#“i thought i knew you better than this” dont mind me ripping my teeth out. thinking about how benson didnt even think-

[youredreamingofroo]

The Passenger (2023) dir. Carter Smith // NEVER AGAIN - MICHELLE

[smellslikemultifandomimagines]

I have a request for a smut for Mitch Rapp and a fem!reader: basically enemies to lovers. They (think they) hate each other but in reality they just REALLY wanna shag each other (Stan kinda suspects it). The seggssual tension between them grew to the point where neither can take it anymore and they shag! That's it for the plot. Feel free to make it the filthiest piece of filth that has ever seen the filth of day. They can punch the other, kick the other, pull the others hair! I am a okay with either of them getting staped. Biting and scratching are on the table. They can use fire... I hope you can turn this to a smut for me. I really enjoy reading your smuts!

also:

pairing: mitch rapp x fem!reader

warnings: smut → seggsual tension that can be cut with a knife, oral (male receiving), degrading kink, rough penetrative sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it).

word count: 1.4k

a/n: ahh omg i love the b9-9 reference!!

+ i've added this other request here too bc they had the same vibe to it - hope that's okay anon!

++ also [y/l/n] means your last name (but i think we've all read fanfics long enough to know that lmao)

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:• ☾ ☼ ☽ •:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•

requests for the sleepover are open🖤!

request guidelines here✨!

smut night masterlist

🌻masterlist🌻

taking in Mitch’s attire for the first time that night, it was apparent to you that Mitch was quite the attractive man.

But Mitch rapp was anything but attractive. He was repulsive. Rude. Had nearly gotten you killed so many times on a mission due to his inability to stick to plans, especially if they were made by you.

His tie hangs lose around the white collared button down shirt. His blazer thrown onto the couch that he planned to sleep on. Stan suggested that you share a room, never knowing nor predicting when the bad guys could attack. It was better, and safer, for the two of you to stay together.

Slipping the tie from around his neck, he throws it to wear his blazer lays, his eyes darting up to you. You, sitting cross-legged on the bed, quickly averted eye contact. You hear a slight huff of amusement coming from him, which only makes you roll your eyes. God, what you would do to share a room with literally anyone but him.

Your pj shirt hung low on your chest - almost a little bit too low. Mitch, for only a second, glances at your cleavage. His mind wanders into places he’s never really though that hard about before. He wanders what it would be like to suck those perfect tits of yours. If it wasn’t for the tv, he would’ve made an awkward coughing sound to release some of the built up tension in the room. You can feel the tension too. Building and building. The room getting hotter with each breath you took. You stand from the bed, going over to the small tea station to turn on the kettle.

“Want some tea?” You ask, not daring to look at him. For some unknown reason, you’re afraid to.

“sit.” He demands, his eyes glaring into you with such intensity. You return the glare, clenching your jaw as he nods to the bed.

“Why?”

“We need to talk about what happened today-"

“We have nothing to talk about. You did your usual shit and I did mine.”

“Don’t speak to me like that.”

“Like what? At least I’m not the one trying to get us all killed,” you spat, folding your arms over your chest. Mitch stalks over to you, his eyes dark with lust.

“Say that again. I dare you,” his voice is so low, you’re not sure if it scares you or turns you on.

“You always try to get us killed. That’s why your plans never work." you try so hard not to falter your voice, but he’s making it so difficult when he’s standing in front of you, with such a dominant demeanour, you thought you might as well submit to him now. He knocks your legs apart with his knee.

“Same could be said about you. Just remember that,” he growls in your ear. Without thinking, you grab him by the collar and thrash him down on the bed beside you. You stable him, pinning his wrists beside his head.

“Now, miss feisty. Might want to save your energy for tomorrow,” he chuckles, not even the least surprised that you’ve just done that.

“Don’t patronise me, rapp. You’re lucky I don’t just kill you now,” you purr in his ear, feeling his hips knock against yours. The feeling of his hardening cock poking at your thigh is something you’d never thought you’d ever get to experience with him.

Mitch flips you over, you know the grip on your wrist is going to bruise. "don't forget that i'm just as capable, darling."

roughly, he pushes off you, unzipping the pants of his suit. His jaw clenched, skin so hot and heated you can see the veins protruding through his hands.

"suck." he demands through gritted teeth. Your jaw drops as you just stare at him. he couldn't be serious? His eyebrows raise in anticipation - the same look he gives our targets when they try and plead their case to let them live.

You sigh, pushing yourself off the bed and onto the floor. Your hand pumps his cock up and down slowly, wanting to test the waters a little bit - or so you told yourself.

"[y/n], dont." he spits out, roughly gripping your hair in a makeshift ponytail. Without needing to be told twice, you take him in your mouth, gagging as he thrusts into your mouth. he couldn't even for a second let you be in control. typical man.

You bob your head faster, moaning around him at the tight grip he still has in your hair.

"you like when im rough with you, huh? you dirty little slut." His jaw clenches as you clasp your hand around his wrist. "get up."

you do as you're told, and stand on your feet. Roughly and hasty, he practically rips your pjs off before pushing you on the bed.

"don't make me get the tie, [y/l/n]," he smirks as he hovers over you. You gulp and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him down into a rough kiss. He may be on top, but you can still be in charge.

HIs hand snakes down between your bodies, teasing and toying at your clit. He pinches it gently, clenching his jaw to restrain a dark laugh as you breathe heavily against him, not wanting to make a sound. you were not about to give him that satisfaction.

his calloused fingertips circle heavenly around your clit. He wants you to at least let out one moan, and he was going to make you do it - whatever it takes.

He leans back, eyes burning into your soul as he watches you. You bite your tongue from within your mouth, restraining every ounce of your body to not contort in pleasure.

"i could make this easy for you, you know. you're choice," he arches an eyebrow in amusement, his finger slipping into your entrance with such ease.

"oh please," you scoff, rolling your eyes in annoyance - although you're sure it was from the pleasure rather than his haughtiness.

"fine," he practically rips his hand away, you bottom lip immediately receding into your teeth to control the whines that wanted to come out. He wasted no time in lining himself up at your entrance. You look at him with pleading eyes, to which he catches before he slides in.

His thrusts are slow at first, wanting to tease you as much as possible.

"oh come on. even i can do better than that," you challenge, pushing him off before straddling his hips. You sink down on him, his hands on your ass. He kneads them before slapping hard as you bottom out. An unexpected yelp slips from you, followed a dark chuckle comes from him.

You bounce roughly on him, leaning back on your hands as they rest on his thighs. His hands trail all over your body, wanting to explore very inch possible. He'd never admit it, to himself or especially you, but he's always wanted to do this. So of course, he's not wasting any opportunity. as far as you've both silently agreed, this is a one time thing.

Mitch slaps your breast, causing another yelp to escape from your swollen and desperate lips. You sink all the way down on his cock until he's completely inside you, before gyrating your hips. Both of you moan loudly, the pleasure feeling all too right to not let out a sound.

Roughly, mitch picks you up and places you on the bed next to him before he holds your legs up to his chest. He thrusts into you and fucks you hard - slow, but hard.

"fuck, oh my god," you give in to the pleasure, his cock feeling all too good not to.

"see, that wasn't so hard was it?" Mitch's malicious teasing causes you to roll your eyes but once again let out a moan. the wall takes it from the bedframe, thumping intensively with each hard thrust of his hips. Both of you couldn't control your moans, and it was only a matter of time before the next door guests came knocking on the door to complain.

The two of you are close - much closer than either of you liked to be. Mitch knew it too, from the way you clenched around his cock, you moans becoming louder and more high-pitched. He spreads your legs apart, which you gracelessly wrapped around his waist to draw him in closer. His hand, once again slips between you both and rubs your clit in circles.

"mitch..." you breathe, scratching your nails mercilessly down his back.

"let it go, babygirl," he grunts before leaning down towards you ear. "at least i'll have the satisfaction of making you cum."

"don't get too cocky now. I'm still not finished with you yet."

[akaashioppa]

Promise Me?

pairings: baji keisuke x reader

summary: Baji promised you that you would have a great night. You, him, and Toman. He was out to have a good time too until the drugs came into play.

warnings: baji using drugs, curse words, angst, mentions of blood and teeth pulling. DONT DO DRUGS!

w/c: 1.6

a/n: Baji is a sweetheart and i know he’ll never do anything like this ☺️

A boy’s night was meant for the boys and only for the boys. The roaring sounds of the motorcycles, the blasting of the music did not go well with the anxiety that was soaring throughout your body. Baji being the crazy person he was, decided to bring you out to the club where all of the members of Toman would be.

You were standing near the game room with Baji’s hands firmly gripped around your waist. The sharp canines in his mouth were pressed against your delicate skin. The feeling of him kissing your neck all the way up to your ear was making you weak. 

“Hey, I’ll be over there with the boys. You stay here with Emma.” He muttered into your neck, His husky breath invaded your personal bubble. The scene was making you intoxicated with him and you didn’t care. All of the worries about coming here tonight with the gang completely washed away once you saw that smile. He was actually happy and not grumpy for once. Usually, he was a pain in your ass with his sudden outbursts of rage or the way he’ll set something on fire just because he wants to. 

“Okay baby.” You tried so hard not to stutter but Baji’s hand would accidentally slip into your inner thigh. The haze you were caught in finally came to a halt when his warm aurora left you. He stood by your side with his arms draped lazily around your shoulders. 

“Yo, Emma, Watch my girl will ya?”

“It’s okay, I can watch myself, babe. Let her enjoy herself on the dance floor...Go with the boys.” You pushed him gently in the direction of the boys. That particular grin on his face caused your heart to skip a beat. It was the same grin he gave you when he first told you that he was in love with you. He also showed that grin when he was ready to rip someone’s head off of their shoulders but you didn’t mind. It was hot either way he showed it. 

“Okay...I got you...remember that.” 

“I trust you.” He walked off into the distance towards the bathrooms where two other men stood. It was quite odd of a scene since the other boys were in the arcade playing pool and cards. He was the only one in the dark part of the room...No, he would never do anything that could make you uncomfortable. He promised since the first day you guys met that he would never lay a hand on you or show you the demons within him. Baji always wanted to protect you from any danger that awaited and tonight was no different. He made sure that there was a member in every corner of the club so nothing would happen to you.

Emma’s cheerful scream broke you out of your thoughts, “Come on (Y/N) let’s go grab some food from the food bar I’m starving.”

“I could go for some sushi.” 

You walked off from your spot with Emma’s hand in yours. There was a creepy feeling in the air, it’s been there since Baji left your side. He wasn’t with the boys which caused you to feel tense. Another reason was that he was still back there with those boys who now had something shoved up their noses. It looked as if they had tiny shovels in their noses.

‘There’s no way’

“Hey, Emma, Do yo-” 

The sopping feeling of dressing on your clothes helps you come to a rest. You looked down to see that there was a big stain on your shirt. The person who did it stood in front of you with a look of fear.

“I’m so sorry, let me help you!” The man in front of you launched into action, he fearfully began to wipe your shirt down with the paper towel in his hand. The crowd around you only grew from curiosity. You tried to speak, you tried to get him to stop but the words that were processing in your head wouldn’t allow you to speak them.

Emma grabbed you from the scene. She caught the signal that you were giving out. It wasn’t hard to miss since you stood there in complete shock. “We might need some water. Here there’s a family restroom. maybe we can use the water there.”

“Don’t I know you from somewhere? I think we went to the same middle school.” The man asked, you took a long look at him before you realized where you had seen him from.

“Yeah...Aren’t you Haruto?”

“Yeah, that’s me. I’m still as clumsy as ever.”

“It was a complete accident. You don’t have to worry, I'm sure Emma has a spare top in her bag.” You waved him off, he seemed much calmer now that you were almost clean.

Bang

The bathroom door was kicked in. Baji stormed through the door with two unfamiliar guys with him. He completely ignores you so he can grab Haruto by his collar forcing his head into the mirror behind him. “So you’re the culprit huh? What the fuck is your deal?”

“Baji! Put him down, it was an accident.”

“An accident huh? Look at you, you’re covered in shit.”

Baji threw Haruto across the room. He scanned the room until he found the perfect weapon, pliers. He snatched the tool from under the sink making sink water spray out everywhere. You watched in horror, the laughter from the other guys encouraging him to continue his menacing antics, it did not make the situation any better.  

“Can you please stop? You’re creeping me out.” Your voice was barely a whisper but it came out the stern. He seemed to have heard you cry out for him. His whole demeanor changed...he has more of a sinister feel to him.

“Why do you want me to stop? He needs to be taught a lesson. If not, then he will think that he can do it again.” He stood over Haruto with the pliers in his hand. He gave him a few kicks in the ribs just to toy with him. Emma tried to drag you out of the restroom but you stayed to face him.

He wiped his nose for the third time since he’s been here. This time a drop of blood followed behind it. You have been counting, ever since he left your side to be with those boys you have been observant of him. His sloppy posture, dilated eyes, his erratic behavior, and now he was having more mood swings than normal.

You tried to force the pressure that was forming in your throat away. You had to be strong, there were too many people out there that wanted to test you because they thought you were too weak to be Baji Keisuke’s girlfriend. So you put some bass in your voice and took a step forward. 

“Are you fucking high right now!?”

He smirked, “What does it look like, baby?”

“You son of a bitch” You scoffed, you marched your way over to him giving him a firm slap across his face. A gasp could be heard from the background. You and he both knew that all of Toman was here to see what was going on. 

“You promised me that you wouldn’t go to the extreme when it came to drugs! Look at you! You look like a fucking junkie, your fucking nose is bleeding and you don’t even care.”

He said nothing.

You reached down to grab the pliers only to be stopped by him. His strong grip from his hand wrapped around your wrist. “Get the fuck away from me”, he snarls.

You stare up at him and say nothing. The disbelief of him grabbing you and saying you engulfed your entire state of mind. He promised. You could only look into his dark orbs to see if he was actually being serious. It was no use, that demon he told you about was consuming him for the worst.

“You promised me that you would protect me tonight and yet you’re doing the most harm.” You placed a hand on his chest to feel his erratic heart beat. You knew what the white substance could lead to. His could actually burst if he got too excited.

He snatched your hand away from his chest,“I am protecting you! If only you’ll allow me to do my fucking job!”

Your hand was ripped away from Baji’s. It wasn’t him nor you.

Mitsuya pulled you into an embrace back from Baji. “The fuck is your problem Baji! Don’t you ever yell at a female like that! What the fuck!? Is this how you treat the woman you claim to love!?”

“What? You’d really think I’d hit a woman? I’m not your dad Mitsuya.” He stuck up his middle finger towards him with that annoying smirk on his face. “I’ll fucking kill you. Give me my girl.”

“I’m taking her home.”

You stood behind Mitsuya far away from Baji. You could see how badly he wanted to ruin Haruto. The blood lust in his eyes couldn’t fool anyone.

“Fine then. If that’s what she wants, take her home.”

“Don’t hurt him Baji. He didn’t do anything. Can you please just listen to me for once?” You were so emotionally drained from the situation that your words came out in a mumble. You knew what he was about to do. Your pleas would never get him to stop once his mind was already made up. 

He chuckled, turning his back towards you. The walked over Haruto again screamed that he would murder someone who got in his way. You sat there with a blank expression watching your boyfriend shove the pliers into Haruto’s mouth. No one dared to stop him, some watched out of pure enjoyment. 

 Mitsuya pulled you out of the bathroom before you could see your boyfriend in that state but you could hear his disturbing laugh and Haruto’s pleas for forgiveness.

“He’s too high to comprehend what’s going on right now. You’ll have to talk to him tomorrow.”

“But he promised me…”

[shlutnutt]

My favorite pet

-kai anderson smut-

hopefully its good lol not really proof read also

warnings⚠️: gun play, death mention, hardcore penetration, oral sex, fingering, name calling, slapping, sir kink, spit kink, harsh language, bath sex, 69

Working for Kai Anderson has never been easy, you needed the money and urgently for your father's open heart surgery. Kai was extremely cruel almost as if he was just born with a rotten heart, but Winter usually makes it known that he's a great guy.. Even if he doesn't show it.

"Hurry the fuck up you slut! You're here to serve me, not make me wait" Kai demands from the basement in which he'd stay most of his times at in his head designing his world domination plans. "Im on my way Kai! Had to clean up a little, sorry." you apologize as you walk down the creaky stairs leading to his dusty dim basement manwhich in hand. "What have I said about the sorrys Y/N?" Kai gazes up at you while you dont dare step another foot, an intimidating expression suited on his rough face, manwhich in hand, comfortably seated on his wooden chair.

"Sorrys are stupid and unecessary, stupid little sluts like me don't apologize. " you complied. "Good girl." Kai praises, as you automatically sprint back upstairs. There were no words to describe how intimidated you were by Kai Anderson, not because of the fact he was a psychopathic cult leader serial killer, but because of the way he carries himself. Always firm, vigilant, direct and determined . He was also illustrated as a sex god amongst a few of his cult members, they'd talk about how he'd make them come in just one minute in addition to leaving their legs trembling for hours. Even though you were slightly terrified of him you'd not give up the chance to hooking up if he'd offer.

Arriving back home to your little kitten (Dex) you were up for a hot steamy bath after the exhausting day Kai had given you. As you run the water carefully stepping in the oversized bathtub you begin to relax, coming up with the brilliant idea to drink some hennessy to boost your relaxation. You soon jump at the sudden buzzing coming from your phone, noticing it was Kai you instantly pick up to avoid his aggressive protests.

Y/N: "Yeah.. What's up?"

Kai: "You forgot your cat food at my place, Y/N."

Y/N: "Can I umm.. come by pick it up tomorrow? Im kinda busy right now."

Kai: "Nope. No need. I got it, Im at your front door, if you don't mind opening?"

Y/N: "Shit.. Im taking a bath, uhh there should be a spare key under the mat somewhere."

Kai: "You sound dru-"

You terminate the call quickly as your heart soon skips a beat due to the loud unlocking commotion coming from your front door echoing through your empty home. Dex's meowing began to rise, you dont think much of it since Dex gets overly excited from the pure sight of cat food, but when you hear his meowing getting closer along some heavy footsteps you grow alerted, getting ready to step out the bath.

"Can i come in?" You hear a familiar masculine voice politely question from the other side of your bathrom door. "What? no. Im taking a bath can you wa-" Kai enters, pretending to cover his eyes to give you privacy. "What the fuck." you yelp. "Hey, I just needed your help opening the bag, its kinda weird made, plus your little pussy needed attention." you chuckle to yourself from his use of words. "You wouldn't want it to starve to death huh?" Kai questioned you, proceeding to prentending to cover his eyes with the one free hand he had. He looked better than ever.. He wore a black long sleeve shirt which hugged his ripped body along some black fitted jeans, accompanied by his hot man bun, he noticed how you hungrily checked him out and took his hand off his face revealing himself fully to you.

"Like my outfit?" Kai asked in an overly charming voice giving you a silly twirl, which weirded you out since he's alwalys been a meany, could've been because he wasn't in his old deppressing basement away from his deadly cult who does nothing less than slaughter people for entertainment, or maybe it was because of how intoxicated you were. "Yeah, I actually like it. You look so fucking hot. Wait shit I d—" you accidentally let out one of the many thoughts that circled your mind triggering an unexpected shiver to run through your veins causing the little soapy foams that covered your body to vanish into the warm water unintentionally revealing your bare body for Kai to see.

"Oh, God. Don't move, you stay just like that." Kai demanded as his voice deepened to the sight of you. His dark appealing eyes scanned through your own causing your breathing to quicken at an inhuman speed. Unawaredly you bit your lip, effecting Kai's bottom lip to slip under his teeth also. Tension filled the bathroom as you two just stared at eachother, not one of you attempting to break the eye fucking you've been holding onto.

"Take off your clothes." you instinctively order. Kai's eyes widen as he slowly lifted up his long sleeve revealing his battle scars along with his divine form, as you just admired in the temperate warm bathtub you continued to comfortably lay on.

"That's it?" you question as Kai teased lowering his pants down slightly revealing his boxers and sharping v line. "I want more, baby" you order once again, this time softly attaching your hands to your soaped up breasts. "I think I might need some more inspiration." Kai suggested. "What kinda inspiration?" you interrogate once again. "Touch yourself for me, pet." Kai groaned out.

Rolling your eyes a little in response to Kai's nickname you begin to trace your hands down to your soaked core, rubbing it a few times before slipping a finger halfway in, moaning to the view of Kai pleasuring himself through his pants, you gasp to him pulling out a pistol from his inner hip, pointing it at you instantly.

"Did you just roll your eyes at me?" Kai questions, his warm breath fanning your face softly as he traced his gun up and down your body. "No." you shook your head terrifiedly as Kai's hand wiped the tears that your petrified eyes had shed before slapping the fuck out of you leaving a red mark instantaneously. Whimpering in fear and in pain you spat on his face in disrespect.

Kai paused and slowly cleaned off your spit with two fingers of his bringing it towards his mouth seductively sucking them clean before guiding his fingers from his mouth to yours. "Spit again" Kai motioned his fingers against your mouth signaling you to spit on them once again.

You spat on his fingers as he repeated his past actions, suddenly grabbing you by your neck to his mouth brushing his lips lightly against yours as he whispers against your mouth " You're gonna be good for me, right?" "Yes." you respond attempting to close the gap that you both held when he automatically pulled back to look deep into your eyes saying "It's yes sir, Y/N." "Yes si—" you're immediately interrupted by Kai's harsh lips on yours not giving you an opportunity to come up for air, continuing to trace his gun choking you and pulling your hair aggressively.

You pull on his pants signaling him to take them off as he hears your calls and unbuckles his belt allowing it to loudly make contact against the tiled floor. Tossing his pants elsewhere, Kai pushed you deeper into the bathtub as he joins you, turning on the hot water faucet.

"Open your legs for me." Kai intructs as you obediently do as you're told feeling his fingers fill you up quickly. Keeping his steady rhythm Kai continues fingering you, making out with you allowing his tongue to explore your mouth completely, loud moans filling your bathroom.

"Im really close, Ka– ..sir" you instruct in between needy moans reaching for his cock, provoking Kai to pull his fingers out of you angirly.

Another slap reaches the other side of your face as you whimper in pain. "I told you to call me sir, pet." "But I di–" "Shh, pet. Shut the fuck up. Suck your master's cock will ya?"

You proceed to straddle Kai's bare body against yours slowly and carefully drifting your head down to his erected member and your needy core to his face, forming 69. Beginning to kitten lick Kai's tip you feel his fuzzy face vibrate against your innocence making you moan against his, returning the same vibrations.

"Don't stop doing that.. it feels so fucking good." Kai instructs against your clit in which you obliged. His tongue swiped up and down your core aggressively, sucking your bud and tongue fucking you at times, making your pleasure on him sloppier by the second. Kai grabbed your thighs harshly digging his nails in deep trying to get as close as possible to you whilst flickering his tongue antagonising your swollen clit in which you let out a long deep groan against his freeing your juices all in his mouth in which he slurps dry immediately.

Kai chose to face fuck you belligerently causing your blood flow to your head making you dizzy in the instant as you allow your intoxicated body to be used as a sex toy. "Get on 4, you pet" Kai demanded as he pointed a corner of the now empty-waterd bathtub. "Yes, sir." you obliged once more switching your position as your legs trembled along the way causing a deep chuckle to escape Kai's lips, proud of his work.

Kai slid his erection past your soaking needy folds with no hesitation, causing your back to arch instantly against his. Kai had insane stamina in which you knew the sex wasn't going to be over unless he was done. His hips contacted your ass everytime, creating beautiful wave patterns to form on them, turning Kai on even more by the second.

"F–fuck.. you feel so good, my little slut." Kai praised as he gritted his teeth in between each slap against your ass, making you scream in pure pleasure as your climax was getting closer and closer. "Scream louder for me, Y/N." Kai instructed as you screamed for dear life against his nonstopping thrusts, satisfyingly sighing at the feeling of Kai's member softening inside of you as his warm liquids leaked out of your pussy.

"You're a fucking god, Kai." you praise, calling him by his real name purposely. "Next time I fuck you i'll make sure that you're left in a fucking wheelchair, Y/N." Kai snaps at you totally serious about what he just said while you giggled at his words.

"I love you, byee" your intoxicated self says to Kai's exhausted self, putting on his clothes whilst his wet hair shielded his dark intense eyes.

"Fuck you and feed your cat" Kai responds pointing at Dex who's been locked in the bathroom the whole time, witnessing it all.

"Oh shit."

Damn. Poor Dex lmao

[bloodycassian]

Little bit smutty! Part 2ish of hellish Reader x cassian

You stared at him. He stared back. And the rest of them stared at both of you.  His eyes did not leave yours for an instant. Even when the door slammed shut from a cold wind. Shapes moved in the corner of your vision, but you stayed locked with Cassian. Your shared link was currently a courting battle. A dance of thoughts and feelings, mixed emotions and fear. The fear mainly from your side. And he was trying to comfort you.

"What's going on?" Someone whispered. A small voice, but concerned.  A huff of breath, and they were shuffling out of the room. Leaving you and the war lord alone. You could still hear them from the kitchen, but you let it fade. You let yourself be drawn back on that platform where his presence waited for you. You closed your eyes.

"Where are you from?" He asked, too casual to be normal. His mind was protected, but he had opened that connection just enough to be able to ask you questions. "You think I'm going to answer that after your friend nearly killing me?" You said, dancing your essence around him in a tickling way.

He rumbled, that earthy tone of his presence was warm. Welcoming, as if he was made just for you to come home to. "If I had known-" He began, but you cut him off with a sharp shove of force. "You would have what? Not almost killed him?" 

He sighed, exasperated. Shame roiled in his gut, but he knew what had to be said. He pushed down the feelings of guilt for what he had done to his brother.  "Brother?" You inquired, surprised. "You look nothing alike." Which was neither a good or bad thing. They were both some of the most gorgeous males you'd ever seen. Much better looking than the warriors at home who only worked on the muscles visible. You could tell he was built, a lithe warrior through and through. You tried not to imagine him shirtless. A booming heat raced down the line, and you tried your best to get away from those thoughts. He shifted on the couch.

"Metaphor. Tell me how we can help you." He was upfront, straight to the point and you appreciated it. However, you weren't going to give up your assignment just because you'd met a male that happened to be your mate. The Witches would burn you alive. Or turn you into a wicked monster for the rest of eternity. You shivered at the ideas that they could draw to life.

You scowled, "You mean how I can help your court, right?"

"You tell me. You seem pretty freaked out about whoever you're doing this for." He said with a sly tone. You felt yourself burn, rage and embarrassment lurching forward. A quiver of humor ran down the line that connected you. You tried to shut it out, to somehow cut off that connection.

"Sorry honey, we're stuck with this now." He said aloud, breaking you away from that dark bridge. You cracked your eyes slowly, wishing it was all a dream. His cocky expression made your heart soar, and your muscles burn with the urge to hit him. 

+  

It was a struggle for Cassian to leave you. Especially to leave you with Amren. He warned her that if anything happened there would be helll to pay. She merely waved a hand and told him to piss off. He was fighting himself and everyone else, it seemed. 

"We cannot have them here with so little knowledge of-" Azriel stopped when Cassian entered, his boots thudding against the familiar wooden floor. He looked away, ashamed. Rhys was trying his best to keep himself under control and consider the mating bond. Tried to make himself think back to the first weeks of his and Feyre's taking place. The possessiveness, the hunger. He looked at his brother in a new light, being able to control his urges was a battle even Rhys hand't won. "Az, I'm sorry." Cassian said through his teeth. He was tired of the guilt, of the way Azriel dared not speak around him. "Can you please just-"

"Not until we have your bond...figured out." Rhys interrupted. He looked Cassian up and down in a way that made Cas feel dirty. 

"Theres nothing to figure out, Rhys. My mate is just an assassin sent to kill my own brother, and now we dont know if there's a scouting party out for us or not." "I know Cassian, it's not about the threat. It's about you." Rhys met his brothers eyes, saw the smoldering there. Azriel only glanced to Rhys, then wrapped those shadows around himself and left. He ascended the stairs slowly, not daring a glance in your direction. You could see the shadows crawling after him like a loyal pet. 

It gave you goosebumps to watch. You stared at the small female that was assigned to watch over you. She sipped from a paper cup like it was salvation. "Good wine?" You asked, nodding to her hand. 

She glanced between it and you, then trilled a long laugh.

+ Cassian knocked on your window that night. Rhys had refused to allow you to sleep in the same house together, especially since you were locked up. He feared Cassian would break down the entire house trying to get to you if he had any...urges. 

Your heart raced when your eyes met his through the glass. His smile was bright against the dark sky. "What do you want?" You hissed, trying to make sure he heard the quiet rage in your voice. 

"Come on, I wont tell." He gripped the windowsill, and held a hand out for you. He reached down that bond and caressed your spirit with a warm, golden light. Hope, and joy. Your stomach flipped. And without thinking, you let him take you into the night. You found flying with him exhilitarting, and relaxing. The soft sway that carried you nearly put you to sleep. The mind bridge was silent, as if it was waiting for something. His siphons glowed a happy amber that lit up the water when he coasted over a small lake. Then he landed, the rocks on the bank making nearly zero noise. 

And the breath was knocked from you. The tall mountain eclipsing the stars themselves was reflected in the lake in perfect clarity. The stars shimmered around it, framing the snow capped peaks. There was a brush of cold wind that made you wrap your arms around yourself. Then, Cassian was there. "May I?" He asked, holding a long sleeved tunic up. You hadn't noticed the bag he packed before. You nodded, and let him guide the sleeves over your arms. 

