles, “aaaaaany second now.”

“I’ve sworn off violence,” you gasp when his fingers feather a touch near your inner thigh.

“How convenient.” He pulls you in closer to him as he continues to tease you with his fleeting touch. “Your skin is so soft,” he says, pads of his fingers pressing into the plush of your thigh, his thumb hooking up the hem of your nightgown to gain more access. His nose brushes the hair away at the nape of your neck before he inhales indulgently. “Smells nice too.”

“Satoru.” Maybe it was a warning, or maybe it was just an acknowledgement of the man behind you that’s slowly touching parts of you that were unmapped by him before. Hell, it could’ve even come off as an encouraging moan of his name, for all you knew. You could hardly hear yourself think, let alone what you say.

When his lips press more firmly on the side of your neck, at that sensitive curve of supple skin, you’re unable to hide the reaction your body has to him anymore, a soft moan leaving your lips as you squirm with arousal and a borderline impatience. He pushes his front against your backside in response to the noise, and your eyes shut close to intensify the feeling.

He’s less chatty than usual, and you figure it’s because he’s sleepy and his brain’s not working, and maybe that’s why he’s tolerable to you right now, enough so to where you’re not too pissed off or annoyed at something he has said or done, hence why he has the opportunity to snake his hand up the front of your torso right now without you smacking him across the face for it. At least that’s the excuse you’ll tell yourself.

When his thumb brushes against your nipple, you let out an airy moan and press your entire body back against him with full desire.

“Fuck, you don’t wear anything underneath these?” he all but growls, his hand cupping your breast, gently kneading the softness that he finds and you swear you feel his cock jump in his boxers.

“W-Why would I wear a bra while I’m sleeping and at home?” you breathlessly manage to say.

“Well it’s hard for me to picture you braless underneath gowns that make you look like a 17th century pilgrim.”

Oh. Okay, yeah, there it was. That urge to smack him.

But the thought melts away when his thumb and index finger pinch your nipple, harsh in grip but gentle when he pulls on it, and you’re fully grinding your ass against him at this point, the arousal coiling tightly in your lower tummy, only barely relieved by the tight press of your thighs together.

The large span of his hand squeezes both your tits at the same time, making you moan against the pillow, a sound he reacts to by fully bucking his hips against your rear. “God, knowing that you don’t wear anything underneath these is gonna torture me whenever I see you around the house now,” he acknowledges with a sigh, forehead dropping to rest on your temple as his messy fringe falls against your eyelashes.

The warmth of his hand leaves your chest as it finds its way smoothing down your midriff, and he briefly digs the heel of his palm into the soft plush of your lower belly, almost as if to experiment, and you completely jump and then writhe in his hold from the ache of pleasure that courses through you. He’s pressing open mouthed wet kisses against your neck now, more liberal with the groans and grunts that he leaves against the wake of your feverish skin as he grinds against you, and the tips of his fingers slip past the band of your panties but—

He can’t get any further than that.

His lips leave your neck and he lifts his head up a little to glance at the state of your thighs, and then he looks down at your face. “Spread your legs.”

You pull a pillow to your face so you can hide your flushed cheeks from him. You’re breathing fast and then sniffle a little against the cover. “Too much,” you muffle into it.

For fucks sake, you weren’t a virgin. You’ve had your fair share of sex in this life at your age, as you’re sure he has too. Yet for some reason the sensations, the touches, the sounds, everything he’s giving you feels so much more intense than anything else you’ve ever had in your life and you’re not sure you can handle it. At least not in any way where you can hide how deeply, deeply, deeply turned on you were right now.

“It’s okay,” he says, voice surprisingly reassuring, but that somehow makes you blush even more, and he gently nips at the lobe of your ear with his teeth while his thumb rubs soothing circles over your lower belly, “it’ll feel good. Promise. And if it’s too much, just elbow me in the ribs.”

“Thaf’s not a proffer (propper) safeword,” you muffle into the pillow.

“Baby. I don’t mean to sound rude, but do you really need a safeword just for me to touch your pussy?”

Oh.

Hearing him so casually call you baby right now did something to you…and there’s no way to even put it into words, just a feeling of visceral arousal that has you instantly melting and sweetly opening your legs for him, and he kisses the hill of your cheekbone before he settles his head back down on the pillow. He gives you his outstretched arm to rest on, your head falling on top of his warm muscled bicep, all your day-two salon blowout hair scattered across the pillow and tickling his skin, and you have to hold your breath when his hand slips right into your panties and his middle and ring fingers glide between your slick folds.

“Fuck,” he shakily exhales behind you, his touches moving with ease from the wetness, smearing it up to your clit where he rubs soft, teasing, agonizingly slow circles that match the lucidity of his sleepy state, “you’re so wet.”

“N—” you gasp when he draws them faster. “I’m not,” you insist.

“You’re gonna argue with me right now when I’ve got the proof all over my fingers?” he drawls near your ear, abandoning your clit in favor of slipping two of his thick fingers inside of you so suddenly that your entire body curls up in pleasure, thighs clenching together tightly but his hand is still strong enough to move between their pressure as he slowly pumps his fingers in and out, in and out, in and out of you, curled upwards to that spot inside that has you seeing white.

You moan with no concern of the sound anymore, freely and whiny into the air, and he ruts his hips against your ass in response to the noise, which only elicits more from you. “Keep ‘em spread,” he tells you, voice strained through his own arousal, knuckles pushing up on your inner thigh to prod you open.

Ten minutes ago, he’d have never even gotten close to seeing let alone touching the most intimate parts of you. And now, his fingers are knuckle deep inside of you. But it wasn’t enough, you’ve become greedy, and you want more.

“Satoru—” you whine, hand shooting out to grab his wrist, feeling the tilt of it towards your pussy as he continues to casually finger you while you struggle to listen to him—…struggle to keep your thighs open in the face of the desperate arousal that spreads across all your senses. “Mm, faster—”

“Would you kill me if I asked you to beg for it?” he huffs, but you can hear the grin in his voice, like he knew he was pushing it, that insufferably cocky side of him you’d usually despise if you didn’t feel his slick knuckles against your inner thigh every time he pushed his fingers all the way inside.

You turn your face into his outstretched arm, eyes shut close. “Just—” He cuts you off when his thumb finds your swollen clit, the coarse pad of it running over the bundle of nerves as he shallowly continues to fuck you with his fingers, “just do it faster—”

He slows down the pace, thumb entirely abandoning your clit all together, making you gasp, and you hear his voice near your ear when he says, “how about a ‘please’?”

“Oh my god, okay, please, you asshole!” you all but scream, nails digging into his wrist now, dangerously close to his pulse, and you make a mental note to kill him for this later, but you don’t get past the first few words in your head before you hear him say,

“Ehh I’ll take what I can get,” and then the pure pleasure of his fingers relentlessly slamming into you takes over anything else.

He kisses the crown of your head, murmuring words of sweet praise into your hair, words you couldn’t even make out if you tried, because that dull ache of pleasure in your lower belly just builds and builds and builds, even further when you glance down at the sight of him pumping his fingers inside of you over and over. Your head plops down onto the pillow gently when his arm escapes from under, so that he can wrap it around your waist, trying his best to hold you still as you squirm from the pure pleasure, but he abandons the attempt to impatiently yank your gown up instead, your warm breasts becoming exposed to cold air and he squeezes them in his hand roughly before pinching your nipple, making you writhe and arch your back. The grip you had on the wrist of his pounding hand was now seethingly harsh, nails digging deep enough to draw blood, borderline trying to slow him down from just how seriously he took your request for him to go faster, because it was almost too much, but in the most blisteringly arousing way possible.

“Please, Satoru, I’m so close—” you whine, and the second he hears the hint of a plea in your voice, his other hand slips past the fabric of your panties and finds your clit, all four fingers relentlessly rubbing back and forth against the sensitive bud, making you scream, the heel of his palm placing a constant pressure on your lower belly, and when he curls his fingers inside of you, hitting that sweet spot that makes you see stars, you completely come undone, your orgasm washing over you as your walls flutter around his fingers that continue to coax you through every pulsating sensation, moans spilling from your lips, squirming from the pleasure, before you’re completely spent and your body slowly goes limp, relaxed, face halfway shoved into the pillow and teary eyes shut close in ecstasy, hand laying weakly in front of you on top of satin sheets as you try to regain your breath.

You hear Gojo huffing slightly behind you too. He pulls his fingers out of you and you can barely see over your shoulder that he brings them to his mouth. Fuck you need to see it. Need to see the sight of him licking them clean. But all you hear in time is the lewd pop sound when he pulls his fingers out of his mouth.

“Oh my god,” he practically hisses, sucking a sharp breath in through his teeth, and he sounds desperate when he says, “let me eat you out, please—”

“No—” you gasp, a little too quickly and a little too sharp, perching yourself up onto your elbow slightly so you can turn your head to look at him. He’s looking at you with wide blue eyes, completely at halt, like whatever your next wish was would be his command. But he also looks like he wants to stuff his face between your thighs. The duality of man.

You’re still heaving from your orgasm, feeling misty in your chest, eyelashes fluttering with a slight hesitation to say what’s on your tongue because you know it’s only because you’re scared of the intimacy, and yet you want it all at the same time, too.

“Just fuck me,” you say, and to prevent sounding needy, “I have places to be.”

You briefly bite your tongue in regret over the addition, worrying it sounded pretentious and cunty and perhaps too princessy for his taste, but instead he loses his shit. Evident in the broken and desperate groan that leaves his lips, the way he immediately starts fumbling with his sweatpants then his boxers to pull himself out and press the hot tip of his erection against your ass, insanely relished in the fact that you just asked him to fuck you, which should sound like music to his ears at this point based on how strained and hard his boner’s been poking at your ass for the past twenty minutes. And it’s a strange concept, one that has you feeling delirious with confidence as you realize that one of the hottest men you know feels like he’s the lucky one here because he gets to stick his dick inside of you.

You fall back down onto your side in as casual of a way as you could manage, and his strong arm immediately wraps tight around your waist to pull all the softness of you against all the rigidity of him, into that same spooning position that got you into this arousing mess in the first place. You can feel him shifting quickly behind you, mattress dipping with hasty movements as he slides a palm between your thighs then lifts one up to spread you open for him, and then he’s pumping himself in his hand, once, twice, face buried in the crook of your neck as he indulges in a few broken groans, the sound making you point your knee high up towards the ceiling, cheeks flush and almost ashamed by how badly you need him to tear your open right now. There’s no teasing, or tormenting, or taunting from him like there usually is, all of that skipped on the basis of the sheer desperation that coats the shaky breaths he continues to exhale behind you. He lets you bite down on his hand as he yanks your soaked panties to the side and rubs his throbbing length between your slick folds, tip bumping against your clit, his precum smearing over it before he wraps a fist around his cock to position himself at your entrance and then slowly stretches you out, inch by inch, murmuring a deep and sleepy shhh it’s okay near your ear when he hears you whine and whimper from the heavy intrusion, before he’s buried to the hilt inside of you.

“Oh my god,” he sighs, almost at the same time that you do too, and you hear him swallow hard, his cock twitching inside of you. His arm wraps around you tighter, pulling you flush against his front as he presses sweet kisses behind your ear and you two just stay like this for what feels like eternity, his chest expanding in rugged and uneven breaths, like he’s savoring the sensation of being inside of you, before you just can’t take it anymore and wiggle your hips for him to just move already.

“Please, Satoru,” you whine, sniffling a little from the pure arousal, your nails digging into the skin of his forearm, “please—, move.”

He gently nibbles the lobe of your ear, withdrawing his hips back until he’s almost all the way out, save for the tip, before languidly pushing into you again, and your hand reaches out to grab the pillow in front of you to shove your face into to muffle your moan.

“I must still be dreaming,” he groans, slowly fucking you now with no rhythm or pace, just pure instinct like this is what he was made for, “there’s just—fuck,” he grunts when you clench around him tightly, “there’s just no way you’re letting me do this right now.”

“Mmff,” you muffle into the pillow, pushing your ass against his hips as your form of charity, and he uncrosses one of his arms from your waist so that his hand can snake up to cup your breast in his palm, and all the words you could possibly come up with in your head dissolve into a moan of pleasure instead.

“So tight, god, you feel so good,” he mumbles, his nose nuzzling into your hair as he breathes in deep, and you feel like your cheeks are on fire.

As he continues to knead your breast in his palm, then the other, then squeezes both at the same time, you rock your hips back gently into his, your arm reaching behind yourself, fingertips grazing the short hair of his undercut before you find yourself gripping at the soft tufts above it. You hear him inhale sharply, then he kisses your temple in encouragement as his thrusts pick up in pace and you feel that simmering ache of pleasure in your lower belly grow fiercer. Like he can read your mind, his hand leaves your tits, smoothing down your torso to lay flat against your lower belly, and he sighs in content when he can feel how deep he is underneath his palm over your belly.

You sigh into the pillow, over and over again, as he minds his business in rutting his hips into yours and makes it clear to you that he’s more than enjoying himself from the guttural groans that leave his lips from the pleasure. And when you arch your back further, an invitation that he just can’t refuse, he’s suddenly turning over, making you roll onto your stomach, and he holds himself up on one arm with his chest pressed firmly to your back before he pulls your panties halfway down your thighs and slides a pillow under your tummy, your hips now raised higher for him to slip his cock right into you again, so smooth from how slick you are but you still feel that delicious stretch from the girth of him, and the angle that he gets on you like this, with your ass up in the air, paired by the feeling of his balls slapping against your skin with every thrust that he resumes on you, has you about ready to scream.

“S-Satoru—” you whimper, arms stretching out in front of you as you push your ass back into him, forehead plopping down onto the pillow in front of you, soft hair covering your face as he pounds into you. “Mm—…oh…oh my god.”

“Fuck,” he grunts in between heavy thrusts, hips stuttering briefly from the sound of your moans, “y’know, I always pictured you’d be kinda prissy in bed,” he huffs, leaning over to pull the short sleeve of your flimsy nightgown down your arm to expose bare shoulder so he can kiss you there, “but you’re actually kinda cute.”

“That’s not—ah!” you gasp when he picks up the speed, like he already knows you’re about to argue with him over it, “Satoru!” You yelp, half in frustration, half in pure ecstasy, and you can feel his annoying grin against the curve of your shoulder as he kisses his way up to the side of your neck.

“C’mon baby, just leave it at that, yeah?” he purrs near your ear, his hand coming up to lightly pinch your nipple, “not everything has to be an argument.”

“Mm,” you muffle your irritation into the pillow, high pitched and whiny which he seems to find arousingly amusing given the huff of a laugh he exhales on the nape of your neck and the way you feel his cock jump inside of you, and then he’s nuzzling his nose into your hair again, freely, messily, rubbing his cheek against soft, tousled strands as he sighs with content, and then suddenly, he’s wrapping an arm around your ribcage just under your breasts, and pulling you upright with him so that you’re effectively leaning back against his chest with an arch to your back as he continues to fuck you from behind.

“Seriously, I mean it,” he lowly murmurs near your ear as you tilt your head back onto his shoulder in pure pleasure, and he rubs his cheek affectionately against your hair at the crown of your head while you dig your nails into the skin of his forearm tucked underneath your breasts, “you look so pretty with your hair like this,” he breathes out, almost broken, and it nearly makes you cry when he kisses your cheekbone over the splayed strands of bangs that sit over the curve, “so insanely pretty.”

You were gone, you just didn’t care anymore. With exactly sixteen sweet words, you were done for. You didn’t even realize a man worshiping your hair in the middle of sex was ever something that would have you so down bad on your knees, but you had never felt more deliriously hazy in your life. And you almost want to tell him to just pull on it, then, if he likes it so much, but there’s a simmering feeling at the base of your heart that just wants him to keep being gentle with you instead.

“Satoru, please—” you moan, throat loose and airy, thighs desperately clenching together with need, which only makes you squeeze around him even tighter and the effects of it shows in the way he drops his forehead to your shoulder, his fringe tickling your skin as he breathes heavily.

“God you’re squeezing me so tight you’re gonna cut the circulation off of my dick,” he scoffs, poorly containing just how turned on it makes him feel, and he gently leans over to lay you back down on your stomach so that your cheek is pressed into the pillow and he’s back to fucking you from behind while your ass is up in the air.

“That’s not how that—mm, works, you idiot—“ You struggle to say as heat spreads across your chest, and that tight coil in your tummy pulls more taut with each thrust, to where you feel your vision start to spot, and like he can tell you’re on the edge, his hand snakes down between your thighs and the rough pads of his fingers start to draw circles over your clit, making you gasp so sharply it feels like your throat has gone hoarse.

“C’mon, baby,” he groans, his thrusts picking up in speed along with everything else. He’s panting and heaving, and you feel a droplet of sweat fall from his face onto the back of your neck.

With one more pass of his fingers over your clit, you shut your eyes close, your entire body curls inwards and your orgasm washes over you in pleasureful waves, making you scream out a moan as you squeeze around Gojo’s cock over and over, and you feel his thrusts grow erratic, insane, all loss of tempo and rhythm, his grunts above you sounding so sonically desperate and it’s only when you feel the stutter of his hips, that you barely gain enough sane conscience in the whirlwind of pleasure swimming in your head to remember you have to tell him—

“Wait, Satoru—” you gasp, entirely sober from the delirium, “n-not inside, you can’t.”

“Huh?” he breathes out, in caution, like he had just been on the verge of cumming inside of you, then exhales a breathy—“fuck,” at the implication, and he stays inside of you until the very end of his composure, like he didn’t want to waste a single second of being inside of you, to where you could physically feel his balls jump against your clit with the last thrust he makes right before he pulls out and quickly replaces the squeeze of your cunt with the squeeze of his hand instead, and although you can barely see it over your shoulder, you can just picture it— how hot he looks as he pumps himself over your back with a fucked out groggy expression all over his handsome face.

“Shit, shit, shit— I’m gonna—” He fumbles with your nightgown to try to pull it up so he doesn’t completely soil it with his cum, but he only succeeds in pulling it up halfway before you feel hot spurts land on the fabric, sporadically painted across the exposed skin of your back, over your ass, your thighs, hell you’re even sure some of it landed in your hair as you hear him groan over and over behind you, a sound so lost in pleasure it has you reeling thinking about how you’re the one that’s causing it, and even after just having had an orgasm, your walls still clench around nothing from the thought.

When he has no more to give, he lets out a shaky breath, one that could constitute as a satisfied sigh, before he flops down onto his back next to you, chest heaving heavily, lips parted with deep breaths, eyes wide as he stares up at the ceiling and shakes his head like he’s in shock before he turns his neck to look at you.

You’re breathing heavily, then shove your face into the pillow, chest laying over your balled up fists you have kept near your rapidly beating heart, and you hear the heaviness in his breathing as well beside you, the sound intensified by the tight shut of your eyes, and you finally feel the horny haze in your head clearing slightly from the early hours of the morning.

The mattress shifts underneath you with Gojo’s weight as you feel him turn onto his side, and he curls an arm around your waist, pulling you in towards him.