He brushed your hair off of your neck and you felt it then. The hot rush that snapped in your core. He stilled completely, that bridge alight with heat that was never there before. Your neck tingled, practically begging for him to touch you again. Your skin was too hot. 

His words began tumbling out before he could think. "I'm sorry I-" Nerves pricked at his stomach, making him nearly nauseous with disgust at himself. Stupid. Stupid male taken over by instinct and nothing else. He was risking his entire court for one person. His mate, though. He tried to shake the reasoning away, but it was undeniable.

"Touch me." You managed to whisper. Your eyes wide, you dared not look at him. If you did you feared you would be the one taking him instead of the other way around. You stared out toward the icy peaks. 

He hesitated long enough for your eyes to dart to his, to see the full blown pupils there. His siphons flared, and you couldn't hold back the flare of desire any longer. He met you half way, lips crashing into yours. It was a competition, who could get the other to moan first. You were determined to win.

He flicked his tongue over your lip. You growled and ripped his tunic off, exposing the muscled torso underneath. You pulled away, wanting to taste him everywhere, anywhere. He kept you at bay, watching you for only a second before a wicked grin appeared. "My turn." He growled, his voice deep and husky. 

He pulled off your shirt and traced a long line down your side, earning a hiss from you. Then, he stopped. Suddenly, coldly.  "You're-" His mouth fell open at the tattoo on your sternum. The sigil that marked you with what you were. You had forgotten completely. You rushed a hand to his hair, pulling back sharply. "Shut up and fuck me." You demanded. Despite his unease, he obliged with a cocky grin.

[yanderemommabean]

A Yiga attacks you, drawing blood. A mighty roar sounds in the distance, and not even a minute later, a feral Sidon emerges from the water, enraged and ready to kill. With a few well-placed snaps of his powerful jaws, Sidon has ripped the Yiga to shreds. When you get back to the Domain, Sidon is livid with you, berating you for trying to run away.

Tears run down your face uncontrollably as the Zora prince begins screaming at you, angry and ballistic as his stance makes you feel small and pathetic. You honestly weren’t trying to do anything! All of this started because of a misunderstanding and he won’t even take a second to listen to you!

Words are stuck in your throat as he sighs and turns around, too angry to look at you. You’re always starting trouble! Always ignoring his warnings! Why is it so hard for you to listen?!

“Sidon please I wasn’t-“

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“If you would just listen to me-“

“I SAID I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT!” He snaps, eyes turned to slits as he glared at you, mouth formed into a snarl “I don’t want to hear another word from you. You’ve deliberately disobeyed me and nearly gotten yourself killed! Unless the next words from you are an apology you can keep quiet for the rest of the day”.

You clench your fists, his words hurting and making you feel like a child being scolded. “If I knew you would treat me like a fucking child I would’ve let the Yiga kill me. I’m so tired of you acting like I can’t take care of myself. Fine. You want silence? Have it”.

Dramatic theatrics always pissed you off, and Sidon having the gall and audacity to act like he was scolding you out of love was asinine and grating on your nerves. Perhaps you should have been the one shredded by his teeth, at least then he’d actually do you a favor.

Not being allowed to go anywhere, be allowed to do anything, or even be allowed to speak your mind was absolute hell! You’re so fucking tired of it! If he wants to play games and be emotional then you can too.

Childish? Yeah but nothing about this situation was mature or on a level of calm and collected.

Hours go by, and you’re examining the bruises left by the attack as you sit by the waterfall. Another Zora guard is by your side, and he seems to want to say something but only nervously rocks on his feet as you stare down at the waters below.

“...He’s just looking out for you...you know?”.

You make a noise, looking up at the pale green Zora as he clears his throat and looks away. “The prince. He’s not doing it in the best way but...he just really cares about you and your well-being”.

You shake your head, not believing a word the fish said. “He’s got a funny way of showing it. That’s for fuckin’ sure” you bite out, looking up where the prince was pacing back and forth in the throne room. He still seemed livid and feral, but there was a hint of remorse behind those usually kind eyes.

With a sigh, the guard nods his head, toying with the shaft of his spear “The prince has had many hardships that he had no control over. You’re the closest person he’s been able to have in centuries. He doesn’t want to lose someone important again. I know he goes about it in a strange way, but you must know it comes from a good place”.

Sure. A good place. Right.

What’s so good about being treated like an incompetent child? Or being blamed for something you had zero control over? No, Sidon is just being cruel and controlling. Nothing sweet about it.

The Zora could tell you were hard set on brooding and frowing. Understandable given your circumstances. However he felt the need to try and cheer you up, even if just a little.

“Perhaps now that things have calmed down...you two could try to talk again? I’m sure even if you have choice words to say, it’s better than giving him the silent treatment”.

“HE’S THE ONE WHO WANTED ONE!” You spit, splashing the water slightly with the gesture you made with your hands. You huff, seeing the look on the guards face and turning to face the waterfalls again. “He won’t listen anyway. He’s mad at me and I’m tired of him. He only cares about how he feels, not about how I feel”.

“That’s not true, my pearl” a familiar, deep voice replied. You stiffen, turning to face the larger, more colorful Zora. Even now his eyes still held anger, but not for you. No he was angry with himself for letting his emotions take over, allowing instinct to muddle what he was truly trying to say.

He hurt you, and he can’t forgive himself. He swore to protect you and all he has done is smother the light you used to shine.

“...” you say nothing, turning back around and trying your best to stay silent. Crossing your arms over your chest, you shrug your shoulders as the only attempt at communication. Sidon nibbles his lips as he plays with his fingers nervously, debating on how to apologize and approach you.

He too stayed silent, giving a head tilt towards the guard to leave his post. Once the other left, he sat down in the waters beside you, drumming his fingers on the floor as his lips pout in thought. The sky was turning into a beautiful twilight, and the moons light casting upon you only made you look even more stunning. He could see the bruises made on you, and his chest ached knowing you were hurt.

You had defensive signs all over you. Signs that you didn’t go with the Yiga warrior willingly. Marks that proved you were scared and needing his protection and all he offered in return was anger and blame.

“...I’m sorry...” he said softly, eyes lowered “I...I thought you and the yiga...I...well-“

You cut him off, not looking in his direction as you finish what he was struggling to say “You assumed I was teaming with the enemy. I know” you bitterly state, fingers clenching your elbows as your arms were folded over, cradling yourself as a form of comfort. “Shows how much you trust me....”you weakly added, voice cracking.

Guilt was bubbling inside of him. He’s known you for so long yet he let his insecurities taint his image of you. And look where that’s gotten him! Your warmth was dying out because he can’t seem to realize that you aren’t like the others. Sidon knows you aren’t fragile and that you’ll always be by his side, but time and time again he ignores these facts over his emotion.

It goes silent again, the crickets chirping in the distance being the only noise for a while as he watches your face glimmer in the starlight. Amazing and breath taking as ever. His hand reaches over towards you, gently laying ontop of your own, his fingers intertwining with yours.

“I can’t take back what I did. But I can say that it’s eating me alive and that I hate how it even left my mouth. And...I want you to know I do care about you. I know I’m controlling and intense and unreasonable...and the fact you haven’t tried to kill me yet is amazing “ he jokes, smiling when he sees the little bit of amusement etched into your face.

You squeeze his hand and give half a smirk “well...you make up for it when you let me get away with stealing snacks from the store...so I’d say it’s even”.

Both of you share a soft laugh, and you swing your feet over the falls as you clear your throat. “I-I know you’re just worried about me but...Sidon, I’m not some fragile toy. I’m not some bad guy either. I wouldn’t ever do anything dangerous and despicable like join the Yiga...or leave you”.

Sidon lowers his head, pressing it against Yours as he holds your clasped hands to his chest. “I know...I know and I’m such a fool for thinking otherwise. I’ll make this up to you darling, anyway you want! Just say the word and it’s yours!”.

You gently kiss his cheek, and give a soft breath in thought. “Anything?”.

He nods in affirmation “Anything.”

You grunt, standing up to maneuver onto his lap “Well...for now just hold me. I’ll think of something extravagant later. Deal?”.

He laughs, holding you closer and nodding his head “Deal”.

-Mommabean (was this ok???)

[jkknight98]

My G/T promt challenge attempt inspiration.

This was my first attempt at ever doing a collective prompt challenge so it’s very safe to say I am a little nervous posting this story, especially since I suck at writing standard stories and fell back into my comfort zone, but I hope that everyone who reads enjoys it. It's from @bittydragon idea ( If I knew how to link the original post I would, but I am not very well versed in Tumblr writing yet).

The prompt was to have the tiny protect the giant, I was faced with two options that I could do, protecting the mental self vs the physical self. I chose protecting from the physical since a giant can easily protect the outside of their bodies, but their insides can be easily hurt without them knowing until much later.

Here’s Tommy protecting a gaint Wilbur from his own poor judgement plus interactions from the rest of the sleepybois inc.

Warnings : Blood warning, slight mention of regurgitating meal, soft vore, cursing.

(I have always viewed soft vore as a sfw interest but I know others may not so I’ll leave it out of the main collective tag just to be safe until I’ve been given the all clear to add it, but otherwise I’ll say its just an inspiration from all the wonderful work already posted through the challenge.)

G/T Prompt Challenge

Wilbur should have known that his habit of eating sand would come back to bite him one day, but who could blame him when he enjoyed the texture of sand crunching in his teeth and the feeling it made tumbling around in his stomach. It was supposed to be a normal day when the sands decided to strike back against him. He was just enjoying a warm summers day with his family at the nearby beach, techno was asleep under a umbrella while Phil was trying to keep his tiny brother Tommy from accidentally drowning himself by jumping from the giant's knee and then pinching them to make the man jump and create massive waves for the little gremlin. He couldn't hide his smile as he took hold of another handful of sand and let it fall in clumps into his mouth, not noticing the hidden treasure chest even when it landed in the middle of his tongue with the copious sand, he didn’t get a chance to chew the sand before his father yelled at him after seeing what he had done, swallowing the mouthful quickly before the giant avian could force him to spit it out,” Alright Alright Phil, I've had my two mouthfuls for the day.”

“ You shouldn’t be eating any, what are you going to do if you swallow something that isn’t just sand, what are we going to do then!”

Wilbur just laughed at his yelling father as he leaned backwards on his hands, smiling as he watched Tommy get his fathers attention again by using his feathers as a climbing frame, he shook his head at the sight. He really did love his mixed-up family.

~~

It wasn't until they were having dinner that night did they all find out the true dangers of his habit. They haven't been eating long, Phil chatting with Techno about who knows what while Tommy darted around the table pulling himself chunks of food from everyone's plate, Phil had learned quickly not to make one for Tommy since the tiny always said that everyone else's looked better, and Willbur was waiting for the next pass of the tiny so he could pull his target out of reach. He had pulled up a giant piece of pork away from the tiny, quickly stuffing it into his mouth and laughing as the gremlin child raged at him, he quickly chewed and swallowed down the meat as he dodged the tiny pea that was thrown at him, ” Come on Tomms, I know you have a better arm than that.” He continued to eat a bit more on his plate, subtly feeling how much he ate already before he stopped, feeling a touch of pain from his stomach.

“That's weird?”

“What's weird Will?”

His father looked at him slightly concerned when he had pushed his chair back a bit to look down at himself, taking a hand to gently place on his stomach, ” I don't know dad, my stomach just started hur-ghh.” The moment he put a slight amount of pressure on his stomach it felt as if something was ripping inside, the pain was bad enough that it nearly brought him to tears. He quickly pulled up his shirt to see if it was something on the outside, but the skin was perfectly clear with no signs of irritation.

“Wilbur walk me through what hurts.”

The avian was already up and at his side while Techno was holding Tommy at his other side, but still out of the way of their father, both looking equally as concerned.

“What's wrong with you big man, finally bite off more than you could chew?” The tiny looked as ridiculous as usual trying to act indifferent like the oldest, but it was easy to see the real concern hidden behind his normal snark.

“Oh shut up before I feed you to a bird Bratt, ” Wilbur stuck his tongue out at him before wincing again when he felt his fathers cool touch, ” hurts right where your pressing.” He watched as Phil's hand began pressing at different parts of his body, telling him about how the pain was worse in that spot, but could feel it throbbing into other areas.

He watched his father frown before he went to stand fully, he looked more concerned than he had before, but didn't voice anything to clue his sons into what he was thinking. The avain walked over to a side room to grab a small bucket and set it into Wilbur’s lap, taking care to not press it against his stomach, before sitting back in his chair to look at his son, ” I'm going to need you to empty your stomach a small amount, I don't want you to empty it fully just in case it's something I hope it's not, but I want to check just in case.

Wilbur felt a little annoyed at the thought, they were just eating dinner and now dad wants him to spit up half of it just because of a little stomach pain? “ Really dad I'm sure I'm fine, it's probably something stupid like I ate to big-.”

The avians wings puffed up in an attempt to show how serious he was to his son,

“Dont argue with me Will, just do it.”

Wilbur looked at the sternness on his father's face and sighed, ” fine, ” he began flexing the muscles he used for whenever Tommy used his stomach as his personal sleeping bag and nearly cried when he felt his stomach explode in pain again. It was as if every moment his stomach made was like it was ripping itself open. He only got a little bit into his throat before he had to stop because the pain was too much, quickly spitting the mouthful into the bucket and thrusting it into Phils arms as he leaned over and and gently wrapped his arms around himself, ” please don't make me do that again, it really fucking hurt.”

He didn't see the concern on Phil’s face as he looked into the bucket and showed it to his other two sons, Techno looking equally as concerned while Tommy looked confused. The tiny leaned further over the slightly tinted pink fingers and wrinkled his nose at the almost coffee ground looking substance that rested in the bottom.

“What is that brown stuff, Wilbur didn't eat any mud before we had dinner.”

The father figure kept up his concerned expression as he set down the bucket to run a hand through his hair,”That's because that isn’t mud, that's what it looks like when someone is suffering from internal bleeding.” Phil looked back at Wilbur's plate and the others quickly as he used his hands to feel for anything that could have been hidden inside,” I don’t know what you could have swallowed Wil, I made sure to not have any bones in anything.”

Wilbur just shook his head as it swam a little bit in pain,” I don’t know either, all I've eaten before it started hurting was dinner and the sand at the beach.” he gave another groan as his stomach gave another contraction and sent another wave of pain,” I'm just going to stall my system until we figure out what to do.” He closed his eyes to concentrate and felt the change gradually, his stomach calming and finally coming to a standstill to prevent the walls from churning at the rate that they were, no longer trying to digest the little bit of dinner he consumed.

Techno was the first to gently move Tommy to one hand as he used his other to gently grip his brother on the shoulder,” You sure you didn’t eat anything between our beach trip to now, nothing at all?” The piglin hybrid was clearly a little on edge, he was fully capable of protecting his family from the outside, but even he was powerless when a threat came from their own insides.

Everyone was a panicking a bit more as they tried to think what could be doing this to the musically inclined son before Tommy spoke up, the tiny brightening as he thought of a good idea in his mind,” Why don’t I go inside to check, I can go and see whats wreaking up your insides, that would work wouldn't it?”

The thought made Will turn a little green, ” I don't know if I could get you down with how bad it hurts,” he managed to make a teasing smirk though,” you sure you want to see that porkchop again.” He laughed at the face the tiny had made, but winced again when a flash of pain punished him for this action. He took a slow breath and tried to raise up as slow as he could, wincing as he got to his full sitting height,” are you really sure you want to do that, it’s going to be more gross than ever.”

The tiny just smiled as he pushed up his sleeves and held up his arms in a clear ‘pick me up’ gesture,” I can’t really protect you guys from the outside, but I am able to help you from the inside, besides a little gunk isn’t going to stop me from keeping my big brother safe.”  

The response brought a small smile to Will's face as he lifted the tiny,” alright you sap, let's get a plan put together before you go saving me from what's hurting me.”

`~`

Tommy stood in Will’s hand and gently shuffled the duffle bag on his shoulder that held a small knife and a small splash healing potion to reduce the damage before a proper healing potion could be taken, he looked up with another smile,” alright, let's get this over with before you get even worse.”

Will smiled lightly before opening his mouth, feeling his smaller brother clamber his way inside and curling up, and slowly closed his mouth and tilted his head back. He felt a mild wave of sickness at the thought of the heavy weight his brother would unintentionally create, but forced it away as he gave a quick swallow,using a hand to gently touch the firm bulge before it slipped behind his collarbone. He looked up to his dad and other brother with a weak smile,” let's hope he finds what's wrong and not cause any more damage.”

Tommy couldn’t help the soft noise of disgust as he slid into the stomach, landing in knee high mix of the stomach's contents, but he also noticed a strange glowing that was coming from what he suspected to be the front of Willbur’s stomach. He was quick to wade his way over to the object, also taking note of a few other things that shouldn’t have been there floating in the muck. “When did he manage to eat chainmail….oh my god.” Sticking out the stomach wall that looked very inflamed under the shiny purple glow was an iron sword, the handle looking a little worse for wear like the armor but the blade looked perfectly fine as it held firmly in the slowly bleeding wall. Tommy was momentarily shocked before he went to inspect the wound, wincing as he yelled up to Wilbur to inform him what he found.

Wilbur heard the tiny voice of Tommy yell out at him, listening for a moment before looking at the two other giants in pure confusion,” He found a sword sticking into me, as well as chain mail armour… when the hell did that get in there.” He jerked and gave a loud yelp as the pain in his middle got more intense before he felt the normal tingling of a healing potion,” You could have warned me before you pulled it out you little shit.”

Phil was the first to slap a hand to his head,” we were on a beach next to the ocean, you probably ate a buried treasure without realizing, this is what you get for eating sand all the time, be thankful tommy was here or else things could have been way worse.” The elder left the room quickly with a yell on how he's going to get a large healing potion to ensure the wound would fully heal once the youngest was released. The second eldest looked at Wilbur with a small smirk as he got up, giving a quiet ‘ I told you so’ before also leaving the room.

The remaining son sighed as he placed a hand over his stomach, softly rubbing where he felt his tiny brother was leaning,”Let's get you out of there Toms.”

`~`

“I really can’t thank you enough Tommy, if what you were saying was true, there would have been no way for us to get that sword out on my own. Also what enchantments did it have on it.”

Tommy smiled up from his cosy position in a towel placed on Wilburs chest, snuggling further into the softness and warmth the two provided together,” It had unbreaking on it, it would have taken you ages to digest the thing, and you would have to go through so many healing potions since you couldn;t heal around it.”

The elder nodded and placed his hand over the towel as he laid his head on his pillow, using his thumb to stroke the tiny in thanks,” what would I do without you, you little gremlin.” He smiled when he felt a small pair of arms wrap around his thumb tightly and pull it to rest on the tiny’s chest where he could feel the gentle breathing.

“ You wouldn’t be able to shit, someone has to protect you giant bastards when you think nothing can hurt you, especially things at my size.”

[daddynegandesires]

Secrets chapter 3

Summary: ellies birthday and mothers day is coming up as emotions and pent up anger are spiraling between you, negan, and jack while more and more secrets begin to unfold.

18+

Warming: nsfw, fluff, kink, depression, abuse

Sorry for the late update on this chapter its kind of a short one ive just have been going through some personal things and havent found the motivation to finish this one yet.❤ i hope you all like it!❤

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

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

You and negan haven't spoke in a few days ellies birthday is today and you have been busy decorating. Negan is suppose to be picking up the cake at the store. jack has returned back from his "business trip" withq an odd hickey on his neck that keeps gawking at you everytime you speak to him. You want to avoid conflict because you arent so innocent yourself after what happen with negan last time you saw him but thats just not who you are....you have to confront him but you also dont want to ruin ellies day infront of everyone.

"Hey jack, do you mind helping me with this streamer" you called out to him from the ladder

"Sure hun" he took the streamer from your hand taping it up to the wall

"Thank you.....uh negan should be here soon with her cake" you said folding up the step ladder

"I could of went and grabbed it" he scoffs

"I uh..well sorry i didnt know it was a big deal" you try to laugh it off politely

"Dont even worry about it...." He walks past you ramming his ahoulder into you heading outside

Negan had arrive with the cake and so did a few of ellies friends and your mother. You and your mothers relationship really has never been that great but you try to make peace with it for ellies sake. Negan came in with a huge gift box all wrapped in pink with a bow.

" i thought we agreed nothing crazy" you whispered to him

"Whaat...can i not spoil my girl" negan grins at you

Ellie runs out of her room her eyes light up at the size of the gift her dad got her.

"Mommy look at this...its humongo!" She says messing with the bow

"I see honey..dont mess with it yet" you giggle

"Where is your boy toy.." His tongue slides across his bottom lip

You kept silent while negan stared you down waiting for a response but nothing came out his eyes were burning a hole through you he always knew when shit was up.

"Ah i see....the silent treatment" folding his arms

Negan walks off to go play with ellie and say hello to a few people when your mother walks up to you.

"Hey mom..." You say emotionless

"What is negan doing here.." She asks

"Mom...please dont. Thats ellies dad. I told you we are trying to work on things for ellies sake" you say annoyed.

"Well...once a cheater always a cheater. Im just saying" as she sips on her cup of wine walking away

A few hours have passed and ellie got to blow out her candles and eat cake. Jack still hasnt said much to you throughout the whole party and its more than obvious that negan is starting to catch on im just hoping he doesn't notice the hicky on his neck. Ellie has been bugging you about negans gift so you were going to let her open it.

"Ellie open it up over here sweetie so everyone can see" you say smiling

Ellie quikly rips the hot pink rapping paper off and squeals in excitement as she realizes its a electric scooter that she has been wanting. Negan was standing by your side with his hand sneakily rested on your lower back with a huge smile on his face.

"Oh my god you got me that scooter!!" Ellie begins jumping up and down

"Negan....those cost alot" you whispered in his ear

"dont worry about it....i got it taken car of" he says sternly

"Lets take it outside!!" Negans runs over and picks it up in excitment with all of the kids following him outside to ride on the scooter. You were throwing away dirty plates when jack came up to you

"So you want to explain why you and negan have been so close" he quietly says to you

You instantly start to burn with rage as he asks you that knowing he has been keeping things from you too and the fact his assistant melissa has been speaking to him inappropriately. You were holing the knife in your hand for cutting the cake reminding you of the incident that happened between you and negan once you found out he was cheating. you froze and gripped tightly on the knife thinking of how to approach this.

"You're a fucking whore..." He spat at you

"Jack.....get the fuck away from me" you quietly say

"Yeah i bet thats what you want.....so he can fuck you" he says through gritted teeth

"Its. Ellies. Birthday.....fucking knock it off we can settle this later" you slowly set the knife down unclenching your fist

Jack stands there glaring at you with his jaw clecnhed before giving up and walking away. You let out a sigh of relief and pour yourself a glass of wine. You take a sip closing your eyes feeling like everything is going in slomotion in that moment when you here yelling outside and notice its negan and jack. You drop your glass spilling your wine everywhere running outside.

"Back the fuck off man!" Jack yells with his fist balled up

"Ohh...you really want to go there dude..." Negan laughs

"You are fucking (y/n) and i know it!" Jack lunges towards him throwing a punch hitting negan in the face making him stumble

Negan catches his balace reaching up to his face touching where jack punched him in the mouth realizing he is bleeding negan licks the blood off his lips and lets out a sinister almost scary deep chuckle.

"Oh...you fucked up." Negan lunges towards jack football tackling him to the ground he starts punching jack over and over again blood all over his fists

"Negan!!!...no! Stop!" You rush over trying to pry negan off of jack

"Negan stop for ellie please!" You begin to cry struggling to finally get him off causing you to fall backwards with negan on you

"You are a dead fucking man!....now get the fuck off my property..." Negan threats

You push negan off to go check on jack you try to get jack to respond to you and see if he is okay but he just spits in your face shoving you away causing you to fall before you know it negan charges back over and starts beating the shit out of him all you can do is scream at them and cry. Through tear filled eyes you notice the cops rushing up the street pulling into the drive way the last thing you remember is the cops pulling negan off and everything went black.

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

Jack and negan were both arrested but were soon let go apparently i had fainted due to stress and dehydration they kept me in the hospital until i was better. You kicked jack out of the house and you haven't spoke to negan since ellies birthday. Things have been rough being alone for ahwile and ellie was getting upset about not seeing her dad.

Text from negan:

Hey....im coming by

You looked at your phone to see a text from negan but you just ignored it and continued to cook some food for ellie. There was a knock at the door you sighed annoyingly before unlocking the deadbolt and opening the door to negans innocent brown eyes staring back at you. before you could give him a chance to speak you shut the door in his face but he quickly caught it in time with his foot in the doorway before it closed.

"Negan...ellie should be home. She is still upset" you sigh

"Thats okay i want to make it up to you two" he says pushing the door open coming inside

You just stand there silent with your arms crossed untill you hear ellies bus coming down the road and before you know it she busts through the door yelling.

"Mommmyyyy! Happy mothers dayzz!" Ellies runs up to you handing you a picture she made at school

"Awe...thank you sweet heart its gorgeous" you took the pink paper from her smiling and when to hang it on the fridge

"Look i want to take you two out to dinner...its mothers day and you deserve it..look i know i fucked up but that asshole had it coming" negan says

"Negan dont.....go ask Ellie she is the real one you need to be apologizing to not me" you stare at the ground avoiding eye contact.

"Ohh ellie daddy wants to talk to you!" He walks off to her room

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

You, negan, and ellie were all out at dinner at your favorite steakhouse enjoying your meal when the waiter brought a bottle of wine

"Negan....i cant afford that" you quietly say

"Ah ah....you deserve it i mean you are the best mom ever" he winks at you popping the lid off pouring wine into your glass

"Thanks..." You shyly say before taking a sip

"So.....the school fired me" negan cleared his throat

You choked on your drink hearing the words that had just came out of negans mouth

"What?..how come" you say wipping wine off your chin

"Well....they dont want me as a coach anymore since what happened at ellies birthday. They say its wildly inappropriate and against policy to still have me there" he bites in his steak

"What are you going to do..." You ask worried

"Ohhh no biggie i always have things taken care of" he smiles at you

"If you need anything im here..." You look up at him

" i know....thank you" he reaches across the table holding your hand

The three of you finish up dinner afterwards you all go for a late walk through the park. It felt nice to get out and have some fresh air after what happended at the party. Your phone kept buzzing off the hook of texts from jack you kept trying to hide it from negan to not let him worry. You felt bad hiding it from negan but you knew it would start a fight but you also didnt want to let jack go without some talking. Negan took you and ellie back home ellie ran inside and got ready for bed.

"I know he is talking to you..." Negan says sternly while placing one hand against the wall beside your head

"Negan....can we not talk about this right now" you say turning your head away from him

"No!...you will look at me when im speaking to you" negan grabs ahold of your chin forcing you to look at him

"Yes....yes im still talking to him.." You say embarassed

"Why....he is such a load of whoreshit....im standing right infront of you (y/n)...im here now! Take me back please. Im an honest man now!" Negan growls

" get...off of me!" You scream and shove him away from you and begin to walk angrily down the road

"(Y/n) get back here now!...where the fuck do you think you are going!" Negan trys to catch up with you when it suddenly starts raining

"Negan stop trying so hard!...this is going nowhere!" You say crying

"Why do you keep saying that!...i want this to work!" Negan finally catches up to you grabbing you by the arm spinning you around

"......well i dont..." You choked on those words as they slipped out of your mouth it felt like your heart had just stopped for a split second it killed you to say that to negan but it had to be done

"You....dont want this." He said quietly and upset with rain drops running down his perfect face

"Negan....i.... I cant. You have to let me go" you say caressing his face" you said giving him a half smile with a single tear rolling down your cheek

"W....what about ellie.....thats my babygirl" Negan begans to tear up pulling you into a hug

"You can still be in ellies life.....i start therapy next tuesday" you say ending the hug

"You can talk to me (y/n)" negan sniffles

"There are just things that just feel easier letting out to a stranger sometimes..."

"I love you....." Negan says bresthlessly

"....i love you too but from a distance.....i have boundaries set now negan"

You and negan began to walk back to the house getting inside you hand him a towel to dry himself off. Negan follows you to the bedroom.

"There are still some of your clothes in the closet...." You say facing away from him

"You still have some of my old clothes here...." Negan opens the door seeing his shirts still hanging in the same spot before he moved out

"I didnt know if you still wanted them or not..." You say nervously

"Its okay. Thank you" negan takes off his soaking wet shirt switching it out with an old faded band shirt

"You can sleep on the couch if you would like..." You offer him

"You sure you are going to be okay with that?" He raises an eyebrow at you

"Yeah....plus its been lonely here just me and ellie" you chuckle handing him a blanket

Negan takes the blanket from you before turing around to open the bedroom door to leave. As soon as the door shut you quietly sobbed making sure it wasnt loud enough for negan to hear. You wiped your tears away before getting yourself ready for bed. You tossed and turned for most of the night your head filled with unnecessary thoughts and cenarios. You just wanted all of this pain to go away you dont know what you are doing with yourself anymore the only thing that keeps you holding on is ellie and negan.

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

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

[taelme]

Enemies-to-lovers!Bang Chan

request: Hey! Can i request and enemies to lovers slow burn with bang chan where they dont like each other but theres undeniable chemistry

genre: enemies-to-lovers!au, workplace/office!au, (fluff, slow burn, lots of denial of feelings lol) 

pairing/s: Chan / Reader (ft Seungmin and some ocs!) 

word count: 21k rip I got pretty carried away 

tw: not any prominent ones that I can think of, kind of hints of the whole misogyny in the workplace kind of thing 

a/n: I got super carried away writing this I hope you guys like it haha im currently working on the other requests so do look forward to those!! ill try to put them out as soon as I can~~ all this staying at home is really giving me time to write... ( I HAD TO use this gif I just HAD TO) but yes this was a little hard to find reasons why y/n wld hate chan bc im for the chan is an angel agenda but I ended up having so much fun ok BYE 

“Hey, you free to get lunch later?” You’d bumped into your friend who worked in the company’s legal department, Seungmin, on a Thursday morning while you were in the pantry preparing coffee and tidbits for your boss. 