And it occurs to you,

It finally occurs to you,

That you two just had sex.

He presses his lips lightly to the top of your head in nothing less than a kiss, before murmuring in a soft voice, “c’mon, let’s go clean you up–”

You slip out from under his arm, from out of the bed, and BOOK it to the bathroom like your life depended on it, shutting the door behind you, and then twisting the lock before you place your palms flat on the surface, huffing and puffing panicked breaths.

It only takes Gojo about five seconds to attempt to open the door, have a moment of brief confusion when he finds that it’s locked, and then knocks. “Wha—…y/n? The fuck? Is everything okay?”

“No! I mean–...yes! I mean–...I don’t know!” you yell.

Even through the wooden barrier of the door, you swear you can see him blink as his face twists with confusion, entirely perplexed by your behavior.

You breathe in deep, and exhale slowly, then rest your forehead on the surface of the door, glancing down at your feet over the cool tile of the bathroom. You shut your eyes close as you still feel the ghostly sensations of his arms handling you in bed, hands roaming across your skin, the feeling of him inside of you–

You shake your head to push the memories away, an almost visceral reaction to them, and it’s mostly silence for what feels like forever but was most likely only a minute, when you hear Gojo say on the other side of the door–

“Just come out here. Let me see you.”

You shake your head, as if he would have any way of seeing your refusal, before you say, “no, I’m–...I’m going to take a shower.”

He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and you don’t wait to hear whatever response he does give before you’re turning the hot water on in the shower, to drown out any noise, including the sound of your own pestering thoughts.

You pull your nightgown up over your head, tossing it into a corner of the bathroom along with your panties, open the mosaic glass door to the shower, and walk underneath the overhead shower head, the water trickling down your now tousled, soiled hair, whatever style or curl that it had been smoothed into the day before now falling from the strands, until it’s flatly soaked with water, and you run your hand through your hair, still letting go of soft, remnant huffs of air from your lips to try and come down from the intense feelings that sit in your chest.

What did this mean, now? You two crossed a line that was quite literally never supposed to be crossed. Not according to your rules, or your silly contract, or any notion of this fake marriage. Will this make things awkward? Will this make things feel more real? Will this sort of thing happen again? Would you be able to stop yourself from letting it happen again?

And will this just further complicate the confusing feelings that you seem to have for Gojo?

What were the possibilities after this, if any?

You’re surprised to find that there’s a small part of you inside, give or take once any of the awkwardness passes, that is for once not afraid to explore the what-ifs.

You step out of the shower, the steam feeling sticky on your skin as you wrap a towel around yourself and then wipe a hand across the foggy mirror to see your reflection. You look fresh, clean, no longer sleepy or dazed, but you blink at the sight of you as you still feel flushed at the chest, and sad that the hair he likes so much is now gone.

How can a person feel so sure and yet so conflicted about one single thing?

Once you finish freshening up, you open the door to get back into the room, but not without peeking your head around to see if Gojo’s still there, only to see that he’s not. And so you apprehensively step out into the room, quickly get dressed, try to dry your hair off the best you can in a hurry, and then—

Your stomach growls.

“Ah,” the soft sound leaves your lips.

You didn’t even do any of the work and you’re hungry?

Your own green sickens you.

You waft across the floors of the loft in your fresh nightgown, then peek your head over the railing of the stairs to see if you hear any noises, but you don’t.

“Mm?” you hum in confusion, then slowly make your way down the stairs.

Having successfully evaded all the creaky wood, you turn the post at the bottom, making your way towards the kitchen but quietly, stealthily, the Pink Panther theme song playing in your head as you tread the wooden floors like a spy.

Your heart was beating fast in your chest, and when you made it to the kitchen, it’s empty. You round the kitchen island, trace the marbled surface with the pad of your index finger.

Where did he go?

And then you realize— it smells like fresh coffee.

You turn around near the pantry, and just at that moment, Gojo comes walking out of it and nearly collides with you in his stride.

“Oh shit—” he says, hand darting out to hold your elbow so you don’t fall backwards onto your butt, and just from that contact alone, you’re searing.

You yank your arm out of his grip and stare at him with a panic. He’s still shirtless, wearing his loosely hung black sweatpants, but his face looks freshened up and his hair is flattened down in an attempt to tame it, and he’s squinting at you like he doesn’t have his contacts in and is struggling to make out what kind of expression you’re offering him.

“Hey,” he says, “can we talk—”

You weren’t ready to talk about it yet.

Didn’t have enough time to have an existential crisis over it.

And as if God was on your side, the doorbell rings.

“Ah!! Gotta get that!!” you chirp before turning on your heel towards the main entrance, but he reaches out to grab your wrist, making your breath hitch.

“Just hold on one sec—”

“I can’t,” you say, and you both hear the doorbell ring again, “it’s probably the highschoolers I shoo’d off yesterday because I didn’t have any cash to give for their fundraiser. I promised I’d go to the ATM.” You yank out of his hold. “Highschoolers are scary. Don’t wanna make ‘em wait!!! Or they’ll…egg…your house?” You say, blinking at him, the same way he’s blinking at you, because you’re just as confused about what you said as much as he probably is. “Ah…ahahah,” you let out some forced laughter, which most definitely just sounds awkward. You take two steps forward towards the hall, but then turn around to face him again. “Um. Also. If you have any cash on you, that’d be great. I forgot to go to the ATM.”

His expression suggests that he is just so entirely confused by you, and then he watches as you beeline to the door.

You breathe in deep, then exhale slow, tuck some damp strands behind your ear, and just try your best to calm down your beating heart before you yank open the door, fully prepared to see some obnoxious teenagers, when—

You’re met with a wide-eyed, surprised-looking Sylvie standing at the front door instead.

“Ah?” you softly exclaim.

She blinks blankly, her mouth that had been slightly agape at the sight of you closing as if she found it to be too improper of a reaction for her standards, and she smooths down the fabric of the bright blue denim waistcoat she was wearing, her palms gliding down to the matching dress pants, and then tucks her neat hair behind her ear.

“Sylvie?” you blink in surprise, “w-what are you doing here?”

She creases her brow at you, then leans back to check the house number to the side of the doorframe to check if she’s got the right house, and then her gaze shifts back to you. “What are you doing here, y/n?”

“Oh, that’s—” Your voice trails off gently, suddenly unsure, but then you find it again. “That’s what I asked you.”

“What are you doing here?” she asks again, eye contact unwavering, and somewhat impatient.

“Is a ten dollar bill enough? Or do you need a twenty?” You hear Gojo’s voice as he approaches from the side in your periphery while fishing through bills in his wallet, still gloriously shirtless and somewhat disheveled from sex and sleep, and he runs a hand through his hair before he walks right up to you, hands you a couple of bills and says, “ehhh just give ‘em a couple of twenties.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary anymo—” you start, but then his face lifts and he’s glancing towards outside of the door.

It was like something out of a movie, the way you would describe it. The way his face twists from relaxed, somewhat disinterested, into full-blown, unadulterated shock. The way his shoulders stiffen, he’s rendered still, chest decompressing with the exhale he huffs out. You’ve never seen the blue in his eyes so clearly before, not with the way they’ve never been so wide in all the time that you’ve known him, and it breaks your heart—how pretty they are.

“S—” he starts, but the syllable gets caught in his throat.

Your gaze slowly pans from him to Sylvie, who stands just outside the door, and you find that, as her eyes shift between the two of you, her expression is the exact same as his. Wide, shocked, but there was something else in there too. But just the idea of deciphering what it could be, what it could mean, makes you feel so entirely discouraged, like a stranger in your own skin, and it makes your shoulders sulk, same with the sink of your heart towards the center of the Earth.

With eyes flicking back to Gojo, you blink at him once slowly, then twice, feeling like you were out of breath from just standing alone.

You didn’t even need to ask who she was to him. You can tell by the way he’s looking at her.

Sylvie is his ex-wife.

[end of ch10. 'what if?']

[end of in holy matriphony: season 1]

song of the chapter: 'boyish' by japanese breakfast

a/n. mann i would hate to be gojo rn LOL anywho, thank you sm for readinggg <33 aaaaaaa i'm so nervous to kick off all the DRAMA and angst but............ i'm also very excited 🤭 i am once again shitting bricks posting this chapter bc i just get so nervous posting smut, idk maybe cuz i hardly post it but idk it just is so nervewracking??? and feels so vulnerable??? ahaha i imagine it gets easier the more you post it but like DAMN idk how the jjk smut authors do it. i feel more vulnerable posting this than any other chapter 🤣🤣 buuuuuut i also enjoyed writing it 🤭hehe. apologies for any typos i wrote it w one handKSDJFH im joking i just love this whole two steps forward one step back dynamic btwn reader n gojo like it's the stuff i LIVEEE for in slowburns...i'm so excited to write all the complicated emotions that come w sleeping w a man n then his EX WIFE SHOWS UP AT THE DOOR NOT EVEN AN HOUR AFTER...hell yea huuuuge and i mean BIG and i meannnn COLLOSAL shout out to my lovely beta reader leni, who held my hand as i edited this chapter lol. i had an absolute blast running this one by you 🤣🤣 tysm to all my readers who support this story <3 i was so blown away by the love w ch9, it was a behemoth to edit, and SO challenging to write. i wanted to write a lengthier author's note for that chapter bc i had SO much to say about my writing process for it but i lowkey got lazy LOL but yea it definitely tested my writing abilities the most i think of anything i've put out so far. so i really am so glad it was well received! as you may have seen, this marks the end of ihm season 1!!! sort of a cliffhanger i'm sorryyy i don't usually enjoy leaving chapters on cliffhangers but i just love the open endedness of this scene :'') ihm will be going on a bit of a break after this. i want to spend a little bit of time hashing out some of the details for the next part of the story, and also take a little time off writing! ...its ok ihm gojo my beloved... i’ll be back soon lol i sound like i'm going fucking mental. anyways. once again thanks so much for all the likes, comments, reblogs, asks etc <3 interacting w you guys is a great part of my joy these days. hope you all have a lovely day/night! ah also!!! ihm playlist!!! finally debuting it!! still a tiny bit of a work in progress but you can find it here: playlist. i name it herbal seedlings bc idk all i could think about was reader’s herb garden - ellie 🧚‍♀️✨

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bosbas · 8 months ago

Text

Chapter 1: I said, "dancin' is a dangerous game"

series masterlist previous part || next part

pairing: anthony bridgerton x fem!reader WC: 2.5k words

Warnings: period-typical gender roles, lowkey why do i ship daphne and y/n....

Summary: At her wit's end after Anthony's multiple attempts to scare away her suitors, Daphne employs her best friend's help to keep her brother distracted while she tries to find a husband. It's a foolproof plan, except it ends up working a little too well. (or, a Bridgerton version of The Taming of the Shrew/10 things I hate about you)

May 13, 1812 - You were in Hyde Park less than ten minutes before you saw Daphne Bridgerton's figure out of the corner of your eye. Delighted that she'd joined you earlier than expected, you waved her over.

"Hello, Daph," you greeted cheerfully, scooting over so your best friend could sit beside you on the bench. "I didn't think I'd see you for a few hours, given how many gentlemen asked you to dance last night. Did none of them call?"

Daphne groaned, a scowl set deep on her face, as she took a piece of bread from your basket and broke it into chunks to feed the ducks.

"Don't remind me. Most of them called, actually," she responded. "If only Anthony had let me have three seconds with them I might have been able to discern whether or not I was actually interested. He barged into the sunroom and promptly kicked everyone out. There was not a single suitor left in the room by the time he'd finished!"

You snorted. "Ah, so the overbearing eldest brother is once again to blame."

"Isn't he always?" she responded, too annoyed to match the lightness in your tone.

You just smiled to yourself and fed the ducks silently, knowing Daphne well enough to hide your smile from her, given that she was more than likely fuming at Anthony's constant meddling. You knew he meant well, but he was known to go a bit overboard at times. Well, most times. Especially when it came to Daphne's courtships.

"Anthony's the biggest rake in Mayfair, anyway. I don't know exactly what moral high ground he thinks he's standing on but it's certainly not as sturdy as he assumes," continued Daphne, still upset over that morning's happenings.

"Is it really that bad, Daph?" you said in an attempt to console her. "At least you're not getting hordes of unpleasant men at your doorstep every day. And you know the kinds of men that frequent the ton aren't always the kind you'd want to spend your afternoons with."

"I'm not getting any men at my doorstep! That's the problem!" exclaimed Daphne, exasperated. "I know you might not share the same desires as me, but I would eventually like to get married and have a family."

"I want to find a husband, too," you insisted, your tone bordering on defensive. "I just don't particularly feel bothered to look for one during my first season."

Daphne sobered immediately, coming out of her annoyance toward her brother as she could sense you were upset. "I didn't mean it like that, I swear," she insisted, placing a hand on your shoulder and looking into your eyes. "It was just-"

"I understand," you smiled at her, placing your hand over hers. "I just don't have the same urgency as you do, on account of my father having absolutely no stake in my marital status. No stake in anything about me at all, actually."

It would be a sad sentiment if you weren't used to it. You were an only child, and your mother had died after getting ill when you were only five years old. Your father, of course, was quite busy with the land he managed, and thus most of your upbringing had just been you and your governess. And the Bridgertons, of course.

You had met Daphne when she was eight and you were seven, and the two of you had gotten along splendidly since then. Since you had no real family of your own, bar your absent father, you spent copious amounts of time at the Bridgerton residence at Daphne's insistence. You now found yourself to be a semi-permanent fixture in their house, feeling just as home there as you did at your father's home.

This proximity to the Bridgertons had made you intimately familiar with Anthony's overprotective demeanor. Ever since you and Daphne were young, Anthony had gone out of his way to make sure that his siblings were cared for. Sometimes that included you, too. But unfortunately, he could take it too far sometimes.

"Did you like anyone last night, at least? Your dress was quite magnificent and I know I'm not the only one who noticed," you winked at Daphne.

She hummed thoughtfully. "I don't entirely know. I don't think one dance is enough to know whether I truly like someone," she responded, slumping down on the bench.

"Especially not when Anthony cuts the dance short halfway through," you laughed, recalling the eldest Bridgerton's attempts to thwart Daphne's search for a husband.

But your comment did nothing to lighten the mood. Instead, it seemed to make your friend even more irritated.

"It's my second year out in society! I still don't have a husband. Not even close to it, apparently," continued Daphne, aggressively tossing bits of bread into the pond.

"Well, you have to marry eventually. Anthony can't keep you away from every man for the rest of your life!" you argued.

But this did little to quell Daphne's annoyance. "He's certainly trying," she muttered.

"We can ship him off to the West Indies for the season," you joked. "Surely he won't be able to interrupt your suitors from halfway across the globe."

Suddenly, Daphne raised her eyebrows, looking at you with a devious smile.

"I was only joking! We can't actually ship him away," you laughed. "Besides, how would the ladies of the ton ever survive without the most desirable bachelor who is always just out of reach?"

Daphne snorted, amused at your dig at Anthony. "No, no, we don't have to ship him away," she said. "But you are correct in saying that I need time away from him to fully explore potential matches."

You hummed in agreement, imagining how much easier life would be for Daphne if her older brother simply... let her be. "Is he going on a hunting trip soon?" you said hopefully.

Your best friend shook her head, still smiling at you like she was plotting something.

"What is it?" you pressed, laughing at her expression.

"Can I ask you a favor?" she said, an expectant look in her eyes.

“Yes, I’ll kill Anthony for you. I’ve only been waiting for you to ask,” you joked.

“No,” Daphne laughed. “I’m serious.”

“Go on then,” you nodded.

“Could you ask him to dance at tomorrow’s ball?”

“Me? Ask him? Are you out of your mind?” you sputtered. You had never danced with Anthony at a ball, and you couldn't fathom the first time you did so being after you were the one to ask him.

“Y/N, please. I can’t just rely on forlorn glances across the ballroom to secure suitors. I need to actually speak with them, and I won’t be able to if Anthony keeps... hovering.”

Granted, hovering was a very generous word for what Anthony was really doing. But still, you looked at her, uncertainty in your eyes. You weren’t particularly keen on asking Anthony to dance, knowing he was famously opposed to marriage at this point in his life. Yes, you had grown up around him, but that didn’t mean he was interested in you at all, and you didn’t want to face that rejection if you could avoid it.

“Don’t give me that look! I promise it’ll work,” cried Daphne, desperate. “Just tell him you feel like dancing but don’t want to give another man the wrong impression since it’s only your first season and you’re still biding your time. Most of which is true.”

She made a good point. You didn’t want the hordes of men that seemed to flock to Daphne just yet. And would one dance really hurt that much?

---

The music in the ballroom pleasantly surrounded you as you stood next to Violet. Daphne had left to dance with Lord Wilson, a bachelor of very distinguished background who seemed to be hanging onto every word your best friend said.

Just as you turned to Violet to comment on how well-suited the pair looked, Anthony stormed over to where you were standing.

"It's unbelievable that she's even giving him the time of day," he said lowly, looking wholly unimpressed by the dance happening a few feet in front of him.

You could feel Anthony growing tense beside you as the seconds ticked by, and you bit the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. Three seconds of his sister speaking with a man and he was ready to explode already? He was worse than you thought.

You saw Daphne lean back as she laughed at something the gentleman said, and you knew you had to act fast before Anthony intervened.

“Oh, the music is wonderful tonight! Anthony, would you care for a dance?”

He tore his gaze away from his sister and looked at you, perplexed.

“Are you asking me to dance?”

“I believe I am, Anthony,” you said.

He scoffed, not quite believing you. “That is not very proper of you, Lady L/N.”

“And you are a great authority on propriety, I presume?" you said, a playful edge to your voice. "Given your… adventures as a rake, surely you have a better idea of what is proper than I do.”

Anthony choked at your bold choice of words, not used to people calling him out so publicly. “Y/N! Why do you want to dance with me then, if I'm such a rake?”

You rolled your eyes. “I just enjoy the music and want to dance. And I don’t want to give any other men the wrong impression,” you recited exactly what Daphne had told you to say.

He nodded reluctantly and took your hand. “Very well. One dance, then. I don’t want anyone getting the wrong impression of me either.”

This was the last time you ever did anything for Daphne. God, how difficult could one man be?

But all of your annoyance faded away once he placed his hand on your hip and spun you around. This was rather nice, you found yourself thinking. You hadn't properly danced at a ball yet, and you couldn't help but think that you'd missed out on a rather enjoyable activity.

The dance was going along quite smoothly, and you and Anthony seemed to be melting together, no longer two individuals but instead moving more like one entity. You were especially enjoying whenever his grip shifted slightly and his hand ran across the small of your back. To be truthful, you were simply having fun.

That is until you felt Anthony shifting you across the dance floor so you could get nearer to Daphne and the gentleman she was dancing with. Feeling Anthony's shoulders tense underneath your gingerly placed hands, you looked up at him.

Looking into his eyes, you raised your eyebrows. "She's fine, you know. You don't have to watch over her every second of every ball."