You nodded, “uh-huh,” mixing the coffee absently, “what are you doing here?” 

Seungmin shrugged, leaning against the counter as he munched on a cookie, “felt like taking a walk. Things have been pretty busy in the legal department lately.” 

“Why?” 

Seungmin gave you a cheeky smile, shrugging, “can’t say, but you’ll find out soon enough.” 

You rolled your eyes, gritting your teeth with feigned menace towards him (his smile stayed unwavering, even sticking his tongue out at you to mock you).

“Who’s that for?” Seungmin gestured to the coffee mugs on the tray. 

“Mr Bang’s supposed to be meeting his nephew or something, he made it seem really important but all he told me was that it’s for his nephew,” you shrugged, glancing down at your two cups of coffee, realisation hitting you. 

“Shit, that just reminded me. He said his nephew doesn’t drink coffee. Do you want this?” You shot Seungmin a pleading look, holding up your now unneeded cup of coffee. 

Seungmin scoffed, taking the mug from you wordlessly, “how exciting your job is, huh,” he deadpanned, sipping the coffee, “wanna reconsider joining the legal department now?” 

You rolled your eyes. 

“I’m perfectly satisfied with my job now, thank you very much.” 

You’d prepared a pot of tea, careful not to spill the water onto the counter as you did so, transferring the pot onto your tray, “and plus, considering the amount of money I get paid for the amount of work I do, I’m more than happy.” 

Seungmin scoffed, “should’ve known it was because of the money.” 

“Alright, I’ve gotta go, see you later,” you said, picking up your tray as Seungmin waved his hand with cookie crumbs on his fingers, the clicking of your heels growing softer as you walked further away. 

Reaching the door of your boss’ office, you’d been able to faintly make out 2 silhouettes through the window from where you stood, composing yourself to make a good impression as you knocked on the door. Hearing your boss grunt, you’d pushed the door open with your shoulder, your gaze focused on the coffee table as you greeted your boss.

Setting the pot of tea on the table, you’d cast a glance at the recipient, your eyes widening when you’d spotted the boy with dyed hair sitting on the plush leather sofa facing your boss, dressed in a clean white button-down and tie, an equally well-ironed pair of pants, his posture relaxed with his legs spread casually. 

His gaze was on you, as if analysing your movements, making you direct your gaze back to your task at hand, setting the saucer with the cup of coffee onto the coffee table, placing the small biscuits your boss liked in the middle of the two. 

Holding the tray close to your chest, you cast a glance at your boss, about to bow in greeting and head back out when his voice had stopped you. 

“Y/N, please, stay here. I’d like to discuss something with you and my nephew.” 

Your eyebrows raised, lips pressed tightly together as you nodded, “oh…cool, alright.” 

“Please, take a seat,” Mr Bang gestured to the space on the sofa next to his nephew, making you seat yourself awkwardly on the other side of the sofa, your body pressing against the armrest as if trying to create as much distance as you could between him and you. 

“So, Chan, this is my secretary, Y/N,” Mr Bang gestured to you, “Y/N, this is my nephew, uh… Chris,” he spoke, the name sounding fairly familiar to you. Chris Bang? You sounded the name over in your head, not being able to connect the dots as to why it was so familiar at this point of time. 

“So, sweetheart, because I’ve been planning on resigning for a while now, I thought I should let you know that I’m planning on handing my position over to Chris.” 

Maybe this was what Seungmin was so busy with. 

You nodded slowly, trying to understand the implications this decision meant for you, “will my contract be terminated, then?” 

Chris glanced at you, as if searching your expression. He found you fairly younger than he’d expected, since his uncle had mentioned earlier that you’d already been working for him for quite some time, going onto 2 years already.

Of course, he didn’t want to underestimate you, but knowing the directors’ reputations regarding secretaries, he wasn’t sure if he could put a label on your abilities without seeing them for himself, first. And to him, he wasn’t quite understanding of why his uncle was so insistent that he needed a secretary, his past experiences with secretaries all being quite unimpressive. 

“That… is unfortunately up to Chris, but ideally your contract will resume as per normal.” 

You glanced back at the boy, who looked at you with an unreadable expression, something about his stare successfully unnerving you, the way he looked at you almost with a certain level of contempt. 

“We’ll be having a company dinner tonight to welcome Chris to the team, it would do the both of you well to get acquainted with each other before the board meeting for ceo elections.” 

You nodded slowly, still clutching the tray close to your chest as you wondered how old he was, the whole ordeal seeming as though it were something out of a movie: a young apathetic heir getting authority over a large corporation at such a young age. Was he even qualified for this position? The rest of the directors were nowhere near his age, well, appearance wise. 

As if having read your mind, your boss spoke, “I’m sure you two will get along just fine, considering you two are so close in age.” 

Your eyes narrowed, something in you not feeling comfortable with this arrangement. Dismissing the thought quickly, you shrugged, figuring it would be a change of scenery from being around the old directors all the time. 

You watched as Chris shrugged.

“We’ll see.” 

=== 

“Who?” Seungmin dabbed at his lips with his towel, picking up his glass of water to take a sip, making you frown, still trying to do your research on Chris Bang as far as your browser app would take you. 

“Chris Bang. He’s gonna take over the company from President Bang.” 

Your words seemed to have elicited a giggle from Seungmin, “doesn’t that make them both ‘President Bang’?”

Seungmin ignored your eye roll, continuing, “this was what I was referring to just now, you know. I thought you would’ve known who he was by now,” he told you, making you set your phone down on the table, open on his LinkedIn page that frankly wasn’t giving you much other than stating how very qualified he was for the job. 

“You know, Bang Chan? Ring a bell? That guy that’s been switching departments for God-knows-how-long since last year. The one that got all of us donuts one time,” Seungmin gave you a ‘duh’ look, considerably unamused. 

“Oh,” only then were you realising just who that was. You knew exactly who he was. You’d heard many rumours from the other secretaries on how he was impossibly good at anything he’d set his mind to, his work ethic and standard incomparable to anyone else in the company they’d ever seen. 

Which was why all that switching departments start to make sense to you, since it could’ve been his way of making sure he learnt the ins-and-outs of every department by the time he took over. If that wasn’t just more evidence that he was definitely a crazy workaholic.

At the time, you’d made a passing comment on how you hoped you would never have to be his subordinate, after having heard stories on how intimidating he was whenever it came to work (especially work that was improperly done). Little did you know that your comment would come back to bite you in the ass so soon. 

“Yeah, ‘oh,” Seungmin mimicked you, taking another bite out of his burger, “why d’you seem so…,” Seungmin made a pained groaning sound as he gestured to you for lack of a better word, “about it, anyway? Shouldn’t you be happy? He’s super nice!” 

You scrunched your nose up, locking your phone in your dismay, not wanting to see his face on his stupid profile mocking you with all his stupid qualifications anyway.

“I don’t know, just kind of feels a little sudden. And I hate the feeling of not knowing if I’m gonna be fired since it’s not up to Mr Bang anymore.” 

“Which one?” Seungmin joked, making you scoff, finding it just a little funny. Only a little. 

Seungmin continued, “you’re just mad because him taking over means you actually have to do work.” 

You shot him a glare, your silence being an acknowledgement that he wasn’t entirely wrong. 

“And because I love Mr Bang! He was such a nice old man that checked in on me and gave me life advice. I’m not gonna get any life advice from someone that’s basically my age.” 

Seungmin huffed in amusement, bringing his hand up to cup his mouth as if to divulge a secret, dropping his voice to a strained whisper, “transfer to the legal department.” 

You sighed, “no, I still love my pay.” 

“Then stop sulking! Chris is the nicest guy I’ve met, you’ll be fine. Just show up to the company dinner tonight and fluff him up a bit,” Seungmin shrugged, “it’ll be smooth sailing from then on.” 

=== 

You figured you should’ve tried to do a lot better to fluff Chris up during the company dinner, instead of just going over to grill the meat for the directors, under the instruction of President Bang. 

The action itself didn’t sit right with Chris, who didn’t understand why it was so imperative to the directors that you be the one to grill the meat until he realised just why they were keeping you there. 

His own uncle was oblivious of course, simply obliging at any chance he got to show off how capable you were (even if it was just grilling meat), however Chris was quick to notice the way they stared at you as you reached between them to grill the meat, your face feeling hot with the steam from the grill. 

“Y/N is very hardworking, graduated at the top of her class in college,” Mr Bang mentioned pointedly, making Chris’ eyebrows raise in surprise. 

“Really? What did you study?” He spoke, knowing very well you were listening, the other directors not paying any attention to learning your background as they prompted you to pour them a drink. You didn’t miss the way his words were accented, remembering hearing from Seungmin that he’d spent a large chunk of his life in Australia. 

Tipping the bottle, you’d answered (albeit a little preoccupied). 

“Law,” you sat back on your heels, “minored in journalism.” 

Chris frowned, not being able to understand why you would’ve chosen to work here as his uncle’s secretary of all things if you had pretty good prospects on your own. 

“How’d you end up working for my uncle, then?” He voiced, your attention diverted when you’d been prompted by a director to take a shot of your own, clinking your glass obnoxiously and leaving you with no choice, an embarrassed flush on your face. 

Taking the shot, you winced at the burn of the drink, glancing back at Chris, who was still looking at you curiously, wondering how you’d felt under the attention of the directors.  

“Did it as a temp job at first,” you told him, “but I guess I realised halfway that I don’t mind it so much, and it paid me pretty well.” 

Chris hummed, you ‘don’t mind’ this? 

One of the directors let out a grunt of distaste, “you shouldn’t worry about that, doll. The job of a secretary is to look pretty, the pride of the company is in its secretaries,” he said, clearly having already had one-too-many drinks, his words leaving an awful aftertaste on your tongue, his hand going over to grasp your shoulder, his hand going down to your arm and squeezing. 

“I always told her she’d do well as a housewife. That way she wouldn’t have to work and just mooch off her husband.” 

You mustered a smile, setting the bottle of drink down and bowing to them, Chris having lost his appetite at the way you’d just let their comments slide. 

“Maybe she prefers mooching off of the directors, instead,” Chris murmured, his sharp tongue getting the better of him, catching your attention as you were walking past him, making you stop in your tracks.  

Chris’ uncle tut his tongue, nudging the boy harshly, making him raise his hands in surrender. 

“What? Just speaking off of observation.” 

You turned around, a surge of confidence arising in you (from where? You weren’t sure, maybe it was the fact that in your eyes he was still what was standing in between you and your possible severance pay), “excuse me?” 

“I’m sorry, was there any untruth in what I said?” Chris turned, his gaze almost challenging you to speak out against the directors, not knowing that it was only serving to spur you on to speak out against him instead. 

 You scoffed, Chris standing up and awaiting your answer, a voice in you screaming at you not to be intimidated by him, especially with the way his head tilted down ever so slightly, his eyebrows raising expectantly. 

“Didn’t know they would just let any rude petty kid run any company these days,” you narrowed your eyes at him, folding your arms and straightening your posture. 

Seungmin, who was watching from his table with the legal team, grimaced, deeming Chris’ expression to be anything but friendly at the moment. 

“I don’t know, maybe it’s just a little unbelievable to me that I’m supposed to be answering to someone who just got the company handed to him,” your words were coming out faster than you could help it. I mean, you were probably going to get fired anyway, right? Might as well go down with a fight. 

“You don’t know anything about me,” Chris muttered, his voice firm, annoyance laced in his tone. Your words seemed to have triggered a spark in him, annoyed that you were doubting his abilities, blatantly disrespecting him even after knowing he could be your superior. 

Mr Bang had tapped Chris’ calf harshly, “enough, don’t keep y/n from eating.” 

Ignoring his words, Chris had stepped forward, staring you down as the tension had only thickened between the both of you. 

“But then, what would you know, right? What was that again? Right. What are you here for other than to look pretty, hmm?” He tilted his head at you, flashing you a smile that was practically dripping with sarcasm. 

You practically seethed with anger, your fists clenching as you unfolded your arms, your finger coming up to point at him, “you know what? I’d rather eat beansprouts for the rest of my life than work for you.” You scoffed. 

Chris' amused lilt to his smile was only serving to annoy you even more, making you storm over to your table with the other secretaries, all of them casting you looks of concern or shock that you would have confronted him like that. Picking up your jacket, you’d scoffed, casting him one last look before you left, not expecting to see him again afterwards. 

Well, that was the part you were very very wrong about. 

That night, you’d called your boyfriend over to submit him to a seemingly never-ending rant about Chris, getting a text from Seungmin halfway. 

“I mean, isn’t it good, then? That you can find another job?” Your boyfriend tried to reason, pressing a kiss to your neck as you straddled him where he was sitting leaning against your headboard. 

“That’s not the point,” you insisted, pausing to read the text that Seungmin had sent, oblivious to his urgent kisses trailing up to your jaw. 

seungmin (personal)  2:12am -consider yourself lucky. Spoke to Chan just now, make sure you show up to work tomorrow.- 

“The point is that, he’s arrogant. What? Telling me that I’m only here to look pretty?—“ 

“In his defence, you insulted him first.” 

You glared at your boyfriend, “Yeah, fine. But he provoked me first. And I don’t know, something about him just pisses me off,” you tried to reason, your boyfriend’s kisses beginning to distract you from your anger. 

“You know what, maybe you should just give him a shot. Maybe he’s not as bad as he seems?” 

And so you did as Seungmin had instructed, doing what you would’ve always done, grabbing your boss’ morning coffee before going to the office, ‘leisurely’ making your way upstairs as you tried to avoid any possible suit-clad blond-haired man. 

Upon reaching your desk, you’d set your things under your desk, opening your scheduler and doing a quick run through of Mr Bang’s schedule for the day, grabbing the coffee and knocking on the glass doors before entering. 

“Y/N! Just the person I wanted to see.” You nodded, walking over to place his coffee onto his table.

“You have the board meeting in half an hour, sir,” you informed him.  

“Right, thank you. Would you be a dear and be there to serve the refreshments?” 

You nodded, “yeah, sure.” 

“If all goes as planned, Chan- I mean, Chris, will be taking over from next week onwards. So this week will be the last week i’m here.” 

You frowned, “it’s a shame you’re retiring, you know,” your disappointment was evident in your tone.  

Mr Bang simply waved you off, “it’s about time, I’m sure little Chris will do a good job.” 

You’d kept your mouth shut, nodding as he stood up with his coffee cup in hand, looking at you with a smile, “shall we head down a little earlier, then?” 

You nodded, opening the door for him to exit and following him silently to the venue of the board meeting. You were surprised, to say the least, when you’d reached only to find Chris there already, currently in an animated conversation with one of the directors, smiling like you’d never seen before, dimples showing on his cheeks. 

Excusing yourself quickly, you’d gone to the pantry to prepare the drinks, your time here having made you familiar with the respective directors drink preferences. Carrying your tray carefully, you’d pushed the door open with your hip, seeing all the directors seated already, all seeming fairly comfortable around Chris, only serving to make the feeling of dread build in the pit of your stomach. 

Making your way around the table, you’d distributed the drinks to the directors personally, refusing to make eye contact with Chris as you gave him his stupid cup of tea. 

Once the meeting had started, you’d dismissed yourself outside the room, a part of you trying to listen in on the board meeting but not being able to hear much through the thick panelled glass. You were surprised when barely half an hour had passed and you’d heard applause in the room, peeping through the window to see Mr Bang give you a signal that you could come in. 

Pushing the door open carefully, you saw the directors practically lining up to congratulate Chris, leaving promptly after looking all-too satisfied with the outcome of the meeting. 

Mr Bang was speaking to Chris as the rest of the directors were leaving, “well, I guess this means my work here is as good as done. I’m sure your parents will be thrilled to hear the news,” he pat Chris on the back. 

You were about to head out with Mr Bang, eager to avoid Chris when you’d heard him speak, “Y/N, I’d like to speak with you for a moment. Is that alright?” He cast a look at his uncle, who waved him off. 

“Of course, she’s not my secretary anymore, remember?” You cast Mr Bang a look of distress, seeing him chuckle before giving you a thumbs up, exiting the room happily.  

You winced, turning around so you were facing Chris, seeing him walk over to where you were, holding out a thick bound stack of papers for you to take. 

“What’s this?” 

"A contract. You can pass it to me by the end of the day once you've made your decision. I trust that you're familiar with reading contracts?" he asked as you stared at the papers, flipping and scanning through the print, realising that his terms were considerably more demanding than his uncle. 

"You'll be able to find an additional attachment where I list what I would expect in a secretary. Feel free to consult me if you're unclear about any of them, though I don't think you would need to." 

Your eyes lingered on the section of the contract, stating that you would be on a year of probation, but that the contract could be terminated whenever he felt appropriate. 

"Whenever you deem appropriate?" you scoffed, looking up at him in disbelief. 

He smiled, "very pretty wording, don't you think?" 

"That's all I wanted to say. Remember, I'll expect your response by the end of the day." 

You stared blankly as he shrugged his jacket off, draping it on one arm. 

"Go ahead, what are you waiting for? You can go for your lunch break now," he urged, before his features pulled into a look of realisation, "oh, forgot. That is, unless you would rather eat...what was that again? Beansprouts?" 

Your mouth opened, making as if to retort before you shut your mouth quickly, your eyes widening as he walked over to you, his gaze intense and serious, a contrast to the demeanour he wore while chatting up the director previously. 

"I can handle myself, you know," you attempted to defend yourself, watching as Chris had shrugged. 

"You have one whole year to prove that to me." 

In that one year of working for Chris, you'd learnt a lot of things. Not only about your position as a secretary, but about Chris, ( not to mention, just exactly how spiteful he could be ).  

1. Sleep was a luxury. 

In your first week as his secretary, Chris had surprised you with the sheer rate of progress he was aiming, and moving at. It was as if all the rumours you'd heard before about his work ethic were a gross understatement of his tenacity. 

You'd been having trouble adjusting to his deadlines, especially since he had entrusted more tasks to you. From surprise presentations, to drafting up proposals and reports, not to mention submitting research to him. To you, it felt as if you were doing half the job for him. 

In short, you had never missed Mr Bang more than you did then. 

Of course, Seungmin being your voice of reason, would shut your rants down, claiming it was ‘about time you do your job’, but of course, you loved to complain. Especially since it was someone you didn't have very fond feelings for that was assigning you the work. You grew increasingly irritated in the time you were adjusting to your sleep schedule, which Chris, and your boyfriend had definitely noticed. 

Because of your changes in brain activity levels, you assumed (google could only diagnose so much), whenever sleep came to you, you welcomed it with open arms.  Since waking up had become even more of a chore to run over to the coffee shop and squeeze yourself between the crowd of working adults and panda-eyed college students to get his very specific breakfast order. 

You'd gone home from a birthday party of your boyfriend and your mutual friend, things having gotten a little...out of hand at your boyfriend's apartment since it'd been so long since you'd been able to spend time together, not with you always falling asleep during video calls or refusing them altogether for the sake of getting your work done. You'd missed him, and something about being apart made you miss his touch. 

Jolting awake, (as if your body had been able to tell that your sleep was too smooth), you'd instantly sensed that something was wrong when you saw the light streaming in from behind the curtains, knowing for a fact that you usually woke up when it was still a little dark out. 

Turning around, you'd fumbled for your phone on the bedside table, letting out a loud gasp when you saw the time. You were already a whole half-hour late. 

"Shit!" 

Your boyfriend startled, letting out a groan, his arm still lazily draped over your stomach. 

"Did my alarm ring?" you asked, shoving his hand off of you and groaning, slipping out of bed quickly as you put on your clothes from the day before, not having any more time to go back to your apartment and get a fresh change of clothes. 

"I don't know, I didn't hear anything," you heard your boyfriend mumble from where he lay. 

Cursing, you'd ran over to his bathroom, washing your face quickly, a gasp leaving your mouth as you inspected the angry marks on your neck through the mirror. 

"I hate you so much," you tugged up the collar of your turtleneck, successfully hiding the marks when you’d let your hair down. 

Grabbing your things, you'd sprinted downstairs, hailing the first cab you could see and heading to your office. 

Was he going to fire me? You were still on probation, so there was no reason he couldn't, right? 

You'd fixed your hair anxiously as you jogged into the lobby, your shoes clacking noisily against the floor as you ran into the lift, even debating on whether taking the stairs would have been a better idea as the lift went up at an achingly slow pace. 

Finally reaching your floor, you’d made your way to the meeting room, tossing your bags outside the door and entering with your laptop, notebook and pen, keeping your head down and avoiding Chris’ gaze as he was presenting to the room. 

Taking your seat at the only empty seat left, (unfortunately, closer to the front of the room), you’d let out a small sigh. Expecting to hear Chris comment on your tardiness or whatnot, you opened your laptop, picking up on the minutes where you could. 

Keeping your head down, you’d felt your colleague from the marketing team lean over to you as Chris had given everyone some time to analyse what he was showing on the screen, his lack of a comment making you even more anxious. 

“Your hair’s a mess,” she whispered, making you wince, your hand going up to comb your hair into a ponytail in your attempt to look neater, hearing your colleague gasp. 

“Dude! Put your hair back down, your neck,” she whispered, your eyes immediately darting to Chris’ direction, seeing that he was in fact staring at your jaw and neck as well, turning away quickly, the reddening of his ears giving him away.

Your hands let go of your hair as though you were burned, hearing your colleague snicker beside you, “I see someone had fun last night. Was that why you were late, too?” 

You shushed her as Chris cleared his throat, embarrassment flooding your senses as you continued to take minutes, hoping that he wouldn’t be as mad at you if you showed that you were trying your best. Fat chance, but hey, you could dream. 

Chris had started to assign things that he’d wanted the different departments to focus on for the project at hand, flashing a slide of deadlines that you watched people scramble to confirm with their existing information. You were secretly hoping someone would hold him back with a question so that he was too busy to confront you. 

Unfortunately for you, that wasn’t the case today. The meeting ended promptly, Chris leaving you in relative silence as you packed up your things, your colleagues giving you a look of sympathy as you followed him silently out of the room back to your desk. 

“In my office, please,” he murmured. 

You fiddled with your fingers, already anticipating for him to fire you. 

“Can you explain to me what happened this morning?” 

Your eyes widened, not daring to meet his gaze as it flickered between anything in the room other than him, “I uh..I didn’t um…I didn’t hear my alarm ring and nobody woke me up so I overslept.” 

Chris’ stare was unwavering, leaning against his desk and folding his arms, “so is it not your responsibility to make sure you show up to work on time?” 

“No, yeah of course it is—“ 

“Then I would like to see you be accountable for your mistakes,” he continued, “I’m not saying you can’t make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes. But if your mistake is what puts an entire room of people at an inconvenience, I would prefer if you were a little more apologetic about it.” 

You’d let a short period of silence fall between the both of you, “I’m sorry,” you mumbled, your gaze fixed firmly on his shoelace, “am I fired?” 

Chris let out a small sigh, shaking his head. “No, but, you know, if you ever let anything like this happen again, I won’t hesitate to fire you,” his voice was stern, annoyed almost. 

“And Y/N, if this,” you looked up at him watching him gesture to his neck with his hand before gesturing back to you, making you cower, tugging your collar further up your neck, “is what’s the issue here. I’d suggest you start prioritising.” 

“Sorry. It won’t happen again, I swear,” you rushed to speak, bowing quickly before exiting the room as fast as you could, wanting to tear your hair out in both annoyance and embarrassment. 

You’d jumped when you heard the sound of your desk speaker, Chris’ voice sounding through the phone, “Is there a problem, Y/N?” 

Your eyes widened, rushing over to your desk phone, shaking your head as you pressed the button to reply, “no, no! Not at all. There was just a… a bug here.” 

Chris huffed, bringing his hand up to hide his amusement, watching you scramble to regain your composure. 

2. Chris was a workaholic 

It was seeing (and experiencing) all the late nights in the office and the erratic pattern of his emails on weekends that drew you to this conclusion. His routine of sleeping late and then proceeding to get up at ungodly hours to either get work done or give up on the idea of a smooth sleep, since you were aware that he tended to have trouble sleeping. Not to mention the way it seemed to you as if the top priority in his life was his work, wanting to do his best to get the company to where he wanted it to be. 

After a few months of working for him, it was very clear to you that your job entailed not only taking care of his work, but taking care of him. 

You were going over to the legal team's office to collect the binders Chan had left to them, seemingly needing one of them now, thankful to have spotted Seungmin along the way as he was leaving his desk. 

Shooting you a look of sympathy, he'd peeked his head out to glance at your area, noticing everyone else in your team had gone home already. 

"Working late again?" 

You were sure you looked horrible, with bags under your eyes and your complexion looking dull from lack of sleep, but well, you had to earn a living, right? 

You shot him a pointed look, "you know the rules, can't go home until the boss goes home," you heaved a pained sigh. 

"You know, I'm starting to wonder if he even has a social life," you thought out loud, earning an amused grunt from Seungmin. 

"I could say the same about you." You ignored his comment. 

"What d'you need?" he asked, though you were already making your way to his superior's desk, grabbing the file and leaving a post-it to say it was with Chris. 

"Nothing, just this." You let out a small grunt at the weight of the binder, your wrists aching from all the filing you'd done that morning and afternoon (you never did notice until now how inefficient Chris' uncle's document organization system was). 

"All the best," he gave you a thumbs up, earning a pitiful pout from you before you'd headed back to Chris' office. 

Knocking on his door, you'd heard him murmur for you to come in, pushing the heavy doors open with your shoulder as you shoved your way through the doors,  placing the binder onto the coffee table where he'd had his documents and laptop laid out haphazardly. 

Chan's hair was a mess, likely from running his hands through it as he worked, his tie discarded and the top few buttons of his shirt undone, looking at you with tired eyes. 

He was about to ask you for some water, but you'd seemed to have read his mind, walking over to the table near his desk and pouring him a glass of warm water from the flask. 

"I'm almost done with the filing, but I'll be outside so you can let me know if you need anything." 

You'd felt your pocket buzz with a notification, momentarily taking your attention away from Chris. 

Chris glanced at the files before looking back at you in thought, stopping you before you could exit the room, "actually, can you help me to write a report on this, I'll need this by tomorrow afternoon." 

Knowing Chris' deadlines, that meant he would've needed it by tomorrow morning, which left you no choice other than to start working on it now. 

Chris picked up a small file with a post-it note stuck onto the file, handing it to you. 

"The points are all there. I would've done it myself but by the looks of it this is gonna take a while more than I expected," he sighed, his hands on his hips as he stared at the pile of papers in front of him in disdain. 

Chris never would've admitted that he'd started preparing the post-it notes for you in case he wasn't able to complete his work in time, since he usually opted to write from his head, but he knew you worked better with structure. He'd only realised after starting to do it that it helped him draft the write-ups more concisely, so of course, the reason was always 'for his own convenience', never creating opportunities for you to think he actually tried accommodating to you. 

"This current arrangement is very un-environmentally friendly," you mumbled, staring at the papers as well. 

"I'll go get this done now," you gave him a nod, exiting his office as you pulled your phone from your pocket, the text from your boyfriend practically glaring at you, asking if you were able to meet that night. 

10:47pm - sorry, working late :( gotta work on a report due tomorrow morning - 

Biting back your disappointment at having to bail on your boyfriend again, you'd nodded resolutely, pulling up your delivery app to order food for Chris before you started on the report lest he start to get irritable because he was hungry. 

And lastly, the point you couldn't quite seem to wrap your head around, was that 

3. He was very nice, just...not so much to you. 

After the oversleeping incident from before, it was safe to say you'd never let a similar mistake repeat itself. You were constantly making sure you were alert and responsive to anything Chris could possibly throw to you (and he knew this too). 

The only downside Chris saw to this, was that it seemed as though your attitude towards the directors hadn't changed. Still swallowing their disgusting comments and serving them with a smile, even if they were looking everywhere but your face. It irked Chris. And it irked him even more that the only one you seemed to serve without a smile, was him. 

Unbeknownst to him, you'd shared the same sentiments. 

"Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on in their head?" you spoke. 

Seungmin snorted, "wait, are you talking about the meme or..." your lack of a response made Seungmin follow your gaze (or glare) to where Chris was seated at the other end of the table, giggling and smiling as he spoke with the other secretaries. 

"Ah," Seungmin nodded, understanding now why your spoon hadn't moved an inch from your bowl, your grip around it almost death-like. 

"What are you so mad about? He's not doing anything?" 

You shot Seungmin a pointed look, your voice lowering to a murmur, "can't you see it? With them he's all rainbows and unicorn shit but with me it's like just smiling would kill him." 

You heard the secretaries letting out giggles and impressed sounds at something Chris had just said, the sound itself enough to make you annoyed. 

Seungmin's eyebrows furrowed, looking at you in scepticism, "you know the secretaries are only being nice because they're interns, right? I heard from one of them that they're actually really scared of him." 

Seungmin brought his chopsticks to his mouth, taking a piece of food from your bowl that he knew you weren't going to eat anyway, "especially after they saw how he spoke to you during the meeting the other day,"

You scoffed, "good to know that I was the warning." 

Your phone buzzed, signalling a text from your boyfriend. Strangely enough, it'd been a while since you'd texted him, since you were busy with work and he was busy with school. 

Ignoring it initially, too distracted by Chris, it wasn't long before you saw his caller ID show up on the screen, getting Seungmin's attention. 