Anthony rolled his eyes, dismissing your comment. "Of course I do. She's my sister! I have to take care of her. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her or if she ended up betrothed to a dolt."

"Anthony," you softened your tone. "It's quite alright. It's not all up to you. You've got an entire family to keep her safe. And me, of course."

You could feel his muscles relax under your hands. "Thank you," he breathed out. "I know all of that to be true. I just worry about her. And about you! But luckily there aren't many suitors of yours to scare off."

"Oh," you said, your voice squeakier than you intended. "Thank you?" you questioned. You weren't quite sure how to take his comment.

"No!" he rushed out, immediately realizing what his words sounded like. "I didn't mean it like that. Daphne had just mentioned that you're not as interested in finding someone right now since it's your first season. And I hadn't really seen you dance with anyone at one of these balls before. And-"

"It's no trouble, Anthony," you smiled, giggling at how flustered he'd gotten. "I appreciate the concern nonetheless."

He shook his head, still not believing that he'd been so rude toward you. As much as you were a familiar face around his home, he couldn't quite tease you the way he did Daphne or any of his other sisters, and he was dreadfully embarrassed that he had made you upset, even if just for a moment.

"If you ever want to dance again, just come to me, understood?" he said, his voice turning serious. "I don't need another one of you to worry about."

You could barely contain your laughter as the music came to an end. "Yes, Anthony," you said dutifully, smiling at how silly he was being.

Looking over at Daphne, you were pleased to see that everything had gone to plan and she'd had the chance to talk to Lord Wilson the entire time you'd been with her brother. It was a relief that she'd finally gotten a normal courting experience.

Before Anthony could reach her and wrench her away from her suitor, Daphne rushed over to you, grabbing your arm excitedly.

"Shall we take a turn about the ballroom?" she suggested, leaving you no room to protest as she led you away from her mother and brother.

You laughed at her excitement, glad that your best friend was finally enjoying herself.

"Thank you so much, Y/N, truly," she gushed, squeezing your arm affectionately. "That was absolutely incredible. It's the longest time I've been able to spend with a potential match without Anthony hanging over my shoulder."

"I'm happy to do it," you said amusedly. "He was that lovely, then?"

"Oh, absolutely not," she shook her head. "Lord Wilson was dreadfully boring. But at least now I know! And I don't have to pine over him or wonder what he would be like. I know for certain I'm not interested, and I can focus on finding my true love match."

"That's wonderful, Daph," you laughed. You truly held so much affection for her. It was endearing to see her so excited over spending time with a man she didn't even like.

Suddenly, Daphne slowed her pace. Turning you around, she held both of your hands and took a deep breath. "Yes, it was. Which is why I must ask you to dance with Anthony tomorrow night as well."

"What do you mean? Ask him to dance again? I thought this was only for tonight," you sounded unconvinced. Asking her brother to dance one time had already been enough of a hassle, but having to pretend to need him to dance with you once more was looking like an insurmountable challenge.

"Please, Y/N," she begged. "It's the only way I'll find a husband that isn't someone like Nigel Berbrooke," she added, whispering the last part.

It was true, Anthony seemed to have impossibly high standards that only the most unpleasant bachelor in Mayfair seemed to be able to meet. If you could do anything to protect Daphne from that unpleasant fate, you would do it.

"I suppose I could try tomorrow night. Though I can't promise he'll want to dance with me again. Anthony seemed quite reluctant tonight," you conceded.

"Nonsense," said Daphne, rolling her eyes. "Anthony loves you dearly, I can't imagine he'd ever turn you down."

"Whatever you say," you responded, unconvinced but unwilling to dampen your best friend's chipper mood. Besides, you had a wonderful time with Anthony tonight. How could another dance possibly go wrong?

—

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ggukivrse · 11 days ago

Text

THE ART OF PRETENDING - JJK | 07

summary. when you and jungkook show up to your much anticipated graduation trip and realise neither of you had the guts to tell your friends about your recent break up, there’s only one thing you can do to keep the trip from falling apart: pretend.

but somewhere between fake kisses and real feelings, you start to wonder if letting go was ever the right choice at all.

pairing: jeon jungkook x f!reader

genre/warnings: exes to lovers, fake dating, idiots to lovers, mutual pining, swearing, fluff, angst, they finally communicate yayay, (1) pov switch, (2) cliche kdrama scene, (eventual) explicit sexual content ( mdni ! ), ft. seokjin, namjoon, hoseok, jimin, taehyung, yoongi + four female ocs

word count: 7.7k

notes: one more chapter to go!!!! i hope this one explains everything :< if it doesn’t, please do drop by in my asks so i can over-explain everything until you guys are sick of it lolol. likes, comments, reblogs, asks and feedback are very appreciated!! enjoy reading my darlings <33

< prev • next > | series masterlist | main masterlist

⤷ chapter seven — zombie girl

"maybe i've been getting you wrong / i cover you with questions / cover you with explanations."

“Jungkook. You’re a fucking idiot.”

Taehyung’s voice is blunt and tired as it carries across the quiet living room.

Jungkook doesn’t respond right away. He’s still lying on the couch, one arm flopped over his eyes to shield them from the grey haze of early morning light seeping in through the wide windows. His neck hurts. His back’s worse. And the blanket he grabbed last night is too damn thin. But more than anything, it’s the weight in his chest that keeps him from sleeping again.

Well, that and Taehyung who's crouched by the coffee table, in sweatpants and a plain top, his hair sticking up in multiple directions. He’s holding two mugs, and one gets plunked onto the table in front of Jungkook.

“I mean it,” Taehyung says, settling onto the floor, legs crossed like he’s gearing up for a lecture. “Like actually. You're an idiot.”

Jungkook sits up slowly, wincing as something in his shoulder clicks. Despite looking comfy, the couch had felt like concrete to sleep on last night. He takes the mug and mutters a thanks, even though he knows he’s not off the hook.

“Fuck, Kook.” Taehyung drops his head back and groans into the ceiling. “Okay. Let me get this straight. She said she wouldn’t take back an ex, in a game, while she was acting like your girlfriend, and instead of thinking ‘oh maybe she’s just playing the part’— which, by the way, is what you literally asked her to do— you spiral like you just got dumped or something?”

When he puts it like that, it does sound stupid, so Jungkook doesn’t answer. He just takes another sip of coffee.

“I need you to hear how insane you sound right now,” Taehyung adds, pointing at him. “You’re acting like she tattooed the words ‘I hate Jungkook’ on her forehead.”

“You don't get it, hyung. I— I kissed her,” Jungkook says quietly.

Taehyung’s mouth snaps shut. He stares.

“And then she said that. Or didn’t say anything. Whatever.” Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the roots. “I know it’s stupid. But it felt… like I was wrong for thinking it meant something. Like I got my hopes up and she was just being nice. Or drunk. Or— fuck, I don’t know, trying to keep things from getting awkward.”

Taehyung leans back on his palms. He doesn’t say anything for a while.

Jungkook keeps talking.

“But it's fine now. I'm giving her space. Clearly she doesn't think of me in the same way anymore and fuck— it sucks but I'll learn to live with it.”

Taehyung exhales slowly. “Okay.”

“I just… I miss her. All the time. Even when she’s right there.”

Jungkook sets the mug down and leans forward, placing his elbows onto his knees. There’s something about saying it out loud, finally, that makes his chest feel like it might breathe again.

Taehyung watches him carefully with that frustratingly calm stare that always comes out when he’s being more perceptive than people give him credit for.

“You do realise you're fucking leaping to conclusions here, all based on something so miniscule.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it.

“I’m just trying to do what’s best for her,” he says eventually, voice quiet.

“Then just stop trying to protect her from yourself and talk to her," Taehyung says, voice laced with exasperation. "Maybe you're right after all — though I seriously fucking doubt it — but you'll never know unless you talk to her.”

“I can't."

"Why?"

“Because if I do—” Jungkook sighs, leaning his head back against the couch. “Then I have to hear her say it. That she’s done. That she doesn’t love me anymore. And, hyung, I don’t think I can handle that. I really don’t.”

Taehyung is quiet for a long moment. His eyes are unfocused, like he's thinking through a million things at once.

“Okay.” His voice is calm, but Jungkook knows him too well to miss the edge underneath. “Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say she doesn’t feel the same way anymore.”

Jungkook shifts uncomfortably, but doesn’t interrupt.

“Let’s say the kiss meant nothing to her,” Taehyung continues. “Let’s say she’s over it. Over you. That all of this”— he gestures vaguely between them —“is just her being polite and going through the motions.”

He pauses, watching Jungkook carefully.

“If that’s true... don’t you think she would’ve walked away by now?”

Jungkook doesn’t answer, but something in his chest twists.

“She’s not stuck here, Kook,” Taehyung says, voice softer now. “She’s not trapped. We’re not kids. We’re all adults, and she doesn’t owe anyone anything — not even Jin hyung and his proposal plans. If she really didn’t want to be around you, she wouldn’t be. She wouldn't have agreed to your plan in the first place.”

Jungkook swallows hard. “I never said she hated me. I just… I don’t think she loves me anymore. Not like she used to.”

“Yeah?” Taehyung raises a brow. “And what makes you so sure?”

Jungkook doesn’t respond. Because the truth is: he’s not sure. Not really.

"You can't keep pretending that you know how she feels because it's easier than actually finding out, Kook. You can't just avoid her under the guise of giving her space that she never asked for."

Jungkook scrubs a hand over his face. “When you say it like that, I sound like a coward.”

“You are being a coward,” Taehyung says plainly. “But I also get it.”

That surprises him.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says. “You’re scared. That makes sense. You’ve always loved hard, and you’ve never really figured out how to deal with the idea of it not being returned.”

Jungkook looks at him, something almost defensive rising in his chest, but then it fizzles. Because it’s true.

He has always loved hard. Maybe too hard. Maybe in a way that’s always been just a little too much.

“And maybe she’s scared too,” Taehyung adds. “But she’s still here. Still trying. And it's not fair if you don't try either.”

Jungkook’s throat feels tight again.

He thinks about your voice last night. The way it cracked, just slightly, when you said he couldn’t kiss you one day and ignore you the next. He thinks about the way you stood in the living room and asked if you could talk, like you were still trying to hold onto something.

Maybe she’s scared too.

That thought sticks.

“She deserves better than this,” Jungkook murmurs, barely audible.

“Then stop making her guess how you feel,” Taehyung says simply. “Be honest with her. With yourself.”

Jungkook leans forward again, elbows digging into his knees. His hands are clasped, jaw clenched. There’s a thousand thoughts running wild in his head, none of them helpful. But under all of it — under the fear and the guilt — there’s one quiet thought that keeps returning.

She’s still here.

Taehyung watches him for a second longer, then pushes up off his palms and stands, stretching his arms overhead until his back gives a quiet pop. He groans at the sound, rolls his shoulders, and then grabs his now half-empty mug off the table.

“I’m serious, though,” he says, glancing down at Jungkook, who’s still hunched over like the weight of the entire conversation is settling into his spine. “You don’t have to figure it out right this second. But whatever you do, just don’t hide from her.”

Jungkook nods absently. Not a promise, but not nothing either.

Taehyung takes a few steps toward the kitchen, then stops and glances back.

“Oh,” he adds casually, “and maybe be careful around the girls today.”

Jungkook finally lifts his head, brows knitting. “Why?”

Taehyung smiles over his shoulder. “Apparently Jimin overheard them planning to fight you if ____ needed them to."

Jungkook blinks.

“They were very enthusiastic about it,” Taehyung says, disappearing into the kitchen. “Might wanna watch your back.”

Jungkook huffs out a soft laugh despite himself, dragging a hand through his hair. Rain has started to tap against the windows again in a steady manner, and he's starting to find the glum weather to be rather mocking of the situation and everything going on.

He finishes up the last of his coffee in one, bitter sip before standing with a sigh and moving into the kitchen. His legs are stiff, muscles tight from sleeping in the wrong position — or maybe not from sleeping at all. He doesn't really know anymore.

He finds Taehyung leaning against the counter, phone in hand, scrolling aimlessly while sipping from his mug with the other. The sliding glass doors are to his right, blurred slightly by the rain dotting the glass. It’s not heavy. Just enough to leave streaks down the panes and a soft grey veil over the view outside.

Jungkook makes his way over to the coffee machine, and nudges the kettle into place. His mind feels weirdly quiet now. Not peaceful, but blank in an odd way. Like there’s nothing left to think until something new sets off the spiral.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

“Speak of the devil,” Taehyung mutters.

The tone pulls Jungkook’s attention immediately. He glances over, brows furrowing. “What?”

Taehyung doesn’t answer right away. Just lifts his chin toward the window.

Jungkook follows his line of sight.

Out on the sand, maybe a few metres from the lazy ocean, sits you. Hood down. Legs pulled to your chest. Arms wrapped around them loosely. Your hair’s getting damp from the light rain, sticking slightly to your skin, and you're just sitting there.

No umbrella. No towel. No rush to move.

Jungkook watches for a few seconds, expecting you to shift, to stand, to brush off your jeans or shake your head and head back in, but you don’t.

You just stay where you are.

Taehyung exhales next to him, tapping the edge of his mug with his thumb. “She been out there long?”

Jungkook doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know. Instead, he simply says, "She's gonna get sick."

Taehyung hums noncommittally, eyes still fixed outside. “Yeah. Probably.”

The rain’s light but steady, enough to soak through clothes if you sit in it long enough. Which — judging by the look of it — you’re doing. You're not curled up for warmth or sheltering your head with your arms. Just sitting, with your back to the house, posture unreadable, and from here, Jungkook can’t even make out the expression on your face.

That bothers him more than he’d like to admit.

“She doesn’t even have a jacket,” he mutters. His hand hovers near the kettle, but he doesn’t go for another cup.

Taehyung leans against the counter, casual as ever, and sips from his mug. “You think she’s out there because of yesterday?”

Jungkook doesn’t answer.

Because what’s he supposed to say? That he doesn’t know? That he hopes so, because at least then it means you still care — but also hopes not, because it means he really fucked up?

He looks down at the floor briefly, and shakes his head. “Maybe.”

Another beat of quiet.

Then Taehyung says, like he’s thinking out loud, “Or maybe she just needed to be alone.”

That makes Jungkook hesitate.

Because yeah, maybe you’re out there for space. And maybe walking out with an umbrella and a few soft apologies isn’t what you need right now. He could keep doing what he’s been doing — hanging back, trying not to make things worse, convincing himself that silence is safer than saying the wrong thing.

But where has that gotten him?

Nowhere good.

The kettle clicks behind him, but Jungkook doesn’t move to fill his mug. Instead, he sets it down on the counter and walks toward the door, eyes flicking briefly to the umbrella stand that’s been sitting there since the trip started, untouched.

He grabs the handle of the nearest one. It’s a little worn at the edges, slightly bent near the tip, but it’ll do.

He stands there for a moment, the umbrella resting loosely in his grip. He still doesn’t know what he’s going to say when he gets to you — if he says anything at all. Maybe you won’t even want to hear it. Maybe you’ll ask him to go. Or maybe you won’t say anything, just let the silence stretch between you the way he did last night.

But watching you from behind the glass, doing nothing, feels worse.

The air that greets him as he pulls open the door is cool and damp, the scent of sea salt drifting in with the breeze. He steps out, closing the door behind him, and pops open the umbrella with a soft click.

The sky is painted a murky blue — too dark to be morning, but too light to still be night. The kind of early where the world feels like it has come to a still.

You sit in the sand, your knees drawn up, your fingers tangled together just to keep them still.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been out here. Long enough for your plaid pyjama pants that you hadn't bothered to change out of, to get damp where they press against the ground. Long enough for your fingers to start going cold. The rain has softened to a mist, barely more than a whisper now, but you’re already soaked through at this point. Still, you haven’t moved.

You should. You know that. It’s not warm, and you didn’t exactly dress for sitting in wet sand like a ghost of your former self. But movement feels like a thing that belongs to people who have direction. And right now, you don’t.

You just feel untethered.

Not angry. Well, not exactly.

Just tired in a way you haven’t let yourself admit until now.

The past few days have been a slow unravelling. And yesterday — yesterday pulled at the last few threads.

You think back to the living room. The sound of rain tapping against the windows. The way you stepped in front of him, heart in your throat, trying to speak. Trying to say something — anything — to bridge the space that had suddenly, grown between you.

"I’m sorry the kiss didn’t mean anything.”

The words still sting.

You don’t think he meant it to sound cruel. Jungkook doesn’t weaponize words like that. But it definitely landed cruel.

Because it did mean something. It had to. Or maybe you just wanted it to so badly, you convinced yourself it did.

You glance down at your hands in your lap. Sand clings to the skin between your fingers. There’s a bit under your nails. You brush at it absentmindedly, then give up.

If you're being honest, this isn't really about the kiss. Or the argument.

It’s about how he’s been holding you at arm’s length ever since.

You keep trying to understand it. What changed. What line you must’ve crossed in that kitchen or at the beach or in the thousand unsaid things between you.

You try to make sense of his silence in the morning, of the way he ignored the coffee you made, the way he got up from the couch when you tried to sit beside him, and you keep circling back to the same hollow conclusion: he’s done trying.

But if he’s done trying, why does it still feel like he’s watching you every time you’re not looking?

You sigh, pressing your thumb to the inside of your palm, grounding yourself in the motion. Your eyes drift to the grey ocean that stretches out in front of you. It reminds you of Jungkook in that way. Always steady. Always showing up. Even when you didn’t ask him to.

Even now, after everything.

A part of you still feels like you’re waiting for something. For him.

And maybe that’s the worst part — not knowing if you’re waiting to forgive him, or waiting to finally let him go.

You hate that it’s not clear.

Because you don’t hate Jungkook. Not even close.

You’re hurt. You’re confused. You feel like you’ve been spinning in circles while he holds all the answers and refuses to hand you even one. But you don’t hate him.

You can’t.

He was your best friend before he was anything else. He’s still the person you catch yourself thinking about when something funny happens. Still the person you instinctively turn to in a crowd. Still the name your mouth almost forms when you’re half-asleep and dreaming about something soft and good.

And maybe that’s why all of this feels so impossible to sit with.

Because loving someone that much doesn’t always fix what’s been broken.

You close your eyes.

You don’t hear the sliding door or the soft crunch of footsteps in damp sand. You’re too far out to notice much of anything but the breath of the ocean and the thrum in your chest that won’t quite settle.

The rain stops rather abruptly.

Or at least… it stops hitting you.

You open your eyes, confused.

There’s an umbrella above your head.

And beside you, a quiet figure crouches, a little out of breath, holding it over you like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to be here.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything. His clothes are damp, his hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows. The shadows under his eyes and his hair seem to almost match in colour.

You look at him, but don’t speak.

He meets your gaze briefly. Then drops his eyes to the ground.

“Can I?” he gestures, motioning to the space beside you, his voice soft.

You don’t answer. Instead, you simply turn your face back toward the water like the question never left his mouth.

The space between you is narrow but it feels impossible to cross. And still, you feel him hovering there beside you, like he’s waiting for a sign you’re not going to give.

He hesitates before sitting down, the action almost cautious.

You hear the shuffle of damp fabric, the gentle thump of his weight settling into the sand. He angles the umbrella to cover the both of you, his arm stretched awkwardly behind you to keep it in place. You can feel the tension clinging to him in every movement.

The rain ticks against the nylon of the umbrella and the ocean murmurs. You can hear the faint sound of him breathing. You don’t look at him.

Not because you’re angry — okay, maybe a little — but because you don’t trust what might happen if you do. You’re too raw, too exposed, and you’re still trying to figure out if the ache inside you is grief or something worse — hope.

You’re tired of hoping.

Seconds pass in silence that slowly melts into minutes. You start to wonder if he's going to speak at all, or if he's continue his bullshit from yesterday when you hear him sigh quietly.

“I thought you were talking about me,” Jungkook says eventually, voice low, almost embarrassed. “When you said you’d never take back an ex.”

Your stomach twists as the realisation dawns on you.

“And I know I shouldn’t have assumed,” he adds quickly. “I should’ve asked. Or at least waited. But I didn’t. And it felt like… you were drawing a line. Like the kiss meant nothing to you.”

He shifts slightly beside you. You don’t look, but you can feel him angling toward you, tentative, like he’s bracing for impact.

“I didn’t say it to hurt you,” he continues quietly. “What I said last night. I just—” He sighs again. “I was hurt. And confused. And scared that I was the only one who still cared that much.”

You blink slowly, eyes on the sea.

He sounds sincere. He always does. But sincerity doesn’t patch holes. It doesn’t rebuild trust. Not when you’re the one who’s been standing in the wreckage for weeks, waiting for answers that never came.

“I didn’t know what to do when you didn’t answer me that night,” Jungkook says after a beat. “When I asked if you meant it. You just… went quiet. And I panicked. I thought maybe you were just being kind. Or that you were too drunk to really mean it. Or worse — that you were trying to keep things from getting awkward. And then I started thinking about what you said during the game, and I just—” He breaks off. “I spiralled. I thought I’d made it worse. That maybe being close to me again was just... exhausting for you.”

You still don’t look at him.

Not yet.

He sighs again, softer this time. “So I pulled back. I thought it was what you wanted. I thought, if you didn’t care anymore, then maybe I was just in the way. And I couldn’t take the risk of asking. Because if I asked and you told me straight out that you didn’t care for me anymore in the way I cared for you, I— I wouldn't have been able to handle it."

You finally turn to look at him. Just slightly. Just enough to see the way he’s holding himself — like everything inside him is tense and tired and barely holding together.

“You think I don’t care about you?” you ask quietly.

He blinks, startled by your voice, by your words, by the fact that you’ve finally turned toward him.

You shake your head slowly, incredulous. “You think I’d agree to your stupid plan to in front of our closest friends if I didn’t care about you in the slightest?”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he says.

“I let you kiss me,” you continue, voice a little stronger now and sharp with disbelief. “I let you touch me like nothing had changed. I’ve spent every night in the same bed as you, Jungkook. Do you honestly think I would’ve gone through all of that if I didn’t care?”

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Do you know how hard it’s been? Watching you treat me like a stranger one second and like something you still want the next? Pretending it doesn’t bother me every time you walk away when I try to sit beside you, or when you ignore the coffee I made, or when you act like I’m the one who created this distance?”

His jaw tightens, expression pinched like he’s finally hearing all of it — the hurt, the confusion, the vulnerability you’ve been biting back since this trip started.

You look at him then. Fully. And it takes everything in you not to cry from the weight of finally saying it.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he says quietly. “When we broke up.”

The more he speaks, the more questions that form in your head. You look at him, brows furrowed in confusion. His eyes are fixed on the ocean now, like he can’t bring himself to meet your gaze again.

Your voice is low when you finally speak. “The right thing?”

He nods once, but doesn’t elaborate.

You wait.

And when he still doesn’t say anything, you ask, “For who?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

Then, after a long beat, he says, voice so quiet that the sound is almost lost to the wind, “For you.”

That stings more than you expect. Because if this is what him doing what’s best for you looks like, you don’t want to see what the opposite would’ve been.

You want to speak, but you stop yourself. You want to hear the whole story — no more fragments, no more half-truths — and you want him to want to tell it.

Jungkook sighs again, rubbing at the back of his neck with his free hand. His other arm is still outstretched, holding the umbrella over both of you. You wonder how long he’s going to keep it there before his arm gives out.

“I know you’re mad,” he says finally, softly. “You have every right to be. I just… I needed you to know it wasn’t because I stopped caring. I never stopped.”

But that isn't enough anymore. You've learned to realise that caring and choosing are two different thing, and he chose to walk away for reasons you're still unsure about.

The silence between you stretches long and thin. You return your gaze to the sand in front of you, but you can feel him in every fidget and every glance he throws your way.

“Then why did you?”

He doesn’t ask what you mean because he knows.

And maybe that’s the worst part — that he’s known this whole time, that you’ve been drowning in confusion for weeks and he’s been standing on shore with the answers in his pocket.

His voice is hesitant when he eventually speaks. Almost as if he never wanted to say the words out loud.

“I saw the email.”

Your brow furrows before you even realise it. You glance at him, and he’s already looking down, lashes low, jaw set.

“What email?” you ask.

“The one from Berlin.”

Your stomach drops.

You hadn’t told anyone. Not back then. You were still trying to figure it out yourself — if you could do it, if you even wanted to.

You never imagined he’d seen it.

“How?” you ask, a little sharper this time. Your heart racing now.

“You left your laptop open. You were in the shower.”

Your lips part slightly. “So you… read it?”

“Just the subject line.” He looks guilty. “The name of the program. The ‘congratulations.’ That was enough.”

You look away, back to the ocean. You remember the moment now — coming out of the bathroom, finding him on the couch with his phone in hand, your laptop screen closed.

He must’ve seen it and said nothing. Carried it and let it snowball.

You blink slowly, trying to process. “You should’ve asked me about it.”

“I know.”

“Instead, you—” You stop yourself. Swallow hard. “You broke up with me?”

His answer comes quickly this time, like he’s been holding it in ever since.

“I didn’t want to hold you back.”

It’s so simple. So clear. So frustratingly stupid.

You let out a short, humourless laugh and shake your head. “So you just made the decision for me?”

Jungkook goes still beside you.

“You didn’t even ask what I wanted,” you say, voice soft but steady. “Didn’t give me the chance to choose.”

“I thought—” He breaks off, then runs a hand through his hair. “You’ve talked about wanting to live abroad since freshman year. About how you’d take any opportunity you could get if it was the right one. And that program? It was a huge deal. You worked your ass off for that email. I couldn’t be the reason you turned it down.”

“But I did,” you say, not looking at him. “I turned it down.”

He’s quiet.

“I turned it down before we even broke up,” you add, and there’s no satisfaction in saying it. “I read it, I thought about it, and I knew I wasn’t ready to leave.”

You glance at him, and he’s staring at you, frozen. “You didn’t even give me a chance to tell you that.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Because you didn’t ask.”

Jungkook lets out a shaky breath. “I thought I was doing the selfless thing.”

You finally meet his eyes. “It wasn’t selfless. It was cowardly.”

He flinches a bit, like you hit him, but you don’t take it back.

You don’t enjoy saying it. You don’t want to hurt him. But it’s the truth, and the truth matters now more than ever.

You look away again, toward the sky and the dull curve of the horizon. Your voice is quieter when you speak. “You say you never stopped caring. But caring about someone means you talk to them. You trust them to make decisions with you, not for you.”

“I didn’t trust myself,” he admits. “Not to be selfish. Not to ask you to stay.”

Fuck. In a way, he's right in that sense — you would've stayed if he'd asked you to and you're not sure if that makes you proud or foolish.

You draw a shaky breath and hug your arms tighter around your knees.

“Do you know what it felt like?” you ask, voice just above a whisper. “Thinking I wasn’t enough?”

Jungkook’s voice is immediate. “You are.”

“It didn't feel like it, Jungkook. It felt like— like you just realised one day that I wasn't good enough so you left. That I was something you could just throw away without looking back.”

“I just— I didn’t want to be the reason you stayed.”

Your chest tightens. You wish he’d said that weeks ago. You wish you didn’t understand it now.

The umbrella has started to dip, though Jungkook doesn’t seem to notice. His shoulders are slumped, his hand shaking slightly where it grips the handle. You don’t reach out. You don’t steady it for him.

Instead, you stare at the ground.

Because for the first time in weeks, you feel like you’re finally getting answers. And for the first time, you wish they didn’t hurt this much.

For a while, neither of you speak. You simply watch as the ocean laps at the shore gently, trying to quiet your mind.

Jungkook shifts slightly beside you, the umbrella angling just enough that a light drizzle brushes the edge of your shoulder. Still, neither of you move. He must feel it too, but maybe, like you, he’s not sure if he has the right to fix anything anymore.

You tuck your chin against your knees.

“I thought you were going to propose.”

He freezes.

You don’t look at him. Just keep staring down at the sand, wet and rippled and full of small, wavy lines. “I found the receipt from the jeweller. A few days before it happened. You’d left it in the glove compartment.”

His breath catches, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I didn’t know if I was imagining it,” you continue. “But… you were acting different. Distant and like, nervous. You’d been asking Tae weird questions. I figured maybe you were just waiting for the right moment.”

Another beat passes, and you let out a soft, bitter laugh. “And then you left.”

You finally glance at him.

His face is tight with something like regret. Shame, maybe. His eyes are focused on a point in the distance, jaw clenched so hard you can see the tension in his neck.

“I was,” he says, voice low. “Going to propose.”

You swallow hard, throat dry. “Why didn’t you?”

He hesitates. “Because I saw the email, and I panicked. Everything just—shifted.

“I thought if I proposed, it would be selfish. Like I was tying you down. Making you choose me over something bigger. Something more. And I didn’t want to be that person.”

“You weren’t tying me down,” you say. “You were supposed to be part of the future. Not the thing standing in front of it.”

Jungkook’s eyes finally flicker to yours.

“I know that now,” he says. “But at the time… all I could think about was what if you said yes because you felt like you had to? Because you didn’t want to hurt me? And then a year from now you’d wake up in some apartment with me and wonder what could’ve happened if you’d left when you had the chance.”

You blink hard, trying to keep your voice from cracking. “You should’ve trusted me to make that choice.”

“I didn’t trust me,” he says. “I loved you so much it scared me. I still do. And it felt like— like too much of me was wrapped up in you. Like I couldn’t be objective anymore. I couldn’t think straight. I just—”

He breaks off, eyes cast low, voice thinner now.

“I thought letting you go was what I had to do.”

You breathe in slowly, trying to steady your pulse. “So you let me go. Without asking. Without warning.”

“I know,” he says. “I know I handled it all wrong.”

You nod once, slowly. “You did.”

“I kept waiting for you to call,” you admit. “I thought that maybe you’d change your mind. That you’d wake up and realise it was a mistake.”

“I did,” he says, instantly.

The wind brushes past you, loosening strands of hair from behind your ear.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” you ask, quieter now. “Why didn’t you reach out?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I guess I thought if I stayed away, it’d be easier. For both of us.”

You look down at your hands.

As stupid as it was, he thought he was being selfless. But really, he was afraid. Of being the one who made you stay. Of being the reason you didn’t go. Of being loved too much, and losing it anyway.

You don’t know what to do with all that.

You’re not sure if it’s something to forgive, or just something to live with.

The umbrella’s starting to tilt. His arm’s been outstretched too long.

You glance at it, then at him. He’s not complaining — just sitting there, jaw tight, fingers white-knuckled around the handle.

You reach over without thinking and adjust it yourself, steadying the angle so it stops dripping at the edge. Your hands brush, and his flinch is barely perceptible — not from the touch, but from the way it happens so easily. Like it always used to.

The umbrella rights itself. The air between you doesn’t.

God, this would've been so much easier if you didn't still love him. If you didn’t still want to know how he’s doing first thing in the morning or wonder if he’s eaten. If your body didn’t still tilt toward his in a room without meaning to, like it forgot what happened.

But you do. You still love him.

And love — the kind you had, the kind you have — doesn’t just go away.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the hurt disappear either.

You lower your hand, letting go of the umbrella. Letting go of him, too, just a little.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” you murmur.

Jungkook swallows hard. “I don’t want you to say anything you don’t mean.”

“I mean,” you start, then stop. “I need time.”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just sits a little straighter, arm still raised, rain still pattering gently over the both of you.

You continue, voice careful. “Not because I don’t care. I just… I’ve been so tangled up in everything that happened, and in what you did and didn’t say that I haven’t had a second to think for me.”

You draw in a deep breath. “And I need that.”

Jungkook finally lowers the umbrella. Not all the way, but just enough that the edge dips again and the mist kisses the back of your neck. He nods slowly, like it hurts, but he understands.

“I want to be honest with you,” you say, softer now. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if we’ll fix this. But I do know that pretending we’re fine, or jumping back into what we had— it wouldn’t be fair. Not to either of us.”

Jungkook blinks fast and nods again.

“But I meant what I said the other night,” you add. “When I didn’t move away. When I let you kiss me. It did mean something to me.”

He exhales shakily. “Okay."

You don’t say anything after that. Neither does he.

The sky has slowly started lightening into morning. You know you're going to regret sitting out here later — you can already feel the ache building in your back. But for now, you hug your knees a little closer to your chest and stay.

The stars are bright tonight, painted across the dark sky in constellations. A soft breeze rolls through the open balcony, and the air is cool against your arms where they rest along the wooden railing.

Up here, it’s quieter than usual. Everyone's gathered around in small groups as you stand a few steps off to the side.

Your body relaxes into the railing, elbows hooked over the edge. You haven’t really spoken to anyone tonight. You’d slipped back inside after the beach and crashed on the bed without a second thought. It’s the first time all week your mind hasn’t been a mess of things you don’t want to admit out loud.

Now, you feel the last of it — the fog of that sleep — still lingering at the edge of your awareness. You blink slowly, eyes tracing the way the light spills over the floorboards, how it wraps around Namjoon and Aria as they talk quietly near their door. Jimin’s halfway through telling a story to Hoseok, animated as ever, and Yoongi keeps interrupting with deadpan commentary that earns a laugh every time. Kiara rests her head against Hoseok’s shoulder, her hand absentmindedly playing with the sleeve of his hoodie.

They’re all waiting.

Yasmine isn’t here. She’s with Seokjin and Haeun, probably directing the last-minute touches for whatever proposal magic he's cooked up. She swore everyone else wasn’t allowed downstairs yet. “You'll ruin the surprise,” she said earlier, shoving Jimin back up the stairs when he tried to sneak a peek.

Your gaze drifts over the group again, pausing for a beat on the spot where Jungkook isn’t.

You haven’t spoken to him since this morning. You hadn’t meant your words to sound like a wall going up, but maybe they had. He's been giving you space ever since, and you'd taken it.

You’d gone inside and slept like you hadn’t in days. And now you’re here, awake and still somehow tired, unsure what to say even if you knew where he was.

You rub a finger along the edge of the railing just as you hear footsteps from behind you.

Jungkook comes to a stop beside you, close enough that you catch the scent of his cologne — faint and familiar, buried somewhere in your memory alongside sun-warmed sheets and midnight conversations. He rests his forearms on the railing, mirroring your stance. There’s a careful sort of quiet that settles between you, more comfortable than awkward.

“You slept,” he says after a moment.

You nod. “Yeah. Knocked out.”

His voice is soft. “Good. You needed it.”

“I think my body gave up arguing.”

He hums in agreement. “You looked peaceful.”

You glance sideways at him. “You were watching me?”

He shrugs. “Just… passed by. The door was cracked.”

You hum and let the silence return, not rushing to fill it.

Down the line, Jimin says something that makes Kiara burst out laughing. The sound is warm, and it pulls a small smile from you too.

You don't notice Jungkook moving until he's pulling something from his hoodie pocket. “Hey, um— before you say anything,” he starts, holding up his hands a little, “this isn’t me trying to win you over or anything. I just… I got you something.”

You blink, turning to him more fully.

He holds out a small bundle wrapped in crinkled tissue. “I actually bought it the day we went into town. That’s why it took me so long to ‘get water.’”

You stare at the bundle, then slowly reach out and take it from his hand.

“I saw them and just… thought of you,” he adds quickly. “That’s all.”

You unwrap the paper. Your fingers pause when you see what’s inside.

Earrings.

Small pearls that are almost identical to the ones you lost.

Your breath catches, but you don’t say anything. You just hold them in your palm, letting the weight of them settle, letting the quiet linger while your heart does something you’re too scared to name.

You turn the earrings over in your hand and the light catch on the glassy stones. They glint, just like the pair you used to wear.

“They’re almost the same,” you murmur.

Jungkook leans a little closer, arms still resting on the railing. “Yeah. I thought they were, too.”

You glance at him, catching the faintest curve of a smile before he looks away.

“Thank you.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

You brush your hair back and slip one earring in, then the other. They’re light, barely there. A part of you wonders how long he had them tucked away. How long he’d been waiting for the right moment — or maybe convincing himself there wouldn’t be one.

When you glance at him again, he’s already watching you. His eyes flicker to yours for half a second too long before he looks away, clearing his throat.

“They look good on you,” he says.

You smile, small and real. “You always say that.”

His mouth pulls into something like amusement, but there’s something else there too. Something quiet and tender.

He doesn’t say anything else.

For a few long seconds, you both watch the stars. And in the quiet, you feel it again — that thing that’s never fully left. The pull. The ache. The way being near him still feels like second nature even when everything else feels unsure.

The earrings catch the light as you turn back toward the sky, your profile soft in the glow of the overhead bulbs. You don’t say anything else, and neither does he. Jungkook stays still beside you, watching the curve of your cheek, the gentle sway of your hair in the breeze.

He lets out a slow breath and shifts his gaze forward.

There’s a strange peace in this moment; like standing on the edge of something that used to be home, knowing it may never be again, but still loving it anyway. He’s not sure what to do with that.

Then, from the stairwell behind them, Kiara calls out, voice bright and breathless, “They’re coming up!”

Everyone turns, chairs scraping and voices rising.

Jungkook doesn’t move right away. He watches as you straighten up, tucking your hair behind your ear. You walk forward a few paces, toward the centre of the balcony, just as Seokjin and Haeun step up into view.

“She said yes!” Seokjin beams, his hands thrown up in triumph.

Haeun laughs, eyes glassy and shining. “Of course I did, idiot.”

The group erupts — cheers, clapping, congratulations tumbling over each other. Jimin shouts something about planning a bachelor party that immediately makes Yoongi groan. Namjoon pats Seokjin on the back so hard it nearly knocks him forward.

Jungkook stays back, leaning against the railing.

He watches as you move forward and wrap Haeun in a hug, then Seokjin too. Your smile is wide — real — the kind that lights up your whole face. It hits him all at once: how beautiful you look in this moment. How easy it is to picture a future like that with you.

How close he’d come.

His hand twitches at his side.