"I think you should answer that," he gestured, making you glance around the table in your hesitance, not knowing if it would be rude to just exit halfway. 

Picking up the phone-call, you'd turned your head, lowering your volume to a murmur, "hello?" 

"Hey, can we talk? I really need to tell you something." 

You winced, "is it urgent? I'm at a team dinner right now." 

Your boyfriend sighed, scoffing, "it really is always work with you, huh." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

You glanced at the table, standing up to excuse yourself. Chris's expression read confusion, eavesdropping on a secretary asking what happened, Seungmin replying that it was your boyfriend calling. 

You'd made your way outside the restaurant, Chris glancing in your direction and spotting you walk past the restaurant's windows, a part of him shaking off whatever curiosity that lingered in him as he focused on his conversation. After all, you did tell him you could handle yourself, right? 

Where you were, you'd moved to a quieter spot outside the restaurant, "okay, I can talk now. What's up?" 

You kicked at the ground absently as you awaited his reply. 

"Look, are you free to meet tonight? There's something I need to tell you." 

"Uh..." you glanced into the restaurant, making eye contact with Chris before looking away, "I've got to work later, though. I need to get some research done for this review that i'm behind on, I don't wanna meet you if i'm just gonna end up on my computer while you're there, you know?" 

Your boyfriend nodded, "you know, that's kind of what i wanted to talk to you about." 

"Oh," a feeling of dread was building in your stomach, recognising your boyfriend's tone to be the one he used whenever he was talking about something serious. 

The first time you heard it was when you witnessed him on a work phone-call, the second being how he spoke to your parents the first time they'd met, but this time, you had a feeling you knew what was coming. 

"Let's break up." 

You fell silent, not knowing how to respond to his words. 

"Is it, um.... is it because of my work?" You asked, a part of you not being able to come to terms with the fact that it could have been your fault, "because you know I can't do anything about that." 

Your boyfriend sighed, "I know. I'm just talking about how you've been so emotionally invested in your work you don't even have the energy to maintain this relationship." 

You frowned, "what, what do you want me to do, quit my job? Will that be better for you?" 

"Look, i've been seeing someone," he began. Your heart sank. 

"And i'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of the reason. But... it was only when I started seeing her that I realised... things between us just weren't the same as before." 

Your heart felt heavy, a part of you knowing that he was making it a lot easier to be mad at him by confessing what he did, but another part of you couldn't help but prompt him further. 

"When did it start?" 

"That doesn't matter-" 

You sighed, taking your lower lip between your teeth, "it's fine, I just wanna know." 

"Fine, it was about a month in from you working for your new boss." 

You nodded slowly, still trying to process his words. You weren't quite sure what came over you when you saw Chris exiting the restaurant, turning to face your direction and spotting you in the alley. But it was as if you were so mad at yourself, mad at him, mad at your boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend now), that you'd ended the call, shoving your phone into the pocket of your blazer before heading over to where Chris was. 

"You guys aren't going home?" you heard one of the secretaries ask as you and Chris had approached his car, his driver already sitting in the car and waiting. 

Chris shook his head with a smile, "nope, we're heading back to the office." 

You mustered a smile as you bid them goodbye, you guessed this was probably the best time to bury yourself in your work as a poor coping mechanism after a breakup, as far as movie breakups went.  

The car-ride was silent, despite the pinging of your phone, making you switch it to silent mode halfway, earning a curious look from Chris, though he didn't make to ask you about it. 

Upon reaching the office, the both of you had gone back into your clockwork routine, as you sat in his office working on your computer and scribbling down on your notebook the important details you wanted him to check. Chris found that your background in law and journalism made it a lot easier whenever it came to reading and condensing information, which had only allowed him to trust you more when it came to getting tasks like that done, saving him precious time he could spend working on other things. 

The buzzing of your phone was growing more frequent, though it was as if you were oblivious to it now as you typed away at your computer. 

"Right, can you help to postpone tomorrow afternoon's meeting, and help me to make a reservation at the steak place, 2 people." 

You hadn't made to move, pulling your phone out but having gotten distracted at the multitude of missed calls and texts just because your boyfriend wanted to 'make sure you were okay'. Please. 

"Hello? Can you hear me?" you heard Chris call, snapping you out of your daze as his gaze searched your expression, trying to read your emotions. 

"Sorry, can you repeat that? I didn't hear you." 

Chris sighed, his annoyance at your phone that had lit up with a call again getting the better of him, "you know I don't ask you to stay later just for you to waste my time, you know." 

Your gaze hardened. There it was, the side of Chris that you had the 'privilege' of being at the brunt of, nowhere near the smiley giggly Chris you witnessed at the restaurant just now. 

"I said I was sorry. What do you want me to do?" 

Chris huffed, his gaze darting to your phone as he spoke, "reservation for 2 people tomorrow afternoon, the steak place my mom likes. Postpone tomorrow afternoon's appointment with Director Lee." He told you slowly, his tone as if speaking to a young child, which only served to piss you off even more. 

"Who's calling you?" he asked. 

You shook your head in dismissal, "my...uh..." you weren't sure how to respond, watching dumbly as he made his way to where you were, lifting your phone to read the contact before letting out a huff. 

"Okay, well you can tell your boyfriend that if you're gonna be this distracted at work, you can kiss your night goodbye." 

You inhaled deeply, absolutely upset but knowing there wasn't much you could do about it. You loved your job, even though you hated to admit it. Ever since Chris came in, you were getting a lot more work experience and exposure, especially with how he would make it mandatory for you to attend certain language courses that would help him whenever you accompanied him on networking events or business galas. 

And in that moment, you couldn't help but think back to what he'd said the first time he'd scolded you when he'd told you to figure out your priorities. Maybe your boyfriend called you at the right time, maybe you just weren't ready to focus on things other than your career at this point of time. 

Turning your phone off, you'd made sure Chris saw that it was off, raising your hands up in surrender, "done. I'll book your stupid reservation now." You stalked out before Chris could chime in with a 'watch your tone'. 

=== 

You'd been working for Chris for what was coming to 2 years now. The company had been reaping the results of their hard work for a while now, and you were thankful that even though you weren't as busy as before, you still managed to keep your job. Other than the fact that Chris’ hair was now back to dark brown, not much else had changed. 

Although, one tiny change you were starting to wish for was that Chris would at least try to make things a little more bearable for you. 

You were currently at a meeting with the directors where Chris was presenting the overview of the company's performance in the past month. You would have to say you were pretty satisfied with the work you'd both done on that, working a lot more efficiently now compared to when you'd first started out. 

Your silent admiration of the presentation was interrupted when one of the directors summoned you over to ask for a cup of coffee.

Doing as you were told ( much to Chris' dismay ), you'd gone and come back in record time with his hot cup of coffee, bending down and making your way to where the director sat, not wanting to prevent any of them from seeing what Chris was presenting. 

While he was presenting, it didn't take Chris very long to realise why the director had kept asking you for things, your position from where you were squatting next to him making it all-too-easy for him to ogle at you without you noticing. 

For some reason, this seemed to have gotten on Chris' nerves, especially because that director's secretary was simply minding her own business at the back of the room. 

Did Chris think what you were wearing that day was nice? He'd say he didn't but of course he did. But unlike the director, he preferred not to be so blatant about it, especially because you were always so rude towards him. 

You'd tensed momentarily when the director had grabbed your arm, about to get up when you heard Chris' voice get louder. 

"Y/N, I'd appreciate if you would stop distracting the directors and go back to your seat." 

(Later on, Seungmin would be struggling to hold back his laughter in the printing room when Chan told him to tell you to button up your blouse a little more. 

“Why can’t you just tell her yourself?” 

Chan scoffed, “knowing her, she’s just gonna think I was looking at her… chest or something.” 

Seungmin narrowed his eyes at Chan teasingly, “well, were you?” 

Chan waved him off with a groan, “just tell her, okay? The directors are having a field day with her looking like that.”)

You'd almost scoffed at the way the director had immediately let go of you, and you straightened up quickly, heading back to sit with the other secretaries. 

"That was harsh," you heard one of the secretaries murmur to you, making you shrug. 

"Whatever, not like I expected more from him anyway." 

(You did, you totally did. You'd kill for him to be less grating with his words). 

After the meeting, you'd felt a phone ring in your bag, pulling it out to see that Chris' mom was calling, obviously not having been able to reach him. Making your way to where he was, you'd interrupted his packing of his things. 

"Your mom is calling you," you'd told him out of habit, holding his phone out for him to take, jumping slightly when you'd heard one of the directors let out a dismayed grunt. 

"Is that any way to talk to your boss?" 

Your eyes widened, Chris seeming to be enjoying the situation play out before him as you regained your composure, looking back at Chris with a sickly sweet smile on your face. In front of the directors, you couldn't act up like how you usually did when it was just the both of you, so you had no choice but to be all smiles

"President Bang, your mother is calling you," you told him, and if you were annoyed, you didn't show it, having years of practice from dealing with the directors. 

"uh-huh," Chris smirked, taking the phone from your hands and answering it as he gestured for you to help him gather his papers. 

"No, mom. I’ve told you already, i’m really fine with how things are now. I'm not going on another one." 

Not that you cared, but you had to admit you were kind of curious as to what he was so insistently refusing.

"Yes, okay, bye," he hung up, handing the phone back to you. 

You'd tried your best to suppress your curiosity, seeing as he was about to be late for his next meeting with one of his friends if he hadn't hurried. 

Fixing your blouse, you'd carried your laptop in your arm as you walked with him back to his office, with you going into the lift first, Chris having chosen the wrong time to step in as a girl you recognised as one of the interns had done so too, the number of people squeezing into the lift causing her to jerk her arm, her coffee landing unceremoniously on Chris’ tie and shirt. 

Chris let out a hiss at the temperature of the liquid, eliciting a long string of apologies from the girl. You knew that if it was you that had spilled the coffee, he would be going on and on about carelessness now, but the intern obviously wasn’t you, and so you watched in envy as Chris had given her a smile, dismissing her apologies quickly. 

“It’s fine, really. I just hope you still have some coffee left to drink,” he laughed. 

Not only was he not upset, but he was joking with her too? 

You scoffed, rolling your shoulders back as you’d watched the numbers on the elevator rise till it reached your floor, the girl looking scared for her life when you’d cast her a look, bowing to you apologetically. 

“Where did you keep the spare change of clothes?” Chris asked as he’d begun loosening his tie. 

You hadn’t responded as he let you walk before him into his office, making your way over to one of the cupboards at the side of the room and opening it, pulling out a hanger with a nicely ironed set of work clothes. 

“You can go and get changed, I’ll wait here,” you murmured, Chris walking over to where you were and giving you his stained tie. 

God, you hoped his dry-cleaning run wouldn’t make you late for your lunch appointment. 

Looking at his tie, you brought it up closer to your face to inspect the material, it was a well-made tie, you had to say. Not too skinny, the material feeling almost luxurious in your hold, tempting you to put it on in your boredom. 

Hanging it round your neck, you mustered your best ‘Chris accent’.

“You should be accountable for your mistakes! Don’t you know how many people you’re inconveniencing? Now I have a tie that reeks of coffee, look,” you held up the tie with a gasp, “and my secretary’s gonna be late for her lunch meeting!” You pointed accusatorially at the small black penholder that sat on his desk. 

“Yeah! Do you know how much you’re inconveniencing me? I don’t ask you to show up to work to waste my time—“ 

You’d stopped in your tracks when you heard Chris clearing his throat, grimacing as you tried to regain your composure, taking off the tie as quickly as you could, holding it tightly in your palm as you turned to face him. 

“Having fun?” 

“No,” you shot back quickly, not even wanting to ask how long he’d been standing there. 

Walking over to you, he’d handed you his stained shirt, his expression like that of a parent that had caught their kid doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. 

“You know, sometimes I wish you’d talk back to the directors like how you talk back to me.” 

Your eyes widened, confused at his sudden comment, but not having the time to respond as Chris continued. 

“Get these dry-cleaned over lunch. The stain’ll be harder to get out the longer you wait.” 

You huffed, already walking away from him, “well, when you say it like that I’d might as well go do it now.” 

You'd been keeping yourself busy with replying emails when you heard the elevator ding, the sound of footsteps getting louder before you saw a considerably young, suit-clad man walking towards your desk. 

"I'm here to see Chris? I'm Director Kang," he told you, though you didn't need him to introduce himself, knowing very well who he was. 

"He's in there," you held a finger up to signal him to wait as you picked up your desk telephone, pressing a button to page Chris. 

"Director Kang's here to see you." 

"Okay, send him in."

Chris closed the work he was doing on his desktop, making his way over to the leather couches as he saw his friend enter the room. 

"Yo, when were you planning on telling me about your hot secretary?" 

Chris' eyebrows raised, "didn't think that was something worth mentioning."

"Well, why not?" his friend frowned, his features pulling into one of shock, "wait, don't tell me... you guys are dating?" 

Chris rolled his eyes, "no, we're not. And please, for both our sakes, don't try anything funny with her." 

The director was about to respond, interrupted by your knocking on the door, the door opening slightly so you could enter. 

"Can I get you anything? Like a drink? Coffee? Tea?" you asked. 

The director simply looked at you curiously, sitting with his ankle resting on his other knee, "only if you'd care to join me." 

Chris glared at his friend, shutting him up quickly before he could say anything more, "coffee for him, I don't want a drink."

You nodded, exiting quickly.

"What did you come to tell me about?" 

"Must I have a reason to come and visit my beloved friend?" 

Chris rolled his eyes, "my time is precious." 

This made the director scoff, "is that your excuse now? Anyway, I came to ask if you were going for Brian's wedding next weekend." 

"Oh, yeah, right. He asked me about it last night and I said I would go, you?" 

Director Kang rolled his eyes, "can't, I've got a business trip that weekend." 

Chris hummed in acknowledgement, "that reminds me. I should get a gift for them soon. Who'd he say he was marrying again?" 

"This girl he met at work, she's nice. But, you know, not my type." 

As if that wasn't enough, Director Kang continued, "anyway, are you bringing a date?" 

He was interrupted once again by the sound of your knocking, the door opening as you made your way over to them, bending to place the cup of coffee down onto the table, making Director Kang gesture to you with his head, mouthing 'you should bring her'. 

Waving him off, Chris was eager to get Director Kang’s attention away from you, almost as if wanting to protect you from getting swayed by him, knowing the outcome was never too bright. 

"Y/N, you can go for an early lunch break today." 

Your eyebrows raised, the prospect seeming almost too good to be true. Since when was he so nice? 

"Huh? But I still have some stuff to hand the legal team..." you sounded unsure, though you did consider this to be luck since you were supposed to meet one of your friends from college for lunch today. 

Chris gave you a stern look, waving you off, making you raise your hands in surrender. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll go.” 

On your way out, you’d texted your friend that you were gonna be able to meet earlier, pleasantly surprised when she’d told you she was already in the area and that she was able to head over now. 

You’d managed to drop off Chris’ clothes for dry-cleaning before heading to the restaurant, spotting your friend already seated at your table. 

“Hey! Wow, you look great!” She told you, giving you a hug in greeting. 

“Feel a lot better compared to last year,” you joked, making her frown. 

“Your boss still giving you trouble?” 

Shrugging, you’d taken a seat, “nothing out of the ordinary. Seems like it’s part of his daily routine to annoy me.” 

She laughed, “I ordered our food already, if you don’t mind.” 

Shaking your head, you waved in dismissal, “no, yeah, I don’t mind. Thanks. Anyway, you look pretty good yourself, how’ve you been?” 

You didn’t miss the way she’d leaned closer to you, tucking her hair behind her ear in a pointed gesture, drawing your attention to the large gemstone on her ring. 

Your eyes widened, “no way.” 

She nodded, “I wanted to tell you sooner but you were so busy! I was glad enough I managed to squeeze in this lunch with you,” she told you, making you pout. 

“When’s the wedding?” You asked. 

“Next week. We’re going to have it in this beautiful church out of town, really really nice place,” she told you, “really romantic, too,” she added as an afterthought. 

You let out a deep sigh, “I hope you’re not going where I think you’re going with this.” 

She gave you a scandalised look, pausing as the waiter had come to deliver your food, “first of all, Brian has a lot of good-looking friends!” 

You gave her a look, prompting her to continue, “well, not that I’ve seen all of them but he tells me that a lot of them are single! And you know who else is single…” she pointed her finger towards you with an overly excited glint to her grin. 

“We’ve been through this a million times, Eujin. I’ve tried but it’s really hard to find a guy that’s willing to cope with… you know, my kind of schedule,” you gave her a tired (wistful) sigh, “and with my schedule, I doubt I have the time, not to mention the energy to date.” 

Eujin’s lips twisted into a frown, “but it’s been so long! Don’t you want to get back in the dating scene?” 

You scoffed, cutting into your food harshly before taking a bite. 

“Of course I do. But the last time I went on a date the guy basically shat on me for being a workaholic,” you huffed, “I mean, my boss’ working hours means my working hours, shouldn’t they just shit on him instead? Why is it my fault that he’s basically destroyed what I have left of a social life.” 

Eujin shot you a look of sympathy, “I’d say I pitied you, but it’s not like you can’t get a job anywhere else, you know?” 

You’d kept your mouth shut at that, “I know… it just… I can’t just leave when I’ve already gotten so used to how things work here.” 

Of course that was one reason, but you would never admit that there was a nagging inside of you that didn't trust Chris to look after himself if you weren't here, remembering how he'd overworked himself during a crucial period after he took over the company, and you'd found him passed out on his desk when you showed up to work that day. 

You'd sort of made a silent promise that as much as you didn't like him, you still cared for him in a way. In the way a secretary would care for her boss, totally. 

You decided to change the topic, not wishing to talk about your hopeless love life at the moment. 

“What’s the program gonna be like?” 

Eujin’s eyes lit up, setting her cutlery down as she clasped her hands together, “Okay, so. The plan is for it to be a sort of weekend-long thing,” she told you, holding her finger up. 

“Firstly, on Thursday night we’ll have a little girls night type thing, and then Friday is the rehearsal dinner, Saturday will kind of be a little rest day and then Sunday is the actual wedding,” she said, now holding up four fingers to you. 

Your head was spinning at the (rather enticing) thought of taking basically 4 days off of work, before the dread settled in that you had to ask Chris for permission to take those days off. 

“I hope my boss will let me take time off…” you murmured, already rehearsing in your head possible ways on how you could tell him. 

Eujin gave you a resolute look, “you can do it! If he says no just let me know, I’ll go over to your fancy office and fight whoever he is myself.” 

=== 

“How many days?” 

Chris had asked at your desk as he prepared to leave to meet his mom for lunch since she’d happened to be in the business district. 

You fiddled with your pen anxiously, “uh..4 days? Technically 3 and a half. But 2 of those are weekends I just need you to make sure you just don’t bother me on that weekend it’s a really important weekend.” 

Chris narrowed his eyes at you, unsure why you were so insistent on him leaving that weekend alone, nodding slowly. 

Whatever, he figured, she’s just lucky I’m busy that weekend too. 

“Okay.” 

“I swear I’ll—wait, you’re okay with it?” 

Chris shrugged, straightening his tie, “yeah. I’ve got something on that weekend too.” 

You let out a surprised hum, “oh… cool. Thanks…Mr Bang,” you added as a force of habit, not wanting to risk getting scolded for ‘insubordination’ again just because you didn’t call him by his honorific. 

Chris huffed, leaving before you could see his ears reddening. 

Over lunch, Chris’ mom had been inspecting him carefully as he ate, as if the answer to her worries lay in every piece of sushi he ate. 

“Is there something you’re not telling me? Are you… gay?” She asked, continuing, “because if you are you know you can just tell me, instead of constantly upsetting the girls I try to set you up with.” 

Chris gave her a unamused look, “mom, I’ve told you a thousand times. I would really love to date, but it’s hard to find someone with a similar work ethic as myself, that can keep up with my… lifestyle and who really understands my needs, you know?” 

This made Chris’ mom perk up, “that’s it! Why don’t you just date your secretary!” 

Chris almost choked on his sushi, fumbling to grab his glass of water to calm himself down and compose himself. 

“What,” he spoke between coughs, “gave you that idea?” 

His mom looked at him in disbelief, “whatever you just said, you were basically describing her, no? And plus, we’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about her from your uncle.”

Chris couldn’t help but entertain the possibility in his head. It was true, you did work at a very efficient pace with him, not to mention how spending almost everyday in such close contact with him made you understand his own needs and wants even better than he did on occasions. Chris shook his head, that wasn’t possible, right? You looked as though you’d absolutely hated him half the time, he’d be expecting too much from you if he’d expected you to fall for him. 

Chris shook his head, dismissing the thought from both him and his mom’s minds quickly, “no, mom. I’m fine with how things are between us right now.” 

Chris had let you leave the office earlier on Thursday, (much to your surprise) allowing you to have ample time to pack your bags and get a cab to the destination, Eujin having taken the liberty and helped you book your hotel beforehand. 

Upon reaching, you’d texted Eujin saying you’d reached. 

eujin 6:54pm -yay!! Lets just chill in one of our rooms, we can discuss it in the chatgroup!!- 

Trust her to be excitable even about the smallest things. 

You saw an incoming text from Seungmin. 

seungmin (personal)  6:54pm -what where r u I went over to find u but both u and Chris weren’t here- 

6:55pm -im at a friends wedding, took the weekend off-

seungmin (personal)  6:55pm -wow finally using your employee perks nvm then have fun- 

You’d checked in, marvelling at the cozy yet elegant look of the hotel as you made your way through the lobby, letting the lift take you up to your hotel room floor. 

Changing into more comfortable clothes, you’d seen the group chat saying to gather in Eujin’s room, with mentions of ordering pizza. Considering this was your first weekend away from work in a very, long while, you were determined to make the most of it, heading over to Eujin’s room. 

You hadn’t expected to be welcomed as warmly as you were, hearing comments of ‘we were so happy you could make it!’ Or ‘thank God you could take time off!’, sharing the same sentiments as them as you’d let Eujin pull you onto the bed, the softness of the sheets and pillows instantly making a content sigh leave you. 

“I ordered room service,” Eujin sing-songed, gesturing to the Champagne bottles and whatnot on the tray next to the bed. 

“I’ll have one,” you raised your hand, earning a laugh from one of your friends. 

“Tired from work?”  

You let out a loud groan, nodding. This made Eujin nod gravely, “I swear, if I ever see your boss in real life, I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind.” 

You scoffed, “you don’t even know what he looks like.” You’d gratefully accepted the glass of champagne that was handed to you. "and plus, he's not that bad, other than the fact that he finds joy in pissing me off. He just works too hard in my opinion." 

You’d spent your time enjoying the once chance you could relax to your heart’s content without feeling dread at having to wake up early the following day, enjoying yourself as you leant against the headboard of the bed, listening to stories about how they’ve been and how all of them were either planning on getting engaged soon, were in long-term relationships or already married. 

“You guys make me wanna get married too,” you pouted, earning bouts of laughter from them. 

“You’d have to actually date to do that, you know,” they told you pointedly, making you sigh. 

“You’re basically married to your job, already,” your friend chimed in, making you laugh. 

“Seems like that, doesn’t it? I was super shocked he’d let me have the weekend off, usually he’d be swarming me with emails about now.” 

“I’m excited to see Brian’s friends tomorrow, maybe there’ll be someone that catches your eye,” Eujin told you, making you shrug. 

“Just out of curiosity, though, what are you looking for in a guy? You know, we could help you keep an eye out too.” 

You hummed, shrugging. 

“I’ve never really thought of a specific…criteria I guess. I guess I’d just like someone that’s kind, looks out for me, doesn't underestimate me...sort of has the same lifestyle as me? Since it’s honestly been really hard to find someone that doesn’t hate my schedule.” 

You'd almost scoffed at the way your brain had refused to picture anyone else other than Chris while you thought about it, figuring it was probably because he was the only guy you were in constant contact with. 

Eujin looked at you resolutely, “we’ll do our best,” she held up a fist in an action to cheer you on. 

You shrugged, You figured maybe going into this with an open mind would do you some good. 

You changed the topic, directing the focus back to Eujin, “whatever, let’s just have fun, it’s your big day soon, let’s just celebrate!”

===

At the rehearsal dinner, you had yet to arrive, since you’d spent a little longer getting ready, choosing to use your opportunity to dress up a little more, not having the luxury to do so during your usual work days. 

You had texted Eujin that you were on the way with some of the other bridesmaids, her attention directed elsewhere when her fiancé had called her over. 

“Hey, wanted you to meet some of my friends from law school.” 

While being introduced, Eujin couldn’t help but wonder if they were single, remembering your mentioned criteria from the night before. 

“Oh, so are you guys all working in the law sector now?” 

Her husband shook his head, “All of them, except Chan here. He’s the ceo of Bang Mobile Media company.” 

Eujin’s eyes widened, glancing at the brown-haired boy cautiously, as if sizing him up. Y/N worked in a mobile company too, right? If she was remembering this correctly. Was it mobile or broadcasting? 

“Oh, wow. That’s impressive.” 

Eujin had let them introduce themselves more, not being able to help but think that Chan was nice, friendly, and rich on top of that? 

“I don’t get it, how are you single? You’re basically the whole package!” She wondered out loud, making Chan flush, giggling as he shook his head. 

Her husband seemed to have begged to differ, “Chan is incorrigible when it comes to his love life.” 

Eujin raised her eyebrows in surprise, not having expected someone so good-looking to have such a fate, “really? Is there a reason behind that?” 

“He’d never dated much, even back when he was in Australia. He was always super dedicated to his work,” this had served to make Eujin even more positive about this guy’s prospects as a suitor for you. 

“Oh my god, you’re exactly like one of my friends, I should totally introduce her to you when she comes later.” 

“Hey, cut him some slack,” one of his friends had spoken up, “Chan can’t cheat on his job.” 

Eujin felt her phone vibrate signalling a notification, pulling it out to see that you’d arrived already, excusing herself and practically running over to the entrance of the venue. “Chan, you stay put, I have just the perfect girl to introduce you to!” 

“Y/N! You have to come quick, I think I found the perfect guy for you.” 

Your eyes widened, clutching onto the chain of your bag as you followed her into the room. 

“He’s really nice, and friendly, and he’s good-looking! Really cute dimples! And on top of that he’s loaded. I’m so excited for you to meet him.” 

Letting her drag you along, you’d distracted yourself with the atmosphere of the area, wondering just how much it would cost to book a venue like this, tugging down your dress that was hiking up from practically running after Eujin. 

“Hey, I have someone I’d like you to meet. Chan, this is Y/N,” Eujin chirped, the names causing the both of your heads to shoot up, locking eyes with each other as a feeling of doom built in the pit of your stomach. 

Your eyes widened in panic, glancing down at your attire, back to him, who was dressed in a flowy black shirt that you were sure cost more than your one week’s pay, the top few buttons of his shirt undone to reveal a simple silver necklace, and fitted black pants, your gaze landing on the small silver rings on his ears, almost feeling as though you were looking at a different person. 

Chris thought so too, seeming to have the same panic as you as he tried not to let his gaze linger too long on your dress, nodding his head at you in greeting, “nice to uh…meet you.” 

His ears had felt hot as you nodded back at him, almost startling when Eujin had cheered, leaning over to whisper to you, “I’ll make sure you guys get to sit next to each other.” 

You were about to protest when she’d left, leaving you standing at the bar with Chris. 

“So, Y/N, how do you know the bride to be?” 

You gulped, wanting to slap yourself for how your gaze had kept returning to Chris, unable to shake the feeling of needing to be in work-mode now with his presence before you. 

“Oh, uh, we were friends since college,” you answered simply. 

“Cool, did you guys have the same major?” Chris had to stop himself from glaring at his friend, a strange feeling inside of him as he recognised the look on his friend’s face and his posture to be that which he used whenever he was interested in a girl. 

You shook your head, “uh, not quite. I majored in law but she majored in journalism.” You tried to respond as calmly as you could, not being able to shake Chris’ gaze off of you, feeling as though at any moment he was going to call you out for something you weren’t even aware of.

You saw the guy practically light up at the mention of law. 

“Woah, that’s really coincidental. All of us met in law school,” he gestured to the group of them, making you laugh nervously. 

“Where are you guys um… dates?” You asked, immediately regretting the question when you saw the way Chris was practically glaring at you. 

You didn’t understand why he was glaring at you, wasn’t it a valid question? 

“We didn’t bring dates, unfortunately. Did you?” 

You shook your head, making Chris snort. “Does it look like she brought a date? She literally came in alone.” 

You narrowed your eyes at him, unsure where his spitefulness was coming from, especially when his friend was just trying to make conversation with you. 

You scoffed, folding your arms. “Yeah, pity. Maybe I’d have time to date if I wasn’t always so busy running around doing shit for my boss,” you cast a pointed glance at him, bringing a hand up to nonchalantly run it through your hair. 

Chris smirked, two could play at this game.

“Same here, I’d probably have the time to date too if my secretary wasn’t always causing trouble.” 

“Your secretary?” His friend spoke up, “I heard from someone she was pretty cute, and nice too.” 

You’d almost wanted to agree, realising that if you did it would put you in a pretty compromising position, simply acting surprised. 

“If I had a secretary like that, I’d just date her,” one of his friends had spoken up, making your eyes widen, wracking your brain for possible responses. 

“Who knows, are you a workaholic?” You asked pointedly, earning amused grunts and laughs from his friends, “ah… it’d be too bad if I was your secretary, then. I absolutely can’t stand dating workaholics.” 

Chris narrowed his eyes at you, the both of you knowing you were just as bad at him, replying calmly, “oh, you can’t stand dating workaholics? Me neither.” 