He remembers standing in a jewellery store with Taehyung a few months ago, holding a ring box in his hand and wondering if you’d cry when he asked. He’d imagined this exact scene — your friends around you, stars overhead, your arms wrapped around him instead.

But it hadn’t happened. Because he hadn’t let it.

Because he’d thought he was doing the right thing by letting you go before he became something that held you back. Before he became the reason you said no to the rest of the world.

And yet here you are.

He swallows hard, pushing the thought down. It’s not just regret — there's something more than that. Something like almost.

Almost asked.

Almost said yes.

Almost forever.

Jungkook exhales slowly, and from across the balcony, you glance back at him.

It’s only a second, but he can tell you feel it too.

You look away first.

Only because Kiara calls your name, reaching out to pull you back into the circle forming around Seokjin and Haeun. Jungkook watches as you step into it easily, your laughter mixing with the others’, your hands clapping as Jimin demands a full retelling of the proposal, as if none of you saw it coming.

Jungkook doesn’t move right away.

He lingers at the railing, hands buried in the front pocket of his hoodie, eyes still trailing after you. There’s something familiar in the way you laugh at whatever ridiculous thing Seokjin is saying, the way you throw your arms around Haeun without hesitation, nudging Seokjin with a mock-scolding look. Like nothing’s fractured. Like you belong there.

You always did.

And maybe that’s what makes it hurt — how natural it still feels to love you in silence.

Eventually, he moves. Makes his way over with a grin that feels steady enough. He wraps both Seokjin and Haeun into a hug, murmuring something that makes Haeun laugh and Seokjin say, “Took you long enough.”

Just as he steps back, the first firework cracks open above.

A deep, thunderous sound fills the air before gold floods the sky, scattering into a trail of light that fades into falling blue sparks. Instinctively, everyone presses in toward the railing, crowding together. In the quiet jostling, you end up beside Jungkook again.

Neither of you speak.

You’re watching the sky like it’s something brand new. Head tilted back, arms loosely crossed on the railing, lips slightly parted. The reflection of the fireworks dances across your face in flashes; amber, silver, a soft lavender that makes your eyes seem even softer.

Jungkook doesn’t watch the sky.

Not really.

He watches you.

In the brief pause between bursts, he sees your lashes catch the light, your expression unguarded.

How are you still the most beautiful thing in a sky full of fire?

Another firework blooms — gold again, then violet, then a wave of silver sparks that make the whole group gasp.

You exhale slowly, like you’ve been holding your breath.

“It’s so pretty,” you murmur, just loud enough for him to hear.

Jungkook doesn’t look away. Not even for a second.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes only on you. “It really is.”

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missadangel · 2 months ago

Text

MAKE HIM DISLIKE LOVE YOU

Harry Castillo x Reader (The Materialists)

Chapter 9: Hurt

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Chapter Summary: Is love enough to overcome everything? -Yes. How? -No. Why? Warnings: 18+ (smut, MDNI) kinda romantic comedy stuff, fluffy, angst, lying, soft and caring Harry Castillo, Lucy as his ex, John as Lucy's ex, wealth, expensive gifts, drinks, money, cars, language, sexual tension, oral sex, p in v sex, kissing, slow burn, power imbalance, I might have missed some warnings; I will update them in due time. Chapter Word Count: 9,8k, ANGST (sorry for that), love, feelings, fluffy, rom-com, lust, passion, dirty talk, love triangle, intrigue, mention about death. authors note: I used Spanish and Italian language in some parts, I'm sorry if I made mistake, I'm still a learner. Feel free to warn me guys :) Thank you all for your support, asks, comments, reblogs and likes. I appreciate each and every one of you! Love you all!

“Baby, just try to breathe.”

That was the third time Harry had said it as you both stepped out of the car, holding hands while walking up to the mansion. But despite his reassurance, your nerves were still going wild.

Excitement mixed with anxiety as the weight of the moment settled in; you were about to meet your boyfriend's mother. Your mind raced with questions, each one jostling for attention like cars on a racetrack.

No, don’t think about cars, you reminded yourself.

You didn’t want to make a strange first impression by mentioning things like what men typically like. The last thing you wanted was for your future mother-in-law to think you were odd.

Mother-in-law.

That thought made you grin a bit.

Suddenly, you felt Harry’s lips on your temples, and you turned to him in surprise. “You looked like you needed that,” he said with a grin, wrapping his arm around your waist and leading you toward the door.

He was right; the kiss worked wonders. You gazed at the grand historical mansion in front of you, located in Brooklyn Heights, not too far from the bridge. It was surprisingly close to your and Zoe's apartment in Dumbo. Considering the Castillo family's wealth, you were taken aback to learn his mother lived here. On the way over, Harry had mentioned that his mother had faced a trauma that kept her from leaving the house for years. That made you feel a wave of empathy as you anticipated meeting her. Taking a deep breath, you tightened your grip on Harry's hand while clutching the bag of pastries and pie you had prepared all morning.

“Mr. Castillo, it’s great to see you again.”

An older guy opened the door, greeted Harry, and welcomed both of you in with a warm gesture. Stepping inside, the spacious reception hall welcomed you with its grandeur. The staircase twisted in multiple directions, adorned with wrought iron balustrades and floral designs. While you admired the surroundings, Harry helped you remove your coat before doing the same for himself, handing them to the man.

“This way,” he said, guiding you gently toward a large hall on the right with his hand resting on your back.

“Master Harry!” A woman in her sixties approached you, arms wide open and wearing a big grin. Dressed casually, her accent clearly revealed her Latin roots.

“How are you, Sofia?” Harry asked her.

“I’m better now that I’ve seen you!” she replied, giving his arm an affectionate touch.

Then, she turned her attention to you, her smile widening as she took in your appearance from head to toe. “Oh, Dios mío, qué mujer tan hermosa eres.”

Nervously, you smiled. Your Spanish wasn’t great, but you grasped the compliment. “Muchas gracias,” you managed to reply.

Her laughter rang out as she seamlessly switched back to rapid Spanish, leaving you a bit lost. You looked to Harry for help. “Sofia, could you please speak in English? I’m not sure she understands you,” he said to her.

“Oh, disculpa, señorita,” she said, looking at you, a bit embarrassed. “Mrs. Castillo is inside, waiting for you.” She took the bag from your hand and led the way.

As you walked in, you whispered to Harry, “I really need to work on my Spanish.”

He chuckled lightly. “It’s not on you. Sofia’s English isn’t great, and she loves speaking her native tongue. Sometimes she talks so fast that even I can’t keep up.”

“Oh yes, they’re here; I’ll call you later,” a voice came from the living room. When she hung up and turned around, you couldn’t help but admire her. She was a woman in her late sixties with short gray hair, stunning for her age. Honestly, she looked more like Harry's older sister than his mom.

Her gaze focused on Harry, and a joyful tear sprang to her eye as a wide smile spread across her face. “Mi hijo!” They embraced tightly, and you felt a warm smile cross your lips as you watched them. She playfully punched Harry on the shoulder. “You’ve really been a bad son! Is your job more important than your old mama?”

“Mother, must you embarrass me in front of my girlfriend?" he grunted.

Her gaze then shifted to you, prompting you to flash your most nervous smile. As her admiration deepened, you felt your cheeks heat up while she appraised you with a satisfied expression. “Oh, how beautiful you are!” she exclaimed, narrowing her eyes at Harry. “Now I see why you’ve been so busy.”

Harry chuckled as he introduced you.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Castillo,” you said warmly, extending your hand.

With a cheerful laugh, she shook your hand. “Oh, please, cariño, just call me Valeria.”

Sofia, the woman you met earlier, quietly stepped into the room and leaned in to whisper, her eyes sparkling with mischief as they both chuckled while looking at you. “Sofia says dinner’s ready; let’s head to the dining room,” Valeria announced, her gaze locking onto yours with intensity. Harry took your hand gently, and Valeria placed her hand reassuringly on your back. “Come on, sweetheart,” she invited with warmth.

Well, you hadn’t expected this kind of attention from Harry’s mom. She kept an eye on you until you were comfortably settled at the table. Harry pulled your chair out for you, sliding it in once you sat down, then took a seat right beside you. Valeria, at the head of the table, folded her hands and shot you a warm smile while Harry beamed with happiness as you two exchanged grins.

As dinner was served, Harry and Valeria chatted easily about work. When the conversation shifted your way, you answered every question honestly, sharing that your mom had passed away, your dad was living alone on your farm in Atlanta, and a bit more about your life. Valeria listened closely, her kind smile and supportive words making you feel at ease. When it was your turn to talk about your job—the part that made you the most anxious—Valeria surprised you. “Don’t feel ashamed, honey. This job is one of the toughest out there. People can be awful, but you’re amazing and hard-working, and you deserve more. Keep your head high; it’s the person who brings dignity to the job, not the job that brings dignity to the person.”

You recognized the quote. “Martin Luther King,” you said, smiling back in gratitude. "Thank you Valeria."

Harry then reached over the table to take your hand. “Actually, she’s done with that for now,” he said, looking deeply into your eyes. You smiled back. “Because I didn’t want her to wear out her beautiful, skillful hands,” he added, kissing your knuckles. A bit shy about the attention in front of his mom, you bit your lower lip and grinned nervously.

Valeria sipped her champagne, a playful smile lighting up her face. “Hmm, I sense a bit of ‘skillful’ in your tone, Harry.”

“She’s an incredibly talented bakery chef,” he proclaimed proudly.

"Um-" You were about to protest, but Harry continued, “You’ve got your certificate, love; it’s time to stop being modest. You’re officially a chef now,” he said with proud, prompting smiles between you.

“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Valeria said excitedly.

“And this made by this lovely lady herself, Mrs. Castillo,” Sofia chimed in with a smile as she entered the room, serving the dessert you’d prepared and placing it in the center of the table.

“Ah, Sopapilla?” Valeria said, her eyes lighting up in delight.

“Harry mentioned it was your favorite, so I made it for you. I hope you like it,” you said, biting your lower lip.

Sofia drizzled honey over the cheesecake before serving Valeria, then Harry, and finally you. “My baby's been hustling in the kitchen all morning to make this,” Harry said, glancing your way as he took a bite of the cheesecake.

“Ah, this is absolutely delicious! The best sopapilla pie I’ve ever had. It’s fantastic!” Valeria exclaimed eagerly, savoring another forkful.

“Thanks, I’m so glad you like it,” you said happily, relieved.

“I loved it, honey,” Valeria added, giving Harry a knowing look and then turning back to you. “It was really sweet of you to make this for me.”

As the evening went on, Harry shared stories about his family and showed you old photos in another room. He talked about his sister, who had passed away young due to a congenital disease, and how their mom struggled after that. He also shared the history of their home, which was built in the 1800s for a ship dealer and beautifully restored with modern touches after Harry’s dad immigrated from Mexico to New York. The house’s stunning design, with its vintage charm, offered breathtaking views of the city from the terrace, while the backyard was a serene escape, filled with plants, flowers, and dwarf trees, created since his mom couldn’t go outside anymore. It was a beautiful house, especially seeing it was where Harry grew up.

When you asked for permission to use the bathroom, Harry went to his mom. In the kitchen, he and Sofia were chatting about you.

“She’s got a pretty good figure,” Valeria giggled.

"And young too," Sofia said.

“Even better. Young enough to give me lots of grandchildren one day—hopefully.”

"Fingers crossed. Oh, Jesus, please hear our little prayers.”

They both raised their hands above as if praying, then laughed together.

Harry, hands on his hips, huffed in mock disapproval. “What kind of conversation are you two having about my girlfriend?”

Valeria took Harry's face in her hands and smiled warmly. “Harry, this girl is incredible. I was so nervous since it’s the first time you’ve brought someone home. But you really hit the jackpot! Don’t let her slip away; propose to her and put a ring on it! If you don't marry this girl, I'll beat the shit out of you regardless of your age,” she said, teasing.

Sofia chimed in with a laugh, “Last time you said that, Harry was only 19.”

They both shot her a look, and Sofia quickly looked away, focusing on her work.

“Mom, don’t worry. Even if she ever decides to leave me, I wouldn’t let her go. Besides, I was coming to ask you for your wedding ring.”

Valeria gasped, her hand flying to her chest. “Oh my! Are you really going to propose? Did you hear that, Sofia?”

Sofia clapped her hands excitedly. “Gracias Jesus! Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for, Mrs. Castillo! God bless you, Harry,” her voice a little shaky from all the happiness.

Harry chuckled and then warned her, "Ssh, she will hear you."

“I thought you might never want that ring; thought it would just gather dust in the drawer,” Valeria said with a happy sigh. “Hold on, I’ll go get it for you.”

After Valeria left the kitchen, cheerfully murmuring to herself, Sofia turned to Harry. “I haven’t seen her this happy in ages, and neither have you. She was so down when you went to France, but now…” Her voice trailed off as tears welled up in her eyes. “Thank goodness for this moment; it’s such a blessing to see you both so blissful.”

Harry grinned back at her, totally oblivious to the fact that you were walking back from the bathroom and could hear him in the hallway. “Thank you, Sofia. I promise it won't happen again; she’s been through enough. Now that I’ve found the one, we will create our happiness together, and nothing will stand in our way. I won’t allow it.”

You smiled, hoping for the same.

The first day of the fair arrived just a few days after you received your certificate and master’s license. The logo design for the booth, brochures, banners, and everything else was set to go. After much consideration, you, Harry, and Mia -who insisted strongly- finally settled on the brand name “The Vanilla Vine.” Since it was the weekend, Zoe joined you at the booth. Harry was the first to test the desserts and sweets you made, followed by Maria, Mia, and John.

The fairgrounds brimmed with a tapestry of colorful booths, filled with throngs of eager visitors. As the hours slipped by, more and more people gravitated towards your booth, captivated by the tantalizing aromas wafting from your offerings. Each smile and compliment filled your heart with joy, a testament to all the hard work you had poured into this endeavor. However, as the sun began to set, the fatigue began to settle in, weighing on your limbs. Harry, receiving an urgent call, excused himself and hurried off, leaving just you and Zoe to manage the dregs of the day. Thankfully, it turned out to be a way better day than you expected—almost everything was sold out before closing time.

As John and Zoe were heading home together, you waved goodbye to them before getting into the car that Harry had sent for you. You were so ready to get home, take a shower, and collapse in bed—exhausted from the long day of cooking and standing around.

You were yawning when the elevator dinged as it reached Harry’s penthouse. You swiped the card against the door lock and stepped inside, finding the lights off. Hadn't he come home yet?

“Harry?” you called out, but there was no reply.

Only stillness answered, prompting you to pull out your phone. A quick call confirmed he would be home in a few hours. Sighing, you wandered into the laundry room, shedding your clothes before heading into the bathroom for a hot shower. You tossed your well-worn cooking apron and the remnants of your day’s attire into the washing machine. The steam enveloped you as you stood under the warm water, washing away the fatigue, and afterward, you slipped into bed wearing only Harry’s bathrobe, far too worn and loose for you, but comforting nonetheless.

You fell asleep pretty much right away.

When you woke without opening your eyes, you felt the bed dip as he slid next to you, followed by a gentle pressure on your cheek. His familiar, masculine scent of cologne wafted through the air, and you felt the tickle of his mustache as he kissed your cheek.

“You awake, baby?” he asked softly.

Not quite opening your eyes, you mumbled sleepily, “You came.”

He wrapped his arm around you, burying his nose in your damp hair. "Sorry I'm late. A few things came up."

His tone urged you to open your eyes. “Is everything okay?” you asked, not turning to face him.

"A few setbacks, but I’ll handle it tomorrow. Don’t worry about it. How did things go after I left? Everything run smoothly?"

You released a sigh of relief. “Yeah, it was fantastic—everything sold out.”

“They were all incredible. I’m not surprised at all. I’m so proud of you.”

“I couldn’t have succeeded without your support. Thank you for everything,” you murmured, turning to him.

He smiled wider, leaned down, and kissed you, his hand sliding under the collar of your robe, brushing your skin. “No underwear?”

You smiled at the thrill in his voice.

"I was so worn out to wear any. I still am," you murmured, turning onto your side and closing your eyes again teasingly.

Mischievously, he gathered your damp hair and slowly slid the robe down to your shoulder. He started placing soft kisses along your skin, moving to your neck. “I wonder how tired are you? Can you rate it for me?”

"I would rate it a solid 10 out of 10," you murmured again, trying to hide your amusement while content to enjoy his warmth.

“Hmm, that much? Well, can I have permission to fuck you while you sleep then, because I want you so bad.”

You turned to him lazily, your eyelids heavy. "Baby, I'm wiped."

He smiled mischievously and whispered into your face as he ran his lips along the edge of yours. "Hush, it's all right, love. Just stay still. I'll take care of you."

It was the first bit of excitement you felt, even though you were really tired, and you started to wonder if he was thinking about where to begin.

Damn.

The idea of him running his tongue over your skin was enough to make you wet. Drifting into consciousness slowly, you were enjoying the feel of being wrapped by his strong, warm arms. You stretched a little, toes pointed toward the end of the bed, and snuggled tighter into him.

However, his intention was not solely for cuddling.

His arm curved around you, slid a hand under the robe to cup your breast, gently pinching and rolling your nipple between his fingers. The stimulation made you gasp, the sensation blossoming out and down.

You suddenly noticed that Harry still hadn’t taken off his shirt. Your hands searched for the hem clumsily, he laughed at your efforts. With a swift movement, he yanked off his black T-shirt and tossed it to the floor. His arm slipped around you from behind as his other hand skillfully pulled the robe off you. The scent of fresh soap from your skin reached him, he couldn’t help but touch you again, trailing his lips softly over your skin. Your hands found the waistband of his pants with a bit more ease this time, and as you tried to unbuckle them in the low light, you noticed that the thrill of the moment was making you feel surprisingly more alert and less tipsy. As you loosened the belt, he delightedly caressed your neck and collarbone, then between your breasts, using wet touches of his tongue and smiling as he tasted lavender off your skin.

But now he was feeling impatient.

Dangerously so.

He sat on the bed to remove his pants and left them to the same fate as his T-shirt, returning to the bed to kiss you passionately. You both moaned from the vibrating waves of the touch as he insistently thrust his tongue into your mouth. You felt a shiver run through you as you realized that the taste of his tongue and saliva revealed he had just knocked back a strong whiskey.

Irish.

Neat.

He must’ve had about four or five shots.

He always went hard like that whenever he was feeling stressed.

It was kinda wild and almost beautiful to understand him just by tasting him.

It felt like reading a book without even looking at the pages.

He was too, and he relished tasting you just as much. He felt the vanilla frosting of the cupcake you had just popped in your mouth before you got in the shower - the only thing left from the fair - on his tongue and he sucked so hard that you couldn't help pushing yourself against him, almost sitting up in bed. You held onto his shoulders and his hand, which was everywhere at that moment, began to caress your legs sweetly. With a swift movement he got rid of his underwear and got back to business.

He ducked his head, kissing his way slowly up your belly, over your ribs, finally taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking gently. "Oh," you gasp, bucking your hips against him. Harry released the tender nub and blew gently. His breath was hot against your wet, cool skin, making you writhe.

You groaned and arched your back, then leaned in to kiss him. His kiss was now slow and thorough. He moved his mouth over yours, drinking more while he groaned. He nudged your thighs apart with his knee, lowering his hips to grind his hard cock against your pussy. You spread your legs wider, bringing your knees up and hooking your ankles behind his back. You felt him reach down and slide his fingers between your folds to rub against your clit. He dipped two fingers inside you, moaning as he slid easily into your hot, wet pussy. He grinded his hips in time with the stroke of his fingers inside you, his cock hard and rough against your clit.

“Oh god Harry,” you moaned, watching him.

He looked up at you, eyes glistening in the dim light. His mouth quirked up at the corners into a half smile. "Feels good, baby?"

You ran your fingers through his hair, which looked really dark, almost black, in the dim light. "Yes, keep going please," you craved.

As you moved your hand down his forehead, you gently touched his face, trailing your thumb over his eyebrows and giving his cheeks and jawline a soft caress.Then, your fingers wove through his hair again, with your thumbs circling around the contours of his ears this time, he smirked, clearly enjoying it. You sit up to kiss him again, rocking your hips against his palm as he continued pumping his fingers inside of you.

A groan escaped from your lips as you came.

He then captured your mouth in a fervent kiss to swallow your loud moans, pulling his fingers out slowly. “So fucking hot,” he hummed then dipped his head down to kiss your neck, hands pulling at your hips, flipping you onto your stomach.

You buried your face into the pillow, groaning when you feel his cock against your ass. He kneads your ass, pulling your cheeks apart. You could feel his knees on either sides of your thighs. He kissed your back, sliding the head of his cock down low between your legs to rest against your pussy.

He slid inside of you so slowly that every nerve sings. It glided against the taught, wet muscles, stretching and pulling. Harry's hips come to rest against your ass as he buried himself inside of you. He pulled back, movements measured and deliberate. "God, you're so tight, every damn time," he groaned.

Bringing your ass up, you pushed against him, silently begging for more. He grabbed you, long fingers wrapping around your hips. He pulled back but only to push himself forcefully forward into you with a grunt. "Fuck, you're driving me crazy. I want to fuck you so hard."

“Yes, please,” you beg, voice party muffled by the pillow.

“You want it hard baby?” he asked, voice ragged almost begging for your confirmation.

“Yes,” the muscles in your abdomen shuddered and tighten with expectation.

And that was it.

He rocked his hips back, his forward thrust slamming inside of you, repeating the motion again and again, bed rocking, springs creaking slightly with the rhythm.

Gripping the sheets desperately, "Harry," you moaned, mewled and gasped, your own movements limited by the position. He leaned over you, lips pressing to your shoulders and the back of your neck, licking sucking, nibbling.

Pressing your ass up, you pushed down against the bed, breathless. Harry shifted, pulling out. You felt his cock, wet and hard, smack against your thigh. You got up onto your knees, turning to your lover. He took your breasts in his hands, kneading them, rubbing his thumbs over your nipples.

“Baby,” he whispered, dipping his head to kiss you. His lips were soft and part readily. You reached down, taking his cock in your hand which was slick from your pussy. You tightened your fingers around his thick shaft, stroking slowly. He moaned and shifted back, sitting against the headboard. Your body moved with him, lips pressed to his, stroking his cock in your hand.

Stretching his legs out, he pulled you into his lap, fingers digging into your ass. Never breaking the kiss, you tilted his cock up towards you, slowly lowering your hips onto him.

Harry groaned.

You spread your knees to either side of his hips, taking as much of his cock as you can before rocking your hips back, grinding your clit down against him. He broke the kiss, running his tongue down along your neck, nipping gently at the base, just above your collar bone. You set the pace, increasing the speed as you find your rhythm and the pressure started to build in your core.

“Harry,” you gasped, gripping his broad shoulders for leverage. His hands gripped your waist, pulling you into him. He slid his left knee up the bed shifting onto his side enough to drive his hips up into you, head bent as he panted.

Kissing the top of his head, you wrapped your arms around his neck, grinding yourself down onto him faster, gasping. His cock was hitting you just right, sliding against your right spot. The pressure built quickly, your movements becoming frantic.

“Come baby, I want to feel you come,” he rasped.

With a loud moan, you collapsed into him, eyes squeezed shut and head falling back. The deep sensation of pleasure blast through you, setting off a chain reaction of bliss. Your pussy clenched around him, muscles milking him.

With an impatient growl, he pushed you down onto the bed, pushing your knees out wide. His hips pounded into you, rocking you back and down against the mattress. He gasped and grunted, head down, lost in the sensation.

You brought your hips up, snapping them upwards quickly in time with his thrusts. Digging your nails into his ass, you pulled him into you, moaning soft encouragements.

He shuddered, groaning, collapsing onto you as he came hard. He tightened his arms around you, sliding his cock in slowly once, twice, until only his chest moves against you in time with his quick, ragged breaths.

You slid your hands up his back, the outlines of his arms, biceps like faint messages under your fingertips. Harry kissed your chest, letting out a long, shaky breath against your skin. "God, I love you so much," he said, still catching his breath.

"I love you too Harry. So so much."

He lifted his head, a lazy smile spreading across his face as he gazed deeply into your eyes. Then, leaning in, he pressed his lips against yours for a slow, tender kiss.

In the morning, when Harry dropped you off at the convention center before work, he couldn't tear his eyes away from his phone. He was deep in a serious convo, his face all furrowed. You couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, but he wasn't sharing any details. Whatever it was, it felt like a dark cloud hanging over you both, even as he leaned in for that quick goodbye kiss before you left the car.

The second day of the fair turned out to be even busier than the first. You felt grateful that Zoe had taken time off from her job, as managing the booth alone was quite challenging. As much as you wanted Harry by your side, with his busy schedule, it was unreasonable to expect him to be there all day. Still, you couldn’t fault him; he had a lot on his plate at the company right now.

As the hours flew by, visitors showed a growing interest in the products at your stand. They kept asking about the shop, inquiring when it would open and expressing eagerness to visit, Zoe included.

“Have you signed the lease for the shop yet?” she asked while you arranged cupcakes on the display.

You replied, “Harry's a bit swamped at the moment, but we're just waiting to hear back from the shopkeeper about the lease terms.”

“Oh, I really hope everything goes smoothly. I can’t wait to be a waitress at your shop – my current boss is driving me crazy. He’s acting like I faked my sprained ankle to just chill on the couch all week or something,” she complained.

“What a jerk,” you said, frowning before a smile broke through. “I hope so too, girl.” You often daydreamed about the day when Zoe would be working alongside you as a waitress, serving customers the desserts you made while you managed the cash register, chatting with them and baking treats in your shop. That day didn’t seem so far off; it felt incredibly close.

You were on the verge of realizing your dream and had a wonderful boyfriend in your life. Everything was falling into place, and your life was almost perfect.

As you shared stories about how your dinner at Harry's mother's house went, two familiar faces approached your booth.

“Danilo! Bruno!” you exclaimed with excitement.

"Ciao, cara mia!” Danilo greeted you with a warm hug.

“I've missed you so much! How have you been?” you laughed, reminiscing.

“You won't believe it but Jack sent Melanie to a religious camp for young adults, and it’s been blissfully quiet at the manor. We're all finally finding some peace."

You sighed, “Damn it, Jack. He will never change.”

“Great boss, terrible dad,” he chuckled.

“Hmm, molto delizioso! Good job, cara mia,” Bruno chimed in as he sampled one of your cupcakes.

“I learned from the best,” you replied with a playful wink.

“I taught you well,” he grinned with pride.

Danilo let out an awkward laugh. “How can you claim that after just a few months? I’ve taught her countless tricks during our three years together, right, honey? I'm a master chef after all.” he said, narrowing his eyes.

You were about to respond when Bruno cut in again, “You mean a master chef at being jealous, Danilo? What she learned from me equates to five years of experience, not just three. I sped up her internship.” he added with a smug grin.

In that moment, the two began bickering in their native language. Zoe leaned closer to you. “Are they always like this?”

“I've seen them argue over the phone, but I’m shocked they are worse in person,” you chuckled.

By evening, you felt thankful for Danilo and Bruno’s company; their presence made the long day feel more bearable. You checked your phone but found no messages from Harry. Unlike yesterday, when his busy schedule hadn’t stopped him from sending silly texts that brightened your day, today was different. You opened the messaging app to find your lunchtime selfie still unread with a note:

Sopapilla pie is a hit at our booth today. Thanks for the idea ol'man.

Maybe he was just too busy to answer, you thought. Lost in your thoughts, Zoe’s voice broke through, “You need to see this,” she said, her expression anxious as she handed you her phone.

Nervously, you took it, bracing yourself. The screen displayed a tabloid article that sent your heart racing.

Is Castillofunds.co going under? Shares of Harry Castillo’s company have taken a dramatic nosedive, a major player in NYC's Financial District!

The next piece of news hit even harder.

Tense moments at Castillofunds headquarters. After the company lost shares quickly, founding CEOs Harry Castillo and his childhood friend Gerardo Armada reportedly got into a heated argument.

“Oh no. Harry,” you murmured, heart racing. You immediately dialed his cell, but it went straight to voicemail. You tried calling Oliver next, but he didn’t pick up either.

Anxiety wrapped around your entire body. What could have happened? Yesterday, Harry hadn’t said much; there hadn’t been time for a proper talk. How could he keep something so serious under wraps? Or, if he wasn’t aware, how could he fail to see the company spiraling down? Questions raced through your mind, and for a moment, you just wanted to escape and get to him. Your anxiety was overwhelming, and a sick feeling settled in your stomach. With Zoe and Danilo by your side, you asked them if they could cover for you at the booth while you stepped away. Thankfully, they agreed without hesitation.

You needed to reach Harry; you were worried about him.

As you made your way to the subway, your phone buzzed with a text message. You opened it right away, and your heart sank—it was from Alan.

Your boyfriend's downfall has begun. Just so you know, honey, this is only the beginning.

You froze, feeling a mix of anger and shock hit you as you remembered your last conversation with him.

That bastard.

Of course, he was behind this.

But no matter what he did, you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. You believed Harry's company would weather this storm.

Every company faces tough times, right?

When you arrived at the company building, you were taken aback. A furious crowd had gathered, waving banners and shouting slogans, while paparazzi filmed the chaos that was unfolding. Security was struggling to maintain control.

But things got even worse.

One of the paparazzi caught sight of you and pointed, drawing the attention of all the cameras. You felt frozen; you had never experienced anything like this before. Well, there was that one time with Melanie, but usually, the spotlight was on her, not you.

But now, the roles had flipped.

They all rushed toward you, and the questions began to come flooding in like bombs.

"Miss, is it true your boyfriend Mr Castillo's company is on the verge of bankruptcy?"

"Will this financial mess affect your relationship?"

"Did Mr. Castillo and Mr. Armada actually get into a fight?"

"Is it true that Mr. Armada is unable to pay his gambling debts and has been siphoning funds from the company?"

"What’s your take on all this?"

You swallowed hard, unsure of how to respond.

Suddenly, Oliver’s voice broke through the crowd. He reached you, grabbing your arm, and together, you hurried into the building, security guards ushering you past the relentless paparazzi and shouting crowd.

Just as the security team managed to slam the doors shut, you turned to Oliver. “Where’s Harry?”

“He's upstairs. Come on,” he replied, guiding you to the elevator.

“Ollie, what’s going on? Where did all this come from?”

He let out a troubled sigh as he pressed the button for the office floor. It was clear he was feeling the weight of the situation. “Gerardo. In Harry's absence, he got involved in illegal betting and gambling, attempting to cover his debts using company resources. He tried to bail out the company with post-dated checks, hoping Harry wouldn’t find out when he returned to NYC. But it backfired horribly. We’ve been trying to figure out how the finance and accounting teams missed this, but it seems part of the larger scheme.”

“What do you mean?”

“Alan has been deliberately concealing his identity while orchestrating the issuance of post-dated checks. The finance team, the accounting department, even the last company we did business with—he’s got them all in his pocket. It looks like he’s been plotting against us for a while. Gerardo fell right into his trap. He’s messed everything up. I can’t imagine how we’ll pull through this; we’re backed into a corner.”

Your chest tightened, and dread washed over you as the elevator reached the floor with Harry’s office.

The reminder of Alan's text kept bothering you, making you feel pretty guilty.

How did you underestimate him like that?

It all made sense now why Maria was acting so strange that day. You wished you had talked about it with Harry.

As you approached the office, you spotted Harry inside, deep in conversation with his lawyers and PR team.

Your heart sank.

It wasn't only his sad condition that concerned you; there was a wound marring the edge of his eyebrow. The paparazzi’s reports were true—he had been in a fight. Oliver slipped into the office without you noticing, as your attention was fixed on Harry's face. He leaned in and whispered something in Harry’s ear, prompting him to turn and look at you. When your eyes met, you offered him a weak smile, but it faltered as he didn’t return it.

The meeting wrapped up, and everyone filed out, looking grim. Harry stepped toward you.

“What are you doing here?”

Your hand instinctively reached out to his face, gently examining the small band-aid over his eyebrow. “I was worried. Are you okay?”

He sighed, weariness evident in his voice. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine,” he replied, lacking conviction. Taking your hand, he brushed your hair back with a faint smile. “Let’s get out of here.”

Making your way to the car was a daunting task; the paparazzi and remaining crowd persisted with their incessant questions and shouts until you finally managed to slip inside. As the car pulled away, you noticed the writing on the protesters' banner.

WE ARE HERE, WHERE IS YOUR CONSCIENCE?

YOU TOOK OUR DREAMS, AT LEAST GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK.

GIVE BACK OUR KIDS' FUTURE.

WE DEMAND JUSTICE.

You couldn't bear to watch any longer; it was just too frustrating. The sadness etched on Harry's face filled you with sorrow. Who knows how deeply he must be feeling all this? He chatted on the phone the whole way, but it seemed like everything was spiraling out of control. You didn't want to overwhelm him with questions, so you kept quiet; he was already struggling enough. You had asked him to take you to the fair after leaving Zoe there alone. Although you didn’t invite him to stay since he was feeling down, you agreed to meet up at home afterward. As the fair wrapped up, you should have felt happy that everything you cooked at the booth was cleared out. The attention had been great, but your thoughts were consumed with Harry. Nothing else seemed important while he was struggling through such a difficult time.

When you came home and saw him sitting at the counter, sipping whisky, you had planned to talk about the shop, but those thoughts quickly faded. Instead, your attention shifted to the glass he held. “Harry, how much have you had?”

The bottle was nearly half-empty.

"Hmm..." Looking up at you, he pursed his lips and held up his fingers—first one, then two, and finally all five on his palm. You chuckled at his expression and sighed, taking the glass from his grasp. “That’s enough, ol'man, move your ass.” He reluctantly agreed, allowing you to guide him to the couch, where you both sank down side by side.

“Things aren’t getting any better, are they?” you asked softly.

He closed his eyes, tilting his head back as fatigue washed over him. “I’m doing everything I can, but it’s incredibly tough. We have to cancel all our investment deals. We’re left with just the company’s assets to pay the employees. Even if we manage to make it work, what about the victims?Thousands of families are suffering.”

“Can’t the lawyers file a countersuit? Surely there's a way out. We could argue that this is a setup, that the post-dated checks were signed without Gerardo's consent. If we prove Alan has a personal vendetta against you...”

Hearing his name made him open his eyes in irritation. “Lawyers? They’re all in on it. Don’t you get it? There’s no way out!” he shouted, his frustration palpable.

When he noticed the shocked expression on your face, his tone softened. He cupped your face in his hands. “I’m sorry, baby, I...”

You placed your hands over his. “It’s okay. I understand how you feel; you’re angry, tired, hurt. But I truly believe you’ll get through this, I’m sure of it.”

He withdrew his hands and let out a troubled sigh. “I really don’t know; this is way worse than I thought it would be. We’ve been through tough times before, but we always made it work together. I can’t believe he’s been hiding stuff from me. I trusted him completely, and he went behind my back. I just don’t get how he could do that.”

“Alan clearly orchestrated this. He must have lured him into a trap,” you said, deciding it was time to share what you had kept from him. “Harry, I saw Maria that day, talking to Alan.” You frowned, gathering your courage to continue. “She looked upset and asked me not to tell you I saw her. I’m so sorry for not telling you sooner.” You bowed your head, hoping he wouldn’t be too angry.

He lifted your chin gently, forcing you to meet his gaze. “Baby, that doesn’t matter now. What Gerardo did happened a long time ago. And Maria was probably trying to protect her assets. She must have been thinking about Mia. But I wish you both had been honest with me.”

“I thought it was something personal for her, nothing to do with you, so—”

He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close and pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “It’s not your fault, love. You had nothing to do with this. I’m really sorry, but I’ll have to delay renting the shop for now. I promise that as soon as the economy improves, I’ll make sure to get the shop and hand it over to you.”

You gazed up at him. “Harry, I don’t care about opening the shop under these circumstances. We’ll figure things out, I’m sure of it. Everything will be fine.”

He smiled, resting his forehead against yours. “Thank you. I feel so fortunate to have you by my side. You’re my strength. I love you so much.” He leaned down to kiss you softly.

“Ow, you smell like a liquor store, baby.” you chuckled, standing up and tugging at his hand. “Come on, up you get! Let’s get you in the shower, and then we can hit the hay ol'man. You know what they say—a good night’s sleep can work wonders.”

Suddenly, he swooped you into his arms, effortlessly lifting you onto his lap. “You’re the only remedy I need, mi amor.” He continued kissing you as you made your way to the bathroom together.

The final day of the fair turned out to be far worse than expected. News that had started circulating online was now splashed across TV screens, and conversations about it filled the subway and the streets. Harry was in worse shape than ever, and seeing him like that tugged at your heartstrings, making you feel as if your heart were being squeezed. When his mother, Valeria, called and invited you over to her house, you agreed and left the fair early that day.

Upon arriving at her home, Valeria enveloped you in a tight embrace, tears streaming down her face. She spoke of her concern for Harry, saying she felt helpless about not being able to reach him. You tried to comfort her, assuring her that Harry was with you and would remain close. However, you refrained from sharing too many details, as it was clear she was deeply sensitive about her son’s plight. Before you left, she hugged you one last time at the door. “I’m so grateful you’re there for my son. I’ve felt terrible for being unable to leave this house, it’s never been this tough.”

“Valeria, please don’t blame yourself. As for Harry, there’s no need to worry; he’ll be okay. I’ll be by his side and do everything I can to help him through these hard days. We’ll get through this.”

Her eyes glimmered with a mix of gratitude and sorrow as she clasped your hand gently. “Thank you, dear. It eases my heart to know you’re there for him during these days when I can’t be.” You could feel the weight of her worry—like any mother, she was deeply concerned about her son.

Leaving her house and walking down the street, you were set on doing whatever it took to help Harry feel better. You thought about whipping up his favorite dessert or putting on that dress he loved, but first, there was something else you needed to do.