You were thankful that Eujin had given you a small break when she'd invited everyone to take their seats so dinner could be served, wincing when you'd ended up sitting next to Chris out of habit, momentarily forgetting that you weren't attending a networking session. 

You'd hoped and prayed that you wouldn't slip up more than you already did. As much as you'd wanted to spite him, he was still your boss, and you knew he'd give you an earful for even the slightest hint of disrespect ( which you were sure you'd surpassed already ). 

Focusing on the gorgeous food they'd served you, you saw the waiter pick up the bottle of wine, pouring it for you. 

Having been oblivious, the waiter was about to pour a glass for Chris as well, making your secretary-instincts kick in, your arm darting across Chris to stop the waiter in time. 

"No, Mr Bang, you shouldn't drink that." 

Chris would have looked fairly amused if he wasn't stressed out by your proximity, with you practically leaning over him to speak to the waiter. 

You'd cursed internally, wincing at the way Chan's friend had looked at you, tilting his head in confusion. 

"Mr Bang? And how do you know his alcohol preference?" 

Chris let out a nervous giggle as you straightened up, "uh...well um like...you know it's a really funny story actually... we're um..." 

Not being able to bear his awkward fumbling any longer, you'd butt in, "We work in the same company. Yeah." 

You were lucky his friend had bought it, simply nodding in understanding, "no wonder, you guys were being so weird just now." 

Chris scoffed, "what weird?" 

You turned around in your chair, pretending to pick up your bag, "stop, you're making it worse," you murmured so he could hear you, making him bring his glass of water to his lips. 

One of your girl friends had spoken up, halfway through the meal, "wait, i just realised. If you guys work in the same office, then you must know her boss right? That dude is crazy. We all thought it was a miracle that she could take time off for the wedding," 

You glared at your friend, trying to subtly shake your head in your attempt to stop her, but she was oblivious, "she doesn't like it when we badmouth him but it's true! Ever since she started working for him it's like her social life just disappeared. Her boss is always her first priority." 

You'd never related more to how people said they wished the ground would swallow you whole. Looking down at your food, you'd tried to remain nonchalant about it, but Chris who was next to you was looking at your friend with wide eyes. 

"Oh, really? What else does she say about him?" 

You laughed nervously, waving your hands in dismissal, "nothing that concerns you."

Chris turned to you, dropping his volume to a murmur, "is that so? because i'm hearing all this and i'm getting the feeling it definitely concerns me." 

You let out a huff of anxious laughter, bringing your glass to your lips, consuming your drink in sips because your boss was sitting next to you, but secretly wishing you could down it all in one go. 

Soon enough, all your anxious sipping had made you reach an empty glass, the waiter coming over to refill it for you, earning an eyebrow raise from Chris. 

"Leave me alone," you huffed. 

Chris simply laughed, "what? I didn't say anything." 

You'd tried to pay attention to the proceedings of the wedding rehearsal, and after dessert was served people had started to mingle around more, the drinks having started to kick in as you'd felt a lot more relaxed. 

It was safe to say Eujin was as well, going around to talk to the guests and thank them for coming out of town for the celebrations. 

Soon enough, you were almost done with your fourth glass, oblivious to the way Chris was looking at you, impressed yet concerned. Feeling skinny arms drape over your shoulders, you turned your head to see none other than Eujin, cooing at you affectionately. 

"Tell your boss a huge thank you for letting you have this weekend. I couldn't even get to see you on my birthday or for the engagement party, but i'm so so glad you're here now." 

You couldn't help but glance at Chris, knowing that you'd missed both of those events because you were helping him with something. The first being when he'd almost overworked himself enough to warrant a visit to the hospital since he hadn't been sleeping or eating well (after that, you swore you'd make sure this man was getting his three meals if you could help it), and the second time being when you had to accompany him to a keynote session out of town. 

You were starting to think maybe there was a little more to unpack behind your reasons why you stayed working for Chris Bang. Your only consolation at this point of time being that the rehearsal dinner was ending soon, meaning that you could finally escape the suffocating tension you were feeling. 

"Wanna hitch a ride back together? I drove here." 

You'd almost declined, feeling as if you didn't have a right to be in his car if it wasn't work-related. Chris had seemed to sense your hesitation, simply not waiting for a reply and walking off, hoping his smile wasn't too obvious when he'd heard you jogging to meet his pace. 

He'd surprised you even more when he'd opened the passenger door for you, shutting it gently after you'd gotten in. 

You'd given in to the comfort of his car almost immediately, more-so when Chris had gone to take something from the boot of his car, getting into the driver's seat and draping the soft blanket over your lap. 

"The drive back's pretty long, might wanna make yourself comfortable." 

And you were comfortable, very comfortable. Chris had started to play some music from his playlist, something about his behaviour almost making you forget that he was the same boss that had worked you to the bone for over a year. 

"I'm sorry," you suddenly spoke, once you were in the city, "about what my friends said," you weren't sure where all your courage was coming from, maybe it was the many glasses of wine, but whatever it was, it was putting Chris in an awfully reflective mood. 

"And what I said," you added as an afterthought. 

Chris took his lower lip between his teeth, shaking his head, “nah, don’t worry about it.”

Obviously, that seemed too good to be true, and you’d looked over at his expression in your attempt to figure out if he was being sincere. He was definitely gonna fire you. 

“I’m not gonna fire you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m just kind of…like, you know, wondering,” he began, “the uh… engagement party and the birthday party that you um… you know, that you missed. Were they both because of me?” 

You pursed your lips, nodding, “but it wasn’t your fault, you know. The first one was when you’d passed out… you know, at the office, remember?” 

He nodded, prompting you to continue, “the next one was a keynote session that I had to follow you to.” 

Chris gulped, his throat feeling dry all of a sudden. This whole time he wouldn’t have guessed you’d been giving up these things for him from how willing you’d seemed to work. Was this considered neglecting the needs of my employee? Probably. But whatever it was, Chris knew that he was being harsh on you more for his own sake than yours, but he was only starting to realise now that that might not have been such a good tactic.

Chris was already pulling into the hotel, stopping at the valet services as you’d slung your bag over your shoulder, Chris coming out to open your door for you, making you grimace, feeling as though you should've been the one to open it for him. 

Walking into the hotel lobby, you'd glanced at your phone, seeing as Eujin had texted you tomorrow's plans, "did you get the schedule for tomorrow? I can forward it to you-" 

Chris let a giggle escape him, nodding, "you know they would've sent it to me too, right?" 

Your lips parted in realisation, nodding as you went over to press the lift button before he could even reach over to do so, "right, forgot." 

You were sure it was something about your intoxicated state that was making you instinctively go into work mode, whatever relaxation you thought you would be getting on this weekend now seeming all too far from reach. 

"Uh... I can check what time the hotel serves breakfast and arrange for something to be sent to your room if you want-" 

"Y/N," his tone was enough to make you straighten up, goosebumps rising on your skin for some reason. 

Chris was looking at you in amusement, one hand shoved into his pocket, "you're not working, remember? This is your rest weekend." 

Your eyebrows knit in a frown, chewing on your lip as you averted your gaze, "I know but it's just... like I didn't expect to see you here and now that you are I can't help but feel like I'm at work or something," you'd turned to wonder what was taking the elevator so long, watching as the numbers had gone lower and lower, completely skipping your floor and heading to the carpark. 

"You know what? How about this," he began, pausing momentarily when you heard the elevator ding, stepping inside the empty elevator and pushing your floor button, your heart almost stopping when he hadn't made to press any button. 

"You're on the 14th floor too?" He nodded. 

"Anyway, as I was saying. To make things easier for you, let's just pretend we don't know each other, that i'm not your boss, you're not my secretary. We're just... two people that met at a wedding? You don't have to do anything for me as long as we're here, hmm?" he offered, seeming to sense your hesitance 

"Look, I'll go first," he stretched his hand out as if to ask for a handshake, "hello, nice to meet you, i'm Chan." 

"Chan?" 

He nodded, "my friends call me Chan. People only call me Chris at work." 

You'd brought your hand up slowly, grasping his in yours, the cold metal of his rings against your skin more obvious when he'd given your hand a small squeeze. 

"Nice to meet you, Chan. I'm Y/N?" you tried, looking at him for approval and earning a nod from him, trying your best to ignore the way he was smiling. 

"Yes, that's your name," he laughed. 

Letting go of his hand, you were thankful the elevator had reached your floor without any interruptions, realising just how lucky you were to have not bumped into him earlier on as he'd continued walking with you to your room, gesturing to the door opposite your room with wide eyes. 

"My room's here." 

You made to take out your hotel room key, hearing him clear his throat, and you'd turned around rapidly to face him, strangely eager to know what he was about to say. 

"Say, Y/N, I'd love to, you know, get to know you more. What do you think about getting brunch with me tomorrow?” 

You opened and closed your mouth for lack of a response. This was inappropriate, right? But then again, you weren’t working this weekend. And technically, in this situation, Chan wasn’t your boss. So, there was nothing to lose. 

You nodded, “Yeah. That sounds…nice.” 

=== 

“Sounds kind of suspicious if you asked me,” you heard Seungmin’s voice over the speaker, making you sigh. You were already ready, lounging on your bed as if to mentally prepare yourself for a stupid lunch. 

“Right? I don’t know what he’s trying to get out of this.” 

Seungmin knew. But it’s not as if he was going to tell you, no, that was Chan’s job not his. Frankly, he’d had enough of listening to the both of you whine about your apparent personal vendetta against each other. He watched his fair share of movies, Seungmin knew how these things worked. 

“Maybe it’ll give you a chance to actually talk to each other like normal human beings instead of just bickering all the time for no reason.” 

“I have a reason, I’ll have you know.” 

Seungmin scoffed, “really? Enlighten me, then.”

You’d fumbled for a reason, stuttering in your failure to find something that validated your annoyance towards Chan. 

“I don’t know, his dimples are stupid.” 

Seungmin wanted to laugh, “so you’re telling me, you just can’t stand him because of his stupid dimples?” 

Your attention was diverted when you’d felt your phone vibrate, signalling an incoming text from Chan. 

boss  11:20am -meet u outside your hotel room in 10?- 

“Shit, he wants to meet me in 10 minutes.” 

Seungmin shrugged, “10 minutes is more than enough time for you to come up with a less shitty reason why you don’t like him. Or for you to realise that you don’t actually hate him.” 

You scoffed, burying your face into your sheets as you thought of a reason. 

“Okay, I’ve got it. I just don’t like how he treats everyone so nicely and then treats me like I’m some incompetent kid.” 

“You know for a fact he doesn’t think you’re incompetent. He literally trusts you more than he does the other staff.” 

You scoffed, “yeah, whatever. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s so condescending about it, he thinks of me i’m some kid that doesn’t know anything.” 

Seungmin snorted, remembering the incident where Chan had asked him to tell you to button up your blouse after the directors behaviour during a meeting. 

“Oh, he definitely doesn’t see you as a kid,” Seungmin cackled, earning an eye roll from you.

Glancing at the time, you saw how it was almost 11:30, “okay, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” 

Ending the call, you’d slung your small bag around your shoulder, giving one last glance at your appearance in the mirror in the bathroom before leaving your hotel room, startling when you’d spotted Chan there. 

Dressed in a black pullover and jeans, Chan smiled at you, bringing a hand up to touch his ear, “morning,” he greeted. 

“Good morning,” you huffed nervously.

He’d already begun walking, making you follow beside him, “did you get a good sleep?” 

His eyebrows raised at your question, nodding at you. His hair was curlier than usual, not styled up like you usually saw. “you?” 

You nodded, following him in silence as you’d gone down the list, realising he’d pressed the ground floor instead of where they were serving food on the 3rd floor. 

“You pressed the wrong floor,” you began, not expecting to see the pleading smile on his face.

“Actually, I was thinking of bringing you to this place nearby, I’ve been there before and it’s pretty good.” 

Your first thought was to wonder if it was expensive, knowing that this time you didn’t have the company card to fall back on. 

“Is it expensive?” You asked, seeing him shrug. 

“Not really.” 

Only when you’d reached the area did you realise how much of an understatement Chan made. The restaurant was a small cozy-looking place that served food that you’d only heard of up till now, located along a line of boutiques selling unusual trinkets and handmade items. 

Upon reaching, you and Chan had been led up upstairs to an outdoor seating area of the restaurant, the view of the scenery accompanied with the breeze instantly putting you in a relaxed mood. 

“Do you like it?” He asked, almost sounding nervous. 

Nodding reassuringly, you’d wanted to run away when you saw the way he’d walked over to where you were, pulling your chair out for you to sit on, making you flush. Never in your life would you have thought your boss would be pulling out your chair for you.

“You know, you don’t have to do that,” you told him, using the menu to hide your face from view, pulling it down slightly to watch how he’d rest his forearm on the table, scanning through the menu with a smirk on his face, his (stupid) dimples appearing on his cheeks. 

“I wanted to. You’d never let me do it for you on any other occasion.” 

You had to admit that there was some truth to what you were saying, choosing to change the subject by telling him you’d decided on what you wanted to eat, choosing something that was still within your budget for the weekend. 

Beckoning the waiter over, Chan pushed his sleeves up to his elbows as he ordered for the both of you, the waiter asking what drinks you would want, a teasing smile on Chan’s face when you’d insisted on water.

“What?” You scoffed, earning a shake of the head from him. 

“Nothing.” 

You’d leant back in your seat, about to tie your hair up into a ponytail, hearing the buzzing of your phone, reading the caller id to see that it was your mom trying to video call you. 

Sitting up quickly, you were about to excuse yourself when Chan had reached over, swiping to answer the call as he lifted the phone, pointing it towards you, his other hand beckoning for you to continue. 

“Hey, mom,” you spoke through gritted teeth, your rubber band between your teeth as you worked quickly to bunch your hair into a ponytail, Chan wanting to slap himself with how his ears had started to feel hot. 

“Hey, honey. Where are you? I called the office but they said you were on leave?” 

You secured your hair, taking the phone from Chan with a grateful murmur of ‘thanks’, making your mother’s eyes narrow, “who are you with?” 

“I’m attending Eujin’s wedding this weekend. I’m just uh…with a friend.” 

Chan looked away to clear his throat, catching your mom’s attention, “guy? I thought you told me you weren’t dating anyone.” 

This had caught Chan’s attention, having remembered Seungmin telling him that you’d broken up with your boyfriend. 

“No, yeah, mom it’s just a friend. Can I call you later?” 

Your mom’s eyebrows lifted, looking at you with a cheeky smile on her face, “oh, oh. Yes, of course you can. Have fun, baby.” 

You hung up quickly, shoving your phone back into your bag, looking up at Chan in question as to why he looked so surprised. 

“Your mom doesn’t know you have a boyfriend?” He asked, as if wanting that confirmation for himself, not feeling comfortable with pursuing his feelings if you were still in a relationship. 

You shook your head, “no uh…I broke up with my boyfriend a long time ago.” 

Chan’s lips pursed, nodding, “oh… sorry.” 

You shook your head, not being able to help a breathy laugh from leaving you, “don’t be. He was…it was for the best.” 

“D’you mind if I ask why? You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to, I’m just kind of…curious.” 

You shrugged, not feeling as inclined to hide the information, since it was in the past now. 

“Nah he just… our schedules always clashed and I was always too tired by the end of the day to go out to find him and I guess it like, you know, sort of reached a point where I started prioritising my work and it didn’t work out.” 

Chan nodded slowly, the waiter coming over to serve you your food, “go ahead, you can start eating first.” 

You shook your head, insisting on waiting for his food to arrive before starting. “But I’m honestly fine now, it’s been more than a year since we broke up.” 

Chan huffed in amusement, “is that why you said you can’t stand dating workaholics?” 

Your giggles bubbled out of you, “honestly, I only said that to spite you. I’d much rather date someone that understands my schedule and reaches a compromise with me instead of just always expecting me to drop everything at their beck and call.” 

Chan nodded, “I get that. Yeah, work is important and all but… I feel like if you really loved someone you’d find any moment you could to be with them. Well, for me at least.” 

You laughed, “kind of hard, when we spend almost every waking moment with each other.” 

You’d looked up from your food when Chan hadn’t responded, the waiter finally coming over to serve his food, though his expression remained, looking at you as though he’d wanted to say something. 

“yeah,” he huffed eventually, starting to eat his food. 

You’d shocked yourself with how comfortable you were in his presence with the knowledge that you weren’t working. This was what you wanted, wasn’t it? To have Chris treat you nicely like how he did the other employees. Only now you were realising how easy it was to catch feelings for him just from this one change. 

Maybe you were kind of thankful he made it easier for you to hate him previously. 

It was true that you understood him better than most, and that he understood you as well, knowing what got on your nerves and what didn’t, how you worked and how you responded to things. Albeit there were a few things he still didn’t understand, you couldn’t deny that Chan was well-liked in the office for a reason, and you were beginning to experience that reason for yourself. 

Chris had been mulling over what his mother had told him about you, wondering if you were feeling the same tension that he was even as you talked about pointless things that made you wonder why you hadn’t talked about them sooner. 

Not that it was a bad kind of tension (or maybe it was), but it was akin to the feeling of knowing that you would both have to confront a realisation soon. 

“Are you doing anything tonight?” He asked as you were heading back to the car, earning a shrug from you. 

“My friends wanted to have some kind of girls night thing, you?” 

He sighed, nodding, “same, the guys and I are going out for drinks.” 

You shot him a look, “drinks?” 

He laughed, shaking his head, “I can hold my alcohol, I just choose not to drink.” 

Your eyes widened, “and I’m only finding this out now because? Do you remember when I had to drink your drinks for you during the first networking session because you lied to me and told me you couldn’t drink that!”

Chan flushed, “I wasn’t lying, technically. I really couldn’t drink that, I don’t like white wine.” 

You shot him a harmless glare, this time, letting him open the door for you as you got into the passenger’s seat. 

“Don’t drink too much tonight, yeah?” He gave you an amused huff as he started the engine of the car. 

“You too,” you held your pinky out for him to make a promise. 

Chan nodded, linking his pinky with yours as he leaned closer to you, “deal.” 

=== 

You’d heard the sound of beeping at your door that night, wondering what all the ruckus was all about, getting out of bed, taking your hotel room key and pausing the show you were watching on your phone, making your way over to your door carefully. 

“Why isn’t the card working?” You heard a tell-tale Australian accent muffled through the door, looking through the peephole to see a head of messy brown hair, looking as though Chan was leaning against the door. 

Opening the door slowly, you’d acted quickly to grab Chan by the shoulders to steady him before he could stumble forward, the confused boy holding up his hotel key and looking at you in confusion. 

“This isn’t my room?” 

You couldn’t help but laugh, turning him around as you’d ushered him a few steps forward to his hotel room door, “this,” you pointed at the door, “is your room, Chan.” 

He giggled, “you called me ‘Chan’.” 

Taking his hand, you scanned his hotel key, bringing him into his room, finding it awfully neat (unlike yours), smoothly guiding him to his bed and letting him flop onto it. 

Letting out a sigh, you couldn’t help but to feel rather endeared, seeing him open his eyes slowly to look at you, tilting his head. 

“Sorry, I promised I wouldn’t drink so much.” 

You shook your head, reaching over him to grab at his blanket, your movements ceasing abruptly when you’d felt his hand on your back as you hovered over him, his hand moving from your back to your head, patting it gently. 

Pulling the blanket up harshly in your panic to cover him, straightening up as quickly as you could. 

“Shut up, go to sleep. Goodnight,” you said, hurriedly exiting the hotel room and going back to your room, closing the door behind you and trying to calm your rapid heartbeat. 

The next time you’d seen him was at the hotel lobby, where you’d agreed to meet him so you could head to the wedding venue together. Chan had come down wearing a nice suit, something you were more used to seeing him in, his hair styled up in a familiar manner. 

Greeting each other, you’d both decided to pretend the night before hadn’t occurred. With you being one of the bridesmaids and Chan being one of the groomsmen, you were separated almost immediately upon reaching the venue, with him having to help his friend while you helped Eujin. 

“A little birdie told me you came together with Chan,” she sing-songed. 

You scoffed, “aren’t brides usually supposed to be freaking out by now?” 

“Don’t change the topic! So, did you guys hang out yesterday?” 

You shrugged, “yeah, I guess we did.” 

She narrowed her eyes at you, “so? Is there a verdict?” 

You went behind her to take her bouquet, handing it to her as you waved her off in dismissal. 

“Too early to tell,” you lied. 

“Stop avoiding the question! Or else I’ll just have to ask Chan myself,” she huffed sulkily, making your eyes widen. 

“No, don’t do that! Okay, fine. It’s good. He’s nice.” 

Even Eujin’s makeup artist was giving you a knowing look now, making you cower under their gaze. 

“Shut up, focus on your wedding, please.” 

You wished you could’ve done some focusing for yourself, with Chan’s friends nudging him when you’d gone to the back of the church to line up with the groomsmen, all of them seeming to have conspired to let you walk with Chan. 

“Why do you look more nervous than the bride?” He teased, holding his arm out for you to take, making you roll your eyes, bringing your hand up to grasp his arm. 

“You’re delusional.” 

Okay, maybe he wasn’t. You wished you could’ve taken your advice, having been distracted throughout almost the entire ceremony, your gaze constantly flickering over to Chan, and you were sure he’d noticed too, with the way he would smirk and avert his gaze to the floor in his attempt to stop himself from laughing. 

Shouldn’t he be the one that was nervous? He was the one that had shown up drunk at your hotel room. 

After the ceremony had ended and you were all done taking photos with the bride and groom, Chan had offered you a ride to the reception venue, and you’d accepted, not knowing that you would’ve had to squeeze in a car full of his friends too. 

Sitting at the passenger’s seat (thankfully), you’d prayed for the ride to be shorter as his friends had started to question you and Chan. 

“Is there something going on with you two?” 

“None of your business,” Chan sing-songed, only serving to spur his friends on even more, your eyes widening when you’d heard one of his friends murmur.

“Wait, but didn’t he say he had a thing for his secretary?” 

Your hand went up to cover your mouth as discreetly as you could, clutching the bag of your wedding gift for Eujin and her husband and looking out of the window in your attempt to keep your composure. 

Chan had seemed to share your sentiments, his eyes widening as he panicked behind the steering wheel, his mind racing with things he could possibly do to prevent you from hearing what his friends were so freely spouting.

“Oh, did he? Then there can’t be anything going on with her, right?” 

Chan had reached over to turn the volume of the music up, much to your fortune, not knowing if you would’ve been able to handle hearing them talk more about Chan’s love life. 

Eujin wasn’t kidding when she said that she’d make you and Chan sit next to each other, and you’d ended up at a table with Chan nearer to the front, with a few of your friends and their partners. Watching Eujin and her husband enter the hall, you’d been filled with excitement at how happy she had looked, clapping and cheering for them along with the rest of the guests. 

Once they were seated, Eujin and her husband had begun to make their own speeches, thanking the respective groups of people for coming, and you didn’t miss her pointed mention of how she hoped the guests would use this time to get to know each other as well. 

The way Eujin had done things was that dinner was served so that the guests could listen to the speeches and enjoy their meals at the same time, which you didn’t mind since you were absolutely starving. 

You didn’t miss the way Chan had been subtly looking out for you during the dinner, like how he would casually ask if you needed anything whenever he would get up to go to the bar, or how he’d brushed your hair behind your ear so it wouldn’t get into your food (not without a tut of his tongue), earning many surprised looks from your friends which he was oblivious to. 

You figured he was really making use of the ‘let’s pretend we don’t know each other’ thing as an excuse to be nice to you, not that you were complaining.  

You glanced at your phone, skimming over the texts that one of the intern secretaries had sent you to ask you for help, making your friend curious. 

“Is that your boss?” 

You shook your head, “nah it’s just one of the interns asking me for help with something,” you shrugged, setting your utensils down as you swiped into your email app, ready to clarify the problem for her, making Chan furrow his eyebrows in annoyance. 

Reaching over, he’d taken your phone from you, locking it and dropping it back into your bag, ignoring your look of confusion. 

“Hey, I was just gonna email her!” 

“They’re not supposed to be asking you to do things for them while you’re on leave. No working, this is your rest weekend.” 

You’d shut your mouth at that, deciding that it wouldn’t do you any well to go against him, wanting to pull your phone out to just read the emails but dropping your phone back when you saw the look he gave you daring you to continue. 

Your friend had seemed to be fairly amused by your exchange, shooting a look at Chan, “wow, now I’m really glad you’re here. You’re the only one so far that’s managed to stop her from checking on her work when she’s supposed to be resting.” 

You scoffed. Yeah, because the source of your work was sitting right next to you in a stupid suit. 

“Good to know,” he gave you a knowing smile, making you direct your attention back the waiters, seeing that they were serving desserts now. 

“Your friends make me sound like i’m a hard-ass,” he leaned closer to you to murmur, making you smile, nodding. 

“Well, they’re not entirely wrong,” you drawled, making Chan scoff, though not being able to help the laugh from leaving him. 

He nodded slowly, his expression looking fairly amused, “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

You wondered just for a moment if he was only being nice to you for the sake of his own conscience (though Seungmin would beg to differ). And by the late afternoon, you were already starting to feel drowsy from the afternoon weather, the skies darkening as though it were about to rain. Chan had figured it would be good to start heading back. 

After you’d bid goodbye to Eujin, who seemed more than eager for you to leave together with Chan, Chan had offered to drive a few of his friends back to the hotel together with you, and thankfully this time they hadn’t mentioned anything about his love life. 

“Tired?” Chan huffed with a smile, glancing at you momentarily before fixing his gaze back on the road. 

“Yeah,” you murmured, yawning. 

“You should get some sleep when you get back to the hotel.” 

You nodded, “you too.” 

Chan nodded patronisingly, earning a huff from you, too tired to bicker with him. something in him stirring at how he could’ve been acting like this with you a lot earlier if he wasn’t always masking his concern with rude phrasing. 

His mom sure was gonna be excited the next time he updates her. 

=== 

You hadn’t gotten as much of a rejuvenating sleep as you would’ve liked, reality having kicked in that you were back to work tomorrow, the feeling lingering unsettlingly in your chest as you tried to make the most of the rest of your night. Somehow, you’d found your way to the lounge in the hotel, though that didn’t help much in lessening your dread for tomorrow seeing as the only other people here were people working on their laptops.

You figured it was not so much of dreading work than dreading Chan’s change in personality once he went back to being your boss. 

Letting your head rest on the stiff cushion of the chair you were sitting on, you’d fiddled with your phone, texting Seungmin about what had happened today. 

You’d almost startled in your seat when you saw someone take a seat next to you, turning to see Chan, his tie long gone as his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his hair already falling out of place as he simply looked at you. 

Raising your eyebrows in a silent question as to ask why he was here, he scoffed, looking away from you but failing to hide the reddening of his ears, “shut up, I just didn’t feel like sitting with a stranger.” 

You huffed in amusement, “did you take a nap?” 

Chan shook his head, “nah, just finished a conference call.” 

Your eyes widened, “wait, why didn’t you tell me? I was doing nothing this whole time—“ 

Chan shook his head in dismissal, “you were tired. I told you, this is your rest time, I’m not allowed to touch it.” 

You frowned, your mind racing with thoughts on how tomorrow could possibly go, looking at the carpet with a hint of a pout on your face, “yeah, and then tomorrow, everything goes back to normal.” 

Chan inhaled deeply, leaning back in his seat as he turned his head to look at you, his hands clasped and resting on his lap. 

“It doesn’t have to, you know… like…” he shrugged, “if you don’t want it to.” 

Your lips parted, unsure how to respond to the implications of his words, unsure how to even process his words. 

“It’d be… unprofessional for me to continue to act like… this towards my boss.” 

Chan raised an eyebrow at you, shrugging, looking at you with an unreadable expression. 

“I think I’m way past being professional already when it comes to you.” 

You’d sworn the air had felt thicker, something about the way the night mood had felt, or how the music in the lounge had succeeded in relaxing you, but something inside of you was telling you to just do it, to lean forward and kiss him. And probably promptly resign the next day out of embarrassment. 

You stood up quickly, “oh, I think my cab’s here, I have to go,” you lied blatantly, Chan not making any move to stop you, simply lifting a hand to wave you off with a tired smile on his face. 

“Go, go. See you at work tomorrow.” 

===

“Can’t we ask Y/N to ask him?” The secretaries and interns were currently huddled in the pantry, having gathered to discuss how great it would be to have a field day soon.

“But Y/N’s equally as scary as him!” One of the interns spoke up, making the secretaries hum thoughtfully. 

You’d stepped into the pantry, walking through the secretaries to retrieve a juice packet for Chan. 

“Hey, what’s up?” You asked, one of the secretaries turning to you with a resolute look on her face. 

“Y/N, do you think you could um… like, you know, ask President Bang if we could arrange for a team outing soon? Like a field day or something, just as a break for the staff. We haven’t had one in so long!” 

You tilted your head at them in amusement, “why don’t you guys just ask him? He’s in his office now, I can go tell him you guys wan—“ 

“No, no! It’s different, you’re the only one that can convince him. We tried last month but he’d just told us he’d think about it.” 

You shrugged, nodding, “alright, sure. I’ll go and ask him.” 

Making your way back to his office, you’d tried to ignore your nerves as you knocked on the door, opening it to reveal Chan who was on the phone, holding up a finger to you to signal you to wait. 

Walking over to him, you’d placed the juice packet on his desk in front of him, earning a smile and a grateful nod from him, before he’d switched back to a serious expression. 

“No, yes, of course. We would want nothing more than to ensure a… mutually beneficial agreement between our companies.” 