You had to meet Alan.

As you arrived in front of the hotel, you steeled yourself, gathering your courage. Perhaps you could persuade him to reconsider; you weren’t sure, but you knew it was worth a shot. If you could understand his motives, it might help you steer things in the right direction. In this battle, you had to make sure your man didn’t end up losing.

You were ready to do whatever it took to help him overcome all obstacles.

The doorman greeted you with a smile, recognizing you as you entered. Learning that Alan was in his room, you took the elevator to his floor. Nerves crept in as you headed to a hotel room, but you pushed them aside, determined to present a strong front.

As the owner of the hotel, Alan lived in the penthouse on the top floor.

The elevator opened directly into his room, and while you glanced around, feeling uncomfortable in his lavish space, you reminded yourself to stay focused.

“Hello, gorgeous.”

At the sound of his voice, you turned to see him lounging at the bar area, a drink in hand and a smug grin plastered across his face. Dressed in a satin robe, he glanced at his watch. “I expected you earlier; you’ve caught me by surprise,” he said, taking a sip of his drink, then he raised it. “Care for some?”

Asshole was acting as if nothing had happened.

Crossing your arms, you replied, “No, I don’t want anything. Look, whatever you’re doing, just stop it. I get that you want revenge—I lost my mother too—but this won’t bring her back. Besides, Harry is innocent in all this, he didn't deserve-.”

“How can Harry be innocent? That woman is his mother.”

“She’s already lost a daughter. What’s hurting her even going to do for you?”

He shrugged. “At least it gives me some relief. Watching them suffer makes me feel better, just like my mother suffered because of them.”

“Alan, listen—”

“Save your breath, sweetheart. What’s coming is inevitable. The Castillo family will pay for what they’ve done.” He finished his drink, setting the glass down on the counter. “The company was just the beginning. Tomorrow, Harry will lose his penthouse with the breathtaking view due to foreclosure and debts he can’t cover. And soon enough, his mother will lose her house too.”

You frowned. "That woman can't leave her house because of her illness. You can't do that. You can't be so cruel."

As he approached you, the look in his eyes made it clear he could, indeed, be that cruel. "Do you think I care? They deserve whatever’s coming to them. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do."

“It was a mistake to come here,” you said as you turned to leave, but he grabbed your arm to stop you. "But nothing is beyond repair. Maybe you can change this."

A flicker of hope ignited within you. "Me? How? What can I possibly do?"

He smiled, a chilling grin. “Don’t underestimate yourself, sweetheart; you have no idea how much you mean to me.” He reached out, intending to touch your face, but you angrily pushed his hand away.

"Stop it. Just tell me what you want. Oh, let me guess—you want me to break up with Harry?"

He chuckled. “Nah, I’ve changed my mind. I know you won’t leave him, no matter what happens.”

You tried to mask your surprise. “So, what do you want from me?”

“One night." He locked eyes with you. "I want you to spend just one night with me.”

The way he said those words sent a shiver down your spine. The mere idea made your stomach turn. “What kind of sick bastard are you?”

"I'm offering you a choice, and it comes with just one condition, sweetheart. If you don’t comply, you’ll have to watch your man falter and see the heartbreaking news about the Castillo family everywhere. Think it over. Harry's fate is in your hands."

"Do you think I'm an idiot? How can I trust you won't pull a fast one on me?"

He chuckled and leaned closer. "What other options do you have?"

You fell silent, realizing you had none.

"I'll draft a contract between us. I’ll ensure Harry gets everything he needs to stabilize the company’s stock, and I’ll drop the lawsuit. Would that satisfy you?"

Just like that?

That seemed too simple.

"What is this, a telenovela? Will you be satisfied when I sleep with you? Will you leave your revenge just like that?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Harry's been shaken up enough, and he's going to have a hard time putting the company back together, watching his misery that's enough to satisfy me. But of course as soon as you volunteered to satisfy my needs-"

You slapped him in the face. “You piece of shit!”

He put his hand where you hit him and smiled wickedly. “So you're not accepting my offer?”

Fuckin' asshole.

You squinted at him, your whole body shaking with anger. "I would rather spend the night with Joffrey Baratheon. Yeah, I know he's a fictional character, but at least I could beat the bastard up and my night would be more interesting.” you said and turned around to leave.

“Suit yourself,” he said behind you. "But remember, whatever happens to Harry next will be your fault. And about those telenovelas... They may be exaggerated and clichéd, but know that in the end they're always have a point.”

The next day, things took a turn for a lot worse. Just when you thought it couldn't get any shitty, everything spiraled out of control. The streets outside the company overflowed with an army of paparazzi, their cameras clicking like a relentless drumbeat, while protesters shouted, their voices rising in a tumultuous chorus of anger and despair. Even Forbes magazine, which had once celebrated Harry on its cover, was now reporting that his company was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and that he had slipped off the list of the wealthiest people. When Maria and Mia came to visit you one evening, you watched them through the door as they talked about losing their home. They were filled with sadness and desperation. You couldn’t help but wonder what else could possibly go wrong, and then it did. The Feds and the SEC even IBRC got involved.

That’s when the last text from Alan arrived on your phone.

This is your last chance to save your man.

But it wasn't just the urgency in the text that spurred you to act; it was the sight of Harry himself. He looked so lost, so deeply unhappy that your heart ached for him. Maybe it was reckless, stupid, maybe he’d come to resent you for this decision—or maybe, just maybe, this was the only way to pull him back from the brink.

He would understand eventually, wouldn’t he?

That night, as you lovingly caressed his face while he slept beside you, your mind raced with turmoil. He had increasingly sought solace in alcohol, and fatigue clung to him like a shadow. He was your everything; you would do anything for him, anything.

The next morning, after preparing breakfast—he barely touched it—you sent Alan a text as Harry left for work.

Your fingers shook as you typed, tears in your eyes.

Tonight.

That evening, you slipped into the underwear and the dress you knew you would tear them off and throw them into the trash afterwards. You wrote a note to Harry, left it on the counter, and stepped out of the house.

But first, you had to see someone.

Jack.

You needed to prepare yourself for the big fish that wanted to swallow you whole, instead of being just another fish on the line.

It was around ten o'clock when you finally arrived at the hotel. Your heart raced with nervousness; you felt like a sacrificial lamb, and the thought of what could happen made you feel disgusted. How could you allow another man to touch you, especially someone you despised?

When you caught sight of the elevator, fear gripped you so tightly that you almost turned back.

But no, you had to summon your courage.

You were doing this for the man you loved. All Alan had to do was sign the contract you had arranged through Jack's lawyer.

You were ready to pay the price for that—a straightforward agreement. Seemingly simple, but a gnawing sense of dread gnawed at you from within.

You clutched the belt of your trench coat tightly as the elevator ascended, your nausea returning. Perhaps it was simply the tension building inside you. The elevator bell startled you, and your palms were slick with sweat. As you stepped inside, you felt timid at first, but upon seeing Alan and his unnecessary smug smile, you lifted your chin and approached him with purpose.

“There you are,” he said, his victory grin irritating you even more.

Taking a deep breath, you retrieved the documents from your bag and laid them on the counter. “Sign it now.”

He glanced at the papers. “What’s this? No kissing, no hugging—this is the kind of stuff escorts ask for, or somethin'?”

You shot him a withering glare.

"Well, I already had these documents prepared, sweetheart," he said, showing his briefcase.

“I don’t trust you, which is why I asked Jack to draft them. Sign them or I’ll go back,” you stated firmly, trying to keep your expression icy and unyielding.

He chuckled. “Hmm, clever. Fine, but I’d like to read them first.” He settled onto the barstool and began examining the pages. “There are some carefully crafted clauses in this contract that will benefit Harry's company and the entire Castillo family. But what about you? Don’t you demand anything?”

You understood his meaning but tried not to care. You had already made up your mind. “Are you going to sign it or not?”

He looked at you with a serious expression. “If I have to pay a price to get you out of those clothes, then so be it, honey,” he replied, starting to sign each page one by one.

A mixture of relief and anxiety washed over you. Your heart raced at the thought of what was to come, and you felt your courage slip away.

But there was no turning back now.

Once he finished signing, he slid the documents back across the counter towards you. As you reached for the folder, he seized your hand and pulled you closer. “I’ve done my part; now it’s your turn.”

A shiver ran down your spine, and you nearly burst into tears, but you steadied yourself. Putting the folder in your bag, you turned to him. “Just one thing: Harry can’t find out about this.”

He nodded, his impatience growing. “Okay, I swear.”

You untied the belt of your trench coat, took it off and put it on the chair. You were emotionless looking at him, or tried to be.

You felt like you were stuck in quicksand and you were sinking deeper and deeper as he approached you, staring at you like a hungry wolf.

You closed your eyes tightly when he reached out and touched your cheek. You tried to suppress the urge to sob as he slid his hand slowly from your cheek to your neck, your body shaking. Suddenly he wrapped an arm around you, pulled you to him and pressed his lips hard against yours. Instinctively you closed your lips tightly, it was so disgusting. You placed your hands on his chest and pushed him away while he kissed you more eagerly.

But then suddenly he paused and pulled back. Only then did you realize that you were crying.

He looked at you licking his lips, grinning with disappointment.

“Okay, that's it.”

You looked at him with your eyes wide open. You couldn't believe what you were hearing. "Wh-what?"

He walked back to the bar, sat down and poured himself a drink. You had a lot of questions, but the first thing you thought was that he backed out of the deal because you didn't kiss him back. "You signed the papers, you can't back out now."

"I’m not backing out; that was the agreement between us. It's done."

"But you said-"

"I prefer a woman who is eager to sleep with me," he said, looking at you angrily. “I'm not a fucking rapist. Now go, leave me alone,” he said and sipped his drink.

Confused but relieved, you picked up your trench coat and put it on. He didn't even look back as you walked to the elevator. But that was good, you sighed deeply to yourself. You hadn't imagined getting out of here like this.

With a strange sense of relief.

But then you remembered that bastard kissed you. "Ugh, that's disgusting. I should wash my mouth out with soap until it hurts. Eww.” you muttered to yourself while frantically wiping your lips with a wet tissue.

It wasn’t yet past midnight when you stepped into the dim corridor leading to Harry’s apartment. The elevator ride felt surreal, each floor ticking by as hope bloomed in your chest. You were grateful to return intact, clutching the crucial documents that could save both him and the company. Everything would be fine from here on out. You just had to sweep tonight's events under the rug, even if their stench lingered.

As you pushed open the apartment door, a wave of confusion washed over you. There, shrouded in the shadows, sat Harry, motionless on the counter.

When had he returned?

Oliver had mentioned he would be out late, and the stark absence of lights only heightened the weird atmosphere. Hesitant steps carried you closer, but the heaviness of your night weighed heavily on your mind. You inhaled deeply, attempting to steady your nerves, and called out softly, “Harry?”

His gaze pierced through the dark, and it made you falter. You had expected to find him with a drink in his hand, yet he appeared unsettlingly sober. On the counter, bathed in the soft glow of the city lights, your note rested beside an ornate ring box.

Something felt off.

“Baby, are you okay?” you ventured, your voice quavered as it broke the silence.

He absently glanced at his phone, muttering, “You’re back early.”

A lump lodged in your throat as you scrambled for your thoughts.

“‘I’ll be with Zoe. I might stay with her if it’s late,’” he recited, pointing at your note.

Clearing your throat, you forced out, “Well, yes. We finished up early and decided to head home.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, showing you his phone screen.

Your heart dropped like a stone.

There on the screen was a photo of you lingering in the hotel lobby, captured just hours ago.

Who the fuck... How?

You closed your eyes tightly, willing yourself to choose right words.

“Harry, let me explain,” you began, but he silenced you, lifting the ring box instead.

“This…” he opened the box slowly, revealing a stunning antique diamond ring that sparkled amidst the gloom, “was from my mother. I had intended to give this to you, to propose... later.”

“It’s beautiful,” you whispered, awe mingling with pain.

“It is. It was. Everything was beautiful—until this night,” he spat.

“Wh-what do you mean by that?”

He stood up abruptly, his grip seizing your shoulders with a force that was both desperate and heartbreaking. “How could you go to him?”

“Harry, just listen. I... I did it for you,” you implored, your eyes wide with plea.

His eyebrows arched in disbelief as he tightened his grip. “For me?”

“Yes! Everything I did was for you.” You fished your bag and pulled out the papers, placing them before him. “I was going to give these to Oliver, but now that you know everything, they’re yours. Alan signed them all. You can save your company.”

“Fuck the company!” he bellowed, the sound echoing off the walls and making you jump. The fury in his eyes pierced right through you as he clutched your shoulders fiercely. “You were all I cared about! The company, everything else—it didn’t matter as long as you were with me. But you…” He shook you roughly, tears spilling over onto your cheeks. “How could you do this to me?”

“Harry, listen... You were so sad, and I thought—I thought I could help...” you swallowed, your voice breaking.

“What did you expect would happen? Did you really think I’d be fine with you sleeping with my enemy?”

“Please... I thought that was my only option. It was all I could think of to help you.”

He finally released you, his hands trembling as they fell away. Tears welled up in his eyes, catching the light like tiny gems. “Even if it meant losing me, everything we have?"

You sniffled, tears flowing freely now. “All I did was love you and think about you.”

“You were thinking of me? Yet you didn’t have me in mind when you went to him, did you? Maybe you were too eager,” he said, the sharpness of his words cutting deep into your heart.

In a moment of raw pain, you slapped him.

With the impact, he turned his head to the side, eyes squeezed shut, and sighed deeply.

How could he say something like that to you?

You waited for him to apologize.

But he didn't.

Did it truly not matter what you had done for him?

How could he be so cold?

With a shattered heart and a deep breath, you managed to get the words out.

“Goodbye, Harry.”

The simple farewell fell from your lips like a final breath as you turned and walked toward the elevator.

And just like that.

It was over.

He might have regain his company and his reputation, but in the end, he had lost you.

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dreamwritesimagines · 23 days ago

Text

Declassified [12] - Pressure

A.N: Thank you so much for your wonderful support my loves, you are so amazing🩷 I hope you like this chapter as well! 🥰 And please let me know what you think! 🩷

Pairing: Congressman!Bucky x Female!Reader

Summary: Having a high pressure job has its consequences.

Warnings: Explicit language, panic attacks.

Word Count: 4.9k

Series Masterlist

The news of the breakup spread like wildfire.

To be honest, you hadn’t expected anything different. This had to be one of the rare times that Caleb hated being in PR because even you could tell that he was working way too hard.

And of course, your name had been brought up multiple times, but so far there wasn’t anything actually threatening thanks to Bucky and Hazel having attended the gala together right before they broke up.

“Mom, how did you know dad was the one?”

Your mother looked up from the bowl she was mixing the cake mixture in, then let out a laugh.

“What brought this on?”

“Just curious.” You dangled your legs from the high stool and sipped your coffee before putting the mug on the kitchen island. “Also, I would like to ask again, why are we in the kitchen? You don’t cook.”

“I’m baking.”

“You don’t bake either.”

“Well, one of the girls in my spiritual retreat said it would be a good bonding practice between mothers and daughters.”

You pulled your brows together.

“I guess today is good as any to start,” you murmured. “Fine, okay. We’re bonding, see? Tell me how you knew, other than the fact that he dazzled you with money.”

“Oh I didn’t care about the money.”

You tilted your head. “Uh, are you sure? I mean no offense obviously, but I always assumed money played a part. Safety and all that.”

“I did feel safe with him but that had nothing to do with the money.”

“So you were actually in love with him.”

“I was and I am.”

You made a face. “Oh come on, that I don’t buy. You can be honest, there’s no way you’re still in love with him.”

“Why not?”

You let out a laugh. “Because he’s evil?”

She rolled her eyes and started pouring the mixture into the cupcake tray. “He’s not evil, honey.”

“Well…” You cleared your throat. “I mean he has been bribing and extorting politicians for decades so that things work the way he wants them to work. That’s like, textbook bad. Disney movie bad.”

“Funny, I heard a lot of people say Bucky Barnes is a bad man, but you seem very eager to defend him.”

“That has nothing to do with—okay, let’s never ever put Bucky in the same category with dad ever again,” you said with a laugh. “It’s kind of like lumping The Night King and Jon Snow together.”

“I didn’t watch that show.”

“They’re like complete opposites.” You took another sip of your coffee. “Let me put it this way; Bucky would sacrifice his own life to save someone, dad would sacrifice the whole world to save himself.”

“And you, and me.”

You made a noise of disagreement.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” you said. “You yes. Me, doubtful.”

“He does love you, you know.”

“No he doesn’t.” You shrugged your shoulders. “And I don’t mind, really.”

“He does,” your mother insisted. “It’s just that, you’re both very stubborn and don’t know how to communicate.”

“That and our political stances and our principles and our goals are very different.”

“So what?” she asked as if it was just trivial, and you scoffed a laugh.

“You seriously don’t mind what he does?” you asked. “All those people he hurt? All the corruption?”

“I’m not interested in what he does at work. I’m interested in what kind of a man he is with us, his family.”

You grimaced. “That’s not how it works, mom.”

“It’s how it works with me.”

You rubbed at your eyes, heaving a sigh. “I guess this just proves it.”

“Proves what?”

“I’ve always thought that…” you trailed off. “I’ve always thought you and him were just meant to be together, but I wasn’t supposed to be in the picture.”

“Never say that!” She gasped. “We love you!”

“That’s not it,” you said with a weak smile. “No, you guys make sense together, in some very weird and unhealthy way. But I don’t, you know what I mean?”

“That’s so not true,” she said, putting pieces of chocolate into the batter in the pan. “And as I’ve said, your father loves you and me. What he does at work doesn’t matter.”

“It actually does,” you said. “You might be able to pick and choose, but I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Is that why you broke up with Max?”

“That dickhead voted for the opposition.”

She turned to you. “Please tell me you didn’t break up with him over that.”

“See? It doesn’t matter to you,” you said. “But it matters to me. And hey, it’s a good thing I dumped him, apparently he was cheating on me anyway.”

Her jaw dropped and she reached out to squeeze your hand. “Aw I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, I don’t care,” you said. “I mastered the art of detachment thanks to the revolving door of nannies you guys kept changing when I was little, so it’s okay.”

“Well, we just didn’t know who was the best for you.”

You bit at your lip to hold back your retort.

“How’s everything at work?” she asked. “Are those rumors still going on?”

“Well, to some extent but no picture or anything,” you said. “Just whispers.”

“And you like him?”

“Professionally, yes.”

Bullshit.

It was a good thing that your mother hardly ever spent time with you, she didn’t know how to read you.

The truth was that every day your feelings for Bucky were getting deeper. You knew that Hazel was right, you knew the risks but somehow, when you thought about him kissing you…

Your brain just refused to be logical.

Granted that didn’t mean you were going to throw all the caution to the wind, but you were wondering if something was wrong with you if that didn’t intimidate you as much as it was supposed to.

“A lot of my friends think he’s too handsome to be in politics.” Her voice pulled you out of your thoughts. “And they have a lot of questions.”

“About him?”

She hummed and walked to the oven to take a look at it. “Which button do I turn?”

You jumped from the stool to turn the button. “This one.”

“Aw thank you,” she said as she put the tray in, then closed it and turned to you. “So what’s he like?”

You took your seat again. “In politics?”

“In his daily life. Why did he and that girl break up?”

You cleared your throat. “Um, difference in opinions.”

“On what?”

“No idea, that’s what I’ve been told.”

She hummed, sitting down as well. “And you guys are close?”

“Professionally.”

“But you consider him a friend as well?” she asked. “I don’t know many people who are friends with their boss.”

“You don’t know many people with a boss.”

“Fair,” she admitted. “But that’s irrelevant. Tell me more about him, we’re all curious. Is he nice?”

“Oh absolutely.”

“To you? Even with all these rumors?”

You couldn’t help but smile, then nodded your head.

“He um…” you trailed off, biting your lip. “He’s amazing, mom. I know a lot of people think there are still traces of the Winter Soldier in him, but it’s not like that at all. He’s the sweetest, I’d trust him with my life. He even—”

You stopped yourself and your mother leaned in, curiosity shining in her eyes. “What?”

“He got Blinky back for me.”

She blinked a couple of times in confusion. “Who’s Blinky?”

Of course.

You hesitated for a second before you forced yourself to smile and shook your head.

“It’s not important,” you mumbled. “Anyways, enough about me, how was your retreat?”

The next day, you didn’t even have the time to go to lunch. You had to work on the draft Bucky had asked you to, and of course you had volunteered to go over the revisions Lucas had sent you just so that you could impress Congresswoman Gray, and your phone kept buzzing with emails every two minutes.

And for some reason, everything was louder today.

You took a deep breath, willing your heartbeat to calm down as you clenched and unclenched your hands, staring at the screen before you deleted the last line, and added a new one.

“Please don’t tell me we’re back to skipping lunch for work.”

Your fingers froze over the keyboard before you looked over your shoulder to see Bucky watching you, leaning against the doorframe.

“I had a protein bar and like two cups of red eye, I’m fine.”

His worried gaze raked over you, making your heartbeat even faster.

“I thought we had a deal.”

“I’ll eat when I’m done with this.” You nodded at the screen and he came to lean against your desk, making you bite back a smile.

“Birdie.”

You heaved a dramatic sigh at his teasing tone and looked up at him. “Hm?”

“Let’s have lunch.”

“You literally came back from lunch.”

“I can eat again.” He started tilting the screen of your laptop down but you batted his hand away, then fixed the screen again. “It’s a metabolism thing.”

“Super soldier metabolism?”

“Mm hm.”

“Good for you, I’m too busy,” you said. “I already spent enough time doing nothing with my mom yesterday when I was supposed to go over this, so…”

“You were with your mom?” he asked. “How did that go?”

“Dad wasn’t home so it was fine. Ish.”

“Fine-ish?”

“My mom doesn’t really know much about me but the parts she knows, she loves to dismiss,” you said. “They make a terrific couple with my dad, terrible parents though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you said. “Without them, my old therapist wouldn’t have been able to buy her second Ferrari, so I guess it wasn’t a total disaster.”

“And you can tell me all about it while we’re having lunch.”

You turned to your laptop. “Take a powder, Barnes.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see the clear confusion on his face but it turned into an amused smile, a chuckle escaping his lips.

“How did you…?”

“Hey, I could have an extensive vocabulary.” You grinned at him. “You don’t know my lexicon.”

“Right. Why do I feel like you googled 40s slang?”

“I once saw you google if lavender is edible, so how about we stop pointing fingers?” you asked and he shook his head vigorously.

“In my defense, Kelsey got me a lavender latte and insisted I had to try it.”

“And what did you think? Your assistant was trying to poison you?”

He shot you a look as if you were asking him a question with a very obvious answer. “It’s Kelsey.”

You thought for a moment, then shrugged your shoulders.

“Fair enough,” you said. “But come on, she—”

You stopped talking when your phone started buzzing, making both you and Bucky turn your glances to the screen, and you both frowned at the same time.

“He’s still calling you?” Bucky asked and held out his hand for you to give him the phone, but you shook your head.

“I’ll handle him,” you said and answered the phone. “Max, go fu—”

“Wait wait, don’t hang up,” he cut you off. “I swear, this will be very civil and you’re gonna want to listen to what I have to say.”

You rolled your eyes, leaning back on your chair while Bucky kept his eyes on you.

“What?” you asked crossly and he took a deep breath.

“I saw that piece about you and Barnes.”

“I’m going to hang up now.”

“A journalist contacted me,” he said in a rush. “He wanted to know whether there was anything going on between you and him while we were still dating.”

Your stomach dropped, your eyes snapping up to Bucky before you gritted your teeth.

“And let me guess,” you said. “You told him you’d think about it and now you’re calling me to ask for something.”

“No actually,” he said. “I told him we broke up because I cheated on you, because you put your career over our relationship, the very same career you wouldn’t risk for anyone much less your boss.”

You pulled back slightly. “…What?”

“I gathered ambitious bitch sounded better than greedy slut. Not that you’re either of those but you know, the guy was an asshole.”

You let out a surprised laugh.

“You’re telling me you had the perfect opportunity to fuck with me and you didn’t take it?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re not asking for anything in return?”

“No, I just wanted to let you know,” he said. “If they called me, it means they’re working on a piece.”

You frowned, drumming your fingernails on the desk.

“And why would you do this without asking for anything in return?”

He fell quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat.

“Tessa said she’d leave me if I didn’t go to therapy,” he said. “And my therapist made me realize it wasn’t cool, what I did. What with keeping Blinky and stuff.”

“By ‘stuff’ you mean cheating on me, or the ultimatum or going behind my back at voting?” you asked and he took a deep breath.

“Yeah. Sorry about all that.”

As much as you wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, you figured this was at least just a little progress.

Very little, but either way.

“Well, what do you know?” you muttered. “I mean you’re still an asshole, that goes without saying but I appreciate the heads up.”

“My therapist says I have um… he says I am scared of emotional intimacy. That’s why I cheated on you, he says.”

“Yeah Max, because he can’t say you’re an asshole. You’re paying him.”

“I guess.” He snorted a laugh. “How’s DC?”

“Full of people who’d love to step on your back for their own gain. I haven’t slept in two days.”

Bucky shot you a disapproving look but you waved a hand in the air.

“So you’re having the time of your life?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s good—” He started but you heard another voice coming from the other line, probably his assistant. “I uh, sorry, I gotta go. Work thing.”

“I gathered,” you replied. “It’s almost five minutes.”

“…Yeah, that wasn’t cool either,” he said. “Also sorry about that.”

“Listen, how about I send you a list of things you should be sorry for and we can get all of them out the way?”

He let out a chuckle. “That’d make therapy so much easier. Can I call or email you to apologize then?”

“Call me and I’ll see if I’m in the forgiving mood,” you said and hung up, then looked up at Bucky.

“So, great news,” you said. “A journalist asked Max if you and I had an affair while I was with him, but he said no.”

“And he didn’t ask for anything in return?”

“He’s doing therapy, as it turns out,” you said. “My belief in psychology has been renewed because honestly, if they can make Max apologize…”

Bucky’s lips twitched into a smile and you bounced your leg, biting inside your cheek.

“We need to find who this journalist is.”

“I will.” His voice was completely calm. “And I’ll take care of it.”

“You can’t threaten him.”

“If he didn’t want me to threaten him, he shouldn’t have dragged you into whatever nonsense he’s working on,” he said, making your heart skip a beat. “That’s just not how it works.”

You tilted your head, feigning confusion. “I thought I was the one protecting you.”

He winked at you. “It’s a two-way street.”

You rolled your eyes at him playfully as he turned his head to look at the approaching footsteps before Caleb appeared at the door and let out a groan.

“I’m like two seconds away from assigning a chaperone to you like we’re in Georgian era,” he said. “Bucky, you might be familiar with that.”

“Wrong century, Caleb.”

“Well, how about we don’t start another fire when I’ve just extinguished the other one?”

You held up your hands and turned your attention to the screen, your cheeks burning and Bucky heaved a sigh, then pushed himself off the desk.

“Make her eat something.”

“I will but did you have the chance to think about what I said?”

You looked between them. “What did you say?”

“Caleb thinks we all should have a barbeque at my new place,” Bucky said. “Something something PR.”

“It would show you’re still relatable and that you’re doing fine after the breakup.”

“That’s not a terrible idea,” you mused. “I haven’t been to your new place yet, and I missed Alpine.”

“And the team would love it,” Caleb added and Bucky’s gaze stopped on you as if he was torn between ideas, then cleared his throat.

“Yeah, whatever,” he told Caleb who pumped his fist in the air in victory. “Just let me know when.”

“Will do!”

“And I’m not locking Alpine in the room,” he said as he walked into his office. “She gives me an attitude for days when I do that.”

Caleb approached you to plop down on the chair next to your desk.

“Thanks for convincing him.”

“I barely said anything.”

“Well, I’ve been begging him for a week and one word from you…” he trailed off and you shook your head, then turned to him.

“Caleb.”

“Hm?”

“There’s something you need to know as Bucky’s communications director.”

His grin wiped off his face in a second. “What?”

“There’s a journalist,” you said. “And apparently he’s been asking questions about me and Bucky.”

Caleb ran a hand over his face, cussing under his breath.

“Of course,” he said and pulled out his phone. “It was getting a bit too peaceful today, so why not? Be right back.”

You watched him walk out of the office and pressed your hands on your eyes before you dropped them, straightening your back.

“It’s fine,” you murmured to yourself as you turned your attention back to the screen. “It’s totally fine.”

As your anxiety would show you; it was not, in fact, fine.

You had spent the whole day working, and now almost everyone had left but Kelsey and Bucky, both of whom were in a meeting with Congressman Murray.

And you. Working overtime.

It was already dark out, and the only thing illuminating the office was your laptop screen. You could feel the migraine slowly making its way to your temples. For the whole day, your chest hadn’t stopped feeling tight, like you couldn’t get enough air into your lungs especially after Max had told you about the journalist. In addition to all that, the work you had to cover was getting bigger and bigger, you still had one hundred pages to go over, and to make the necessary edits.

In other news, you might have bitten more than you could chew.

You typed away at the keyboard, forcing yourself to hum a melody in hopes of calming yourself down before you got up from your chair to make your way to Bucky’s office. You grabbed the file from his desk and went back to your desk, but before you could sit down, your phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lighting up.

From: Dad

We need to talk about the journalist.

And just like that, your line of sight grew narrow, darkness swallowing everything else other than the phone.

To your terror, you could feel the familiar tingling spreading over your face as your throat tightened, the breath you were taking getting stuck there. A fire burned through your chest, twisting your heart harder and harder while it tried to escape from your ribcage. You could feel your whole body beginning to shake, the floor getting wobbly underneath your feet like quicksand as you took a step back, grasping at your throat with one hand.

You’re not dying.

It’s a panic attack, you’re not dying.

Except that you were sinking.

You held onto the desk with one hand and managed to crouch down to sit on the floor as the room started spinning, your heart pounding in your ears. Nausea crashed down on you while you tried to get enough air in your lungs, your other hand balling up into fist tight enough to cramp.

You’re not dying.

You couldn’t even tell if it was tears or cold sweat running down your face; it was probably both. Your hand on your throat slipped down to your chest to press on it in hopes of soothing the pain there while you forced yourself to take another breath.

You’re not dying.

You see a laptop, you see a chair, you see a—

You hadn’t even heard Bucky stepping into the office before he rushed to you, his hands grasping your upper arms, almost frantically checking you for injuries like he wanted to see if you were bleeding.

“Birdie?”

“Not dying,” you managed to gasp out. “Panic attack.”

That made him stop only for a moment, a look of absolute relief crossing his face and he let out a breath.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re breathing very fast right now, can you breathe with me?”

You nodded your head, taking a shaky breath at the same time as him, then exhaled. For almost a minute, you followed his lead and once you weren’t breathing as fast, he gave you a small smile.

“There you go,” he said. “Five things you can see?”

That made your eyes snap to his as you took another breath. “How do you—?”

“Five things,” he said and you exhaled.

“Laptop,” you rasped out. “Chair. Papers. Desk. My fox figure on my desk.”

“Four things you can hear.”

You tried to focus, pulling your brows together.

“Your voice,” you said. “Footsteps from the hallway. AC. Um…”

“One more.”

“The laptop running,” you said, pressing your palm on the floor. “And three things I can feel are…the marble floor, and sweat dripping down the back of my neck, which is fucking disgusting—”

“Birdie, focus.”

“And um, the wind. From the AC.”

“And two things you can—”

“Smell. Your cologne and paper. I just printed a bunch of stuff.”

“And one thing you can taste?”

“Blood. I bit my tongue too hard.”

His eyes searched your face and you let out another shaky breath, exhaustion creeping up on you as you leaned your head back to the wall. Bucky hesitated for a second before he sat beside you, leaning back against the wall.

“How do you know grounding techniques?” you asked after a pause and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Mandatory therapy.”

“Ah,” you said, fixing your eyes on the ceiling. “Interesting.”

“And I’m guessing this is not your first panic attack?” he asked, making you scoff a laugh.

“Nope,” you said. “Been having them since I was like twelve.”

Bucky’s brows pulled into a frown. “Twelve?”

“Yup,” you said. “As it turns out, if you put too much pressure on a kid and yell at them whenever they didn’t meet the expectations, their brain gets messed up. Who would’ve known?”

“I’m going to kill your father.”

“You can’t,” you said. “If he’s dead, who’s gonna go around crossroads to make deals for people’s souls?”

“Birdie.”

“I’m fine,” you said even if your arms felt way too heavy when you raised your hand to wipe the sweat off your forehead. “This happens, no big deal.”

“How often?”

“Not regular,” you said. “Sometimes. But let me tell you, I would not last a day back in the 1940s. I saw those documentaries, my husband would send me off to an asylum and they’d try to lobotomize—”

“I’m giving you time off.”

“Tough shit, I’m not taking it.”

He gave you a look. “I’ll change the locks to the office.”

“I’ll work in the hallway.”

He ran a hand over his face as if he was straining his mind to come up with a solution and you wiggled your brows despite exhaustion.

“Sorry. I guess you shouldn’t have hired me, huh?”

“If I hadn’t hired you, neither of us would be here,” he said and thought for a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t be, at least. You would have probably made someone else win so you’d be here.”

“I wouldn’t have worked for someone else,” you murmured and he licked his lips.

“Please take some time off.”

“Nope.”

“You either take some time off, or I’m hiring someone to help you out with the workload.”

Your eyes widened. “Bucky, no.”

“Bucky yes.”

“I don’t trust anyone else with what I do,” you said. “They’re gonna miss something, some detail and then I’ll have to go over what they did anyway.”

“Either vacation, or this,” he said, his voice signaling this was not open to discussion. “You’re not leaving me with many options here.”

“There is an option!” you exclaimed. “The system we have works.”

“It obviously doesn’t if you haven’t slept in two days and the workload is triggering a panic attack.”

“It didn’t though!” you insisted. “It’s a coincidence, not a chain of events.”

“I’m not risking it.”

You huffed out, slipping a little on the floor and crossing your arms while Bucky’s lips twitched into a fond smile.

“You’re pouting.”

“I’m not pouting, I’m contemplating,” you corrected him and gritted your teeth, then rolled your eyes. “Fine. I’ll give the okay though, whoever you hire. I need to make sure they can handle this whole thing.”

“Didn’t think otherwise.”

You let out a noise of displeasure, exhaustion still heavy on your whole body and you leaned your head on his shoulder with a tired sigh. He dipped his head to nuzzle into your hair, making your stomach do a happy flip and you played with the bracelet around your wrist.

“Bucky?”

He hummed into your hair.

“How did it go with Murray?”

He raised his lips from your hair so that you could hear him; “We’re not talking about work right now.”

“But—”

“Nope.”

“Fine,” you said with a pout. “How are you handling the breakup?”

That made him fall quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat.

“I’m fine.”

You lifted your head and sat up straighter to look up at him better.

“Are you?” you insisted. “For real? Because I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. I mean no offense but Hazel is kind of perfect.”

“She is,” Bucky said immediately. “She really is, but I don’t think—uh, I don’t think I was the right person for her.

Your heart sped up again but this time instead of dread, all you could feel was excitement rushing through your veins.

“…Oh,” you managed to say. “Why not?”

That made him fall quiet for a moment, his gaze slipping down to your lips before it snapped up to your eyes again. You couldn’t help but notice his throat bobbed nervously, and he took a deep breath as if he was trying to gather up courage.

Which was insane.

You had seen him throw himself in danger over and over again without so much as a second of hesitation.

“Because,” he started, his voice soft, “Birdie, I—”

“Hello?” Kelsey’s voice carried out from the doorway, snapping both of you out of your daze. “Guys?”

You loved Kelsey but you could swear that the urge to scream at her was way too strong.

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment as if he shared the sentiment, then opened them again, his jaw tightening. You sat up straighter and raised your hand from beside the desk.

“Over here, Kels.”

“What the fuck are you two doing on the floor?” Kelsey asked as she made her way to you and you exchanged glances, then turned to her.

“I…we—uh—”

“I think better when I’m sitting on the floor,” Bucky cut you off and Kelsey tilted her head.

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s a habit from the 1940s.”

Kelsey looked from him to you while Bucky stood up, then offered his hand for you to take it, a warmth spreading from your hand to your arm. You were still exhausted, but you looked up at him and mouthed ‘thank you’. Bucky squeezed your hand in an assuring manner, and you turned to Kelsey.

“Are we going home?”

“Sure, let’s.”

“Call me when you get home?” Bucky murmured and you nodded your head, giving him a small smile, then grabbed your purse off the desk and followed Kelsey out of the office.

“Please don’t tell me you two were having sex on the office floor.”

You let out a laugh, then shook your head.

“We were talking about his ex,” you said and cracked your neck, making a face. “And oh, before I forget, Caleb says we’ll have a barbeque at Bucky’s place this Saturday.”

“At Bucky’s place?” she asked. “All of us?”

“Mm hm, the whole team and I think Sam and Sarah will come too.”

Kelsey grinned at you.

“Just let me know if you happen to find yourself in his bedroom and need me to distract others,” she joked. “During the house tour, that is.”

You pushed at her arm gently.

“There’s gonna be people there,” you reminded her. “Lots of people. Hypothetically, even if Bucky liked me like that—”

“Did they raise you in a convent?”

“That would still be impossible,” you said as if she didn’t interrupt you. “Which by the way, he doesn’t.”

“Uh huh.”

“I don’t even think he finds me hot, to be honest with you,” you said. “It’s like Hazel said. He entertains my crush, that’s it.”

Kelsey threw her head back.

“You are so oblivious,” she groaned. “This barbecue—”

“Will be just a barbecue,” you said. “Some PR thing, that’s it. I assure you.”

Chapter 13

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