You didn’t have to ask to know who he was talking to. Chan had been trying to negotiate a deal with one of the shareholders, since they had been trying to propose to get Chan to merge with another prominent electronics company in the industry. 

You knew Chan was more than annoyed, but he had no choice but to be civil with the president of the company since they did have many shares in the company from the time his uncle was in charge. 

“Yes, we can discuss this more in person over lunch, how does that sound? Yep. Alright, bye.” Chan sighed, setting the phone down and leaning his palms on the table, supporting himself with a pained look on his face, looking up at you with a pout. 

“I really don’t like him.” 

Chan sighed, “same here.” 

“Anyway, I’m glad you came here, I kind of wanted to talk to you about something.” 

“What?” You asked, watching as he’d fiddled with the papers on his desk. 

“Uh… I won’t ask you to handle things outside of work for me anymore.” 

Your eyes widened, “is this because of what my friends said? Because I’m honestly fine it doesn’t matter,” you shook your head, seeing him scrunch his nose. 

“It may not matter to you but I’m personally not fine with it,” he pressed his lips together. “Really, I mean it. Whatever I ask you to help me with from here on is only gonna be work-related.” 

You nodded. Was he trying to distance himself from me? Was it because of the trip? 

Your lips pulled into a frown, nodding more to yourself than to him, “okay…uh anyway I wanted to ask you um… the secretaries were wondering if we could have like a field day or something soon? Like just as a small break for the staff?” 

Chan shot you a look, knowing they’d asked you to ask him. 

“Do you want that?” He asked, earning a nod from you. 

“Yeah, I guess. It’d be fun to just have a day for staff bonding and all…” 

Chan shrugged, “alright, tell them to go ahead and arrange it.” 

Your eyes widened, finding the exchange to have went a lot more smoother than expected. 

“Will you be needing me for anything else?” 

He looked at you as if in thought, taking his lower lip between his teeth and letting it go, shaking his head, “other than to help me book an appointment with President Kim, nothing else.” 

You nodded slowly, exiting the room. 

By only asking you for work-related things, you’d expected your work-load to decrease, but it seemed as though you were currently having the most uneventful day you’d ever had. Other than drafting proposals for the President of the electronics company, there wasn’t much on your plate. 

You’d figured you would’ve been a lot busier tending to Chan’s requests but the boy had barely come out of his office, the only times he did being to head to the washroom, barely casting a glance in your direction when he walked past you. 

As if that wasn’t strange enough, he’d even let you have a longer lunch break, much to Seungmin’s amusement. 

“Doesn’t being in the legal team sound a lot more enticing now? At least you’d be doing something there.” 

You rolled your eyes, “I still have quite a bit of research to do, so no thank you.” 

“Admit it, you’re only staying because you can’t bear to leave Chan.” 

You’d almost choked on your drink, patting your chest to regain your composure, “where the hell did you get that idea from?” 

Seungmin scoffed, “you act like you didn’t call me a thousand times during the trip to tell me about things he did.” 

You’d fallen silent at that, averting your gaze. 

“Whatever,” you scoffed. 

“Isn’t it misconduct, though? If I were to date him.” 

Seungmin shook his head with an amused snort leaving him, “what are we in, the stone ages? Go wild, literally nobody cares. They’ll probably be happy if you manage to get him to be less of a hard-ass,” Seungmin told you, glancing into his cup to see how much drink he had left, “god knows when was the last time he got laid.” 

You flushed, shoving Seungmin, “how can you say that?” 

“What? It’s true!” 

You gave him a dismayed glare, standing up with a sigh as you straightened out your skirt, glancing at the time on your phone. 

“I should probably be heading back now, I’ve got work to do,” you gave Seungmin a pointed look, pulling him up from the bench. 

“I don’t wanna go back to work,” Seungmin let out a loud strangled sound of protest, his shoes stomping on the wooden panelled floor of the rooftop. 

You giggled, a teasing smile on your face, “weren’t you the one saying the legal team was what again? Enticing?” 

Seungmin pouted, pressing the elevator button, abruptly flailing his limbs in a mini outburst before straightening up and composing himself. 

“Fine, I’m fine. Enjoy your stupid office romance with Chan.” 

You rolled your eyes. 

Chan had a consultation with the legal team later that afternoon regarding the issue with the shareholder, and you’d been all-too-distracted during the meeting as you thought about what your possible ‘action-plan’ regarding your situation with Chan was. 

Taking down notes during the meeting, you’d let your train of thought wander, almost doodling onto your notebook, with one hand supporting your head on the table before you heard the legal advisor from the shareholder’s side speak up, a guttural groan leaving him. 

Looking up with an annoyed furrow of your eyebrows, you heard him lean back in his chair, “what does a man need to do to get a drink around here?” 

“You,” the man pointed a finger at you, “go and make yourself useful, sweetheart. Get me a cup of coffee.” 

Chan’s eyebrows knit into a frown, looking at the legal consultant with clear disdain on his face, looking at you to gauge your reaction. Already expecting you to do what you always did, get up with a smile and come back with the man’s coffee, Chan figured he was too annoyed by it to let you do just that. 

About to speak up to the man, you'd shocked Chan when you narrowed your eyes at him, giving him a sweet smile, "sorry, that's not my job here. Since you're not contributing much to the discussion, why don't you make your legs useful and head right over there and get yourself some water." 

You huffed, staring him down as he glared at you, directing his gaze to Chan. "Are you just gonna let her talk to me like that? I'd fire such a rude brat if I were you. Who's your supervisor, I'm gonna make sure he hears of this." 

Chan did his best to conceal his smile, simply turning his chair ever so slightly to give you a small smile, "that would be me, and I heard it loud and clear. Now, shall we continue with the meeting?" 

=== 

You’d been spending hours at your desk, distractedly doing research as you’d kept trying to peep into Chan’s office to figure out what he was doing, to no avail. (Chan had put the blinds down halfway through the day since he couldn’t stop staring outside at your desk either). 

You were technically done with your work, and Chan did mention that you were free to go home once you were done. On any other occasion this would have been considered a miracle, and you wouldn’t have hesitated to go home. But now, there was a nagging feeling in your heart that you couldn’t just leave him here, especially with how stressed out he was because of the business with the shareholder. You didn’t trust him not to spend the whole night here. 

Glancing at the time, you saw that it was already past 10, deciding that you would give him some time to make an appearance before you left, just to make sure he was alive and breathing inside his office. 

Distracting yourself with replying emails, even playing more than a few rounds of a word-search game on your phone, you figured he would’ve come out by now, but there was still not a sound coming from inside the room. 

Once the clock had almost struck 11, you figured you’d might as well go in and check on him for yourself. Going over to the pantry to make a hot drink, you’d walked back to his office, your grip tight on the saucer in your anxiousness. 

Inhaling deeply and breathing out with a resolute nod, you knocked on the door of his office, waiting a while only to be met with silence. 

Pushing open the door slightly, you’d tried again. 

“Mr Bang, is it okay if I come in?”

Upon receiving no response yet again, you’d pushed open the door fully, your eyes widening in realisation when you saw him seated at his desk, fast asleep on the chair. 

Walking over to the leather sofa as quietly as you could, you’d picked up the blanket from the sofa, making your way over to where he was, setting the hot drink onto his desk and making to drape the blanket over him. 

Only when you were adjusting the blanket did he stir awake, making your fight-or-flight instincts kick in, strangely embarrassed if he were to catch you doing such a gesture for him. 

Blinking slowly, his eyebrows furrowed before his gaze had landed on you. 

“I thought you’d gone home already?” He pouted, making you fumble to find an excuse why you’d stayed behind. 

“Sorry, Mr Bang, I was—”

He gave you a lazy smile, shaking his head, “none of that ‘Mr Bang’, nonsense. How come you haven’t left yet?” 

You pressed your lips together firmly, pulling your hands away from the blanket as you tried to straighten up, sighing softly. 

“I couldn’t leave… for some reason. I kind of wanted to make sure you were okay, since I barely saw you the whole day.” 

Chan’s satisfied smile had grew, nodding at you as if prompting you to continue. 

“but I’ll go soon. I guess,” you blurted, “unless like you know, you need me for something, then I’m fine with staying.” You stopped yourself, nodding before you could embarrass yourself any further. 

You couldn’t help but let your breath hitch when he’d reached out to grab your hand. 

“Thank you, for checking up on me,” he murmured, his close proximity making your gaze dart to his lips, averting your gaze quickly. 

“Did you not come out of your office on purpose?” You narrowed your eyes at him, hating the way your heart was doing flips at the way he grinned, his dimples showing cutely. 

You were about to pull back out of your own internal panic, but Chan’s grip on your hand was firm. 

“I’m sorry, I know I said I wouldn’t ask you for anything that wasn’t work related from now on. But It’s killing me, because you were sitting outside the whole day and I couldn’t do anything about it…” he paused, tilting his head as he searched your expression. 

“You can refuse, but I just need you to do one little thing for me,” he murmured,  pulling you forward so you’d ended up seated on his lap, your arms going out to grasp his shoulders to steady yourself. 

“What do you need me to do?” You asked, your voice a mere murmur with how the tension was absolutely suffocating you, wanting nothing more than to just close the gap between the both of you. 

Chan’s hand went up to your chin, running his thumb over your lower lip as they unconsciously parted, “close your eyes.” 

Chan couldn’t help but smirk at the way you’d done so obediently, his hand going to where your neck met your jaw, leaning closer to press his lips against yours. 

Almost as if it was second nature, he’d let his other hand grasp your hip, his thumb rubbing the area soothingly. Tilting his head to kiss you deeper, you’d practically sighed into the kiss, your hands wrapping around his neck loosely as you felt him smile into the kiss. 

“I’m glad it’s you,” he murmured against your lips, his tongue swiping against your lower lip making you let out a surprised hum, not being able to help your smile as well. 

“We should stop,” you pulled away, breathless. 

“Why?” 

You shook your head, “I could kiss you for hours. It’s already so close to midnight.” 

Chan glanced at the clock apathetically, looking at you and shrugging, his hand running up and down your side. 

“So be it, then,” he said, pulling you back to meet his lips. 

===

“Is it just me, or has President Bang been a lot less moody these days,” Seungmin heard one of his colleagues in the legal team asking her desk-mate, making her colleague nod gravely. 

The mention of President Bang had him glancing towards his office, spotting your desk empty and figuring you were inside his office. 

“Definitely. At first I thought it was just me, but he’s been a lot less harsh to Y/N as well,” she agreed. 

“Don’t you think so, Seungmin?” 

And almost as if on cue, you’d exited his office, pulling your hair out of your ponytail to readjust it, looking around as if scanning the area to see if anyone had seen you. 

Locking eyes with Seungmin, you shot him a wink, straightening out your blouse as you’d gone back to sit down at your desk. 

Seungmin scoffed, not being able to help the smile on his face as he rolled his eyes, “yeah, I think I know why.” 

[peachiikawa]

Caged Bird | Prince!Oikawa Tooru x Reader

a/n: if you know anything about fairytales then you might realize that the reader has the flute of the pied piper, though modified for the story. been watching a lot of once upon a time and got the idea from the neverland arc. hope you enjoy!

word count: 1.9k

genre: fantasy, romance

trigger warnings: reader gets hurt a bit but nothing graphic

summary: oikawa has always lived a lonesome life in the cage that is his castle. one day he sneaks out and a beautiful melody leads him to you, a traveling musician. oikawa is about to find out that his luck is going to change for the better.

oikawa gazed out over the town from his balcony

he let out a long sigh as he grew bored from his studies

“why the long face trashykawa?”

his bestfriend and knight walked up next to him and leaned against the railing

“oh you know, just bored of being in this castle. theres a whole town of people out there and im stuck in here. gets tiring after a while”

iwaizumi listened to his friend and nodded along to what he was saying

“then sneak out for a day”

oikawas eyes widened

“youd help me sneak out?”

“only if you come back by sundown”

so oikawa grabbed his cloak and thanks to iwas help got out of the castle

despite being born and raised in this town oikawa had no idea where he was

and after about ten minutes he was completely and utterly lost

until he heard the faint sound of a flute

he followed the sound until he ended up in the mostly cleared out town square where he saw you playing a small wooden flute for those who were present, though you had no audience

everyone walked past you as if you were invisible like you werent playing such a beautiful song

he approached you slowly and listened until you finished your performance

“that was really good”

you looked up at him and smiled

“always a pleasure to play for those who need it”

the bright smile on your face felt warm and inviting

like he was meant to be here

“would you like to take a seat next to me?”

you gestured to the spot next to you and he gladly took it

“so...whats your story”

hes hesitant to answer your question

“ill tell you mine if you tell me yours”

you set your flute down in your bag next to you

“well first of all my names y/n and my life is nothing too interesting. im a traveling performer and play my flute as a way to pass time and help those who need it. always come across the most interesting people this way”

traveling. thats something oikawa could only dream of

“so cmon now tell me about you”

he peaked at you through his hood

“ok but dont make a big commotion..im oikawa tooru”

you laughed a bit

“thats funny you share the same name as the prince”

you stopped laughing when you saw the serious look in his eyes

“oh..oh! im so sorry for being so rude!”

you started to scramble around when he grabbed your wrists to stop your movements

“shh yes im the prince but stop flailing people are starting to look”

once you had calmed down he went on

“ive been confined to my castle my whole life and stuck to certain rules i have to follow. it seems like even if i catch a break something else comes along. i have to stay this perfect image because im the prince and it just gets so lonely. its as if im a bird trapped in a cage and theres no way out”

ah so there it is

the reason he could hear your flute

you picked a flower that was growing next to you and placed it in his hair as you spoke

“im sorry your lifes been like that but oikawa, if i may be so bold, even a caged bird will become wise enough to break free. the dream of flying is too great to resist”

Once you had properly placed the flower you smiled at him before standing up from your spot and grabbing your bag

you then held your hand out to him

but he couldnt gather his thoughts

you were so bright it was almost blinding

“now cmon! lets go have some fun!”

he looked at the hand held out to him

and with a leap of faith, he took it

he was going to get out of this cage, this perpetual cycle

and finally add some meaning to his life

day after day you two spent your time together

oikawas days that were once filled with hollow words and empty actions were now filled with happiness

filled with you

and everyday slowly but surely he was falling for you

passing glances turned into prolonged gazes

his heart could no longer stay still around you

you became the key to his happiness

but for now...he had to be content with just being next to you

it would be too selfish otherwise

to ask you to stay with him here in the kingdom...he could never trap you like that

“so what are we doing today y/n?”

you were strolling through the town on a quiet sunday afternoon like you had the last few sundays

“how about we go to the bakery? theyre usually busy but since its sunday i bet its not as packed and then i want to take you somewhere”

he was curious as to what you had in store but decided against asking questions

so you two got some baked goods and headed out towards the woods

“cmon we’re almost there”

you pushed some branches and shrubs out of the way

and one eventually hit him in the face

“watch it y/n! i keep getting wacked by you”

you just chuckled a bit which oikawa had found adorable in itself

it made his heart slow just hearing it

“just come on!”

eventually you two made it to a clearing over a beautiful lake

he didnt know that there was something like this so close by

he was absolutely amazed by it

“take a seat oikawa! we can rest and eat here!”

this moment was just too perfect to him

with you here he felt as if nothing bad could happen

that if he only could see your smile everything would be alright

being content with just being at your side...was no longer and option

he knew that if he wanted this he needed to take his chance

“y/n”

your eyes were full of life and he couldnt help but feel so happy next to you

and before he knew it he was closing the gap between the two of you with a hand gently cradling your cheek

but right before you two could kiss you were ripped away from him

“dont you dare touch the prince commoner!”

oikawa frantically looked around as many of his guards came out of the brush

“get your hands off of them!”

you were pressed to the ground and the sight almost broke his heart

“sorry your highness but we’re under strict orders to bring you back and throw whoever was seducing you to leave the castle into the dungeon”

the guard that had been on you lifted you up like you were a sack and bound you by rope

you gave oikawa a final smile before you were taken away even though you were so banged up that it made him want to puke

he was speechless

this is what he was talking about

being so controlled and monitored made him feel so small and helpless

and he absolutely abhorred it

“your highness your mother is waiting for you in the throne room”

oikawa was beyond upset

this isnt how he wants to live

“mother how could you throw the only good thing in my life away!”

his mother sneered at his words

“only good thing? what need to you have for that filthy peasant! and how dare you cast me aside as if i hadnt given you everything you own, everything you are is because of me! i will not allow for any of this nonsense! now go wash up. and dont you dare ever leave the castle again and i forbid you from seeing that nasty peasant again. wasting your time with such a person...”

he gritted his teeth and was about turn to leave

his emotions were running too high

he wasnt himself and he knew it

but even so...he wont allow it to end like this

he was going to end it on his terms

“no”

“what did you say?”

he stood his ground

“i said no mother. im going to live the way i want and with who i want. ill gladly give up my title because frankly, i never wanted it in the first place. and dont you ever call y/n filthy or nasty again. their so incredibly kind and full of joy and laughter. i can only hope to be like that one day. so ive decided that im leaving. with y/n.”

as soon as the doors shut behind him he let out the breath he didnt even know he was holding

but it also felt as if there was a giant weight off of him now

“im coming y/n dont you worry”

it had been a couple hours since you were brought to your cell

you didnt have any major injuries, just a few cuts and scratches from when you were body slammed to the ground

“do you mind if i play?”

you pulled out your flute and the guard nodded

“thank you!”

you started playing and filled the cell you were in with a relaxing tune

“why do you play if it doesnt make noise?”

you stopped and looked at the spiky haired man who stood outside your cell

“it takes a certain person to appreciate its music”

he just looked at you as if you were crazy

but you continued anyways

until you heard frantic running coming from down the hall

“iwa you gotta let them out”

oikawa was panting trying to catch his breath

“dude no offense but your mom would kill me and you if i just let them out”

oikawa grabbed the key from iwaizumis waist before he even realized what had happened

“dont worry about it iwa. and dont worry about me. today i start my new life. it was good knowing you buddy”

they gripped hands the way they always had. A solemn but knowing look was shared between them

“if i had known me letting you leave the castle one time would lead to this...i would have done it a lot sooner. good luck out there bud”

oikawa quickly turned to you and helped you off of the ground

“you ready to run?”

he cupped your cheek and ran his thumb over one of the small cuts

hed be sure to treat that later

you nodded and leaned into his hand

“are you sure this is what you want?”

you were happy to leave with him

its more than you could ever ask for

“y/n youre the only person thats made me feel free. and by doing this i will be.”

you two finally got to share the kiss you had been deprived of and not only was it full of love but also full of hope for your future

“then lets go”

and you two sprinted off to your next adventure together

the flute you possessed was one he could no longer hear the sound of after that day

for it was enchanted, only to be be heard by those who were lost and lonely

with you he was neither anymore

and he couldnt be any happier than living out the rest of his days with you as a free man, a bird outside of its cage

[witchcraft-in-wonderland]

Logan's Birthday (1/7)

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

Logan was a smart man, he always had been, top of his class since he was little. But being smart only got you so far, there always came a time when you just werent smart enough.

For Logan, that time was adulthood. So many years worth of studying, gone at the slightest notion that someone else was- better. And of course, Logan knew exactly what made his competitors better, but saying it out loud, that was paramount to insulting the company.

So here he was, twenty-two years of age and stuck in an apartment, sifting through job applications and bills, as if he'd ever have enough to pay them off.

"Oh yes Logan go on take only honors and AP classes for the rest of your life, I'm sure it'll all turn out fine," Logan muttered bitterly.

He let out a groan of annoyance as the tv flickered through one of his least favorite commercials.

He'd always despised fashion and makeup companies, but the Kingsley company was another story on it's own. He couldnt explain it, for all he knew it was some odd combination of self hatred and toxic societal expectations, he just couldn't stand those twins, with their overly wide smiles and stupid overzealous compliments. But of course, most other people bought it. So Logan always assumed there was something wrong with him.

Eventually Logan finished with the papers, setting them aside and walking to the kitchen.

"Like anyone would pay thirty bucks for a makeup set that's going to fall apart two days afterward," Logan muttered, glaring at the tv. He walked over to the coffee machine and got started on his fourth cup for that day. It wasnt healthy, Logan knew that, he'd done an entire report on it in sixth grade, but it was the only way he could seem to stay up without having a breakdown.

Logan looked over at his to-do list for that day, he never seemed to finish them, so he had no idea why he bothered. He checked off the section labelled "bills and applications" before walking back to the coffee machine and picking up the mug. He watched the sunrise outside the window, he always liked sunrises more in the colder months, they were much brighter.

Logan finished his coffee and set the cup in the sink, checking his watch. His mother had set up a job interview for him, but all she'd given him was an address and a time, he certainly didnt want to be late. He walked to his closet and pulled out a blue sweater, black vest, black pants, and dress shoes.

"5629, Ridgeport Avenue, should be interesting," Logan muttered as he fixed his tie. He'd never exactly liked Ridgeport, it was a rich people and idiots thinking they could make it big on stupid ideas.

But what awaited Logan when he reached the location was far worse than what he was expecting.

"Mother I told you I dont want anything to do with this company!" Logan hissed over the phone, currently hiding out in the bathroom, he may have hated the Kingsley company, but he wasmt stupid enough to insult them where someone might hear.

"Its good pay! You can suck up your pride for once in your life cant you?" His mother replied.

"Me, a secretary for those- those-" Logan couldnt seem to find the right words for it, all he cod think was 'Ew' and 'Not in a million years'.

"I'll call you back after the interview," Logan said, hanging up and stuffing the phone back in his pocket. He fixed his hair in the mirror before rushing back out, after all, he did have a meeting in thirty minutes.

"Logan Sanders," The intercom sounded, the voice of Remus Kingsley flooded the room. Logan felt his stomach lurch as he stood up. He trudged down the hall, fiddling with his tie. He finally reached the door to Remus' office, and knocked twice.

"I'm not naked if that's what you're thinking," Logan held back the urge to vomit as he processed the sentence, and then he opened the door.

Remus Kingsley was a tall man, with a white striped birthmark in his hair, and a mustache that gave him the impression of a man who'd gorged himself on mud. His clothes didnt help much, a ripped jacket paired with a green shirt and twice as torn black jeans, his feet were even propped up on the desk for gods sakes.

"I'm here for the secretary position," Logan said as he closed the door.

"Well secretaries arent supposed to stand are they?" Remus said, moving his feet and gesturing toward the chair in front of the desk. Logan took a seat and finally let go of his tie.

"So what sparked your interest in the position?" Remus said, very obviously reading off notecards.

Logan bit back the urge to say 'brute force and a ransom note'.

"I've seen a lot of your commercials, the name was recognizable," Logan said.

"Oh so you've heard of us?" Remus said, now checking his nails. Logan was getting more annoyed by the minute.

"Yes, I have," Logan replied, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from growling.

"Great! You're hired! You can start tomorrow," Remus said with a grin, Logan noticed he was missing one of his front teeth. He slid a sheet of paper across the desk, Logan looked it over and pocketed it before getting up.

"Very well, I suppose I'll see you tomorrow," Logan said as he walked out.

"I could get used to seeing that face every day," Remus said, Logan felt his face heat up slightly, though he could scarcely tell if it was from rage, or from something else. He merely nodded and closed the door behind him on his way out, rushing through the lobby and out into the streets of Ridgeport.

"This is it- my life is over, this is how I die," Logan had decided to meet up for coffee with his friend Remy, and the conversation had turned very quickly to Remus' comment at the end of the meeting.

"I mean it could be worse, at least you're both in the same age-range," Remy replied, taking a sip from his iced coffee.

"I dont know how you're drinking that when its 27 degrees out," Logan said with a laugh.

"Nothing will ever be as cold as my heart," Remy said, grinning.

"Oh? Cold-hearted are we? Then please, do tell me where all those photos of Emile huddled up under your arm with his head buried in your chest came from,"Logan said sarcastically.

"Oh Em, the only person warm enough to melt my poor icy cold heart," Remy said, bringing a hand to his forehead and falling back slightly.

"Gods you're so cheesy," Logan said, rolling his eyes.

"You're just mad because you dont have a queerplatonic partner to give you forehead kisses every night before you go to sleep," Remy said.

"I dont need a partner of any kind, I'm fine on my own," Logan replied.

"Sure you are bud, sure you are," Remy said.

And that stuck with Logan the rest of the week. He had a lot more interactions with Remus than he'd expected to, sometimes they felt- planned. But Logan could swear up and down he was imagining things, there was no way someone as influential, nor as self-absorbed, as a Kingsley would've spared him a second glance.

And he carried this thought process with him, that is, until he found a letter on his desk. A letter, inviting him to the company Christmas party, from Remus.

"Did you get my letter?" Remus leaned on Logan's desk, that same grin he always wore plastered on his face.

"Yes, though I dont think you specified the office you want it delivered to?" Logan replied.

"Oh! My bad, I think it was right abooouuuuttt- here," Remus pressed a finger to Logan's nose, Logan tensed slightly, his cheeks flushed red.

"You turn a very pretty red when you're nervous," Remus purred, resting his head on his arms, which were now crossed over Logan's desk wall.

"I-" Logan wasnt sure what to say, here was all the evidence, right in front of his face, and yet he still didnt dare believe it.

And he didnt believe it, not until the day of the Christmas party, where he arrived in a limousine, hand in hand with the man, to a cruise ship of all places, wearing, for the first time in his life, a stunning midnight blue dress, that made him feel like he was worth a glance.

Though of course, no amount of party dresses could top that which he wore on his wedding night, a floor length gown of Remus' own design, studded with pearls and sequins, reflecting blue lights everywhere he walked.

"Remember how I said I wouldnt mind seeing a face like yours every day?" Remus said, smiling as he moved Logan's veil.

"Well, you wont have to worry about that now, will you?" Logan said, smiling, and he relished in the kiss that Remus placed on his lips, Remus' arm pulling Logan closer and closer by the waist, until the space between them was so thin that they were almost attached.

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

Tag list:

@thefivecalls

@willowaudreykeyes

@pricklyfish777

@the-sad-strawberry

@private-snippers

@extercs-experiences

@theonetruebeepboop

@mycatshuman

@teamplutoforlife

@melodiread

@meowthefluffy

@frawkeye

@cemmy

@nerosdayinhell

@thecolorfulolive

@frog-candy-bee

[mudwingprince]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 (here)

Disclaimer!:

two things

1. Please dont ship us, everything that happens in these are completely platonic :)

2. Everything thought or said about certain characters (*cough* isol) is not meant or actually thought, i love all of my friends dearly and would never say anything bad about them in a malicious manner

and onto the story we goooooo

tw: symptoms of clinical anxiety, illness (poison)

Even after a couple hours, the rain hadn’t subdued at all. My fur was wet. Gross. At least when we leave the tree there will be mud. I’ve always liked mud, that’s probably why my parents named me that. Where were my parents, anyway? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before… Did my parents even name me themselves?

I stared out into the forest, the soft sound of rain pattering down on the leaves kept me calm, but alert. Isol could be out there, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. I flicked my tail. It was heavy due to the rain. I blinked. It was a while since I saw rain. It was kind of nice. I glanced at Radi0, making sure he was still there. Yep. Still sleeping. I put my claw to my forehead and brushed my fur tuft to the side. Still there. We’re safe. Why am I afraid? I shouldn’t be. As soon as Radi0 wakes up we’d leave. We need to get as far away from here as possible. I need to find a way to hide our scents. Radi0’s is most important. He was human. He would have the strongest scent. The rain would make it harder for Isol to find us though, and it will wash away our trail. But we were here for so long, there’s no way that the scent wouldn’t stay. I picked up a nearby stick and started scratching at the dirt. It was like that for a while, the harsh crackle from the on-going fire and the soft pitter-patter of the rain. I started poking at a rock, I just needed to wait.

It felt like hours despite only being a couple minutes before Radi0 stirred in his sleep. He pushed himself up with a small grunt, his normally spiky hair had deflated. He rubbed at his eyes and blinked. And then rubbed at his eyes again, tense.

“Did you forget we left?” I asked, my voice low as I kept poking the rock. He let out a nervous laugh.

“Kind of,” He muttered. A pause.

“I grabbed berries?” I said, pushing the berries towards him. He hesitantly took them.

“Are… they poisonous?” Radi0 asked.

“Oh yeah, I would definitely poison you,” I said jokingly, “It’s not like we just saved each other from our homicidal friend.” Radi0 blinked at me. “What? I tried them first, they’re safe. We haven’t eaten in a couple days, I could survive without food but you can’t, so I thought you might like them.” Radi0 looked at the berries suspiciously, as if they would magically grow legs and walk away. Then he carefully put one in his mouth.

“How… long has it been since we last ate?” Radi0 asked, handing a berry to me. I tossed it and caught it between my teeth.

“A couple days?” I replied, and then shrugged. “It's kind of hard to tell when we were in that other place.”

“We should probably give it a name…” Radi0 said, eating another berry. “‘That Other Place’ doesn’t really seem fitting, and it might get confusing, there’s no way we’re going back there any time soon and we’re probably not going to stay here, so there’s bound to be a lot more ‘other places.’”

“Yeah, I was hoping we could get moving soon, I don’t want Isol to find our trail,” I muttered, picking the stick up again and fidgeting with it. “Do you have any names in mind?”

“N-No…” He said. A pause. “Were you really scared by a leaf?”

“Oh my god,” I said, covering my face. “I thought it was a giant bug that landed on me! No one will leave me alone because of it!” I laughed and started ripping the bark off of the stick. “It was really embarrassing.” I looked out to the forest again, picking at the bark. Then I looked at Radi0. He was holding two berries, looking at them in a somewhat disgusted way.

“Are you going to eat those?” I asked, he blinked at me.

“Yeah,” he replied hesitantly. “Why? Do you want one?”

“It doesn’t matter to me, honestly, I just didn’t want them to go to waste,” I shrugged, and directed my gaze back out to the forest. A droplet of rain fell onto my nose and I shook my head.

“Did you get any more sleep?”

“Huh?” I asked, tilting my head.

“You said you had a nightmare,” Radi0 said, putting another berry in his mouth. It seemed forced.

“Oh, uh, I just… wasn’t tired,” I lied. “We should, uh, get going.” I pushed myself up, reaching my talon down to help Radi0 up. He grabbed my talon and I pulled him off of the ground. We started walking through the rain in the opposite direction that we came from. We walked in silence for a while. I made sure to step in every puddle that we found, while Radi0 trudged along, slightly behind me. It didn’t ease the growing worry that Isol was out there somewhere, trying to find us, trying to kill us. She was our friend. They were my friend. I placed a claw on my forehead again. I’m safe with this. We’re safe with this. I can’t let Radi0 get hurt. If he dies, that’s it. There’s no coming back for him, unlike me. I need to protect him. I’ll be fine if I die. I’ll always come back as long as I have the c-

“Are you okay?”

I blinked, confused, then I nodded. Of course I was fine. I couldn’t not be fine. I had to protect him, and if I wasn’t okay, I wouldn’t be able to.

“Yeah, why?”

“You seem worried,” Radi0 said. “Do you want to talk about anything?”

“Nah,” I replied, dragging my hand away from my face. “I’m always worried anyway.” That only seemed to get Radi0 even more concerned. Ah, here you go again, Mud, fucking things up like always. “I-It’s not a bad thing though, I just need to keep everything in check, it’s nothing!” Radi0 looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I sighed. “It’s fine, really. Sure it can be stressful at times, but I’ve done it my entire life and I’m used to it,” I smiled at Radi0, then actually looked at him. He was pale and he had heavy bags under his eyes, his normally proud stance was huddled over. His hair was still deflated from earlier and he was clutching his stomach tightly.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” I asked, putting a talon on his shoulder. He looked at me, and hesitated before shaking his head. “W-What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I don’t really know…” He muttered, rubbing his temples, “I think I’m just tired…?” I blinked at him. This didn’t really look like ‘just tired,’ it looked like a lot more than that. He looked… ill…

“Uh, how bad do you feel though?” I asked, lifting my talon from his shoulder. He let out a small, hoarse laugh.

“R-Really bad,” Radi0 sighed, rubbing the back of his head. “I just want to sleep and forget about all of this…” I knew how it felt to want to sleep everything off. I want to forget about all of this. Forget about Isol, forget about running away, forget about dying again, forget about it all. A bright flash lit the sky followed by a loud crash. I jumped at the sudden strike of light and loud boom frantically looking around, just in case Isol was preparing to pounce at the distraction.

“Do you think that you could make it a little longer?” I asked. “Just until the rain dies down a little?” He blinked at me and thought about it for a second, then nodded. I gave him a small smile, trying to be comforting, but probably failing. He was just fine yesterday, how could he have caught something already? Did the stress really lower his immune system that much?

“Okay,” I said, flicking my heavy, rain drenched tail, “But if you feel anything different then say something, okay?” He nodded and we continued walking at a slower pace. The rain dripped through the leaves of the thick forest, falling onto our heads and dampening our hair and fur even more. I tried not to think of much as we walked but I’ve never been one to be able to clear my mind. It was always racing, thinking about all of the bad things that have happened and all of the bad things to come. Isol is here. They’re looking for us. She’s looking for me. I was the one who managed to trick her. They thought I was dead. They really want me dead. She’s in the bushes. I know she is. She’s going to kill me. I’m dead. I’m going to die. At thirteen. I have so much to live for, this can’t happen. No, I have the c-

“H-Hey Mud?” I blinked and turned towards Radi0. “Is it okay if we stop, just for a little while?” I nodded at him and then looked around, searching for a good place to rest, just for the rest of the day… or until Radi0 was feeling a bit better…

All that I could see for miles were trees. Radi0 wouldn’t be able to climb them in the state that he’s in. The trees were tall and had large, sturdy leaves, leaves that hardly budged when the rain fell down on them. I thought for a moment, the vines that decorated the trees also seemed pretty sturdy, along with the thick branches. I started to walk towards one of the trees and grabbed a vine that was hanging down. Radi0 looked at me, confused and scared. I gave him a thumbs up as I tried hopping onto the vine. I slipped off easily and fell to the ground with a surprised squeak, soaked in mud and rain water. I stood up and shook myself off. Yeah, this would work!

“I’m going to climb this tree,” I said, pointing to the closest one. “Please don’t go anywhere, I’m not really up for searching for a sick teen right now.”

“I’m not-” Radi0 began to protest, his voice raspy, but before he could say anything else, I started climbing up the tree. The branches were slippery, so it was hard to get a foothold, and I stumbled trying to get to a somewhat-dry branch. There was finally a thick enough branch to hold the both of us, so I started working. First step, find a sturdy (and big) enough leaf.

This shouldn’t be that tricky, I thought as I looked around, standing on the branch. I reached up to grab a large leaf that hung above my head and I tried to pull it off of the tree. I let out a small, frustrated laugh as the leaf didn’t budge. I tried pulling it off again, this time with more force. Still nothing.

Really? I thought to myself, aggravated at the stubbornness of the leaf. It was kind of like me, frustrating and stubborn. Then I had an idea. I had claws, sharp claws nonetheless, why didn’t I think of that before? I walked towards the stem of the leaf and started sawing away at it. After five minutes of frustrated scratching, the leaf finally fell off.

“Yes,” I muttered, holding out the ‘s’. I grabbed the leaf and held it over the edge of the branch to show Radi0. “I GOT A LEAF!” I called down to him. He stood up from where he was leaning on the tree and looked at me.

“What the hell are you doing?” He asked.

“SOMETHING!” I called back, and then returned to working on my strange contraption. Second step, find a vine that wouldn’t snap under the weight of two people. Maybe this one would be easier to find. I looked around again, there was a vine hanging from a nearby tree. I reached for it and tugged. It was good that it was sturdy, but it was also bad that it was that sturdy. Why did everything in this forest have to be so needlessly sturdy? I tugged on it again, trying not to fall off the tree in the process. If only there was a closer vine… I tugged again, this time harder, and the vine came loose, wrapping me up as I fell back onto the branch. I untangled myself and grabbed the leaf. Finally, step three, figure out how to make an ‘elevator’ out of this.

I had literally no clue how.

[castielsbeeslippers]

Part I

Summary: Dean regrets it instantly. The way he snapped , the words that tumbled from his mouth. The small argument between him and his little brother had escalated into a full blown screaming match , and now Sam was gone. Dean takes off to clear his head and ends up in an erie cemetery where he believes he is alone.

On ao3

Thank you to @wantstoflyafraidtofall for being beta 🖤you’ve helped me immensely! 🥺

The rumble of the classic car’s engine shook the stillness of the cemetery grounds rustling the leaves and still the air hung heavy.

With a soft screech of it’s black tires the car came to a stop. Dean must have driven over thirty odd miles to get away from that old motel that his younger brother had already abandoned. Dean just had to get away to anywhere but there.

He closed his tired eyes , feeling them sting.

He killed the engine and let himself go.

His guilt escaped from his gut-wrenching sobs. He was truly alone.

(The dead would never tell.)

Dean ran his callused hands over his soft eyes and sighed into them. He drug himself out of his classic car and did his best to pull himself together with each step.

He looked over his shoulder... nothing but the empty road.

He didn’t want to face the world or the reality of it all....His brother was god knows where because of him and that absurd fight. Dean had really crossed the line this time. A knot formed in his stomach as he recalled his harsh words.

The emotions bubbling inside him didn’t have a name. Frustration and fear didn’t seem to even scratch the surface.

His boots crushed the moist earth beneath them with unforgiving force.

A distant snap jolted Dean from his thoughts.

Dean without hesitation ripped his gun from his pocket aiming directly ahead into the stillness.

“Show yourself.” He spit into the air.

Whatever ghoul or spector was about to rue the fucking day. Dean was ready to whiplash himself from numbness to rage.

The wind only whistled in reply. It was probably just some wild animal. He let the mind drift for a moment keeping his defensive stance , still unwavering not letting himself be convinced.

Something far off rustled like a scared flock of birds, a whooshing sound rushing all at once into Dean’s ears.

Dean spun himself around only to see again the empty road that was now laden with a thick white fog... that Dean knew had to have just crept in.

It sent a chill down his spine.

‘Haunted cemetery, no shit’

He tensed his shoulders, mentally cursing himself. He already felt like roadkill and this was just adding to the fun.

Dean whipped his head back leering into the cemetery, his eyes catching on a shadowed figure.

Dean held his breath and crept forward his gun leading the charge.

The figure moved from darkness laying steady steps.

“Stay right there.” Dean warned through his clenched jaw.

The figure did not. His looming shadow turned to a man in a soft dirt colored trench coat, his hair a black tussled mess.. and his eyes pure electric.

Dean’s breath hitched , his eyes searching the man frantically.

His gun, unamused and unmoving.

“Hello.” The man spoke with a gentle monotone.

“Stop.”

“You can lower your weapon , I bear no ill intent towards you or any other human.” The man's voice boomed again.

Not human. Dean figured as much. He tore his eyes away from the man's eyes and steadied himself again.

“What the hell are you?” Dean growled. The figure's calm demeanor only pushed his buttons more.

“I’m Castiel, Angel of the Lord , Thursday’s Angel if you prefer a shorter title.” The self-proclaimed Angel said with a shrug.

“Yeah okay , and I’m Queen Elizabeth.” He chuckled darkly.

The Angel’s blue eyes gleamed as he tilted his head at the man's comment.

“You’re looking much younger.” He told the hunter flatly.

“Tryin’ to mess with me?” Dean snapped back.

“He’s not dead, Dean.”

“Excuse me?” Dean’s stomach lurched.

“I’m not supposed to be here, Dean.” The angel shook his head softly with a frown.

“I’m not even sure where “here” is.” He admitted.

Or when. He didn’t add.

Dean grit his teeth , the way he said his name with a familiarity on his tongue made Dean’s whole body tense up.

“Start talking , you’re acting like you know me.” Dean demanded no question in his tone.

Castiel smiled. A wide smile.

“I’ll tell you everything Dean, assuming you can do the same ”

Dean’s jaw clenched.

Castiel tilted his head to the right , careful to keep his lips in a line leaving his eyes wide, unblinking.

This Dean stood before him, turmoil swirling beneath his skin. Castiel felt Dean’s mind rapid fire, laden with guilt, which was so familiar, lost and searching.

How desperately the angel wanted to part the dark clouds and bring comfort to the man before him.

‘Gently , slowly. ’ He thought to himself , he didn’t want to approach this the wrong way.

“Would you sit with me?” Castiel asked cautiously.

His trench coat flowing softly after him as he turned on the ball is his dress-shoes.

Dean's eyes ever glued to the angel before him.

Dean held right to his pearl gripped pistol, still heavy in his right hand, he nodded and swallowed his protest.

“Sure.” Was the only thing he could muster.

They sat in silence for a while before Cas broke it with a soft boom of his voice.

“Dean,”

Dean's body thrummed again. The way his name was said made something deep inside flutter.

Dean only looked at Cas in wait for a reply.

The prominent sensation was still buzzing , the tickle of electricity on Dean’s skin that grew stronger with each step he took towards the angel-shaped man.

The metal bench was cold and damp beneath them. Castiel gave no reaction to this and Dean chose to ignore the damp spots forming on his jeans.

Dean carefully tucked his gun back away against his better judgement in an attempt to be polite, but something deep in his mind felt this “Castiel” could be trusted. He felt like he was losing it.

“I haven’t met you yet. This you….in the time I’ve come from we’re, and I quote “best friends… if you can believe it.” Cas started off slow with caution in his low tone.

Dean so far wasn’t buying it.

And Cas knew it just by the look in his eyes.

“I’m afraid I don’t know how much more I can say ,without upsetting the cosmic balance Dean...but I hope you can at least trust I care for you a great deal.”

A beat.

“You and your brother.”

That woke Dean up.

“Sam,” Dean grit out.“You mentioned him before, what do you know about my brother you holy tax account stalker.”

“I know he’s safe, I’m afraid I-“

Before Castiel got the rest of his sentence out Dean had jumped from the bench and was now standing in front of his eyes.

“Tell me.” he demanded.

“Dean please, you need not worry let me continue.”

“Please” he huffed softly.

And with that Dean did. He sat back down, still tense as he had been.

“He’s simply ‘blowing off some steam as you would put it.” Cas said softly.

“Yeah real awesome intel. Where ?”

“Not far, but please Dean give him some space lets-“

“Space?” Dean snapped.

“I can personally assure his safety… after we converse we can even go to him.” Cas said calmly.

“You want to just talk?” He raised his brow.

“I do.” Cas replied.

Dean swore he could see the gears turning in the dark haired angel’s (man’s?) head.

Reluctantly Dean gave in he really wasn’t sure what was coming over him. No matter how sincere those baby blue eyes were, he shouldn’t trust him. Not this quickly.

“Alright then start talkin’” Dean gave a huge sigh, his shoulders still stiff and unflinching.

“Please allow me a moment of just being… we’ve been through much...” the familiar words he’d spoken, and yet to speak forming on the tip of his tongue.

“Yeah… sure” Dean’s tone softened without permission.

He felt those damn eyes again all over him.

Castiel drank in this younger Dean. Still tough as nails, still loved his brother more than his own hide, but still, while familiar, Castiel couldn’t get enough. Not that he kept his eyes to himself at any point but this was something else. A Dean before perdition, before he’d rebuild his soul… his every fiber and cell.

“Listen .” A hard swallow. “I don’t know what we’ve been through in the future, but I’m not really getting this whole “Angel of the Lord shtick.”

Cas laughed lightly. Not at Dean, it was too gentle.

“You never really had faith in them.” Cas found himself putting emphasis on them…

It was them not him… Dean has faith in him. He was sure of that, even if he hasn’t always been.

“But you’re... Different?” It came out innocent.

A nod. “It’s the cracked chassis.” He said plainly.

Dean didn’t fully understand but he got a pretty good idea.

“You called them dicks with wings.”

“The other angels.” Cas added after a moment of silence.

Dean huffed. That did sound like him.

There was a lull in the conversation, the fog still thick around them.

“So... you really don’t know how you got here?” Dean finally settled on what to say.

“I have a working theory.”

“Which is?”

“I’m simply supposed to be.”

“That’s not what you said earlier.” Dean reminded him , not the slightest convinced.

Cas let himself smile again, his crows feet visible and crinkled.

“Changed my mind.”

“Alright.” Dean said standing up from the bench.

“Let's get a change of scenery, this place isn’t exactly what I’d call a hang out spot.”

Cas’ chest got tighter with a small rush of nerves.

“We can head towards wherever my dick brother is hiding out.”

“Alright, Dean.” Cas conceded , he really wasn’t in any position to argue with him.

This is part one ✨I might be posting this on ao3 but I’ll be and part two to tumblr soon ~ this should only be two or three parts in total ✨🖤

Tag list : @my-favourite-hellatus , @nguyenxtrang , @i-dont-even-wanna-know , @withclawsandsympathy , @sideofangels , @hazel-eyed-bi @lilac-void ,

🖤Feel free to ask to be added or removed ✨

[dadzawa-adopt-dabi]

Yandere hawks for Bear

This whole thing is dead dove as Fuck. Yandere Hawks and Rape occur in this fic. If you don't like it, Dont read it. enjoy!

@possessedfuzzybear

Dabi knows the moment Hawks lets him limp away that he’s going to get an infection. The alley is disgusting and the Hero hadn’t been gentle as he’d used Dabi , resulting in more than a few popped staples. He jerks away as the Hero presses a thumb into one of the seams, plucking another staple he loosened out of the skin.

“Fucking watch it.” He snarls at him and rips his arm out of the Hero’s grip. Dabi braces himself against the wall as his knees try to go out from under him. His pants are coated in muck from where Hawks had forced him to kneel.

“When’s our next meeting? You know I can’t go back to the commision empty handed.” The Hero drawls out with a bored expression as he examines one of the Villain’s staples in his hand. A small baby feather slips onto a loop on Dabi coat as he picks it up.

“When Shigaraki decides it.” The coat slides on providing him with another layer he can hide from Hawks prying eyes. TheHero has already seen the wreck of his body under the clothing and yet Dabi can still feel him undressing him with his eyes.

“I’ll swing by your new base sometime next week then? I’m sure we can find some way to pass the time... If there’s no news for me.” The Hero narrowed his eyes at Dabi, twirling a longer feather in his hands again. They both knew he wouldn’t harm Dabi with it. Not when it was more useful as a threat of how the Hero could pin Dabi in place. A casual reminder that he could do as he wished with Dabi, and no one would stop him.

“If we don’t have any news for you can keep your ass out of the base. I’ll come over the same as usual. No one at the base needs your Herobullshit attitude hanging around.” He snaps at him. Hawks kept finding their bases despite Dabi routinely checking for stalkers and it’s gotten to the point where if he doesn't want the rat with wings to show up he goes to his apartment. He should tell Shigaraki to move it again when he gets back.

Tomura knew something was wrong. Asking got him nothing but upturned lips and insults in return. The one time he tried to corner his second-in-command it got him lit on fire. Tomura wasn’t sure what it would take to fully bring Dabi into his party. If the scarred man would ever be willing to. Dabi seemed to have his mind set on his own goals. He still only trusted Twice and Giran with his number staying absent from important meetings.

The conversation couldn’t wait until Dabi was comfortable with his boss anymore. Tomura dropped his coffee cup and snagged Dabi by the arm as the man’s knees buckled. Dabi glared at the hand on his arm right before emptying his stomach into the kitchen sink. Tomura's fingers twitching as he waited for him to be done. Both of them were really content to ignore the elephant in the room.

“I’m fucking fine.” Dabi rasped out as Tomura had Twice come over and pick him up. Setting him on the couch.

Dabi retched and Sako quickly pulled a trash can out of nowhere. He wasn’t sure if it was the same magic Kurogiri had always pulled on him or if it was Sako’s quirk. Maybe the man was an actual magician for all that he knew. Tomura had a team falling apart at the seams right now and Dabi wouldn't work with him. Heart events and trust took time. He’d achieved one that night on the roof and he would wait for the next ones as well.

Dabi had been spending a lot of time with the new recruit, leaving without saying anything and staying the night. Shigaraki suspected there was something between them. The way Dabi always had to be in Hawks eyesight and the nights he spent over there.

“How long have you been sick, Dabi?” Mr.Compress asked as he peeled Dabi out of his jacket. Rubbing the man's back as he melted into the couch.

“ It's just an infection, it happens.” Dabi mumbled, laid back against the couch, shrugging Sako’s concerned hands off him. His shoulders were slumped and covered in a cold clammy sweat, causing him to shiver.

Tomura’s nails dug deeper into his bloody neck. Scratching and peeling away at the scabs there. Dabi had probably gotten it by living with them. He had access to a shower and medical supplies through that fucking Hero recruit. Maybe, he’d been coming back to the base for them. He brought back shit often enough for the members and slept here still. At least, Tomura thought he slept here still. “Fucking gross.” Tomura sneered to himself as he thought about their space, mumbling soundlessly to himself as he looked around. This base wasn’t the cleanest. None of them had been, especially for a member with open wounds. There was still only so much they could do. Mr. Compress stiffened and glanced over at him. “You got sick because we’ve been moving around a lot right?” Sako’s voice was thick with concern and trepidation.

Dabi rolled his eyes. He pushed his shirt up so the LoV could see a scrape cutting across healthy skin and scar tissue. One of the seams that wrapped around his back up to his chest had staples missing. The area was swollen and shiny with inflammation and the accompanying pus produced as Dabi’s body desperately tried to heal itself. The infected area wasn't turning extreme colors so nothing would have to be removed there at least. “Got in a fight. Lost.” He let out a laugh that ended in a coughing fit. Dabi flinched away when Sako went to rub his back. He let his eyes slip closed as he gasped for air. “Not everything is about you guys. I'm just shit at keeping my mouth shut.”

Finally the shaking and sickness around Dabi got so bad that he asked Tomura where they were. Cementing the fact that unless they can kidnap a doctor and force them to help Dabi, he won't get better this time. Dabi had been insistent on sleeping around the League since he’d gotten sick. Whether it's for Dabi to guard them or for them to watch over him is something Tomura still hasn’t figured out. Toga is constantly wrinkling her nose with a worried look on her face and flips knives in a nervous habit everytime someone encroaches ‘her bubble’. Her bubble keeps fucking growing to the point where it’s just the same room as her sometimes.

“We have to give him up.” Tomura finally makes the choice for them as they watch Sako try and cool him down with a damp rag. It’s about as sanitary as they could get and hasn’t been working.

Tomura doesn't realize that his thoughts have been so similar and different from his members until Shuichi is flinching away like he’s said something worse than he has. He knows none of them trust the Hero, but Dabi spends some nights there and it's surer to be cleaner than where they are squatting. He’d have access to proper medical care if something goes wrong or if he gets worse.

“He has to go. That stuipd Hero can take better care of him than we can.” He snarled at them and Toga stepped forward, knife held tight in her hands and shoulders loose. Only a noob underestimated Toga. He’d seen her fighting against Heroes and there was a reason he was unafraid to send her in amongst the Heroes to spy.

“I am not giving Dabi up. If we have to steal a nurse then I can just take their place until Dabi is able to come with.” She took another measured step in Tomura’s direction.

‘Hold on, Maybe the boss has a plan. Shut and let her kill him! Like, we give him to the Heroes and they wouldn’t just kill a sick man right? Yes they would, they’ll kill us all.” Jin held his head in hands as he struggled to word what he wanted to convey. Tomura watched with frustrated red eyes as he argued with himself. This was not what he meant at all. What kind of leader leads their team straight to the enemy when their health bar is so low?

“Then we break him out right? That’s stupid and risky. I wouldn’t do jackshit for that weak guy. Survival of the fittest.” Jin looked up at him and his eyes were watering.

“We’re not handing him over to the actual heroes? What the fuck guys?” his voice was low as he tried not to yell.

“You want to leave him here for anyone who comes by then? He’s sick, Tomura-kun!” Toga glared at him and the knife shifted in her hands. “He needs us! He needs the League! He would never let anything happen to you!”

Sako kept one hand splayed on Dabi as he carefully watched the one going argument with thinned lips. Dabi was starting to wake up due to their noise but it seemed as if this time he wasn’t fully making it to the world of waking. Continuing to sleep fitfully.

“He’s sick and not getting better.” Tomura delicately grabbed Toga’s sleeve when she went to swipe at him. “Most adults who are staying out almost every night with another person are generally fond of them. He'll be happy. He’s a fucking Hero and he can’t take care of him better than we could ever hope to!”

“What are you talking about?!” Shuichi crossed his arms, walking over to stand by his boss. At least one member was willing to listen to him.

“Dabi’s been recruiting a Hero. One of the top 10. The Hero can take our burnt bitch until he’s not dying. He has access to medical equipment and can bribe a doctor. Dabi’s going to recover a lot quicker in a clean area with proper care. And we, we just dont fucking have that right now.” Tomura grit his teeth as Toga pulled her arm back and the room was dead silent.

‘It won’t, it won’t always be like this. I have a plan okay?” Tomura flung the hair that tended to fall in his eyes back. Brushing strands behind his ears as he stared his members in the eye.

“But we are going to have to move and Dabi needs- think of it like giving him a vacation from us. He gets to go enjoy 3 meals a day, sleep better and some hot water. When he comes back we are going to be able to at least have a place for him to be kept stable.” None of them looked reassured.

“I don’t like it. I’ll kill the bird if he hurts a hair on Dabi’s head.” Twice reached out and felt the skin on Dabi’s clammy forehead. “Whatever we have to do. We don’t have to do this. We can kidnap a nurse. I'll be a nurse, I'll steal an outfit and everything.”

“So were we in agreement? We’re going to pass him to the Heroand when he’s recovered? We will never have to watch him go through this again.” Tomura tried to speak with conviction. As if he knew that the Hero was on their side. As if Dabi wasn’t dying feet from them of something a Hero would never dream of. He wanted to assure them it was alright and that he had a plan. Tomura had nothing. Nothing but riskier and riskier gambles for party members he couldn't sacrifice.

They’d all die. Either slow and sick, like Dabi. Or during his craptastic ‘plan’ to get them resources and money. Still, he got slow nods from the league and went outside to make the call. He was going to have to pull a better and less desperate plan out of thin air.

Several hours later Hawks walked into the base like he owned. It sent shivers up Tomura’s back. He was a Hero and they were Villains. They outnumbered him technically, yet he seemed perfectly at ease and hadn’t even bothered to let them know he was coming. When they were all on high alert with an injured party member. Maybe he was so cocky he thought that they couldn’t kill him by accident. Tomura knew they very well could with how keyed up they all were.

“What part of ‘Get your feathery ass here’ was unclear?” Tomura stepped into his space. Fathers hand covered his face as his hands shook and he scratched at his neck with familiar destructive anxiety. “No knocking? Are you that confident you're welcome here?”

“Didn’t think I really had to announce myself considering you were expecting me. Sorry I had duties to attend to on my way here. Where is he?” Hawks looked around as if expecting them to just hand over their gift wrapped team member. Grimacing as he reminded himself that although that’s what it felt like, that’s not what they were doing.

“Follow me. His room is back here.” He led Hawks back, hating every moment his back was turned to him. The way he stared made him uncomfortable.

“Couldn’t have been too bad if he’s not ready to go. He hates me spending time around you guys for some reason. Like he’s jealous I'm gonna cheat or something. Staples doesn't come across as a real insecure guy but you can’t judge a book by its cover right?” He threw a patented press smile at Tomura. Tomura didn’t want to decay the Hero. Hedidn’t want to slap that look off his face.

He wanted to ram his fist into the Hero’s perfect teeth and shove them down his throat. Wanted to see him starving, bleeding, asking for help. Wanted to rip that nose that wrinkled at their living spaces and shove it between his teeth, chew it and spit the mangled mess out.

He wanted an end to all the Heroes, and this one. This one was one he had to hand his second-in-command over to.

Best case scenario?

He was wrong and Hawks cared for Dabi. Then he would at least have someone who could attend to Dabi. Dabi could murder them when he was better and not a limp sack of scars and bones on a dumpster dived couch.

A room for everyone. With beds. Room to grow so no one was moving too often or trying to find a spare bed.

“Damn.” Hawks let out a low whistle as he walked up to Dabi. “You look like worse shit than usual.”

Dabi sleepily stumbled off the couch when Hawks started talking. Trying to back out of Hawks space at the same time as stay upright. He threw a hand over his mouth as he blearily looked around for a bucket. Sighing, Tomura placed it next to Dabi, who heaved into the bucket.

Dabi laid back down on the couch, covering himself with a ripped crochet blanket and closing his eyes with a low groan. Hawks stepped up and grabbed the blanket away from him, tossing it back over the back of the couch as he picked up the small framed Villain.

“I can take him off your hands. Doesn't seem real safe to be leaving him here so I’m glad you called me.” The hero’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. Leaving Tomura with a bad feeling. He had to put aside his own feelings about Heroes and how disgustingly performative they could be. Dabi shoved against the Hero’s chest and muttered feverishly.

“It’s just your boy-toy Dabi.” Tomura walked up to them and caught Dabi’s hand, smirking when Dabi looked up at him with blank glassy eyes. “You're going on Vacation, I’ll come get you when we’ve leveled up enough.”

Dabi’s expression remained blank as Hawks pulled him away. He didn’t watch as Hawks took Dabi out of the room and then out of the base. Quickly shoving the last bag of crap they had through the door. Bright ass winged fucker would bring Heroes down on their head even if he didn’t mean to. Which meant moving bases again.

Dabi had nightmares of being trapped in Hawks arms. Covered by his wings, the feathers being laid on him sharp and if he twitched too hard away they would slice his skin open. Hawks rubbing his back as he puked only to start plucking the staples out one by one and then jamming them back in. Hawks feeding him and making stupid noises as he shoved it down his throat. Of being used as he wove in and out of consciousness. Hawks cuming on his sleeping face or the seam line on his chest.

The next time Dabi was fully lucid he realized they were not nightmares.

He was somehow in Hawks apartment, an IV stuck in his arm and taped down. Dabi was horrified to realize he was naked beneath the sheet he was covered with. His chest seized and he coughed up gunk into his fist, Hawks walking around the corner saw him.

“Morning sleeping beauty.” The Hero shook a bottle in his hand as he walked over. Dabi flinched back and gritted his teeth as his legs cramped. His arm hurt and if it wasn’t for the scar tissue he was sure he would be able to see a dark bruise. As it was it ached and he couldn’t tell how bad the damage was.

“Fuck off.” He snapped at Hawks as the Hero tipped two pills into his hand and held them out. Dabi had no idea how long he had been here. It wouldn’t be the first time Dabi had woken up to Hawks having raped him. Or in the process of raping him.

There wasn’t anything gross around his thighs and he was in no more pain than usual. Reaching up to hold his pounding head revealed he couldn’t trust that though. Hair still damp so Hawks must have showered him. It wasn’t like his consent mattered to the Hero. “Sure if you want to end up right back here. How do you think you ended up here ‘Dabi’?” He questioned as Dabi stared at him. Hands in white knuckled fists holding on to the sheet. He picked at the IV shoved into his arm as he refused to answer. He didn’t know.

“The League gave you to me. They didn’t really want to wait around for you to suddenly be healthy.” Hawks said with an almost apologetic tone. Dabi looked from the pills he was holding out to the hero’s fake expression.

“I don’t believe you.” Dabi stared at the pills making no move to take them. Sighing Hawks turned the bottle around so Dabi could see it. Amoxicillin, regular antibiotics then, which made sense since Hawks needed him to try getting into the League. The IV was probably because he was dehydrated, which wasn’t unusual. Still, if he was awake there was no need to have it in. He swallowed the small capsules and peeled off the tape on his elbow. Gently easing out the needle.

“Well I’m the only thing you’ve got now.” Hawks smirked at him. Dabi looked away but Hawks grabbed him by the chin. The Hero’s thumb pressing directly on his staples and causing him to wince. He straddled Dabi’s waist and pressed a messy kiss to his lips. Dabi’s quirk smoldered ineffectively as he tried to force it to work. Hawks was moving too fast and he didn’t want this, unable to concentrate enough to use his quirk as Hawks gripped him to tighty and grabbed his dick.

A flicker of flame escaped and Hawks sighed at the sight of it. The Hero didn’t waste time reaching over to the coffee table and dumping the glass of water on it.

“Is that your way of telling me you want me to take us to the shower so I can have my fun?” Acidic yellow eyes bored into Dabi’s as he tried to force his heavy limbs to move.

“It’s my way of telling you to leave me the fuck alone.” He snapped back at the Hero. Hawks looking fake affronted as his phone rang. “I’ll be back, we can discuss how to plan to pay your way here if it’s not with your body when I get back.”

Hawks left out the door and Dabi stood up, starting the search for clothes he could escape in. Knowing Hawks he wouldn’t be gone long. He eventually found a pair of sweats he shoved on after looking everywhere for his clothes. Hawks must have thrown them out.

The Hero had, of course, came through the door right as he was leaving. Trying to disappear into the setting sun as Dabi coughed and tried to get himself down the fire escape faster. Hawks walked through the door after him, not bothering to rush as he turned and shut the door after himself. He stuck his hands in his pockets and cracked his neck as he stalked down after Dabi.

“Aren't we past this? Where are you even going, Dabi? I told you the League gave you up, they moved as well. Who knows where they are at this point.” The Hero walked after him. “I take care of you don’t I?”

“You’ve fucking drugged and raped me.” Dabi shouted back at him, voice raspy as his lungs refused to draw in enough air. He coughed and mucus came up his throat. He spat it at Hawks. Dabi had no idea how long it had been that he was with the Hero but… At this point he was starting to believe Hawks. The League must have given up on him. Determined that he was no longer a use to them with his stupid ragdoll body and poor health. He had just been using them right back to achieve his own goals so he couldn't really blame them.

A coughing fit seized Dabi. He wheezed, doubled over in the alley, as Hawks blocked the light coming into it. The Hero’s yellow eyes nearly glowed. Dabi was reminded of fool’s gold. He was a fool for ever falling for him.

Hawks walked up to him The Hero placed his chemical scented hand over Dabi’s mouth and nose, waiting until he passed out and fell to the ground with a roll of his eyes. Hawks easily picked up the Villain and tossed him over his own shoulder. walking back the block to his apartment with the villain slung over his shoulder.

Dabi woke up to being thrown on the bed painfully. Uncaring if it hurt or the state he would end up in afterwards he blindly reached for his quirk. He should just cremate the Hero and steal his apartment. His quirk didn’t come to him and Hawks gave a smug grin as he pulled the Villain’s sweats down. Trying to kick him with his heavy limbs did nothing.

“You look cute in my borrowed clothes. How am I supposed to resist you when you look all sexy flushed like this? I could keep you like this, you know. Never let you finish the antibiotics. Would be fun until they no longer worked at least.” He hummed as he stroked Dabi’s thigh.

There was shouting as Dabi was brought back to himself and Hawks was throwing pants on himself as he shouted at Twice. Dabi let out a chuckle as he realized he was going insane, Twice was part of the League and no matter how good of a guy he was he wasn’t coming to save him.

“He’s not even responding to me. What did you do to him?” Twice yelled as he started making a clone of himself, splitting. The original spun around as Dabi laughed. What had Hawks been doing to him? “Dabi I came to check on you because this dickhead kept telling us you didn’t want to talk to us and we know that’s not true!” His mask was damp with tears and Dabi didn’t know what to say to an ex- friend. Coworker, whatever Twice was. “We hate you back.”

“He’s been uh, raping me. I think. You guys gave me to him though. So I don’t think he really expected anyone to visit.” he glanced around uncomfortably. What did they think the Hero would do with him when they decided to just do this without his consent?

There was a roar of outrage from Jin. Several clones of Twice were busy holding Hawks back as the original pulled Dabi out of bed. He numbly accepted it and pulled his sweats up. Jin was slinging his arm over his shoulder, gently helping him up.

“We can deal with him later. Can you walk? What about your quirk?” He asked as they moved towards the door. There was a sickening crunch Dabi knew well as the sound of bones being cracked and twisted, when he glanced back Hawks was dogpiled by clones. Even as they were destroyed more were made and Hawks wings were twisted to be facing downwards. Mangled and bloody as he was passed out. “Forget your quirk, it’s useless anyways.”

“I'd rather not use it if I don’t have to.” He muttered as Twice walked him down to street level. A warp portal in an alley waiting for them. The familiar noise of the League greeting his ears as they stepped through.

“Do you want to clean up before you're mobbed? We missed you.” He quietly commented as he quietly asked as they paused in what appeared to be a hallway. “We got you a room! I bet you’ll hate it! And your nurse!”

“What? Why do I have a room?” Dabi looked blearily around as he saw the

Examining the actual hallway in what appeared to be an actual house. Mansion actually.“I don’t need ujiko.”

“Shigaraki killed him before we took over the mansion.” Jin whispered to him,frowning before a thought occurred to him. “Wait, did you actually believe that asshole? That we just- just handed you over?”

“It doesn't matter. I’ll be out of the League's hair as soon as I shower.” He jerked himself away from Jin, shaking off the hand that went to hold him steady. “I’m fine.”

“No. we would never do that!” Jin shouted as he hovered near him. “Shigaraki actually had to fight us on it. We couldn’t wait to get rid of you! We didn’t want to give you to him at all!”

“Then why did I wake up in his apartment? Drugged up with him telling me how you had led him right to me when he was the reason I had an infection in the first place?” He snapped at Jin as Shigaraki came around the corner. Another coughing fit starting up. His breathing made a whistling noise as he breathed with his agitated lungs.

“What’s going on?” Shig narrowed his eyes at the state of his second in command. Neck already itching. Dabi had not been looked after obviously.

Dabi glared at him but didn’t answer as he stalked off down the hall. Jin shook his head when Shigaraki looked at him.

“Kill the bastard.” He told Shigaraki as he lit a cigarette. “We were wrong, He’s a dick that never should have been near one of us. He told Dabi that we just gave him up. We might as well have.” He wandered off as he went to tell the rest of the League that Dabi was back, but it was up in the air whether he would be staying.

The next evening after Shigaraki and Dabi had spent most of the day arguing over how Dabi exactly had ended up with Hawks. How the League had been ready to split over him abandoning one of them. That the mansion was at least in part brought about by Dabi being immunocompromised.

Shigaraki grinned as Kuroguri opened a portal to the Hero’s apartment. He just wanted a few words with him.

“Are you sure you don’t want anyone to accompany you, Young Tomura?” Kuroguri asked as Shigaraki popped the buttons holding on his artist gloves.

“I was the one that pushed for it. I was the one who assumed that they were something they obviously were not.” Shigaraki bit out as he threw his gloves on the floor in front of him, stepping through the portal as he rolled his shoulders.

He wrinkled his nose at the minimalist apartment, the place was spotless like no one lived in it and Hawks was removing his Hero uniform. Back to Shigaraki, He took advantage and activated his quirk, grabbing a vase and hurling it at the Hero. Hawks wings had stiffened the moment Shigarki had moved. Suddenly aware of the Villain despite him not making a noise. Several loose feathers hovering in the air despite his wings being wrapped tight in casts on his back.

“You thought we wouldn’t come for him? That he didn’t have anyone?” He hissed as he stalked forward. Hawks dodged the vase disintegrating as it flew towards him. Sending a few feathers his way, Shigaraki grabbed them midair with all 5 fingers. Not caring or truly even feeling the cuts they left.

“You're the one who just expected me to take someone into my home and not have them pay for it like some sort of freeloader.” The Hero sneered at Shigaraki. “He liked it anyways, came back enough times if I promised him something in return.”

Shigarki ran for him, sliding under a table and more feathers as he touched the floor with bloody hands. The floor quickly started to crumble as he shoved himself into Hawks space. Snagging a chair by the leg as he came out the other side.

“We both know you need my connections and money too much to kill me Shigaraki. One man is not worth your whole operation.” he smirked with that stupid look on his face again. The face of a man who had so much more than the League did and like nothing could touch him.

Hawks, distracted by his floor crumbling and unused to fighting in an enclosed space while stationary, didn't expect the leg of what had once been a chair to clock him in his face. It crumbled in Shigaraki’s hands and dropping it he slammed both hands against Hawks ribcage. Continuing to push as Hawks struggled to get the control necessary to send one of his feathers for him.They hovered wavering in the air before falling to the ground.

“Go fuck yourself Hero. The League does not have replaceable members. We’re not Heroes.” He growled out as Hawks crumpled. Shoving a fist as hard as he could into the Heroes face and grinning with insane satisfaction as he felt teeth break. Shoving them and his fist towards the back of his throat. Hawks choked on his own teeth as he decayed slowly.

Shigaraki carefully rinsed his hands off in Hawks’ sink, hurrying as the apartment itself started crumbling to dust. Bending down near the dust pile he scooped the soft pile into a jar. Screwing a lid on,. Toga had taken the liberty earlier of decorating it with rhinestones and drops of blood before writing Hawks name elegantly on it. He would leave it outside his friend’s door. It wouldn’t fix his mistake but at least it might show he didn’t want Dabi to leave.

[jaspers-levis]

Continuation Two: Dusk

TW: Self-image, allusion to eating disorders, abuse mention

PSA: The point of this story is not that the reader has value as a woman because of Paul’s attention. Everyone has value. Period. Size, shape, orientation, identification, race, religion, etc are all things that make us who we are but do not define our value as a human being. You don’t need a significant other to believe you have value before you suddenly have value. The point is, sometimes we as humans struggle to see the truth already in front of our own eyes. Our loved ones are there to remind us that no matter what the voices in your head say, you are perfect just the way you are.

Continuation Two: Dusk

Paul Lahote x female reader

“Ugh!” you grunted, your hand slipping from your waistband as you tried desperately to shimmy into a too-tight pair of shorts from last summer. The jean material would barely fit over your hips, shockingly snug despite the fact you were sure you hadn’t gained that much weight over the last year. You tugged one last time, only to hear the material rip. “Damn it!” Sighing, you slid the shorts down your legs and pulled them free, falling back onto the bed in defeat. It hadn’t been that long since you’d been able to fit into those shorts easily, and the size was already on the larger side in your mind. How could you possibly have gained so much weight in such a short time?

Nothing would fit you beside your largest pair of athletic shorts and even those were snug; you took a deep breath to hold back tears and failed. For years your ex had ridiculed you over your size until you obsessed over every calorie, every crumb on your plate. You’d prided yourself on dropping sizes every few months, until you’d gotten to your ‘goal size’. It was an incredibly unhealthy point in your life, both mentally and physically, but if it was possible for you to make your ex happy in some small way it meant one less way he could hurt you. Now it was a hard to break habit to value your appearance by the number on the tag, a habit you’d thought you’d dropped until now. Hot tears slipped down your cheeks and dripped into your hair, sticking it to your face.

Your phone buzzed beside your head, despairingly you smacked the covers until you found it.

hey babe, be home in a few. dont forget the bonfire 2nite!

You groaned, smacking your forehead lightly. The first bonfire of the summer with the entire pack celebrating the official start to the season was this evening; the weather was supposed to be warmer than it had been in the last few months so you’d pulled out your summer wardrobe in the hopes that everything still fit. This was the last pair of shorts you tried on and everything else was similarly too small… your heart sunk. You wanted to wear something cute to the bonfire, but nothing seemed to fit. 

It normally wouldn’t be such a big deal, but Emily and Kim were both small and athletic and always wore clothes that highlighted their form. Quil’s new imprint Hannah was tall and slim, with a river of striking black hair and a fondness for crop tops and short shorts that showed off her endless legs. It felt like every other female you knew was fit and perfect--besides you. You knew it wasn’t a good idea to compare yourself to others but it was hard when you were constantly surrounded by supernaturally attractive men and their similarly attractive significant others. Why couldn’t you be slim and perfect too? You felt like a chubby little frog next to them… 

“Babe, I’m home!” Paul called from the kitchen, the front screen door slapping shut behind him. Hastily you sat up and swiped at the embarrassing tears dripping down your cheeks but it was too late. “Honey, what’s wrong?” Paul was at your side in an instant, his warm hand sweeping your hair over your shoulder and resting against your neck.

“Nothing, it’s fine,” you muttered, turning your face away. “My dumb shorts don’t fit.”

“Oh,” you heard the frown in his voice and he picked up the offending garment from the floor. “These ones? Well baby, these are tiny! No wonder they don’t fit, they’re practically a children’s size.”

“But I used to fit in them just last summer!” you cried, turning to him and grabbing the shorts. “How did I get so fat??” You thrust yourself up from the bed and went to stand in front of the full length mirror. “I used to be so tiny, I never had a problem fitting into anything. Now I’m just a chunky little gremlin…”

“I’m sorry, what?” Paul asked incredulously, coming up behind you and yanking the shorts from your hands and chucking them forcefully into the corner of the bedroom. He slid his hands under your shirt and wrapped them around your waist. “Honey, no. For one, you’re tiny still, especially compared to me,” he chuckled and gently kissed your neck. “And secondly, who the fuck cares? We’ll  buy new shorts.”

“It’s not that, I should be able to fit into them still! How could I have let myself gain so much weight?!” you sniffed again, glaring at your shape in the mirror and seeing every slice of pizza, every spoonful of ice cream, every piece of bread…

“Seriously? You’re not overweight!” he retorted, his dark eyebrows pushing together.

“Compared to Kim, and Hannah, and, and, and everyone else I am!” you sobbed, trying to pull away from him to hide your shame.

Angrily he spun you around and cupped your cheeks to look into your eyes. His hands trembled slightly, the only betrayal of his weakened control. “Y/N. You are NOT overweight. You are HEALTHY. You’ve gained weight because when I met you, all you had in your fridge was a bag of salad and a carton of eggs. Do you know how happy I am to see you fill out? Do you know how much it made me nervous that you would forget to eat for a day? I look at you and I see someone who is happy and healthy now. Every inch of you is perfect.”

Startled at the raw emotion in his voice, you hiccuped. Paul’s eyes were serious and dark in above his russet cheekbones, but not without love. Tenderly he wiped away tears with his thumbs. “I love you for better or for worse, no matter what you look like, no matter how much you weigh or what size you are, no matter what you do with your hair or if you wear makeup or not, or if you wear nice clothes or sweats,” he whispered, pressing his lips to yours in the barest imitation of a kiss. He pulled away and smirked suddenly. “But luckily, you’re exactly my type, and I think you’re hot as fuck.”

You giggled at that, leaning into his touch. “So you don’t think I’m fat?”

Paul rolled his eyes and pressed his face into your neck, nipping delicately at the sensitive skin there. “No, you’re delectable,” he growled, pulling the two of you back onto the bed with you on top and slipping his hands under the ragged t shirt you wore to caress your back. “And tempting,” he kissed your collarbone. “And perfect,” he pressed his lips to the hollow of your throat. Planting hot kisses across your skin, he began to lift your shirt, his eagerness abruptly making itself known against your stomach.

“Thank you,” you whispered shyly, ducking your head against his shoulder. 

He growled softly and paused in his attempts to undress you. “For what?”

“For helping me remember my value, even when I struggle with it. I… haven’t always been good at remembering that my size shouldn’t matter.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he smoothed the hair over the back of your head. 

“What do you mean, ‘you know’?” you leaned back and frowned.

“Honey, I’ve seen photos of you from the time that you were with your ex, and you’ve mentioned he’d abused you. It’s not hard to make the leap,” he pushed himself up on his elbows and swallowed a shudder. “I swear to everything that is holy, if I see that fuckwad ever again I will rip his fucking teeth out one by one and make him eat them like candy.”

“Okay, well we’re not going to let that happen, for legal reasons,” you laughed and smacked his chest.

“Mm, well, you better hope he doesn’t show up again because I can’t make any promises,” Paul shrugged unremorsefully, but calmed enough to stroke his fingers down your bare thighs straddling his waist. “All I can do for now is make sure you know how loved you are, how smart and funny and strong you are, and remind you that I love every piece and part of you just the way you are.”

Your heart squeezed in your chest, suddenly overfull of adoration for this fierce, wise cracking, temper-losing, enormous giant of a man who had a tenderness to him that belied everything his friends and family knew about him. Looking down at him, all you saw was the love in his eyes, the truth in everything he said. Paul had fought hard and earned every bit of the trust you placed in him, trust you had always had difficulty in placing in another person. While you believed in the imprinting mechanics having seen it first hand, it had taken you months to trust Paul in spite of your supernatural bond. Now, for the first time, you felt yourself truly letting your guard down, having shared your last and most shameful weakness. And he loved you, despite that. “I love you so much,” you smiled shyly and bent to kiss him lightly.

“I love you more, honey,” he returned your smile before deepening the kiss into something smoldering and languorous. Paul kissed you like it was the first time, the last time, and every other time in between, worshipping every inch of your skin with his lips and hands until you were burning up with desire. No matter that you didn't have anything to wear to the bonfire, it was likely you wouldn’t make it there before dusk anyways...

[angelcorebabyowo]

Can I have a ride home, I'm at a party and I dont know anyone...

Paring: RemRom

Words: 2771

Chapters:1[or 2]/ ???

Warnings: cursing, somewhat unsympathetic light sides from how you look at it,

oman knew this was a bad idea, he knew going to this dance was a bad idea, he knew that his friends would most likely stand him up, trust me he did. What he didn't expect was to be sitting on the gym bleacher gently crying his eyes out. He didn't expect his brand new dress to be ripped or the heel of his heels to just tear off because he fell. Despite his shaking so much he mages to get his phone and call up his brother, one of the only people he cares about anymore and puts the phone up to his ears begging for someone to answer. Tears had started flowing more freely now, no control to him, and had started full-on sobbing.

"You've reached the trash can! Leave a message after the beep!" was all that came from the other line and Roman almost threw his phone. He tried one more time and it finally worked and he nearly jumped when it worked. The sound of Remus' voice put a smile on his face despite the circumstance.

"Hey whats u- wait, are you crying?" The voice on the other line was hoarse and sounded as if they just chugged a gallon of those drink packets. Just like Remus. He had stayed home seeing as he had gotten expelled earlier in the year for beating up one of the kids who picked on roman and sent them to the hospital, he was lucky that no charges had been pressed, although it was bad enough the school board hadn't wanted him to come back unless he pulled that stunt again.

"They stood me up!" Roman cries and tries to form a ball but the bleachers hadn't given much room to so much as move another inch, "Told me I was too annoying to hang out with them anymore!" he knew it sounded childish but that was the exact wording, and he wasnt about to back down.

"Who do they think they are!" both of them said at the same time, although, Remus sounded angrier than Roman. Roman made a sound that sounded a bit like a whimper at the tone, he never did like it.

"Look, I'm in the middle of something right now, and by that I mean I just woke up. I'll pick you up in a few minutes. Do you want me to stay on the line, or will you be alright?" Remus asks his tone of voice nearly completely changing after he heard Roman's reaction to it before. He might have been an asshole but not enough to fully harm his brother during their weakest point, he would never swoop that low.

"Can you um..Can you stay on the phone?" Roman wasn't crying anymore but he was still sniffling up a storm and it was apparent with every word. He had a small problem with being alone when he was in the state. He knew he couldn't do anything but it still made him beyond uncomfortable to be alone.

"Alright then, go and wash your face off to get all the snot off of it" Remus exclaims, Roman could hear him getting up and his bones popping in the prosses, "You're a messy crier"

Roman does just that well at least walks to the bathroom, wincing and hissing as he walked to the bathroom, he refused to take his shoes off so every step was painful and he nearly started crying again.

"What's the damage? I hear you hissing, sound like Dee" He heard Remus ask him, it was muffled due to the phone not being directly on his ear and more on his shoulder. Dee, Or Jauns Lawrenson, was their mutual friend who had graduated last year and was currently going to Law school or something like that. Neither of them paid enough attention to their friend's career to tell anyone about it.

"My shoe broke and my dress has a gnarly rip in it, luckily the dress looks pre-ripped, can't say the same for the shoes." Roman practically growls annoyed that his favourite outfit was remotely ruined."Stop laughing! It's not funny! It's not fucking funny!" He practically shouts as he gets into the unisex bathroom and locks the door. Luckily there was only one stall so it wasn't like anyone would barge in on him or yell at him for being too loud.

He slowly sets the phone down on the sink and moves to turn the water on, his movements were slow as if he didn't know if he wanted to turn the handle. In all honesty, he didn't want to, he didn't want to hear the noise of it right now, but looking in the mirror at his face he knew he needed to do it. His eyeliner had smeared and his mascara had dripped down to his cheeks and with how much he's rubbed them it was smugged in more places than one on his face.

"It's alright, look I'll tell you a trick that helps me. Paper towels. Get them as wet as you can and then turn the water off when it's as full as it can be, that way the water isn't on for that long and the struggle of everything isn't as bad as it would be!" Remus says cheerfully. Roman could hear the car door close and the engine start. "Want me to pick up Dee? I doubt he'd mind if so!"

He'd never be more relived for Remus to get behind the wheel, and the thought of Dee being there sounded beyond amazing, but it was always just a little too loud with all three of them in the car."No! Just you is enough, hurry up, would you? All the lights are hurting my head, I'll meet you out front"

"I'm also bringing you some pyjamas so that you don't freeze to death tonight. Love you, I'll see you soon" Remus says quickly before hanging up the phone. He had said it so many times in the past, the simple phrase 'I love you' although, it sounded a bit more affectionate today, Roman didn't question it.

After 10 minutes of scrubbing his face raw to get the makeup off he finally got a text from Remus alerting that he was outside. With that Roman practically runs out and to the car and quickly gets the passengers seat and groans as the somewhat to warm hits him, he gently sings into the seat not even putting his seatbelt on. He looks at the roof with a somber expression, it wasn't a good look on him at all.

"That bad huh?"Remus asks handing Roman MacDonald's bag and a normal Walmart bag "I picked you up a cheeseburger and a small fry, would've picked up a happy meal but I didn't know if you would've wanted that. Plus I know damn well you didn't eat anything today, don't play dumb with me. You also got some fuzzy bottoms and a paw-patrol shirt because I couldn't find the normal clothes, Hope that's alright." Remus started driving as Roman dug into his food. The other twin was right, after all, he hadn't had anything all day because of his nerves.

"Yeah it's all right, my guy," Roman says with a big bite of food in his mouth, a smile was now playing at the corners of his lips now instead of a frown. He then changed his shirt, not even carrying if people could see him do it. He wasn't a particularly interesting site to see after all, the only intresting part would be a scar over his heart from a surgery a few years back.

.

"Don't talk with your mouth full. Not polite" Remus says with a breathy laugh as he continued to drive, he was driving to the beach because he knew that was Roman's favorite place, most definitely at night. He just wanted to see the other happy again .

Roman rests his head on the window as the streetlights, and the city in general, fade into a bleak nothingness. He was used to it, he and Remus drove this same route nearly every night. Not under the same circumstances, of course, just on the nights Roman couldn't sleep or if Remus dragged him out of another midnight adventure. Tonight, after the prom fiasco, had the same calming air to it as all of the other times did. Roman sat up slightly, still making sure to slouch just enough to not touch the top of the seat so that he was still comfortable.

The music from the radio was soft enough to make the car seem a little bit alive. The twins' silence was never an awkward one it was, more often than not, a comfortable one. This didn't mean they enjoyed it though. It was Remus who broke the silence, it typically was, and smiled over at him. It was awkward seeing as the "elder" had sharpened his canines to a vampire-ish point on summer and now continues to do it anytime it somewhat goes dull. Roman did the same thing, although, he was too much of a wuss to do it for more than that summer so his teeth had dulled a lot in that area.

"I'm not going to ask you again Ro, what flavour milkshake do you want?" Remus questions as he pulls into a Rallys parking lot, not wanting to go to the drive-through without knowing the full order "If you same say some shit like vanilla I'm going to leave you in this parking lot."

"Jokes of you, I hate Vanilla milkshakes. Banana and can you ask for extra whipped cream" Roman says laughing softly and sits up completely before crossing his legs. He felt better now, and with the promise of something sweet his entire mood changed even more. "And I'll give you ten bucks when you get home if you get me a thing of funnel fries, like a small thing, not even a medium"

"I'll get you a medium shake and a small thing of those fries," Remus says with fake disgust, in all honesty, hed most likely steal a few of Roman's "How can you even eat those things? Think of all of the parasites that are in that dough"

"This is coming from the guy who drank the pond water from my science project!" Roman says with a smug smile. a few years ago Remus, as a dare, drank an entire jar of muddy pond water leaving him in the hospital for a month with several bacterial infections and nearly died. Roman was lucky Remus found it funny or hed most likely would have gotten slapped.

"Ugh- don't remind me, I'm still trying to pay off all of those hospital bills!" Remus groans sadly before pulling into the drive-through line before quickly saying his order and playing and getting his change back, he then got the food just as fast because it had been only them and it seemed pretty much deserted at the time. He quickly drove off mumbling something about how the workers seemed mean and he should go back and give them a piece of his mind.

"Ah shut up and give me my food," Roman says and practically snatches the bag from Remus' lap with a small smile and keeps it on his side. He wasn't being mean it was more of a playful/teasing type if anything. He was rarely mean to his brother but when he was it was for typically good reason, or he just wanted to be a nuisance. "None for you!"

"Little shit!" Remus says laughing fondly before reaching over and stealing one of the fries and plopping it in his mouth before taking a sip of his milkshake "Before everything, want to go home or do you just want to ride around? We don't have anything big planned so it's not like we have to even wake up early. I was going to bring us to the beach but I'm pretty sure we'd get chased off by those snobby rich guys again." "Want to risk it to see if they do?"

"Nah, knowing them they'd press charges or some shit trespassing and I don't feel like getting arrested tonight"

"You're no fun anymore!" Roman wines

"Finnnnneee We'll go later when there's no chance of us getting caught! That better Little prince?"

"Hell yes! now come on start driving faster!" Roman says with a grin looking over at Remus before turning up the radio and practically bouncing in his seat. He had heard that nickname so many times it might as well had been his name, it was a reference to one of his favourite story as a kid and even to this day "Our song!" Roman quickly rolled down the window and started tosing scream the lyrics to "tongue-tied by Grouplove" it was rarely played on the radio but when it did Roman made sure to sing it.

It had a good summer and over the top entry they could both get behind

"Let me guess, you want me to sing along with you?" Remus says laughing softly before rolling down his window as well as the other two windows. If the two of them were going to be loud they were going to be so loud that the entire neighbourhood they had been driving through was going to have to file a noise complaint on a random beat-up car that drove through the neighbourhood. and started screaming the lyrics. "Take me to your best friends house! Loved you then and I loved you AND I LOVED YOU NOW!" They both sung that part ith all of their heart, Roman was playing the air guitar and Remus jamming out while thumping on the wheel as he drove. The car was filled with the two Teens laughing their asses off as the music practically blasted as they screamed and laughed just as hard. For a moment they forgot about everything that ever happened to them as they jammed out.

Everything was perfect in that time and space.

Eventually, everything calmed down and Roman yawned and leaned back looking at the ceiling closing his eyes slightly and took a sip from his now melted Milkshake. "This was fun Re-"

"Really? I think it was the best experience we will ever have in this plane of existence."Remus says pulling into the driveway and parked the car, they didn't go to the beach seeing how late it had gotten and both had started to get overly drowsy "And yeah, it was fun for me as well. Want me to carry you or are your legs good enough?"

"Carry me" Roman whispers tiredly and making grippy hands in Remus' direction "Please?"

Remus took the keys out and got out of the car before walking over to Roman's side and helps them out and picks them up bridal style."You good?"

"Always am Rem, now hurry up before I spit in your face for moving to slow. "

"Oh you know I love it when you spit on me"

"Ugh! Shut up and get a move on, would you!"

Remus laughs as he walks into the house, it was unlocked because Remus kept losing the front door key, and then walks to Roman's room and flops them on the bed. "You going to sleep or want me to keep the light on? I'll most likely not come back for a few minutes because I have to go fix up the car," he asks walking over to the light switch. They shared a room because Neither Remus nor Roman had the strength to clean out, or sleep, in their parents' old room after they died despite it being years ago.

"Off, yeah off," Roman says softly nuzzling into the blanket cocoon he already managed to get himself into. His mind was practically mush at this point so he didn't feel like talking

"Goodnight sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," Remus says turning the lights off fully.

Roman snorts "Goodnight Rem! Don't let them bite you either!"

Remus fondly rolls his eyes and playfully blows a kiss and closes the door and sighing softly as he hears the tiny click. He slowly walks back to the car to get all of the stuff and runs back inside and puts the stuff into the tiny kitchen before going to the room flopping down on his bed and looks over at Roman who seemed to be peacefully sleeping. He smiled and wrapped himself in his own blankets before finally falling asleep.